Possibly this little incident may have facilitated the introduction of the mounted guards, who are now stationed in towns, and by whom the roads are regularly patrolled; they are called _guardias civiles_, and have replaced the ancient “brotherhood” of Ferdinand and Isabella. As they have been dressed and modelled after the fashion of the transpyrenean gendarmerie, the Spaniards, who never lose a chance of a happy nickname, or of a fling at the things of their neighbour, whom they do not love, term them, either _Polizontes_ or _Polizones_, words with which they have enriched their phraseology, and that represent the French _polissons_, scoundrels, or they call them _Hijos de Luis-Philipe_, “sons of Louis-Philippe;” for they are ill-bred enough, in spite of the Montpensier marriage, and the Nelsonic achievements of Monsieur de Joinville, to consider the words as synonymes. The number of these rogues, French king’s sons, civil guards, call them as you will, exceeds five thousand. During the recent Machiavelianisms of their putative father, they have been quite as much employed in the towns as on the highway, and for political purposes rather than those of pure police, having been used to keep down the expression of indignant public opinion, and, instead of catching thieves, in upholding those first-rate criminals, foreign and domestic, who are now robbing poor Spain of her gold and liberties; but so it has always been. Indeed, when we first arrived in the Peninsula, and naturally made enquiries about banditti, according to all sensible Spaniards, it was not on the road that they were most likely to be found, but in the confessional boxes, the lawyers’ offices, and still more in the _bureaux_ of government; and even in England some think that purses are exposed to more danger in Chancery Lane and Stone Buildings, than in the worst cross-road, or the most rocky mountain pass in the Peninsula. [Sidenote: THE MURDERED MAN’S CROSS.]