Thursday, 24.
Our first visit to-day is to San Telmo—the royal palace given by Queen Isabella to her sister, the Duchess de Montpensier—on the banks of the Guadalquivir, with enchanting gardens, palms and citrons, and orange-trees; and within, all oriental in its style and decorations. Here are some lovely pictures—one of Murillo's most beautiful Virgins, several splendid Zurbarans, a Sebastian del Piombo, Holy Family, etc.
Next we visit the great tobacco manufactory, where 4000 women are employed making cigars. As all these were talking at once, we were glad soon to escape. And then the Alcazar, the wonderful Moorish palace, than which not even the Alhambra can be more beautiful—as it seems to us. We wander in delicious gardens —like those described in the Arabian Nights—and then enter the enchanted palace! Passing several courts, we find the great door of entrance sculptured and painted in arabesque. Here is a long hall, with exquisitely carved and painted roof, from which we pass into a square marble court, or patio, with double rows of marble columns and a fountain in the centre. From the four sides of this patio you enter by immense doors, carved and inlaid, into the apartments beyond. First, the Hall of the Ambassadors, which communicates with others through elegant arches profusely ornamented, supported by marble pillars of every color with gilded capitals. The walls and dome are ornamented with sentences from the Koran, in gilt letters upon grounds of blue and crimson. Every chamber has different decorations, all equally elegant.
Below, opening from the garden, we are shown some subterranean cells said to have been the prisons of Christian captives, and above these the luxurious baths of Maria de Padilla—the famous mistress of Peter the Cruel. It was the custom for the king and courtiers to sit by and see her bathe, and for the latter to pretend to sip the water of the bath. Seeing one of these fail in this gallant duty one day, the king asked why he omitted it. "Because, sire," (said the witty courtier,) "I am afraid to like the sauce so well that I shall covet the bird." Peter the Cruel lived much in this palace, and did much to embellish it through the Moorish artists whom he employed. Many of the Spanish kings lived there, and Charles V. was married in one of the upper rooms. These we did not see, and learned afterward that they were inhabited by "Fernan Caballero," one of the most popular writers of Spain—whose delightful books we learned later to admire. Fernan Caballero is the nom de plume of this lady, who has had many misfortunes, and who by permission of the queen lives in the Alcazar, devoting her life to deeds of benevolence amongst the poor, whose traits and trials she records in many delightful works. It is a pity that out of France these books should be unknown. One of our party determines to take some of them to America, that they may be translated and bring to the knowledge of our people these charming scenes of Spanish home life so inimitably described.[Footnote 79]
[Footnote 79: One of "Fernan Caballero's" (Mrs. Fabre) books, The Alvareda Family, has already been translated here and published in The Catholic World three years ago; and two others, The Sea Gull, and The Castle and Cottage in Spain, have appeared in an English dress in London, and Lucia Garcia is already translated and will soon appear in this magazine.—ED. CATH. W.]
In the evening we go to a ball, to see the Andalusian dances in their proper costume. Boleros, and cachuchas, and seguidillas, and manchegas! Such graceful movements, such little feet in such dainty satin shoes!
Generally to the accompaniment of the guitar, with most peculiar and monotonous music, singing at the same time, clapping the hands, stamping the feet, and the dancer always with castanets. All the dances were peculiar, solos, often in couples, or three at a time, some of these coquettish—one, especially, danced by a man and a woman, he in hat and cloak, she with fan and mantilla. How she wielded this little "weapon"!—now hiding her face, now peeping from behind it, which he also did with his manta. By and by he takes off his hat and humbly lays it at her feet. She dances over it scornfully; without ever losing the step, he recovers it. She flies; he pursues, opening his manta entreatingly; she relents; again he throws down the hat; she stoops and gives it to him, and eventually they dance away with the manta covering both.
Friday, 25.
We go again to the wonderful cathedral; examined many pictures which yesterday escaped us. In the chapter house is one of Murillo's "Conceptions," and eight charming heads (ovals) painted by him, in the same room. In the chapel of the kings lies the body of St. Ferdinand, and of Murillo; who asked to be buried at the foot of a picture (The Descent from the Cross) of which he was particularly fond, which is above the main altar.