Sepal

“ The Sepoys having mutinied or been disarmed throughout the Punjab, it became instantly necessary to supply their place if possible by trustworthy Native troops; to this task he applied himself with the utmost skill and energy. He caused the flower of the Punjab{105} Frontier force, already mentioned in a preceding chapter, to be despatched with extraordinary expedition to Delhi. He raised fresh levies, with very suggestive aid from Edwardes at Peshawur, by selecting men from among the Sikhs and Moslems of the Punjab. ”

“ The details so much admired on account of their richness, the vaultings and the arched hollows practised in the walls, the festoons of the arches, the commarajias and alicates, were Spanish works finer and more delicate than those of the East. The root was originally in Arabia, but it was happily transplanted to Spain, where blossomed that beautiful flower which diffuses its perfume after a lapse of seven centuries.”
Under the Western Khalifate, Seville flourished{8} in spite of the assaults and internecine warfare of which it was frequently the theatre. ”

“ Such were the Moorish kings of Seville of the illustrious line of the Beni Abbad, “with whom,” says the same writer, “resided fruit and palm-trees and pomegranates; who became the centre of eloquence in prose and verse; every day of whose reign was a solemn festivity; whose history abounds in generous actions and heroic deeds, that will last through surrounding ages and live forever in the memory of man!”
No place, however, profited more in point of civilization and refinement by the downfall of the Western Caliphat than Granada. ”

“ A general rendezvous was appointed at Seville, now designated as the capital of the kingdom, by reason of its proximity to the sea, and its ease of access to the Moslem settlements of Africa. There were assembled the spoil of palaces, the sacrilegious plunder of churches, the booty of many a battle-field, the throngs of noble captives, the insignia of fallen royalty. Ponderous vehicles were constructed for the conveyance of this treasure, whose value for once exceeded the wildest estimates of Oriental exaggeration. ”

“ His worship of himself in the white bodies of women is true Seville. The constant shift of his deeds, like facets in the crystal of desire, is true Seville. His orgiastic use of blood, of mysticisms, his encounters with statues, necrophiles and ghosts—are Seville of the Semana Santa. His ultimate sinking into the peace of self-absorption is Seville. But the town is ampler, deeper. Don Juan conquers only women. Seville conquers Spain.
This is her ultimate secret. She too—like Córdoba, Toledo, Greco, Cervantes—is a living whole fused from the hostile elements of Spain. ”

“ The soft arts of peace were practised with greater success than ever, now {219} that the Moslem and the Christian were fast merging into one people in Seville and Toledo, and the refinement of the one was strengthened by the energy of the other. Beautiful stuffs, stiff with gold and gems, gauzy silk, soft cloths, and fine linens, had no longer to be brought from the Moors or the kingdoms across the sea. Seville, Toledo, and Cordova could produce everything that the most luxurious extravagance could desire, and the sumptuary laws for a time were forgotten. ”

“ Spaniards bore them down, and overwhelmed them on all sides. The Moorish allies of the Christian force now came into action, surrounding and hemming in the Arabs of Andalusia, and the Moslem chroniclers tell us that the darkness produced by that mass of men and horses was so great that those who fought could no longer see each other, and grappled hand to hand, as in an obscure night. At last Taxfin’s forces began to retreat, and broke into disorderly rout, closely pressed by the Christian cavalry. The Moors of Seville alone stood their ground. ”

“ Bullfights, gorgeous ecclesiastic spectacles, and dancing—these are the recreations of rich and poor alike in Seville to-day. In this city of pleasure you will see the majo, the Andalusian dandy, as he struts up and down the Sierpes—the only busy street of shops—spruce, self-conscious, casting fervent glances at the señoras accompanied by their duennas. Go into the meaner alleys and market streets, and you will see the very vagrants that Murillo painted, tattered wastrels who address one another as Señor, and hold licences to beg. ”

“ A few of the leading Jews of Seville, perceiving that the local authorities were not strong enough to grapple with the rising, hurried to the court of the young king, and appealed to the council of regency to stop the slaughter of their brethren. Their representations were favorably received. Messengers were dispatched forthwith to Seville with instructions to tell the populace to abstain from further outrage. The local nobility seconded the action of the king, and, ranging themselves on the side of the Jews, succeeded in mastering the rioters. ”

“ The calyx consists of 2 small sepals : the corolla of 4 petals cruciately placed, one or both of the outer ones saccate at the base, the inner ones callous below and coloured at the apex, where they cohere and inclose the anthers and stigma. The stamens are united in two parcels, and placed opposite the outer petals, each parcel composed of a centre perfect, two-celled anther, and 2 one-celled, imperfect or half, anthers; very rarely all separate. Ovary superior one-celled, ovules horizontal. Style filiform, Stigma with two or more points. ”

“ He is the support and the rule for all good, source of benefits, and food of courage! For thee....”
We left the story of Seville somewhat abruptly to deal in detail with the alcazar. Under Almohade rule, and while the alcazar and the mosque were in course of construction, the city knew peace, and its commerce flourished. But the days of its security were limited; the end of the Moslem domination in Seville was drawing to its close. The revived prosperity of the Mohammedans spurred the Christian Spaniards to renewed efforts to encompass the overthrow of the infidels. ”

“ Alcala had now reached the place where the narrow lane in which stood the posada in which he had passed the night opened into the highway leading directly to Seville. He was now on the road along which, ten minutes previously, had passed the herd of fighting-bulls destined for the arena. Alcala saw the print of their hoofs in the dust; he noticed at no great distance the gleam of their horns above the cloud raised by their tramping and that of their mounted conductors. Alcala had been near enough to hear that defiant roar of the monarch of the herd that had thrilled on the ear of Lucius. ”

“ We are Christian captives escaped from Granada and flying to Seville with my daughter, to whom I pray you to do no harm, to ask for the protection of their gracious Majesties, and to find a passage back to England.”
“You do not look like an Englishman,” answered the captain; “you look like a Marano.”
“Sir, I cannot help my looks. I am a merchant of London, Castell by name. It is one well known in Seville and throughout this land, where I have large dealings, as, if I can but see him, your king himself will acknowledge. ”

“ They were a fine body of men, invincible to any thing in the East so long as they were led by their English officers, these officers and their ladies and children being afterward the first victims of the Rebellion. The Sepoys were utterly uneducated, as superstitious as they were ignorant, and entirely under the control of their Fakirs and Priests. This weak-minded and fanatical body of men had won for England her Oriental empire, and she chiefly relied on them for its defense and preservation. ”

“ He sought, therefore, to make a truce with King Axataf, and, to enforce his propositions, it is said he appeared with his army before Seville in May, 1246. [84] His propositions were rejected, as it were, at the very gate. It appears that the King of Seville was exasperated rather than dismayed by the submission of the King of Granada. He felt that on himself depended the last hope of Islamism in Spain; he trusted on aid from the coast of Barbary, with which his capital had ready communication by water; and he resolved to make a bold stand in the cause of his faith. ”

“ The military genius of Alfonso, the distinction and experience he had gained in a long series of victorious campaigns, the tested valor of a numerous army excited by the spirit of military emulation, and the blind fury of religious zeal constantly inflamed by fanatics, justify the presumption that the fall of Seville would have soon been followed by the subjection of every other Moslem state, and that, upon apparently so insignificant a thing as a game of chess, once depended the existence and the destinies of the Hispano-Arab domination. ”

“ When he fancies he is wronged, he broods. The milk in him becomes gall. The "waters of life" stirred by steel, his baptismal draught, take on an acid potency. "I'd rather command Sikhs than any other class of sepoy," a brigadier told me, and he had commanded every imaginable class of sepoy for twenty years, "but they must be happy Sikhs," he added. The brooding or intriguing Sikh is a nuisance and a danger.
The pick of the Khalsa will be found in the class regiments and class company regiments to which the Sikhism of to-day owes its conservation, vigour, and life. ”

“ The army brought by the holy king to Seville was the most brilliant and numerous ever seen in Christian or Mohammedan Spain. No smaller force would have been sufficient for the taking of a city which contained 12,000 Mussulman families divided into twenty-four tribes, and which had been in the hands of the followers of Islam for more than five centuries. In the spring of the year 1235 the army was moved from Cordova and divided into two{348} parts, one under the command of the Prince of Molina and the Master of Santiago, which was to march to the Ajarafe ”

“ The captives were borne in triumph to Seville. All the beneficent virtues of Abdalasis were forgotten; nor had the charms of Exilona any effect in softening the hearts of the populace. The brutal eagerness to shed blood, which seems inherent in human nature, was awakened; and woe to the victims when that eagerness is quickened by religious hate. The illustrious couple, adorned with all the graces of youth and beauty, were hurried to a scaffold in the great square of Seville, and there beheaded amidst the shouts and execrations of an infatuated multitude. ”

“ It grows out of an officer's attachment to his men. It is present sometimes in the British officers who command Gurkhas. Indeed, a man who after a year's service with any class of Sepoy is so detached and impartial in mind as not to find peculiar and distinctive virtues in his own men, ought not to be serving in the Indian Army at all. I remember once hearing a subaltern in a very obscure regiment discussing his class company. ”

“ Chaffering with an itinerant vendor of fish stood an old woman, wrinkled and bent. From her coarse dress, arms bare to the elbow, and the strong scent of garlic which hung about her, the dame might rather have been deemed a denizen of one of the [Pg 28] low purlieus of Seville, than the servant of an aristocrat. The old crone, who used much gesticulation in speaking, was so eager about her bargaining that she did not notice the approach of Lucius Lepine. The colloquy between her and the hawker had probably lasted for some time, as both parties looked heated and angry. ”

“ It is true of the Gurkha, as of the Indian of the plains, that he gives up more when he leaves his home to fight in a distant country than the European. The age-worn traditions and associations which make up homeliness for him, the peculiar and cherished routine, cannot be translated overseas. And it must be remembered that the sepoy has not the same stimulus as we have. It is true that he is a soldier, and that it is his business to fight, and that he is fighting his Sahib's enemy. ”

“ Hardly a man of military age is not enlisted, and the traditions of Ajmere were continued at Kut, where there was a company of Mers and Merats in one of the two regiments who held the liquorice factory so gallantly through the siege.
THE RANGHAR The Mussalmans of Rajput descent are a fine fighting stock. The best known are the Ranghars of the Eastern Punjab and the Kaim Khanis of Rajputana proper. The handsomest sepoy I met in Mesopotamia was a Ranghar, and he had that jolly, dare-devil look about him which recalls the best traditions of the highwayman. ”

“ He smokes continually, thinks there is no place like Seville, and that he is the prettiest fellow in Seville. His favourite word is ‘Carajo!’ The maja or she-simpleton, wears a fan and mantilla, exhibits a swimming and affected gait, thinks that there’s no place like Seville, that she is the flower of Seville—Carai! ”

“ The general aspect of the population of Seville, differs greatly from that of Madrid. To begin with the upper ranks, there is something more eastern in the appearance of the ladies; they are more frequently seen veiled; their cheeks seem tinged with a hue of Moorish blood; and along with the fire of the Castilian eye, there is mingled a shading of oriental softness. ”

“ Nor has Roman influence left very profound traces in Seville, any more than in the rest of Spain. Señor Rafael Contreras justly remarks that Roman{3} civilisation made no deep impression on the country or the people. “We have in Spain,” he continues, “aqueducts, bridges, circuses, baths, roads, vases, urns, milliaria, statues, and jewellery. Specimens are still found, but, strictly speaking, art with us has never been either Roman or Greek.” And Seville, in particular, even during the Roman occupation, was rather a Punic than a Latin town. ”