A TRIP THROUGH SPAIN. LECTURE BY FATHER MAHONEY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 20, 22 September 1898, Page 3

A TRIP THROUGH SPAIN. LECTURE BY FATHER MAHONEY.

(Concluded.) From Cordova to SEVILLE. was one of the shortest railway journeys that I took in Spain, a matter of 82 miles or three hours. When I arrived in Seville I arrived at the beauty spot of Spain, the fairest flower in the garden of Andalusia. It is a most beautiful spot, a lovely oasis after the desert of Castile. You have often heard of that proud saying of the Neapolitans : ' See Naples and die,' but from my experience, I should say ' smell Naples and die ' (of cholera), but see Seville and live. See especially the Alcazar and rave forever after of that wondrous paradise of Moorish art. I think I had better not presume to describe what I saw there, for I feel that I could never do it justice. The Alcazar is the chief sight of Seville, as the mosque is of Cordova. No pen, no poem, btill less any photograph, could ever do justice to the marvellous architectural beauties of the Alcazar, the palace of the Moorish kings. It is only the brush and the palette of the artist that could ever five to human sense an idea of the majesty of barbaric splendour that is manifested in the beautiful designs and colours of this oriental gem. I always had a longing desire to visit Spain in order to see the Alhambra, but when 1 saw the Alcazar at Seville I was satisfied, for the Alhambra is only another Alcazar on a larger scale, and besides I had not time to go to Granada. In this famous building at Seville is seen the Mozarabic style in all its gorgeous beauty. The gardens attached to the palace f for it is still the residence of the Royal Family when in Seville) are also extremely beautiful. They are full of rare exotics and all the beauties of tropical vegetation, and seem a veritable garden of paradise. Among the chief attractions of Seville are its lovely residences, each with its cool patio or court filled with beautiful fragrant flowers, a delightful resort for the Sevillians on a hot summer day. The Plaza Nueva is a magnificent square, planted with orange, citron, and date trees, and here a band plays while you can sit down and eat oranges or dates from the trees around you. Another marvel of sunny Seville is its cathedral, with its famous tower of the Giralda. The Giralda is a veritable wonder of Arabesque architecture, and was the minaret of the mosque of the Moorish king^. It was built in the twelfth century by the Arab El Ghebir, the inventor of algebra, that everlasting worry of the schoolboy. This tower is 330 feet high, and in the sixteenth century was capped with a belfry. The ascent, to the top of the tower is made by an inclined plain, up which it is said two horsef can be driven abreast. The magnificent cathedral itself is a museum of art treasures containing several of the paintings of Murillo and Zurbaran, and in the Capella reale (or royal chapel) is the body of St. Ferdinand 111., enclosed in a costly sarcophagus. It was with reluctance I quitted this flowery centre of Andalusia! It is apparently a busy, go-ahead city, with an air of prosperity about it so different to Cordova. The hotels in Seville are very good also. On arrival at the hotel where I stayed I was rather surprised when looking out of the window to see the name of O'Donnell upon the house opposite. ' Now,' said I to myself 'if that is Mick O'Donnell from Cork I am going over to see him,' but upon examination 1 found that O'Donin 11 was the nun.c of the street, for 1 was in the country of the famous Marshtil O'DONNELL, DUKE OV TETUAN, and one time Prime Minister of Spain. The Duke has a magnificent residence near Seville. From Seville I took tram to Bobadilla a straggling town about 60 miles distant, and called after King Boabdil, the last of the Moorish sovereigns of Granada. It is fertile country about there, and the cultivation of olives seems to be carried on to a great extent. It is also the home* of the cork industry, and

at all the small railway stations along the route were numerous piled of cork bark ready for export. To a man fresh from the County Cork this was of course highly interesting. From there I went on to a miserable little town in the high barren mountains called Ronda, the terminus of the Spanish railway. I was obliged to stop here over night and put up at a very primitive hotel, where the wine was sour, the oil rancid, and the fish and meat somewhat ' high.' The next day I took the train on to Algeciras, on the Bay of Gibraltar, by a line of railway owned by an English company. After so many days of weary travel over the hot and dusty and dreary roads of Spain, it was a great relief to come in sight of the blue waters of the Mediterranean. From Algeciras I took the steamer across the Bay to Gibraltar, a journey of only 25 minutes. Long before arriving at Algeciras the great rock may be seen outlined against the deep blue sea and sky bristling with fortifications. I was really glad to be under the British flag once more, for it meant British cookery, as I was heartily tired of the Spanish dishes and I longed for the roast beef of old England. I must say that Spain is not a tourist country. For every 500 that visit France, Italy, or Switzerland, scarcely one visits Spain, and so the people do not live on tourists to the same extent as they do in those other countries ; hence the facilities for travel are not so great, nor are the hotels nearly so good ; though I must say that those of Madrid and Seville are as good as I found anywhere, and I have no doubt they are as good in Malaga and Barcelona. Then, again, the train service leaves great room for improvement. The best and fastest trains run at night, which is a disadvantage ; for you have to take a slow train if you want to see the scenery and there is no doubt but they are slow. I was rather amused with the guards on these trains. As soon as we arrived at a station the guard jumped off and announced in an excited way that there was 'one minute' stoppage, just as if the Yankees were after us, and there was not a moment to be lost. He would then spend about a-quarter of an hour talking to the stationmaster or some other official, during which stoppage a bell would be rung three times, and a horn blown twice, just to keep the passsengers from going to sleep or getting over-excited. I came to the conclusion that a Spanish minute is like an Irish mile — of indefinite length. On the journey from Madrid to Cordova I took a berth in a sleeping car, but found that there were other occupants of the bed who had not paid 18 pesetas for the privilege as I had done ; but after all, I found the Spanish flea a most sociable little creature ; he makes up to you at once and has such a playful way of tickling you that you cannot help feeling pleased — when the time comes to get up. In travelling in Spain some people would find the SMOKING propensities of the people objectionable. Everybody smokes everywhere, except in church. .They say that the ladies smoke also but I never saw any doing so. They will sit, however, in the midst of a group of smokers and seem to enjoy it. The only difference I saw between the men and women, was that the former exhale the smoke and the latter inhale it. There is no getting away from the smoke either. It is the custom of the country. On the whole of a long train there will be only one out of thirty or more compartments reserved for non-smokers and there is not a rush for that coupe either. The night that I went down to Cordova I was inhaling smoke instead of air, for they allow smoking even in a sleeping-car On the public dining-tables at the hotels there are candles placed, and as soon as the meal is over the smoker coolly lights his cigar at one of these and puffs the s.noke across the table at you. I see that in the war the Spaniards are using smokeless gunpowder. Spain will be a happy country to travel in when they introduce smokeless tobacco. They are a great people for salad oil and garlic. They seem to work oil and garlic into every dish on the slightest provocation, so that your breath becomes pretty significant after a while. And then the olive oil is pretty rancid at times and it is taken with nearly every dish as a German takes vinegar. I noticed a rather pretty custom at table. When a gentleman comes to sit down after the meal has commenced, he makes a most polite bow to his vis-a-vis, and if he should have occasion to leave before you he makes another bow. It was a great treat at Gibraltar to find in the menu at the hotel that there was no dish a Vhuile. At the Ronda Hotel the salad was served up in whale oil I think it must have been, it was so rancid. I did not go to see a bull-fight while I was in Spain, I saw no necessity for it while I could see a football match in Auckland. In Seville during Holy Week the hot-ls all charge double their ordinary tariff, as the ceremonies of the Church are carried out with great splendour, aud there is a great influx of people from all the country around. In a great many of the churches there are no seats at all, the male portion of the congregation stand, when they are not kneeling. The women folk frequently take with them a small mat on which they sit or kneel. In the hot weather fans are very much, in evidence, and in the streets all classes of women use them. You will see women of the lower classes using them in the streets to keep the sun off their heads. The graceful mantilla is generally the only head-gear of even the highest ladies. From my observations there is one thing which I cannot understand from our newspapers, and that is why Spain should be called a decadent country. 1 certainly saw very tew signs of decay. As I have already said, Burgos and Cordova and, no doubt, some others of the inland towns, are not so prosperous as they once were but, on the oth r hand. Madrid aud Seville, and most ot the seaport towns, seemed prosperous enough. I certainly did not see one fiftieth part of the misery and poverty in Catholic Spain that I saw in Masonic ridden Italy. If the Spanish Government had ground down the people by ruinous taxes in order to keep up a huge army and navy, she might probably have been more successful against the Americans than the Italians were against the Abysimans. It is probable enough that in years to come, if the unfortunate country be only kept tree from internal dissensions, possessing the climate, the fertile soil, and the unique attractions that it does, it may be as prosperous as are its neighbours, France and Belgium.