Along Spain's river of romance, the Guadalquivir : the lure of the real Spain in Andalucia--its personality, its people and its associations

Chapter I Page

My distinguished collaborators — Angel Pizarro — Tarshish of the Bible and Tartessus of the Latins — Jonah’s antipathetic personality — Andalucia the Holy Land — The ships of King Solomon — The aborigines — The Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, and Arab 1-15

Chapter II

Of rivers and their influence ethnological — The Guadalquivir is an African and not a European river — Andalucia divorced from Africa — Hence the Arabian love song — Peculiarities of the northern tributaries — Guadalquivir all that remains of an internal sea — Uncanny mad forces at work — The beginning of the pilgrimage — Where is the source of the Guadalquivir ? —

Yet to be discovered and authorised — Quesada and the Sierra de Cazorla — We are up early and make a start along the upper reaches — Some lazy reflections — A moving object and a surprise 16-33

Chapter III

A hillside cottage and its tragedy — Our prospects of a dinner brighten — A digression for after-dinner stories — The donkey, the students and the peasant — Manolito Gdzquez a type of the exaggerative Andaluz — The priest of Burunchel and the three questions— “ Gramdtica Parda” — An interruption of the feast . 34-52

Chapter IV

A small dose of geology — Products of the soil — An Andalucian gentleman — Admissions and apologies of a Philistine — Murillo and Veldsquez — Their friendship — Contrast between their char-

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VI

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acters — Murillo’s wider renown due to Soult and Napoleon — An old Andalucian kitchen — A bath to please a Sybarite — Pilgrimage to a hillside shrine 53-68

Chapter V

What the upper reaches are like — Roman mines and Publius Scipio’s defeat — There are many ways of sleeping out — Barbers — Burunchel, Bujaraiza, Mogon, Santo Tomd, and El Molar — Angel’s way with the women — Arriving in the dead of night — The Sereno fast asleep — Posadas — Wayside objects — The profusion of plants and fruits 69-79

Chapter VI

The Loma de Ubeda and its towns — Villacarrillo ; Ubeda and Baeza — A wayside halt and argument — Of rivers and ethnology — Prehistoric remains — The famous “Bat’s Cave” of Gongora — Dolmens and “Lovers’ Leaps” — Mr. Bonsor’s references to agricultural customs — Great differences between customs in various districts of the valley — The influence of Roman and other colonial powers — Exceptional local conditions have produced exceptional results — The marvellous work of the Roman — Special Roman settlements for patricians and plebeians ; Cordoba patrician — Andalucian art exquisite — Why it is so locally circumscribed — Sense of patriotism intensely localised — What one town says of another 80-103

Chapter VII

Torralbo, Villargardo, Menjibar, and Bailen — Bailen a famous battlefield— How Angel and I became cavaliers ; the Gitano, his Testament and his mules — What Angel did with the Testament — The superciliousness of mules 104-111

Chapter VIII

We enter Andfijar — The ancient Illiturgis — Nature of the town —

Its famous pottery — Water of many kinds — Sociological influences of water — Roman potteries all along the banks — Marmolejo ; its springs and amenities — A village school — And its schoolmaster — Where is London? — The schoolmaster’s history — A fine old Spanish house 112-130

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Chapter IX Page

Montoro and its pretty situation — Centre of the olive-oil traffic — Plenitude of fruits — Angel on the wearing of the capa — Whereby one may know the Spaniard and whether he comes from the Guadalquivir — The capa as an index to the Andalucian character— There are 33,944 different ways of wearing the capa — The reader is excused two or three of these — Roman toga to Sevillian capa — How to retreat strategically — How to quarrel successfully — The capa in self-defence — In making love — As a fire-escape 131-145

Chapter X

Bujalance — Another wayside halt, by a fountain — A muleteer and his beasts — Inequality of taxation is even extended to mules —

Of anachronisms — My uncle’s tale as a specimen — The face of the country affected by a chance of time — Final glimpse of the muleteer 146-154

Chapter XI

We lose ourselves and have to sleep at a farm — Approaching Cbrdoba — Expert boy brigands — What the Andalucian street arab is capable of — Cordoba’s glorious associations — Random historical notes — Of the ideal architect who despises lucre — Architecture and religion — The Mosque 155-172

Chapter XII

Religious intolerance a stimulus to Spanish-Arabic architecture — Theocracy versus aristocracy and the results — Abd-er- Rahman III. and Almansor — Fusion of Arab and Spaniard at one time possible — Made impossible by Roman Catholic intolerance — Development of Spanish-Arabic architecture — Great licence of alien workers — The Moor writing his thoughts in stone — Az- Zahra — Work of excavation — Valuable discoveries and their teaching — The three principal stages of Spanish-Arabic architecture— Other monuments in Cdrdoba .... 173-188

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Chapter XIII Page

First acquaintance with town products — Some different local types, mostly guapos — Ninos de la mena and the old majo — The sehorita flamenco — His habits, his beginning, and his ending 189-199

Chapter XIV

What is the significance of the guapo ? — Cervantes and his Sevillian bravos — Evolution of the guapo — The original bravo — Tricks of the modern guapo — How he lives — What it is that is obliterating him 200-210

Chapter XV

Leaving Cdrdoba, we pass through Almodovar, Posadas, and Palma — Navigation up to Cdrdoba — Oriental character of the river —

Halt by the wayside — Idle thoughts on country life — Exposure of De Quincey — Horribly selfish sybarite — Two peasant girls and a little folklore — How olives are gathered — Fernin Caballero and country life — Oases in the desert — There are yet things worth living for — Whence came the cowboy ? — Cervantes knew him — Bulls in private life 211-228

Chapter XVI

Stranded at Palma del Rio — Penalty is sleeping among goats — Are goats really devils? — Great projects for irrigation — Will they reach the bitter end? — To Ecija on a diligence — The blind guitarrist and the priest — The river Genii — The bandoleros —

Chapter XVII

From Ecija through La Luisiana to Carmona — Description of the Alcores — Method of Agriculture — Irrigation and the water problem — Character of the wayside — Spanish frogs are worse than gramophones — How the town builders came to the springs

CONTENTS ix

PAGE

— Carmona, derivation and history — Mr. G. Bonsor’s interesting discoveries — Fair-ground silos — A Carthaginian sepulchre — A Roman tomb — The Court of the Elephant . . . 237-251

Chapter XVIII

Of boleros , a product of Sevilla — The bolero not Arabic at all — The primitive bolero broke legs nightly — Visit to a house in Carmona — The guests and their amusements — Lights out — What ! no matches ? — After the ball is over 252-264

Chapter XIX

We approach Sevilla from Carmona — Might have come by Penaflor,

Lora del Rio, Alcolea del Rio, Cantillana, and AlcaM del Rio — Passing references to these — Sevilla, a name to conjure with —

Some account of the lady’s character — Some scraps of her traditions and history — What has she achieved ? — The Barbary pirates — Hern&n Cortes, a type — Views from the Giralda — Alcdzar and Torre del Oro — The tobacco factory — House of Pontius Pilate — A daydream of AlcalfC 265-291

Chapter XX

Nature^of.the lower river-bed — Effect of having no adequate scheme of irrigation — The agricultural labourer — Working-classes patient, clever, and industrious, if allowed their own methods — Legislative curses on the land — Domestic servants — The orange harvest — How to hound a man on to ruin .... 292-303

Chapter XXI

Literary associations of the Guadalquivir — How the banks of Guadalquivir lighted the world when it was dark — Arabian legends and poems — Some specimens — Cervantes and his long sojourn beside the: (Guadalquivir — His Novelas Ejemplares mostly Sevillian — Rinconete and Cortadillo — Gil Bias also much concerned with Sevilla — La ffarduna de Sevilla — Juan Valera — Ferndn Caballero — Many other lights of literature, ancient and modern . 304-322

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Chapter XXII Page

Gracia y guasa — Forms of humour peculiar to the district — Religious subjects not immune — The guasa as a cold douche — The comparsas and censorship by ridicule ..... 323-331

Chapter XXIII

The death-penalty in Andalucia — Pedro de Alarcdn and an execution— Dolce far niente — The “ Transport of Souls Special Service”— The Devil worried by statistics — Idle thoughts on a hilltop 332-340

Chapter XXIV

Adios, Sevilla ! — Mournful vista of the lower reaches near the estuary — Chipiona and a plausible legend — Horticulture demands sun and good earth or sun and wet earth, not all three — Some important details regarding the delta — The Tarshish of Scriptures located — The Marismas and delta described by Strabo — Adios,

Appendix 349

Index 352

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Guadalquivir.

The quay at Sevilla, showing Torre del Oro in foreground, and

Cathedral behind. ( Coloured 'plate ) .... Frontispiece

On the Highway. facing page

The clanging ox-cart, and its yoke of oxen who would walk

through a brick wall. ( Coloured plate) ..... 2

The Stirrup Cup.

Muleteers halting for wine at a wayside tavern or ventorrillo . 8

The Good Old Times.

“ Your swashbuckler just back from Mexico ” . . .16

On the Highway.

Andalucian road crossing a typical dry river-bed — not the

Guadalquivir 24

A Bull Fight.

The “ Suerte de Vara ” or lance play : torero in the distance advancing to effect a “ quite ” or drawing-off. ( Coloured plate) 32

A Spanish Diligence.

“ Hala, hala, Marota ! Arria, arm, Coronela ! ” . . .40

On the Highway.

A patrol of mounted Civil Guards. The dust here resembles three

inches of snow — distantly 48

On the Highway.

The ox-driver’s wand is visible behind, but the goad at the tip is

less noticeable 56

On the Highway.

Types sympathetic and otherwise. ( Coloured plate) ... 64

Soult’s Cavalry Plundering a Monastery.

“ No valuable plate, heirloom, or picture escaped them ’’

xi

ILLUSTRATIONS xi 1

A Water-Mill. pacing page

One of many old mills of Moorish origin on the Guadalquivir . 80

The Old-Fashioned Carriage.

Typical old Andalucian vehicle with large buggy wheels for traversing heavy roads. Seldom seen now except in country parts 88

On the Highway.

Two men discussing a thorny subject, and two asses thinking of

thistles. ( Coloured plate ) . . . . . . .96

A Melon Seller.

“ Puestos de Melones ” and stalls for selling sugar-cane, nuts, &c.,

are common in wayside villages 104

The Bridge of Andujar.

“ In 1809 Andtijar became the headquarters of Joseph Bonaparte

and Marshal Soult ” 112

On the Banks of Guadalquivir.

Waterworks are few, and when water will not come to the washing,

the washing must go to the water 120

La Guardia Civil.

First Citizen — “ Until to-morrow, if it be the will of God ! ”

Second Citizen — “ And of the Guardia Civil.’* ( Coloured plate) . 128

Muleteers.

Costume is of an older type which only lingers in a few country

places 136

On the Highway.

Alongside Guadalquivir. The modern muleteer wears a white

linen jacket . 144

Selling a Donkey.

It is only in the mouth that a gipsy cannot disguise a beast, and

even that he has attempted 152

The Guadalquivir.

At Cordoba, showing the long bridge and the ruined mills.

( Coloured plate) 160

Cordoba.

Interior vista in the Cathedral .168

CdRDOBA.

Typical cobbled street, alongside the Cathedral .

. 176

ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

The Gateway of Utreba, facing page

Typical of old Moorish approaches to Andalucian towns . .184

Types of the People.

Including the planchadora and the chulo. ( Coloured plate) . . 192

In Holiday Mood.

Dancing in the garden of a wayside ventorrillo .... 200 “ j Alto ! ”

To a runaway the Guardia Civil only give one warning, “ j Alto ! ”

If he fails to halt immediately, they open fire . . . 208

A Spanish Bull Fight.

Entrada de la cuadrilla (entry of the troop of toreadores headed

by two alguaciles in sixteenth-century costume) . . .216

To Test the Young Bulls.

“ A horseman with a blunt lance threatens them.” ( Coloured

plate) 224

Bringing in the Bulls.

“ He had to glance behind him now and then at the leading bulls,

to measure his distance ” 232

El Ganadero.

The drover or cattle minder of Andalucfa is the prototype of the

Texas cowboy 240

The Bull Fight.

Picador, or mounted lancer, charged and thrown by the bull . 248

The Favourite

of all chulas and gitanas , not excepting Carmen. ( Coloured plate) 256

Sevilla.

The Cathedral seen across the housetops 264

Fair Time in Sevilla.

Andalucian children in costume of the country going to the fair . 272 The Roll-Call.

The English “ pannier ” is related to the Latin “ pan is ” and the Spanish “ pan,” and here the baker is selling “ panecillos ”

or rolls from a “ pannier ” or bread-basket .... 280

Cavalry.

Not Carmen’s “ Dragones de Alcald,” but Lanceros. (Coloured

plate) 288

XIV

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Maker of Fritters. facing pagb

The bunolero uses a tin funnel to squirt out the annular fritter

which he fries in oil and in public 296

Winnowing.

The reaped corn is sometimes winnowed thus by hand, sometimes

by cattle on an “ era ” exposed to the wind .... 304

A Procession.

No village so poor as not to boast its procession at Corpus Christi 312

On the Highway.

Mule-carts and mule-drivers. ( Coloured plate) .... 320

A Dry River Bed.

Some of the swifter rivers near the Guadalquivir become dusty

commons or fair grounds for several months .... 332

On the Coast.

“ Jabegotes ” or Andalucian fishermen, not far from the delta,

pulling in the skin-floated nets as in Phoenician times • . 346

Chapter I

My distinguished collaborators — Angel Pizarro — Tarshish of the Bible and Tartessus of the Latins — Jonah’s antipathetic personality — Andalucia the Holy Land — The ships of King Solomon — The aborigines — The Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, and Arab.

A certain Spanish painter of little renown introduced one of his pictures to a somewhat critical duke, his patron, with the remark : 44 My assistant and I between us painted this picture.”

4 4 Which part,” asked the duke, 44 did you paint ? And which part is due to your assistant ? ”

44 If,” said the artist, 44 there be anything in it that you like, ’twas I who did it. The rest was done entirely by my assistant.”

Let me reverse the order of this apology and explain that, if there be anything in this random olla podrida description of the Guadalquivir 1 and its surroundings that you like, it is due entirely to my assistants. If there be anything in the book that is dry and prosy, skip it. Be sure that it is I.

Who were my assistants, you ask ? I set out one bright morning to explore the Guadalquivir from source

1 From the Arabic WM-el-Kivir, Great River, Rio Grande. In Spanish pronounced approximately Gwahd-a^-ke-veer with the emphasis on italicised syllables, especially on the last.

A to mouth escorted by the following cavaliers amongst others : —

Miguel Cervantes y Saavedra, believed by some to have largely asslsled Bacon in the writing of “ Don Quixote/'

Antonio de Trueba, who kept us lively with his amusing tales.

Ferrian Caballero, an Amazonian cavalier, more learned in Andalucian folk-lore than any one else in Christendom.

Don Emilio de la Cerda, that accomplished Malagueno, also learned in this wise.

VeUsquez, the artist and courtier, who cut a dashing figure with his slashed silk doublet, his ruff, and jewelled sword.

Murillo, who came along a wee bit slatternly, dreamily riding an ass beside the charger of Velasquez.

Manuel de Gongora y Martinez, a writer on prehistoric antiquities in Andalucia.1

Don Jorge Bonsor, who wrote more fully and exactly on the same subject.

Pedro Antonio de Alarcdn, who wrote the famous “ Three- Cornered Sombrero."

Alberto Martin, carrying a great copy of his own atlas.

Serafln Estebanez Calderdn, the most gifted of all Andaluces, since he nearly taught me how to dance a bolero and to wear a capa.

Jose M. de Pereda, who has written so much on Spanish country life.

I think you will acknowledge that the cavalcade was sufficiently imposing, and I really do not know

1 Andalucia. We had best grapple with this word and dispose of it at its very first appearance. The majority of authorities will tell you that it comes from “ Vandalucia,” and that it is practically the only trace that the Vandals left behind them. It breaks my heart to deprive the Vandals'even oT'ihis footprint, but I believe that Andalucia comes quite naturally from the Arabic Andalosh, “Land of the West.”

ON THE HIGHWAY.

The clanging ox-cart, and its yoke of oxen who would walk through a brick wall.

ANGEL PIZARRO how you can decently quarrel with the parts that you suspect may be due to any of these gentlemen.1

Last, but certainly not least, there came with me Don Angel Pizarro, and he differs from all the rest, for his company was corporal, whilst the famed geniuses in the foregoing list merely came with me in the spirit and were not fully conscious of the honour that they conferred.

Who is Angel Pizarro ? Don Angel Pizarro y Cabas is made in the outer semblance of a brigand. He began life by being a schoolmaster ; spoiled it by acquiring the vice of writing and a questionable taste for books ; tried to mend matters, when too late, by becoming a dockyard and custom-house official ; and eventually was left with few assets but his optimism and close knowledge of Andalucia, and the most constant and patient kindness that I have ever met in man. He has black curly hair, a handsome black beard, whiskers and moustache ; he shows much white in his eyes whenever he rolls them at a joke, he has a swarthy skin, and I fancy that one of his great-great-grandfathers was a Moor — I hope he will not read this.

He is rather a fulsome man than a handsome one, but set him on the summit of a rock with capa and carbine, and in the distance he would cut a very fine figure in a thunderstorm, his eyes rolling wildly with the drums. Pictorially he is magnificent, but there the matter ends. The rogue is too fond of his skin and of creature comforts ever to go freebooting. Also he is fuller of saucy mischief than a lazarillo. When

1 There was one of my good helpers, however, perhaps the most generous of all, who came not with me but sent photographs for some of the pictures in this book, and many local notes, Don Luis G-. Martinez, of Malaga, who loves the Guadalquivir as I myself love it, with all his heart.

Also I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Senor Don J. Azcueniga, and of Mr. John Shields of Rio Tinto.

he was quite a small boy he must have been a perfect imp. I fancy that one of his great -great-grandmothers was a gipsy, but he’d be mortally offended if I told him so.

In spite of these few defects, Angel never did me a bad turn, and he did me many a good one. He is jolly good company, he has no liver for all his swarthiness, and he is a man that can so well assume the high faluting courtesy of the hidalgo, whenever he finds himself in a good suit of clothes and good company, that one would have to tread on his corns to find him out. And then, oh, then ! I do not speak figuratively ; quite unintentionally I have tried it. I brought down such a painful string of unsanitary home truths upon all the twelve Apostles that ever since that time I have felt they must owe me a grudge.

Angel, who says that he is an excellent Christian, was the first to call my attention to Jonah and the Whale. You wonder what that has to do with the Guadalquivir ? You shall hear.

The first thing is to prove that the Tarshish of the Bible was nothing more or less than the basin of the Tartessus 1 or Guadalquivir. There have been some quarrels over this, some arguing that Tartessus was the Rock of Gibraltar, others even that it was Carthage itself or still farther to the East. But the majority of ancient writers place Tartessus on the delta of the

1 In an ancient atlas the Guadalquivir, which in Roman times was, of course, the Bsetis and flowed through Bastica, has the names Certis, Perces and Tartessius bracketed together with the Roman title. From a Spanish source I derive the following somewhat far-fetched train of reasoning. “ It was called the Tarteso, and even before that the Betsi, a Hebrew Phoenician word that was corrupted into Persi, Percim or Perces (meaning ‘lake’). Percim was converted into Certim or Circem, and finally into Betis. Tarteso was really an island on the Delta.” It is a mercy that the Arabs made a fresh start and re-named it.

TARSHISH OF THE SCRIPTURES river, and it is easy to understand that if Tarshish applied generally to Andalucia, the Rock of Calpe would often be perceived by the ancient mariner as the first outstanding point of Tarshish. It was like a confusion of county-town and county, of Durham with Durham, for instance. I shall return to the geography of Tartessus later on and establish, I think, that it was upon a thin strip of island between Chipiona and Rota which now is joined to the mainland.

There is no river either at Gibraltar or at Tyre. Yet in addressing Tyre the prophet Isaiah says, n Tass through thy land as a river , O daughter of Tarshish.” It may here be figurative, but the insistence upon the river elsewhere is rather striking? ~nrThe harvest oj the river is her revenue, and she is the mart of nations,” says Isaiah of Tyre in an earlier verse bearing on Tarshish. But Ezekiel, to my mind, puts it beyond all doubt when he says, “ Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches ; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded in thy fairs.” These metals were precisely those then abounding in Andalucia, and not all of them abounding in any other one place known to the Phoenicians. The accumulation of evidence here and elsewhere is irresistible : Tartessus of the Romans was on an island at the delta of the Guadalquivir, and Tarshish of the Phoenicians was a more inclusive term extending, perhaps, to the southern coast.

Jonah was told to get him to Nineveh, there to preach woe unto its wickedness. He liked not the task. He is a most irritating personage, because his conduct is so inscrutable. He did his best to evade the duty thus placed upon him, yet his history speaks of anything but cowardice. Then was he loth to gird at the people of Nineveh ? Afterwards we find him thirsting for their destruction, and this is for me incomprehensible. Had they regarded him with a lack-lustre eye, yawning at all his invective, one could understand that his thirst for blood would be stimulated. But king and people stumbled over one another in their haste to don sackcloth and ashes. Yet he desired their doom ; and to convert him to a more merciful policy, it required the incident of the gourd, which gave him shade and untimely was cut off, leaving him snarling that he was perfectly right to be angry. “ And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd ? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.” In the whale’s belly Jonah wished very much to be alive ; when the gourd withered and died, he remarked that he wished that he were dead. I am glad that he never got as far as Andalucia ; the whale seems to me to have acted very properly in declining him with thanks after mature consideration.

However, the point is that this antipathetic and indigestible personage, when instructed to heap reproaches upon Nineveh, went down to Joppa and took ship “ to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

In this he displayed the gross ignorance that is really, I suspect, at the bottom of my personal unfriendliness towards him. If ever there was a land blessed by the presence of the Almighty it was the land of Andalucia. “ In six days,” says the Andaluz, “ God made Heaven and Earth. And on the seventh day he laid him down to rest in Andalucia.” The glorious basin of the Guadalquivir is the garden of Maria Santisima ; it is, and nearly always was, the mostT saintly soil in Europe. Religion has permeated everything, making war and art and learning her handmaidens. Murillo in Sevilla devoted his brush to the

DAYS OF YORE

Holy Catholic Church ; the Christian kings carried the Cross against the Infidel along the banks of the Guadalquivir ; monk and friar and hermit turned all their cunning to the service of the same cause ; agriculture, commerce and brigandage gave their tithes and first fruits to the Mother. When a rich galleon dropped anchor in the Guadalquivir, the guard of the Holy Office was the first aboard, demanding his salute of artillery, his barrels of wine, his collation, and a goodly allowance of the spoil. Any omission, and there would surely be discovered among the cargo books heretical enough to set the whole crew aflame. Speaking of the thieves’ house in Sevilla, Cervantes tells us that under an image of the Virgin in the courtyard there were a palm-leaf basket and a white basin, the former for alms given by the thieves to the Virgin, the latter for holy water. At one time a man might even commit a murder in Sevilla, if he first bought an indulgence from the Church.

But there is time for Cervantes and Murillo anon. First let us delve into early historic and even prehistoric times, before we revel in the pomp and glamour, the chivalry, devilry, poetry and glitter that scarcely yet seem to have glided away into the past.

Years ago I used to think that the world had grown very uninteresting. Here is a fairly big ball, and scarcely a patch upon it without advertisement. There is nothing left to discover, even the heart of Africa will soon be laid bare to the fly-by-night eye of the airman. I used to feel that it would be much more charming to live in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when witchcraft was known to exist, when America was yet a mystery, and when Salvation Yeo came home showing the Indies carved on a shell. The horizon beckoned one in those days.

But the times we live in are still mediaeval and variegated compared with what is to come. Every country has a separate language, kings and emperors yet strut along the stage, women still deck themselves out in barbarous habiliments. Thank God ! — we still have our superstitions, the old customs are not quite / gone, we have gorgeous uniforms, glittering swords and neighing horses, we have a House of Lorcls and we have a Guadalquivir.

From the earliest Biblical times the name of Tarshish is a pomp and glory. It is first mentioned in the fourth chapter of Genesis. In the Psalms we find : “ The

Kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents : the Kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.” I am little good at preaching sermons, but I feel that I could weave half-an-hour’s worshipful exuberance round that delicious text.

The Garden of Eden — and this is another such a garden — is lost to us ; Palestine is accessible, but it is a mere urn for the ashes of glories that have passed ; Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, all of them river-created communities, are mummies. But the Guadalquivir starts

(flowing through the pages of history with the fourth chapter of Genesis, and for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, its treasures are as sumptuous to-day as when Tarshish “ was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches.”

The basin of this river has been a battleground between giants. The armies of Hannibal, Cassar, Pompey and Napoleon have given and met fate beside it ; the fleets of S^acen and of Norsemen have rocked upon its waters ; on occasions it has run red with blood. Several times it has looked upon the capital of Spain and even of the civilised world, now at Cordoba, anon at Sevilla. When all the rest of Europe lay

The Stirrup Cup.

Muleteers halting for wine at a wayside tavern or ventorrillo.

DAYS OF YORE dumbly shrouded in the night of the dark ages, Andalucia was making its brilliant history, a civilised and stately province where learning found its refuge for several centuries before spreading outwards to a barbarous world.

Tarshish seems to have fallen under the commercial domination of the Phoenicians about 1300 b.c.1 They never penetrated, subjugated and controlled the country asTKeltomans did, but they traded with its inhabitants and made settlements along the river and the coast. For the trade "with Tarshish, King Solomon Fruit tEe Phoenicians ships, and at one time many of the supercargoes were his also. The mariners and pilots in such cases were always Hiram’s men. Again and again Isaiah and Ezekiel make the ships “ sing.” , “ The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in the market.” It is not wholly a figure of speech, for the chained slaves at the oars really changed their dirge to a bellowing hymn in the hope of slackening the whip-lash. The galley slave has gone, the cannon’s gullet now roars the ship’s salute. But salutes in these ancient days were forced from the throats of the damned.