CHAPTER XV
The Guadalquivir—Arabic gardens—“Bird’s milk”—Wild camels—Tartessian cattle—The city of Hercules—The foundations of Tharsis—Subterranean galleries—The “Labyrinth”—A careful father—The potters’ suburb—The City of the Poles—Triana under flood—Rising wells—A tower of refuge—Villages under water—Humours of the inundated—Governmental neglect—A night of terror—The gallant priest—King Alfonso feeds the hungry—The “Economical Kitchen”—Honours for the English ladies.
The Guadalquivir seems to be known to the English chiefly by Byron’s references to it, and unluckily he rhymes it with “river,” which was convenient for him, but not for the tourist who takes Byron for his guide to the pronunciation. For the Guadalquivir is the Wady al kabir of the Arabs (the great river) and the name is still pronounced with the accent, as in Arabic, on the last syllable. Thus when the traveller asks his way to the “Gwaddlequiver,” the native is at a loss for his meaning. Baedeker might usefully see to this; and while he is about it he might also mention that Granáda has the accent on the second syllable. For when a traveller in a hurry asks for the train to “Grannader” the porters are apt to get confused and put him into the first train for any town the name of which is accented on the first syllable—e.g. Málaga. This actually happened in the case of an acquaintance of ours, who was rather deaf and did not know a word of Spanish. He found himself at Málaga instead of “Grannader,” and his language was vigorous and picturesque. All this waste of time, temper, and money might have been avoided had Baedeker instructed his readers how to pronounce the Spanish for pomegranate.
“THE ENGLISH ECONOMICAL KITCHEN.”
Since time began Seville seems to have been the victim of floods. The catchment area of the Guadalquivir is enormous, since with its tributaries it drains practically the whole of Andalucia, from the Sierra Morena in the north to the Sierra Nevada in the south. From Cordova the river runs through vast plains, mostly alluvial soil of great fertility. So rich is this soil that the Arabs used to say that bird’s milk could be got from the gardens round Seville, meaning that there is nothing that will not grow there with sufficient care and attention. The Arabic historians assure us that, nine centuries ago, there were twenty thousand farms and villages between Cordova and Seville, all living by agriculture and gardening; and although the number is obviously exaggerated, there can be no doubt that the whole of the riparian plain was highly cultivated. At that time the great river and its tributaries were so carefully dyked and dammed for purposes of milling and irrigation, that floods were far less frequent than now.
But the local archives show that within a century after the Christians became rulers of Seville the irrigation system was falling into decay, and the bed of the river was rapidly silting up. Now hardly a trace remains of the system of hydraulics inherited from Egypt, or perhaps inherited from Tartessus, for the Tartessians too constructed admirable water-works. To-day, chiefly for lack of water, most of the valley of the Guadalquivir is a waste of rough pasture, a swamp in winter and a desert in summer, ranged over by herds of half-wild cattle when the spring and autumn showers have raised a crop of coarse grass; the resort of birds of every description, the dwelling-place of boar, deer, hares, and other wild creatures, great and small, and the safe refuge of a herd of wild camels, never approached and seldom seen unless by the passenger or crew of some river steamer when they come down to the water at dawn. Thus they were once observed by a friend of mine, who took them for cattle until the sun rose suddenly and she saw their humps. After that she was always on the look out for them, and saw them again not long after, near enough and for long enough to count sixteen of them, old and young.
The origin of this herd of wild camels is unknown, but it seems clear that they have a good deal of vitality. For generations the marsh men used to shoot the young and sell their flesh as venison in the towns; yet the herd continued to breed in its secret places in the wilds, and now that the shooting of them is strictly prohibited it is increasing—a testimony to the immense extent of the waste lands as well as to the mild climate of this province. What the camels do when the valley is flooded no one knows, but they must go to some place of refuge, for every one knows what happens to the cattle if they are caught by the flood.