longside in preparation for the demolition of the building, and a party
of workmen in the pay of the municipality were engaged gutting the
church of its contents, and carting them off to a place of deposit,
where they were to be sold by public auction. These workmen looked
cheerful over their sacrilege. A waggon was outside the door laden with
ornaments ripped from the walls, gilt picture-frames, fragments of
altar-rails, and the head of a cherub. Half a dozen rough fellows in
guernseys had their shoulders under a block of painted wood-carving. As
far as I could make out, it was the effigy of one of the Evangelists. I
was refused admittance to the building, but I was told the sacramental
plate had been removed with the same indifference. The nuns escaped
without insult, thanks to the good offices of some friends outside, who
brought up carriages at midnight to the doors of the convent and
conveyed them to secret places of safety put at their disposal by the
bishop.

The people who committed this mean piece of desecration were all Federal
Republicans. They disobeyed orders from Madrid, and would disobey them
again. They were as deaf to the commands of Senor Castelar as to the
prayers and entreaties of the wives and daughters of respectable
fellow-citizens. And all this time that the central authority were
defied, artillerymen and linesmen were loitering about the streets of
Cadiz. Eventually it was plain they would be disarmed, as they were
disarmed at Malaga; and they would not offer serious opposition to the
process. Their officers were barely tolerated by them. The Guardia Civil
were true to duty, but when the crisis came, what could they do any more
than their comrades at Malaga? They were but as a drop of water in a
well. Disarmament is not liked by the old soldiers who have money to
their credit, but there is a large proportion of mere conscripts in the
ranks, and they are glad to jump at the chance of returning home.

Troubles worse than any may yet be in store; meanwhile the sun shines,
and Cadiz, like Seville, takes it easy. But there is a bad spirit
abroad, and it is growing. A pack of ruffians forcibly entered a mansion
at San Lucar, and annexed what was in it in the name of Republican
freedom; the "volunteers of liberty" have taken the liberty of breaking
into the houses of the consuls at Malaga in search for arms; an excited
mob attacked the printing-office of _El Oriente_ at Seville after I
left, smashed t