The Time
Arrived, And Now, At Length, The Very Atlantic Is Crossed By
Haughty Steamers.
Much has been said of the utility of steam in
spreading abroad civilization, and I think justly.
When the first
steam vessels were seen on the Guadalquivir, about ten years ago,
the Sevillians ran to the banks of the river, crying "sorcery,
sorcery," which idea was not a little favoured by the speculation
being an English one, and the boats, which were English built,
being provided with English engineers, as, indeed, they still are;
no Spaniard having been found capable of understanding the
machinery. They soon however, became accustomed to them, and the
boats are in general crowded with passengers. Fanatic and vain as
the Sevillians still are, and bigoted as they remain to their own
customs, they know that good, in one instance at least, can proceed
from a foreign land, and that land a land of heretics; inveterate
prejudice has been shaken, and we will hope that this is the dawn
of their civilization.
Whilst passing over the bay of Cadiz, I was reclining on one of the
benches on the deck, when the captain walked by in company with
another man; they stopped a short distance from me, and I heard the
captain ask the other, in a low voice, how many languages he spoke;
he replied "only one." "That one," said the captain, "is of course
the Christian"; by which name the Spaniards style their own
language in contradistinction to all others.
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