Clarence King 



yond is an old posada. The widow 

 Barrilera, with her boy Crisanto, lives 

 there. Poor people put up their 

 beasts there. It used to be a great 

 fonda many years ago, and ever since 

 I was a child an old basin has hung 

 in the patio. It ought to be there 

 now." At this we were much glad- 

 dened ; for our search all the day be- 

 fore among the villages and hamlets 

 had been fruitless. The posadera 

 was so dumb at the silver we gave 

 her that she forgot to bid us " Go 

 with God ! " till we were mounted 

 and moving away from her door 

 toward the pueblo. 



A Spanish town, especially in 

 wide, half -waste regions between 

 great cities, sometimes sinks into a 

 slow decline, and little by little gives 

 up the ghost of life ; dying, not of 

 sudden failure in the heart or central 

 plaza, but wasting away by degrees 

 around its outskirts, and shrinking 



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