As these Spanish Gallants have no less honour than devotion, battles frequently take place between them, for the assertion of their just prerogatives; and this, for instance, seldom fails to be the case when two processions happen to meet in the same street: each party think they are intitled to the most honourable side of the way; and a scuffle is the consequence. This happened at the time of the procession of the abovementioned Duke of Vejar: another procession, conducted by the Marquis of Villahermosa, entered the same street, at the other end of it: the light-armed troops, otherwise the servants with their lighted long wax-candles, began the engagement, bedaubing the clothes, and singeing the whiskers and hair of each other; then the body of Infantry, that is to say the Gentlemen with their swords, made their appearance, and continued the battle; and at last the two noble Champions themselves met, and began a fight with their disciplines (another instance of Penitents using their disciplines as weapons, is, if I mistake not, to be found in Don Quixote) the two noble Champions, I say, began a smart engagement with each other; their self-flagellations were for a while changed, with great rapidity, into mutual ones; and their weapons being demolished, they were about to begin a closer kind of fight, when their friends interfered, and parted them: the high sharp and stiff cap of one of the two Combatants, which had fallen in the dirt, was taken up, properly cleansed, and again placed upon his head; and the two processions went each their own course, dividing as chance determined it. The whole ceremony was afterwards concluded with splendid entertainments which each of the Noble Disciplinants gave in their Houses, to the persons who had formed their respective processions; during which abundance of fine compliments were paid them on their piety, their gallantry, and their elegance in giving themselves discipline. If such acts both of devotion and courtship are performed in Spain, by persons of the first rank, much more may we think that practices of the same kind prevail among the vulgar: and on this occasion I shall produce an extract from the Spanish Book intitled, the Life of Friar _Gerund de Campazas_. As this Novel, which is of a humorous kind, was written in later times by a native of the Country, and a Man of learning (a Father Jesuit, I think) an extract from it may give a surer insight into the above singular customs of the Spaniards, than any relation of Travellers perhaps can.