A Commotion 



no wise to appreciate the happiness he was about to 

 undergo : he appeared nervous and melancholy ; and, to 

 make the matter worse, they set him down in a chair in the 

 middle of the room, and shaved him before the audience. 

 After this there was a contribution, — whether to pay the 

 barber or the supper, or to increase the dower of the bride, 

 we could not clearly ascertain ; but we paid up our bachelor's 

 mite and departed, much gratified, and nearly baked. 



This morning, as we were sitting on the brow of the 

 castle hill, there appeared to be a commotion of some sort 

 in a broad open space near one of the gates of the city below. 

 Going down to see what it was, we were soon met by a 

 crowd coming up the narrow street. They were headed by 

 musicians with tamtams (a sort of kettle-drums), and 

 trumpets, and fifes. A Moor, with a white beard, led a 

 calf. Next came a turbaned figure, enveloped in much dra- 

 pery, riding on a black horse with two huge panniers, out 

 of which appeared the mild, resigned faces of two venerable 

 old rams. A few men, with very long firelock-muskets, 

 followed, — the rest were tagrag-and-bobtail. Under the 

 last denomination we enlisted ourselves, and returned with 

 the crowd to the castle hill, from which we commanded the 

 house of the bride, — for it was a marriage procession — at 

 least, one of the preparatory measures. 



The band played a strange discordant combination of 

 noises, interrupted at irregular intervals by the explosion 

 of firelocks. The firing of these unwieldy engines was 

 curious. The musketeer about to discharge, balances him- 

 self gingerly on his left heel, points the muzzle at the 

 ground, and applies the smoking end of his long saltpetred 

 cord — fizz! flash! bang! — and round he spins, twirled on 

 his heel by the recoil of his long rusty piece. We could see 

 inside the open door a good many veiled Moriscas. What 



184 



