第167章 18th July,1839(1)

To the Rev.A.Brandram (ENDORSED:recd.Aug.5,1839)SEVILLE,No.7PLAZUELA DE LA PILA SECA,18TH JULY 1839.

REVD.AND DEAR SIR,-As I am about to leave Seville in a few days for San Lucar,Tangiers,and Ceuta,I wish before setting out to send a word or two in order that you may be acquainted with the state of matters up to the present moment.Our work is concluded here for the season,and for the very efficient reason that I have no more Testaments to sell,somewhat more than two hundred having been circulated since my arrival.A poor Genoese,the waiter at a Swiss ordinary,has just been with me requesting a dozen,which he says have been bespoken by people who frequent the house,but Ihave been obliged to send him away,it not being in my power to supply him.About ten days since I was visited by various ALGUACILS,headed by the ALCALDE DEL BARRIO,or headborough,who made a small seizure of Testaments and Gypsy Gospels which happened to be lying about.This visit was far from being disagreeable to me,as I considered it to be a very satisfactory proof of the effect of our exertions in Seville.I cannot help here relating to you an anecdote.A day or two subsequent,having occasion to call at the house of the headborough to complain of an act of dishonesty which had been committed by my porters,I found him lying on his bed,for it was the hour of the SIESTA,reading intently one of the very Testaments which he had taken away -all of which,if he had obeyed his orders,he would have deposited in the office of the Civil Governor.So intently indeed was he engaged in his reading that he did not at first observe my entrance;when he did,however,he sprang up in great confusion,and locked the book up in his cabinet;whereupon I smiled and told him to be under no alarm,as Iwas glad to see him so usefully employed.Recovering himself he said that he had read the book nearly through,and that he had found no harm in it,but on the contrary everything to praise,adding that he believed that the clergy must be possessed with devils (ENDEMONIADOS)to persecute it in the manner which they did.

It was Sunday when the seizure was made,and I happened to be reading the Liturgy.One of the ALGUACILS when going away made an observation respecting the very different manner in which the Protestants and Catholics keep the Sabbath,the former being in their houses reading good books,and the latter abroad in the bull ring,seeing the wild bulls tearing out the gory bowels of the poor horses.The bull amphitheatre at Seville is,as you perhaps may have heard,the finest in all Spain,and is invariably on a Sunday,the only day in which it is open,filled with applauding multitudes.