so 



SEVILLE AND 



above where Seville now stands, with the double object 

 of visiting the ruins, and a Convent of Hieronomite 

 monks, who had extensive olive plantations, and presses 

 for extracting the oil. I w^as accompanied by a gentle- 

 man belonging to an English mercantile house, to the 

 head of which I had brought a letter of introduction. 

 We passed one vineyard, the only one I saw within 

 many miles of Seville ; and the wine of this, the calesera 

 said, was not good. We made our first visit to the con- 

 vent, as it was now 11 o'clock, and the dinner hour of 

 the monks was 12. A monk, whom we met in the 

 outer yard, desired one of their farming men to show us 

 the oil press — a very clumsy affair. The press consists 

 of a beam of immense length, and not less than five 

 cubic feet in thickness, at the thickest part. The pivot 

 or hinge, on which this lever works, is placed at about 

 one-fourth of the length of the beam from its thickest 

 end. The long arm of the lever is pressed upwards by 

 a screw, and the thick end is thus pressed down upon 

 the olives which are placed under it, enclosed in a kind 

 of mat made of grass, after having been broken in a 

 mill. There were two of these levers in the house. The 

 man who showed us the presses said, that a good olive 

 tree would yield from three to four Junegas of olives in 

 a good year, and that generally b. J'anega of olives would 

 )ield an arroba (about 4^ gallons) of oil. — From the oil 

 presses we went to the garden, where there are a few fruit 

 trees, and where they cultivate vegetables. There was 

 neither variety dn the plants, nor taste in their distri- 

 bution ; but here, as elsewhere, there was a noria at 

 work, with one ox. The water was conveyed through- 

 out the garden by small canals. The p7'ocurador, 

 or steward of the convent, to whom notice had been 



