Thus these imprecatory vegetables retain in Spain their old Egyptian flavour and mystical charm; as on the Nile, according to Pliny, onions and garlic were worshipped as adjuratory divinities. The Spaniards have also added most of the gloomy northern Gothic oaths, which are imprecatory, to the Oriental, which are grossly sensual. Enough of this. The traveller who has much to do with Spanish mules and asses, biped or quadruped, will need no hand-book to teach him the sixty-five or more “_serments espaignols_” on which Mons. de Brantome wrote a treatise. More becoming will it be to the English gentleman to swear not at all; a reasonable indulgence in _Caramba_ is all that can be permitted; the custom is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and bad luck seldom deserts the house of the imprecator. “_En la casa del que jura, no falta desaventura._” [Sidenote: HINTS FOR HIRING.] Previously to hiring one of these “coaches of collars,” which is rather an expensive amusement, every possible precaution should be taken in clearly and minutely specifying everything to be done, and the price; the Spanish “_caleseros_” rival their Italian colleagues in that untruth, roguery, and dishonesty, which seem everywhere to combine readily with jockeyship, and distinguishes those who handle the whip, “do jobbings,” and conduct mortals by horses; the fee to be given to the drivers should never be included in the bargain, as the keeping this important item open and dependent on the good behaviour of the future recipients offers a sure check over master and man, and other road-classes. In justice, however, to this class of Spaniards, it may be said that on the whole they are civil, good-humoured, and hard-working, and, from not having been accustomed to either the screw bargaining or alternate extravagance of the English travellers in Italy, are as tolerably fair in their transactions as can be expected from human nature brought in constant contact with four-legged and four-wheeled temptations. They offer to the artist an endless subject of the picturesque; everything connected with them is full of form, colour, and originality. They can do nothing, whether sitting, driving, sleeping, or eating, that does not make a picture; the same may be said of their animals and their habits and harness; those who draw will never find the midday halt long enough for the infinite variety of subject and scenery to which their travelling equipage and attendants form the most peculiar and appropriate foreground: while our modern poetasters will consider them quite as worthy of being sung in immortal verse as the Cambridge carrier Hobson, who was Milton’s choice. [Sidenote: THE ANDALUCIAN HORSE.] CHAPTER VII. Spanish Horses--Mules--Asses--Muleteers--Maragatos.