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:

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

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 Phoenician, 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

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.

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

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

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.

But if the railway system of Spain has its drawbacks, it is the embodiment of luxury and speed compared with the old-fashioned posting facilities for those who are in a hurry. If time is no object, and the weather is fine, there is no pleasanter way of seeing the country. The engine is of course driving the mule team further and further from the large cities, but the delights of posting are not yet banished from the Peninsula. In the northern provinces posting is still very general, and in many parts it is excellent. The oaths of the drivers would, doubtless, shock the unaccustomed ear that was sufficiently versed in the jargon of the road to understand it, but the pace leaves nothing to be desired. The Spaniard is a born muleteer; and, as I have invariably found him, a good fellow. His vocabulary of objurations is varied and peculiar, and he keeps it in first-class working order by continual practice. The customs of the road are like the laws of the Medes and Persians in their unalterableness. You may improve the diligence off the road, but while it remains on it, it cannot be improved. A French minister described the stage as a “clumsy, inconvenient carriage drawn by mules which have no other spur or rein than the voice of their guides. On seeing them harnessed together and to the shafts merely by cords, and observing them traversing as it were at random the winding and sometimes unfrequented roads of the Peninsula, the traveller at first conceives himself as deriving all his dependence for safety from the care and kindness of Providence: but on the slightest appearance of danger, a simple and short exclamation from the mayoral restrains and directs these tractable animals.”

The foregoing, which might have been written yesterday, was, as a matter of fact, indicted a hundred years ago. It is evident that the worthy French minister did not understand the purport of those “simple and short” exclamations, and I am inclined to think, from his remarks upon the tractability of the animals, that he must have been asleep when the start was made. For the mules appear to entertain a rooted and conscientious objection to starting, and the scene is diverting. All the skill and patience and language of the mayoral, and the united efforts of ostlers, helpers, and all the hangers-on of a posthouse are required to persuade them to take the first step. For several minutes one’s ears are assailed with a perfect tornado of shouts, and orders, imprecations, and deprecations; which, beginning with “Anda!” (Go) “Anda!” “Anda!” invariably end, when breath and patience are exhausted, in an abbreviated form of “Da! Da! Da!” and then, after a good deal of kicking, the team starts suddenly across the road or over a heap of stones, with an occasional leg over the traces, at a pace that threatens to bring the carriage and its cargo to inevitable grief. Only a Spanish muleteer could bring this riotous team into order, and pilot

them with such patience until they drop into a more moderate pace. Ford has described those exciting starts, and the motion of the “dilly,” as away it goes, “pitching over ruts deep as routing prejudices, with its pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea.”

It goes without saying that the observant Ford did not fail to note the vituperative supremacy of the Spanish muleteer. “Their language,” he tells us, “is limited only by the extent of their anatomical, geographical, astronomical, and religious knowledge: it is so plentifully bestowed on their animals—‘un muletier a ce jeu vaut trois rois’—that oaths and imprecations seem to be considered as the only language a mute creation can comprehend: and as actions are generally suited to the words, the combination is remarkably effective.... The Spanish oath is used as a verb, as a substantive, as an adjective, just as it suits the grammar or the wrath of the utterer.” But why, the reader may ask, does the mayoral swear to this degree, or with this fluency? Unless it is a part of his habit, I cannot answer. It is told that a traveller once asked the same question, and received a similar reply. The mayoral had uttered an oath of such peculiar force and aptness that a fellow traveller remarked upon it with good humoured appreciation: “That’s one on the devil!” “But why?” queried the seeker for information, “why does he swear so?” The Spaniard stared in astonishment. “Because he is the mayoral!” was all he said.