Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1842-1844.] THE FAMILY LAND AT CADIZ.

179

derived from our glimpse of Spain. Landing at the whitewalled Cadiz, we spent some days enjoying the novel sights
of that city; now strolling about the streets, where the beautiful, dark-eyed women, with their mantillas about their jetblack hair, flitted gracefully to and fro, and often stopped to
admire and kiss our bright, curly-headed Charley, as though
he were an angel in the midst of the brunette monotony;
now penetrating into the faintly perfumed chapel of some
religious house in quest of notable pictures; now looking at
the port, filled with ships of manifold rigs, among which
plied the boats of the deft Spanish oarsmen. And then one
day we took the steamer, and, having crossed to the other
side of thLe bay, went up the Guadalquiver, following its
numberless turns and bends, till we saw the Golden Tower
of Seville in the distance, and the vast pile of the Cathedral,
with its crested Giralda, looming over the orange groves. In
that city we spent several days, including the Holy Week;
and we looked with wonder on the processions and pageants,
which recalled the medieval Mysteries, as angels and archangels, saints and martyrs, Virgins and doctors swept by,
mounted on great cars drawn by handsome horses, and escorted by thousands of troops of the line, whose military
bands filled the air with music. And at the dead of night
we listened to the big bell of the Cathedral, whose tone, like
low thunder, is heard but two or three times in the year,
when Holy- Church is keeping up the memory of some great
act in the suffering life of the Redeemer of men. We heard
them sing the MJiserere in the Cathedral, and High Mass on
Easter; and then we went to see the bull fights at the amphitheatre, which holds 20,000 spectators. But that which gave
us most joy was the sight of the treasures of art in that shrine
of Spanish painting-the works of Valdes, Zurbaran, Velasquez, and Roelas, and the solemn splendors of the Carmen,
where the canvases of Murillo display the histories of the
old and new dispensations, and seem themselves like miracles
of religious devotion and technical skill. I remember noth