text:  It is to the Spaniards that we are indebted if "indebted" be a suitable term for the wide-topped falling boot of the sixteenth century; that inconvenient no-service thing--good for the stage-players fancy-ball men and fellows like old Hudibras who crammed a portable larder and wardrobe into its unfathomable recesses; but for the rough-riding horseman or the active hunter a nuisance beyond all description