Another term, almost equivalent to the “posada,” is the “_meson_,” which is rather applicable to the inns of the rural and smaller towns, to the “_hosterias_,” than to those of the greater. The “_mesonero_,” like the Spanish “_ventera_,” has a bad reputation. It is always as well to stipulate something about prices beforehand. The proverb says, “_Por un ladron, pierden ciento en el meson_”--“_Ventera hermosa, mal para la bolsa_.” “For every one who is robbed on the road, a hundred are in the inn.”--“The fairer the hostess, the fouler the reckoning.” It is among these innkeepers that the real and worst robbers of Spain are to be met with, since these classes of worthies are everywhere only thinking how much they can with decency overcharge in their bills. This is but fair, for nobody would be an innkeeper if it were not for the profit. The trade of inn-keeping is among those which are considered derogatory in Spain, where so many Hindoo notions of caste, self-respect, purity of blood, etc., exist. The harbouring strangers for gain is opposed to every ancient and Oriental law of sacred hospitality. Now no Spaniard, if he can help it, likes to degrade himself; this accounts for the number of _fondas_ in towns being kept by Frenchmen, Italians, Catalans, Biscayans, who are all _foreigners_ in the eye of the Castilian, and disliked and held cheap; accordingly the inn-keeper in Don Quixote protests that he is a _Christian_, although a _ventero_, nay, a genuine old one--_Cristiano viejo rancio_; an old Christian being the common term used to distinguish the genuine stock from those renegade Jews and Moors who, rather than leave Spain, became _pseudo-Christians_ and publicans.