We have, as yet, described only the lower part of the house; but it possessed also an upper story intended for the accommodation of any guests of higher rank who might honour it with their presence. The greater part was occupied by one large chamber, surrounded by small recesses, in which were placed beds of most execrable hardness, invented, one might suppose, to counteract any tendency to effeminacy which the climate might have caused. As if in mockery, over the beds were thrown gaily worked cover lids, beneath which, alas! by the uninitiated traveller, neither peace nor quiet was to be found, as swarms of fierce inhabitants of two rival races were ever ready, like the Lilliputians on that renowned voyager Captain Lemuel Gulliver, to avenge on the body of the intruder any inroad made on their territory. Curtains were hung across some of the recesses intended for the guests of most consideration, and a rough table and benches were placed down the room, the windows, as we have before said, being destitute of glass, and the walls of aught but the rough mortar. Such were the only accommodations afforded even to the highest ranks; but the inns received little patronage from any, for, in the first place, no one moved about more than was absolutely necessary, and, when they were obliged to make a journey, the house of any gentleman on the road was always hospitably open to them, as is the case at the present day. The cold grey light of the early morn had just broken upon the world, when a party of horsemen sallied out of the inn, mounted on most sorry-looking animals, the small horses, or rather ponies of the country, but whose nimble and surefooted paces belied the estimation one formed of their qualities at the first glance. The men wore their large broad cloaks, one side of which being thrown over the shoulder, and almost over the head, completely concealed their features, while the rest hung down, covering their own bodies, and a great part of those of their horses. The robes of the friar were not perceived among them; but there was a most suspicious-looking figure who took the lead, with a broad slouched hat on his head, fastened tightly down with a handkerchief under his chin, and from beneath it appeared a rim of closely-cut red hair, and a ruddy face with a pair of twinkling eyes, the rest of the form, which was evidently of no slender mould, being enveloped, like the others, in a broad cloak. Their ponies carried them at a pace between a canter and a quick shamble over the heath we have described, in the direction of Lisbon, towards the long line of dark forest which was seen in the far distance from the higher ground on which the inn stood.