"Such the ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain."
[We have already given one selection from Scott's "Through Spain." The work is so worthy that we feel impelled to offer other extracts from its well-filled pages. Seville, in many respects the most attractive city in Spain, offers a charm to the traveller which few can resist, while in respect to the treasure of Moorish architecture, possessed by many of the cities of Spain, it has to show its richly-decorated Alcazar, or citadel, its _Torre del Oro_, or Golden Tower, and its minaret, the Giralda, whose lofty summit looks down in pride upon the modern cathedral. But we must leave this story to our author's pen.]
Of all the cities of Spain, there is none that can compare in general attractiveness with the beautiful Andalusian capital. In the feudal towns of old Castile will be found much of interest to the student of history: in Madrid can be witnessed the pompous ceremonial of the court; Cordova has her mosque; Merida, her Roman, and Tarragona her Cyclopean, remains; Granada, her peerless Alhambra. But in Seville--inferior to none of these in the number and value of her antiquities--alone can be studied to advantage the singular manners of a society in some respects highly civilized yet in others manifesting unmistakable traces of barbarism, more noticeable here than in any other city of the kingdom.
It is a place of wonderful contrasts. On one side are stately avenues lined with magnificent palaces and gardens; on the other rise gloomy Moorish habitations, reached by winding passage-ways so narrow that an ordinary umbrella, when raised, will barely clear the walls. As in Oriental communities, the different sects are separated; the Jews are restricted to one quarter, the Moors to another, the gypsies to a third, and nowhere outside of Cairo and Damascus is exhibited such an array of outlandish costumes. In the surging crowds of the promenades the uniform of the soldier and the cowl of the friar are especially conspicuous, the one the sign of a jealous military despotism, the other the badge of an order fast passing away.
Seville has the first and grandest bull-fights of the season; her majos are the most extravagant in dress, her women the most witty and beautiful, her religious festivals the most expensive and splendid in the world. It is here, then, that we must look for the characteristic types of Andalusia, that favored land where the ancients placed their Elysian Fields and Garden of the Hesperides.