notes of a short trip to spain. part iii: seville

Irish Jesuit Province

Notes of a Short Trip to Spain. Part III: SevilleAuthor(s): John FallonSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 139 (Jan., 1885), pp. 24-36Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20497217 .

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( 24 )

NOTES OF A SHORT TRIP TO SPAIN

BY JOHN FALLON.

PART III.-SEVILLE.

THE Sevilians have a little couplet which everyone quotes:

"Quien no ha visto a Sevilla No ha visto maravilla."

It simply means that whosoever has not seen Seville has not seen a real,,marvel. With this couplet firmly embedded in my mind, I started out before seven o'clock this morning, determined in advance to find it true.

My first pleasure was to receive letters from home at the " corr6o " (post-office), where I found my name, with the prefix of "Don," written up amongst the list of personages for whom letters were waiting. This list is kept renewed from day to day, and a passport serves as a ready credential for delivery.

The " calle de las sierpes " (serpent-street), so gay last night, was still asleep, with half its shutters closed. But, early as it was, many a veiled lady all in black, just as at the papal receptions, and escorted by her duenna, was wending her way with rapid steps towards the cathedral: I followed, as a matter of course.

Passing through a narrow and tortuous lane, most scrupulously clean, like everything at Seville, I observed men at open windows

working lathes of patriarchal simplicity: fancy a bow in one hand, driven forwards and backwards, with the string coiled round the ivory or wood: a chisel in the other hand, doing the work, and doing it admirably. Such is the simple contrivance, probably a legacy of the Moors.

This lane opens into the cathedral-square, and you soon find your self in face of the giant pile, with the stately Giralda doing duty as a spire. Both are dove-coloured, and, so far, they har

monise.

The Giralda (pronounced Hiralda), is a square tower built on a narrow base of fifty feet each way. It was erected in the twelfth century by the Moors, and its height then was two hundred and fifty feet: on the top of it were four brass balls of which they

were very proud, though I cannot understand why. Of course



Notes of a Short Trip to Spain. 25

they used it as a minaret, and where the cathedral now stands was

their great Mosque.* In the following century St. Ferdinand captured Seville, and mosque and "minar " became Christian. Then, in course of time, the minaret was raised another hundred feet, with marvellous masonry, like lace-work of stone, and sur

mounted by a statue of gilt bronze, which weighs twenty-five hundred-weight, and revolves with the slightest breeze. Hence the name: Giralda (weather-vane.)

While I looked and wondered, the chimes of this old tower

began to ring, reminding me strangely of " the harp in the air"

in Wallace's charming opera:

"It hangs on the walls Of the old Moorish halls, Thoug,h none klnow its minstrel, Or how it came there.'

The Giralda has great bells also, only rung on great solemnities, and

the fun is to ascenctto the very top, on some such occasion, when

all the bells are ringing their very loudest, and to see the acrobatic

feats of the bell-ringers, perhaps unique in the world. This I was fortunate to witness on the festival of Corpus Christi,

which the Sevilians claim as specially Their own,t and celebrate

accordingly. But I must reserve an account of it to that day,

thugh I long sadly to tell you about it.

Coming as I came, you enter the precincts of the great cathe

dral, on the side of the north transept, by the " gate of pardon," an

undestroyed relic of the great mosque, in the shape of a gigantic

Moorisharch,horse-shoedabove,andinimitablyrich. Youfindyour self in the "court of oranges." The lofty walls that hem in this space,

and shut out the sound of ordinary life as if by magic, make of this

enclosure an absolutely perfect cloister, truest sanctuary for thought

and recollection and forgiveness, and give a very special significance

to the name of the entrance: " the gate of pardon." You have

passed at a step from the glarte and bustle of a most lively city, into a

place of stillness and grateful shade, where your very foot-fall

comes back with an echo. In the centre is a fountain, and the

small silvery sound of its trickling water fills the air with music.

This fountain is classic, for it existed in the days of imperial

and even republican Rome, and the water that feeds it was brought

* And, before the days of the Moors, the Visigoths had their Cathedral here,

built on the site of a heathen temple of Roman, and even Phenician, antiquity.

t Because they say that it was at their special entreaty that the Holy See

established the festival apart from the Thursday in Holy Week.



26 Note8 of a Short Trip to Spain.

by the legionaries of Caesar from the distant hill-sides of Guadaira. At this fountain, some centuries after, one can picture the Visigoth mothers holding out their young Rodericks and Alarics to be christened, too many of them, alas! to grow up into, rankest

Arianism. Then, for long and stirring ages, the vision is of grim or graceful warriors of the Crescent, performing their ablu tions here, while the muezzin chanted his plaintive call to prayer from the nearest " minAr." And now, in this present year of grace and joyous mon'th of June, whkt do I behold? . . . Why, simply, a lot of broad-chested Andalusians, with classic features, and sunny smiles on their honest faces, filling the daintiest little kegs

with the sparkling water, to deliver it for sale through the town, loaded in panniers on their gigantic donkeys.

And this explains a mystery that puzzled me as I entered: why a number of those magnificent silver-gray animals were patiently standing outside the lofty wall, one behind another in Indian file, each at least fourteen hands high; and caparisoned in biown velvet and fringe of twine, as if to mount a duke.,

Within the court of oranges, on each side of the fountain, you might cotnt about thirty orange-trees, growing in formal rows, with still a few oranges lingering on their branches, looking sadly shrivelled at this advanced season. The inner entrance to the cathe dral is another perfectly preserved remnant of the great mosque, horse4hoed, diapered, with alternately recessed and projecting courses, and altogether Saracenic. And now imagine yourself cross ing this inner threshold: you passfrom pleasing shade to dim twilight, or rather from twilight to darkness. But gradually the eyes get accustomed to the deep gloom: it seems to recede bodily, like an evil spirit, or a London fog: and then the glorious whole stands revealed.

At first, be it confessed, the momentary impression is delusive, as in St. Peter's of Rome. The long aisles seem sbort, the lofty vaults do not appear high, the very columns seem few in number: but right soon do length and height come on you, right soon does the vivid sense of them grow, as you wander about here. Few as the columns seem, there are sixty of them, each like Nelson's pillar in height and thickness. Low as the vaults may look, they are so lofty that even in the side aisles many another cathedral of

the first class might walk about beneath them, roof and all. To put the matter in plain figures, the clear height of the

nave, above the pavement, is a hundred and forty-five feet; and, as you approach the " cimborio" (lantern), where nave and tran septs intersect, it is thirty feet more!



Notes of a Short Trip to SpaIn. 27

In fact, this is the church of which the designers said: " Let

us build a cathedral so grand that no other shall ever compare

with it,", and a junior member of the chapter moved an amend

menit: "Let us build a cathedral so grand that posterity will say

we were mad! " and that inspired amendment, like a recent

important resolution of Mfr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, was carried " nem-con," by acclamation.

It was better than carried: it was executed to the letter,

without cowardice, or faltering. Hence the Titanic dimensions, which astonish the world to-day.

Seville Cathedral almost reminds one of that of Vienna:

because, although there is a clerestory of traceried lights near the

vaulting of the nave, it is so pinched up that it almost escapes

observation. In like manner the triforium merely looks like a

cornice from below. This is another way of saying that the long

double side-aisles are almost as lofty as the nave, and this leaves

the side-chapel windows of leviathan dimensions, immense in every way. They are not traceried, but filled with stained-glass of the

sixteenth century, by Flemish artists of the best period, from

Italian cartoons of the best school, when Spain and Flanders, and all

Germany were practically one, and could command the genius of

Eturope, and the wealth of the New World. Almost four centuries

have rolled away since those gorgeous windows were set up: time

has toned, but scarcely tarnished, their varied lustre-thanks to the

marvellous climate. It is in the tinted radiance which they shed,

full of richest prismatic colours, that the side altars stand, spaced from pillar to pillar, encircling the great cathedral, and filling it

with soul, and warmth, and life.

I am not going to attempt a detailed description of those side

ehapels or altars, though each is a treasury of sculpture, and

precious metals, and of paintings by the deftest hands of the

Andalusian school, too little known to us. Each time I passed,

veiled ladies in black were still prostrate on the marble flags,

absorbed in deepest devotion. Let not French writers say that

the ladies of Seville are frivolous, fickle, light! they have not seen

them here, at earliest hours, pioneering the steep way to heaven,

for others to follow who dare.

One thing I could admire without disturbing them; the mar

vellous lace-work of wrought iron, which separates, without in the

least concealing, those side-chapels from the aisles: even the smith

work here is as artistic as it is colossal.

For the same reason I cannot venture on a detailed account



28 Note8 of a Short Trip to Spain.

of the grand altar and choir, still of imperial magnificence, not withstanding French pillage. Each time I approached, lights were burning and prayers were being offered up unceasingly.

If I were to find one single fault with this glorious cathedral, it would be in the non-removal of the choir-screen, rising like a barricade of rare and richly sculptured marble from the pavement to the very vaults, but obstructing a perspective which would, if left clear, be like a vista of Heaven!

The clear span of the nave is a matter of international rivalry

amongst countries possessing great cathedrals, and each country exaggerates its own. For this reason I took care to measure

the accurate width here more than once, from column to column, behind the plinths, not with a rule or tape, but simply with my feet, of which I knew the linear value to a hair's breadth: and I can

conscientiously fix the span at forty-three feet three-inches. This does not place Seville Cathedral amongst the widest-naved of Europe, but awards it the palm in this respect amongst the

highest-vaulted, and makes it nearly two feet wider than Cologne, its mighty rival of the north.

Perhaps you will ask why did I not use a tape or rule ? Because,

had I done so, I should perhaps have become an object of more than suspicion. But, putting one foot before another, the proba bility is that I was scarcely observed; or, if observed, that I was looked upon merely as an eccentric, and thus I accomplished my object without giving offence.

And now it was my happy fate to hear one of the choir organs*

pealing out a quaint melody, in wailing tones, like an appeal to heaven for mercy; and it swelled till the long aisles and lofty vaults became resonant and, as it were, shaken into fury, with

the mighty sound, and then it softened, and died away, in sweetest " vox humana " . . . I can truly assure you the vibrations lingered in the air, and came back, and back again, from the vast heights and deep recesses of the building, in varied cadence, with charming echo, revealing all the huge dimensions of the vast fabric far more effectually than tape, or rule, or foot of man could ever do . . .

Such is the cathedral of Seville: I visited it often, and often again, but I can tell you no more: my poor words fail to describe it.

If yqu leave by the south transept, you pass out by another

Moorish arch, horse-shoed and diapered like its twin-sister on the north side, and manifestly, like it, another surviving portion

* I believe there are four of thenm.




of the old Moorish mosque. Here is no " court of oranges," no fountain fed by Roman aqueduct, no " gate of pardon." But the air is curiously alive with hawks and pigeons intermixed, all dove. coloured like the masonry, living in peace and concord, a happy family! They seem to never tire of flying rouncd the giddy pinnacles of the cathedral, and its flame-shaped battlements. Probably, like the pigeons of St. Mark's, they are here from time immemorial. To me they seemed all hawks; to others they seem all pigeons. But the fact is established beyond question, they are hawks and pigeons intermixeed. Truly, Seville is a town of

marvels! I suppose I had spent hours in the cathedral; for, when I

sallied out, the red-sashed natives were already having their siesta on the marble flags that surround it, amidst the truncated pillars that still proclaim the former boundaries of the mosque.

After a perfectly Spanish breakfast of salmoneta, tortilla, and venison, I drove to the " museo " (picture-gallery), which is simply a desecrated, or rather, de-consecrated church, retaining of course

all its ecclesiastical form, but with its altars and religious emblems all gone, and its walls all hung with Zurbarans, Murillos, and

other masters of the Sevilian school. But not a single Velasqu6s is bere: to find him you must go to Madrid.

I note that Murillo had three styles, as he advanced in years, the " frio," the " calido," and the "c vaporoso " (cold, warm, and steaming, just like the successive stages of a kettle that is boiling for tea). And I have an impression, f6rmed elsewhere, confirmed here, that his middle period fixes the stage of his highest perfec

tion, though many of his most world-renowned pictures are of the Ivaporoso-" type, including the grand "(Conception" at the

Louvre. Murillo is the true artistic glory of Seville, and in front of

the " museo " his statue justly stands. He looks for all the world like Oliver Cromwell, in face and costume: and, be it remembered, they were contemporaries, and lived at a time when England borrowed much of its fashions, and even colloquial expressions from Spain.

Strolling homewards, I could not fail being struck by the very peculiar narrowness of the streets in this part of the town: in many of them you could reach from side to side with your open arms. The houses also have a built-up windowless appearance along the basement storey, more like citadels or prisons than Christian dwellings. I suspect many of them are of great age,

VOL. XIII., No. 139. 4



80 Notee of a Short Trip to Spain.

all clean as they look. It was siesta hour, and the streets were almost absolutely deserted; but, from many a grated opening above, oame down sounds of piano music, well played, and mostly classical;

Reaching the broader streets, I found them canopied with awning from side to side, the canvas being suspended from the upper storeys. Most of the shop fronts were closed again, to keep out the heat: of those that were open I noticed that many are not glazed, but simply rest on metal or marble pillars: all this, I think, is Oriental. As for the heat in the full sunshine, it was simply like an oven; to face it further would have been madness.

In the evening we drove to the " pasdo," to see the upper class enjoying the cool air. The "pas6o" runs by San Telmo, the palace of the Montpensiers, where the late young Queen of Spain spent her happy childhood. It also runs by the banks of the famous Guadalquivir, favourite theme of Moorish legends. I was qufte struck by the smartness of the equipages: horses, vehicles, servants all perfectly turned out. The ladies, without hats or bonnets, looked to perfect advantage, with just a flower or two in the hair, and a lappet of white or black lace. A small minority

wore tiny Parisian hats of straw: the contrast just served to enhance the paramount grace of the national mantilla. The young

men were on horseback, and many a young gallant seemed ambi tious,to make his steed prance and curvet with all the airs of

the haute Scole, an easy task with such mettlesome, well-trained animals. The Andalusianhorse is small and plump: he has a, perfect head, capital quarters, but appears rather short in front, and rather drooping towards the tail. The colour is as varied as with us: bay, brown, steel-gray, &c. The canter is particularly airy, and high in front; the trotting pace is very fast and showy; the walk is like a trot, and very peculiar to our Northern eyes.

Altogether the Andalusian horse is just the right thing for a

"paseo." And think not that the ladies sit back in their barriages, looking sulky or sad, or drive with the saddening regularity of a procession or funeral. Some are dashing past like fire-flies, smiling and bowing as they go; others have pulled up and are chatting: the delicious air enlivens all, and they show it even to the tips of their fans.

As we pass San Telmo, let me tell you a story concerning the late queen. When death was coming on her, and grandees were inscribing their names at the palace of Madrid, a poor woman came through the titled throng and said: " I have no name worth,




inscribing, but I want to know how Mercedes is, and I will call again and again until I hear that Mercedes is better." When the end came, that poor woman was seen no more: vainly the young king ordered all possible inquiries to fiLnd her out; her name remains unknown. Still I venture a solution: the young queen used to visit the poor and the sick; perhaps she met her death illness in -this way, perhaps not; but probably the poor woman

who made those mysterious inquiries had a sick child, or husband, whose pillow had been smoothed by the young fingers of royalty. Hence the sympathy, which ignored formalities and etiquette, and felt responsive only to the promptings of gratitude, for kindness unrecorded except in heaven.

All the world has read of the Guadalquivir, as it was, with its

banks lined, and in fact canopied, with evergreens and scent-laden trees; such the enraptured Moors found it, and described it to their friends, even in far-off Damascus: such their descendants picture it still, and with imperishable faith pray to Allah for their return to it once more. But plain truth compels me to tell you

that I found it brown and rushy, except where it is embanked with masonry, with sea-going ships from London and the Levant moored alongside. I believe the ebb and flow of the Atlantic tide is felt here: so that practically Seville is a seaport town, although, to look at the map, you would scarcely think so.

There is a charming tower by the river-side, dove-coloured, octagonal, with flame-shaped battlements, surmounted by turrets, one over another, of lessening diameter. This tower, evidently a

Moorish structure, is now called " the tower of gold," not by

reason of its colour, but because the followers of Columbus often landed here, laden with the golden spoil of America. You can

easily picture the light-hearted Moors in earlier days starting from

this same place on their boating excursions at sundown, " venting their exuberance of spirits in poetry and song." The habit sur

vives still; alongside are steps from which boating parties start as

of old, and, if you listen, you may hear couplet and guitar blend

ing on the evening air. But the evergreens are gone for ever.

Again an early start this morning for an excursion round the

town; but, this time, in one of the small two-horse phaetons which

stand waiting in the square. It is surprising what a round one

has to take, when driving, to get from one objective point to

another: much as if, to get from Sackville-street to Nassau

street, you had to drive round by the Four Courts and St. Patrick's



32 Notes of a Short T'#ip to Spain.

Cathedral: this gives you a practical idea how narrow the majority @f the streets are.

I went first to see " the house of Pilate," built, in the days of Charles V., by an ancestor of the Sidonias, who had accomplished a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There is a popular delusion (amongst tourists) that it is an exact facsimile of the Roman governor's house, as the sixteenth century pilgrim found it ! but the simple fact is, that the open air stations of the cross start from here in

Holy Week: hence the name. It is to all intents a small Moorish palace, with wainscotting of azuleio tiles and walls covered with elaborate stucco. Scattered through its courts and cloisters are busts of white marble, of Roman emperors and consuls, brought from Italica. By-the-way, what is, or rather was, Italica ? Simply a Roman colony, planted within half-a-dozen miles of here, more than two thousand years ago, by Scipio Africanus, to make a home for his worn-out legionaries. It gave birth to Trajan, and some say jt gave birth to Hadrian and Theodosius; and then, after a certain number of centuries, it simply ceased to exist as a city, not through any volcanic eruption or convulsion of nature, but fQr the simplest reason imaginable. The Guadalquivir, which had been flowing by its walls just as it flows here, changed its course one fine morning, and left it dry; and so its inhabitants had to migrate en masse. Seville was their nearest refuge: they fled here; and their temples and theatres became the legitimate quarry of this fair town, because aesthetic archmology was not then in vogue. In fact it is more than probable that the nice little marble shafts,

which we admire in the shop-fronts here, came from Italica, and re-echoed to the Latin lisping of the boy emperors who were reared there.

I passed quite a number of churches, and visited a few, so antique-looking that I verily believe they were mosques in the

Moorish days. On leaving (never on entering) an odd mendicant woman may ask you for alms in a placid, dignified sort of way, holding out her hand, and saying: "Por l'amor de Dios;" to refuse her, you have only to say: "perdon' uste, hermana" (forgive me, sister), and your sister in Adam will not say another

word. I mention this, because an impression prevails that Spanish beggars are importunate: the truth is quite the reverse.

Next I found myself at the tobacco factory-a government establishment, which employs five thousand people, and where cigars and cigarettes are made in millions and billions each year. Five hundred women and oirls work upstairs, the women at cigars,



Notes of a Short Trip to ,Spain. 33

the girls at cigarettes ;-and what a din! You are shown through by a matron; the corridors, where the work proceeds, are each long enough for a rifle range, and arched with solid masonry, all scrupulously whitewashed. The tables are arranged cross-ways

with mathematical regularity, and the perspective from end to end is quite a study. Seated at those tables the cigarreras work, four at each side, the fragrant weed piled in heaps before them. They are paid according to the number of cigars they produice, and therefore are at liberty to chat and laugh, and to idle if they please Some are having their frugal repast of stewed tomatoes; some are sleeping soundly, notwithstanding the tremendous discord of voices all chattering simultaneously. Some of the cigarreras are mothers of families, and their infants are slung in extemporised hammocks

made of their shawls, or stowed away in baskets or boxes on or under the tables. Strange to say, those infants do not look un

healthy or restless, notwithstanding the pungent atmosphere and the clatter of so many babbling tongues; but even here they sleep the sleep of angels. It is the general opinion that the cigarreras

of Seville represent a class in themselves. though they vary much in type. Like students at a German university, thev have certain fashions, which to them are law. One particular fashion is to arrive early in the morning, scrupulously well dressed, with hair glistening like a raven's wing, and a fresh crimson or white carnation flower tastefully adorning it; then to hang the walking costume on the wall (which is all fitted with crooks for the purpose), and to sit in demi-toilette, working or idling, but always chattering, till the sun gets low and the hour arrives for an evening walk.

Similar corridors, similarly arched and whitewashed, and simi larly endless, contain the cigarreras of the junior grade, where cigarettes are made instead of cigars. Here the hair-dressing has

evidently been equally attended to, and the din is, if possible, more deafening. You may perhaps think I am exaggerating in

saying so much of the hair-dressing: so let me add that, this

morning, in a little square by the roadside, I saw two poor, elderly

women, water-sellers (whose emoluments perhaps reached two pence halfpenny a day), with their earthen pitchers laid down: one was acting as hairdresser to the other, the latter sitting on

the ground, obviously on the principle of fair trade and reciprocity, and yet the coiffure of the standing figure was already fit for a

queen ! But to end with the cigarreras: although I fail to recognise any fixity of type, it seems to me that there is much of the Moor

(and probably more of the tigress, if roused) in those richly sun



34 Note8 of a Short Tijip to Spain.

burnt Andalusian faces, and that the softened glance of the Murillo madonnas must be sought elsewhere. Here it was that Prosper Merim4e found the real " Carmen," and the charming music of Bizet really incorporates many of the roulades that one hear at every moment in the streets of this most musical city.

And now, as the forenoon advances, the fierce glare of the sun becomes all too hot for further defiance. You seek the welcome shades of the hotel, and there, as you sit, musing perhaps, or dozing, more probably, you hear from moment to moment the tinkling of bells. You look out from beneath the sun-shades, and you see files of those superb gray donkeys, which we found yesterday outside the court of oranges. They are delivering water, or bringing charcoal from the mountain-sides, or bread from the baking village, and they are caparisoned and fringed just as I described them. But, in addition, they are carefully muzzled with basket or network! Is it that they are disposed to bite? No; but, like you or me, they are fond of the purple figs and blood-red oranges which Seville produces to such perfection, and which Sevilian fruitsellers display at every other corner. Silent but wise, their minds are ever bent on the luscious fruit, and to prevent them from making a raid on it, the muzzles are deemed indispens able. Thus they trudge along, in Indian file, just as they are accustomed to stand, and the only way the streets permit, and all the while their owners are shouting their wares, in baritone voices that would make the fortune of a theatre. Those men are peasants, and their appearance is picturesque: a wide sombrero hat; face closely shaved, without whiskers or moustache; hair closely cut; short jacket; red sash round the waist, and buff gaiters. Such are the men who drive the donkeys of Seville, delivering charcoal, or bread, or water, from door to door.

From door to door? Let us say rather from one open-work gate of wrought iron to nother, each of them a study of art, and most of them gilt: such is the graceful fashion here. For, let me tell you, Sevilian houses are built in the form of a hollow square; the small quadrangle thus enclosed is planted with shrubs flowering and aromatic, and generally has a fountain in the middle. The living rooms face it, and during the warm months each family migrates to the ground floor, and transfers to it their principal furniture, musical instruments, pictures, &c. Thus each little square becomes a centre and focus of family life: this is the famous " patio " (pronounced patti-o), which forms the chief characteristic of Sevilian domestic existence-a characteristic not jealously bar




ricaded from the public gaze, but simply fenced against the unconscious intrusion of dogs, donkeys, &c., by the lacework of iron to which I have referred. Externally, Sevilian houses are all neatness, being kept constantly limewashed in tints of palest lavender, or cream-colour, or pink: this gives them all a modern look, though many of them, I suspect, date from the middle ages. A proof of their age, to a trained eye, is that you have to descend three or four steps into each of them, and this proof is all

the more cogent from the fact that the Sevilians have a praise

worthy habit, universal and apparently inherited, of removing all their dust rubbish every morning to allocated places outside the city walls. To finish about Sevilian houses, I should tell you that the roofs are covered with tiles of palest brown or fawn colour, set in downward lines, like corduroy, and that at the corners are

gargoyles, representing heads of animals, just such as we are accustomed to associate with Gothic architecture, but which were quite familiar and usual in Roman villas of the classic days, like

much of the "patio " arrangement which I have attempted to

describe. This evening, with my young Cambridge friend, I went to

hear a gipsy concert in the " calle de I'amor de Dios." Here

Gitanos and Gitanas sang, one after another, dreary airs in long

wailing minor keys, and, while each was singing, the others kept clapping hands to the time, and one, a miserable little hunchbacked

man, kept jingling accompaniments on a guitar. Infer from this that the performance did not strike me as either artistic or delight ful. How different from the magnificent flow of almost impromptu stringed Tzigane music, which has astonished and delighted the

most cultivated ears, from Jassy to Paris! The songs which the gipsies of Seville sing must be in Andalusian patois, because the audience seemed to follow them with keen delight. Sometimes a

Gitano would stop in the middle of his song, and begin a long and

animated recitative, getting more and more excited, and at last draw a sword-cane, and flourish it, and then run his imaginary foe through, and after the plaudits would subside finish his song in a

wild roulade. Neither Gitanos nor Gitanas made the slightest attempt at costume, but were just arrayed as ordinary Andalusians of the middle class; but there was something in their serpent-like stare that did not enlist confidence. The audience, excepting ourselves, were all of the middle class, or lower, seated in threes and fours at little tables, smoking cigarettes and drinking Manza nella sherry! I soon came to see that we were rather gazed at,



36 .Yote8 of a Short Trip to Spain.

and was glad to get myself back into the open streets, with pookets and watch untouched.

To walk the streets in the cool evening air is an endless delight and study: I note that Sevilians, men and women, the latter especially, are wisely addicted to milk drinking: this is the result of the climate. But it is not all cow's milk that is taken, as you

might perhaps think: goat's milk and ass's milk are equally patronised. Everywhere you go, you see the sign-boards: " leche de vaca" . . . "leche de cabra" . . . I"leche de burra" (cow's milk, goat's milk, ass's milk), and you see the small black cows and the gigantic brown goats led about from street to street.

Another favourite refreshment is iced cream, the ice made of compressed snow from the Sierra Morena; this is taken in the " neverias," handsomely fittedrooms, open as much as possible to the cooling air, and crowded with respectable people, sipping the frigid mixture and chatting all the while. The fun is to go from "neveria " to " neveria," and have an ice at each.

A~~ *k *

This, my third morning at Seville, I had laid out for a drive to Italica and round the walls of Seville, which are of every age, from modern times to the days of the Moors, Goths, and Romans, and perhaps long before them. But the fierce heat interposed a

positive veto. You do not care to explore ruins, when the day begins at ninety degrees in the coolest shade, and very much higher in the sunshine. So we just sent to engage select seats for the great bull-fight next Thursday, and started for Gran4da, to spend the interim in that paradise. And now let me wish you a Spanish good-bye: " Yaya uste con Dios " . . . Go with God.



notes of a short trip to spain. part iii: seville

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