The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-10

l pest ana uSually SpOlleu III lceleSS lldi sit-retais from thirty oeighty cents pound. The common people never tast | it at all. Chickens are from seventy | five cents to $1.50 each. But in Cadii one may always live well and cheapl1 1 on fish. Everywhere along the street and ramparts are little open booths il which you can get a dllicious fish mea for few cents. The fish are cooked 1T
 kettles of olive-oil, over charcoal bra siers. When served there is no flavor O. the oil about them, or even greasy
 appearance, but even and delicatel1
 Drowned as the best chef at Delmonico's
 could do. The oil is first cleared o1
 any flavor by cooking in it few bits
 of dog fish, which has the same effect
 known to Yankee housewives, of pota-
 toes cooked in burned lard, the pota-
 toes absorbing all taste and shell.
 The proverb, God sends meat and the
 devil cooks" is of Iberan origin. The
 Spanish word for cooking food-guesar--
 sounds strikingly like disguise; and
 truly Spanish grease and garlic go far
 toward disgusting anything edible
 Cadiz has a peculiar flavor all it's own
 in food as in everything else. It's ho-
 tels are the poorest imaginable, their
 attempted French cuisine modified by
 the savage taste of the Visigoth. There
 are many casas de huspedes. answering
 to our boarding houses and restaurants,
 which the majority patronize rather
 than the hotels. All open directly upon
 the busy streets, in full view of passers-
 by on the narrow sidewalks, which are
 always lined with beggars, to whose
 outstretched, imploring hand the soap of "Old Castile'' is manifestly stran-
 ger. Only two meals day are served,
 breakfast and dinner; but as each occu- pies at least two hours, and three or four on occasions of ceremony, every dish of the intermnable courses being served by itself-there Is no time for any more. On entering public dining room, though you have never seen a soul there before and probably never will again, you salute the room full by a comprehensive salaam and an all-em- bracing "buenos dlas,' or 'buenos tardes,' according to the hour; and on leaving the room you bow again to the company and wish them 'Buen provecho les haga V. V."- may your meal profit you" Omission of this courtesy is considered gross vul- garity. But somehow Spanish polite ness is thin veneer which gives out in spots. The men always wear their hats at hotel tables, women eat with their knives and openly pick their teeth, and both draw water noisely into their mouths and elect it on the floor when tho meal ig over.
 A delicious dish that is frequently served in Cadiz-at least we thought it delicious until We learned what it was, is called cangrejog. It Is the foreclaws of crabs, that part of the animal only being used. The coast marshes beyond Puntales breed innumerable small crabs. Men, women and children make l business of hunting them, tearing off he forelegs of the living animal, and hen turning it loose, maimed and suf- ering, to grow new legs and be again ind again dismembered To be sure hey are only crabs; but had they ,olces, think what cries of agony would ise to heaven from the Cadiz marshes!
 It Is no wonder that Spain has been with sfnugglers since time out # mind. Heavy taxes on the most ne- essary food articles make living ex- 'enses so very high that the smuggers ugEt to be regarded as public henefac- ors rather than law-breakers Neither ity nor state derives any great benefit ! rom the imports, for most of the mon- y goes into the pockets of petty off ials; hence the sinugglers' trade ap- ears to be the safest in the country. | ir Spain plunders every ody beneath him. beginning with king nd clergy, and so on down te- the ser ants who also have their servants, tho in turn take 1t out on their don- eys. @El tI.l
 The distance from Cadiz to Serville | about ninety-six miles by railway nd considerably more by the Guadal- uiver. Unsopbisticated travellers may hoose the river route for the romance f the thing, but they will never do it
 second time. The only romance about he historic river Is its name-the Arab ("great river'), pro- ounced in Spain-Wah- dal-ke-veer
 he gray and turbid stream is naviga- le as far as Cordova, and barges of one undred tons may ascend to Seville. he river scenery Is of the tamest-tree- ,ss plains, with hedges of ''prickly- ear' cactus; further on, fields of wheat nd corn, and by and by the vineyards Heres.
 Going by rail, you come upon a novel ght just beyond the isthmus marshes. ar as the eye can see, the whole land- ape is studded with small, snow 'hite pyramids-thousand of glisten- lg mounds, each in the center of a luare plot, dug out like a flower bed nd filled with salt water. The pyra- ids are solid salt, the shallow beds are le pans in which salt is evaporated, nd everywhere are little canals bring g in sea-water. The salt crystaIizes 'st along the edges of the pans, when
 looks like border of fresh fallen LOW. It takes about a fortnight for , le of these to evaporate, except when |
 Levanter blows-the "norther" so | eaded elsewhere, which, like those of , aXas, always come up from the south. he drying pdwer of the Levanter is so !. eat that three or four days will evap- , ate the salt; hence the more disagree 'le the wind the better pleased are I e miners. Some idea of the extent ( Id importance of this salt industry I ppcrts town of twenty-seven thou | nd souls-San Fernando, ten miles t pm Cadiz. It is a gay little cty, with {