A blue cart with ochre stripes creaked by, behind a tandem of four mules led by a white donkey, all jingling with little bells, the harnesses gay with red tags, tassels, and brass nailheads.
“Firmé, firmé macho!” The muleteer, a jolly young chap with a proper “going to the fair” look to match his team, cracked his long whip over their heads. A dog tied to the bridle of a tiny donkey, almost hidden by his load of cabbages, cleverly piloted the ass through the crowd; the owner, a stalwart woman laden with vegetables, followed at a distance.
“And some people say animals can’t reason!” Pemberton exclaimed. “That dog has got more sense than many men I know. The woman is Costanza, Isidro’s wife, who brings us our vegetables every day; that boy tagging behind is Concepcion’s godson.”
We were now close to the Feria, and the way was crowded with feriantes and cattle.
There was a sense of joyous life in the air. Everybody was in holiday humor, as if the sun had dried all tears, driven away blues and vapors, if such exist in golden Seville.
“During the three days of the Feria,” Pemberton explained, “Seville is deserted; life centres here, in the Prado San Sebastian; trade, business, society are bodily transported from city to fair ground. It’s really a democratic festival; a great annual outing for all classes. The morning is the time to see the business end; the evening, the social. We’ll begin with the market, where the animals are bought and sold.”
At the mule mart business was brisk, handsome carriage mules as well as pack mules changing hands at good prices. To know what a carnation or a mule can be, you must go to Spain, where both grow larger and handsomer than anywhere else. There is a legend of a mule belonging to the first Don Carlos, over fifteen hands high. Theoretically, the mule has the privilege of drawing the royal carriages. Though Don Alfonzo prefers an automobile, the little children of the late Princess of the Asturias take their airing every day behind a spanking four-in-hand of swift, black mules.
Up and down the middle of the Prado San Sebastian rode the jockeys, showing off their horses. A tall, black stallion, with red nostrils, curvetted past. The man on his back—he rode like a centaur, man and beast seeming one piece—had a familiar look; where had we seen that ruddy face, those handsome legs, that striped blanket before? The fretting stallion jostled a white horse ridden by a weather-beaten old trader.
“Perdone Vd. amigo mio!” said the young chalan, lifting his gray felt sombrero. Then we recognized the Sibyl’s friend, the bridegroom of Ronda.
“No es nada amigo,” answered the man on the white, as politely; the exhibition of good manners was as fine as the horsemanship.