The decorative plant of Spain is the aloe—truly decorative, with its base of long, dark, clear-cut, sword-like leaves, its tall slender trunk often rising twenty feet high, and its broad candelabras of crimson blooms.
A picturesque industry of Seville is the spinning of the green rope so much used by Spanish farmers. It is manufactured from the coarse pampas grass of the plains, and the operation is a very leisurely and social one, requiring three persons: one to feed the wheel, one to turn it, and a third to receive the twisted rope.
Plowing, in Spain, is still a very rude performance. The primitive plow of the Garden of Eden era is yet in use—a sharp crotch of a tree, crudely shod, however, with iron.
An indispensable article of peasants’ costume for both men and women, should an absence of even two hours be contemplated, is the alforja, or peasant’s bag. This, in idea, is similar to the donkey-pannier—a long, stout, woollen strip thickly tufted with bunches of red and blue wool, with a bag at either end, and is worn slung over the shoulder. The pockets of the alforja invariably contain, one a pot of garlic, or green pudding, the other a wine skin.
The mouths of some wine-skins are fitted with a bottomless wooden saucer, and are lifted to the lips for drinking; but the preferable and national style is to catch the stream with the skin held aloft and away at arm’s-length.
A CENTRAL point of interest for visitors to Seville is the Cathedral. Its tower, known as the Giralda, is one of the most celebrated examples of sacred Moorish architecture. It was erected in an early century, and was considered very ancient when the Spaniards, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, built upon it the fine Cathedral. In the interior, the Tribuna de la Puorta Mayor is much visited for its lofty and beautiful sunlight effects, and there are several precious Murillos. The ascent of the Giralda is usually made by tourists—an agreeable variety in European climbing, as there are no stairs, the whole progress being by an easy series of inclined planes of brick masonry. Queen Isabella, not long ago, made the entire ascent and return upon horseback. From the summit, one views the whole of Seville, with its dark-green rim of orange gardens, set in the great flat barrens that stretch out towards Cadiz. A comic sight usual at the foot of the tower, significant as a sign of the complete contempt in which the Catholic Spaniard holds all things Moslem and Moorish, is that of a goat belonging to one of the custodians, tethered from morning till night to a fine old Muezzin bell.
Another noted building is the Tower of Gold, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, opposite the Gypsy quarter. Tourists visit it to get the fine architectural effect of the Cathedral, also for its view of the Bull Ring. It stands on the site of the old Inquisition, where hosts of Moorish captives were tortured.
The Alcazar, always visited, is an ancient Moorish palace, and is considered, in point of elegance, second to only the Alhambra. It is now set aside by the government as the residence of the Queen-mother Isabella.