There are crested landaus, with handsome horses, gay donkey-carts, decked out with wreaths and tassels, shabby cabs, sporting red and yellow ribbons on their whips, tooting coaches--every sort and kind of contrivance for relieving humanity of its own weight. There are mounted cavaliers in plenty, and occasionally, under due masculine escort, a fair-haired English girl rides by, or a group of Spanish señoras, who have come into Seville on horseback from their country homes. But all this movement is slow and dreamy, the play of the children being as gentle as the waving of the fans.
Even Gypsy Lane shares in the tranquillity of the drowsy afternoon. We were captured there almost without violence, and, while we trifled with the slightest refreshment we could find, a juvenile entertainment beguiled us of our coppers with pleasurable ease. A coquettish midget of four summers innocently danced for us the dances that are not innocent, and a wee goblin of seven, who could not be induced to perform without a cap, that he might pull it down over his bashful eyes, stamped and kicked, made stealthy approaches and fierce starts of attack through the savage hunting jigs inherited from the ancient life of the wilderness. The women swung their arms and shrilled wild tunes to urge the children on, but a second youngster who attempted one of these barbaric dances for us broke down in mid career, and, amid a chorus of screaming laughter, buried his blushes in his mother's lap. The tent had become crowded with stalwart, black _gitanos_, but they were in a domestic mood, smiled on the children's antics, and eyed us with grim amusement as the women caught up from rough cradles and thrust into our arms those elfish babies of theirs. Even the infant of five days winked at us with trickery in its jet beads of vision. But so inert was gypsy enterprise that we were suffered to depart with a few _pesetas_ yet in our possession.
In the evening, from eight till one, the _Feria_ is perfect Fairyland. Under the light of those clustered gas globes and butterfly-colored lanterns pass and repass the loveliest women of the world. Beautifully clad as the señoritas have been during morning and afternoon, their evening toilets excel and crown the rest. White-robed, white-sandalled, their brown, bewitching faces peeping out from the lace folds of white mantillas, with white shawls, embroidered in glowing hues, folded over the arm, and delicate white fans in hand, they look the very poetry of maidenhood. Months of saving, weeks of stitching, these costumes may have cost, but the _Feria_ is, above all, a marriage mart, and the Andalusian girl, usually so strictly guarded, so jealously secluded, never allowed to walk or shop alone, is now on exhibition. As these radiant forms glide along the avenues, the men who meet them coolly bend and look full into their faces, scanning line and feature with the critical air of connoisseurs. But well these cavaliers illustrate the Andalusian catch:--