There are but few statues in the streets of the city. Velazquez has been honoured by a bronze figure, which stands in the Plaza del Duque de la Victoria. It was cast by Susillo in 1892. The monument to Murillo, in the Plaza del Museo, is also of bronze. It is the work of Sabino Medinia, and the cast was made in Paris in 1864. Number eleven in the Plaza del Duque de la Victoria is now a large drapery store. It was formerly the splendid palace of the Marquis de Palomares. It is a fine example of a Seville residence. As we wander from church to palace and alcázar of this ancient and beautiful capital, we are often reminded of the words of Cervantes in _The Two Maiden Ladies_: 'Seville is a city of Spain, of which you cannot fail to have heard frequent mention, considered, as it is, to be one of the wonders of the world.' [Illustration: Amphora] CHAPTER XIII _Seville of To-day_ 'To have seen real doñas with comb and mantle, real caballeros with cloak and cigar, real Spanish barbers lathering out of brass basins, and to have heard guitars upon the balconies.'--THACKERAY, _Cornhill to Cairo_. 'Many monuments, fine religious processions, splendid bull fights, and not much business,' was the pithy description of modern Seville given to me by an intelligent Basque _señora_, living in the Province of Santander. The picture is a good one. As to the monuments, we have seen that the city abounds with them. But it is not only the historic buildings, associated with the Romans, Goths, Berbers and Almohades, that lend the fascination of antiquity to Seville. The Andalusian features, the manners, the speech, the domestic habits, the music, songs and dances of the people remind us hourly, while in the city, of the Seville of a thousand years ago. A spell of Orientalism, strange and seductive, comes upon the stranger, as he sits on the marble benches under the palms in the Plaza de San Fernando, watching the olive-skinned _chicos_ at their evening pastime of mimic bull-fighting, or dancing, with quaint, slow movement of the feet and much swaying of the body, to a semi-barbaric accompaniment of clapping hands and a low chanting. The gaunt mules, with their Arabesque wool trappings and panniers, that pass slowly by, the water-sellers in their white garments and hemp-soled shoes, and the women with their black lace _mantillas_, which must surely be a survival of the Mohammedan veil, all serve to impress one with their suggestion of Moorish influence.