Southern Spain, Painted by Trevor Haddon, Described by A. F. CalvertCalvert, Albert Frederick
History
Southern Spain, Painted by Trevor Haddon, Described by A. F. Calvert
Calvert, Albert Frederick
Spain -- Description and travel
Murillo's house is still standing in the Plaza de Alfaro in the old
Ghetto. Here he died on April 3, 1682, after his fall from the
scaffolding at Cadiz. His studio is shown filled with several undoubted
works of his brush. The house belongs to the executors of the late Dean
Cepero.
The Duke de Montpensier has a fine collection of pictures at his ugly
Palace of St. Telmo, near the Torre del Oro. Among them is included a
sketch by our late Queen, when she was still a princess. The palace
looks on a parade which is much resorted to by the Sevillanos in the
summer months. Here you see the boys playing at the inevitable
bull-fight. One who takes the part of toro has a real bull's horns with
which he "gores" his comrades with great ferocity. The insistence on
this brutal "sport" among the Andalusians has taken the form of acute
monomania. Exasperated strangers have been heard to declare that in
southern Spain you hear of but two things--Toros y Moros. In another
corner of the promenade, you will come upon a party of little girls
going through the peculiar and stately dances, or rather measures, of
their country, to the accompaniment of a low chant and a clapping of
hands, in which the boys, looking on from a distance, will join. Boys
and girls, unless they are quite babies, are seldom seen together. You
pass on and find a group of citizens seated at the little tables round a
kiosk, refreshing themselves with lemonade and being entertained by a
conjuror--a fine-looking man--who sends round the hat after every two
or three tricks. In the ordinary way you are asked for alms more often
than in Granada, but not, of course, to anything like the same extent as
in London. English travellers are given to commenting on the mendicity
in foreign cities, but I must confess that nowhere have I met with so
many beggars as in our own capital. In Spain the fraternity chiefly
haunt the steps of churches, the one spot in our happy country that they
seem to avoid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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