Old Continental Towns

by Walter M. Gallichan

Fashionable Seville delights in driving, and some of the wealthiest residents drive a team of gaily-decked, sleek-coated mules, with bells jangling on their bridles. Beautiful horses with Arab blood may be seen here. Even the asses are well-bred and big. But one sees also many ill-fed and sadly over-driven horses and mules. These people, so affectionate in their family life, so kindly in their entertainment of foreigners, and so graciously good-natured, have not yet learned one of the last lessons of humane civilisation—compassion for the animals that serve them.

Society in Seville takes its pleasure seriously, but the seriousness is not the dullness that attends the Englishman’s attempts at hilarity. The Spaniard is less demonstrative than the Frenchman, less mercurial than the Italian. Notwithstanding, the crowd at the races, at the battle of flowers, or watching the religious processions, or at the opera, is happy in its quiet intentness. The enthusiasm for bullfighting is perhaps the strongest visible emotion in Seville, the Alma Mater of the champions of the arena. At the corrida the Sevillian allows himself to become excited. He loses his restraint, he shouts himself hoarse, waves his hat, and thrashes the wooden seats with his cane in the ecstasy of his delight, when a great performer plunges his sword into the vital spot of the furious bull that tears the earth with its foot, and prepares for a charge.

Bullfights, gorgeous ecclesiastic spectacles, and dancing—these are the recreations of rich and poor alike in Seville to-day. In this city of pleasure you will see the majo, the Andalusian dandy, as he struts up and down the Sierpes—the only busy street of shops—spruce, self-conscious, casting fervent glances at the señoras accompanied by their duennas. Go into the meaner alleys and market streets, and you will see the very vagrants that Murillo painted, tattered wastrels who address one another as Señor, and hold licences to beg. Cross the Bridge of Isabella to the suburb of Triana, and you will find a mixed and curious population of mendicants, thieves, desperadoes, and a colony of Gitanos, who live by clipping horses, hawking, fortune-telling, dancing and begging.

Peep through the delicate trellises of the Moorish gates of the patios, and you will see fountains, and flowers, and palms, and the slender columns supporting galleries, as in the Alhambra and other ancient buildings. Very delightful are these cool courtyards, with their canvas screens, ensuring shade at noonday, their splash of water, and their scent of roses clustering on columns and clothing walls. Some of these courtyards are open to the visitor, and one of the finest is the Casa de Pilatos in the Plaza de Pilatos.

A pleasant garden within a court is that of my friend, Don J. Lopez-Cepero, who lives in the old house of Murillo, and allows the stranger to see his fine collection of pictures. Here Murillo died, in 1682, and some of his paintings are treasured in the gallery. The house is Number Seven, Plaza de Alfaro.

We will now survey the Seville of olden days. No traces remain of Seville’s earliest epochs. The Phœnician traditions are vague, and we know little indeed of the Hispolo of the Greeks, a town which was supposed to have stood on this ground. The Romans came here, and called the town Julia Romula, and the remains of that age, if scanty, are deeply interesting. Italica, five miles from the city, is a Roman amphitheatre, with corridors, dens for the lions, and some defined tiers of seats. At this great Roman station, Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius were born. For other vestiges of the Roman rule, we must visit the Museo Provincial, where there are capitals, statues, and busts. The Pillars of Hercules in the Alaméda are other monuments of this period of the history of Seville.

Vandals and Goths ravaged the Roman city. Then came Musâ, the Moor, who besieged Seville, and captured it, afterwards marrying the widow of the Gothic monarch. A succession of Moorish rulers governed the city for several hundred years. One of the greatest was Motamid II., under whose sway Seville became a prosperous and wealthy capital, with a vast population.

The Christians took the city in 1248, and expelled thousands of the Mohammedans. Under the Spanish kings, Seville remained, for a considerable spell, a royal city; and one of the most renowned of its Christian sovereigns was Pedro the Cruel, who, while democratic in some respects, was, on the other hand, a truculent tyrant. In administration he was jealous and energetic, and though called “The Cruel,” he has also been named “The Just.” Pedro lived in the Alcázar, the old palace which we shall presently visit.

The monuments of the Moors in Seville are numerous. In the Alcázar are courts of resplendent beauty, gilded and coloured in hundreds of fantastic designs; arcades with horseshoe arches and graceful columns, marble floors, fountains, and richly decorated doorways. The Giralda, which is seen from many open spaces in the city, is a magnificent specimen of the minaret, dating from 1184; and this tower, and the adjoining Court of the Oranges, are parts of an ancient mosque. The lower portion of the Golden Tower, by the Guadalquivir, was built by the Moors. Many of the churches are built in the Mudéjar, or late Moorish style, and most of them have elegant minarets, arched windows, and interior decorations of an Oriental character.

The power of Seville diminished under the domination of the Catholic kings, until the discovery of America by Cristoforo Colombo (Columbus), who sailed from the city on his bold expedition, and was welcomed with fervour upon his triumphal return. We think of the explorer setting forth for a second voyage, with vessels equipped at the cost of Isabella the Catholic, who profited so liberally by the conquest of the New World, and we picture him in the days of neglect, when he suffered the lot of those who put their trust in the promises of princes. It was Columbus who made the Seville of the fifteenth century. The commercial importance of the city, after the expulsion of the Moors, was re-established through the great trade opened with America.