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TOMB OF COLUMBUS.

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view from the top would well repay a more fatiguing mode of access to it: an interminable plain spreads round Seville, and the Guadalquiver traverses its whole length. From thence, a hundred and twenty spires and towers may be counted, belonging to the neighbouring villages and the city itself. Often, too, they stood in silent admiration over the tombstone dedicated to Christopher Columbus; though his body was sent to St. Domingo. It was a simple slab, containing only these words:

"To Castile and Arragon

Colon gave another world."

Such was the last memorial of this wonderful man. A more magnificent tomb is near it of his son Ferdinand; but who can regard it by the side of the other? Mr. Delville was obliged to bribe his children from the spot, by reminding them that they were to visit Palos, and there hear the history of his early life, and first embarking on his great undertaking.

The Alcazar of Seville is much inferior to the Alhambra of Grenada. There are seventy-eight

*«A Castillia y Arragon

Otro mundo dio Colon."

Columbus was called Colon by the Spaniards. He was a Genoese by birth.

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GARDENS OF THE PALACE.

rooms in number, all opening into one another. Most of the walls are of carved wood-work, or of composition. The garden was more attractive than the palace. Its shade, its fountains, and the delightful fragrance of the orange-trees and shrubs, made it always a charming lounge. The hedges of the small-leaved myrtle and geraniums attracted particular admiration. The freedom and freshness of their growth, and their large branches, astonished the Delvilles. The garden is surrounded by a high wall, near the top of which there is a walk, under an arcade, supported by innumerable pillars. The prospect from this walk is most beautiful: on one side is the fine fertile plain, with its countless gardens and orangeries; on another, the tower of the Cathedral, and the numerous and more distant spires of the city; the old Roman aqueduct, with its four hundred arches; the river, seen gliding by at the openings left between the orangegroves, the magnificent Convent of the Carmelites on the opposite bank, with its deep surrounding shades and stately palm-trees; and below the pleasure-grounds of the Moorish kings, rich in every variety of mellow fruit, and fragrant with the blossoms of the myrtle, the orange and the lemon-trees.

These were charms of which the English travellers were never tired. Before they quitted Seville, they had the pleasure of seeing the bolero danced:

SPANISH DANCING.

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the rapidity of the steps, and the precision and exact time in which they performed such rapid movements, was truly astonishing.

"This indeed," said Ellen, "is

To trip it on the light fantastic toe.""

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HISTORY OF COLUMBUS.

CHAPTER XVII.

HISTORY OF COLUMBUS.

THE distance from Seville to Moguer was not great; but they had some difficulty in making the journey, from the unfrequented road. Some part of it was performed in a small cart, and a larger portion of it on mule-back. They went slowly through Palos de Moguer, forming a thousand conjectures, and eager to catch the first glimpse of the convent of La Rabida. When it was pointed out to them, they stopped, and looked at it with a veneration that the Spaniards themselves had never felt for it. Palos is now dwindled to a paltry village, containing about four or five hundred persons, and has but five barks employed in fishing. It was once celebrated for the hardihood and intelligence of its navigators. These are all gone : a withering blight seems to have fallen on all connected with the new world. The last descendant of Hernando Cortes is a canon at Seville. Neither Spain nor the Spaniards have prospered since they grasped the riches of the new-found empire, and

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imbrued their hands in the blood of the innocent and confiding natives.

At the convent of La Rabida they were received with hospitality; but their errand seemed to excite more wonder than sympathy: and they found no prototype of Fray Juan Perez de Marchena amongst the friars. After partaking of some refreshment, and finding that nothing new was to be learned, upon an intimation that the evening service was about to commence, they took their leave; and seating themselves in the porch at the gate of the convent, they enjoyed the fresh evening breeze and looking out upon the little port from whence the daring adventurer sailed on his first perilous expedition, they prepared, with no common interest, to listen to the history of Columbus.

"Of the early days of Christopher Columbus," said Mr. Delville, "nothing is now known with certainty. From the testimony of his contemporaries and intimates, he must have been born about the year 1435, or 1436. Though several places contend for the honour of his birth, it is tolerably certain that he was born at Genoa. He was the eldest of four children; having two brothers, Bartholomew and Diego, and one sister, of whom no further information has been received, except that she married a man in a low situation. His father was a wool-comber; and though many illustrious families have since claimed alliance

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