Notwithstanding these moral securities, if only by way of making
assurance doubly sure, an Englishman will do well when travelling in
exposed districts to be provided with a decent bag of dollars, which
makes a handsome purse, feels heavy in the hand, and is that sort of
amount which the Spanish brigand thinks a native of our proverbially
rich country ought to have with him on his travels. He has a remarkable
tact in estimating from the look of an individual, his equipage, &c.,
how much ready money it is befitting his condition for him to have about
him; if the sum should not be enough, he resents severely his being
robbed of the regular perquisite to which he considers himself entitled
by the long-established usage of the high-road. The person unprovided
altogether with cash is generally made a severe example of, pour
encourager les autres, either by being well beaten or stripped to the
skin, after the fashion of the thieves of old, near Jericho. The
traveller should have a watch of some kind--one with a gaudy gilt chain
and seals is the best suited; not to have one exposes him to more
indignities than a scantily-filled purse. The money may have been spent,
but the absence of a watch can only be accounted for by a premeditated
intention of not being robbed of it, which the “_ladron_” considers as a
most unjustifiable attempt to defraud him of his right.
[Sidenote: THE RATERO.]
The Spanish “_ladrones_” are generally armed with a blunderbuss, that
hangs at their high-peaked saddles, which are covered with a white or
blue fleece, emblematical enough of shearing propensities; therefore,
perhaps, the order of the golden fleece has been given to certain
foreigners, in reward for having eased Spain of her independence and
Murillos. Their dress is for the most part very rich, and in the highest
style of the fancy; hence they are the envy and models of the lower
classes, being arrayed after the fashion of the smuggler, or the
bull-fighter, or in a word, the “_majo_” or dandy of Andalucia, which is
the home and head-quarters of all those who aspire to the elegant
accomplishments and professions just alluded to. The next class of
robbers--omitting some minor distinctions, such as the “_salteadores_,”
or two or three persons who lie in ambuscade and _jump out_ on the
unprepared traveller--is the “_ratero_,” “the rat.” He is not brought
regularly up to the profession and organized, but takes to it on a
sudden, and for the special occasion which, according to the proverb,
makes a thief, _La ocasion hace al ladron_; and having committed his
petty larceny, returns to his pristine occupation or avocation.
[Sidenote: MIGUELITES.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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