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The excursions in the neighbourhood of Seville are Ml of beauty and interest of various kinds. One of the first undertaken by our travellers was to the ruins of Italica, the ancient Seville, for- merly an important Roman city, and the birth- place of Trajan and of Adrian. In the church, half convent and half fortress, are two very fine statues of St. Isidore and St. Jerome, by Monta- nes. Here St. Isidore began his studies. He was hopelessly dull and slow, and was tempted to give up the whole thing in despair, when one day, being in a brown study, his eye fell on an old well, the marble sides of which were worn into grooves by the continual fi-iction of the cord which let down the bucket. * K a cord can thus indent marble,' he said to himself, ' why should not constant study and perseverance make an