every day I repaired to the same place, and thought and wrote until I had
finished 'The Bible in Spain.'

"And at the proper season 'The Bible in Spain' was given to the world;
and the world, both learned and unlearned, was delighted with 'The Bible
in Spain,' and the highest authority said, 'This is a much better book
than the Gypsies;' and the next great authority said, 'Something betwixt
Le Sage and Bunyan.' 'A far more entertaining work than Don Quixote,'
exclaimed a literary lady. 'Another Gil Blas,' said the cleverest writer
in Europe. 'Yes,' exclaimed the cool sensible Spectator, 'a Gil Blas _in
water colours_.'

"A _Gil Blas_ in water colours"--that, he says himself, pleased him
better than all the rest. He liked to think that out of his adventures
in distributing Bibles in Spain, out of letters describing his work to
his employers, the Bible Society, he had made a narrative to be compared
with the fictitious life and adventures of that gentle Spanish rogue, Gil
Blas of Santillana. No wonder that he saw himself a public figure to be
treated reverently, nay! heroically. And so when he comes to consider
somebody's suggestion that the Gypsies are of Jewish origin, he relates a
"little adventure" of his own, bringing in Mr. Petulengro and the Jewish
servant whom he had brought back with him after his last visit to Spain.
He mounts the heroic figure upon an heroic horse:

"So it came to pass," he says, "that one day I was scampering over a
heath, at some distance from my present home: I was mounted upon the good
horse Sidi Habismilk, and the Jew of Fez, swifter than the wind, ran by
the side of the good horse Habismilk, when what should I see at a corner
of the heath but the encampment of certain friends of mine; and the chief
of that camp, even Mr. Petulengro, stood before the encampment, and his