[Illustration: XXV _REJA_ (_Casa de Pilatos, Seville_)]
Pinheiro da Veiga, in his queer _Pincigraphia_, or "Description and Natural and Moral History of Valladolid," written earlier in the same century, and published twenty years ago by Gayangos from a manuscript in the British Museum, is more plain-spoken than the Frenchman on the various merits and peculiarities of the Spanish balconies and _rejas_. "All of these churches have the most beautiful iron balustrades and iron open-work doors (_cancelas_) that can be found in Europe, for nowhere is iron worked so skilfully as here in Valladolid. These objects are made by the Moriscos with turned balusters, foliage, boughs, fruits, war-material, trophies, and other contrivances, which afterwards they gild and silver into the very likeness of these metals. I say the same of window-balconies; for nearly every window has its balcony. There are in Valladolid houses up which one might clamber to the very roof from balcony to balcony, as though these were a hand-ladder. So too from balcony to balcony (for the distance from one to other is never greater than a palm's breadth) one might climb round the whole Plaza. By reason of this, we Portuguese were wont to say that if there were as many thieves or lovers in Valladolid as in Portugal, verily both one and other of this kind of folks would have but little need of hand-ladders. Yet here the thieves content themselves with stealing by the light of day, while as for the women (crafty creatures that they are!), they perpetrate their thefts away from home; and, having all the day at their disposal, prefer to thieve while daylight lasts, rather than pass the night uncomfortably. To this I heard a lady of Castile declare, when one of my friends, a Portuguese, petitioned her for leave to speak with her at night across her _reja_: 'That would be tantamount to passing from one _hierro_ to another _yerro_;[83] and in my house (which is also your worship's) it would not look well for you to seem a window-climbing thief.'"
[83] _Hierro_ means _iron_; _yerro_, a _fault, faux pas_. Thus glossed, the somewhat feeble pleasantry or pun is able to explain itself.
[Illustration: XXVI _REJA_ OF THE _CASA DE LAS CONCHAS_ (_Salamanca_)]