Climb the beautiful Giralda—the brown tower of the Moors that rises above the cathedral dome—and look around upon the vegas, and away to the blue mountains of the horizon, and you will know why Borrow was moved to shed “tears of rapture,” when he gazed upon this delightful land of the Blessed Virgin and the happy city, with its minarets, its palm-shaded squares, its luxuriant gardens, and broad stream, winding between green banks to the distant marshes, where rice and cotton grow, and the flamingo and heron fly over sparkling lagoons amid a tropical jungle.
Seville in spring is gay to hilarity. The great fair and the Easter ceremonials and fêtes attract thousands to the capital of Andalusia at the season when the banks of the Guadalquivir are white with the bloom of the orange-trees, and hundreds of nightingales make the evening breezes melodious; when the heat is bearable, the sky a deep azure, and the whole town festive, and bright with the costumes of many provinces. No blight of east wind depresses in early spring, and rarely indeed is the promise of roses and fruit threatened by frost in this region of perennial mildness and sunlight. “Only once have I seen ice in Seville,” said to me a middle-aged native of the place. It is only the winter floods, those great avenidas, that are dreaded in Seville; for now and then the river swells out of normal bounds, and spreads into the streets and alleys.
Seville is a white city in most of its modern parts. Lime-wash is used profusely everywhere, and the effect is cool and cleanly; but we wish sometimes that the natural colour of the stonework had been left free from the brocha del blanquedor, or the whitewasher’s brush. Nevertheless, this whiteness hides dirt and dinginess. There are no squalid slums in Seville. The poor are there in swarms, but their poverty is not ugly and obvious, and for the greater part they are clad in cotton that is often washed.
This is the town of beautiful southern doñas: the true types of Andalusian loveliness may be seen here in the park, on the promenade, and at the services in the cathedral—women with black or white mantillas, olive or pale in complexion, with full, dark eyes, copious raven hair, short and rather plump in form, but always charming in their carriage. More picturesque and often more lovely in features are the working girls, those vivacious, intelligent daughters of the people, whose dark hair is adorned with a carnation or a rose.
The lightheartedness of Seville has expression in music, dancing, and merry forgatherings each evening in the patios, when the guitar murmurs sweetly, and the click of the castanets sets the blood tingling. Everyone in Seville dances. The children dance almost as soon as they learn to toddle. In the cafés you will see the nimblest dancers of Spain, and follow the intricate movements of the bolero, as well as the curious swaying and posturings of the older Moorish dances. These strange dramatic dances must be seen, and to witness them you should visit the Novedades at the end of Calle de las Sierpes.