velocity of a millstone, to the great danger of everybody in the
apartment. He then galloped out upon the plain, and after half an
hour's absence returned, and having placed his horse once more in
the stable, came and seated himself next to me, to whom he
commenced talking in a gibberish of which I understood very little,
but which he intended for French. He was half intoxicated, and
soon became three parts so, by swallowing glass after glass of
aguardiente. Finding that I made him no answer, he directed his
discourse to one of the contrabandistas, to whom he talked in bad
Spanish. The latter either did not or would not understand him;
but at last, losing patience, called him a drunkard, and told him
to hold his tongue. The fellow, enraged at this contempt, flung
the glass out of which he was drinking at the Spaniard's head, who
sprang up like a tiger, and unsheathing instantly a snick and snee
knife, made an upward cut at the fellow's cheek, and would have
infallibly laid it open, had I not pulled his arm down just in time
to prevent worse effects than a scratch above the lower jawbone,
which, however, drew blood.

The smuggler's companions interfered, and with much difficulty led
him off to a small apartment in the rear of the house, where they
slept, and kept the furniture of their mules. The drunkard then
commenced singing, or rather yelling, the Marseillois hymn; and
after having annoyed every one for nearly an hour, was persuaded to
mount his horse and depart, accompanied by one of his neighbours.
He was a pig merchant of the vicinity, but had formerly been a
trooper in the army of Napoleon, where, I suppose, like the drunken
coachman of Evora, he had picked up his French and his habits of
intoxication.