THE traveller who takes his seat for an hour or so before some old portal of a Spanish provincial mansion, garnished with heraldic insignia, proclaiming the rank, if not the dignity, of the possible owner, can scarcely fail to be struck by the usual incongruity between the assumption of the structure, and the modesty, not to say meanness, of those who pass in and out of it generally at long intervals. The sketcher's operations naturally, after a little while, attract the attention of some few, and "their name is legion" throughout Spain, of those who have nothing to do; or who, at any rate, do nothing, but wander lazily but restlessly up and down to while away the time. After a compliment or two, and probably a request that the spectators will not stand exactly between the artist and the object he may be drawing, an inquiry very generally follows as to "whose house that may be?" If the answer extends beyond the usual "Quien sabe Caballero?" it may chance to be "del Señor Duqué," or "del Señor Marques," something or other, or at any rate of a "Señor somebody," "somebody," "somebody." To the next inquiry, as to where the Hidalgo, if he be such, may be? the usual answer will be "Madrid" or "Paris," or at any rate the "chef-lieu" of the Province. The next demand may likely enough be, "Who lives there then, now?" If the answer is not the usual "No puedo decir a Usted," it may possibly be, "El Señor Administrador," the Steward, or "Algunos Pobres," or "Don Manoel, the shoemaker," or "Don Juan, the carpenter." Where the nobility live, if they are not all absentees, it seems very difficult to find out; and hence it is that instead of ladies and gentlemen, and liveried servants, who pass in and out of these grand looking "portone," the sketcher usually sees only extremely picturesque poverty. Sometimes this presents itself in the shape of a ragged girl or two, carrying antique-shaped earthen water-jars, sometimes an old woman with a heap of long-haired unkempt children sitting down to spin, or reel off yarn, or lolling against the wall, distaff in hand; and sometimes, possibly, two or three boys or young men assemble, who, after smoking out some cigarrilos or stumps of cigars, coil themselves up on the threshold, and go off into a comatose condition closely resembling sleep. Such were my experiences whilst trying to gain some local information as to the mansion of the very noble, the Duqué de Ribas at Guadalaxara. [Illustration: PLATE 81 GUADALAXARA DOOR HANDLE CALLE DEL BARRIO NUEVO Nº 10 MDW 1869] PLATE LXXXI. _GUADALAXARA._ DOOR HANDLE FROM THE CALLE DEL BARRIO NUEVO.