To descend from this high-horsed reflection, as I must, I have to record
that there did not seem to be so many small boys in Seville as in the
Castillian capitals we had visited; in the very home of the bull-feast
we did not see one mimic _corrida_ given by the _torreros_ of the
future. Not even in the suburb of Triana, where the small boys again
consolingly superabounded, was the great national game played among the
wheels and hoofs of the dusty streets to which we crossed the
Guadalquivir that afternoon. To be sure, we were so taken with other
things that a boyish bull-feast might have rioted unnoticed under our
horses' very feet, especially on the long bridge which gives you the far
upward and downward stretch of the river, so simple and quiet and empty
above, so busy and noisy and thronged with shipping below. I suppose
there are lovelier rivers than that--we ourselves are known to brag of
our Pharpar and Abana--but I cannot think of anything more nobly
beautiful than the Guadalquivir resting at peace in her bed, where she
has had so many bad dreams of Carthaginian and Roman and Gothic and Arab
and Norman invasion. Now her waters redden, for the time at least, only
from the scarlet hulls of the tramp steamers lying in long succession
beside the shore where the gardens of the Delicias were waiting to
welcome us that afternoon to our first sight of the pride and fashion of
Seville.
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