I
Repeated Latin Verses And Fragments Of Old Spanish Ballads Till We
Reached Seville, At About Nine O'clock Of A Lovely Moonlight Night.
Seville contains ninety thousand inhabitants, and is situated on
the eastern bank of the Guadalquivir, about eighteen leagues from
Its mouth; it is surrounded with high Moorish walls, in a good
state of preservation, and built of such durable materials that it
is probable they will for many centuries still bid defiance to the
encroachments of time. The most remarkable edifices are the
cathedral and Alcazar, or palace of the Moorish kings; the tower of
the former, called La Giralda, belongs to the period of the Moors,
and formed part of the grand mosque of Seville: it is computed to
be one hundred ells in height, and is ascended not by stairs or
ladders but by a vaulted pathway, in the manner of an inclined
plane: this path is by no means steep, so that a cavalier might
ride up to the top, a feat which Ferdinand the Seventh is said to
have accomplished. The view from the summit is very extensive, and
on a fine clear day the mountain ridge, called the Sierra de Ronda,
may be discovered, though upwards of twenty leagues distant. The
cathedral itself is a noble Gothic structure, reputed the finest of
the kind in Spain. In the chapels allotted to the various saints
are some of the most magnificent paintings which Spanish art has
produced; indeed the Cathedral of Seville is at the present time
far more rich in splendid paintings than at any former period;
possessing many very recently removed from some of the suppressed
convents, particularly from the Capuchin and San Francisco.
No one should visit Seville without paying particular attention to
the Alcazar, that splendid specimen of Moorish architecture. It
contains many magnificent halls, particularly that of the
ambassadors, so called, which is in every respect more magnificent
than the one of the same name within the Alhambra of Granada. This
palace was a favourite residence of Peter the Cruel, who carefully
repaired it without altering its Moorish character and appearance.
It probably remains in much the same state as at the time of his
death.
On the right side of the river is a large suburb, called Triana,
communicating with Seville by means of a bridge of boats; for there
is no permanent bridge across the Guadalquivir, owing to the
violent inundations to which it is subject. This suburb is
inhabited by the dregs of the populace, and abounds with Gitanos or
Gypsies. About a league and a half to the north-west stands the
village of Santo Ponce: at the foot and on the side of some
elevated ground higher up are to be seen vestiges of ruined walls
and edifices, which once formed part of Italica, the birth-place of
Silius Italicus and Trajan, from which latter personage Triana
derives its name.
One fine morning I walked thither, and having ascended the hill, I
directed my course northward. I soon reached what had once been
bagnios, and a little farther on, in a kind of valley between two
gentle declivities, the amphitheatre. This latter object is by far
the most considerable relic of ancient Italica; it is oval in its
form, with two gateways fronting the east and west.
On all sides are to be seen the time-worn broken granite benches,
from whence myriads of human beings once gazed down on the area
below, where the gladiator shouted, and the lion and the leopard
yelled: all around, beneath these flights of benches, are vaulted
excavations from whence the combatants, part human part bestial,
darted forth by their several doors. I spent many hours in this
singular place, forcing my way through the wild fennel and
brushwood into the caverns, now the haunts of adders and other
reptiles, whose hissings I heard. Having sated my curiosity, I
left the ruins, and returning by another way, reached a place where
lay the carcass of a horse half devoured; upon it, with lustrous
eyes, stood an enormous vulture, who, as I approached, slowly
soared aloft till he alighted on the eastern gate of the
amphitheatre, from whence he uttered a hoarse cry, as if in anger
that I had disturbed him from his feast of carrion.
Gomez had not hitherto paid a visit to Seville: when I arrived he
was said to be in the neighbourhood of Ronda. The city was under
watch and ward: several gates had been blocked up with masonry,
trenches dug, and redoubts erected, but I am convinced that the
place would not have held out six hours against a resolute attack.
Gomez had proved himself to be a most extraordinary man, and with
his small army of Aragonese and Basques had, within the last four
months, made the tour of Spain. He had very frequently been hemmed
in by forces three times the number of his own, in places whence
escape appeared impossible, but he had always battled his enemies,
whom he seemed to laugh at. The most absurd accounts of victories
gained over him were continually issuing from the press at Seville;
amongst others, it was stated that his army had been utterly
defeated, himself killed, and that twelve hundred prisoners were on
their way to Saville. I saw these prisoners: instead of twelve
hundred desperadoes, they consisted of about twenty poor lame
ragged wretches, many of them boys from fourteen to sixteen years
of age. They were evidently camp followers, who, unable to keep up
with the army, had been picked up straggling in the plains and
amongst the hills.
It subsequently appeared that no battle had occurred, and that the
death of Gomez was a fiction. The grand defect of Gomez consisted
in not knowing how to take advantage of circumstances: after
defeating Lopez, he might have marched to Madrid and proclaimed Don
Carlos there, and after sacking Cordova he might have captured
Seville.
There were several booksellers' shops at Seville, in two of which I
found copies of the New Testament in Spanish, which had been
obtained from Gibraltar about two years before, since which time
six copies had been sold in one shop and four in the other.
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