An Artistic Proclamation 



were a dark, low, heavy-vaulted, round-arched sort of 

 cloister-crypt. After seeing to our horses, we ordered 

 dinner, and sat waiting for it in a long deep gallery 

 (something like the Rows of Chester), which ran along one 

 side of the crooked little courtyard. 



To wear away the time, we got out our sketch-books, and 

 tried to get the crooked angles, and nooks, and crannies of 

 the tenement into perspective. Apropos of the sketch- 

 books, I delivered from the gallery a neat little address to 

 the courtyard, informing all whom it might concern that 

 we were celebrated artists from London, come to take the 

 portraits of the beauty and valour of Moron, at from three 

 to six reals, and that any one who wished to have a portrait 

 must give notice over-night ; otherwise, we should depart 

 early, and Moron would probably never again enjoy a 

 similar opportunity. 



We dined on eggs and salad, and bread fried in oil ; then 

 went out, and turned up the main street, which rises with a 

 gentle slope to the foot of the castle-hill. At the end of 

 the street, and below the castle, is a nice-looking church, 

 whose tower reminded us faintly of the Giralda. Thence 

 the ascent of the mound is very steep climbing. The 

 castle is a vast ruin, the remains of a Moorish one patched 

 up by the French, who occupied Moron three years. 



The sun had disappeared before we got to the top, and 

 the faint glow of the western sky was fading rapidly away 

 on the spires and towers of the town below us. We wan- 

 dered round the lofty ramparts, which commanded on one 

 side the deep blue mass of mountains, and on the other, 

 the vast expanse of undulating, variegated plains, darken- 

 ing away to where the Sierra Morena mingled with the sky. 



Venus came forth like a brilliant afterthought of sun- 

 shine, and all the jewelled company of heaven appeared in 



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