The rule on these occasions, is expressed in a proverbial saying--_al Rey, en viendolo; a Dios, en oyendolo_--which, after supplying its elliptical form, means that external homage is due to the king upon seeing him: and to God--_i. e._ the host, preceded by its never-failing appendage, the bell--the very moment you hear him. I must add, as a previous explanation of what is to follow, that God and the king are so coupled in the language of this country, that the same title of _Majesty_ is applied to both. You hear, from the pulpit, the duties that men owe to _both Majesties_; and a foreigner is often surprised at the hopes expressed by the Spaniards, that _his Majesty_ will be pleased to grant them life and health for some years more. I must add a very ludicrous circumstance arising from this absurd form of speech. When the priest, attended by the clerk, and surrounded by eight or ten people, bearing lighted flambeaus, has broken into the chamber of the dying person, and gone through a form of prayer, half Latin, half Spanish, which lasts for about twenty minutes, one of the wafers is taken out of a little gold casket, and put into the mouth of the patient as he lies in bed. To swallow the wafer without the loss of any particle--which, according to the Council of Trent, (and I fully agree with the fathers) contains the same Divine person as the whole--is an operation of some difficulty. To obviate, therefore, the impropriety of lodging a sacred atom, as it might easily happen, in a bad tooth, the clerk comes forth with a glass of water, and in a firm and loud voice asks the sick person, “Is his Majesty gone down?”[3] The answer enables the learned clerk to decide whether the passage is to be expedited by means of his cooling draught. [3] The Spanish words are _Ha pasado su Magestad?_ But I must return to my _Gallego_, and myself. No sooner had I called him back, as if I had suddenly changed my mind as to the direction in which we were to go, than with a most determined tone he said “_Dios--Su Magestad._” Pretending not to hear, I turned sharply round, and was now making my retreat--but it would not do. Fired with holy zeal, he raised his harsh voice, and in the barbarous accent of his province, repeated three or four times, “_Dios--Su Magestad_;” adding, with an oath, “This man is a heretic!” There was no resisting that dreadful word: it pinned me to the ground. I took out my pocket-handkerchief, and laying it on the least dirty part of the pavement, knelt upon it--not indeed to pray; but while, as another act of conformity to the custom of the country, I was beating my breast with my clenched right hand, as gently as it could be done without offence--to curse the hour when I had submitted thus to degrade myself, and tremble at the mere suspicion of a being little removed from the four-footed animals, whom it was his occupation to relieve of their burdens.