But however much we may admire the valour displayed by the Gothic monarch, in thus obstinately defending his crown, yet the rashness he was guilty of, in drawing up his forces on such a field (in a country abounding in strong positions, where the enemy’s superiority of numbers would not have availed them), proves him to have been as little fitted to command an army as to govern a kingdom.
CHAPTER IV.
CHOICE OF ROADS TO SEVILLE—BY LEBRIJA—MIRAGE—THE MARISMA—POST ROAD—CROSS ROAD BY LAS CABEZAS AND LOS PALACIOS—DIFFICULTY OF RECONCILING ANY OF THESE ROUTES WITH THAT OF THE ROMAN ITINERARY—SEVILLE—GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY—THE ALAMEDA—DISPLAY OF CARRIAGES—ELEVATION OF THE HOST—PUBLIC BUILDINGS—THE CATHEDRAL—LONJA—AMERICAN ARCHIVES—ALCAZAR—CASA PILATA—ROYAL SNUFF MANUFACTORY—CANNON FOUNDRY—CAPUCHIN CONVENT—MURILLO—THEATRE OF SEVILLE—OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE NATIONAL DRAMA—MORATIN—THE BOLERO—SPANISH DANCING—THE SPANIARDS NOT A MUSICAL PEOPLE.
THE traveller who journeys on horseback has the choice of several roads between Xeres and Seville. The shortest is by the marshes of the Guadalquivír, visiting only one town, Lebrija, in the whole distance of eleven leagues. The longest is the post route, or arrecife, which makes a very wide circuit by Utrera and Alcalá de Guadaira, to avoid the swampy country bordering the river. From this latter road several others diverge to the left, cutting off various segments of the arc it describes; and in summer these routes are even better than the highway itself, though heavy and much intersected by torrents in winter.
On the first-named or shortest road, the town of Lebrija alone calls for observation. It is about fifteen miles from Xeres, and stands on the side of a slightly-marked mound, that stretches some little way into the wide-spreading plain of the Guadalquivír. The knoll is covered with the extensive ruins of a castle—a joint work of Romans and Moors—which during the late war was put into a defensible state by the French. Most writers agree in placing here the Roman city of Nebrissa;[40] in which name that of the modern town may readily be distinguished. It is distant about five miles from the Guadalquivír, and contains three convents, and a population of 4,000 souls. The Posada is excellent.
The country from Xeres to Lebrija presents an undulated surface, which is clothed with vines and olives; but thenceforth the banks of the “olivifero Bœtis” are devoted entirely to pasture, and the road is most uninterestingly flat: so flat, indeed, that there is scarcely a rise in the whole twenty-eight miles from Lebrija to Seville. It is not passable in winter, and but one wretched hovel, called the Venta del Peleon, offers itself as a resting-place. The river winds occasionally close up to the side of the road, and from time to time a barge or passage boat, gliding along its smooth surface, breaks the wearisome monotony of the scene; but in general the tortuous stream wanders to a distance of several miles from the road, and is altogether lost to the sight in an apparently interminable plain, that stretches to the westward.
The misty vapour, or mirage, which rises from and hangs over the low land bordering the river, produces singular deceptions; at times giving the whole face of the country in advance the semblance of a vast lake; at others, magnifying distant objects in a most extraordinary manner. On one occasion, we were surprised to see what had every appearance of being a large town rise up suddenly before us; and it was only when arrived within a few hundred yards of the objects we had taken for churches and houses, that we became convinced they were but a drove of oxen. These imaginary oxen proved in the end, however, to be only a flock of sheep. The Marisma,[41] for such is the name given to this low ground, affords pasturage for immense herds of cattle of all sorts, and the herbage is so fine as to lead one to wonder what becomes of all the fat beef and mutton in Spain.
The post road from Xeres to Seville, as I have already mentioned, is very circuitous, increasing the distance from forty-three to fifty-six miles—reckoned fifteen and a half post leagues.
For the first thirteen miles, that is, to the post house of La Casa real del Cuervo, the road traverses a country rich in corn and olives, but skirting for some considerable distance the western limits of a vast heath, called the llanura de Caulina, whereon even goats have difficulty in finding sustenance. The first league of the road is perfectly level, the rest hilly. A little beyond the post house of El Cuervo, a road strikes off to the left to Lebrija. The arrecife, proceeding on towards Utrera, crosses numerous gulleys by which the winter torrents are led down from the side of the huge Sierra Gibalbin, which, here raising its head on the right, stretches to the north for a mile or two, keeping parallel to the road, and then again sinks to the plain. This passed, the remainder of the road to Utrera is conducted along what may be termed the brow of a wide tract of low table land, which, extending to the foot of the distant Serranía de Ronda on the right, breaks in the opposite direction into innumerable ramifications, towards the plain of the Guadalquivír.
In the entire distance to Utrera, (twenty-four miles from El Cuervo) there is not a single village on the road, and but very few farms or even cottages scattered along it. It is plentifully furnished with bridges for crossing the various barrancas[42] that drain the mountain ravines in the winter, and by means of these bridges the chaussée is kept nearly on a dead level throughout. About midway there is another post house. This road is so perfectly uninteresting, that, availing myself of the earliest opportunity of quitting it and proceeding to Seville by a more direct, if not a more diversified route, I will strike into a well-beaten track that presents itself, edging away to the left, about three miles beyond El Cuervo, and is directed on Las Cabezas de San Juan, distant about six miles from the post road.