LAZARO RELATES THE WAY OF HIS BIRTH AND TELLS WHOSE SON HE IS Well! your Honour must know, before anything else, that they call me Lazarillo de Tormes, and that I am the son of Thomé Gonçales and Antonia Perez, natives of Tejares,[9] a village near Salamanca. My birth was in the river Tormes,[10] for which reason I have the river for a surname, and it was in this manner. [9] Tejares is a small village on the left bank of the river Tormes, about two miles from Salamanca. It consists of a church dedicated to San Pedro, and about fifty houses on the skirts of a hill. [10] The river Tormes rises in the Sierra de Gredos, a range of hills dividing Estremadura from Old Castille, on the confines of the province of Avila. Its chief sources are a large sheet of water called the “Laguna de Gredos,” and a perennial stream called “Tornella.” Receiving several streams from the Gredos hills, the Tormes flows north, passing by Alba de Tormes, where there is a stone bridge; and then turns north-west, passing Salamanca, where there is another fine stone bridge, and Ledesma. Finally, it falls into the Douro, on the Portuguese frontier. The Tormes turns many flour mills. My father, whom God pardon, had charge of a flour mill which was on the banks of that river. He was the miller there for over fifteen years, and my mother, being one night taken with me in the mill, she gave birth to me there. So that I may say with truth that I was born in the river. When I was a child of eight years old, they accused my father of certain misdeeds done to the sacks of those who came to have their corn ground. He was taken into custody, and confessed and denied not, suffering persecution for justice’s sake. So I trust in God that he is in glory, for the Evangelist tells us that such are blessed. At that time there was a certain expedition against the Moors[11] and among the adventurers was my father, who was banished for the affair already mentioned. He went in the position of attendant on a knight who also went, and, with his master, like a loyal servant, he ended his life. [11] This expedition against the Moors started from Malaga under the command of Don Garcia de Toledo in 1510, when Lazarillo was seven years old. The fleet first touched at Sicily and then made for the island of Los Gelves, off the African coast, between Tunis and Tripoli, now called Zerbi. With Toledo were Diego de Vera and Count Pedro Navarro. Zerbi was a low sandy island covered with palm-trees, ruled by a Sheikh of its own. The army landed on the 8th of August 1510. But the Spaniards fell into an ambuscade and were defeated, Toledo being among the slain. Four thousand were killed or taken prisoners. The rest escaped to the ships and returned to Sicily. Toledo was a grandson of the first Duke of Alva. [Sidenote: Death of Lazaro’s father, and his mother goes into service.]