The Torre Del Oro by Esther Singleton — Read

EDMUNDO DE AMICIS

I arrived at a hotel, threw my valise into a _patio_, and went to roam about the city. It seemed to me to be a larger, a more beautiful and an enriched Cordova. The streets are wider, the houses taller, and the _patios_ more spacious; but the general appearance of the city is the same. Here is the same spotless whiteness, the same intricate network of small streets, the general odour of oranges, the delightful feeling of mystery and that strange Oriental look that produces in the heart that sweet sentiment of melancholy and in the mind the thousand fancies, desires and visions of a far-away world, a strange life, an unknown people and an earthly paradise full of love, delight and peace. In these streets you read the history of the city: every balcony, fragment of sculpture and solitary cross-road recall the nocturnal adventures of a king, the dreams of a poet, the adventures of a beauty, a love-scene, a duel, an abduction, a fable, and a feast. Here is a reminiscence of Maria de Pedilla, there of Don Pedro, farther away one of Cervantes and elsewhere of Columbus, Saint Theresa, Velasquez and Murillo. A column reminds you of the Roman rule; a tower, the magnificence of the monarchy of Charles V.; an Alcazar recalls the splendours of the Arabian courts. Superb marble palaces stand beside modest white houses; the tiny, winding streets lead to immense squares filled with orange-trees; from lonely and silent cross-streets you emerge, after a sharp turn, into a street filled with a noisy crowd. Wherever you go, through the graceful gratings of the _patios_, you see flowers, statues, fountains, rooms, walls covered with arabesques, Arabian windows and slender columns of precious marble; and at every window and in every garden there are women dressed in white half hidden, like shy nymphs, behind the grapevines and rose-bushes.