The Velvet Glove

The Ebro, as all the world knows--or will pretend to know, being an ignorant and vain world--runs through the city of Saragossa. It is a river, moreover, which should be accorded the sympathy of this generation, for it is at once rapid and shallow. On one side it is bordered by the wall of the city. The left bank is low and sandy, liable to flood; a haunt of lizards in the summer, of frogs in winter-time. The lower bank is bordered by poplar trees, and here and there plots of land have been recovered from the riverbed for tillage and the growth of that harsh red wine which seems to harden and thicken the men of Aragon.