Mr. Borrow says that the innkeeper’s sister and cousin (as he severally makes her) had had a Spanish child to nurse, and in sheer spite had injured it, with the purpose and effect of depriving it of reason. The idiot is then brought in as a young “caballero,” to play a part in a very dramatic cozening scene, where a countryman and woman are cheated out of an ass; all this is narrated circumstantially, explained sensibly--there is no hearsay, no metaphor. Of this idiot “caballero” I could obtain no trace; he was neither known nor had been heard of at Tarifa in the memory of man, yet I made diligent inquiry for him, and sent out Mr. Stark, who, from long residence at Gibraltar, was familiar with the place and people, to see if he could hear of him; but all in vain. The Alcalde, to whom I told the story, contented himself with repeating the writer’s name, and laughing long and quietly. As a last resource I applied to the people themselves. The innkeeper had no “sister” and no “cousin;” there was, however, a sister-in-law, so I questioned her about “the child she had nursed.” She declared that she never had had a child of her own, and when I asked if her sister had nursed any child? she answered, that her sister’s youngest son was eight years old when they came to Tarifa. Her testimony was confirmed by the neighbours, and the fact was notorious. Mr. Borrow puts them in possession from father to son. They imagined him to be a gipsy, he says, by his talking their language. I, consequently, inquired about him as the English Gipsy. They did not comprehend me; but recollected a tall man who was always writing: holding up their hands, they exclaimed, “We thought he was writing some learned things, and not lies about poor people like us.” The story fills fourteen pages. Mr. Borrow sends a Jew before him to the Posada; he returns and reports that they were Jews, and then he addresses this Jew in “_Moorish_,” and tells him they are gipsies. As if a Jew could have been mistaken about Jews; and, as if a person who could speak Arabic, would call it “Moorish.” A few pages before he has told his readers in the most off-hand manner, that the Basques are Tartars, and that the Basque tongue comes between the Mongolian and the Manchou! all which is equally authentic and profound--to “his chum” Mr. Ford. It is the misfortune of Spain to be misrepresented. She has been the subject of two standard and classical works--Don Quixote and Gil Blas. The former, by its sterling worth, has made its way into the literature of other countries. Being a satire upon a particular temper and habit of mind, the scene and personages of which are Spanish, it is accepted as a description of Spain. As well might England be studied in “Dr. Syntax.” Those peculiarities which it is intended to ridicule, and those extravagancies which are exaggerated in order that they may be exposed, are to the stranger the instructive portion of the work.