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gathering places of the southerner - are empty; the
promenades, with their entrancing trees, are never
used. But among the common people, who are the
same everywhere and under all conditions, there is
noise and ferment as in any other city.
Cádiz is surrounded on all sides by the sea, which
holds the city locked in an iron clasp, and prevents it
from expanding its boundaries when the population
increases in boom periods. The high bastion rises
steeply from the water and extends around the city like
the curves of a giant serpent; the serpent’s entrails
thunder with the sounds of moving artillery while a
gorgeous deserted promenade winds along its back, as
broad as a highway and adorned with ancient
fieldpieces which receive their periodic coats of stove
polish. On one side there is a broad delightful view
of the bay and the continent; on the other you have
little glimpses of clean, narrow streets in which men
stand about like draped statues, while women float
along like oblong prayer books, pale, black-clad,
serious. They give signs of life only when they encounter
a stranger; then they stand still and burst into shrill
laughter. So far is the city now from being the
metropolis of former times when all races moved and
haggled in bright confusion in its streets.
Few cities are as quiet as Cádiz; none so clean. Ex-
cepting the poorer quarter around Santa Elena, where
vermin-infested groups of women, mounds of garbage,
and mangy, hairless, masterless dogs combine to
produce a genuine southern metropolis, the city is
meticulously clean, almost old-maidish in its neatness. The
asphalt pavement of the narrow alleys is as spotless as
a scoured kitchen and the houses are a stainless white
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