318 SPOUTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



head the body, either from poor diet or some other attenuating 

 causes, getting " small by degrees and beautifully less" as it 

 receded from the great square frontispiece; the other was an 

 unhappy concentration of various canine genera, but repre- 

 sented, at least to my eyes, a half-starved admixture of the 

 lurcher and colley. These he regarded with evident admira- 

 tion, explaining to the Portuguese part of the audience their 

 numerous beauties and perfections by a vast display of panto- 

 mimic action, but of which, I could see by their smiles, they 

 were rather incredulous. At length the word was given for 

 starting, and following our loquacious guide, who enlisted 

 several urchins on the road (perfect impersonifications of 

 Murillo's " Beggar Boys"), we proceeded to the rough ground 

 on the side of the mountain, which I have before stated was 

 thickly overgrown with creepers of many kinds, but chiefly 

 the scarlet-runner or lentil. I did not much like the 

 appearance of my friends' guns (which were of a most 

 ancient and fragile description), nor their manner of carrying 

 them, and should have been very glad to have given them a 

 wide berth had there been an opportunity, but as we could 

 scarcely make our way through the tangled creepers that 

 reached to nearly our middle, and the soil was of so treacherous 

 a nature that we were continually slipping, it was not easy 

 to make progress of any kind, and all we had to do was to 

 follow the movements of Peter, with his dogs and " ragged 

 staff," as well as we could, which was no easy matter, as he 

 was quite as much at home on his native hills as he was on 

 the blue waters of the bay ; and when he found it inconvenient 

 to make his way in an upright position, followed the example 

 of his four-footed companions, and crept beneath the tangled 

 matting, emerging from some opening at a distance, like a 

 swimmer after a long dive. 



At length a combined rushing of the dogs beneath, and an 

 exclamation of Peter above, proclaimed the game was on 



