woman?—Nothing—(but the Roman Catholic
Church ").

As you look down, you see the old Moorish
city marked out by the narrow dark clefts
of streets that wind in and out, like dark
brooks, among the houses. The arch-entrance
porches and fountain courts you cannot see in
this bird's-eye view. Away yonder, far across
the plain, is Italica, an old Roman military
station where the emperor Hadrian was born.
The curator knows nothing about it, and will
insist on showing me a sort of astrolabe,
which is let into the wall of the parapet,
and indicates the former haunt of astronomers
who came here to map out the stars. Yonder
goes the soap-suds looking river, on whose
flat earth-banks the old conquerors of Seville
who now sleep their sleep in the Cathedral
suburbs wrought such deeds, pounding and
hammering at the shorn and turbaned heads.
Below us, all round, are the stone roofs and
huge pinnacles of the cathedral, bossy with
flowers and all sorts of strange winged buttresses,
that I long to clamber amongst. Down
there, too, is the great redundant vulgarly
rich archbishop's palace; and there is the old
Moorish citadel, the Alcazar; where Philip
the Second brooded mischief to England;
where Charles the Fifth sat crooning, and
planning the destruction of whole nations
beside his Flemish fire-places; and where
poor half-witted Philip the Fifth told his
beads as he fished for carp. And yonder is
the House of Pilate and the Inquisition—and
yonder are countless orange-gardens, longing
for the joys of October harvest, when all the
city shall be picking or packing, and the
smoking dealer shall roam about with his
balls of red gold, crying out that they are
"Dulces que almibar: ' (sweet as syrup).

This is the city where big-hearted Cortes
died broken-hearted, and where Columbus
pined. I can see the Alba and Medina Sidonia
palaces, and the Franciscan convent, where
Don Juan was murdered by the monks. I
can even pick out the different ferries of the
city, where epicures go to eat shad, and
where bare-legged fishermen catch the royal
sturgeon. Away there, is La Buena Vista
convent, once a bottle-manufactory; not far
away, again, is the Leper Hospital. The
curator marks me out the Moorish causeway
that led to the poor huts of La Macarena, where
Murillo children still sprawl about in the
road dirt, and make mud-pies. I track on from
roof to roof: from the Hospital of the Five
Wounds, to the caverns that Soult,the general-thief,
plundered, and which has since been
a galley-slaves' prison. That stilted aqueduct,
and those fortified-looking dust-heaps, bring
us to the cannon-foundry and the hot spots
outside the walls, where the bullies and
gamblers dice, wrangle, and fight. My eyes
turn from these beggars'  quarters, and roam
wide, sweeping along to the gardens of Las
Delicias, at the foot of which I shall presently
embark for Cadiz. Here is the Saint Elmo
palace, gay in green and gilding, that the son
of Columbus built, and where the Duke de
Montpensier (not unknown to English
leader-writers) and his Infanta, live. Not far hence,
is the Moorish Tower of Gold, where the
national red and yellow flag flames and flaunts
in the sun. Now, with painful steps, and
meditatively slow, I leave Diego, with his face
still turned up at the bells in a wistful way,
as if he were counting the minutes till he
shall ring them again. The curator strides
down rejoicingly, jingling his keys, playfully
expectant of shillings. I count, for the last
time in this life of mine, the number of the
ramps, and drive the curator to symptoms of
epilepsy, by again stopping at one of the
side Moorish windows, and putting my head
out to roar, in the character of a Christian
knight captive among the Moors, the
defiance of the old chronicle of the Cid, to the
turbaned Turks below:

"Three hundred banner'd knights was indeed a
gallant show;
Three hundred shaven Moors they killed, a man
at every blow.
The Christians call upon Saint James, the Moors
upon Mahound:
There were thirteen hundred of them slain on a
little plot of ground.
The Cid himself rode in the midst, his shout was
heard afar,
' I arn Don Rui Diaz, the Champion of Bivar!"

"I say, old fellow! " cries Fortywinks,
looking at his watch, "if we don't step out,
we shall miss that steamer. It goes at
half-past three, and I'm fifty minutes past two,
now. Look alive! Have you paid '?"

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S
FINAL CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY READINGS
AT ST. MARTIN'S HALL.

THE following Additional and Final Arrangements are
made to meet the demand for places:

On Thursday, January 20th, LITTLE DOMBEY and THE
TRIAL from PICKWICK.

On Friday, January 28th, THE POOR TRAVELLER, MRS.
GAMP, and THE TRIAL from PICKWICK.

The Doors will be open for each Reading at Seven.

Places for each Reading: Stalls (numbered and
reserved). Four Shillings: Centre Area and Balconies,
Two Shillings; Back Seats, One Shilling.

Tickets to be had at Messrs. Chapman and Hall's,
Publishers, 193, Piccadilly; and at St. Martin's Hall,
Long Acre.

Now Ready, price 3d., stamped, 4d, THE CHRISTMAS
NUMBER of Household Words, entitled,

A HOUSE TO LET.

Contents:—1. Over the Way.  2. The Manchester
Marriage. 3. Going into Society. 4. Three evenings in
the house. 5. Trottle's Report. 6. Let at Last.

ALSO,

THE NEW YEAR'S NUMBER.