There were few of
those rendering us service there whom we would not willingly have
brought away with us; but very likely we should have found they had the
defects of their qualities.
When we definitely turned our backs on the potential poultry-farm
offered us at our hotel, we found ourselves in as good housing at
another, overlooking the length and breadth of the stately Plaza San
Fernando, with its parallelogram of tall palms, under a full moon
swimming in a cloudless heaven by night and by day. By day, of course,
we did not see it, but the sun was visibly there, rather blazing hot,
even in mid-October, and showing more distinctly than the moon the
beautiful tower of the Giralda from the waist up, and the shoulder of
the great cathedral, besides features of other noble, though less noble,
edifices. Our plaza was so full of romantic suggestion that I am rather
glad now I had no association with it. I am sure I could not have borne
at the time to know, as I have only now learned by recurring to my
Baedeker, that in the old Franciscan cloister once there had stood the
equestrian statue of the Comendador who dismounts and comes unbidden to
the supper of Don Giovanni in the opera.
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