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CHAPTER V.
CHAMELEONS, LIZARDS, AND MAGPIES.
Once upon a time we happened to be
at the port of Santa-Maria in the
Bay of Cadiz, a little village which seems
cut out of the white loaf of Spain, between
the indigo of the sea and the lapis-lazuli
of the sky. It was noon, and on that particular
day such a warm noon that the
sun appeared to be amusing himself by
dropping spoonfuls of melted lead on the
heads of travellers, as the garrison of a beleaguered
fortress, by some well-planned
artifice, pours boiling oil or pitch on the
heads of its assailants. This picturesque
little port is made famous by the celebrated
song in the Andalusian patois of
