Supper, which, as with the ancients, is their principal meal, is seasoned with copious draughts of the wine of the country, drunk out of a jug or _bota_ which we have already described, for glasses do not abound; after it is done, cigars are lighted, the rude seats are drawn closer to the fire, stories are told, principally on robber or love events, the latter of which are by far the truest. Jokes are given and taken; laughter, inextinguishable as that of Homer’s gods, forms the chorus of conversation, especially after good eating or drinking, to which it is the best dessert. In due time songs are sung, a guitar is strummed, for some black-whiskered Figaro is sure to have heard of the “arrival,” and steals down from the pure love of harmony and charms of a cigar; then flock in peasants of both sexes, dancing is set on foot, the fatigues of the day are forgotten, and the catching sympathy of mirth extending to all, is prolonged until far into the night; during which, as they take a long siesta in the day, all are as wakeful as owls, and worse caterwaulers than cats; to describe the scene baffles the art of pen or pencil. The roars, the dust, the want of everything in these low-classed ventas, are emblems of the nothingness of Spanish life--a jest. One by one the company drops off; the better classes go up stairs, the humbler and vast majority make up their bed on the ground, near their animals, and like them, full of food and free from care, fall instantly asleep in spite of the noise and discomfort by which they are surrounded. This counterfeit of death is more equalizing, as Don Quixote says, than death itself, for an honest Spanish muleteer stretched on his hard pallet sleeps sounder than many an uneasy trickster head that wears another’s crown. “Sleep,” says Sancho, “covers one over like a cloak,” and a cloak or its cognate mantle forms the best part of their wardrobe by day, and their bed furniture by night. The earth is now, as it was to the Iberians, the national bed; nay, the Spanish word which expresses that commodity, _cama_, is derived from the Greek καμαι. Thus they are lodged on the ground floor, and thereby escape the three classes of little animals which, like the inseparable Graces, are always to be found in fine climates in the wholesale, and in Spanish _ventas_ in the retail. Their pillow is composed either of their pack-saddles or saddle-bags; their sleep is short, but profound. Long before daylight all are in motion; “they _take up_ their bed,” the animals are fed, harnessed, and laden, and the heaviest sleepers awakened: there is little morning toilette, no time or soap is lost by biped or quadruped in the processes of grooming or lavation: both carry their wardrobes on their back, and trust to the shower and the sun to cleanse and bleach; their moderate accounts are paid, salutations or execrations (generally the latter), according to the length of the bills, pass between them