O How Pleasant It Is, Especially In Springtide, To Stray Along The
Shores Of The Guadalquivir.
Not far from the city, down the river,
lies a grove called Las Delicias, or the Delights.
It consists of
trees of various kinds, but more especially of poplars and elms,
and is traversed by long shady walks. This grove is the favourite
promenade of the Sevillians, and there one occasionally sees
assembled whatever the town produces of beauty or gallantry. There
wander the black-eyed Andalusian dames and damsels, clad in their
graceful silken mantillas; and there gallops the Andalusian
cavalier, on his long-tailed thick-maned steed of Moorish ancestry.
As the sun is descending, it is enchanting to glance back from this
place in the direction of the city; the prospect is inexpressibly
beautiful. Yonder in the distance, high and enormous, stands the
Golden Tower, now used as a toll-house, but the principal bulwark
of the city in the time of the Moors. It stands on the shore of
the river, like a giant keeping watch, and is the first edifice
which attracts the eye of the voyager as he moves up the stream to
Seville. On the other side, opposite the tower, stands the noble
Augustine convent, the ornament of the faubourg of Triana, whilst
between the two edifices rolls the broad Guadalquivir, bearing on
its bosom a flotilla of barks from Catalonia and Valencia. Farther
up is seen the bridge of boats which traverses the water. The
principal object of this prospect, however, is the Golden Tower,
where the beams of the setting sun seem to be concentrated as in a
focus, so that it appears built of pure gold, and probably from
that circumstance received the name which it now bears.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 671 of 809
Words from 184180 to 184473
of 222596
