The ground became more and more sandy, and the wheels of the calessin sank up to their naves in the shifting soil. We now understood why our driver had so strongly objected to our specific gravity. To ease the horse a little, we got down, and, about midnight, after having followed a road which wound round a steep rock in a zigzag direction, we reached Cormana, where we were to pass the night. Some limekilns cast their long, reddish reflection over the line of rocks, producing most powerful and admirably picturesque Rembrandt-like effects. The room into which we were shown was ornamented with some wretched lithographed plates representing various episodes of the revolution of July, such as the taking of the Hôtel de Ville, and so on. This circumstance pleased and almost moved us; it was like seeing a piece of France framed and hung up against the wall. Cormana, which we had scarcely time to look at, as we once more got into our calessin, is a little town as white as cream; the campanilas and towers of an old convent of Carmelite nuns give it a very picturesque appearance, and that is all we can say about it. Beyond Cormana, luxuriant plants, cactuses, and aloe-trees, which had for some time deserted us, now appeared again more bristling and ferocious than ever. The landscape was less bare and arid, and more varied; the heat, too, had lost something of its intensity. We soon afterwards reached Alcala de los Panaderos, celebrated for the excellence of its bread, as its name signifies, and for its _novillos_ (young bulls) fights, to which the _aficionados_ of Seville resort when the circus there is closed. Alcala de los Panaderos is situated very pleasantly at the bottom of a small valley, irrigated by a river; it is sheltered by a hill, on which the ruins of an old Moorish palace are still standing. We were approaching Seville; in fact, it was not long ere the Giralda displayed on the horizon its open lantern and then its square tower: a few hours afterwards we were passing through the Puerta de Cormana, whose arch enclosed a background of dusty light, in which galeras, asses, mules, and carts drawn by oxen, some coming to the town and others leaving it, crossed each other in a flood of golden vapour. To the left of the road arose the stone arcades of a superb aqueduct, of a truly Roman appearance: on the other side were rows of houses built nearer and nearer to each other: we were at Seville. CHAPTER XIII. SEVILLE. Seville--The Cristina--The Torre del Oro--Italica--The Cathedral--The Giralda--El Polbo Sevillano--The Caridad and Don Juan de Marana. There is a Spanish proverb, very frequently quoted, on Seville: "Quien no ha visto a Sevilla No ha visto a maravilla." We confess, in all humility, that this proverb would strike us as more correct if applied to Toledo or Granada rather than to Seville, where we saw nothing particularly marvellous, unless it was the Cathedral.