“How old may you be, cavalier?” said she, giving me that title which in Spain is generally used when an extraordinary degree of respect is wished to be exhibited.  I answered that I was near thirty.  “Then,” said she, “you were right in supposing that I am older than yourself; I am older than your mother, or your mother’s mother:  it is more than a hundred years since I was a girl, and sported with the daughters of the town on the hillside.”  “In that case,” said I, “you doubtless remember the earthquake.”  “Yes,” she replied, “if there is any occurrence in my life that I remember, it is that:  I was in the church of Elvas at the moment, hearing the mass of the king, and the priest fell on the ground, and let fall the Host from his hands.  I shall never forget how the earth shook; it made us all sick; and the houses and walls reeled like drunkards.  Since that happened I have seen fourscore years pass by me, yet I was older then than you are now.”

I looked with wonder at this surprising female, and could scarcely believe her words.  I was, however, assured that she was in fact upwards of a hundred and ten years of age, and was considered the oldest person in Portugal.  She still retained the use of her faculties in as full a degree as the generality of people who have scarcely attained the half of her age.  She was related to the people of the house.

As the night advanced, several persons entered for the purpose of enjoying the comfort of the fire and for the sake of conversation, for the house was a kind of news room, where the principal speaker was the host, a man of some shrewdness and experience, who had served as a soldier in the British army.  Amongst others was the officer who commanded at the gate.  After a few observations, this gentleman, who was a good-looking young man of five-and-twenty, began to burst forth in violent declamation against the English nation and government, who, he said, had at all times proved themselves selfish and deceitful, but that their present conduct in respect to Spain was particularly infamous, for though it was in their power to put an end to the war at once, by sending a large army thither, they preferred sending a handful of troops, in order that the war might be prolonged, for no other reason than that it was of advantage to them.  Having paid him an ironical compliment for his politeness and urbanity, I asked whether he reckoned amongst the selfish actions of the English government and nation, their having expended hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, and an ocean of precious blood, in fighting the battles of Spain and Portugal against Napoleon.  “Surely,” said I, “the fort of Elvas above our heads, and still more the castle of Badajoz over the water, speak volumes respecting English selfishness, and must, every time you view them, confirm you in the opinion which you have just expressed.  And then, with respect to the present combat in Spain, the gratitude which