IN SEVILLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1921, Page 3

IN SEVILLE.

SEVILLE. May 3. Ecw things in life arc so nice as dreams come true, very tew so scarce. Em- me. revelling it: hot. sunny, red and yellow Senile, all m\ ’’opes and dreams of >pain have come true. It is exact IV what I hoped it would i jib,-, quit;- liitfeii-ni from what 1 feared ami Mini, everyone tells veil who lias only been to Snain in tbe dark cold months. They say Un-e depressing people, ibct Ltieie i- tut colour in Spain, that it is a land of gloomy la ecu, ol 1 b„ r cs of poverty, of sußon resignation. Tbe cure for this malady is twentyioiir hours in Seville at fair rime. Itnsld (ii !V ear) and I arrived here, it is trite, after the Kerin itself w«< officially over, and all the gay booths and the Venetian masts and the strings of lanterns on tlie road in fniin Gadiz were being packed up till next lime. But the -pith of the fair, goes on just the same and to look at the crowded •streets, there seems to be no reason why it should ever stop. There is no colour in Spain 9 This taunting in bland ignorance of what I was in for. I strolled gently out of my hotel and walked towards the tiost office, a distance of perhaps 400 yard'. Before 1 reached its doors I bad been rushed, surrounded, swamped. overpowered by a hardo of Carmens, all in yellow and scarlet satin, with black lace shawls, with groat back combs, with mantillas, with starves like rainbows with fans, with flowers behind their ears. Carmens, complete to n shoe-buckle. It appears that Seville was holding a llag-dav in aid of some de-enim: cans'’, .and the lings were little blue paper flowers stuck on hold pins. These were planted in my bosom from my collar to my waist, as the bnndorilla plant’d in tin- nock of tbe lmll in the rhi . [Mir each (lower you drop a coin into the hand of the Carmen who stalls vox with it. By the time 1 had done mv business at the post office I Ichor 1 ! '■ j a bank of forgetme-nots. An aoqiu’intj mice suggested “a butcher's .slton at j Christmas.” but T prefer my own simile, i !a any ease I readied the hotel penniless j and was received with mockery by tlm I lmll-porter. j The whole place is really and truly I very much like t ( he first: act of “Cnr- } men" except that there are m: toreadors in costume at a!! events, and that I tlm men wear the great flat-brimmed j Welsh-looking lml. of Sold It Spain, j There is a certain amount of black in j the picture. Some of the less youthj f'ul nf thy Carmens' are dressed in i black and a certain nmpmTimt of (■ '<■ I men. but they help throw into higlmr ! lif the dazzling mess of colour. Mess is the word; it looks like an artist’s palette gone mad. Tt is it pleasant city, is Seville, bid j ! do not recommend it. at Ferin-time. | to anyone whose nerves ar not of enstj i'-on. Nobody goes lo bed. so far as T ! ran see. and. so far as t can bear, j every bod v makes as much noise as posI sible i'll the time. j \ll the world and all his wives were j arriving and denailing when Tntslii and j T ~ra\vled in. a shamefaced pair, grimy •with dust. Dust! T’vc never seen dust I before, in sttelt billowing, choking clouds as live on the Spanish roads. All the wav from Sherry-town (Jerez, where

‘.the Bristol conies from! the paid its.-If ; was excellent - bettor than any T have met since Tunisia. But the dust lies thick' on them, like snow, and even a couple of peasants jogging to town on their mules mill raise cloud wlp" 1 * lump's over Hie fields like smoke.