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SEVILLIAN ASPECTS AND INCIDENTS
It is always a question how much or little we had better know about the
history of a strange country when seeing it. If the great mass of
travelers voted according to their ignorance, the majority in favor of
knowing next to nothing would be overwhelming, and I do not say they
would be altogether unwise. History itself is often of two minds about
the facts, or the truth from them, and when you have stored away its
diverse conclusions, and you begin to apply them to the actual
conditions, you are constantly embarrassed by the misfits. What did it
avail me to believe that when the Goths overran the north of Spain the
Vandals overran the south, and when they swept on into Africa and melted
away in the hot sun there as a distinctive race, they left nothing but
the name Vandalusia, a letter less, behind them? If the Vandals were
what they are reported to have been, the name does not at all
characterize the liveliest province of Spain. Besides, the very next
history told me that they took even their name with them, and forbade me
the simple and apt etymology which I had pinned my indolent faith to.
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