Puerta del Sol 



in our saddle-bags, the sooner we shall sup, si Dios quiere " 

 (please God). As he found nothing in the bottle line, he 

 let us go. What we really were afraid he might find, was 

 our pistols ; for we had heard that the law against wearing 

 arms is much more stringently enforced in the capital than 

 the provinces. 



The Fonda de la Vhcaina^ to which we had been recom- 

 mended by our hostess at Granada, is an apartment in the 

 great Casa del Maragato, near the Puerta del Sol, the 

 centre of Madrid. Thither we threaded our way by inquiry 

 among real metropolitan crowded streets. The Puerta del 

 Sol is not a gate, though I suppose it once was, but a not 

 very remarkable butt-end of buildings, situated between the 

 Calle de Alcala and the Carrera San Hieronimo, which 

 streets here form a fork, of which the Calle Mayor (still 

 larger than either) is the handle. This butt-end is princi- 

 pally distinguished in the darker hours by an illuminated 

 clock-face — the Horse-Guards of Madrid. 



Opposite the lofty-arched portals of the Casa del Maragato, 

 while we were debating how to attack so huge an edifice, 

 which bore no signs of containing any fonda^ and looked 

 more like some great official building, we were addressed in 

 English : — 



" Beg pardon, sir, I suppose you will be the gentlemen 

 from Granada ; allow me to take your horses. Pedro, carry 

 these cahalleros' alforjas up into the fotida." 



" That's all very fine ; but where are you going to take 

 our ponies to, and who are you ? " 



"I'm the English interpreter to the establishment. 

 Mrs. Vasquez wrote about you coming. I'll just take the 

 horses round to Lamb's livery-stables." We felt a certain 

 doubt whether we should ever see the Moor and Cid again, 

 and a twitch of conscience, for fear, if we did not give them 



287 



