United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is getting late; little by little, the siestas are everywhere coming to an end; the queer little streets brighten up and begin to swarm in the sunshine with many-colored parasols. Now begins the procession of ugliness of the most impossible description a procession of long-robed, grotesque figures capped with pot-hats or sailors' headgear.
The streets are sprinkled from end to end with shovel-hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and the church bells by dozens are pealing all the day long, nearly. Every now and then one comes across a friar of orders gray, with shaven head, long, coarse robe, rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals or entirely bare.
Near midnight we sauntered down the street to the quay, whence we were rowed to the ship by another turbaned, long-robed figure, who sweetly begged just a copper or so "for poor boatman." We found the ship in the process of coaling, every porthole and doorway closed, and heavy canvas hung to protect as far as possible the clean decks. Two barges were moored alongside.
Walking with my long-robed scholarly guide through the still, shadowy courts, under Renaissance arches and Moorish roofs, hearing him talking with enthusiasm of the glories of the past and never a word of the events of the present, in his pure, strong, guttural Castilian, no living thing in view but an occasional Franciscan gliding under the graceful arcades, it was not difficult to imagine the scenes of the intense young life which filled these noble halls in that fresh day of aspiration and hope, when this Spanish sunlight fell on the marble and the granite bright and sharp from the chisel of the builder, and the great Ximenez looked proudly on his perfect work and saw that it was good.
But in one spot, I mean the court and precincts of the temple, glared a continual light. It was the blaze of the altars; towards which I discerned a long-robed train of priests moving in solemn procession, to supplicate by prayer and sacrifice, at this destructive moment, the intervention of Isis, who had taught the first fathers of mankind the culture of the earth, and other arts of civil life.
On the table was neither wine nor food, but there was a great book, silver covered and golden lettered, and it was open at a place where a wondrous picture in many hues showed a king who seemed to humble himself in fear before a long-robed man priestlike. He did not stir when we came in, nor did he say a word.
It is getting late; little by little, the siestas are everywhere coming to an end; the queer little streets brighten up and begin to swarm in the sunshine with manycolored parasols. Now begins the procession of ugliness of the most impossible description a procession of long-robed, grotesque figures capped with pot-hats or sailors' headgear.
The people they met seemed of every complexion and country, from groups of tourists in the latest fashion to a couple of long-robed Parsees, with their funny little caps perched above their black polls.
"Will you stay with me, Diego?" says the long-robed prior. "I'd rather go to court," says Diego. "Nay, my son," says Columbus, "if the good prior will keep you, I will leave you here while I go on my uncertain errand." So the little boy stands in the great stone doorway and watches his father out of sight toward Cordova. At Cordova is nothing but excitement and confusion.
Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass.
Word Of The Day