It was now absolutely necessary, before we did anything else, that we should rid ourselves of the microscopic multitudes, whose bites had spotted our ex-white trousers with blood. Fortunately, the Tagus was not far off, and thither did we immediately conduct the Princess Galiana's fleas, employing the method patronised by foxes, who plunge up to the nose in water, holding between their teeth a piece of cork, which they commit to the stream as soon as they find it is manned by a sufficiently numerous crew, for the confounded little insects run up and crowd into it as soon as they feel themselves touched by the water. We trust our fair readers will pardon us for these animalcular and _picaresque_ details, which would be more suited, perhaps, to the life of Lazarillo de Tormes or of Guzman d'Alfarache; but a book of travels in Spain would not be complete without them, and we hope to be excused in consideration of the local colouring. The banks of the Tagus, at this point, are lined with peaked and almost inaccessible rocks, and it was not without some difficulty that we succeeded in making our way down to the spot where the grand sacrifice was to be accomplished. I began swimming out and displaying the greatest possible amount of artistic precision in order to prove myself worthy of bathing in so celebrated and respectable a river as the Tagus, when, after going some few yards I reached the ruins of some building or other that had fallen down, and left its shapeless remains of masonry projecting only a foot or two from the surface of the stream. On the bank exactly opposite, was an old ruined tower with a semicircular arcade, where some linen was drying very prosaically in the sun on clotheslines that had been hung there by the washerwomen.