MAKQUINEZ AKD LA COLLEGIALA. 



A ROMANTIC INCIDENT OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. 

 [MAGA. JULY 1841.] 



THE small town of Ayllon in Old Castile is pic- 

 turesquely situated at the foot of a ridge of 

 mountains of the same name, and at about half-a- 

 dozen leagues to the left of the camino real from 

 Burgos to Madrid. Although dignified by the name 

 of a villa, or town, and containing a population of five 

 hundred vecinos, 1 at the period we are referring to, it 

 bore more resemblance to an overgrown country vil- 

 lage, both by the character of its houses and the occu- 

 pations of their inhabitants. The former were rudely 

 constructed of misshapen and irregularly sized blocks 

 of stone hewn from the adjacent mountains, the in- 

 terstices being filled up with a coarse cement. They 



1 The Spaniards have a somewhat loose manner of calculat- 

 ing the population of their towns and villages by vecinos, or 

 heads of families, literally neighbours. They multiply the 

 number of vecinos by four and a half, and that is supposed to. 

 give the number of inhabitants. 



