Cador

“ Cador informed her that his friend had left him the greater part of his property, and hinted that it would be his greatest happiness to share it with her. The lady wept, grew angry, but allowed herself to be appeased. The conversation became more confidential. Azora praised the defunct, but confessed that he had many faults from which Cador was exempt.
In the midst of the supper, Cador complained of a violent pain in his liver. The anxious lady rang for her essences, thinking that perhaps one among them might be good for the liver-complaint. ”

“ Itobad, always surprised at the disgraces that happened to such a man as he, was obliged to yield to Zadig, who took from him with great composure his magnificent helmet, his superb cuirass, his fine brassarts, his shining cuishes; clothed himself with them, and in this dress ran to throw himself at the feet of Astarte. Cador easily proved that the armor belonged to Zadig. ”

“ He repeated the catalogue of his misfortunes, beginning with the queen’s spaniel, and ending with his arrival at the castle of the robber Arbogad. “Ah!” said he to the fisherman, “Orcan deserves to be punished; but it is commonly such men as those that are the favorites of fortune. However, go thou to the house of Lord Cador, and there wait my arrival.” They then parted, the fisherman walked, thanking Heaven for the happiness of his condition; and Zadig rode, accusing fortune for the hardness of his lot. ”

“ Azora broke out into such long invectives and loaded the young widow with such bitter reproaches, that Zadig was far from being pleased with this ostentation of virtue.
Zadig had a friend named Cador, one of those young men in whom his wife discovered more probity and merit than in others. He made him his confidant, and secured his fidelity as much as possible by a considerable present. Azora, having passed two days with a friend in the country, returned home on the third. The servants told her, with tears in their eyes, that her husband died suddenly the night before ”

“ The fourth bearing, in the one hand, a broken pillar, at the top thereof the crown and sceptre of the vanquished king, both broken asunder, representing the conquest over usurpation; in the other hand a target, with two cocks painted thereon, the one lying dead, the other with his wings broken, his eyes pecked out, and the blood everywhere gushing forth to the ground; he standing upon the dead cock and crowing over him, with this emblem in the top: Qua vici, perdidi, signifying Cador deadly wounded by Gilla, whom he slew. ”

“ As they were going up the stairs, Cador, duke of Cornwall, who was a man of a merry disposition, said to the king in a jocose manner: "I have been till now under fear, lest the easy life which the Britons lead, by enjoying a long peace, might make them cowards, and extinguish the fame of their gallantry, by which they have raised their name above all other nations. For where the exercise of arms is wanting, and the pleasures of women, dice, and other diversions take place, no doubt, what remains of virtue, honour, courage, and thirst of praise, will be tainted with the rust of idleness. ”

“ Through its open archways he looked down on the huddled pueblo, and out over the great mesa-strewn plain far below. He was unable to fix his mind upon his office. The pueblo down there was much too quiet. At this hour there should be a few women washing pots or rags, a few children playing by the cisterns and chasing the turkeys. But to-day the rock top baked in the fire of the sun in utter silence, not one human being was visible—yes, one, though he had not been there a moment ago. At the head of the stone stairway, there was a patch of lustrous black, just above the rocks; an Indian’s hair. ”

“ Nothing can be more bleak and dreary than the appearance of the whole Cordillera of Catorce: a few narrow mule-paths, or the white bed of a torrent indistinctly traced upon the surface, alone break the monotonous colouring of the mass; and the town, though placed at an immense height, is invisible from below, being completely hidden by the brow of the mountain: not a tree, not a blade of grass is to be seen in its vicinity ”

“ Cadiz stands, as is well known, upon a long narrow neck of land stretching out into the ocean, from whose bosom the town appears to rise, the salt waters laving its walls on all sides save the east, where a sandy isthmus connects it with the coast of Spain. The town, as it exists at the present day, is of modern construction, and very unlike any other town which is to be found in the Peninsula, being built with great regularity and symmetry. The streets are numerous, and intersect each other, for the most part at right angles. ”

“ Cadiz is like an island of chalk. It is a great white spot in the midst of the sea, without a cloud, without a black line, without a shadow—a white spot as clear and pure as a hilltop covered with untrodden snow, standing out against a sky of beryl and turquoise in the midst of a vast flooded plain. A long, narrow neck of land unites it to the continent; on all other sides it is surrounded by the sea, like a boat just ready to sail bound to the shore only by a cable. ”

“ There is also another goodly river beyond Caroli which is called Arui, which also runneth through the lake Cassipa, and falleth into Orenoque farther west, making all that land between Caroli and Arui an island; which is likewise a most beautiful country. Next unto Arui there are two rivers Atoica and Caura, and on that branch which is called Caura are a nation of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders; which though it may be thought a mere fable, yet for mine own part I am resolved it is true, because every child in the provinces of Aromaia and Canuri affirm the same. ”

“ The town of Caçeres has in all twenty-four encomenderos. Fourteen of them, including the seven above mentioned, have seven hundred Indians each; one has two thousand; another, that of lake Libon, has one thousand five hundred; and the rest have about three hundred Indians each. The inhabitants of the Vicor River district pay their tribute in gold and rice, for they possess these articles in great abundance—for in this province are the excellent mines of Paracale, sixteen leagues from the town; they work also the mines of Catanduanes, thirty leagues from the town. ”

“ Just to the right of this comes Sagres, and a little further east is Lagos. In the year 1415 Prince Henry settles at Sagres, a cold, barren, dreary, inhospitable promontory, but one singularly suitable for quiet study and research, with the whole extent of the Atlantic to look out upon, and the fresh sea breezes to invigorate the mind away from the insincerities of civilised life. The fifteenth century has always been regarded as the last of the “Dark Ages,” but few more wonderful things happened either then or after than the activities which emanated from the Sagres community. ”

“ Here may be the place to remark that the stock of the ancient Cadurci appears to have been much less impaired here in an ethnological sense by the mingling of races than in the country round Cahors. The peasants, generally, have nothing distinctively Southern in their appearance, although they speak a dialect which is in the main a Latin one, the Celtic words that have been retained being in a very small proportion. ”

“ As they approached, Father Latour found these were petrified sand dunes; long waves of soft, gritty yellow rock, shining and bare except for a few lines of dark juniper that grew out of the weather cracks,—little trees, and very, very old. At the foot of this sweep of rock waves was the blue lake, a stone basin full of water, from which the pueblo took its name.
The kindly Padre at Isleta had sent his cook’s brother off on foot to warn the Laguna people that the new High Priest was coming, and that he was a good man and did not want money. They were prepared, accordingly ”

“ At all times Cordoba is beautiful; the verdant slopes of the Sierra Morena, rising precipitously from the very gates, look down serenely on the strife of rival peoples; lovely retreats, dotted with white quintas, farms, mills, vineyards, and olive-grounds; the rugged summits rising westwards to the limits of Lusitania; the lazy Guadalquivir flowing at their base, through grassy plains dark with orange and myrtle. ”

“ There is a city cabildo consisting of two alcaldes, six regidors, and an alguacil-mayor. The city abounds in all kinds of food and refreshment at very cheap prices.
The city of Caçeres was founded in the province of Camarines of the same island of Luzon, during the term of Doctor Sande, governor of the Filipinas. It has about one hundred Spanish inhabitants; and has its cabildo, consisting of alcaldes, regidors, and officials. A bishop of that province is established there and has his church, although without dignitaries or prebendaries. A monastery of discalced Franciscans is located there. ”

“ An antique bridge joins the Isla to the mainland: it stands about half-way between the bay and the sea. It was rather a causeway, with arches, than a bridge, and was said to be Phœnician.
At Cadiz, one is in the midst of a town, and the very type and essence of towns. The eye has no scope, and the mind no sight, for anything but itself. It is impossible to think of it as Gades, or to recall Circe’s smile, or Cerberus’ growl; but here I recovered myself, and yielded to the intoxication which, on certain spots, the mists of past things produce. Cadiz did again become Gades. ”

“ Cadiz, while Spain was in possession of her American colonies, ranked next in wealth to Seville, but has declined notwithstanding its free port. The houses are lofty, spacious, well-built; the streets narrow, to protect from the sun’s rays; they are well-paved, clean, and pretty. The ramparts are planted with rows of trees overlooking the park. The large squares of San Antonio and Constitucion, in the centre of the city, are where ices, love, and scandal occupy the fair sex until midnight. The steamer Royal Tar brought me to Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. ”

“ Only at Cadiz can the talisman be seen, shining low down on the horizon, and still waiting till the precession of the equinoxes takes it across the Straits. Let it recross, and shine upon the old wild life of the vast plains, upon the horsemen flying on the sands, whirling and circling like gulls, whilst the veiled women raise the joyous cry which pierces ears and soul; upon the solemn stately men who sit and look at nothing all a summer’s day, and above all upon the waveless inland sea men call the Sahara. ”

“ The missionary sighed. “Your Eminence, the Bishop of Durango is an old man; and from his seat to Santa Fé is a distance of fifteen hundred English miles. There are no wagon roads, no canals, no navigable rivers. Trade is carried on by means of pack-mules, over treacherous trails. The desert down there has a peculiar horror; I do not mean thirst, nor Indian massacres, which are frequent. The very floor of the world is cracked open into countless canyons and arroyos, fissures in the earth which are sometimes ten feet deep, sometimes a thousand. ”

“ Seldom has a better or bigger town an equal location. The mountains come close to it on the west. Superb black sierras they look, after this sunset hour, superb golden purple just before. They are, however, inwardly neither black nor golden, but full of silver. The one nearest, and that rises solitary and splendid out of a vast plain, is the Sierra Catorce, and it is said has yielded a million of dollars in two months. These mountains are offset by the plain which they limit close on this side, but lie low in the eastern horizon, being there thirty miles away. ”

“ I am a Colombian, from Cartagena. Yes, my dear mother and father they died in Cartagena, and my uncle he lives there now.”
“Cartagena?” echoed Richard Cary, his pulse beating faster. “Did you really come from that old town? And you know it well?”
“Better than any other place, you bet,” cried Teresa Fernandez, her rounded shoulder touching Cary’s arm. “This Cartagena—poof! she is too old and dead, you understand. Plenty of big walls and forts and plazas for the tourists to see, but it is not up-to-date, not one little bit. Hot and stupid! Lots of people there, but they are too slow. ”

“ At our backs lay the beautifully wooded country we had travelled over in the morning—Ronda and its vale, and the distant sierras of El Burgo and Casarabonela. Before us, a wild mountain country extended for several miles; and beyond, spreading as far as the eye could reach, were the vast plains of Arcos, through which the gladdening Guadalete, winding its way past Xeres, turns to seek the bay of Cadiz, whose glassy surface the white walls of its proud mistress, and the deep blue ocean, could be seen distinctly on the left, though at a distance of more than fifty miles. ”

“ The city of Cartago is situated on a smooth plain, between{92} two small streams, seven leagues from the great river of Santa Martha, and near another small stream, the water of which is drunk by the Spaniards.
This river is always crossed by a bridge of those canes which I have already mentioned. The city has very difficult approaches on both sides, and bad roads, for in the winter time the mud is deep. It rains all the year round, and the lightning is great, thunderbolts sometimes falling. This city is so well guarded, that the inhabitants cannot easily be robbed. ”