Whenever he was riding along a Mexican road, and any suspicious-looking person asked him for a light, his habit was to hand him his cigar stuck in the muzzle of a pistol; “and they always take the hint,” he said, “and see that it won’t do to interfere with us.”  Alone, he had been attacked by three armed men, but with a pistol in each hand he had compelled them to retreat.  But this was not all; our champion was victorious in love as well as in arms.  Like the great Alfieri, to whom I have compared him, in every country where he travelled, the most beautiful and distinguished ladies hardly waited for him to ask before they cast themselves at his feet.  Refusing the rich jewels that he offered them, they declared that they loved him for himself alone.

Weeks after, we were talking to our friend Mr. Del Pozzo, the Italian apothecary in the Calle Plateros, and happened to ask him if he were acquainted with his heroic countryman.  Whereupon the apothecary went off into fits of unextinguishable laughter, and told us how our friend really had been in the skirmish he described, and had nobly run away almost before a shot was fired, leaving his friends to fight it out.  An hour or two after, he was found shaking with terror in a ditch.

To return to our road.  The forest is on both sides of the Sierra; but it is on the southern slope, over which we look down from the pass, that the pines attain their fullest size and beauty; for here they are as grand as in the Scandinavian forests, with all the beauty of the pine-trees on the Italian hills.  The pass, with its deep forest skirting the road, has been a resort of robbers for many years; and the driver pointed out to my companion a little grassy dell by the road-side, from which forty men had rushed out and plundered the Diligence just ten days before.  With his mind just prepared, one may imagine his feelings when he caught sight of some twenty wild-looking fellows in all sorts of strange garments, with the bright sunshine gleaming on the barrels of their muskets.  A man was riding a little in front of us, and as he approached the others they descended, and ranged themselves by the side of the road.  They were only the guard, after all, and such a guard!  Their thick matted black hair hung about over their low foreheads and wild brown faces.  Some had shoes, some had none, and some had sandals.  They had straw hats, glazed hats, no hats, leather jackets and trousers, cotton shirts and drawers, or drawers without any shirt at all; and—­what looked worst of all—­some had ragged old uniforms on, like deserters from the army, and there are no worse robbers than they.  When the Diligence reached them, the guard joined us; some galloping on before, some following behind, whooping and yelling, brandishing their arms, and dashing in among the trees and out into the road again.  Every now and then my friend outside got a glimpse down the muzzle of a musket, which did not add to his peace of mind.  At last we got through the dangerous pass, and then we made a subscription for the guard, who departed making the forest ring again with war-whoops, and firing off their muskets in our honour until we were out of hearing.