s the valley of the Guadalquivir took us to the town
of Alcala, which lies in the lap of the hills above the beautiful little
river Guadaira. It is a picturesque spot; the naked cliffs overhanging the
stream have the rich, red hue of cinnabar, and the trees and shrubbery in
the meadows, and on the hill-sides are ready grouped to the artist's
hand. The town is called Alcala de los Panadores (of the Bakers) from its
hundreds of flour mills and bake-ovens, which supply Seville with those
white, fine, delicious twists, of which Spain may be justly proud. They
should have been sent to the Exhibition last year, with the Toledo blades
and the wooden mosaics. We left the place and its mealy-headed population,
and turned eastward into wide, rolling tracts, scattered here and there
with gnarled olive trees. The soil was loose and sandy, and hedges of
aloes lined the road. The country is thinly populated, and very little of
it under cultivation.

About noon we reached Carmona, which was founded by the Romans, as,
indeed, were nearly all the towns of Southern Spain. It occupies the crest
and northern slope of a high hill, whereon the ancient Moorish castle
still stands. The Alcazar, or palace, and the Moorish walls also remain,
though in a very ruinous condition. Here we stopped to dinner, for the
"Nueva Peninsular," in which I was embarked, has its hotels all along the
route, like that of Zurutuza, in Mexico. We were conducted into a small
room adjoining the stables, and adorned with colored prints illustrating
the history of Don John of Austria. The table-cloths, plates and other
appendages were of very ordinary quality, but indisputably clean; we
seated ourselves, and presently the dinner appeared. First, a vermicelli
_pilaff_, which I found palatable, then the national _olla_, a dish of
enormous yellow peas, sprinkled with bits of bacon and flavored with oil;
then three successive courses of chicken, boiled, stewed and roasted, but
in every case done to rags, and without a particle of the original
flavor. This was the usual style of our meals on the road, whether
breakfast, dinner or supper, except that kid was sometimes substituted for
fowl, and that the oil employed, being more or less rancid, gave different
flavors to the dishes, A course of melons, grapes or pomegranates wound up
the repast, the price of which varied from ten to twelve reals--a real
being about a half-dime. In Seville, at the Fonda de Madrid, the cooking
is