English.

As soon as we appeared outside the beggars of Toledo swarmed upon us;
but I hope it was not from them I formed the notion that the beauty of
the place was architectural and not personal, though these poor things
were as deplorably plain as they were obviously miserable. The
inhabitants who did not ask alms were of course in the majority, but
neither were these impressive in looks or bearing. Rather, I should say,
their average was small and dark, and in color of eyes and hair as well
as skin they suggested the African race that held Toledo for four
centuries. Neither here nor anywhere else in Spain are there any traces
of the Jews who helped bring the Arabs in; once for all, that people
have been banished so perfectly that they do not show their noses
anywhere. Possibly they exist, but they do not exist openly, any more
than the descendants of the Moorish invaders practise their Moslem
rites. As for the beggars, to whom I return as they constantly returned
to us, it did not avail to do them charity; that by no means dispersed
them; the thronging misery and mutilation in the lame, the halt and the
blind, was as great at our coming back to our hotel as our going out of
it. They were of every age and sex; the very school-children left their
sports to chance our charity; and it is still with a pang that I
remember the little girl whom we denied a copper when she was really
asking for a _florecito_ out of the nosegay that one of us carried. But
how could we know that it was a little flower and not a "little dog" she
wanted?

There was something vividly spectacular in the square, by no means
large, which we came into on turning the corner from our hotel. It was a
sort of market-place as well as business place, and it looked as if it
might be the resort at certain hours of the polite as well as the