As the pescadores slowly scull their boats down the river, they sing strange Andalusian melodies, with a kind of yödel. Their voices reach far along the stream on still days. The men are hard-working, and their catches scarcely repay them for their patience and labour in the burning sun.
Along the quay, and at every point of entrance to Seville, there are customs' officers in uniform, with swords at their sides. The consumo is not a popular character in Spain. Peasants and small traders resent the tax upon the produce which they bring into the markets, and many attempts are made to evade paying the duty. At Córdova I heard a violent altercation between a peasant and a consumo, who demanded duty upon a live pigeon.
Spain is the land of officials in uniform. Down the Guadalquivir you will see armed men who protect the wooden breakwaters. Then there are four grades of police, the consumos, and the watchmen, all of them provided with weapons.
The quaint, irregular thoroughfares of Seville, its palm trees and olive gardens, its Morisco remains, its hidalgos and doñas, its brightness and gaiety, and its blue skies will not soon be forgotten by those who pass a short time within its ancient walls. Lord Byron praises the city as the most beautiful in Spain. It is certainly charming, but there are towns in the Peninsula more antiquated in aspect, and more picturesque in their surroundings. Still, the Andalusian capital possesses a strong fascination, and few persons will dispute, in the main, the truth of Byron's lines in the first canto of Don Juan:—
| 'In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, |
| Famous for oranges and women—he |
| Who has not seen it will be much to pity, |
| So says the proverb—and I quite agree; |
| Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty, |
| Cadiz, perhaps—but that you soon may see;— |
| Don Juan's parents lived beside the river. |
| A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.' |
Since the days of Cervantes, the aspect of the city and the manners and customs of its inhabitants have not undergone any profound change. The monumental buildings remain, and the cry of the watchman and the notes of the guitar are still heard by night in the tortuous alleys, and under the palm trees of the plazas. The careless, merry Sevillanos continue to love the dance, the song, the bull fight and the theatre more than science and literature. We may see the types sketched by the great satirist in The Jealous Estremaduran, if we will but enter one of the fashionable cafés during the evening. It would be unfair to say that Sevillian society is composed entirely of adventurers, but they are a distinctive class in the pleasure-loving capital. 'In the city of Seville,' writes Cervantes, 'is a class of idling, lazy people who locally go by the common name of "the children of the ward"; they are considered as foragers on the public; they are the sons of rich parents, not of the nobility; always well-dressed, fond of pleasure, extravagant and expensive, plunging themselves and their parents in debt; always feasting and revelling; every way bringing discredit on society, defrauding and injuring their creditors.'
The stranger will not be in the city many hours before he notices a curious device on public buildings, official uniforms and elsewhere. This is the node, or knot (el nodo), which forms a part of the coat-of-arms of Seville. The knot is in the centre of an ornamental circle, and on one side of it are the letters NO and on the other DO. This legend in full is No madeja do, or, No me ha dejado, which means: 'It has not deserted me.' The symbol of the nodo was adopted after the fealty of the muy leal city to Alfonzo X.
