Mule skinners by the river salado

The other day we passed over the River Salado. When I was researching A VAnished World-----hey, have I mentioned to you that I wrote a book about Spain called A Vanished World??---I found this medieval guide for pilgrims that said there were always two guys with knives parked by the riverside, waiting for any pilgrim to water his mule in the river´s noxious waters. The mule would keel over and die (the guide claims), and the skinners would head to work.....The same guide, which attacks people from navarre mercilessly, says that as you pass through Navarre on the pilgrimage you will find that the Navaresse farmers put locks on the behinds of their mules, because (the guidebook claims), they want to protect their mules for their own private perversions. It´s all there in the guidebook....