to be the geometric cobwebs of spiders of the
Tubal Cain period,—so lace-like and sharp,
and tender are the knots, the twistings, and
the intersections. Here is a house-door in
the Street of Jesus, number seventy-nine. We
disregard the great blind, yet jealous-looking
outer street wall, which might be a prison—
may be a convent—and we look through the
one passage or marble-paved porch, which
opens to the street; at the end, some ten feet
up, is the gate of cobweb iron, wreathed and
scrolled as if the design had been flourished in
on paper by some Arabian master of complete
penmanship. The curves are as of the waves
and the clouds, or are stolen from the flowing
roll of flower-cups or of vine-tendrils. They
present no impediment to the eye, and—though
safe  and strong, to keep out thieves and
lovers—are only seen when looked for. Inside,
is the hall, the Patio or small quadrangle,
which is the lungs of the Spanish house. The
bed-room windows and the balcony leading to
the upper rooms look down upon it. There
may be a central Arabian fountain of melting
silver, of flowing music, of singing water;
where marble basons seem scooped out of
melting ice, and brimmed with fluent
pearl. There may be a little pensive marble
statue like a Roman Penates, guarding the
lavish, generous water which gushes as freely
as good actions do from a good man's heart.
It has been the honest mirrors where dear,
dead Dolores has seen her fairy eyes glistening
a thousand times. It is the refreshing bath
where the bouquets warm from her bosom
were laid to lap and drink. It may now be
a little green and mildewed, and oozing about
the joints; it may have been a proconsul's
bath, or a sultan's palace of ablution.
There is a small grove of glossy-leaved
orange-trees, at the corners on one side, or
there may be a huge banana-tree, like a thing
of Paradise, flinging abroad the generous
arched leaves over the family circle below.
And the happy circle consists of an old
Don, with head yellow and shiny, who
broods over a cigarette; a comely mother
with black face, languidly busy, and perhaps
one or two black-eyed daughters, Immaculata,
and Rufina, with lace mantillas trailing from
their hair-knots over their shoulders, who
are listening with meaning smiles to a
mellow, merry voice and guitar in the next
garden, that are calling upon all the saints
in heaven to bear witness that he, Juan
(chwang) loves Inez (chwang, twang) and
Inez alone (chwang); or perhaps there is only
a single yellow light near a window on a back-table,
and an old Duenna nurse is playing
with some children, and laughing at Pedro, the
waiter at the Café of Julius Cæsar, next door,
who is smoking his cigarette outside the gate.

Once we look through the enchanted gates
of gold wire, and see a dark court-yard filled
with a thick odour of orange-blossom, and
see a small forest of slender marble pillars,
each no bigger than a palm-tree, and marvel
at the white glimmer of their reflections.
Another time, an empty courtyard with only
a glimpse, through the dark, of a winding
marble staircase, up which Don Quixote or his
duchess may have just passed. Passed or not,
I don't see even Sancho Panza—not even a
grinning Maritornes—sweeping up the place.

I pass the Street of the Sacrament, and
reach the festive house of the dancing-master.
I go up with a small crowd, what the Scotch
call "a common stair." The next door is a
lottery shop, and the door-way is covered
with printed sheets of numbers. I pay at the
door and enter. There is confusion in the
passage—a spirt and crack of matches—which
is unremitting. A Spaniard, when he is
silent or looking on, must smoke. The men
are evidently shopmen and clerks, a few
decent mechanics; but there is no vulgar impudence
or noisy bashfulness about them;
no strut or stare,—they are unpretending
and self-possessed, grave and almost
dull. Are these the men who cap you in
proverbs, who knife you in quarrel, who are the
dandies and bullies of Spain? Are these the
far-famed Andalucians, who are half Moors,
and are the dread of the more stolid north?

They are dressed in short jean and gambroon
jackets, brown or grey. A few wear
buff or white linen. They are all grave and
brown, and have neat feet, and thin but
shapely limbs. They all carry sticks, and
wear the Andalucian cap,—a stiff black cap,
with a low conical centre, and a high, round,
stiff brim, which curves up round it like the
walls of a burnt pie. Every one has a thin
paper cigarette between his scorched thumb
and forefinger. Every one has the end of
his handkerchief sticking from his outside
jacket-pocket. They seat themselves gravely
along the wooden forms, which are placed
round the room, at the end of which the
royal arms of Castille and Leon are rudely
painted, underneath a tawdry canopy. There
are few women, and they are plainly dressed
in black, with mantilla, and the inevitable
fan. The cigar-smoke is as the smoke of a
great battle, and the red sparks shine through
the blue vapour like frosty stars, on a foggy
autumn night.

The gipsies—the chosen dancers of the
Macarena, the ragged quarter, whence
Murillo drew his dusty-footed, melon-eating
beggar-boys,—are there all by themselves,
away from the Busné in a corner near the
two guitars, who are burning to get at it;
and near the half-dozen red-tasselled castanets
who presently will go off together like
so many hundred dice-boxes, shaken by mad
gamblers in a drunken tavern.

There are six of them. First, their great
singer, a half-idiotic paralytic boy, who,
writhing in a big brother's lap (big brother is
a kind fellow, but a horse-stealer and farrier)
he sings Las Casas, which he drawls out in a
melancholy low passionate voice; so that it
seems part a love song, part a dirge for an