large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry,
to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the
door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire
were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of
a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being
thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it
reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet
from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth
and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place
for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the
foul air from the cattle below.

"Are we to live a year in this hutch?" asks Moll, in affright.

"Have done with your chatter, Moll!" answers Jack, testily. "Don't you
see I'm a-thinking? Heaven knows there's enough to swallow without any
bugbears of your raising."

With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out
and looks at it outside.

"Well," says Don Sanchez, "what think you of the house?"

"Why, Señor, 'tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts,
and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air.
With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well
enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that 'tis
the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A
pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are
to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and" (clacking his tongue)