The Colonial Tourist Abroad.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XI, 14 March 1903, Page 703

The Colonial Tourist Abroad.

A VISIT TO SEVILLE. It is not astonishing that very few colonials ever dream of including Spain in their tours of Europe, for as a fact it is strangely neglected by even the most persistent of British tourists. People go year after year to France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Norway, and leave Spain alone. Yet it is unquestionably one of the loveliest and most interesting countries to visit in the world. Seville alone—which we take for illustration this week—would absorb a w’eek from even the most energetic sight-seer, and a month could be spent in the ancient city with pleasure and profit. The cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria de la Sede. ranks in size second only to St Peter’s at Rome, and is one of the most splendid and ornate structures in the world. It was begun in 1403 and finished in 1519, so that one style of pointed Gothic architecture is fairly preserved. The interior is superior to the exterior. It forms a parallelogram, containing a nave and four aisles with surrounding chapels, a central dome 171 ft high inside, and at the east end a royal sepulchral chapel erected in the 16th century. The 32 immense clustered columns, the 93 vast windows filled with the finest glass by great artists of the 16th century, and the jewels and works of art on every side produce an unsurpassed effect of magnificence and grandeur. The photograph of the cathedral gives no adequate idea of this vast and perfect work of architecture and art, the outcome of the great mosque of Ya’Kub Yusuf, of 1171, where the altars blaze with jewels and precious stones, and the works of all the great artists of Spain and Italy cover the walls and ceilings. The paintings of Velesquez and Murillo, in this shrine of

the artists’ birthplace, particularly abound. During the Octave of the Festival of Corpus Christi you still see the ancient custom of the dance of the ten boys before the high altar in imitation of the dance of the Israelites before the Ark. In the choir (coro), the dignitaries of the church sit in the stalls by the light of candles and intone in turn from mediaeval illuminated missals, or perambulate round the choir until the time comes for the grand procession, with the cardinal in scarlet robes, priests in wondrous vestments, acolytes, etc.,

to the high altar of the Chapel Mayor to witness the miuuet-like dance of the ten boys in their fantastic dress of the period of Philip 111., with their casta nets, to the strains of a stringed orehes tra. I was glad to be able to get hold of two of these boys, so as to photo graph them for my readers. The Alcazar, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings, which has been the residence of the Spanish sovereigns since the capture of Seville in 1248, is a fascinating place. As the photograph shows, the exterior, with its masses of

bare masonry and its embattled towers, still preserves the character of a mediaeval eastle. But the Moorish character is seen in such courts as the Patio de las Doncellas (Court of the Maidens), with its exquisite arches and coupled marble columns in the beautifully combined blue and other colours of Eastern art. The Giralda, of which we give a photograph, is the most conspicuous landmark of Seville. It was originally the minaret of the Moorish mosque of 1184. The private life of Seville is, accord-

ing to the Moorish custom, mainly focussed in the inner courts of the houses, rich in palms and other exotic plants, and flanked right and left by the staircases leading to the upper stories. The Royal cigar factory is worthy of

a visit. It is a building 662 ft long by 524 ft wide, and employs 4500 hands, working up 2,000,0001 b of tobacco yearly. Little altars adorn the entrances to the working halls, where the women cheerfully roll the cigarettes, or make their

eight or ten bundles of 50 cigars a day. The unmarried girls, like those in the photograph, generally wear a flower coquettishly tucked in their hair, and it

is pleasant to see mothers mechanically racking the wooden ’cradles of their babies at their feet as they pursue their avocation.