Southern Spain Part 3

the "Angel de la Guarda" and "St. Dorothy" of Murillo, the "Death of a Saint" by Zurbaran, and the superb crucifix of Montanez. A "Conception"

by Murillo is in the Chapter House, a splendid hall in the Renaissance style.

In the great Sacristy is preserved the "treasury" of the Cathedral. It includes a wonderful monstrance by that prince of goldsmiths, Juan de Arfe; and something more interesting in the shape of keys presented to St. Ferdinand on the surrender of the city. The key presented by the Jews is iron-gilt and bears the inscription in Hebrew: "The King of Kings will open, the King of all earth will enter." The key offered by the Moors is silver-gilt, and the Arabic inscription reads: "May Allah render eternal the dominion of Islam in this city."

Attached to many (if not to all) Spanish cathedrals, one finds large chapels which are the official parish churches of the cities--the parochial clergy being distinct from the diocesan chapter. At Seville, as at Granada, this chapel is called the "Sagrario," and is built at the west end of the Patio de los Naranjos and entered from a door in the north aisle of the Cathedral, near the Capilla del Bautisterio. Built between 1618 and 1662 by Miguel Zumarraga and Fernando de Iglesias, the church is in the Baroque style, and roofed with a single and very daring arch. The rich statues that adorn the interior are by Dayne and Jose de Arce. There is a notable retablo by Pedro Roldan that came from a Franciscan convent now suppressed. In one of the side chapels is a fine "Virgin" by Montanez. Beneath this church the Archbishops of Seville are now buried.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--PATIO DE LOS NARANJOS]

As we emerge from this vast temple, we remain for a few seconds dazzled by the sunlight. Then as we turn to the left we notice a rectangular, cla.s.sic-looking building, standing between the Cathedral and the walls of the Alcazar. This is one of the numerous deserted Lonjas or Exchanges of Spain. The Patio de los Naranjos was formerly infested by the merchants and brokers of the city, to the great scandal of the devout.

Archbishop de Rojas prevailed upon Philip II. to erect an Exchange or Casa de Contratacion, as Sir Thomas Gresham had just done in London. The building was begun in 1598, at precisely the moment when the commerce of Seville began to decline. It reflects the spirit of Philip II. and of his architect, Herrera--stern, sober, simple. There is a fine inner court, with Doric and Ionic columns. Here the South American archives are deposited, a rich mine for some future historian who shall have the patience to examine them. As an exchange, the Lonja soon proved a failure. It was early deserted by business men, and is best remembered as the seat of Murillo's Academy of Painters.

The s.p.a.cious days of Charles V. and Philip II. were productive of innumerable public buildings, mostly in a quasi-Roman style and all very pompous and oppressive. The Town-hall or Ayuntamiento of Seville is an extremely ornate structure, in what is called the plateresque or Spanish Renaissance style. It stands in the Plaza de la Const.i.tucion, where the electric cars perform intricate evolutions. Its effect is lost through its being placed on the ground level, without terrace, steps, or approach, or even railings to prevent inquisitive urchins staring in at the windows. The building is long and remarkably narrow, and of two storeys. I have seldom seen a public building more elaborately adorned or more badly placed. The interior is more satisfactory. The lower council chamber is a magnificent hall, worthy, as a Spanish writer remarks, of the Senate of a great republic. A n.o.ble staircase, with a fine ceiling, leads to the upper council chamber, which has some splendid artesonado work. Opposite--that is, on the east side of--this building is the Audiencia or Court-house, where I whiled away a hot afternoon by a.s.sisting at a Spanish trial. The case was of no particular interest, but the differences in the procedure and const.i.tution of the court from our own were worth noting. There were three judges, who wore black silk gowns, without wigs or bands. Over their heads was the arms of Spain, and on the desk, facing the president, a large crucifix. The jury sat on chairs on each side of the judges. A desk was reserved for the public prosecutor, another for the prisoner's advocate. The judges took far less part in the proceedings than they do in France. The case seemed to be left entirely to the public prosecutor, who, it is just to say, allowed the accused to make long rambling statements, without the least attempt to interrupt or confuse him. The public at the rear of the court appeared to take far more interest in the proceedings than any immediately concerned in them.

The Plaza de la Const.i.tucion, outside the court, is the place of execution. But the death penalty is very rarely inflicted in Spain. Two or three years ago the Crown could find no pretext for pardoning two particularly atrocious murderers, who were accordingly put to death by the garrote in this square. The people of Seville, not being accustomed like the more enlightened Britons to some two dozen executions a year, showed their sense of the awful occurrence and of the disgrace to their city by donning the deepest mourning.

But the stranger does not come to Seville to visit courts or to hear about public executions--unless these happened two or three centuries ago, when as Sir W. S. Gilbert somewhere observes, they are looked at through the glamour of romance. The searcher for the beautiful is usually rewarded here by finding it in unexpected corners of the monotonous labyrinth of lanes and alleys. Plunging into the maze of white-walled dwellings in the north-eastern quarter of the city, a minaret only less beautiful than the Giralda seems to beckon us from afar. It appears and reappears, and we lose our way a dozen times before we stand at its foot. It is a beautiful tower in the purest Almohade or Mauritanian style, without any features borrowed from Christian architecture. The highest edifice, this, in Seville, except the Giralda.

From its summit Cervantes used to scan the streets below, at certain hours of the day, for the form of a local beauty of whom he was enamoured. Here, of course, stood a mosque in Mussulman days, on the site of the adjacent church of San Marcos. The portal is very fine, but the Moorish features are the work of Mudejar and not Almohade artisans.

We wander on, and are presently surprised by the superb frontal of the convent church of Santa Paula. It is faced with white and blue azulejos, the work of Francesco of Pisa and Pedro Millan. Over the arch are disposed seven medallions ill.u.s.trating the birth of Christ and the life of St. Paul, the figures white on a blue ground. On the tympanum of the arch is displayed the Spanish coat of arms in white marble, flanked by the escutcheons of the inevitable and ubiquitous Ferdinand and Isabella.

Having seen this, it is hardly worth our while to enter the church, which contains the tombs of the founders, Dom Joao de Henriquez, Constable of Portugal, and his wife Donha Isabel. In the same quarter of the city, though some distance away, is a monument of some interest--the church of Omnium Sanctorum, built in 1356 on the site of a Roman temple. Here again there is a tower graceful enough, in its lower storey recalling the Giralda. The church exhibits a rather happy combination of the Moorish and Gothic styles. On one of the doors is the coat of arms of Portugal, commemorating the pious generosity of Diniz, king of that country. This must have belonged to the earlier structure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--PLAZA DE SAN FERNANDO]

Finding your way back to the Sierpes, you may inspect the interesting Church of the University. Here repose the members of the ill.u.s.trious Ribera family, which looms very large in the history of Seville. Their remains were brought hither on the suppression of the Cartuja, outside the town. The oldest tomb is that of the eldest Ribera, who died in 1423, aged 105. He thus lived through the reigns of Alfonso XI., Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., Enrique III., and Juan II., yet, as is usually the case with centenarians, he failed to engrave his name as deeply on history as did some of his shorter lived descendants.

The famous Duke of Alcala, the owner of the Casa de Pilatos, is commemorated by a fine bronze effigy--one of the few sepulchral monuments of this kind in Spain. At the feet of Don Lorenzo Figueroa a dog is sculptured, most probably the symbol of fidelity, but some say, his favourite. Over the altar are three good pictures by Roelas, one of the ablest interpreters of the Andalusian spirit. Here, too, are a couple of works by Alonso Cano, "St. John the Baptist" and "St. John the Divine." The statue of St. Ignatius Loyola by Montanez is said to be a faithful likeness of the saint. It was coloured by Pacheco the Inquisitor.

The adjacent University was originally a Jesuit college, and was built in the middle of the sixteenth century, after designs by Herrera. It is not very well attended to-day, and from the outside would be taken for an inconsiderable college. It seems to have been much more flourishing a hundred years ago, when our countryman Blanco White attended its courses. The original university was founded by Canon Rodrigo de Santuella in 1472, in the Colegio Maese Rodrigo, near the Cathedral.

From the last resting-place of the Riberas in the centre of the town it is not far to their old home, the Casa de Pilatos, though Daedalus himself might easily get lost in this labyrinth of streets resembling each other as closely as those of an American city. The names of some of these thoroughfares--Francos, Gallegos, Genoves--remind us of the days of St. Ferdinand, when the room of the banished Moors was filled by settlers, not only from all parts of Spain, but from the rest of Europe.

It was the same with all the towns resumed by the Spaniards. These foreign colonies had their own laws and customs, and yet they were entirely absorbed by the natives and left no trace or influence behind them. The Spaniards possessed, in those days at any rate, the same wonderful capacity for the absorption of other races displayed by the Anglo-Saxons in America. There was nothing new in this; for they had absorbed the Visigoths, just as they had absorbed the Romans before them. The Castilian tongue is indeed Latin, but I fancy that the people of Spain are as much the children of the soil--_autochthones_--as the Athenians themselves.

Reflections like these--which I do not expect will profoundly influence ethnologists--occupied me as I pursued my tortuous course to the Casa de Pilatos. When I at last found it, I was struck by the plain and dignified exterior. To the left of the door I observed a plain cross of jasper. The story goes that in October, 1521, the Marquis de Tarifa, on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, placed this cross against the wall and counted thence the fourteen stations of the Cross, according to their order in the Holy City. The last fortuitously coincided with the Cruz del Campo, raised near the Canos de Carmona in 1482. I doubt if the marquis had any such thought when he raised this jasper cross, for the distance from the Praetorium at Jerusalem to the chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that marks the site of Calvary is greatly less than the distance between the two points mentioned here in Seville. But why the house was called after Pilate is not easy to determine. It was begun in 1500 and finished thirty-three years after by Don Per Afan de Ribera, first Duke of Alcala, and sometime Viceroy of Naples. This great n.o.bleman was the Maecenas of his generation. Not only did he enrich his house with priceless works of art and a fine library--since removed to Madrid--but he made it the rendezvous of all the art and talent of Andalusia. Hither came Gongora, the poet, to converse, it is said, with Cervantes. Here Pacheco, the artist-inquisitor, discussed the mission of art with Herrera. Here came Rioja, Cespedes, Jauregui, and others of less note. The example set by the Medici was followed by many of the great grandees of Spain at this time. The Velascos presided over a coterie of literati at Burgos; the Duke of Villahermosa, at Zaragoza, affected to delight in the company of the brilliant and learned. Even so small a place as Plasencia had its own patron of the arts in Don Luis de Avila, and in Madrid there was "the feast of reason and the flow of soul" at the mansion of Don Antonio Perez. But for all its a.s.sociations, like the Alcazar, the Casa de Pilatos remains very much like a museum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--CASA DE PILATOS]

The building ill.u.s.trates the fashion of the Mudejar and Renaissance styles, almost to the effacement of the former. In the architecture of this epoch we usually find an Arabic groundwork nearly concealed by ornament of the newer style. The geometrical designs remain, but the flowing inscriptions, so important a feature of Moorish decoration, have gone. A thousand details would show the veriest tyro that this was not the work of Moors, yet the central court bears a general resemblance to the Alcazar. Pedro de Madrazo directs attention to the harmonious variety of the arches and windows, and compares it to the admired disorder of the forest and plantation. I imagine the architect had the Court of the Lions, at Granada, in his mind. Here dolphins uphold the upper basin of the fountain, and n.o.ble statues of the deities of Greece and Rome--the gift of Pope Pius V.--stand in the angles of the court. Hence you pa.s.s into the so-called Praetorium, with its splendid coffered ceiling and beautiful tiling, where you may distinguish the Spanish azulejos of the best moulds by the designs stamped on them of fanciful monsters, grotesques, and escutcheons. Then there is the superb staircase with its "half-orange" ceiling, and the chapel with its mixed Gothic and Mudejar features. What grandee in Europe has a finer home than this? And yet, I am told the owner, His Grace of Medinaceli, comes here but seldom.

There are many old mansions in Seville worth a walk on a cool day--and a glimpse. They are not great sights, such as those we have already seen in the city, or such as are more numerous in Paris and Rome, Brussels and Venice. But those visitors who are really interested in Seville, and are capable of appreciating Moorish and plateresque art in their various imitations and combinations, will enjoy these little excursions. There is an interesting old house at No. 6, Abades. It is now a boarding-house, and you may live there in princely fashion for six francs a day. No one knows how old it is. It belonged at the beginning of the fifteenth century to a family of Genoese merchants called Pinelo.

In 1407 the Infante Fadrique, uncle of Juan II., lodged there. What was the occasion of his visit to Seville I forget. Afterwards it became the property of the "abbes" or "abades" of the Cathedral. Many of these reverend gentlemen still patronize the establishment, and may be seen puffing their "Puros" in the court, which is said to be a fine example of the Sevillian Renaissance style. That style I conceive to have been compounded of all pre-existing styles. Digby Wyatt, however, considered the house to be much more Italian than Spanish. It is a vast place, where dark corridors seem to lead indefinitely into s.p.a.ce.

There is rather less to reward your curiosity at the Palacio de las Duenas, a vast mansion belonging to the Duke of Alba. Once it boasted eleven "patios," with nine fountains and one hundred columns of marble.

A fine court, surrounded by a graceful arcade, remains. The staircase recalls that of the Casa de Pilatos. Our countryman Lord Holland stayed here a hundred years ago. He was a great admirer of Spanish literature at a time when it was hardly as much a matter of interest to foreigners as it is at present.

Then there is the Casa de Bustos Tavera, where, according to Lope de Vega, Sancho the Brave used to visit the "Star of Seville"; and the Casa Olea, in the Calle Guzman el Bueno, with a hall of Mudejar workmanship dating from the days of Don Pedro.

It is the romantic aspect of Seville that has impressed some visitors much more than its historical or archaeological side. Over the poets and dramatists of the Romantic school the city exercised a strange fascination. Byron and Alfred de Musset found the atmosphere of the place most congenial. Through their rose-coloured spectacles every girl they met in these narrow white streets seemed "preternaturally pretty."

The princ.i.p.al business of the inhabitants in the 'twenties and 'thirties of last century, to judge by the French poet's descriptions, was love-making, strumming the guitar, and duelling. That Spain was ever a romantic country in the vulgarly accepted sense of the term, I doubt.

Roman Catholic customs and inst.i.tutions forbid that free intermingling of the s.e.xes from which result the thousand and one emotions, complications, situations, and catastrophes that are the ingredients of romance. In countries like Spain, where the canon law obtained, there could be, for instance, no runaway matches, no desperate flights in a post-chaise to a church (say) over the Portuguese border, with an irate father in pursuit. There could not have been, and cannot be at the present time, any walks with the beloved down the moonlit grove, any trysts by the stile or the ruined keep, any rendezvous among the rose-bushes. If a Spanish girl did any of these things, she would indeed, in French parlance, have thrown her cap over the mill. The affair would no longer have the complexion of a romance but of a sordid intrigue. This being so, I was delighted to hear that occasionally clandestine marriages are resorted to in Spain, and that fond lovers find a means of uniting in defiance of stern parents, even in Andalusia.

The couple, accompanied by a few friends, contrive to sit next to each other in church, as far out of sight of the rest of the worshippers as possible. Their troths are plighted in an undertone just loud enough for the witnesses to hear, the ring slipped on under cover of the mantilla, and the hands joined at the precise moment the all-unconscious celebrant turns towards the congregation at the end of the ma.s.s and p.r.o.nounces the benediction. In the eyes of the Church the two are married as irrevocably as if the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Toledo had performed the ceremony. The vows have been exchanged before witnesses in a sacred edifice, and an anointed priest has simultaneously blessed the contracting parties from the altar. What can parents do? The Don may rage, the Dona may upbraid, but when the Church makes itself an accomplice of lovers, even in Spain the law must acquiesce. And there is no divorce!

That genuine romance tinges the lives of Spanish men and women, few who know them can doubt. But the Andalusia of musical comedy, the creation of which is largely due to the poets of the Romantic school, does not exist. Seville never was a glorified Cremorne; and persons of a Byronic turn would find adventures suitable to their mood more readily by the banks of the Thames and the Hudson than by those of the Guadalquivir.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--CASA DE PILATOS]

For all that, some romantic stories are told about old Seville, and one of these has some foundation of truth. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the city re-echoed with reports of the wild and desperate doings of a certain wealthy gallant, Don Miguel de Marana by name. By some he is called De Manara. Marriage with the heiress of the Mendoza family did not sober him, though an alliance with so solemn a thing as money generally brings the most hot-headed Latin youth to his senses. Like many other wicked persons, our gallant had a nice taste in art, and is said to have encouraged Murillo. Now comes the remarkable and the improving part of the story. It is not safe to vouch for the accuracy of the details of any part of it. One morning Seville woke up to find--no doubt to her unspeakable consolation--the wicked De Marana a changed man. He became a saint--an ascetic in the seventeenth-century acceptation of the word. The wine-bibber forswore even chocolate as too strong a beverage.

What had happened to produce so edifying a change? Accounts vary. The most picturesque explanation is that the Don, prowling about the streets one night, perceived a funeral procession approaching. Curiosity impelled him to look at the face of the corpse, which was uncovered, and lo! it was his own.

If you doubt the sincerity of Don Miguel's conversion, you have only to visit the Church of La Caridad, which, together with the adjoining hospital, he founded and wherein he was buried. I do not think you will share the opinion of Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell that this is the most elegant church in Seville, but you will be rewarded for the visit by seeing some very remarkable works of art. Near the entrance are the two extraordinary pictures which proclaim the artist, Valdes Leal, to have been a master of realism. One of these exhibits a corpse at which, Murillo declared, you must look with your nostrils shut. The church contains six canvases by Murillo himself--"Moses Striking the Rock,"

"The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," "The Charity of St. Juan de Dios," "The Annunciation," "The Infant Jesus," and "St. John." The third is really the finest of these pictures, though the first, commonly called "La Sed" (Thirst), is the most generally preferred. The figures are, as usual in this master's compositions, ordinary Seville types.

Over the altar is another great work, "The Descent from the Cross," by Pedro Roldan.

The "Caridad" has indeed the most important collection of pictures in southern Spain, next to the Museo, as the old Convent of La Merced is now called. There, of course, some of the greatest works of art by Spanish masters are to be seen. There you may see the "St. Thomas of Villanueva" giving alms, Murillo's favourite picture; his beautiful "St. Felix of Cantalicio," and "St. Leander and St. Buenaventura," and his famous "Virgen de la Servilleta" which was _not_ painted on a serviette. On the south wall hangs his "Saints Justa and Rufina"

(holding the Giralda), exquisitely coloured, and on the north wall the admirable "St. Anthony de Padua." But one grows a little weary of Murillo in Seville. Zurbaran, the great painter of monks, is well represented by the wonderful "St. Hugh in the Refectory," and "Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas." This last picture, I am told, was carried off by Soult, and recovered by Wellington at Waterloo. The older Herrera's "St. Hermenegild" is good, but by no means Andalusian. The native temper finds more truthful expression in the works of Roelas, Valdes Leal, Cespedes and Frutet, which may be studied to the best advantage here. Curiously enough, the gallery contains not a single work by Velazquez, who was born in Seville; nor any paintings by Alonso Cano or Luis de Vargas. Spanish sculpture, of which one sees so little, is not unworthily represented by a beautiful St. Bruno by Montanez, and by some busts and crucifixes of less importance. The students of Andalusian art must also visit the Hospital de la Sangre, near the Macarena Gate, for some splendid works by Zurbaran and by his less-known forerunner Roelas. The three pictures ascribed to the last named are, however, very awkwardly placed and difficult to see.

Murillo's house is still standing in the Plaza de Alfaro in the old Ghetto. Here he died on April 3, 1682, after his fall from the scaffolding at Cadiz. His studio is shown filled with several undoubted works of his brush. The house belongs to the executors of the late Dean Cepero.

The Duke de Montpensier has a fine collection of pictures at his ugly Palace of St. Telmo, near the Torre del Oro. Among them is included a sketch by our late Queen, when she was still a princess. The palace looks on a parade which is much resorted to by the Sevillanos in the summer months. Here you see the boys playing at the inevitable bull-fight. One who takes the part of toro has a real bull's horns with which he "gores" his comrades with great ferocity. The insistence on this brutal "sport" among the Andalusians has taken the form of acute monomania. Exasperated strangers have been heard to declare that in southern Spain you hear of but two things--Toros y Moros. In another corner of the promenade, you will come upon a party of little girls going through the peculiar and stately dances, or rather measures, of their country, to the accompaniment of a low chant and a clapping of hands, in which the boys, looking on from a distance, will join. Boys and girls, unless they are quite babies, are seldom seen together. You pa.s.s on and find a group of citizens seated at the little tables round a kiosk, refreshing themselves with lemonade and being entertained by a conjuror--a fine-looking man--who sends round the hat after every two or three tricks. In the ordinary way you are asked for alms more often than in Granada, but not, of course, to anything like the same extent as in London. English travellers are given to commenting on the mendicity in foreign cities, but I must confess that nowhere have I met with so many beggars as in our own capital. In Spain the fraternity chiefly haunt the steps of churches, the one spot in our happy country that they seem to avoid.

We reach the beginning of the Delicias Gardens, which extend two or three miles southward along the river bank. All the rank and fashion of Seville--and a great deal besides--turns out in summer evenings to drive in the Delicias. The concourse of vehicles is immense, but reminded me rather of the return from the Derby than of Rotten Row. The great ambition of the Spaniard is to possess a conveyance, and he seems to care little how dilapidated or ancient it may be, so long as it goes on wheels. Side by side with the handsome equipages of the Sevillian aristocracy, you will see a wretched Rosinante painfully dragging what I took to be the original "one-hoss shay," or the carriage in which Lord Ferrers was driven to the scaffold. It is impossible to restrain a smile, but after all a conveyance is a real necessity in a climate like this, and if a man cannot afford a good carriage, he must needs put up with a bad one. The traffic is well regulated by mounted police. The foot-paths are also crowded, and when night falls, everyone adjourns to the numerous open-air cafes and kiosks to drink light beer and lemonade.

Sober, steady Spain! How certain of our reformers at home would love you, if they but knew you! Where in the world (except in the East) are men more abstemious or women more staid and demure?

If you wish (as of course, being a modern traveller, you are sure to do) to study the life of the people, you had better betake yourself to the other end of the city--to the Alameda de Hercules, so called after two columns which the natives believe were presented by that muscular demiG.o.d. Here a perpetual fair seems in progress. There are the usual booths, with fat ladies, boneless wonders, and dwarfs, and more questionable exhibitions. On a platform sat three depressed and underfed wretches, who, I thought, were to be immediately garrotted. Suddenly one sprang up and gave a very clever rendering of the arrival and departure of a train at a country station. He was vociferously applauded, and, thus encouraged, danced a sort of "cellar-flap" with great animation to the indispensable accompaniment of hand-clapping. In a popular a.s.sembly of Andalusian town and country folk, the modern observer ought, I am well aware, to find many extraordinary and significant phases of humanity, exhibiting the striking individuality of the people, their race-consciousness, their psychological import, their evolutional significance, and so forth. I blush to confess that in the crowds applauding the ventriloquist or gaping at the fat lady, I saw only a collection of good-humoured ordinary people, enjoying themselves much after the fashion of ordinary people in England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--GARDEN OF THE CASA DE PILATOS]

Perhaps the Sevillano is more his real self on these occasions than when disporting himself at the world-famous fair, which begins on the Monday after Easter and attracts strangers from all parts of Europe. Though a somewhat overrated festival, I think it more distinctive and original in certain of its aspects than the gorgeous religious ceremonies by which it is preceded. The wealthier families of Seville rig up for themselves on the fair-ground "casetas," or temporary residences of wood or canvas, with two or more apartments. A great deal of expense is lavished on the upholstering and decoration of these pavilions, and those of the four princ.i.p.al clubs are fitted up in the most luxurious fashion. In the evening the _jeunesse doree_ of the city drive out to the fair in smart traps drawn by dashing little horses with jangling little bells, and visits are exchanged at the casetas, where as the evening becomes cooler, dancing takes place, to the sound of the piano, the guitar, and the castanet. The pretty senoritas of Seville have no objection to going through the graceful measures of the South in full view of an uninvited audience who crowd round the opening of the tent and from time to time give vent to admiring "Oles!" and bursts of hand-clapping. Dancing will be interrupted at 8.30, when everyone comes out to look at the firework display. Then of course there are the usual popular amus.e.m.e.nts--the inevitable bioscope, the gramophone, and all sorts of shows. Peasantry and aristocracy alike dress their very best on this occasion. The smartest toilettes and the most picturesque of native costumes are seen side by side, the latest confections of Worth and Paquin and costly heirlooms handed down from the days of Boabdil and Gonsalvo de Cordova.

Whether such an intermingling of all cla.s.ses, of the richest and the poorest, could take place with mutual enjoyment and comfort in any country but Spain, is a matter open to doubt.

The object of the fair is, I believe, the sale of cattle, and about eighty thousand beasts are to be seen on the Prado de San Sebastian. To say that the most sanguinary bull-fights complete the festivities is perhaps superfluous. The most skilful and renowned toreros are engaged on this occasion, and the arenas literally smoke with the blood of bulls and disembowelled horses. Smithfield and Deptford can show nothing in comparison.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEVILLE--THE MARKET PLACE]

The religious ceremonies, of which travellers talk so much, are not for the most part peculiar to Seville, as it ought to be unnecessary to remind them. The tableaux in the processions struck me as theatrical, but as being on the whole as well represented as similar show-pieces in our pageants. The famous Dance of the Seises is reserved for the octaves of the Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi. It has been described over and over again. There is nothing irreverent about the performance, which is in itself graceful and quaint; only carried out before the high altar it strikes one as rather meaningless. So, I suppose, most such functions impress those who are unprepared for them by temperament and education. There cannot be much doubt that the ceremony originated in an attempt to attract the unG.o.dly to church--an early and respectable precedent for the methods of the Salvation Army.

Others have it that the dance is a survival of some pagan ceremony--which will remind us that we have so far neglected the monuments of the Romans which were bequeathed to Seville. These are not very numerous or interesting. Only a fragment remains, at the north-east angle of the city, of the ma.s.sive wall which Caesar built, and which completely girdled Seville as late as the reign of Juan II. It was strengthened, tradition tells us, by 166 towers, which were freely used as prisons by later rulers. The Cordoba Gate marks the site of the dungeon of the canonized Hermenegild. Close to it is the Capuchin Convent, built upon the foundations of the palace of the Roman governor, Diogenia.n.u.s, and afterwards a.s.sociated with Murillo. A n.o.ble aqueduct built by the Romans, and known to-day as the Canos de Carmona, still brings water from Alcala de Guadaira to Seville. Everyone who visits Seville is expected to make an excursion to the ruins of Italica, a few miles on the other side of the Guadalquivir. There is remarkably little to see when you get there, and not much is known about the place. There were few, if any, private dwellings here, and it existed rather as the place of meeting and distributing centre for the colonists scattered over the district. It was indeed raised to the dignity of a munic.i.p.ality by Augustus, but pet.i.tioned to be restored to its old rank of a Roman colony. It did not prove unworthy of its connection with the great capital. Hence sprang the ill.u.s.trious line of the aelii, and many of the eminent Roman Spaniards who conferred such l.u.s.tre on the early empire are believed to have been natives. The town was embellished in those palmy days with temples, palaces, amphitheatres, and baths, quite out of proportion to its population.

Its downfall, like its earlier history, is mysterious. Here Leovigild placed his headquarters when besieging Seville. Then came the Arabs, who dismantled it and carried off columns and blocks of masonry on which are founded the Giralda and other important buildings in the neighbouring city. Italica disappeared from history; and all you can see of it to-day is a few remains of walls and earthbanks outlining the amphitheatre.

It might not be worth the journey were it not that it can be included in an excursion to the villages of Santi Ponce, Castilleja la Cuesta, and the Cartuja. The parish church of the first named wretched village is remarkable as the last resting-place of the ill.u.s.trious Guzman el Bueno, that Spaniard of the Roman mould who refused to save the life of his son at the cost of the fortress of Tarifa, which he held for his king. The hero's kneeling effigy dates, as the inscription beneath informs us, from the year 1609, the three hundredth anniversary of his death. The modern traveller, whose sympathies are usually more with the aesthetic than the heroic, will be more interested in the lifelike St. Jerome, one of the finest works of Montanez, to be seen over the high altar. The saint, regarding a crucifix devoutly, beats his breast with a stone. On either side are beautiful bas-reliefs of the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi.

The convent was inhabited first by the Cistercians, next by the Hermits of St. Jerome. It presents rather the appearance of a fortified abbey of the middle ages. The church is divided into two naves, each of which was a distinct church--one, I suspect, belonging to the monastery, the other to the parish; a not uncommon medieval arrangement. I almost forgot to add that it contains the ashes (literally) of Dona Urraca Osorio, a lady burnt to death, as I have said, by Pedro the Cruel.

At Castilleja la Cuesta--a village on the height--is the house where Hernando Cortes died in 1547. The house has been converted by the Duc de Montpensier into a sort of museum. The Conquistador's bones repose in the land which, with so much intrepidity and ruthlessness, he won for Spain.

The old Charterhouse or Cartuja is now occupied by the porcelain factory of Pickman & Co. It lies on the west bank of the Guadalquivir, a few minutes' walk from the railway bridge. It was founded in the first decade of the fifteenth century by Archbishop de Mena, and was the burial-place of the Riberas, till their remains were transferred to the University Church. There is little to see except some stalls carved, if I remember aright, by Duque Cornejo, in the little chapel.