Chapter IV: Part 4

So the visitor leaves sleepy Granada in peace in the hollow, and breasts the hill, on the summit of which the Alhambra mounts guard over the city. From the distance it presents, as do so many Oriental palaces, the appearance of a fortress, and the approach is so planned that one comes right under the shadow of its walls without obtaining another view of it. A curve in the road brings one suddenly at the entrance to a grove, the trees of which are so thickly planted that a man may scarcely pass between them, and their mighty branches interlacing overhead defy the sun to penetrate their foliage. An avenue pierces this park of verdure; the shade is deep, but the air is soft and fragrant with the perfume of flowers; and at the end we stand before a large square tower, dark coloured and crowned with battlements, and entered by an arched door. It is dowdy, commonplace, and unimpressive, but it is the Door of Justice, the principal entrance to the Alhambra. But if the visitor feels a shock of disappointment at this first close acquaintance with the world-famed structure, it will certainly not be allayed when, having passed through the gateway and ascended an embanked road, he is brought up before a great ruined palace in the style of the Renaissance, beyond which stand some miserable-looking little houses. The palace was erected by that arch-vandal, Charles V., who, to his everlasting shame, planted a Gothic Church in the middle of the Mosque at Córdova. The Alhambra has had its full share of vicissitudes and desecrations. For a number of years it was inhabited by smugglers and vagabonds, the French soldiers stabled their horses there during their occupation, earthquakes have visited it, and a gunpowder explosion destroyed some of the ceilings, but it remained for Charles V. to outstrip the earthquake and the invading armies in the work of ignorant spoilation. “But this,” one inquires, aghast, “this rubbishly palace is not the Alhambra?” It is a relief to be reassured that it is not; but the consolation is changed to amazement when one learns that the Alhambra itself is contained among the wretched hovels that lie beyond. But the suspense is nearly at an end; there is a little door to be entered, a little courtyard to be crossed, and one is in the marvellous apartment, which is at once a hall, a courtyard, and a garden--the Court of the Myrtles. Two rows of Moorish arches, upheld by light columns, stretch out on the right of the entrance one above the other, while a tower rises on the opposite side; and in the centre, extending right across the width of the _patio_, is a large rectangular basin of water, which reflects, as in a mirror, the arches and arabesques, and the superb mosaics which

ornament the walls. The deep thrill of emotion and delighted surprise that one experiences in gazing round this beautiful Eastern interior is repeated again and again as one proceeds through the halls and courts of this fairy palace. Moorish patios, with every variety of mosaic marble columns, fountains, and flowers, may be seen in other cities of Spain, but here are whole suites of courts, and gardens, and halls, vying with each other in splendour, in regal magnificence and lavish expenditure; while the situation of the palace is the most romantic and picturesque in Europe.

The Tower of the Ambassadors, which contains two halls, one of which is the great Hall of the Ambassadors, would alone earn for the Alhambra its reputation for unsurpassed beauty. The walls and the ceilings are covered with an enormous tracery of embroideries in the form of garlands, roses, branches, and leaves, so blended as to make one magnificent whole so delicate and intricate that the visitor could spend hours in examining its inextricable network, and yet gain no more than a vague impression of its detail. Gautier has compared these ornamentations to “a kind of tapestry worked into the wall itself;” and De Amicis, employing the same simile, writes of it: “The walls seem woven like a cloth, rich as a brocade, transparent as lace, and veined like a leaf.” The Hall of the Ambassadors is a spacious square apartment lighted by nine arched windows, which, by reason of the thickness of the walls, form nine alcoves, each supported by a little marble column and surmounted by two exquisite small arches, surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The views from these windows are entrancing; and one turns from the handsome workmanship of the interior to the magnificent landscape without in an ecstacy of sensuous pleasure.

The Court of Lions is one of the most beautiful edifices in Granada, and the finest and most elegant piece of Mussulman architecture of the Nazarite period. There is not a more magnificent and fantastic example, in or out of Spain, on which the artistic genius of the Arabs might pride itself; and certainly its builder, the famous architect Aben Cencid, is worthy a place with the most noted architects of all time. Transparent arcades, columns which have been grouped together in large and small numbers in order to share the weight of the beautiful arches and ceilings, seven fountains, two high ornaments in the form of temples, which advance majestically to relieve the monotony of the cloister, four golden cupolas which gleam in the rays of the sun, eleven different forms of arches gaudily decorated, constitute, as Don Rafael Contreras, who restored the Alhambra, says, a magical and delicious whole, even though seven centuries have elapsed. In the centre of the Court is a great marble basin, surrounded by a little paved canal, and supported by twelve lions--lions fashioned in the strictest accordance with the injunction of the Koran, which forbids its followers to make an image of any living thing. A glance at these lions shows how faithfully the sculptors

VIEW OF GRANADA, SHOWING THE ALHAMBRA AND THE SIERRA NEVADA.]

of these ill-shaped, grotesque, ridiculous monstrosities observed the tenets of their creed.

Perhaps the most beautiful apartment in the Alhambra is the hall of the “Two Sisters,” which, in its exuberance of ornamentation, richness, and variety of carving and manifold combination of every line that can produce beauty and grace, is beyond description. Fergusson has described it as “the most varied and elegant apartment in the whole palace.” The proportions are so graceful, the colours so bright and gay, yet subdued into such exquisite harmony that it soothes while it enchants the eye; and every portion, down to the tiles, bears the stamp of such refined taste and infinite invention, that one looks around with a sort of despairing wonderment, unable either to classify the various objects that challenge admiration on every side, or to carry off anything more distinct than a dream-like recollection, in which every element of decoration is blended in a bewildering chaos of beauty.

The ancient Moors made art a virtue, and bathing an art. They did not bathe from a sense of duty, but because bathing was a luxury. Here between the Hall of the Two Sisters and the Court of the Myrtles is the _Sala de Reposo_, where the favourites of the Kings prepared themselves for their bath, or rested themselves after it. This hall, which was restored by Spanish artists on the ruins of the old one, is in keeping with the rest of the palace. A fountain occupies the centre of the apartment, alcoves are set in the multi-coloured walls, and the atmosphere of the whole place is cool, fragrant, and delicious. Around this hall are the little bath rooms, each bath formed out of a solid slab of marble. The rooms are lit by means of holes in the wall in the shape of stars and flowers, a device which admits the glow of the sun without its rays. Soft light and perfumes, rose-coloured curtains and music, contributed to the sensuous delights of the Sultanas’ ablutions. They may not have been a particularly intelligent class of women, these dainty, languid-eyed sultanas; but they must, as an American tourist observed, have been a “wonderfully sweet and wholesome kind of female to have about one.”

From the baths one proceeds to the _Tocador de la reina_ (the Queen’s toilet), situated at the top of a tower from which one obtains a magnificent view of the surrounding country. This royal boudoir is perched on the edge of an abyss. It is open on all sides and on all sides a spectacle of amazing beauty is spread out to the view. Immediately below lies the city of Granada, the houses interspersed with groups of trees and huge bunches of foliage which seem to fight with the buildings for every yard of land that the hand of man has snatched from nature. Beyond the city is an immense green plain, over which endless rows of cypresses, pines, and oaks thread their ways amid groves of oranges and a riot of flowers. The deep valley of the Darro is almost hidden by the profusion of vegetation that runs right down to the water’s edge, and the silver Genil shimmers amid the groves and gardens. Beyond the plain are the hills, their green sides torn by the rugged boulders that thrust their way through the trees; and to the south rise the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada, white and dazzling in summer sunshine. The spectacle is one that can never fade from the mind; the thrill it produces can never quite be lost.

The huge wall which surrounds the vast precincts of the Alhambra is studded with towers which retain their original names. The _Torre de las Infantas_ is one of the best preserved outwardly, and presents that severity of outline which characterises the exterior of the palace, and contrasts so strongly with the prodigal magnificence visible everywhere in the interior. The Alhambra would be inexpressibly beautiful if it had been

THE ALHAMBRA.

set up in the Arabian desert, or the wastes of Siberia; but situated as it is in one of the most lovely spots on earth, it is as though the Moors had discovered Paradise and made it habitable. I am told that there is no time in the year when Granada is not beautiful; but beyond question the best time to be there is when the song of the nightingale and the fragrance of the orange blossom fill its groves with melody and sweetness: when the eye, penetrating the foliage of its elm-planted alameda, rests on the dazzling crest of Mulahacen with a sense of refreshment, to which the contrast of green leaves and summer snow lends an unwonted charm: when day is Elysium, and night a dream-land of romance, illumined by the warm beams of a southern moon: when the Alhambra assumes a garb of beauty to which, amid the glare of noon, its courts and bowers are strangers. At that hour, as Irving tells us, “Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and weather-stain, disappears. The marble resumes its original whiteness: the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams: the halls are illumined with a softened radiance, until the whole edifice reminds one of the enchanted palace of some Arabian tale.”

Another American author, G. P. Lathrop, has acknowledged the supreme spell of the Alhambra in a passage of remarkable descriptive power: “When the Madonna’s lamp shone bright amid the engulfing shadows of the Tower of Justice, while its upper half was cased in steely radiance, we passed in by Charles’s Palace, where the moon, shining through the roofless top, made a row of smaller moons in the circular upper windows of the dark gray wall. In the Court of the Pond a low, gourd-like umbellation at the north end sparkled in diamond lustre beneath the quivering rays; while the whole Tower of Comares behind it, repeated itself in the gray-green water at our feet, with a twinkle of stars around its reversed summit--the coldness of the moonlight on the soft, cream-coloured plaster in this warm, stilly air is peculiarly impressive. As for sound, absolutely none is heard but that of dripping water: nor did I ever walk through a profounder, more ghost-like silence than that which eddied in Lindaraxa’s garden around the fountain, as it mourned in silvery monotones of neglected grief. The moon-glare coming through the lonely arches shaped gleaming cuirasses on the ground, or struck the out-thrust branches of citron trees, and seemed to drip from them again in a dazzle of crystals.... From the Queen’s Peinador we saw long shadows from the towers thrown out over the sleeping city, which, far below, caked together its squares of hammered silver, dusked over by the deep gray of roofs that did not reflect the light. But within the Hall of Ambassadors reigned a gloom like that of the grave. Gleams of sharp radiance lay in the deep embrasures without penetrating; and at one, the intricacies of open work above the arch were mapped sharp figures of light on a space of jet-black floor. Another was filled nearly to the top by the blue, weirdly-luminous image of a mountain across the valley. Through all these openings I thought the spirit of the departed would find entrance as easily as the footless night breeze. I wonder if the people who lived in this labyrinth of art ever smiled? In the palpitating dark, robed men and veiled women seemed to steal by with a rustle no louder than that of their actual movement in life: silk hangings hung floating from the walls: scented lamps shed their

beams at moments through the obscurity, and I saw the gleam of enamelled swords, the shine of bronze candlesticks, the blur of coloured vases in the corners: the _kasidas_, of which poetry-loving monarchs turned the pages. But in such a place I could not imagine laughter. I felt inclined to prostrate myself in the darkness before I knew not what power of bygone, yet ever present things--a half-tangible essence that expressed only the solemnity of life and the presentiment of change.”

It were endless to describe all the various courts, balconies, galleries, and baths contained within the circuit of the Alhambra. The Mosque alone, with its exquisite niche where the Koran is deposited, would long detain an archæologist. Yet that is but one Mosque; there are the remains of three others to be seen. There are the ruins of the house of the Cadi, the Water-tower, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of the Candil, a dozen other towers besides the house of Mondejar--what is left of it--the military quarters, the gardens, the promenades, the--but the list is endless, the sights are inexhaustible. One may live in the Alhambra itself, as Washington Irving lived, and echo his plaint, “Oh, that I had seen the Alhambra!”

In ancient times there was direct communication between the Alhambra and the Generaliffe, the summer palace of the Moorish sovereigns, by the Iron Door, and a narrow path running in front of it between two rows of red walls. An exquisitely-carved door, inlaid with Dutch tiles, in the lower garden of this place of recreation, leads into it. The Generaliffe was built by order of Prince Omar, and the word has been interpreted as meaning “Recreation, or Pleasure House,” and truly a more delicious and charming spot, or one with more splendid views, cannot be conceived. It is a small, white villa, with a terrace of gardens stretching from the top of the mountain to the walls of the house, which is encircled by thickets of laurel and myrtle. Flowers and myrtles, arbours and high espaliers, surmounted by arches, abound on every side, and the ears are soothed by the murmur of a hundred springs and brooklets which gurgle and bubble amid the greenery and sparkle in every open space. The noise of the distant city floats upwards with the sound of a soft hum, and the air is laden with the perfume of roses and orange blossoms.

The Cathedral of Granada is a splendid pile, but I did not inspect it during my visit. There is a Cathedral in every Spanish city one enters, but there is only one Alhambra in the world. Yet here are the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, here is the casket in which Isabella sent her jewels to the pawnbroker--the jewels that were disposed of in order to furnish Christopher Columbus with the money for the arming of the ships in which he sailed to discover the New World.

Close to the Cathedral there is a bazaar, Arabian in form and appearance, which was re-decorated in 1844 owing to the fire which occurred there the previous year. It is said that Alcaiceria signifies the house or place of Cæsar; and, according to Marmol, it is the place where public and private merchandise was stored according to the custom in Eastern towns. Before the fire this Alcaiceria preserved all its old characteristics, and was a great deal narrower than it is now, the shops being so small that the shopman had to get on the counter or outside it, as there was no room behind it. At

present the Arab decoration is too artificial, and a strange incongruousness exists between the beautiful Arab columns and the angular horse-shoe arches covered with show-bills and notices advertising various articles and professional services of all kinds.

To the visitor to Spain, who has already seen Seville and Toledo and Cuenca, the city of Granada is not greatly impressive, or even deliberately interesting. The older streets are tortuous, narrow and noisy; but the modern part is as regular and unimaginative as only a modern city can be, with wide thoroughfares, spacious squares, and excellent pavements. This monotony is broken by the famous _Alameda_, which, with its rows of immense trees whose foliage meets and interlaces overhead, its handsome fountains, its garden filled with roses, myrtle and jessamine, and its glimpses of the snowy Sierra Nevada from amid the tropical vegetation, makes it one of the finest and most picturesque promenades in Spain. During the daytime the Alameda is deserted, but in the evening it is crowded with a laughing, bustling multitude; and, in the habit of keeping late hours, the people of Granada are every bit as fashionable as those of Madrid or Seville. Beggars there are--and where are they not in this land of mendicancy?--ordinary beggars and gipsies--the most persistent and irrepressible of beggars.

Where do they all come from, these hungry-looking, scowling, emaciated men and women, and these wretched, withered, whining children? From the _Albaycin_, the gipsy quarters on the face of the hill. The road is steep, and the streets are narrow, the houses dilapidated and unsavoury. The higher one climbs, the more miserable become the houses, the more wretched and ragged the people that sleep in the doorways or shuffle about the streets. Yet this is the Belgravia of the _Albaycin_. Further still, and the path grows so rugged and narrow, so full of boulders and holes, that it seems more like a cutting made by a mountain torrent than a street, and the dwellings are no better than hovels. We are miles from Spain, in an African village, and an evil specimen at that. The buildings are so many ruins with tiny doors--you pass through the doorway and find yourself in the court-yard of an Arabian house, surrounded by graceful, slender columns, surmounted by very light arches, and bearing those indescribable traceries which are the glory and the bewilderment of the Alhambra. One gazes from the bits of arabesqued walls to the morose wrinkled faces; from the delicate columns to the rags that serve to but half-clothe the women, and one’s mind refuses, or is incapable of reconciling these incongruities. The conditions of the houses and the people continue to grow more malodorous and repulsive as one proceeds; but if the visitor has a mind (and stomach) for high-class slumming, there is yet more to see.

For beyond the residential area, where hovels serve as dwelling-places, we come to the district of the cave-dwellers. The caves are dug in the earth in the side of the hills; caves

with a mud wall in front, with holes to admit the light, and cracks to serve as a means of ingress and exit for the people. They are mere dens, fit only for wild beasts; and the gitanos that swarm in them are little better than savages. Their numbers are unobtainable; their laws, if they have any, are unknown to the statute of any country. No one shall say how they exist,

or what they exist upon. The police dare not penetrate their fastnesses; the tax-collector never troubles them; nor doctor nor priest visits them. “Manners none, customs nasty” is the only description that can be applied to them. One reaches the gates of the gipsy quarter, but few people have any desire to go further. No sooner is the intruder espied from afar than the whole mountain-side vomits forth its pack of beggars--men, women and children--the blind, the lame and the halt, the diseased and the decrepit, all filthy, and all shouting for alms, and thrusting out their hungry palms. It is not dignified, I admit, but, in the circumstances, it is advisable to button up your dignity, with your other valuables, and take to your heels. Take the advice that Jack Bunsby gave to Captain Cuttle, when he was in his matrimonial fix, and bolt.

It is told of one of the gitani, to whom a man child was born, that he brought the baby to a priest in Granada, and asked that it might be christened. The old padre was delighted to find such a sign of awakening to moral consciousness in one of the outlawed people, and willingly acquiesced.

“And what do you wish to call your son?” he asked.

“Tiger!” promptly responded the proud father.

“Tiger?” protested the priest. “But you cannot name a child after a wild beast.”

“That is his name,” persisted the father. “The Pope, he is called lion (Leo), my son shall be tiger.”

And “Tiger” he was duly christened.

Seville.

There is an old German saying: “_Wein Gott lieb hat, dem giebt er ein Haus in Sevilla_,” which may be translated, “He whom God loves has a house in Seville.” Truly, there are few fairer, gayer, and more wholly desirable places of abode in Europe. It is at once a seaport town, situated on the banks of the Guadalquiver (“the great river”), fifty-four miles from the sea, and the centre of an exuberantly fertile district which produces olives, grapes, oranges, cork, and grain in perfection. The Sevillians proudly call their country “La Tierra de Maria Santisima,” of which Byron wrote:

“ ...All sunny land
Of love! When I forget you, may I fail
To--say my prayers!”

The sunshine reflected from the walls and the houses darts through the labyrinth of narrow streets, peers into fairy-like _patios_, and floods the orange trees, palms, and acacias that grow in every open space and square of the city. Here is all gaiety, and mirth, and roses which blossom all the year round in a climate which is claimed to be one of the most delightful in Europe. And the sun is in the blood of the people. They pursue pleasure as the serious business of life; bustle, love, and laughter fill their days and nights, and the air is ever abuz with soft sounds. I suppose that the English temperament, which is more like that of the Catalonians, would in time grow weary of the buoyant, light-hearted Andalusian nature, and the English resident in Seville would find himself complaining that he had

“ ... breathed too long awhile,
Soft airs and perfumes, listened to soft sounds,
And journeyed in soft paths beneath soft skies.”

But my visits to Seville have never been so far protracted as to afford me the opportunity of putting this surmise to the test. My impressions of the city are snapshots rather than etchings; they are slightly blurred and indistinct, but wholly delightful to reflect upon. Seville, like Venice and Rome, is a place that one goes to with one’s mind full of preconceived notions--unconsciously primed for disappointment and the disillusionment of reality. Yet I have never met anyone who confessed to being disappointed with Seville. After the modernity of Madrid, the prosperous and business-like alertness of Barcelona, and the sombre mediævalism of Toledo, the exhilarating sense of enjoyment that permeates the air of this “all sunny land of love” inspires one with a sympathy that makes the criticisms of the Madrileños seem as ill-natured slanders. Are these bright, laughing people, these spruce, graceful men, and entrancing women, vain, false, changeable, and given to gossip? Perish the thought! True, that is the opinion held in the capital; the Sevillians only half resenting the allegations, which they ascribe to jealousy. And their criticisms of the bodies, minds, and manners of the Madrileños are unprintable. In Madrid you hear, “The Sevillians! Ah, they can do nothing but make love!” And in Seville they declare that the Madrileños can make nothing--but mistakes.

But whatever the shortcomings of Seville may be, no town in the south of Spain receives more visitors. All sorts of people go there, with all sorts of motives. The artist goes to fill his portfolio with the picturesque forms and showy costumes of Majo and Maja. The lover of painting makes a pilgrimage there to see Murillo in all his glory. The seasons of the Church--Christmas, Holy Week, and Easter--attract thousands from

devotion or curiosity, the religious ceremonies of the place being of peculiar interest, and unrivalled, except in Rome. And not even in the Eternal City itself shall you see boys dancing before the high altar. This curious survival of a very ancient custom takes place at the festival of Corpus Christi--the _corps de ballet_, if one may so term it without offence, consisting of two rows of boys, from eight to ten years old, dressed like Spanish cavaliers of the mediæval age, with plumed hats and

white stockings. The dance they execute to the low music of violins is simple, dignified, and exceedingly graceful. When they break out all together into a lovely and harmonious chant, the effect upon the spectator is electrical; and even the use of the castanets does not rob the ceremony of its impressiveness. I am told that some two hundred years ago an Archbishop of Seville desired to suppress this dance, and the tumult that ensued among the people and the canons of the cathedral echoed even to Rome. The Pope was naturally curious to see the dance, and the boys were taken to Rome to dance and sing before his holiness. The Pope laughed, and did not express any disapproval; but, wishing to satisfy the canons without displeasing the Archbishop, decreed that the boys should dance until the clothes they had on were worn out, after which the ceremony might be considered as abolished. In two centuries these clothes are still in a state of excellent repair; and as only one part of the boys’ costumes are renewed at a time, they bid fair to last for ever.

Seville, which is always gay, and Spanish, and fascinating to the receptive visitor, is at its best at this festival of Corpus Christi. For days beforehand preparations are in progress, streets are swept, awnings are put up over all the streets and squares along which the procession is to pass, flowers are banked to make a background, chairs are placed in every available corner, and in the cathedral the columns are draped in gorgeous velvet cloths. On the day itself, thousands flock into Seville from the country and the neighbouring towns. The procession itself would appear a poor and ineffective spectacle to people who saw Alfonso XIII. ride from the Palacio Real to the Plaza de Toros in May last year, or Edward VII. pass from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace. But the line of route is a sight to remember. Along it, on either side, one can observe the Andalusians in all their glory. As a beauty show, it is a display that in my experience has no equal. Every window and every balcony contains a picture of feminine loveliness. Every individual beauty composing it is a subject for the painter’s brush. Hardly less attractive is the sight of the soldiers lining the route, either on foot or mounted on Andalusian steeds, proud and graceful

as their riders, and beautiful as the señoritas, who gaze upon them with their big, black, lustrous eyes.

The streets of Seville, in comparison with those of Toledo or Córdova, are almost modern and relatively spacious. The most interesting of them all is the _Calle de Sierpes_, which no wagon is allowed to enter, and which is lined with cafés, clubhouses, and splendid shops. Many of the latter are semi-Moorish, and although you do not see a turbanned Mohammedan squatting in a small booth open to the street, you do see no end of shops which are practically in the street, the whole front wall (consisting of doors) being removed in the daytime. I have wandered for hours through the dazzling white streets, sniffing the diffused odour of oranges, and watching the handsome and picturesque peasantry as they revel through life. To the Englishman, no city in Spain presents more novel sights and historic contrasts. Having been successively a Phœnician, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Moorish, and Catholic city, it preserves traces and monuments of almost all these dynasties. At the suberb, Italica, the birthplace of three Roman emperors, the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre, with its various subterranean divisions for the gladiators and the wild beasts that appeared therein, may still be seen. Seville itself is Moorish in the arrangement of the streets and houses, and the Alcázar is the best preserved specimen of Moorish architecture in Spain. Adjoining it is the Christian Cathedral. In the streets the mediæval donkey grazes the modern tram-car. At the hotel sits an Englishman in a Moorish _patio_ reading the latest number of the _Times_.

These Moorish _patios_ are, of all the sights in Seville, the most interesting. One finds them at Malaga and Granada, at Córdova and Toledo, but one must come to Seville to see these pleasant courtyards at their best. Here are _patios_ of all sizes and grades of splendour, but always _patios_. In the finest of these square courtyards the floor is of marble, and the walls are inlaid with elegant mosaic. In the centre is a flower plot, or a fountain surrounded with flowers or statuary. Marble columns on each side support the inside projection of the upper story, which is sometimes provided with windows, while the _patio_ itself is open above to the sky at night, and covered during the daytime with an awning. To me these sweet shady spots were a source of increasing delight. Anything more exquisite after its kind--more perfectly ordered, delicately arranged, and beautifully kept up, than the court of a Sevillian gentleman’s residence, I have never seen; and the poorer classes follow suit with marvellous success and unanimity. There is no great outer door, as at Toledo, but cunningly-wrought and fairy-like iron gates, which only serve to set off an enticing picture of marble pavement, colonnade, and fountain, in a framing of palmitos, bananas, and lemon-trees, with here and there a coquettishly-perched cage of singing birds. The temptation to pry into these dainty interiors was irresistible.

I confess that I had been two days in Seville before I explored the cathedral. For one thing, there was so much to see all around that I had no temptation to make a definite excursion to any particular point of interest; and as somebody once remarked about a five-act tragedy, it was so easy not to go to the cathedral. Moreover, I had seen cathedrals in every town

that I had visited in Spain, and I was surfeited of them. I had stood in admiration before the magnificent pile, and gazed in wonderment at the famous rose-coloured Giralda; but it was not until the third day of my visit that I determined to “do” the cathedral. It has been said “there is not a more solemn

and beautiful temple in the world than the great cathedral at Seville.” It is so grand and solemn as to strike the visitor with amazement and awe. From the gay, colour-slashed streets of the city to the grand interior is but a step, but the effect is overwhelming. The sudden transition from the dazzling sunshine of the outer air produces a sensation of darkness; all is confused and indistinct; while the eye, instinctively seeking relief, looks upward to the clerestory, where, through the small windows, a feeble ray of daylight comes struggling in. By degrees, the magnificent proportions of the building reveal themselves, and their majestic grandeur almost oppresses the mind. Even Furguson allows Seville Cathedral to be “so grand, so spacious, and so richly furnished that it is impossible to criticise when the result is so splendid and imposing.” How, indeed, can one criticise a building whose decorations consist of paintings by Murillo, Juan Valdes Leal, Morales, Zurburan, Roelas, and Vargas, sculptures by Montanes and Alonso Cano, and whose painted glass, wood-carving, and embroidery, mural decoration, and metal work are the finest examples of the finest date in every branch of each art?

“The first view of the interior,” says Lomas, “is one of the supreme moments of a life-time. The glory and majesty of it are almost terrible. No other building, surely, is so fortunate as this in what may be called its presence. Nave, side aisles, and lateral chapels, all of singularly happy proportions, a vista of massive and yet graceful columns, a rightly dim religious light, gloriously rich stained glass, and an all-prevailing notion of venerable age--such is the sum of one’s first impressions.”

Gautier’s and De Amicis’ comparison of the interior of the mosque at Córdova to a marble forest, is in reality much more applicable to the interior of the Seville Cathedral. As one writer has said: “Vast height, dim light, gloom, and awe are

GARDENS OF THE ALCÁZAR.]

the characteristics of a forest primeval; and all these, absent in Córdova, are to be found in the Cathedral of Seville. But if this cathedral be compared to a petrified forest, it must be to a forest of giant trees. There is something supremely massive, colossal, mammoth, in the huge, high pillars of this building--something which makes one wonder, as do the Pyramids of Egypt, that human might should have sufficed to place these monstrous stones in an upright position, and in symmetrical rows. The Córdovan pillars are mere walking sticks in comparison, and the ceiling which they support only one quarter as high as that in the Seville Cathedral, which is the largest--and its tower the highest--in Spain. So vast is its interior space that, notwithstanding its ninety-three windows, a dim, mysterious twilight pervades every part all day long.” Yet, although Seville is the warmest and sunniest place in Spain, and this cathedral its coolest spot, the flock of worshippers is very small indeed. The number of priests who officiate at the thirty chapels and eighty-two altars, have been reduced from 133 to 100; but it seems as if to-day one quarter that number would suffice for all needful purposes.

The Alcázar, built on the ruins of the Roman Prætorium, was, in the design of its creators, the principal feature in the scheme of the city’s fortification. It was also the palace of the Moorish Kings, and is to-day the residence of the Spanish sovereign; but the exterior, with its masses of bare masonry and its embattled towers, still preserves the character of a mediæval castle. The Alcázar is in an excellent state of preservation, and its charms are bewildering; while its associations with the crisores and amours of three races of kings lend it an historic interest. The ornamentation of the rooms is superbly beautiful, and the variety of designs and colours, the gold and the gems, with which the walls are decorated, produce in the brain a feeling of tiredness and confusion. All that is marvellous in complicated design, all that is rich and exquisite in tone and material, all that genius and workmanship is capable of, has been enlisted in the beautifying of this palace of delight. One gazes from the friezes to the fairy-like columns, from the capricious arches to the bejewelled ceilings, from the secret doors to the lovely little windows, and in the mysterious gloom one feels again the thrill of exaltation and amazement that only love, or wine, or the spectacle of the sublime and the mysterious can beget. The Alcázar, taken in conjunction with its history, is a dose of artistic and imaginative intoxication that no living soul shall resist.

Seville is instinct of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Here is the house in which he lived, and the house in which he died: here in the picture gallery are over a score of his paintings, and here are the originals of the beggar-boys, which are admitted to be beyond praise. Here, too, in the centre of the _Plaza del Museo_, is the statue of the painter that was erected in 1866.

A STREET IN SEVILLE.]

Everybody who visits Seville goes to the _La Fabrica de Tabacos_; and travellers who delight in the picturesque should not omit to make a call at _El Corral del Conde_, where the washerwomen follow their avocation. The crowd, the clatter of female tongues, the groupings, the attitudes, the draperies, and the babble of children, make up a scene which would move Mr. Beerbohm Tree to enthusiasm. The tobacco factory is, of course, an institution, and the women employed there are made famous by the opera of “Carmen.” The building is an enormous quadrangular edifice, and has 28 interior _patios_; and some 5,000 women and girls are engaged in the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes. The stories of the beauty and diablerie of these ladies that had been told me were strangely conflicting. From some I had gathered that they were a collection of alluring sultanas; while others had described them as plain, coarse, and unattractive. But I found them to be very much as I expected. They were not all Carmens, but the majority of them were something more than interesting, and many were downright beautiful. The architecture of the building makes accommodation for the workers in three vast rooms, and each room is sub-divided into three by three rows of pilasters. The girls work in dishabille, and silence is _not_ imposed. In order to obtain the maximum measure of freedom, they discard their finery, which is suspended on the walls, and forms an amazing mass of black and red, slashed with vivid streaks of white, purple, and yellow. A fancy dress warehouse could not present a braver display of colour, nor a _corps de ballet_ at rehearsal a sartorial exhibition of more engaging scantiness. The whole place is alive with colours and with sound. There is no noise but a kind of incessant buzzing. If these girls were English, their voices would produce a clatter; but the soft, singing accents of Andalusia, even when several hundred girls are talking altogether, sound harmonious and soothing. The amount of pay earned varies according to the capacity and industry of the workers, and the majority appear to be both busy and skilful. Some there are that look dull and sleepy; others, as we enter, are asleep with their heads pillowed on their arms, that are crossed on the table, but they are wakened by a nudge or a whisper; and even the most absorbed labourer finds time to give us a glance as we pass. It is said that the morality of the tobacco workers is a trifle loose--babies are numerous in _la Fabrica de Tabacos_. A friend who was with me remarked their presence to the manager: “There would seem to be more babies here than married women,” he said. “It is possible,” was the reply, “some married women are blessed with more than one.” We looked at our guide with questioning eyes, but he did not so much as smile.

Immediately around Seville are green gardens and vineyards, and olive and orange orchards, and beyond them the level, marshy country with grass in plenty, in which are bred flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and horses, and mosquitoes of singular malignity. No trees arrest the eye, nothing but green, flat plains, traversed by roads bordered by hedgerows of prickly pear surmounted with their yellow flowers--substantial, business-like hedges that do not require the artificial embellishment of barbed wire or spikes to make them deadly to would-be trespassers. Such hedges would keep out an army--unless of course it be an army composed of beggars, whom no fortification, natural or created,

A SEVILLIAN.]

would keep out. There are beggars everywhere; sick beggars, and sorry beggars, sad beggars, smiling beggars, blind beggars, beastly beggars, old beggars, and baby beggars. There is no escaping them. They follow you along the roads, crawl out in front of you from the hedges, cluster around you if you stop to take a momentary observation. _Toujours_ beggars! You drive up to your hotel--there is a small crowd of them awaiting you. If you hesitate a moment in handing the fare to the driver, they hem you in on every side, whining for “Señor, una limosnita por el amor de Diós” (“A little alms, sir, for the love of God”). A tiny boy of some seven summers explains with dignity that he is not begging for himself--he would scorn to beg for himself--but it is for the little señorita, and he points to a tiny girl of four who looks pleading up at you out of great eyes. A blind man at your elbow commences to scrape out the ghost of a tune on a wretched fiddle, and a filthy segment of humanity thrusts the stump of an amputated arm before your face. It is horrible to the visitor; it is equally repulsive to the Spaniard. The Englishman feels sick and angry: the Spaniard feels sick and sorry. The former bolts into the shelter of his hotel with a malediction between his teeth, the latter thrusts his hand into his pocket instinctively and gives.

A large number of the beggars are children, who are brought up to mendicity as a profession, and they never desert it. They beg, as do their similars in Naples, in Constantinople, or in Colombo, for their fathers and mothers and for the love of God. They are so importunate, so bright, and, in many cases, so pretty that they reap a living wage even from the British visitors. One gets to love these Spanish children--it is impossible to resist them. Their childish dignity and politeness, and their eagerness to be of assistance if the opportunity presents itself, is delightful. I remember well a little chap we encountered at the railway station at Chinchilla, where, for reasons best known to the railway officials, we had to change trains in the middle of the night. He fastened on to us directly we dismounted from the train, and desired to be made of some service. He followed us into the waiting room, and suggested that we should commission him to notify us when our train was due. We charged him with this mission, and so great was his zeal in the discharge of it that he had us out again upon the platform, where we stood, exposed to the rain and the cold night air, for a quarter of an hour before the train arrived. He was very pleased with himself; and when, after bundling our traps into a compartment, he was rewarded with a whole peseta, his gratification was unbounded. He bit the piece between his teeth, and then, approaching a porter who stood near with a lamp in one hand and an open umbrella in the other, he got him to cast the light of his lantern upon it. Then he took another bite at the coin--bad money is not so rare in Spain as it is in this country--and came back to us, and his face was one expansive smile. He climbed up to the carriage window, as we supposed, with Feste’s importunation in his mind: “But that it would be double dealing, sir, I would you could make it another.” But he had only come to place himself at our entire disposal. Were we wanting anything, he would fetch it; did we wish to send letters, or telegrams, or messages, he would carry them. I sent him to get me another pillow, and on his return gave him half a peseta. His delight was humorous. He desired that God would treat me according to my great deservings, that my journey would be a safe and comfortable one, and that my days might be many. The bow he gave me as the train steamed out of the station was quite worth one and a-half pesetas.

Spanish trains are invariably slow, and, as often as not, they are overcrowded. For some reason or other, which I have failed to plomb, the so-called fast trains travel at night, and the times are so arranged that one generally has to leave a place and arrive at one’s destination at about two o’clock in the morning. The Spaniard is a lover of the night, not from poetical or sentimental motives, but because it is only before sun-up and after sun-down that one gets a sufficiency of the much-longed-for shade. Shade is to the Spaniard what gold is to the Jew, or English origin is to the American. Hence the Spaniard rises early and gets through as much work as he can before the heat of the day sets in; hence, also, he makes his siesta as long as he can; and, consequently, he is able and ready to pursue his business or his pleasure far into the night. It is in the cool of the evening in Seville that one sees the promenades full, the highways alive with splendid Andalusian horses--when one sees in one week of evenings more feminine beauty than can be seen anywhere else in a month.

But to return to the railways, and the subject brings to mind the reflections and the prophecy indulged in by Ford when the undertaking was in contemplation:--“Certainly if the rail can be laid down in Spain by the gold and science of England, the gift like that of steam will be worthy of the Ocean’s Queen, and one of the world’s real leaders of civilisation: and what a change will then come over the spirit of the Peninsula! how the siestas of torpid man vegetation will be disturbed by the shrill whistle and panting snort of the monster engine! how the seals of this long, hermetically-shut-up land will be broken! how the cloistered obscure and dreams of treasures in Heaven will be enlightened by the flashing fire-demon of the wide-awake money worshipper! what owls will be vexed, what bats disost, what drones, mules, and asses will be scared, run over and annihilated! Those who love Spain, and pray, like the author, daily for her prosperity, must indeed hope to see this ‘network of rails’ concluded, but will take special care

HALL OF AMBASSADORS, ALCÁZAR.]

at the same time not to invest one farthing in the imposing speculation.”

Richard Ford, who wrote the foregoing in 1846, was not far out in his calculations. Although the network of rails is not yet complete, the railroad now connects most of the principal cities of Spain, and its introduction has been a blessing to the country. But its cost has been enormous. French capital has been, for the most part, sunk in the venture; and those who followed Ford’s advice, with respect to investing their money in it, have little to complain of. The speed, which seldom exceeds twenty miles an hour, and averages not more than ten miles, is regulated by law, and the management of the entire system might with advantage be reorganised. But the delays at junction stations, the slowness of the pace, and the other inconveniences, which the traveller accustomed to British or American railroads finds so great a trial on his patience, are not necessarily the result of bad management. They are rather the effects of a combination of natural causes and temperamental prejudices. The danger incurred by the starting of rails exposed to the full heat of the sun on sandy plains and the menace of mountain torrents govern, to an extent, the regulation as to speed. Moreover, this is always to be borne in mind, that the railways are primarily for the convenience of the Spanish people, and the Spaniards are never in a hurry. But that there is not a little red-tape about the whole thing cannot be denied.

A short time ago I was travelling from Valencia to Barcelona by the East Coast Railway. Rain had been falling for a week, and some doubt was expressed as to the train being able to complete the journey. Time was precious just then, and the only alternative route was _via_ Madrid, which would be very much the same as going from London to Hull _via_ Cardiff. “We may be delayed,” my companion admitted, “I was twenty-four hours late on the same journey once before, but we shall get through. We will start, in any case--at the worst it is only an excursion.” So we started, and the rain continued. We were within sight of Murviedro, or Saguntum as it was known by the Romans, when the train stopped, and we were informed that something had happened to the line just ahead of us. Further information told of a rushing torrent which had carried away a seven-arch bridge, and that further progress was impossible. Then a German commercial traveller, who was in our carriage, published his opinion aloud upon the railway system, the officials, and everything connected with “this damned country.” He compared Spain with Germany, and his eloquence was up to the high water mark of his indignation. He damned everything in English, and the bridge in particular. He said that in Germany they would have ferried the passengers over the stream, placed them in another train which would have been awaiting on the other side, and not lost more than an hour by the accident.

As our wait was likely to be somewhat lengthy, we decided to walk along the rails and inspect the scene of the breakdown for ourselves, and our German critic was surprised to find that the “stream” he had wished to be ferried over was a mad, boiling torrent in which no boat--not even a boat “made in Germany”--could have lived for thirty seconds. We wandered back and interviewed the engine-driver, the guard, and the other train officials. We were all agreed that the only thing to be done was for the train to return to Valencia. But the engine-driver would not act without instructions--on that point he was adamant. He wired to Barcelona, and he wired also to Madrid, explaining the situation, and requesting permission to return the way he had come. After four hours’ delay the necessary orders arrived, and we looked for an immediate start on the backward

THE DAWN OF ST. JOHN’S DAY IN ZARAGOZA.]

journey. But this the officials could not think of. We could not return in that slapdash fashion--we were the 8.30 from Valencia to Barcelona, and if we went bundling back into Valencia like an old tramp steamer that had sprung a leak, the entire railway system of the country would be thrown into confusion. The point was debated warmly, but without haste; and, eventually, the engine-driver, who had been consulting his time-table, discovered that if we waited a further couple of hours we should be able to re-enter Valencia with our dignity unimpaired as the 4.47 from Barcelona. Which we did, and nobody but the German appeared to see anything foolish or unmethodical in this solution of the difficulty. “You do not find the arrangement incongruous?” asked my companion, for the German was still swearing. I smiled. “For three months I was a season ticket holder on a certain South of England railway,” I explained.