As soon as our luggage had been examined, our first care was to find some _fonda_ or _parador_, for it was a long time since we had eaten our eggs at Illescas. We were conducted, through a number of streets so narrow that two loaded asses could not pass abreast, to the _fonda del Caballero_, one of the most comfortable establishments in the town. Calling to our aid the little Spanish we knew, and indulging in the most pathetic kind of pantomime, we succeeded in explaining to our hostess, who was a most gentle and charming woman, of a highly interesting and lady-like appearance, that we were dying of hunger, a fact which always seems greatly to astonish the natives of the country, who live upon sunshine and air, after the very economical fashion of the chameleon. The whole tribe of cooks and scullions were immediately in a state of commotion. The innumerable little saucepans in which the highly-spiced ragouts of the Spanish kitchen are distilled and concocted were placed on the fire, and we were promised dinner in an hour's time. We took advantage of this hour to examine the _fonda_ more minutely. It was a fine building, which had, no doubt, formerly been the residence of some nobleman. The inner courtyard was paved with coloured marble mosaic, and ornamented with wells of white marble and large troughs lined with porcelain for washing the glasses and crockery. This courtyard is called the _patio_, and is generally surrounded by columns and galleries, with a fountain in the middle. A cloth _tendido_, which is rolled up in the evening in order to leave a free passage for the cool night-air, serves as a ceiling to this kind of drawing-room. On the first story, all around, there runs an elegantly-worked iron balcony, on which the windows and doors of the apartments open, which apartments you only enter when you wish to dress, dine, or take your siesta. The rest of the time you sit in the courtyard-drawing-room aforesaid, in which the pictures, chairs, sofas, and piano are placed, and which is decked out with flower-pots and boxes containing orange-trees. We had hardly finished our inspection when Celestina (a fantastic and strange-looking servant-girl) came to inform us, humming a tune all the while, that dinner was ready. It was very respectable, consisting of cutlets, eggs with tomatoes, fowls fried in oil, and trout from the Tagus, to which was added a bottle of Peralta, a warm, liqueur-like wine, with a certain slight perfume of muscat, not at all disagreeable. When we had finished our repast we strolled through the city, preceded by a guide, who was a barber by profession, but exercised his talents in showing about tourists during his leisure moments.