It Was So Early An Hour In The Morning That The Shops Were Scarcely
Opened As Yet; The Churches, However,
Stood open for the faithful,
and we met scores of women tripping towards them with pretty feet,
and smart black
Mantillas, from which looked out fine dark eyes and
handsome pale faces, very different from the coarse brown
countenances we had seen at Lisbon. A very handsome modern
cathedral, built by the present bishop at his own charges, was the
finest of the public edifices we saw; it was not, however, nearly
so much frequented as another little church, crowded with altars
and fantastic ornaments, and lights and gilding, where we were told
to look behind a huge iron grille, and beheld a bevy of black nuns
kneeling. Most of the good ladies in the front ranks stopped their
devotions, and looked at the strangers with as much curiosity as we
directed at them through the gloomy bars of their chapel. The
men's convents are closed; that which contains the famous Murillos
has been turned into an academy of the fine arts; but the English
guide did not think the pictures were of sufficient interest to
detain strangers, and so hurried us back to the shore, and grumbled
at only getting three shillings at parting for his trouble and his
information. And so our residence in Andalusia began and ended
before breakfast, and we went on board and steamed for Gibraltar,
looking, as we passed, at Joinville's black squadron, and the white
houses of St. Mary's across the bay, with the hills of Medina
Sidonia and Granada lying purple beyond them.
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