Those who have had the good fortune to visit Andalusia, that
privileged land of the sun, of light, songs, dances, beautiful girls,
and bull fighters, preserve, among many other poetical and pleasing
recollections, that of election to antique and smiling Cadiz--the
"pearl of the ocean and the silver cup," as the Andalusians say in
their harmonious and imaginative language. There is, in fact, nothing
exaggerated in these epithets, for they translate a true impression.
Especially if we arrive by sea, there is nothing so thrilling as the
dazzling silhouette which, from afar, is reflected all white from the
mirror of a gulf almost always blue.
The Cadiz peninsula has for centuries been legitimately renowned, for,
turn by turn, Phenicians, properly so called, Carthaginians, Romans,
Goths, Arabs and Spaniards have made of it the preferred seat of their
business and pleasure. In his so often unsparing verses, Martial,
even, celebrates with an erotic rapture the undulating suppleness of
the ballet dancers of _Gades_, who are continued in our day by the
_majas_ and _chulas_.
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