SIXTY YEARS OF THE LIFE

OF

JEREMY LEVIS.

BOOK FIFTH.

CHAPTER I.

Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea.

Childe Harold.

al movimiento que hizièron de ponerse en pie, la her mosa moça alçò la cabeça, y apartandose los cabellos de delante de los ojos con entrambas manos, mirô los que el ruydo hazian ; y apenas los hùvo visto, quando se levantô en pie, y sin aguardar à calçarse, ni à recoger los cabellos, quiso ponerse en huydra, llena de turbacion y sobresalto:

*

Don Quixote.

KIND Reader :-When I formed the design of portioning these my memoirs into Books, it was not with the view of affording thee certain half-way accommodations, where thou mightest stop thy jaded steed (meaning my. self), and, while thou tookest some refreshment for thine own tired lungs, suffer him, poor beast, to blow a little ; for, though I am an aged animal, yet have I not acquired, with my lank belly and projecting haunches, that modicum of carthorse humility which would induce me to prick mine ears with satisfaction, could I be made sensiVOL. II.

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ble that, on reaching the end of thy journey, thou wouldest attribute the safety of thine own neck and that of thy Rozinante, merely to the aforesaid stopping-places;

-but (to cast the nature of a horse and resume mine own-which, by the inestimable privilege of humanity, more resembleth that of an ass,)—I have arranged it thus to indicate a greater lapse of time, or a greater separa. tion of scene, than intervenes between the incidents de. picted in one CHAPTER and those which form the subject of another.

The generous seaman to

Behold me now in Cadiz.whom I owed my life was not contented with merely dis. charging his duty, but-a true Spaniard-, once interested in my welfare, strained every nerve till he had rowed my bark into a snug haven ;-recommending me, on his own, sole responsibility, to the merchants in whose employment he sailed-and that, without knowing any more of my character than he could gather from my ap. pearance, my conversation, and such portions of my his. tory as I chose to communicate! Men of prudence-that is to say, men of cold heart and much knowledge of the world, will sneer at this kindness as a rank specimen of folly; but, when I forget it, may I cease to remember all that makes me man! and lose the sense of all that renders life precious-the foolish romance that bids me shut my ears against the loud warnings of Experience, when she tries to drown the ever gentle whispers of my heart!

I gave the honest captain no cause to repent of his folly; for, notwithstanding the temptations which that city of the senses held out to me (not unsuccessfully,) on every side, I performed my duties so much to the satis faction of my employers, that, before the expiration of eight months, I found myself elevated almost to the foot. ing of a partner in one of the most opulent houses of Cadiz. Of course, under these circumstances, a tem. per like mine could not remain long overcast. Indeed,

in a very few weeks, even the light vapours that occa sionally dimmed the clear ether-the traces and memorials of my late misfortunes-floated off; and I became once more the gay, and, above all, the happy Jeremy,— for, though I still danced in the train of Pleasure (and who does not in Cadiz ?), I danced no longer blindfold.— But while I laughed beneath the sunny heaven that hung over my spirits, a storm was brewing. I heard not its distant rumbling; but the cloud, though slow, was sure in its advances, and was gathering, black with desolation, to pour its fury over my devoted head, scattering in ruin the ripened harvest of my happiness, and almost blasting the very roots as they lay bare in every fibre to its violence.

Early one Sunday morning, I joined a party of ac quaintances to pass the day at El Puerto (the opposite town of Port St. Mary). In the afternoon, when the rest were preparing to take a turn in the alameda,* I left them to stroll about the country. Delighted to find myself amid the beauty and freshness of a rich vegetation, instead of treading the barren sands of Cadiz, I extended my walk several miles,—the landscape growing more varied at almost every step, and with increased charms that made me forget the distance I should have to return. In this way I was induced to enter a romantic little avenue, which crept along the base of a gentle eminence, tempting the traveller by the coolness of its shade, and the perfume of the wild flowers, which, defended from the hot sun, grew there in unrestrained, as unregarded luxuriance. The trees that rose on either side, chiefly of chestnut and elm, passed their leafy branches above, forming a roof of living lattice-work, through which the eye caught here and there a glimpse of the deep blue heaven, as it seemed to one looking upward, without pausing in his walk, to be rushing over him with great rapidi.

* An alaméda is a public walk, planted with rows of trees-which form ave

nues.

ty; while flowering, aromatic shrubs filled up the intervals between their trunks, delighting both sight and smell, and announcing by the closeness with which they grew, as if crowded for room, and the variety of their species, the land where (as it often has been remarked) the hand of God appears to have done every thing, that of man nothing. Sometimes these plants stretched completely across the path, as if to bar my passage, so that I was obliged to stop and put them aside before I could proceed; and then, the rustling they made against my dress, or when they recoiled as I released them, would startle from their haunts the little gray zards, which would dart by me, seemingly bewildered with terrour, so seldom had they been disturbed by the footstep of man.*

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After walking about a hundred yards, I found the avenue to terminate in a fork, of which the right branch led directly into the open country (-for I could plainly perceive both vineyards and olive plantations, at a very trifling distance-), while the other appeared to be scarcely more than a cleft in the hill along whose base I have said the little shaded alley wandered. Curious to see whither this latter path would lead, I entered it without hesitation. It was so narrow, that, standing with my back to one side, I could easily touch the other with my arm flexed, and was, moreover, thickly overgrown with weeds, and wild flowers and vines, entwined together, and. of extraordinary size.

I had scarcely taken a dozen steps, which cost me near as many minutes, amid their intricacy, when I was arrested by the sound of a female voice singing a Spanish air. All good music has something of melancholy in its strains ; but this was peculiarly sad; and the tones of the voice were so exquisitely touching that every nerve in my body

* An Englishman in Spain finds few to sympathize with him in his admiration of rural beauties..