It was somewhere near this place that, for the first time in my life, I really suffered from hunger. Ugolino in his tower could not have felt more famished than I did, and I had not, like him, four sons to devour. The reader, who has seen me swallow two cups of chocolate at Val-de-Peñas, is perhaps astonished at this premature hunger; but Spanish cups are not larger than a thimble, and do not hold more than two or three spoonfuls. My melancholy was greatly augmented at the _venta_, where we left our escort, on seeing a magnificent omelet, intended for the soldiers' dinner, assume a golden hue beneath a sunbeam that came down the chimney. I prowled about it like a ravenous wolf, but it was too well guarded for me to carry off. Luckily, however, a lady from Granada, who was in the diligence with us, took pity on my martyrdom, and gave me a slice of La Mancha ham cured in sugar, with a piece of bread which she kept in reserve in one of the pockets of the vehicle. May this ham be returned to her an hundredfold! Not far from this _venta_, on the right hand side of the road, stood some pillars, on which were seen three or four malefactors' heads--a spectacle always adapted to tranquillize your mind, and which proves that you are in a civilized country. The road kept rising, and assuming various zigzag forms. We were about to pass by the _Puerto de los Perros_: this is a narrow defile--a breach, in fact, made in the mountain by a torrent, which leaves just room enough for the road by its side. The _Puerto de los Perros_ (passage of dogs) is thus named, because through it the vanquished Moors went out of Andalusia, taking with them the happiness and civilization of Spain. Spain, which stands in the same relation to Africa as Greece did to Asia, is not fitted for European manners. The genius of the East is apparent there in all its forms, and it is perhaps to be regretted that Spain is not still Moorish and Mahometan.