es of private families. This quarter is
not without its perils. In fact, if dark deeds are practised, no
situation could possibly be better suited to them. These Arab streets
wind, and twist, and turn back on themselves like a serpent in pain.
Every ten yards presents a hiding-place. There is just sufficient
lighting up at night to prevent your distinguishing whether the street
is clear or not: and the ground-floors of the houses, in the winter
season, are universally deserted.

An effectual warning was afforded me, almost immediately on my arrival
at Seville, against frequenting this portion of the town without
precaution after nightfall. An acquaintance, a young Sevillano, who had
been my daily companion during the first five or six days which followed
my arrival, was in the habit of frequenting with assiduity, some of the
above-mentioned streets. He inhabited one of them, and was continually
drawn by potent attraction towards two others. In one, in particular,
he followed a practice, the imprudence of which, in more than one
respect, as he was much my junior, I had already pointed out to him. A
lady, as you have already conjectured, resided in the house, in
question. My friend, like many of his compatriots, "sighed to many;" but
he loved this one; and she was precisely the one that "could ne'er be
his." She allowed him, however, a harmless rendezvous, separated from
all danger, as she thought, by the distance from the ground to the
balcony, situated on the first-floor. The lady being married, and
regular visiting being only possible at formal intervals, these
interviews had by degrees alarmingly, as appeared to me, increased in
frequency and duration; until at length during two hours each evening,
my acquaintance poured forth in a subdued tone, calculated to reach only
the fair form which bent over the balcony, his tender complaints.

The youth of these climes are communicative on subjects which so deeply
interest their feelings; and whether willing or not, one is often
admitted to share their secrets at the commencement of an acquaintance.
It was thus that I had had an opportunity of lecturing my friend on the
various dangers attending the practice in which he was persisting, and
of recommending him--the best advice of all being, of course,
useless--to revive the more prudent custom of by-gone times, and if he
must offer nightly incense to the object of his fire, to adopt the mode
sanctioned by Count Almaviva, and