Pinocchi and Pignuoli 



began to chop away with my dagger on my own account. 

 These little pine-nuts, which have a hardish thin shell, are 

 very good to eat, and taste like the grains of soft, scarcely- 

 ripened wheat, only richer, — perhaps more like a butter-nut 

 than anything else ; they are not easy to get at, for the 

 cones are hard to split, and exude a varnishing gum, very 

 annoying to the fingers. 



Though we did not rise much from the banks of the 

 Eresma to Santa Maria, the country thence to Naba de la 

 Cova has all the character of bleak, desolate table-land on a 

 mountain-top. After Naba, however, it began to show 

 more signs of cultivation, and the sandy excoriation of the 

 country's face was here and there plastered with patches of 

 grass. 



At Naba, where we had stopped to inquire our way of a 

 knot of loiterers before the posada door (and to light our 

 cigars), after some little conversation an old man had asked 

 us whether we v/ere Spaniards or foreigners, himself 

 inclining to believe that we were Andaluzes. Not very 

 far out of the village a party of women and children, 

 weeding near the edge of a barley-field, cried out to us, and 

 begged to know when the Funclon at Coca was to take 

 place. 



" What Funcion F " said we. 



''Surely you, caballeros^ arc the oficiales toreros (bull- 

 fighting officials) who are coming from Segovia to have a 

 jieita de toros on the day of San Fulano." 



" Your pardon, fair ladies, we are no bull-fighters, but 

 English gentlemen, on their travels, at your service." On 

 this they laughed, and exclaimed, 



" Mentiras ! (fibs) carai que embusteros son los Anda- 

 luzes ! " (good lack, what story-tellers are the Andalusians !) 

 So we left them under their delusion. 



