Jogging round the world

There has been a wedding in Seville, and now the bride and bridegroom are going off with all the good wishes of their friends. The beautiful horse seems to know that he is taking part in an important event, and he stands very still while the good-byes are being said.

Seville is a very attractive and important city in Spain, on a river with such a long, hard name to say—Guadalquiver. Some parts of the city are below high-water level, so that often the river overflows and causes much suffering. Seville has many interesting old Moorish houses, because long, long ago the Moors came over the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco to Spain and settled there, building houses in their own style.

Some of these houses and palaces are beautiful, with double arches and carved patterns like lacework. The Alcazar was the palace of the Moorish kings and is wonderful to see, although not so marvellous as the Alhambra, at Granada, which the Moors also built. Some day you will read what Washington Irving wrote about it.

The Moors were driven out of Spain about the time of Columbus, when Ferdinand and Isabella came to the throne. Most of the houses in Seville are built in the Moorish style, around a court which often has a marble fountain in the centre, with beautiful shrubs and orange trees here and there. The streets are very narrow; in some places so narrow that two little burros could not pass if their panniers were full.