; and the
pinky-purple blossoms of the _alamo_ shimmering in a rosy mist against
dark cypress trees, or mingling with the white lace of hawthorn was a
colour-symphony of Spring.

Dignified country houses no longer raised brown-tiled roofs from among
groves of olives; but an illimitable sea of waving downs lay bathed in the
amber light of Spain. Then, olive woods again, with a foam, of
field-flowers spraying their gnarled feet, hedges of sweetbrier, tangled
with tall, wild lilacs, and blossoming thorn. Beyond, high hills up which
the Gloria stormed boldly, frightening the horses of a troop of laughing
soldiers who rode without saddles; over stony roads, mere rough tracks
drawn through meadows, where bulls grazed, and bellowed at the automobile;
thus to a village which first showed itself like a white crown on a
hilltop, and proved to be inhabited by women and children of surpassing
beauty. Never were such eyes as those which looked from the faces in the
quick-gathering crowd; eyes like black wells with fallen stars in their
depths.

Peasant houses by the wayside had thatched roofs, grey and glistening as
silver plush; and outside ovens like huge cups turned upside down. The
fields were gay with flowers; the distance floated in waves of azure gauze
which touched the sky.

On we swept, as though to find the joining place, but found only Ecija,
the Town of the Seven Brigands, with its grand bridge and pearl-white
Moorish mills, in the yellow, swift-running Genil.

Kings had been lodged behind those brass-nailed doors and wrought-iron
balconies, the Cherub said; and malefactors famed in history and ballad
had swung from that tall gallows which caught the eye before Ecija's eight
church towers. There had been famous fighting, too, by the river bank; but
now the place slept, dreaming of peace, and the whirr of the mill-wheels
sounded as comforting as the "chum-chum" of a motor that runs by night.

So we flashed out of the Province of Cordoba into the Province of Seville,
and tall, slender palms, rearing feathered heads among walnut trees and
oaks, were signposts pointing south. It was early in April, but the air
was the air of an English June, and I wondered to see men muffled in long
_capas_. "They do it to keep out the sun, as in the north to keep out the
wind," explained Pilar; but she only laughed when Dick asked why they
shaved their donkeys' backs, why they put red and yellow muzzles on their
donkeys' mouths, why th