DISCOVERING SPAIN.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18219, 1 November 1924, Page 13

DISCOVERING SPAIN.

XXV.—SEVILLE REACHED. (SPECIALT-T \T2ITTirS- TOR ' THI (By W. D'A. Cresswell.) When we reached Triana. a gips> ?üburb on the south side ot ' the birth-place of Trajan. 1( - itself was revealed to «*• » j sluggish, brovm stream ; our road was carried m» tlu ! of the city. To accustomed for w long to tho desolate silence ° . I sierras, all was confusion :■'» ' | About, us on a sudden were - aud inextricable traffic: in 1 surely, from modem trocars to i-J. strings of donkeys, each ctfast. b0 with hav or melons that it was r « - moving mountain of produce -bo i which -tramcars r-langcl thar bolls u | vain. A string of such ~ appearing across the bridge e in regular iiei'spective, coloured and glistening m the . • j? sunlight, seemed like a page from AU Bitba or some Arabian legend. authentic did they soem _ iu U, ' a J' sn "" li</!it and those surroundings t > was reu'lv the tramcars, now hopsle-ss y endeavouring to proceed, that mc unwieldy and r.hsurd. t> owl , Wo were amazed and checked., W™i«tii>am were some steamer* against a mnlv im stream the ''ivov disappeared round a" bend and the town se««ed finish with a few .lactones. » u e was Seville, a wule and along tho river a tew dusts ' i a row of high, colourless. houses with hind us was the river-hont , ! ' a packed row of white, papemh-look-. inir, dwellings. i „ r. 'We remembered another ernb n<mont, polished, unbreakable and black, with seats -screwed to the pavement, arches and chariots of iron through the rain, c regulftted oiderl.- , ness and roar, trees with their jubi.ance suppressed with soot, .stooping, silent men in black the same, tiee*. traffic and policemen ail one mimaculPte pattern, a standardisation of matter and mind, a swift- competence t () deal with any disorder and ugliness, with the pinched human beings that slink back to their slums, stunned and affrighted, from those .avenues of iron and glass. How shabby and adrift and slack wa.si Seville! Here urchins looked bright and happy, peddling m the dust, poverty and disorder seemed confessed and even privileged, and all was lively, assertive equality in public. What decadence ! What savagery! Ah, Don Espaua, bv what tremendous chance have you missed the first ■crude rigours of the industrial age. like some privileged spedes that e c cv es the brutal, bright Ase of Ice in Europe and keeps its spirit molten in some sunny spot, to emerge, immune a.nd ardent, when the thaw begins? You who Have retained in civil use the one imperishable doctrine of the Christian religion, the equal value of men's souls before God, will soon be casting off the dead trappings that have so profitably entangled you aside from progress, when the Spanish spirit, passionate, incalculable, ready for democracy will surely astound the world in a finer manner than before. Search for the Consul. We pressed forward into the city and enquired from a man clothed in bis-cuit-coloured linen for tho address of the British Consul. Only a fraction of his directions were understood by us, in short, that we should continue up the street a little further. , ~ It was a wide street, with shabby houses behind rows of trees, running at right angles to the river. Most of its frontage contained shops, and narrow, yellowish side-streets ran out of it for a* few yards and then twisted from sight. The pervading colour was yellow, from the houses, the sunlight, the complexions and trousers of the workmen, the tram-cars and the tiles used to decorate buildings and flower boxes. The pavement was crowded with indolent, slow-moving men, women of the lower class and idle, loafing soldiers in dark khaki uniforms. Here and therw were coloured African faces, and Moorish soldiers in red caps. . Our appearanoe roused much loss curiosity than in the smaller towns; we were less quickjy seen in such a crowd, and quickly lost from sight again when seen. On a corner of a side street we shopped a soldier. Ho had never heard of "the British Consul; and next, to assist him, we detained a postman, from whom we begged the soldier to get the information that would enable him to guide us. This was don©, and we followed our guid« through narrow streets, which, from the green creepers «md blinds that hung over the balconies of the high, imprisoning houses and the glimpses* we had of shrubs and palm trees within their courtyards, seemed to drive all knowledge of the hot, desolate ! 'campo' from our minds, though it stretched its terrible leagues all round us not a mile away. Some interiors we passed were more | like palaces, though the lane we trod was so narrow and so crazilv payed. Through magnificent wrouglit-iron gateways we had glimpses of marble vestibules and corridors of cool, hlue tiles, imprisoning fountains and flowers, and sunlight now detached and precious. But we were too tired and starving to have any knowledge of what we saw. At the slightest indecision of our guide we were flung into an agony of impatience. j Square of Palms. | ~Wc crossed tlie Plaza Fernandez, a I square of dirt closely surrounded by a ; black ring of cabs and the slim, drab I pillars of enormous palms, whose j fronds concealed the roofs and stories [ of the surrounding mansions and half the sky. T was aware of good buildings, the cathedral nearby with its ' base entirely concealed, and a line of ! gold letters, Hotel Inglaterra, aloug j one end of the square. A little further on we stoooed; the Consulate could j not be found. Two fat. linen-clad I policemen were consulted. The Consul Ingles, they believed, had gone, gone to some other street down by the river. Into narrower and darker streets we plunged, that ran at all angles, and left odd little triangles and spaces stranded behind them for the use of cabs and fruit stalls, or turned von ! into a cul-de-safc, that ended in a- high wall and the highest leaves of a garden or a garage that was /like a bandits' cavern for blackness, containing i two pneumatic tyres and a number plate,' and someone within who sang a barbaric, I)ervish-like song and worked a foot pump the while, i At last we stood outside tho Consulate, the only good building in an ugly, bare street that ran into the embankment quite close to the bridge by which we had entered Seville. Assured by our guide that he would wait for ten minutes, we rang and were admitted through a handsome grill. Within was a fountain in the centre of a large hall. Our business was enquired, and in u moment a figure in white, with shirt* sleeves rolled above the el bow and the most beaming and British face imaginable, appeared before us. "As you the Consul . J YVe ve walked from Lisbon,'' was the first thing we said , and I remember noticing his perspiring face as ho drawled incrcdu-

lously: '•'What, for pleasure?—No, I'm tho \ ice -Consul." Ho invited us into ins room at once The banks were closed, he said, in answer to our anxious enquiry; but lie would lend us money till the; morning. Gradually, as we told liim of our adveutures, aud next of our phms, he became most interested and cordial. The Englishman, uprooted and out of England, That a different- We should see a hull-fight, ho assured us; there was one 011 Sunday. And if we were starving and insisted 011 a cheap meal, he would tell his servant, who knew thcI'°or quarters of Seville, to accompany us. \\e 'might leave our packs; he .would be in the Consulate till four: and meanwhile he would enquire about lodgings. A Verminous Cafe. Without our packs, with money in our [lockets, and the prospect of a meal, how different were the streets! The soldier had vanished, now that we wished to pay him. nor did we ever see him again. Turning with our yuide into a crowded market, past moist heaps of fruit aud clouds of wasps and a stench of frying oil. we Were led in. a few minutes to a place I shall never forget. There drifted from a dark doorway the blue. smoke of singeing oil, that was only one item in the paraphernalia of a street whose sunlight, even, was artificial and impossibly bright, streaming from a painted sky. Within that lair, in which the eyos wore blind at first, were crowded three tables with cloths that "had once been white. Through a gap in one wall a stairway was visible for a few steps until darkness concealed it, out- of which emergedi, as we entered, a woman carrying a plate of stew, which she placed before' the last arrival. a seaman, who at once addressed in maudlin, broken English with an American accent. Other ruffians we could see around the walls, some dfivouring their rneals, some sprawling and replete. Seating ourselves among the men, who willingly made room for us, we had no sooner accustomed our eyes to the darkness than we saw that the table was alive with cockroaches, that wandered unmolested among the dishes and occasioned no remark. Appalled at the filth and darkness of the place, I looked aeain at our guide, but was reassured. to remember the office in which he was employed. Neither of us eared to eat anything, yet neither eared to funk it. "No stew for me," declared M . "Nor for me," I echoed. "Let's ask for fried eggs and potatoes and fruit.'' Fried eggs and potatoes we had, after which there was nothing but the vilest w r ine, like vinegar; a meal, in all, for which, the woman wanted such an exorbitant price, and so stoutly refused to take less, that we told her we would consult the Consul and return. This was a blunder, for the hag besieged the Consulate for days, demanding an enormous sum and quite upsetting the Consul, a' grave, secluded official very unlike, his subordinate; so that wo were obliged to pay the lot in the end, rather than become a • curse to our friends.

We hurried from the verminous shop, bought figs and apricots and plums at the market, and walked towards the river in search of shade. None was apparent until we had wandered upstream above the bridge, where, beneath a single, shabby tree, on a bank too steep for comfort, M instantly fell asleep. The place was ugly and industrial-looking, and other indolent, careless figures were asleep beneath another tree nearby. Unwelcome Visitors. Tcould not have slept in such a place, nor did I intend to. It had a menacing, awakening look. There was a group of loungers higher up who had observed us the moment we sat down, and were now sidling nearer in a manner that was meant to conceal the fact that they were "moving at all. They sat at last not far .away, and presently one of them approached us and addressed me in Spanish, a most unpleasant, ' ill-minded-looking fellow, to whom I returned no answer but a stare. In another minute the rest of them had sauntered up and sat closely round us in a circle. One look at them was enough, and another at the silent, deserted yards above us and the steep slide into the river. Saturated with sunlight, the river and the city and the bridge below us appeared to be empty of life. Not a sound eould be heard. We might have been sitting beneath a cork tree on the Sierra Morena. M , -vyith the filthy knees of a footballer and one hand flung out that displayed a signet ring and a wrist-watch, was lying; insensible to what had occurred. I shook * him. "Get up; we're going," I said. Drugged and stupid from the sun, he refused to move. I kicked lmn terrifica-I* ly. He opened his eyes, sat up, and stared at his new companions in amazement. " Theße . fellows mean some, mischief " I said. "Come on." And we fairly jumped through the mob before they knew it, M complaining and still at a loss as we left the locality. 'Taney waking a fellow up! Have you got the wind up?" he murmured. '' To have you insensible on my hands in the midst, of that lot, with your pocket-book sticking out of your shirt pocket, is more than I'll undertake," I retorted. "Fancy falling asleep like that, in a foreign city," I continued aghast, while M looked blankly up and down the desolate, blazing river for another tree. (To be Continued.)

Disraeli in a speech at Edinburgh in 1867 attributed all the successes of hia life to his wife, "because she has supported me by her counsel and consoled me by the sweetness of "her mind and Lady Beacocsfield ■was regarded in her time as a queer wite for a statesman. "The world, as G. E. Buckle says, "might find it difficult to decide which were the odder, her looks or her sayings, the clothes she wore or the stories she told." But she was ldndj sincere, shrewd in her judgments , and had absolute discretion. Her husband never hid political secrets from her. It is related of her that on one occasion her courage enabled her to bear the jamming of her finger m a carriage door in sanilmg silence so that his equanimity on the way to an important debate might not be- mstunbed Lady Beaconsfield died at theace of eightv, after thirty-three years of married 'life. Her letter ot last wishes, written many years before, ra God bless yon, my kindest, dearest! You have been a perfect hnsband to me. Be put by my side m the same grave And now farewell, my dear Dizzy. Bo not live alone, dearest. Someone I earnestly hope you may find as attached to you as your own devoted Majy Anne. . ~ Lord and Lady Beanconsfield were Iruried in the same vault at Hughenden and by the side of their lrenefajv tress, Mrs Brydges Williams.

Compton Mackenzie is planning a book which will easily surpass all hi 3 previous performances in point of length. It is, when complete, to be in seven to be named as follows: 1 "Alien Corn"; 2, "The Apple of Discord"; 3, "The Dark and the Fair"; 4, "The Heroic Symphony"; 5, "The Molehill"; 6, "The Mountain"; 7, "The Olives of Home." The general title is sufficiently comprehensive—"Life and Adventure." If the project materialises Mr Mackenzie will have easily established a "record," so far, at- all events, as fiction written in English, is concerned.