_Seville, May 1798._
I am inclined to think with you, that a Spaniard, who, like myself,
has resided many years in England, is, perhaps, the fittest person
to write an account of life, manners and opinions as they exist in
this country, and to shew them in the light which is most likely
to interest an Englishman. The most acute and diligent travellers
are subject to constant mistakes; and perhaps the more so, for what
is generally thought a circumstance in their favour--a moderate
knowledge of foreign languages. A traveller who uses only his eyes,
will confine himself to the description of external objects; and
though his narrative may be deficient in many topics of interest,
it will certainly be exempt from great and ludicrous blunders. The
difficulty, which a person, with a smattering of the language of the
country he is visiting, experiences every moment in the endeavour
to communicate his own, and catch other men’s thoughts, often urges
him into a sort of mental rashness, which leads him to settle many
a doubtful point for himself, and to forget the unlimited power, I
should have said tyranny, of usage, in whatever relates to language.
I still recollect the unlucky hit I made on my arrival in London,
when, anxious beyond measure to catch every idiomatic expression, and
reading the huge inscription of the Cannon Brewery at Knightsbridge,
as the building had some resemblance to the great cannon-foundry in
this town, I settled it in my mind that the genuine English idiom,
for what I should now call _casting_, was no other than _brewing_
cannon. This, however, was a mere verbal mistake. Not so that which
I made when the word _nursery_ stared me in the face every five
minutes, as in a fine afternoon I approached your great metropolis,
on the western road. Luxury and wealth, said I to myself, in a strain
approaching to philosophic indignation, have at last blunted the best
feelings of nature among the English. Surely, if I am to judge from
this endless string of _nurseries_, the English ladies have gone a
step beyond the unnatural practice of devolving their first maternal
duties upon domestic hirelings. Here, it seems, the poor helpless
infants are sent to be kept and suckled in crowds, in a decent kind
of _Foundling-Hospitals_. You may easily guess that I knew but one
signification of the words _nursing_ and _nursery_. Fortunately I
was not collecting materials for a book of travels during a summer
excursion, otherwise I should now be enjoying all the honour of the
originality of my remarks on the customs and manners of Old England.
From similar mistakes I think myself safe enough in speaking of my
native country; but I wish I could feel equal confidence as to the
execution of the sketches you desire to obtain from me. I know you
too well to doubt that my letters will, by some chance or other, find
their way to some of the London Magazines, before they have been
long in your hands. And only think, I intreat you, how I shall fret
and fidget under the apprehension that some of your pert newspaper
writers may raise a laugh against me in some of those _Suns_ or
_Stars_, which, in spite of intervening seas and mountains, can dart
a baneful influence, and blast the character of infallibility, as
an English scholar, which I have acquired since my return to Spain.
I have so strongly rivetted the admiration of the Irish merchants
in this place, that, in spite of their objection to my not calling
tea _ta_, they submit to my decision every intricate question about
your provoking _shall_ and _will_: and surely it would be no small
disparagement, in this land of proud _Dons_, to be posted up in a
London paper as a murderer of the _King’s English_. How fortunate
was our famous Spanish traveller, my relative, _Espriella_[1] (for
you know that there exists a family connexion between us by my
mother’s side) to find one of the best writers in England, willing to
translate his letters. But since you will not allow me to write in
my own language, and since, to say the truth, I feel a pleasure in
using that which reminds me of the dear land which has been my second
home--the land where I drew my first breath of liberty--the land
which taught me how to retrieve, though imperfectly and with pain,
the time which, under the influence of ignorance and superstition,
I had lost in early youth--I will not delay a task which, should
circumstances allow me to complete it, I intend as a token of
friendship to you, and of gratitude and love to your country.
[1] See Espriella’s “Letters from England.”
Few travellers are equal to your countryman, Mr. Townsend, in the
truth and liveliness of his descriptions, as well as in the mass of
useful information and depth of remark with which he has presented
the public[2]. It would be impossible for any but a native Spaniard
to add to the collection of traits descriptive of the national
character, which animates his narrative; and I must confess that
he has rather confined me in the selection of my topics. He has,
indeed, fallen into such mistakes and inaccuracies, as nothing short
of perfect familiarity with a country can prevent. But I may safely
recommend him to you as a guide for a fuller acquaintance with the
places whose _inhabitants_ I intend to make the chief subject of my
letters. But that I may not lay upon you the necessity of a constant
reference, I shall begin by providing your fancy with a “local
habitation” for the people whose habits and modes of thinking I will
forthwith attempt to pourtray.
[2] He visited Spain in the years 1786 and 1787.
The view of Cadiz from the sea, as, in a fine day, you approach
its magnificent harbour, is one of the most attractive beauty.
The strong deep light of a southern sky, reflected from the lofty
buildings of white free stone, which face the bay, rivets the eye of
the navigator from the very verge of the horizon. The sea actually
washes the ramparts, except where, on the opposite side of the
town, it is divided by a narrow neck of land, which joins Cadiz to
the neighbouring continent. When, therefore, you begin to discover
the upper part of the buildings, and the white pinnacles of glazed
earthenware, resembling china, that ornament the parapets with
which their flat roofs are crowned; the airy structure, melting at
times into the distant glare of the waves, is more like a pleasing
delusion--a kind of _Fata Morgana_--than the lofty, uniform massive
buildings which, rising gradually before the vessel, bring you back,
however unwilling, to the dull realities of life. After landing on
a crowded quay, you are led the whole depth of the ramparts along
a dark vaulted passage, at the farthest end of which, new-comers
must submit to the scrutiny of the inferior custom-house officers.
Eighteen-pence slipped into their hands with the keys of your
trunks, will spare you the vexation of seeing your clothes and linen
scattered about in the utmost disorder.
I forgot to tell you, that scarcely does a boat with passengers
approach the landing-stairs of the quay, when three or four
_Gallegos_, (natives of the province of Galicia) who are the only
_porters_ in this town, will take a fearful leap into the boat, and
begin a scuffle, which ends by the stronger seizing upon the luggage.
The successful champion becomes your guide through the town to the
place where you wish to take up your abode. As only two gates are
used as a thoroughfare--the sea-gate, _Puerta de la Mar_, and the
land-gate, _Puerta de Tierra_--those who come by water are obliged to
cross the great Market--a place not unlike Covent Garden, where the
country people expose all sorts of vegetables and fruits for sale.
Fish is also sold at this place, where you see it laid out upon the
pavement in the same state as it was taken out of the net. The noise
and din of this market are absolutely intolerable. All classes of
Spaniards, not excluding the ladies, are rather loud and boisterous
in their speech. But here is a contention between three or four
hundred peasants, who shall make his harsh and guttural voice be
uppermost, to inform the passengers of the price and quality of his
goods. In a word, the noise is such as will astound any one, who has
not lived for some years near Cornhill or Temple Bar.
Religion, or, if you please, superstition, is so intimately blended
with the whole system of public and domestic life in Spain, that I
fear I shall tire you with the perpetual recurrence of that subject.
I am already compelled, by an involuntary train of ideas, to enter
upon that endless topic. If, however, you wish to become thoroughly
acquainted with the national character of my country, you must learn
the character of the national religion. The influence of religion
in Spain is boundless. It divides the whole population into two
comprehensive classes, bigots and dissemblers. Do not, however,
mistake me. I am very far from wishing to libel my countrymen. If I
use these invidious words, it is not that I believe every Spaniard
either a downright bigot or a hypocrite: yet I cannot shut my eyes
to the melancholy fact, that the system under which we live must
unavoidably give, even to the best among us, a taint of one of
those vices. Where the law threatens every dissenter from such an
encroaching system of divinity as that of the Church of Rome, with
death and infamy--where every individual is not only invited, but
enjoined, at the peril of both body and soul, to assist in enforcing
that law; must not an undue and tyrannical influence accrue to the
believing party? Are not such as disbelieve in secret, condemned to
a life of degrading deference, or of heart-burning silence? Silence,
did I say? No; every day, every hour, renews the necessity of
explicitly declaring yourself what you are not. The most contemptible
individual may, at pleasure, force out _a lie_ from an honestly proud
bosom.
I must not, however, keep you any longer in suspense as to the origin
of this flight--this unprepared digression from the plain narrative
I had begun. You know me well enough to believe that after a long
residence in England, my landing at Cadiz, instead of cheering my
heart at the sight of my native country, would naturally produce
a mixed sensation, in which pain and gloominess must have had the
ascendant. I had enjoyed the blessings of liberty for several years;
and now, alas! I perceived that I had been irresistibly drawn back
by the holiest ties of affection, to stretch out my hands to the
manacles, and bow my neck to that yoke, which had formerly galled my
very soul. The convent of San Juan de Dios--(laugh, my dear friend,
if you will: at what you call my _monachophobia_; _you_ may do so,
who have never lived within range of any of these European _jungles_,
where lurks every thing that is hideous and venomous)--well, then,
San Juan de Dios is the first remarkable object that meets the eye
upon entering Cadiz by the sea-gate. A single glance at the convent
had awakened the strongest and most rooted aversions of my heart,
when just as I was walking into the nearest street to avoid the
crowd, the well-remembered sound of a hand-bell made me instantly
aware that, unless pretending not to hear it, I could retrace my
steps, and turn another corner, I should be obliged to kneel in the
mud till a priest, who was carrying the consecrated wafer to a dying
person, had moved slowly in his sedan-chair from the farthest end of
the street to the place where I began to hear the bell.
The rule on these occasions, is expressed in a proverbial saying--_al
Rey, en viendolo; a Dios, en oyendolo_--which, after supplying its
elliptical form, means that external homage is due to the king
upon seeing him: and to God--_i. e._ the host, preceded by its
never-failing appendage, the bell--the very moment you hear him. I
must add, as a previous explanation of what is to follow, that God
and the king are so coupled in the language of this country, that
the same title of _Majesty_ is applied to both. You hear, from the
pulpit, the duties that men owe to _both Majesties_; and a foreigner
is often surprised at the hopes expressed by the Spaniards, that
_his Majesty_ will be pleased to grant them life and health for some
years more. I must add a very ludicrous circumstance arising from
this absurd form of speech. When the priest, attended by the clerk,
and surrounded by eight or ten people, bearing lighted flambeaus, has
broken into the chamber of the dying person, and gone through a form
of prayer, half Latin, half Spanish, which lasts for about twenty
minutes, one of the wafers is taken out of a little gold casket,
and put into the mouth of the patient as he lies in bed. To swallow
the wafer without the loss of any particle--which, according to the
Council of Trent, (and I fully agree with the fathers) contains the
same Divine person as the whole--is an operation of some difficulty.
To obviate, therefore, the impropriety of lodging a sacred atom, as
it might easily happen, in a bad tooth, the clerk comes forth with a
glass of water, and in a firm and loud voice asks the sick person,
“Is his Majesty gone down?”[3] The answer enables the learned clerk
to decide whether the passage is to be expedited by means of his
cooling draught.
[3] The Spanish words are _Ha pasado su Magestad?_
But I must return to my _Gallego_, and myself. No sooner had I called
him back, as if I had suddenly changed my mind as to the direction
in which we were to go, than with a most determined tone he said
“_Dios--Su Magestad._” Pretending not to hear, I turned sharply
round, and was now making my retreat--but it would not do. Fired
with holy zeal, he raised his harsh voice, and in the barbarous
accent of his province, repeated three or four times, “_Dios--Su
Magestad_;” adding, with an oath, “This man is a heretic!” There was
no resisting that dreadful word: it pinned me to the ground. I took
out my pocket-handkerchief, and laying it on the least dirty part
of the pavement, knelt upon it--not indeed to pray; but while, as
another act of conformity to the custom of the country, I was beating
my breast with my clenched right hand, as gently as it could be done
without offence--to curse the hour when I had submitted thus to
degrade myself, and tremble at the mere suspicion of a being little
removed from the four-footed animals, whom it was his occupation to
relieve of their burdens.
In the more populous towns of Spain, these unpleasant meetings are
frequent. Nor are you free from being disturbed by the holy bell
in the most retired part of your house. Its sound operates like
magic upon the Spaniards. In the midst of a gay, noisy party, the
word--“_Su Magestad_”--will bring every one upon his knees until
the tinkling dies in the distance. Are you at dinner?--you must
leave the table. In bed?--you must, at least, sit up. But the most
preposterous effect of this custom is to be seen at the theatres. On
the approach of the host to any military guard, the drum beats, the
men are drawn out, and as soon as the priest can be seen, they bend
the right knee, and invert the firelocks, placing the point of the
bayonet on the ground. As an officer’s guard is always stationed at
the door of a Spanish theatre, I have often laughed in my sleeve at
the effect of the _chamade_ both upon the actors and the company.
“_Dios, Dios!_” resounds from all parts of the house, and every
one falls that moment upon his knees. The actors’ ranting, or the
rattling of the castanets in the _fandango_, is hushed for a few
minutes, till the sound of the bell growing fainter and fainter, the
amusement is resumed, and the devout performers are once more upon
their legs, anxious to make amends for the interruption. So powerful
is the effect of early habit, that I had been for some weeks in
London before I could hear the postman’s bell in the evening, without
feeling instinctively inclined to perform a due genuflection.
Cadiz, though fast declining from the wealth and splendour to which
she had reached during her exclusive privilege to trade with the
Colonies of South America, is still one of the few towns of Spain,
which, for refinement, can be compared with some of the second rate
in England. The people are hospitable and cheerful. The women,
without being at all beautiful, are really fascinating. Some of the
_Tertulias_, or evening parties, which a simple introduction to the
lady of the house entitles any one to attend daily, are very lively
and agreeable. No stiffness of etiquette prevails: you may drop
in when you like, and leave the room when it suits you. The young
ladies, however, will soon either find out, or imagine, the house and
company to which you give the preference; and a week’s acquaintance
will lay you open to a great deal of good-natured bantering upon the
cause of your short calls. Singing to the guitar, or the piano, is a
very common resource at these meetings. But the musical acquirements
of the Spanish ladies cannot bear the most distant comparison with
those of the female amateurs in London. In singing, however, they
possess one great advantage--that of opening the mouth--which your
English _Misses_ seem to consider as a great breach of propriety.
The inhabitants of Cadiz, being confined to the rock on which their
city is built, have made the towns of Chiclana, Puerto Real, and
Port St. Mary’s, their places of resort, especially in the summer.
The passage, by water, to Port St. Mary’s, is, upon an average,
of about an hour and a half, and the intercourse between the two
places, nearly as constant as between a large city and its suburbs.
Boats full of passengers are incessantly crossing from daybreak
till sunset. This passage is not, however, without danger in case
of a strong wind from the east, in summer, or of rough weather, in
winter. At the mouth of the Guadalete, a river that runs into the bay
of Cadiz, by Port St. Mary’s, there are extensive banks of shifting
sands, which every year prove fatal to many. The passage-boats are
often excessively crowded with people of all descriptions. The
Spaniards, however, are not so shy of strangers as I have generally
found your countrymen. Place any two of them, male or female, by the
merest chance, together, and they will immediately enter into some
conversation. The absolute disregard to a stranger, which custom
has established in England, would be taken for an insult in any part
of Spain; consequently little gravity is preserved in these aquatic
excursions.
In fine weather, when the female part of the company are not troubled
with fear or sickness, the passengers indulge in a boisterous sort
of mirth, which is congenial to Andalusians of all classes. It is
known by the old Spanish word _Arana_, pronounced with the Southern
aspirate, as if written _Haranna_. I do not know whether I shall be
able to convey a notion of this kind of amusement. It admits of no
liberties of action, while every allowance is made for words which do
not amount to gross indecency. It is--if I may use the expression--a
conversational _row_; or, to indulge a more strange assemblage of
ideas, the _Arana_ is to conversation, what romping is to walking arm
in arm. In the midst, however, of hoarse laugh and loud shouting,
as soon as the boat reaches the shoals, the steersman, raising his
voice with a gravity becoming a parish-clerk, addresses himself to
the company in words amounting to these--“Let us pray for the souls
of all that have perished in this place.” The pious address of the
boatman has a striking effect upon the company: for one or two
minutes every one mutters a private prayer, whilst a sailor-boy goes
round collecting a few copper coins from the passengers, which are
religiously spent in procuring masses for the souls in purgatory.
This ceremony being over, the riot is resumed with unabated spirit,
till the very point of landing.
I went by land to St. Lucar, a town of some wealth and consequence at
the mouth of the Guadalquivir, or Bœtis, where this river is lost in
the sea through a channel of more than a mile in breadth. The passage
to Seville, of about twenty Spanish leagues up the river, is tedious;
but I had often performed it, in early youth, with great pleasure,
and I now quite forgot the change which twenty years must have made
upon my feelings. No Spanish conveyance is either comfortable or
expeditious. The St. Lucar boats are clumsy and heavy, without a
single accommodation for passengers. Half of the hold is covered
with hatches, but so low, that one cannot stand upright under them.
A piece of canvass, loosely let down to the bottom of the boat, is
the only partition between the passengers and the sailors. It would
be extremely unpleasant for any person, above the lower class, to
bear the inconveniences of a mixed company in one of these boats.
Fortunately, it is neither difficult nor expensive to obtain the
exclusive hire of one. You must submit, however, at the time of
embarkation, to the disagreeable circumstance of riding on a man’s
shoulders from the water’s edge to a little skiff, which, from
the flatness of the shore, lies waiting for the passengers at the
distance of fifteen or twenty yards.
The country, on both sides of the river, is for the most part, flat
and desolate. The eye roves in vain over vast plains of alluvial
ground in search of some marks of human habitation. Herds of black
cattle, and large flocks of sheep, are seen on two considerable
islands formed by different branches of the river. The fierce
Andalusian bulls, kept by themselves in large enclosures, where, with
a view to their appearance on the arena, they are made more savage
by solitude; are seen straggling here and there down to the brink of
the river, tossing their shaggy heads, and pawing the ground on the
approach of the boat.
The windings of the river, and the growing shallows, which obstruct
its channel, oblige the boats to wait for the tide, except when
there is a strong wind from the south. After two tedious days, and
two uncomfortable nights, I found myself under the _Torre del Oro_,
a large octagon tower of great antiquity, and generally supposed to
have been built by Julius Cæsar, which stands by the mole or quay
of the capital of Andalusia, my native, and by me, long deserted
town. Townsend will acquaint you with its situation, its general
aspect, and the remarkable buildings, which are the boast of the
_Sevillanos_. My task will be confined to the description of such
peculiarities of the country as he did not see, or which must have
escaped his notice.
The eastern custom of building houses on the four sides of an open
area is so general in Andalusia, that, till my first journey to
Madrid, I confess, I was perfectly at a loss to conceive a habitable
dwelling in any other shape. The houses are generally two stories
high, with a gallery, or _corredor_, which, as the name implies,
_runs_ along the four, or at least the three sides of the _Pátio_,
or central square, affording an external communication between the
rooms above stairs, and forming a covered walk over the doors of the
ground-floor apartments. These two suites of rooms are a counterpart
to each other, being alternately inhabited or deserted in the seasons
of winter and summer. About the middle of October every house in
Seville is in a complete bustle for two or three days. The lower
apartments are stripped of their furniture, and every chair and
table--nay, the kitchen vestal, with all her laboratory--are ordered
off to winter quarters. This change of habitation, together with
mats laid over the brick-floors, thicker and warmer than those used
in summer, is all the provision against cold, which is made in this
country. A flat and open brass pan of about two feet diameter, raised
a few inches from the ground by a round wooden frame, on which, those
who sit near it, may rest their feet, is used to burn charcoal made
of brushwood, which the natives call _cisco_. The fumes of charcoal
are injurious to health; but such is the effect of habit, that the
natives are seldom aware of any inconvenience arising from the
choking smell of their brasiers.
The precautions against heat, however, are numerous. About the latter
end of May the whole population moves down stairs. A thick awning,
which draws and undraws by means of ropes and pullies, is stretched
over the central square, on a level with the roof of the house. The
window-shutters are nearly closed from morning till sunset, admitting
just light enough to see one another, provided the eyes have not
lately been exposed to the glare of the streets. The floors are
washed every morning, that the evaporation of the water imbibed by
the bricks, may abate the heat of the air. A very light mat, made
of a delicate sort of rush, and dyed with a variety of colours, is
used instead of a carpet. The _Pátio_, or square, is ornamented with
flowerpots, especially round a _jet d’eau_, which in most houses
occupies its centre. During the hot season the ladies sit and receive
their friends in the _Pátio_. The street-doors are generally open;
but invariably so from sunset till eleven or twelve in the night.
Three or four very large glass lamps are hung in a line from the
street-door to the opposite end of the _Pátio_; and, as in most
houses, those who meet at night for a _Tertulia_, are visible from
the streets, the town presents a very pretty and animated scene till
near midnight. The poorer class of people, to avoid the intolerable
heat of their habitations, pass a great part of the night in
conversation at their doors; while persons of all descriptions are
moving about till late, either to see their friends, or to enjoy the
cool air in the public walks.
This gay scene vanishes, however, on the approach of winter. The
people retreat to the upper floors; the ill-lighted streets are
deserted at the close of day, and become so dangerous from robbers,
that few but the young and adventurous retire home from the
_Tertulia_ without being attended by a servant, sometimes bearing
a lighted torch. The free access to every house, which prevails
in summer, is now checked by the caution of the inhabitants. The
entrance to the houses lies through a passage with two doors, one
to the street, and another called the _middle-door_ (for there is
another at the top of the stairs) which opens into the _Pátio_.
This passage is called _Zaguan_--a pure Arabic word, which means, I
believe, a porch. The middle-door is generally shut in the day-time:
the outer one is never closed but at night. Whoever wants to be
admitted must knock at the middle-door, and be prepared to answer a
question, which, as it presents one of those little peculiarities
which you are so fond of hearing, I shall not consider as unworthy of
a place in my narrative.
The knock at the door, which, by-the-by, must be single, and by no
means loud--in fact, a tradesman’s knock in London--is answered with
a _Who is there?_ To this question the stranger replies, “Peaceful
people,” _Gente de paz_--and the door is opened without farther
enquiries. Peasants and beggars call out at the door, “Hail, spotless
Mary!” _Ave, Maria purisima!_ The answer, in that case, is given
from within in the words _Sin pecado concebida_: “Conceived without
sin.” This custom is a remnant of the fierce controversy, which
existed about three hundred years ago, between the Franciscan and the
Dominican friars, whether the Virgin Mary had or not been subject
to the penal consequences of original sin. The Dominicans were not
willing to grant any exemption; while the Franciscans contended for
the propriety of such a privilege. The Spaniards, and especially the
Sevillians, with their characteristic gallantry, stood for the honour
of our Lady, and embraced the latter opinion so warmly, that they
turned the watchword of their party into the form of address, which
is still so prevalent in Andalusia. During the heat of the dispute,
and before the Dominicans had been silenced by the authority of the
Pope, the people of Seville began to assemble at various churches,
and, sallying forth with an emblematical picture of the _sinless_
Mary, set upon a sort of standard surmounted by a cross, paraded
the city in different directions, singing a hymn to the _Immaculate
Conception_, and repeating aloud their beads or rosary. These
processions have continued to our times, and constitute one of the
nightly nuisances of this place. Though confined at present to the
lower classes, those that join in them assume that characteristic
importance and overbearing spirit, which attaches to the most
insignificant religious associations in this country. Wherever one of
these shabby processions presents itself to the public, it takes up
the street from side to side, stopping the passengers, and expecting
them to stand uncovered in all kinds of weather, till the standard
is gone by. Their awkward and heavy banners are called, at Seville,
_Sinpecados_, that is, “sinless,” from the theological opinion in
support of which they were raised.
The Spanish government, under Charles III., shewed the most ludicrous
eagerness to have the _sinless purity_ of the Virgin Mary added by
the Pope to the articles of the Roman Catholic faith. The court of
Rome, however, with the cautious spirit which has at all times guided
its spiritual politics, endeavoured to keep clear from a stretch of
authority, which, even some of their own divines would be ready to
question; but splitting, as it were, the difference with theological
precision, the censures of the church were levelled against such as
should have the boldness to assert that the Virgin Mary had derived
any taint from “her great ancestor;” and, having personified the
_Immaculate Conception_, it was declared, that the Spanish dominions
in Europe and America were under the protecting influence of that
mysterious event. This declaration diffused universal joy over the
whole nation. It was celebrated with public rejoicings on both sides
of the Atlantic. The king instituted an order distinguished by the
emblem of the Immaculate Conception--a woman dressed in white and
blue; and a law was enacted, requiring a declaration, upon oath, of
a firm belief in the _Immaculate Conception_, from every individual,
previous to his taking any degree at the universities, or being
admitted into any of the corporations, civil and religious, which
abound in Spain. This oath is administered even to mechanics upon
their being made free of a Guild.[4]
[4] See Note A, at the end of the Volume.
Here, however, I must break off, for fear of making this packet too
large for the confidential conveyance, to which alone I could trust
it without great risk of finishing my task in one of the cells of the
Holy Inquisition. I will not fail, however, to resume my subject as
soon as circumstances permit me.