VIII
After Our Visits To The Mosque And The Bridge And The Museum There
Remained Nothing Of Our Forenoon, And We Gave The Whole Of The Earlier
Afternoon To An Excursion Which Strangers Are Expected To Make Into The
First Climb Of Hills To The Eastward Of The City.
The road which reaches
the Huerto de los Arcos is rather smoother for driving than the streets
of Cordova, but the rain had made it heavy, and we were glad of our good
horses and their owner's mercy to them.
He stopped so often to breathe
them when the ascent began that we had abundant time to note the
features of the wayside; the many villas, piously named for saints, set
on the incline, and orcharded about with orange trees, in the beginning
of that measureless forest of olives which has no limit but the horizon.
From the gate to the villa which we had come to see it was a stiff
ascent by terraced beds of roses, zinneas, and purple salvia beside
walls heavy with jasmine and trumpet creepers, in full bloom, and orange
trees, fruiting and flowering in their desultory way. Before the villa
we were to see a fountain much favored by our guide who had a passion
for the jets that played ball with themselves as long as the gardener
let him turn the water on, and watched with joy to see how high the
balls would go before slipping back. The fountain was in a grotto-like
nook, where benches of cement decked with scallop shells were set round
a basin with the figures of two small boys in it bestriding that of a
lamb, all employed in letting the water dribble from their mouths.
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