Escorial 



story, that we were poor portrait-painters. But it struck 

 me that it would be a good idea to keep up the impression 

 of our being ignorant tramping vagabonds, by way of getting 

 a few rises out of him, for he seemed an affable and jocose 



personage. 



" Entrando en el pueblo, vimos un tal desaforado edeficio, 

 que parece iglesia grandemente desigual conforme es pequeno 

 el lugar. Pero quiza sera convento u fabrica. Siempre mas 

 se parece a un convento." (Entering the place, we saw a 

 whacking great building, which seems far too big a church 

 for so small a town. But perhaps it is a convent, or a 

 manufactory. However, it looks more like a convent than 



anything else.) 



« Hombre ! " he replied ; " can it be possible that there is 

 any one who has not heard of the Escorial, the eighth 

 wonder of the world ; if, indeed, it be not the first, and 

 before all the other seven ? The Escorial, which people come 

 to see from the ends of the e^rth.—Caramba ! " 



"And pray what may Escorial mean, I have not before 



heard the word ? " 



« He who says Escorial says all ; for there is more than 

 a little of everything in it. Palace— church— convent- 

 sepulchre. Philip the Prudent vowed it on the field of St. 

 Quentin (where he conquered the French), and built it to 

 be the pious retreat of his old age, and a tomb more stupen- 

 dous than the pyramids (which are in Egypt, seHores), for 

 the bones of Catholic kings." 



"If this be the case, we had perhaps better delay our 

 journey towards Segovia a few hours to-morrow morning, 

 and take a look at this Escorial, que segun dice Vmd. debe 

 ser cosa muy linda, y digna de verse " (which, from what your 

 worship remarks, appears to be a thing fair and worthy to 



be seen). 



340 



