This custom, says Voltaire, had already spread over Europe, but nowhere to such an extent as in Spain; the Christian knights were dubbed as such, with many solemn ceremonies, 'and watched their arms before the altar of the Virgin Mary; but the Moslem paladins were content with simply girding on a scimitar. This was the origin of knights-errant and of such numbers of single combats.' What with twenty kings all warring among themselves; lawless robbers in the Sierras to fight; Jews to capture, torture, and mulct; knights-errant besetting the highways and bridges with shield uplifted to meet all comers; Moors on every hand to slay without mercy, but more particularly at Seville, Granada, and Valencia, and the still more abhorred Morabathans, the restless spirits who wished to be up and doing, for good or for evil, amid the din of kettledrums and cymbals, the glitter of lances and banners and so forth, must have had plenty of work cut out for them in the sunny Spain of those days, long ere Cervantes had laughed her 'chivalry away.' Near the right bank of the Ebro, about ten miles from Burgos, at the base of the Montanos de Santander, stood the Convent of Miraflores; and though many times repaired and renewed, it stands there still: but it was in the zenith of its fame when one day in the June of that year, while Sancho, the ambitious King of Castile, was preparing to besiege Zamora, an armed knight reined up his horse on its most sequestered side, where one solitary window overlooked the river and all the groves of olive and myrtle that grew thereby. Though we write of a period so remote, strange to say the window is there still in the old wall, against which the Moors have more than once hurled their strength in vain, and it projects like a carved stone cage of three pointed arches, supported by the head and wings of a time-worn and gigantic figure of grotesque design; and thereat was a fair young face, that grew bright with joy when the young knight drew near. The latter was a typical Spaniard, vigorous, tall, and well developed in figure; black haired, with eyes full of fire; dark, well-defined eyebrows, and features sharp and grave. Save that he wore a species of Moorish basinet, bright as silver, with a tippet of mail; he was clothed in chain armour to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet, for the land teemed with fighting and peril, and no man ventured abroad save completely equipped. His spurs were goads without rowels, and a cross-hilted sword hung in his glittering belt. The girl who welcomed his approach was not a _religieuse_, for young ladies were boarded in convents then as now; but her costume declared her to be of rank, as it was of shiny, golden-yellow silk, trimmed with black of the same material, tightly sleeved to the wrist; and she wore her thick, dark hair plaited in several divisions, after the old Gothic custom that lingered still in Spain.