DISCOVERING SPAIN.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18195, 4 October 1924, Page 11

DISCOVERING SPAIN.

SPECIAL^RTICLE

- XXIV.— NEARING SEVILLE. (grtCIAtW WZITTEK TOE "THS PE»S3.") (By W. DA. Ckesswell.) Wc were awakened at 4.30 a.m. by a hea w shower of rain, that almost concealed tl«e surprising grey outline of grille on the plain beside us. iiurSdlv collecting out belongings, we "ado for the plantations of o.uegums Reside which we had fallen asleep m total darkness three hours earlier .Not 1 hundred yard* beyond it was a large Ihite farm-house, or hacienda, where . Bie . n were already astir, and horses that " d teen saddled were being led indoors irom the rain. Above us the light was giving but the sky was black. Sfou"? tne Jsn to the nearest outWintered a shed, a mere roof and thrce walls, containing two tiers of rough, wooden bunks along whose sides were perched, at all angles, at least a down villainous-looking men, emitting K of tobacco smoke that drifted away into the rain as though the place are on fire All wore that look of illdisguised satisfaction with the weather % Apparent on a wet day m any woolshed in Canterbury. Into this shanty we sprang from round the corner, surprising its inmates L much as they surprised us. There being no place to sit, we bade them good morning, and having a hatred of misunderstanding or obscurities of speech we stood silently watching the rain a curious, unifying spectacle without ' the first rain we had seen since leaving Liverpool. The men ceased their conversation, but paid us no other attention. They had an appearance of hem" good riders, from their awkward manner on the ground and the tightness of their trousers, and were perhaps the stockmen of n large ranch that 6tretches from Seville to the Sierras. Very shortly their company grew discomforting, we became cold from standing, and we left them, to explore the hacienda for more pleasant quarters. raise Pretences. V high wall entirely surrounded the other buildings, and entering by the main gateway we crossed a.large yard and approached a kitchen within which n i was lighting a fire It was "touch and go/' we knew, whether we should obtain a bite of bread and a cup of coffee or be obliged to reach fcevilie in our starving condition; but it the Sin would last heavily for half an hour and'we- should be given shelter m the right apartment, we had no doubt of our success. We were not above false pretences, and when the woman barely deigned to answer our request for shelter but went on coaxing her few sticks •we'entered her kitchen with the air ot men whose means of repayment may be takeu for granted, though we hadn t a Spanish copper between us, and seatedourselves beside the low, open fireplace above which yawned a chimney like the Wack vent of Vesuvius.- In the middle of a carefully whitened room was a bare scrubbed table and a few chairs: a ledge across the chimney held a row or ■utensils: hardly anything else was to be The fire alight, the woman stood a jar of milk beside it, and another of water. Next she placed on the table a few bowls- and. spoons and & loaf of bread, and then a mill for grinding coffee. We were rejoicing in these preparations when M remarked glumly that the rain had stopped. Out I went, with a great show of watchfulness, and found it drizzling a little, a drizzle that became so light, as the woman ground the coffee, that its conspicuous vapour against the dark trees was nothing but an agonising miracle. A man and a small boy came in, sat hungrily down, and were helped to large ?Wls of milk, into which thev threw pieces of bread, aiming faultlessly from the level of their heads. Then the •wretched woman, who had ignored us throughout, poured out the remaining milk for. herself and munched and drank with a stony loathing for us in her looks which was as nearly as she would tell us to be off. The odour of the coffee, which they drank black and unskimmed, was so affecting that lest I should burst into tears I rushed from the room, my friend following somewhere behind me. The rain had stopped, the clouds were dispersing, and at once we began preparing to enter Seville, in which we should live in affluence for a few days before we continued to Granada 'and Malaga, and searched, in adventurous destitution, for the cargo boat that wns to carry us as seaman to Italy, Greece and the Bosphorous. There was a stone trough among the trees, into which we carried water from a well on the road so that we might wash and shave, doings that must have appeared unique from the farmhouse, as the Woman we had left indoors stood watching us attentively ■ for some time from the gateway. M was sponging his legs with a handkerchief just then, while I was beiit at right angles before a mirror. We pulled on the polf-stockings we had brought from England only for the purpose of entering Seville, and as we passed the gateway on our way to the road our appearance was so improved that the miserable female of the hacienda must have, regretted intensely her failure to feed and entertain us. Twelve Miles More. Although Seville seemed so near to us across the plain, there was still twelve miles of road between us. We actually left the city belrind us on our left and tramped in an enormous detour. To «ee the city receding which we were in. fact straining every muscle to approach, on aching feet and starving 6tomachs, before the banks should shut' at midday, we required much patience not to leave the road and head straight across country. Only a suspicion that tho river was between restrained us. In time the road became Shaded with trees, which afforded us much relief, and we came at last to subunban buildings, some of which had the tables, placards, and wide-open doorways of drinking places, at which the idle of Seville who might stray so far on motors and bicycles could buy refreshment. Indeed, the verb "beber," to drink, appeared increasingly in different forms on every wall and placard v as we approached the city. The road was pitiless from dust and heat. The cars that passed us surpassed in violence of speed and vulgarity of handling any traffic we had evur seen. Few persons seem to realise that motors can display ill manners, or to insist that their chauffeurs shall be men who can sound. a born without insolence. From the dust that was flung m our faces we took refuge in a field of wheat. It was ten o'clock and the city was as far, and as near, as ever. back amon» the sheaves, each chewing a mouthful of wheat to appease bis hunger, we could never take our eyes 'off Seville, a huge grey'dam m the distance, above whose inudhke Moorish ;yall looked the ripples of a flood of ; ; *oofa. . . Inexplicable It seemed. J Pressing on again, we pafedtor a *fane between factories— trucks of coal,

JOoatgiaed at foot of equina.)

jets of escaping steam, chimney stacks and blackened men who looked no different, for being Spaniards, from factory men ih England. Behold the awful, hideous evidence of the unity of the world and the end of nationalities, the end of ignorance amongst roces of each oilier* s hoeds and methods. Have courage and shake hands, though the evidence appear so brutal. We may, at last, reform the savageries of evolution by which we are impelled. Seville, with your shawls and sineing, your Ibloodshed and _ glorious gardens, you, too, must foil in line, must eive up, as must England, the fetish of a perfected, enduring fashion of life. The road turned us at last until we were facing the city, which we made a desperato effort to reach before noon. Each was still chewing a wad of dough, that had become more enduring and clastic as he chewed it. They appeased our hunger and could be taken out axid kept when we asked the way. The River of Disillusion. Soon houses lined the road and pavements and cobbles appeared beneath us. Shops arose, from which shabby women, their faces shaded in shawls, stared at us in silence. Soon a bridge was before us, and in our excitement to see the Guadalquivir we pressed on excitedly, only to discover a dry, barren river-bed, containing near the bridge the most terrible hovels of tin and boards and sacking wc had over seen, a town built of refuse, whose wild, voracious-looking inhabitants may have existed on the tippings of the city. It was exactly as I had imagined the Guadalquivir would be, a name and no river. It was midday as we crossed the bridge. Whistles were blowing and bells were clanging in the city. Streams of people poured over the bridge, and cyclists dodged and darted unconcerned at the heat. Seville, of its flatness, was still almost invisible behind a single front of dwellings, high above which rose the straight grey roof and buttresses of the great cathedral, diminutive amid its city, though, after St. Peter's, it is th€ largest cathedral in the world. Higher still rose its one slim, brown, tremendous tower, square, simple, and Moorish at first, but after that ornate, and futile in the flourishing manner of the Spanish Renaissance, and ending finally in the famous revolving figure, La Giralda, about "whom cliag half the superstitions of Christian Seville.