252 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



by smuggling such gruesome merchandise into 

 private cabins. It is unfair on the Company and 

 on the animals themselves. The Butcher's Shop 

 is their proper destination, and the butcher on the 

 Tagus, a most obliging fellow, looked after an 

 immense family of charges with great solicitude 

 and quite unusual success. 



The history of Cartagena goes back, I believe, 

 about four hundred years, and its chief claim on 

 the notice of the historian is its long connection 

 with the honourable and painstaking body of the 

 Inquisition. The official headquarters of the pious 

 institution is now a private residence and store, 

 situated in the same square as the cool and 

 comfortable club to which Mr Fearon took me for 

 light refreshment after a most enjoyable drive 

 around the city. Here, even after such methods 

 had fallen into disrepute in Spain itself, the 

 Inquisitors practised their ingenious tricks of 

 taking evidence by surgery, and the auto-da-fe 

 flamed merrily on the still snores of the Caribbean 

 long after the blaze of its dying embers had gone 

 out in Europe. 



The walls of the city, which to-day, despite the 

 thickness of their masonry, look capable of with- 

 standing the attack of no enemy more serious than 

 tin soldiers, gave a good account of themselves 

 against Vernon and other licensed freebooters 

 commissioned to chase the Spanish plate ships. 

 The cathedral has a magnificent font, a gaudy 

 screen, and a crypt full of ancient skulls, into which 

 the fossil in charge declined to let me descend, for 

 fear, he said, of lethal emanations. Near the walls 

 is a private chapel containing a beautiful piece of 



