The religious ceremonies, of which travellers talk so much, are not for the most part peculiar to Seville, as it ought to be unnecessary to remind them. The tableaux in the processions struck me as theatrical, but as being on the whole as well represented as similar show-pieces in our pageants. The famous Dance of the Seises is reserved for the octaves of the Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi. It has been described over and over again. There is nothing irreverent about the performance, which is in itself graceful and quaint; only carried out before the high altar it strikes one as rather meaningless. So, I suppose, most such functions impress those who are unprepared for them by temperament and education. There cannot be much doubt that the ceremony originated in an attempt to attract the ungodly to church--an early and respectable precedent for the methods of the Salvation Army. Others have it that the dance is a survival of some pagan ceremony--which will remind us that we have so far neglected the monuments of the Romans which were bequeathed to Seville. These are not very numerous or interesting. Only a fragment remains, at the north-east angle of the city, of the massive wall which Cæsar built, and which completely girdled Seville as late as the reign of Juan II. It was strengthened, tradition tells us, by 166 towers, which were freely used as prisons by later rulers. The Cordoba Gate marks the site of the dungeon of the canonized Hermenegild. Close to it is the Capuchin Convent, built upon the foundations of the palace of the Roman governor, Diogenianus, and afterwards associated with Murillo. A noble aqueduct built by the Romans, and known to-day as the Caños de Carmona, still brings water from Alcala de Guadaira to Seville. Everyone who visits Seville is expected to make an excursion to the ruins of Italica, a few miles on the other side of the Guadalquivir. There is remarkably little to see when you get there, and not much is known about the place. There were few, if any, private dwellings here, and it existed rather as the place of meeting and distributing centre for the colonists scattered over the district. It was indeed raised to the dignity of a municipality by Augustus, but petitioned to be restored to its old rank of a Roman colony. It did not prove unworthy of its connection with the great capital. Hence sprang the illustrious line of the Ælii, and many of the eminent Roman Spaniards who conferred such lustre on the early empire are believed to have been natives. The town was embellished in those palmy days with temples, palaces, amphitheatres, and baths, quite out of proportion to its population.