text:  His rough bushy beard and mustaches were carefully trimmed and adjusted by the most expert barber of the neighbourhood; his sheepskin jacket heavy boots and jingling double-roweled spurs thrown aside and in their place he assumed the national garb so well adapted to show off a handsome person and which although now almost disused throughout Spain far surpasses in elegance the prevailing costumes of the nineteenth century: a short light jacket of black velvet and waistcoat of the richest silk both profusely decorated with gold filigree buttons; purple velvet breeches fastened at the knee with bunches of ribands; silk stockings and falling boots of chamois leather by the most expert maker in Cordova; a crimson silk sash round his waist and round his neck a silk handkerchief of which the ends were drawn through a magnificent jewelled ring