The Meaning Was Evident Enough, But We Sought Something Further Of The
Druggist At The Corner, Who Did His Best For Us In Such English As He
Had.
It was not quite the English of Ronda; but he praised his grammar
while he owned that his vocabulary
Was in decay from want of practise.
In fact, he well-nigh committed us to the purchase of one of those
votive candles, which he understood we wished to buy; he all but sent to
the sacristan to get one. There were several onlookers, as there always
are in Latin pharmacies, and there was a sad young mother waiting for
medicine with a sick baby in her arms. The druggist said it had fever of
the stomach; he seemed proud of the fact, and some talk passed between
him and the bystanders which related to it. We asked if he had any of
the quince jelly which we had learned to like in Seville, but he could
only refer us to the confectioner's on the other corner. Here was not
indeed quince jelly, but we compromised on quince cheese, as the English
call it; and we bought several boxes of it to take to America, which I
am sorry to say moulded before our voyage began, and had to be thrown
away. Near this confectioner's was a booth where boiled sweet-potatoes
were sold, with oranges and joints of sugar-cane, and, spitted on
straws, that terrible fruit of the strawberry tree which we had tasted
at Honda without wishing to taste it ever again. Yet there was a boy
boldly buying several straws of it and chancing the intoxication which
over-indulgence in it is said to cause. Whether the excitement of these
events was too great or not, we found ourselves suddenly unwilling, if
not unable, to walk back to our hotel, and we took a cab of the three
standing in the plaza. One was without a horse, another without a
driver, but the third had both, as in some sort of riddle, and we had no
sooner taken it than a horse was put into the first and a driver ran out
and got on the box of the second, as if that was the answer to the
riddle.
II
It was then too late for them to share our custom, but I am not sure
that it was not one of these very horses or drivers whom we got another
day for our drive about the town and its suburbs, and an excursion to a
section of the Moorish aqueduct which remains after a thousand years.
You can see it at a distance, but no horse or driver in our employ could
ever find the way to it; in fact, it seemed to vanish on approach, and
we were always bringing up in our hotel gardens without having got to
it; I do not know what we should have done with it if we had. We were
not able to do anything definite with the new villas built or building
around Algeciras, though they looked very livable, and seemed proof of a
prosperity in the place for which I can give no reason except the great
natural beauty of the nearer neighborhood, and the magnificence of the
farther, mountain-walled and skyed over with a September blue in
November.
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