He met me at Cadiz, took me about the town, which appeared to me to
be of no very great interest;--though the young ladies were all very
well. But, in this respect, I was then a Stoic, till such time as I
might be able to throw myself at the feet of her whom I was ready to
proclaim the most lovely of all the Dulcineas of Andalucia. He
carried me up by boat and railway to Xeres; gave me a most terrific
headache, by dragging me out into the glare of the sun, after I had
tasted some half a dozen different wines, and went through all the
ordinary hospitalities. On the next day we returned to Puerto, and
from thence getting across to St. Lucar and Bonanza, found ourselves
on the banks of the Guadalquivir, and took our places in the boat for
Seville. I need say but little to my readers respecting that far-
famed river. Thirty years ago we in England generally believed that
on its banks was to be found a pure elysium of pastoral beauty; that
picturesque shepherds and lovely maidens here fed their flocks in
fields of asphodel; that the limpid stream ran cool and crystal over
bright stones and beneath perennial shade; and that every thing on
the Guadalquivir was as lovely and as poetical as its name. Now, it
is pretty widely known that no uglier river oozes down to its bourn
in the sea through unwholesome banks of low mud. It is brown and
dirty; ungifted by any scenic advantage; margined for miles upon
miles by huge, flat, expansive fields, in which cattle are reared,--
the bulls wanted for the bullfights among other; and birds of prey
sit constant on the shore, watching for the carcases of such as die.
Such are the charms of the golden Guadalquivir.

At first we were very dull on board that steamer. I never found
myself in a position in which there was less to do. There was a
nasty smell about the little boat which made me almost ill; every