And this farewell took place exactly this day twelve months ago.
The coach which bore away the old lady who rejoiced in the euphonious cognomen of Donna Dominga de Lucena y Colmenar de Orieja, and her daughter the pretty Paulina, was a genuine old Castilian contrivance of the true caravan species; and, though still in use, in this our age of luxury and invention, had been constructed, perhaps, before folding steps were conceived; for a three-legged stool, to facilitate ingress and egress, hung near the door. The roof was shaped like the crust of an apple-pie, and the lower carriage, like that portion of a triumphal car. It was drawn by a pair of fat sleek mules, which seemed to have grown old with the vehicle, and with Pedrillo, the little postilion, who floundered away on a demi-pique saddle, with a gigantic cocked hat surmounting his dark visage; and his lean spindle legs lost in two gigantic jack-boots, which belonged to the beforesaid saddle rather than to his own person.
Such was the antediluvian vehicle which bore away the pompous old Donna and her daughter the charming Paulina, who, for the past month (during which she had resided in Gibraltar), had turned all the heads of "Ours;" and was boasted by the Spaniards as the fairest belle in las Cuatros Reinos--yes in the three mighty little kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, which are now conglomerated into the beautiful province of Andalusia.
And so, without other escort than the redoubtable Pedrillo, who wore a trabujo or blunderbuss slung across his back, and strong in their belief in the virtues of the Santa Faz of Jaen, a picture of which was hung in the back of their coach, these two Spanish ladies, on the conclusion of their visit, departed on their return to Seville, their native city; and from the British fortifications, which frown in solid tiers towards the Spanish lines, I watched the venerable carrozzo as it rolled across the low sandy Isthmus, which is known as the neutral ground; and it disappeared just as the sun began to fade upon the beautiful masses of the Serrania de Rondo, which rose in piles against the golden clouds, and as the evening gun pealed like thunder among the Moorish peaks of Jebel Tarik; and then I turned away with a sigh as I thought of the winning smile I should never see again.