It had rained for three days and nights, to the discomfort of flocks, herds, dealers, breeders, gypsies, and compradores. From Ronda and Utrera in the south, from Huelva in the west, from Aguilar, Lerida, from all over Andalusia, the animals were being driven in for the Feria, the great animal fair that follows the fiestas of Holy Week.
The thrifty ones, early on the ground, were already settled in the city of tents and cottages, that had sprung up on the Prado de San Sebastian. The laggards fared badly; the downpour had made the roads worse than ever. The inns were crowded, for even those who usually slept, cooked, and ate in their covered carts struggled to get under shelter while that torrential rain lasted. Then, just in time to save the situation, the sun came out.
From the quay we drove along the bank of the Guadalquiver, through orange groves washed clean and smelling of rain, and olive groves where the little, silvery leaves were still dark with the wetting. From a rise in the sodden road we saw the entire horizon, felt the sky like a fiery blue cup overhead; at the edge, where it rested on the earth, there was warm, colorless light; in the middle, deep cobalt. It was impossible, early as it was, to look at the sun; there was not a fleck of cloud anywhere. Though the earth was drying as quickly as sun and soft air could contrive, the middle of the road was still a lake of mud.
“Arré, arré! dog of a horse!” the sounds of blows and curses shattered the crystal silence. A brave, blind horse again and again made a mighty effort, stretching its lean neck and straining its poor body to pull a carreta out of the muddy rut where the wheels stuck fast. His master encouraged him by striking him over the head; his companion, a starved dog, by snapping at his heels. Pemberton’s hand tightened nervously on his whip, as if he would have liked to lay it about the man’s ears: Patsy was over the wheel like a flash, and out in the muddy road.
“What a pity, my friend, your wife and children must get out to lighten the load,” he said; “it is the only way; I have had great experience in such matters. You help them, while I——” he had the bridle in his hand, and was petting the panting horse as he talked. A gaunt woman suckling an infant sat in the back of the carreta; a little girl leaned against one knee, at the other crouched a boy shaking with fever; a raven drooped in a battered cage, near a big drum half hidden by a heap of spangled and velvet rags; a pair of castanets and a tambourine lay in the girl’s lap. By these poor possessions, their tools of trade, we knew them for what they were.
“Mountebanks, on their way to the fair,” said Pemberton; “poor things, one can hardly hope they will add much to the gaiety of nations!”
“See you later,” said Patsy, waving his free hand to us. We drove on and left him haranguing, hectoring, but helping, always helping, that forlorn family of feriantes (fairgoers).
After those three last days of Holy Week, when from one end of Seville to the other we never met wagon, carriage, or beast of burden, it came like a surprise to find the streets crowded with all sorts of interesting vehicles. The heavy traffic is carried in big, picturesque carts drawn by bulls, oxen, donkeys, and mules. The cattle are magnificent, especially the bulls, who answer easily to the goad. The backs of these draft animals are shaven in patterns, the work of gypsy esquiladores. In the cold weather a blanket covers the shaven part, its limits outlined by a neatly cut border. A monogram, a coat-of-arms, even a sentence describing the owner’s virtues, is sometimes shaven on the rump. The yoke is bound to the horns of the cattle, as you see it in the old Greek vase pictures; the beasts pull with the head, all the weight and strain coming on the neck. This has a fine pictorial effect, but is far harder on the creatures than yoking at the shoulders.
An ox cart, with a cruel load of stone, drawn by two patient, cream-colored bulls, lumbered along on archaic solid wheels that shrieked for axle grease. The bulls, strong, beautiful, worthy to draw the car of Dionysius, moved their heads restlessly from side to side. As the cart jounced over a loose cobble, their poor noses trembled with pain. A street porter stood waiting till the cart had passed to cross the road. He carried a heavy load on his back, secured by a strap fastened round the forehead; he trembled, too, and seemed, like the bulls, to be working at great disadvantage.
Pemberton shook his whip at the bulls. “Cowards,” he cried, “failures, outcasts of the ring; too timid or too kind to fight,—unworthy the short, merry life of the fighting bull, good for nothing but work!”