mingle-mangle, characterises the appearance
of the streets this blessed pure early morning;
when the soft sea air fans the streets
of Cadiz. In this narrow passage, where no
one particularly seems stirring, there are
heaps of white unslaked lime lying just as the
mules have shook it down from their
panniers—perhaps that very obstinate wretch of
a mule I saw yesterday lie down on his back
when he was struck, and kick with all his four
feet at once, like a sulky boy. As for the gutter
that runs down the centre of the street, it is
heaped with melon rinds, cigar stumps, and
dusty refuse swept out of the houses. Ah!
here come the street-sweepers, with a dusty
smoke, which almost hides them, heralding
their approach; they bear up a lazy,
bustling string, with a smoky dust before
them, as of a file of skirmishers. I see
they move the dust: but I much doubt if
they remove it. I gaze up the bright pleasant
little street at the doors, which have neat
bronze pendant hands, beautifully modelled,
for knockers, and look up at the green cased-in
projecting windows, which are so eastern
and attractive. I think that dandily-dressed
young citizen behind me, who looks up,
just as a white hand on the third storey
opens and shuts a lattice—has come here to
pay his morning devoirs, for he now kisses the
tips of his fingers, a sunshine breaks out in
his face, and he walks away with a quick,
joyous step, "his bosom's lord sitting lightly
on his throne," and no day-mare waiting
at his door for him to mount. Talk
of the nightmare! What is she to the
day-mare that hides the sun from us,
neighs often at our window, and will keep
beating its feet impatiently upon our heart
till we throw it out some sugared sop of
consolation?

Now, just as I cross into the square, I cut
in two, a religious procession filing down the
street. They are two and two, some brotherhood,
in yellow and white dresses, carrying
candles (to help the sun, I suppose); then
one miserable, drawling man, who represents
the band, alone, with a blunderbuss of a
bassoon tucked under his arm; and, almost
last, a priest, in a three-pointed black cap
and a cloth of gold robe, carrying the Host
under a portable canopy. Everyone bows
and takes off his hat, as the procession
rambles carelessly by. The square I enter
now is trellised round with half-dead, dusty
vines, sapless and juiceless, the fruit shrivelled
and withered for want of moisture. Even at
this hour, in the soft growing heat, there are
gossiping loungers on the benches round the
square, talking over the paper or the last
bull-fight at Seville. There are no listening,
analysing sparrows about, and I hear no
crush or roll of vehicles. I see none, and
hear none. The city is as quiet as the country,
but more cheerful and sociable. The
waiter-looking servants, in the light jean
jackets, exchange civilities, proverbs, and
repartees, as they brush about in a playful,
careless, Spanish way, at their masters' doors.
Even now, early as it is, if you were to go
into the quiet shut-in cafés, you would find
burgesses at dominoes; and, as you sat at
your coffee, would be pestered by the pedlars,
who come in with their wares, and tease the
habitués. You must observe as you get into
the bright street, the Calle Ancha (Broad
Street), the pleasant light emerald-green
used on the balconies and window-frames,
and the general shine and glitter of gilding
about the trellises, which seem as rich as
bullion. At some of the doors are huge
lions' heads with gold rings in their mouths;
though the place is but a packet station. It
was once the exchange; the court-yard is
paved with marble; other doors are bossed
with long coffin-nail bosses, and over some
threshold are strongly cut helmets and deep
bitten-in coats-of-arms. High up, cutting
against the sky, are the celebrated miradores,
—the flat-topped towers which the Cadiz
merchants build for various purposes, partly to
catch the air, partly to smoke and read in,
and chiefly as observatories to look seawards
for their home-returning argosies.

But here come two Spanish ladies, going to
early mass, with the inevitable old duenna,
close, watchful, and important as the nurse
in Romeo and Juliet, at their heels; for this
is a country where hearts are tinder, and
sparks fly dangerously about. They look, as
all Spanish ladies look to English eyes,
full-dressed; so that a street full of Spanish
ladies at the fashionable shopping-hour looks
very much like an open air ball-room. Their
hair is glossy as a blackbird's wing, soft,
I daresay, to the lover's hand as a mole's fur.
The mantilla gathers round on their shoulders
in a cascade of blackness, and their black
fans work and winnow in that enchanting
manner which, it is said, takes seven years to
learn. The Cadiz foot is a proverb: the
Cadiz beauty is famous: the Spanish walk is
an institution. These ladies float along;
walking as Juno floats on clouds; there is no
stalking tramp here, no tremendous vigorous
exertion of muscles. No; there is only a
gliding, divine passage, not to be accounted for
by vulgar mechanical laws. Just behind these
comes a mule laden with twin altars of split
firewood securely corded on his panniers, and
followed by an old patriarchal muleteer, who
gives one the impression of Abraham going
up the mountain to sacrifice Isaac. The
mule (the leader of a string of others) bears
a bell, as large as a coffee-pot: underneath
its neck, its mane is cut into a pattern:
it is branded in large letters with the
owner's name on the left flank: it wears red
bunches and tufts over its blinkers, and a
great red and yellow tassel over its bent forehead.
No wonder, with all these badges of
distinction, that it leads the train of mean
and servile followers somewhat proudly; after
these comes a dust-cart, with a jolting bell