I do not promise to strike it; our hotel still
rankles in my heart; but I promise to try for it, though I have to say
that the very moment we started for the famous mosque it began to rain,
and rained throughout the forenoon, while we weltered from wonder to
wonder through the town. We were indeed weltering in a closed carriage,
which found its way not so badly through the alleys where two mules
could not pass abreast. The lime-wash of the walls did not emit the
white heat in which tho other tourists have basked or baked; the houses
looked wet and chill, and if they had those flowered and fountained
_patios_ which people talk of they had taken them in out of the rain.
VI
At the mosque the _patio_ was not taken in only because it was so large,
but I find by our records that it was much molested by a beggar who
followed us when we dismounted at the gate of the Court of Oranges, and
all but took our minds off the famous Moorish fountain in the midst. It
was not a fountain of the plashing or gushing sort, but a noble great
pool in a marble basin. The women who clustered about it were not
laughing and chattering, or singing, or even dancing, in the right
Andalusian fashion, but stood silent in statuesque poses from which they
seemed in no haste to stir for filling their water jars and jugs.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257