John Bull on the Guadalquivir | Page 2

of a boy
by that time, she said, smiling on me, but driving wedges between
every fibre of my body as she spoke. "Be it so," I said, proudly. "At any
rate, I am not so much of a boy that I shall forget you." "And, John, you
still have the trade to learn," she added, with her deliciously foreign
intonation--speaking very slowly, but with perfect pronunciation. The
trade to learn! However, I said not a word, but stalked out of the room,
meaning to see her no more before she went. But I could not resist
attending on her in the hall as she started; and, when she took leave of
us, she put her face up to be kissed by me, as she did by my father, and
seemed to receive as much emotion from one embrace as from the
other. "He'll go out by the packet of the 1st April," said my father,
speaking of me as though I were a bale of goods. "Ah! that will be so
nice," said Maria, settling her dress in the carriage; "the oranges will be
ripe for him then!"
On the 17th April I did sail, and felt still very like a bale of goods. I had
received one letter from her, in which she merely stated that her papa
would have a room ready for me on my arrival; and, in answer to that, I
had sent an epistle somewhat longer, and, as I then thought, a little
more to the purpose. Her turn of mind was more practical than mine,
and I must confess my belief that she did not appreciate my poetry.
I landed at Cadiz, and was there joined by an old family friend, one of
the very best fellows that ever lived. He was to accompany me up as far
as Seville; and, as he had lived for a year or two at Xeres, was supposed
to be more Spanish almost than a Spaniard. His name was Johnson, and
he was in the wine trade; and whether for travelling or whether for
staying at home--whether for paying you a visit in your own house, or
whether for entertaining you in his--there never was (and I am prepared
to maintain there never will be) a stancher friend, choicer companion,
or a safer guide than Thomas Johnson. Words cannot produce a

eulogium sufficient for his merits. But, as I have since learned, he was
not quite so Spanish as I had imagined. Three years among the bodegas
of Xeres had taught him, no doubt, to appreciate the exact twang of a
good, dry sherry; but not, as I now conceive, the exactest flavour of the
true Spanish character. I was very lucky, however, in meeting such a
friend, and now reckon him as one of the stanchest allies of the house
of Pomfret, Daguilar, and Pomfret.
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