In the present instance, Dolores was less on the reserve, and had busied herself for several days in fitting out honest Manuel for his expedition. All his clothes had been arranged and packed in the neatest order, and above all she had worked a smart Andalusian travelling-jacket, for him with her own hands. On the morning appointed for his departure, a stout mule on which he was to perform the journey was paraded at the portal of the Alhambra, and Tio Polo (Uncle Polo), an old invalid soldier, attended to caparison him. This veteran was one of the curiosities of the place. He had a leathern lantern visage, tanned in the tropics, a long Roman nose, and a black beetle eye. I had frequently observed him reading, apparently with intense interest, an old parchment-bound volume; sometimes he would be surrounded by a group of his brother invalids; some seated on the parapets, some lying on the grass, listening with fixed attention, while he read slowly and deliberately out of his favorite work, sometimes pausing to explain or expound for the benefit of his less enlightened auditors. I took occasion one day to inform myself of this ancient book, which appeared to be his _vade mecum_, and found it to be an odd volume of the works of Padre Benito Geronymo Feyjoo; and that one which treats about the Magic of Spain, the mysterious caves of Salamanca and Toledo, the Purgatory of San Patricio (St. Patrick), and other mystic subjects of the kind. From that time I kept my eye upon the veteran. On the present occasion I amused myself with watching him fit out the steed of Manuel with all the forecast of an old campaigner. First he took a considerable time in adjusting to the back of the mule a cumbrous saddle of antique fashion, high in front and behind, with Moorish stirrups like shovels; the whole looking like a relic of the old armory of the Alhambra; then a fleecy sheep-skin was accommodated to the deep seat of the saddle; then a maleta, neatly packed by the hand of Dolores, was buckled behind; then a manta was thrown over it to serve either as cloak or couch; then the all-important alforjas, carefully stocked with provant, were hung in front, together with the bota, or leathern bottle for either wine or water, and lastly the trabucho, which the old soldier slung behind, giving it his benediction. It was like the fitting out in old times of a Moorish cavalier for a foray or a joust in the Vivarrambla. A number of the lazzaroni of the fortress had gathered round, with some of the invalids, all looking on, all offering their aid, and all giving advice, to the great annoyance of Tio Polo.