On returning home, you meet, under the windows and balconies, numbers of young gallants enveloped in their hooded cloaks, and staying there to _pelar la paba_ (pluck the turkey), that is, to talk with their _novias_ through the bars. These nocturnal conversations often last till two or three o'clock in the morning, which is nothing astonishing, since the Spaniards spend a part of the day in sleep. You sometimes tumble also on a serenade composed of three or four musicians, but more generally of the sighing swain only, who sings couplets as he accompanies himself on the guitar, with his _sombrero_ drawn over his eyes, and his feet resting on a stone or a step. Formerly two serenades in the same street would not have been tolerated. The first comer claimed the right of remaining there alone, and forbade every other guitar, except his own, to tinkle in silence of the night. Such pretensions were maintained at the point of the sword, or by the knife, unless the patrol happened to be passing. In this case the two rivals coalesced, in order to charge the patrol, with the understanding that they were to renew their own private combat by and by. The susceptibility of serenaders has greatly diminished, and every one can at present tranquilly _rascar el jamon_ (scrape the ham) under the window of his mistress. If the night is dark you must take care not to put your foot into the stomach of some honourable hidalgo, rolled up in his mantle, which serves him for garment, bed, and house. During the summer nights the granite steps of the theatre are covered with a mass of blackguards who have no other place to go to. Each of them has his particular step, which serves as his apartment, where he is always sure to be found. They sleep there under the blue vault of heaven, with the stars for night lights, with no bugs to annoy them, and defy the sting of the mosquito by the coriaceous nature of their tanned skin, which is bronzed by the fiery sun of Andalusia, and certainly quite as dark as that of the darkest mulattoes. The following is, without much variation, the life we led. The morning was devoted to visiting different parts of the city, to a walk to the Alhambra or the Generalife; we then went, of necessity, to call on the ladies at whose houses we had passed the previous evening. When we called but twice a day they told us we were ungrateful, and received us with so much kindness that we came to the conclusion that we really were fierce savage beings, and extremely negligent.