There are mountains of oranges and
dates, brown hillocks of nuts of every kind, store of every product of
this versatile soil. The air is filled with nutty and fruity fragrance.
Under the ancient arcades are the stalls of the butchers, rich with the
mutton of Castile, the hams of Estremadura, and the hero-nourishing
bull-beef of Andalusian pastures.
At night the town is given up to harmless racket. Nowhere has the
tradition of the Latin Saturnalia been fitted with less change into the
Christian calendar. Men, women, and children of the proletariat - the
unemancipated slaves of necessity - go out this night to cheat their
misery with noisy frolic. The owner of a tambourine is the equal of a
peer; the proprietor of a guitar is the captain of his hundred. They
troop through the dim city with discordant revel and song. They have
little idea of music. Every one sings and sings ill. Every one dances,
without grace or measure. Their music is a modulated howl of the East.
Their dancing is the savage leaping of barbarians. There is no lack of
couplets, religious, political, or amatory. I heard one ragged woman
with a brown baby at her breast go shrieking through the Street of the
Magdalen, -
"This is the eve of Christmas,
No sleep from now till morn,
The Virgin is in travail,
At twelve will the child be born!"
Behind her stumped a crippled beggar, who croaked in a voice rough with
frost and aguardiente his deep disillusion and distrust of the great:
