VIII
I wish now that I had known them well enough to ask them what they
candidly thought of the city of which I felt the witchery under the
dying day I have left celebrating for the moment in order to speak of
them. It seems to me at this distance of time and space that I did not
duly reflect that in places it was a city which smelled very badly and
was almost as dirty as New York in others, and very ill paved. The worst
places are in the older quarters, where the streets are very crooked and
very narrow, so narrow that the tram-car can barely scrape through them.
They are old enough to be streets belonging to the Moorish city, like
many streets in Cordova and Seville, but no fond inquiry of our guides
could identify this lane or that alley as of Moorish origin. There is
indeed a group of picturesque shops clearly faked to look Moorish, which
the lover of that period may pin his faith to, and for a moment I did
so, but upon second thought I unpinned it.
We visited this plated fragment of the old Moorish capital when we
descended from our hotel with a new guide to see the great, the
stupendous cathedral, where the Catholic kings lie triumphantly entombed
in the heart of their conquest.
Pages:
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395