First the great aqueduct (the greatest of three); the bridge of sixty-four[40] arches which spans the Guadiana, and the mighty castle which guards its townward end. The theatre, still almost perfect;{226} the ruins of the Temple of Diana, and of the massive Arch of Trajan. The amphitheatre is now but an heap, and the hippodrome can only be traced by its foundations; but the whole soil teems with coins and fragments of pottery, and if ever systematic excavation could be hoped for in this happy-go-lucky country, who can guess what treasures might be revealed? It is at least an encouraging symptom that the Meridans are very proud of their “antiguedades,” and are always eager to act as showmen; in which capacity they are equipped with the most startling archæological heresies that have ever been foisted upon an astonished world.
It was a hard-worked little room that was assigned to me for my lodging at Mérida. At night I slept there, but by day it was a tailor’s shop, and between times it was borrowed by Juanita for the conduct of her little affaires du cœur. Its many-sidedness was the result of its situation, for it was on the ground floor, with a large French window opening direct on to the pavement, and guarded with a stout iron grille. To myself this entailed a rather embarrassing publicity, but it just suited Juanita, who could interview her lover comfortably through the bars.
Each night as I returned from the café I beheld{227} the same little picture (it was being produced in replica in half the streets of the town); the moonlight bright upon the Fonda walls, and the black cloaked figure clinging like a bat to the rails. I am proud to remember that I always tried to play the game properly, and glided off unobtrusively into a side street before I got near enough to interfere. But I doubt if I ever really escaped observation, for at my next round the pavement would be untenanted, and Juanita waiting at the street door to let me in.
It might be supposed that there was no ostensible motive why she should not have kept tryst at the door instead of the window, or “gone out walking” with her lover as an English girl would have done. But no! that would not be “proper.” La Señora Grundy insists upon a barred window. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why all Spanish windows are barred.
“Marriage is honourable to all.” But in Spain it is considered expedient to give an elaborately clandestine flavour to the indispensable preliminary of courtship; and during the whole of that period Romeo is officially tabooed by Juliet’s kin. He may be a most desirable parti, and the bosom friend of all her brothers. But now he is remorse{228}lessly “cut.” When they meet, they never see him;—neither (logically enough) do they ever notice that cryptic enigma who is “feeding on iron” at the lattice every evening soon after dark. So matters continue until the courtship has ripened and the happy lover can formally demand his lady’s hand. Then he is at once received into all honour and affection, and the lovers are put on a regular footing by being formally betrothed, a ceremony scarcely less binding than marriage itself.