'clock each night, four
spacious buildings scarcely suffice for the masquerading population.

But the paddles have been battering for some hours the waters of the
Guadalquivir, and we are approaching Seville, a city given to less
turbulent propensities--where Pleasure assumes a more timid gait, nor
cares to alarm Devotion--a partner with whom she delights, hand in hand,
to tread this marble-paved Paradise. The passage between Cadiz and
Seville, is composed of two hours of sea, and eight or nine of river.
The beautiful bay, and its white towns, with Cadiz itself, looking in
the sunshine like a palace of snow rising out of the sea--have no power
now to rivet the attention, nor to occupy feelings already glowing with
the anticipation of a sail between the banks of the Guadalquivir. A
ridge of hidden rocks lengthens the approach, compelling the pilot to
describe a large semicircle, before he can make the mouth of the river.
This delay is a violent stimulant to one's impatience. At length we have
entered the ancient Betis; and leaving behind the active little town of
St. Lucar, celebrated for its wines, and for those of the neighbouring
Xeres, of which it embarks large quantities--we are gliding between
these famous shores.

Great, indeed, is the debt they owe to the stirring events that have
immortalized these regions, for they are anything but romantic. Nothing
can be less picturesque;--all the flatness of Holland, without the
cultivation, and the numerous well-peopled villages, which diminish the
monotonous effect. On the right are seen at some distance the wooded
hills of Xeres; but for scores of miles, on the opposite side, all is
either marsh, or half-inundated pasture, with here and there some
thinly-scattered olive trees, and herds of oxen for its sole living
occupants. At a few leagues from Seville, the increased frequency of the
olive grounds--a few villages and convents, and at length the darker
green masses of the orange groves, give rapidly strengthening
indications of approaching civilization; and you are landed a short
distance below the town, to reach which, it is necessary to traverse the
Christina Gardens. The cathedral occupies this southern extremity of the
city; and on your way to the inn, you may make an estimate of the length
of one side of its immense quadrangular enclosure. Immediately beyond
this you are received into the inevitable labyrinth of crooked lanes,
peculiar to an Arab town.

The steam