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Title: Through Spain to the Sahara
Author: Betham-Edwards, Matilda
Language: English
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[Illustration: text decoration]
THROUGH SPAIN TO THE SAHARA.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA. FROM AN ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH.]
THROUGH SPAIN
TO
THE SAHARA.
[Illustration: _Tents of the Nomade Tribes. Sahara Desert._]
BY
MATILDA BETHAM EDWARDS
AUTHOR OF
‘A WINTER WITH THE SWALLOWS’ ETC.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS.
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1868.
_The right of Translation is reserved._
[Illustration: text decoration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
SUNDAY AT TOURS--LA COLONIE DE METTRAY--BEAUTIFUL DORDOGNE--A
FRENCH PARSONAGE--THROUGH THE LANDES--THE
SOPORIFIC EFFECTS OF ARCACHON 1
CHAPTER II.
THE MISCONCEPTIONS OF LUGGAGE--THE COMFORTS OF SPANISH
RAILWAY TRAVELLING--OUR LIBRARY--FROM THE TROPICS
TO THE STEPPES--GREGORIA AND ISIDORA--JOURNEY TO
MADRID 24
CHAPTER III.
THE GAIETY OF MADRID--THE IMPERATIVENESS OF TEETOTALISM
THERE--THE QUEEN AND THE ROYAL BIRTHDAY--ROADS AND
RIVER-BANKS--APROPOS OF BULLS 41
CHAPTER IV.
VELASQUEZ, THE PAINTER OF MEN--MURILLO, THE PAINTER OF
ANGELS--RIBERA, THE PAINTER OF INQUISITORS--ZURBARAN,
THE PAINTER OF MONKS--GOJA, THE HOFFMANN OF SPANISH
ART--THE QUIETUDE OF THE GALLERIES 63
CHAPTER V.
A LEAR OF CITIES--GOTHIC, ROMAN, AND MOORISH REMAINS--COMMENTARIES
ON STREET’S GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND ON TOLEDAN
LANDLORDS--TILES, AND A DISCOURSE THEREON 81
CHAPTER VI.
A MIDNIGHT HALT--ITS CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS--DON
QUIXOTE’S COUNTRY--THE SLEEP AT CORDOVA--WE WAKE
IN THE EAST--SHOPPING 108
CHAPTER VII.
“THE SWEETEST MORSEL OF THE PENINSULA”--COB-WALLS OR
THE HOUSE THAT CAIN BUILT--PALMS--THE GOOD WORKS OF
THE SISTERS--THE PRIESTS AND THE PEOPLE--IS SPAIN
UTOPIA? 134
CHAPTER VIII.
“A BOAT, A BOAT, MY KINGDOM FOR A BOAT!”--THE VICTIMS OF A
TUNNY-FISH--SENOR BENSAKEN SPEAKS HIS MIND, AND WE
ARE REPROVED--RUNNING WATERS--HOWLINGS OF TARSHISH--PEPA’S
FAMILY 158
CHAPTER IX.
DAYS IN THE ALHAMBRA--THE GRANDEUR WITHOUT AND THE
BEAUTY WITHIN--“CIELED WITH CEDAR, AND PAINTED WITH
VERMILION”--AZULEJOS AND ARTESONADOS--MR. OWEN JONES’
HANDBOOK 175
CHAPTER X.
PIGS, VULGAR AND ARISTOCRATIC--THE GIPSY CAPTAIN BEWITCHES
US--WE GO DOWN TO THE POTTER’S HOUSE--A FAMILY DANCE--AN
AWFUL DISCOVERY--A BOOKSELLER OF TARSHISH 187
CHAPTER XI.
THE ARCHBISHOP BLESSES THE ENGINE, AND WE HELP HIM--DELIGHTFUL
LOJA--A FUNNY DINNER--STARLIGHT, TWILIGHT,
MORNING 209
CHAPTER XII.
WE GET TO ALGECIRAS, AND ARE MADE WRETCHED--THE FAT
SPANIARD AND THE LEAN ENGLISHMAN--A RED-LETTER DAY
AT GIBRALTAR--THE LIGHTS--ADIEU TO EUROPE 222
CHAPTER XIII.
A BRIDAL PARTY--HORRIBLE STORIES--A LONG DAY--THE CAID
AND THE DRIVER--A NEW ATMOSPHERE--TCLEMCEN 239
CHAPTER XIV.
TCLEMCEN, THE GRANADA OF THE WEST--ARAB POETS--THE
CHILDREN--THE MOKBARA--SIDI BOU MEDIN--MANSOURA--PHILO-ARABES--TEMPTATIONS
IN TCLEMCEN 253
CHAPTER XV.
HOSPITABLE ORAN--CHRISTMAS DAY AT LE SIG--THE LAST OF THE
PHALANSTERIANS--BARRAGES--THE MALARIA--ABD-EL-KADER’S
MOSQUE--SAIDA 270
CHAPTER XVI.
OPINIONS, CIVIL AND MILITARY--A LOOK TOWARDS THE SAHARA--WILD
GEESE--OUR SPAHIS, AND THE CARE THEY TAKE OF US--A
NORMANDY APPLE-ORCHARD IN AFRICA--NEW YEAR’S
DAY 287
CHAPTER XVII.
RAIN--HOW TO CARRY ONE’S WARDROBE--AN ENGLISH LADY’S
OPINIONS ON THE ARABS--WILD BIRDS--THE EARTHQUAKE 304
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHAPTER I.
SUNDAY AT TOURS.--LA COLONIE DE METTRAY.--BEAUTIFUL DORDOGNE.--A
FRENCH PARSONAGE.--THROUGH THE LANDES.--THE SOPORIFIC EFFECTS OF
ARCACHON.
On a golden autumn afternoon we found ourselves in the old city of
Tours, bound for Spain and the enchanted lands lying north of the Great
Sahara. Pleasant it was to look backward and forward; backward to the
busy life in England, forward to the bright holiday of travel, repeating
to ourselves again and again the sentiment, if not the words, of
Catullus:--
“Jam mens prætrepidans avet vagari,
Jam læti studio pedes vigescunt,
Oh! dulces comitum, valete, coetus,
Longe quos simul a domo profectus
Diversæ variæ viæ reportant.”
We were to be made so much richer and so much wiser by the experiences
of the next few weeks; a new country was about to be mapped out on our
chart: we were to speak another language, breathe another atmosphere,
feel the influences of another religion. For the present we were at
home, among French faces and French voices; and, however impatient we
might be to reach the wonderful country lying beyond the Pyrenees, we
could but willingly linger in these lovely border-lands.
It was Sunday, and our hearts were yet full of the tender beauty of the
region through which we had come, when we reached Tours, and joined the
stream of church-goers. The Cathedral on that glowing autumn afternoon
was a sight to remember, standing as it did against a bright blue sky,
with a rosy flush of sunset upon its spires. Nothing can be richer than
the façade, and yet so simple is the construction as a whole, that one
comes away with a clear idea of it in every part. We lingered in the
light for a little, and then went in. A mediæval-looking priest, with
shaven head, was preaching to a crowd of reverent peasants--and we
listened, no less reverent, to a sermon that might have been preached
hundreds of years ago. The preacher had a melancholy, monastic face, and
a fervid eloquence that would, perhaps, have stirred up any other
congregation, though none could have been more devout than these
simple-hearted vintagers and farmers. We stayed till the sermon drew to
a close, and then went on by train to Mettray.
It was at Tours that the Saracens were driven back, and it seemed to us
a good starting-point for a journey which had for one of its objects the
study of Moorish monuments in Spain. We amused ourselves with
speculating upon the condition of Europe had the Saracens succeeded at
Tours. But for that defeat, we might have had now--who knows?--a
Caliphate at Marseilles, and, perhaps, a Cordova at Oxford. But, no;
climate, if not Anglo-Saxon spirit, would have driven the
sunshine-loving Moors from our island, so that, even in dreams we cannot
spread Islamism farther than the Rhine,--which is a consolation to good
churchmen and patriots!
I purpose narrating our journey from the very beginning, because on our
way from Paris to Bayonne we made two excursions which I should strongly
recommend to every one; firstly, to the great agricultural Reformatory
of Mettray, and secondly, to the Protestant Orphanages of La Force in
the province of La Dordogne. We reached Mettray in about twenty minutes.
Such a sweet, peaceful, little spot lying in the heart of the
wine-country! The village postman conducted us, through a dusky winding
road that was all a-twitter with the twilight songs of birds, to a large
Swiss cottage that proved to be an inn, where we slept as if we had
lived there all our lives.
The chirping of the birds woke us early, and we hastened to pay our
visit to _la Colonie_, as the great Reformatory is cheerfully and
properly called. For Mettray is neither more nor less than a collection
of farms and factories, carried on by such waifs and strays of society
as its humane founders have been able to snatch from destruction. Once
having entered the gates, the whole system of the place suggested itself
to us. To our right, to our left, peeped from the trees pretty-looking
farm-buildings and workshops, all resounding with the noise of the
wheel, the hammer, the saw, and the turning-lathe, and made sunny and
pleasant with trellised vines and well-kept gardens. Every place was
orderly, quiet, and cheerful; and, as we passed along, the young farmers
and artisans greeted us, if not with blithe, at least with contented
faces. Leaving our letters of introduction at the porter’s lodge, we
made a survey of the place accompanied by an intelligent person employed
as superintendent of the boys. Our first object of interest--for we knew
something of agriculture ourselves--was the farm; and here was meat and
drink to delight the most orthodox Suffolk farmer going. Beautifully
stalled bullocks; pigs, cleanly littered or scampering about, of the
proper breed, small of bone, long of body, sleek of skin; stores
of grain, of root, and of forage; a good supply of modern
farm-implements,--in fine, every accessory to good farming on a
miniature scale.
Then we passed on to the workshops, which were like so many hives, only
a little quiet, considering the age of the bees. Some of these workmen,
in blue blouses and wooden shoes, were mere mannikins of six or seven
years old; but if to a stranger the discipline appears a little hard, it
must be remembered that each and all have been snatched from the
discipline of prison. All these eight hundred boys, whom we saw working
under such kind and pitiful supervision, were, in fact, criminals, and
well for them and for society that the benevolent founders of Mettray
had come to the rescue in time.
The type of physiognomy was strikingly low, narrow forehead, flat skull,
vicious mouth, and deep-set, cunning eyes, which would seem as if the
physiognomy, as well as the propensity, of vice, is hereditary; for most
of these children were the offspring of crime and vagabondage. The
lowest type of face, intellectually as well as morally speaking, was not
that of the Parisian, but that of the peasant; and it interested us to
find that, as a rule, the best-behaved Mettray boys were also the most
intelligent. Each boy is at liberty to follow the trade he likes best,
and, oddly enough, the favourite one seems to be that of tailoring. We
found in the little world of Mettray, as in the great world beyond, that
every one had fallen naturally into his place. The stupid boys loved to
follow the plough, the inventive to handle the carpenters’ tools, the
lovers of nature to tend the cattle, the effeminate to cook the dinners,
the enterprising to manage the farm. All are at liberty, also, to attend
evening classes, and, as a reward of merit, to learn music.
“If it were not for that,” said the good-natured superintendent to us,
“we should fancy Mettray a prison. The boys are summoned to work by
music every day, and sing at chapel on Sunday. Oh! if you only knew how
they enjoy it!”
We could easily understand this, for when the little band of musicians
was summoned to give us a concert, nothing could equal the alacrity with
which the summons was obeyed. There was a good deal of shyness and
excitement at first, but a real, hearty relish of the music as soon as
it began, perfectly delightful to witness. The superior intelligence, I
might almost go so far as to use the word refinement, of these boys from
their fellows, was quite remarkable. Not one of them had a brutish or
brutal look. When the concert was over, we went into the chapel and the
class-room. The latter was decorated with pictures, maps, and
“honourable mentions,” of former Mettray boys, who had fought in the
Crimea, in Algeria, in Mexico. Portraits of the Emperor were not
wanting, nor, indeed, anything to encourage these poor little outcasts
to love their country, to go out into the world and to make men of
themselves. I was pleased to find the wards and dormitories also
decorated with pictures and medallions, the highly-prized rewards of
good conduct; while the outside of every building was trellised with
grapes, a more material reward, not of special good conduct, but of
indiscriminate industry.
“The grapes belong to the boys and are divided when ripe,” said our
guide; “it’s very pleasant to see that not a bunch is surreptitiously
touched, and that every one gets his share at the proper time. But only
consider what a saint we have at our head! Who could help growing better
with such an example as Monsieur De M---- before him?”
The gentleman in question is the founder of Mettray, and spends all his
time and thought among the outcast children of his adoption. It was
quite touching to find how he had leavened the whole lump of this little
society with his own goodness; and very proud and happy we felt at
receiving an invitation to breakfast with him and his daughter the
Countess B----. But before speaking of this pleasant breakfast, I must
mention one of the most curious features in the _Colonie_ of Mettray.
Every one has seen in _The Times_ the advertisement of some persistent
and philanthropic clergyman, who undertakes to make unmanageable boys
perfectly tractable and gentlemanly in a few months’ time. But they
manage these things better in France, as will be seen by the way in
which the benevolent supporter of Mettray has effectually supplied the
want of such obliging clergymen.
Monsieur De M----’s pet project is what he calls, “La maison
paternelle,”--in other words, a refined sort of prison for the
refractory sons of gentlemen. The prison is attractive enough outwardly,
and looks like a pretty Swiss house, but, in spite of carpets and
curtains, the interior is gloomy. We were conducted all over the
building, and our guide was at great pains to give us a clear idea of
what was, evidently, his pet project. Unruly boys are sent here under
the charge of a tutor for terms of one, two, or more months; they are
kept to hard study, and during their hours of work the key of their
cells is turned upon them, and their behaviour is watched by the tutor
through a tiny pane of glass let in the doors. As a reward of good
conduct, more cheerful kinds of cells looking on to the garden and
adorned with pictures are given, but the peep-hole and the key are never
wanting.
“It is an admirable institution, this _maison paternelle_,” I said, a
little doubtfully; “and must relieve parents of a good deal of
responsibility; but it would never do to lock up English boys, and watch
them at their lessons through a peep-hole.”
The superintendent smiled.
“We had one English boy here once----” he said, and then stopped short.
“Well, and how did it answer in that solitary case?”
“Very ill, I assure you. He burst open the lock, refused to work, defied
his tutor,--in fine, all but created a mutiny, and heartily glad were we
to get rid of him.”
It was now ten o’clock, Monsieur De M----’s breakfast hour, and we were
conducted to the simple yet elegant house which he inhabits among his
adopted children. We found a man past middle age, exquisitely polished
in manner, enthusiastic almost to the pitch of inspiration, kindly,
grave, cheerful. It was worth the journey from Paris to make such an
acquaintance. The Countess, too, was charming, and seemed almost as
interested in the little world of Mettray as her father. But to talk
with Monsieur De M---- was like being transported into a new and purer
world. He seemed gifted with unselfishness as with a sixth sense, and
handled sin and the sorrow born of it tenderly and trustfully as none
but the Apostles of humanity can.
But even good and great men have their hobbies, and the hobby of M. De
M---- was his _maison paternelle_.[1] So earnest and eloquent, indeed,
was he in the cause that he all but converted us to the belief in bars
and bolts as a cure for naughtiness. He gave us a prospectus of the
establishment, which I transcribe below, and which will give the reader
a truer idea of its spirit than any comments of mine. It is
incontestable that, however antagonistic such a system may be to our
English notions, it has hitherto worked well in France.
But a breakfast--even a French breakfast of twenty dishes--soon comes to
an end, and we found ourselves compelled to quit our hospitable
entertainer, just as we were fairly seizing the spirit of his great
undertaking. Reluctantly we bade adieu to the peaceful asylum of
Mettray, and sauntered through the vineyards to the railway station. It
looked a lovely land to live in, especially now, when it lay bathed in
the rosy splendour of autumn. Here and there, a stately old chateau
peeped from amidst the chestnut-trees, or we came upon a grave peasant,
who might have been one of George Sand’s heroes, driving his team across
a sweet-smelling beetfield. As we passed the village church, a wedding
party issued from the gate. The bride, who was a brunette, looked very
handsome in her bright purple dress and orange-wreath, and the
bridegroom and whole happy party saluted us. We ought to have stopped to
wish them joy, but we didn’t think of it in time; and when we turned
back, ashamed of our English shyness, the white ribbons of the last
bridesmaid were disappearing round the corner. “Mon Dieu, those English
are cold-hearted people!” I can hear these honest peasants say over
their wedding-feast. “They meet our Jeanne and her Jeannot coming from
church and never stop to utter a blessing!”
Pretty Jeanne! I hope that our negligence may prove no ill omen to her
after-life. It was downright shyness, and not ill nature, on our part,
after all.
From Mettray we proceeded by rail to Tours, and on to Libourne, a
pleasant and picturesque bit of rail, spoiled in this instance, however,
by the late inundations of the Loire. One reads of these inundations,
and laments over them at home, but is far from realising the actual
state of things without personal experience. Horace’s ode on the
overflowing of the Tiber gives a more approximate idea of the prevailing
ruin and dismay than anything; and my fellow-traveller (we don’t intend
quoting Latin all the way) broke out with:--
“Piscium et summa genus hæsit ulmo,
Nota quæ secies fuerat columbis;
Et superjecto pavidæ natârunt
Æquore damæ.”
We travelled all the way from Tours to Libourne with an English
gentlemen, who gave us horrifying accounts of the Spanish inns.
“Sleep at Cordova!” he uttered, with a positive shriek of dismay; “sleep
at Cordova! I warn you not to attempt it; I forbid you to attempt it.
It’s awful! it’s disgusting! it’s impossible! I was travelling in Spain
with my wife a year ago, and we stayed a night at Cordova. The beds and
floors were alive with vermin, and, as a last resource of sleeplessness
and disgust, we betook ourselves to arm-chairs and railway rugs.
Whatever you do, don’t sleep at Cordova.”
And so kindly anxious was he for our comfort that, when he alighted at
some half-way station between Tours and Libourne, he ran back to the
carriage just as the train was moving off and called out, “Don’t sleep
at Cordova.”
We took the diligence to St. Foy next day, that being the nearest
post-town to La Force. It was not a comfortable journey; the road was
cut straight through a monotonous country, and the conveyance was
terribly overcrowded. One of the passengers was a heavy-looking priest,
and one a peasant woman with a week-old baby she was carrying home to
nurse. I put one or two questions to M. le Curé about the Orphan-Idiot
Asylums of La Force. Did he know the pastor B---- by name? Had he seen
his Orphanages? But M. le Curé, though living in the next parish, seemed
alike ignorant of both La Force and its founder. “Pasteur B----, a
Protestant? I don’t know him at all,” he said. We then talked of the
little fosterling, asked if it were customary to put out all infants to
nurse in La Dordogne. On being answered in the affirmative, we said,
“You ought to preach against that, Monsieur le Curé: it is a cruel
custom;” and then we questioned the nurse as to the parentage of her
little charge. All at once the Curé’s face lighted up, and he looked at
us as if he were revealing an astounding piece of intelligence.
“Why,” he said, “it’s the child of Madame George, my parishioner, and I
baptized it myself.”
Yet he had never heard of La Force nor of Mettray!
St. Foy is an old-fashioned town, charmingly situated on the banks of
the Dordogne. The road to La Force wound along the river side, and had
in some places been rendered impassable by the late inundations. As we
proceeded on our way, sometimes on foot, sometimes in the crazy old
vehicle we had hired, we caught glimpses of scenes so sunny, so full of
tender beauty, so poetic, and so peaceful, that we felt as if we would
fain escape to La Dordogne whenever the troubles of the world might lie
heavy upon us. River, vineyard, hill and wood, all softened and
illumined by the autumn sunshine, made up a little rural world very
fresh and sweet to live in; one wonders, can any one be very unhappy
here?
We brought letters with us from English friends, and the good pastor and
his wife received us with more than kindness. Two or three pastors from
Geneva were staying in their house, so that we found ourselves in quite
a little Methodist community; and not being Methodists ourselves, though
full of respect for all that is good in Methodism, it startled us a
little to be catechised thus:--“The great and good Spurgeon, what is he
doing at this moment?” “How many believers are gathered every Sabbath in
his temple?” &c. &c. It was so new, too, to feel, in a world where the
spirit of inquiry had not yet penetrated, and to know that here, if
nowhere else, the authors of _Ecce Homo_ and _The Pentateuch Explained_
were all but unknown.
Naturally the conversation fell upon the present aspect of
Protestantism, or rather Methodism, in France.
“It is very difficult to be a Protestant in France,” said Pastor B----,
and sighed. “When I think of the reception I had in England, and of the
precious friends there whose prayers are ever with me, I compare myself
to some solitary exile in a hostile land.”
He went on to tell us much that was interesting and unexpected. It seems
that the Protestant population decreases in France, on account of the
disinclination or disability of the young men to marry, and, in some
places, the little communities threaten to die away altogether.
After dinner and coffee, one of the ministers from Geneva gave a little
religious discourse, our kindly host extemporised a prayer, and we were
conducted to our rooms. But long past midnight we heard earnest voices
in discussion, and by daybreak the sounds commenced afresh. It was the
Pastor B---- and his friends who sat up late and rose early to discuss
the prospects of the Church, as their time of intercourse was drawing to
a close. When we came down to breakfast the visitors had gone.
The asylums of La Force are well worth the study of any one interested
in the lowest forms of helplessness and suffering. Nothing can equal the
cheerfulness and orderliness of the buildings both within and without.
The rooms are spacious, well ventilated, and looking on pleasant
landscapes of corn-field and vineyard; a pretty church is in
construction close by; and both boys and girls have large gardens in
which to play or work. The climate of La Dordogne is mild and sunny;
snow is almost unknown; and on this November day when we found
ourselves at La Force, the temperature was very nearly that of summer.
Fortunate, indeed, are these poor idiots who rejoice in such material
and moral sunshine; for the loving care and sympathy with which they are
surrounded is, I should say, quite unequalled. We have read of the
Crimean soldiers kissing Florence Nightingale’s shadow as it fell on the
wall; and as the good Pastor moved along, there were looks of love and
gratitude following him that did the heart good to witness. The most
touching feature of Pastor B----’s Orphanages is the way in which the
blind are taught to lead the blind. We saw an idiot boy acting as
writing-master to a dozen children more or less imbecile, and idiot
girls tending upon the paralysed and the epileptic. In one room there
were about twenty poor things all more or less personally and mentally
deformed; and the distorted faces, bent limbs, oblique eyes, and
soulless grins and gesticulations, were horrible. Pastor B---- shuddered
at the accustomed sight, and told us that most of these children were
born of sin and shame too horrible to mention. With very few exceptions
all have been taught to read, to write, to sew, and to labour in the
fields; the great hindrance to the good minister’s scheme is want of
money.
“We have many kind friends and supporters both in England, France, and
Switzerland,” he said; “and yet we have hard work to pull through. Many
people seem to think they do us good service in sending a poor orphan or
idiot; we take all in, but at a cost far beyond our present means.”
We were glad, and yet sorry, to leave La Force and its generous
supporters--glad to escape the sight of so much physical and mental
deformity, and sorry that we could not effectually aid the noble efforts
made in its behalf.
From La Dordogne to Bayonne extends the dreary desert of the Landes,--a
desert only broken by pine-forests and shepherds’ huts, and offering no
enticement to the impatient travellers bound to Spain. We did, however,
spend a day at Arcachon near Bordeaux, for the place had been praised in
our hearing as a second and more attractive Biarritz, and we wanted to
know how far we might recommend it to friends at home.
I don’t think I can recommend any one to go to Arcachon, quiet and
pretty as it is. In the first place, the air is so oppressively soft
that we both felt stupefied by it, much as if we had taken morphine; and
in the second, the houses are all built in such gimcrack style that one
feels to be living in a sixpenny peep-show. But, on the other hand,
there are sweet-smelling forests of young pine very refreshing to the
sight and sense (if people preserve their sight and senses in soporific
Arcachon), and salt-baths, and the pleasant feeling that here, if
nowhere else in the world, it would be quite possible to become
oblivious of every care and responsibility under the sun!
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHAPTER II.
THE MISCONCEPTIONS OF LUGGAGE.--THE COMFORTS OF SPANISH RAILWAY
TRAVELLING.--OUR LIBRARY.--FROM THE TROPICS TO THE
STEPPES.--GREGORIA AND ISIDORA.--JOURNEY TO MADRID.
“Dos billetes de primera clase para Burgos?” (Two first-class tickets to
Burgos) with astonishment repeated the young woman acting as collector
at the railway station of Biarritz. “To Burgos! to Burgos!”
“To Burgos,” we replied, quietly.
“If you are really going as far as Burgos,” she said, with the same look
of unmitigated surprise, “I must apply to the station-master for the
tickets. Have the goodness to sit down and I will see about it.”
We supposed by this young lady’s behaviour, and we afterwards found our
supposition to be true, that it is a most unusual thing for ladies to
travel in Spain. With one or two exceptions, we had the ladies’ coupé to
ourselves from one end of Spain to the other, and very comfortable
travelling we found it.
Our tickets came to hand in due time. We took our seats, the train moved
slowly, and we felt fairly off to Spain. There was a pleasant excitement
about such a journey just then, for every one prophesied a revolution in
Madrid; it might come to-morrow, it must come soon, people said; and we
were thought very venturesome to venture beyond the Pyrenees at all. Not
that the sense of danger attracted us. We had come to Spain with very
definite objects, and though we could not help feeling that the sooner a
revolution came for the Spaniards the better, we hoped that it might not
come till we were safely at Gibraltar, at least. The pictures of
Velasquez, and the Moorish relics of Cordova, Seville, and Granada, were
the loadstones that drew us to Spain; at the same time we could not but
be alive to the great political and social questions agitating a country
once so glorious, and still so capable of glorious things. But in a stay
so short as ours was likely to be, we despaired of seeing more than the
surface of Spanish thought and life, however much we might wish for
other opportunities. It made us smile then, and it makes me smile now,
to review the magnitude of our preparations for this trip. And now let
me put down, if putting down be possible, a very absurd notion that, to
travel comfortably, you should travel without luggage. I have travelled
a good deal, and if I were writing a manual for all future tourists, I
should affix, as a motto to the book,--“Always travel in your best
clothes, and with half-a-dozen trunks at least.” Luggage and good
clothes take the place of a train of servants. Luggage and good clothes
ensure you good places, general civility, and an infinity of minor
comforts. Luggage and good clothes will prove your good angels wherever
you go. It is all very well for savages to travel without luggage--the
Japanese Grandees don’t even carry pocket-handkerchiefs about with them;
but if any one wants to travel pleasantly and profitably, let him carry
a well-stored portmanteau. Surely in no country but patient Spain would
two ladies have been allowed to fill the first-class compartment of a
railway carriage in the way we did. Under the seats, on the seats, above
the seats, were piled an infinite variety of packages, a box of
medicines, a folding india-rubber bath, a basket of provisions (a
precaution never to be neglected), two or three parcels of books, two or
three bundles of rugs, a leather bag of sketching materials, sketching
blocks of various sizes, a silk bag of needles and threads; lastly, an
odd bag, containing note-books, opera-glasses, passports, a tea-pot, a
water-bottle, an etna, an air-cushion, slippers, and sundries without
number.
And everything was so useful in its turn. In that long, slow railway
journey through Spain, we were, as I have said, always alone. We
breakfasted, we dined, we wrote letters and diaries, we read all our
books from beginning to end, and we mended our clothes, we made
sketches, we made tea, we might have refreshed ourselves with a cold
bath, but for want of water. Not a bit of our precious luggage could we
have spared, and not a bit ever troubled us beyond the necessity of
giving a few cuartos to the porters when changing carriages. As for
books we were not half way through Spain before they were done, and yet
we had taken a goodly supply; Ford’s _Guide_, Street’s _Gothic
Architecture_, _Don Quixote_ in Spanish, Stirling’s _Life of Velasquez_,
Washington Irving’s pretty twaddle about the Alhambra, Chasles’ _Memoir
of Cervantes_, the Manuals of Lavice and Viardot, Gautier’s book, and
half a hundred books about Spain in French, German, English, and
Spanish, among others, the delightful and racy sketches of his
countrymen, by Don Ramon Mesonero de Romanos.
Of course our luggage accumulated as we went along. We bought books,
maps, photographs, clothes everywhere, pottery of Andujar and Talavera,
lace from La Mancha, embroidery at Malaga, _capas_ at Granada, till, by
the time we arrived at our journey’s end, our _equipaje_, as the
Spaniards call it, was a sight for all beholders.
It was on the tenth of November that we crossed the Pyrenees, all
glowing with the purple and gold of autumn, and entered Spain. What a
change! It was like coming suddenly from the Tropics to the Steppes. As
if by magic, the crimsons, the carnations, the violets, died out of the
world, and all became cold and grey and barren. In Old Castile one
fancies oneself in a desert--a desert only varied by occasional forests
of the _Pinus maritima_, with its straight, weird stem and plumy tuft.
The colour and character of the scene varied but slightly--here
undulating plains of grey sand piled with columnar masses of granite,
there forests of pine, the round bosses of bluish-green standing out
sharp and clear against a bright blue sky; or breadths of brown
corn-land, lightly ploughed for the autumn seed-sowing. There was
something grand and harmonious about this wild monotony--broken rarely
by an oasis of a village with ilex groves and yellow acacias and a
narrow river winding near, and groups of wide-mouthed Sancho Panzas
staring at us as we looked out of the window.
But I must go back to Burgos where the purples and crimsons ended and
the desert began. We arrived a little before midnight and felt ourselves
at last in Spain. The very air had, as we thought, a foreign smell, and
so greatly did this feeling of novelty overcome us that all our Spanish
vocabulary seemed to vanish just when it would have stood us in good
stead. However, we found places in the omnibus of the Fonda del Norte,
and, after waiting about three quarters of an hour, rattled thither in
company of several Spanish gentlemen who were wrapped to the chin in
their bandit-looking cloaks, and smoked away without intermission. Two
or three long-limbed, black-eyed, rosy-cheeked young women, wearing
enormous chignons of false hair, but no costume unless untidiness may be
called one, led us upstairs flaring candles over our heads. “Dos
cuartos,” we said; “Si, si,” they replied, and on they went, climbing
stair after stair, till at last we caught hold of their sleeves in
breathless expostulation; and they consented to descend. Finally we were
consigned to rooms on the third floor, so spotlessly, ideally clean,
that a sanitary inspector could have found nothing to suggest. The rooms
had whitewashed walls, iron bedsteads that might have come out of Heal’s
warehouse, deliciously cool floors of brick-red tiles, wool-mattrasses,
sweet-smelling home-spun sheets, and pillows bordered with the lace of
La Mancha. We slept delightfully, though the noise of the watchman
calling the hours half awoke us now and then.
At seven o’clock, one of the maidens of the chignon, a handsome saucy
creature, named Isidora, of whom we grew very fond, brought us chocolate
_à l’Espagnol_, namely, tiny cups of sweet, thick chocolate, flavoured
with vanilla, rolls of bread, glasses of exquisite water and
_azucarillas_, or large crystals of sugar and white of egg. Isidora
delighted to give us lessons in Spanish, and went into fits of
good-humoured laughter at our blunders. At eleven o’clock we went to the
_table d’hôte_ breakfast, but there was no one there excepting a
Spanish-American family, consisting of a grave father, an insignificant
little daughter, and a cosmopolitan son, who spoke a little English. All
were very uninteresting, so there was nothing to do but study the
dishes, which were all excellent, and _ab ovo usque ad mala_, slightly
flavoured with garlic. We had tortillas or omelettes, patties of brains,
water-cresses served with oil, olla podrida of bacon, sausage, cabbage,
maize cobs, lentils, and other vegetables too numerous to mention, roast
snipes, fig jam, and Burgos cheese. The wine was excellent too, but the
invariable flavour of tar is not pleasant to the unaccustomed palate. We
were served by a waitress handsomer and saucier even than Isidora. She
was named Gregoria, and with her napkin swung on her left shoulder went
from one to the other, saying her say, and trying to get as much
entertainment as was possible out of us. We were very comfortable at
Burgos, excepting that it was impossible to keep warm indoors; the sun
was shining brilliantly, yet we shivered in our clean bare rooms, which
were chimneyless and only warmed by charcoal pans. Round these we
squatted like Arabs, but to no purpose, and we went to bed at seven
o’clock, finding bed the only warm place. How the cold of winter is
endured in Spain I cannot conceive, for winter does come in earnest
sometimes, and no preparations seem to be made for it.
We sauntered into the most beautiful old Cathedral on the morning after
our arrival, which was Sunday, hoping to find it full of peasants in
holiday costume; but though there were plenty of worshippers, except for
the sombreros and brown _capas_ or cloaks of the men, and the silk and
lace mantillas of the women, there was no costume at all. People seem
to enjoy going to church in Spain. The ladies come in with their little
dogs, drop on their knees on a mat, adjust their fans, and fall into a
sort of quiet ecstasy of prayer, the dogs sitting demurely by. The men
are equally devout; and every one, caballero or beggar, soldier or
priest, comes in his turn, week-day and Sunday. The churches are
beautifully kept, warm in cold weather, cool in summer, clean and dusky
and quiet always. No wonder they are never empty.
The Cathedral of Burgos is so rich in different sorts of beauty that it
would be idle for me to try and particularise any, excepting perhaps the
wonderful effect of it as a whole upon the accustomed eye. At first one
is quite unable to take in the wonderful simplicity, and strength, and
finish of the building, or rather mass of buildings, for it is a city in
itself; but later you feel, as it were, a child of the place, loving and
living in every part. The colour of the outside is of a soft deep grey,
and is unspeakably rich when seen, as we saw it, against quite an
Eastern sky. We never grew tired of wandering about the Cathedral, with
Street’s _Gothic Architecture_ in hand to help us through its history;
and no one seemed to take offence at us for pursuing such studies within
the sacred walls.
I have called the building a city in itself, and if a census were made
of its silent population, there might seem some reason in such a simile.
Who can doubt that these sculptured saints, archangels, kings, apostles,
and monks without, these bleeding Christs, Virgins, infants, and martyrs
within, would equal in number the living, moving world of Burgos? And
this multitude, stony, silent, dead, though it seems, is not without a
power and force that stand in good stead of vitality. Every Christ has
its special congregation, every martyr its believers, every saint its
legend quickening thousands of devotees to this day.
There is no trace of Moorish influence in the building, and despite many
excrescences of bastard-Gothic and Renaissance work, the old Cathedral
is still to be seen in all its beauty, reminding you of the purest
thirteenth-century Gothic of France. All who have time to study it
thoroughly will at the same time acquire a good deal of history, for
there is hardly a portion of it which does not show the thought and
work of many minds and periods. Spaniard, Gascon, Fleming, Englishman,
Florentine, have all had a hand in this glorious work, which gradually
increased in size and splendour, till nothing more remained to do except
to disfigure it in these later times; which I am sorry to say has been
done, within and without, by various means called “restoration.”
The ecclesiologist will find plenty to admire at Burgos, but the
ordinary traveller will content himself with seeing the Cathedral and
the Convents of Miraflores and Las Huelgas. The latter is especially
interesting on account of its history. It was founded by the husband of
Alienor, daughter of our King Henry II., whose daughter Costanza became
abbess. Here numbers of royal ladies took the veil; here kings were
crowned and buried; and here a lady abbess still lives and rules, though
no longer, as in former days, a princess palatinate, receiving princely
revenues.
But what makes Las Huelgas of peculiar value to students is the evidence
of Angevine influence in the architecture. Queen Alienor, as Mr. Street
justly observes, would naturally procure the help of some architect
from her father’s dominion of Anjou in the abbey she induced him to
found; and one finds here the early vaulting common to old churches in
Anjou and Poitou. But these special objects of interest are less
interesting than the general effect of the whole place.
It was here, indeed, that we were bodily as well as spiritually
transported back to the middle ages. The transformation happened in this
wise. After wandering about the cloisters we came unexpectedly upon a
scene that simply enchanted us. It was the nuns’ chapel. Looking through
a screen of delicately wrought cast-iron, we saw two kneeling figures
dressed in the black and cream-coloured robes of the Cistercian
sisterhood. They were as motionless as statues; and we felt them to be a
part of the place as much as the Gothic arches, the stained walls, and
the marble altars. So mediæval and ideal was the picture, that, when we
came away, we felt as if we of the nineteenth century were dreaming, and
the life of those women kneeling in the coloured light the only reality
after all!
The roads are so bad around Burgos that it was with great ado we got to
the celebrated Monastery of Miraflores, though it only lies two miles
off the town. It is a dreary drive. The road winds around hills so bleak
and desolate, as to give us an uneasy suspicion when a beggar in a long
black cloak came to the carriage-door begging. He looked exactly like a
bandit; and if it had not been for our sturdy coachman we should have
trembled for the gold Isabelinoes we carried in our pockets.
Coming home we saw a regiment at practice. The soldiers were the
shabbiest set I ever saw, the music poor, and the whole thing spiritless
enough; but all the people of Burgos seemed to have turned out for the
sight.
In Spain the railways are not made for travellers, but travellers for
railways. The trains run so slowly and so seldom that a journey of any
length always requires self-denial in the matter of sleep. No matter
whither you are bound, to Alicant, to Cordova, to Saragossa, to Badajoz,
you must rise early and not go to bed at all; and it is with very great
management and disregard of comfort that one can contrive to travel by
daylight through the most interesting tracts of scenery. To go to
Madrid in the daytime we had to rise at four o’clock. It is true that
the train did not start till nearly seven; but, whether you like it or
not, in Spain you are always aroused an hour before you want to get
up,--always carried off to the station an hour before the train starts,
and to the steamers at least a quarter of a day too soon. People seem in
such terrible haste to be rid of you, agreeable as the acquaintance may
seem to have been on both sides.
This waiting about in the raw, cold air of an autumn morning is not
without its compensations. Everything takes a supernatural shape in the
ghastly lamplight; the horses that have brought us here seem, on a
sudden, slim and spectral; the long lines of railway carriages have a
funereal look; the men, waiting about in their long black cloaks, become
brigand-like and terrible to look at; one’s own shadow is mysteriously
long and dark; one’s own voice sounds hollow and unearthly. It is like
reading a scene from Mrs. Radcliff’s novels. But when once the train
moves slowly off, and the blessed sun warms you, it is the very poetry
of railway-travelling. The carriage is so comfortable, the speed so
easy, the quiet so delicious, that it is worth while coming to Spain to
gain such an experience. No one seems impatient to arrive anywhere; if
indeed, any one is bound anywhere. The train stops at every station, and
at some so long that you might take photographs in the interval. If you
alight to lunch or stretch your limbs a little, you are never hurried
back into your carriage, but can loiter about in the pleasant assurance
that the train is sure to wait for you. “The train is going to stop; now
for a sketch,” we used to say when we approached a station; and there
was always time.
And then there is the ineffable sense of safety. A single gauge leads
from the French frontier to the Spanish capital; the up-train waits for
the down train half-way, and each goes its destination as lazily as
Kentish farmers jogging to market. How can there be accidents or
discomforts under such circumstances?
Tourists are apt to complain of the incivility of officials in Spain. I
can only say that we travelled from Biarritz to Gibraltar, and
encountered nothing but courtesy and kindness. We spoke a little
Spanish, it is true, and had left England with a solemn compact never to
get out of temper, which may, perhaps, in some degree account for such
experience. And we always travelled in the first-class carriage reserved
for ladies. I do not think English ladies would find second and
third-class travelling pleasant, on account of the smoking.
Thus we travelled through the brown deserts of Old Castille to Madrid.
Treeless, tawny, and interminable, anything more dreary than these same
Spanish steppes cannot well be conceived. Yet there was contrast and
colour for the artistic eye. There was mass after mass of cool, grey
limestone against a bright blue sky; and when the sun set over the
undulating table-lands, a weird, fiery, unimagined splendour not to be
put into any words!
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CHAPTER III.
THE GAIETY OF MADRID.--THE IMPERATIVENESS OF TEETOTALISM
THERE.--THE QUEEN AND THE ROYAL BIRTHDAY.--ROADS AND
RIVER-BANKS.--APROPOS OF BULLS.
There is no more stir at the railway-station of Madrid than at that of
Tunbridge Wells or Chelmsford; and as you rattle along the quiet
streets, you ask yourself--Can this be the capital of so many great
kingdoms? It is the fashion to represent Madrid as a dreary place, but,
on the contrary, its first aspect is eminently cheerful. The streets are
light and airy, the sky is generally without a cloud, and the population
is a gay and unique one. I suppose Madrid is the only capital in Europe
where the upper classes can be said to cling to anything like costume,
for certainly the long cloaks of the men, and the mantillas and fans of
the ladies, do merit the name of costume still. In Spain it is possible
for a man to be dainty about his dress, since every cloak can be lined
in different styles of luxury, with silk, with velvet, with fur, or with
brocade. The upper cape of the cloak is thrown over the left shoulder in
such a manner as to expose the lining; and as you walk along the
streets, you are lost in admiration of a dress so graceful, and think
regretfully of the orthodox great-coat worn in London, when a little
colour would be so pleasant to the eye. Put a Spanish cloak upon every
man in Fleet Street and Piccadilly, and how the bits of creamy fur, of
crimson silk, of purple velvet, of gold brocade, would enliven these
sober thoroughfares! But the Madrilenians are not a majestic race,
though so majestically equipped. Diminutive in size, sallow, shaven like
monks, one never dreams of calling the men handsome. At the same time
they have, for the most part, beautiful features and fine eyes. The
ladies, tripping about fan in hand, are pretty; but, like the men,
frail-looking and without dignity. Treacherous as is the climate, they
go about bare-necked, bare-headed, and with only a fan to shade them
from a dangerous sun. Yet one sees the same thing everywhere--whilst
the women wear tight-fitting clothes, and expose themselves to wind and
sun, the men are wrapped up like Arabs in the easiest, most sensible
dress possible. In England we are growing wiser, and we no longer kill
our young girls by making them wear tight stays, thin shoes, and
back-boards; but in Madrid--I suppose one of the unhealthiest places in
the world--it never seems to enter into any one’s head that what is
dangerous to a man is doubly so to a woman.
It will be easily understood why Madrid should be so unhealthy when a
little consideration is given to its site. Built on a plateau 2412 feet
above the sea, it is exposed to an African sun and a Siberian winter.
Like Rome it stands in a treeless desert; and the icy winds may blow
down from the chain of the Guadarrama, whilst the sun is scorching with
fiery powers. You may pass in a moment from a cold climate to a hot one
in Madrid; and at all times the air is so rarefied as to be terribly
trying. I enjoy excellent health as a rule, but the climate of Madrid
knocked me down in a day. I was tormented by a constant neuralgia; my
face swelled up so that I could hardly see out of my eyes; and I became
so languid that I could hardly set one foot before the other. Yet one
must not take stimulants. Never shall I forget the dismay with which an
English lady saw me take wine at dinner.
“Unless you are mad,” she said, “you will drink no wine here. When I
first came to Madrid I felt as you do, feverish, listless, utterly good
for nothing, and I tried a little _vin ordinaire_ as a remedy, but it
acted like a poison. My face became covered with a terrible eruption,
and if I had not abstained in time, I should have had the _colico_ of
Madrid. It is a terrible climate alike for body and mind, and thankful
enough shall I be to get away.”
Every one coughs everywhere. The men cover their mouths and keep on the
sunny side of the street, as if death lurked in a “shady place;” whilst
the ladies (would to heaven they did cover their mouths when the icy
wind blows from the mountains!), who go bareheaded, have a frightfully
fragile look. Indeed it is the very rarest thing to see a really
robust-looking person in Madrid. The curled darlings of society are
pale as spectres, the waiters and shopmen are thin and cadaverous; a
fresh, beautiful look of health one meets nowhere. I don’t think this
matter of climate is sufficiently taken into account by those who write
about Spain and the Spaniards; for there is no denying the fact that
since Madrid became the capital of this great country, its greatness
grew pale and wan. Bred in a hot-bed of consumption, of colic, and all
sorts of diseases, is it any wonder that the Madrilenian degenerates
both in body and in mind, till he no longer looks capable either of
mental or physical exertion? Wherever we found ourselves, at the Prado,
at a review, on the Puerto de Sol, or in the churches, we were always
looking at the sickly, lethargic population around us, with the
thought--Is this the stuff of which reformations and revolutions are to
be made?
And then the dire effects of the Inquisition must be taken into account.
Who can doubt that for some of the mental and physical debasement
witnessed in Spain at the present day the system of Ignatius Loyola is
alone responsible? Torture, enslave, terrify a dozen men and women, and
see what their children and children’s children will become? But whether
this reasoning may be received as a mere fancy or not, the fact remains
incontestable,--the upper ten thousand of Madrilenian population is the
most miserable-looking of any in the world. Of Madrilenian society we
had no experience, for, though we were furnished with letters of
introduction, more important objects claimed our time. It is the
greatest mistake to do two things at once, and having come to Madrid to
see and study the Velasquez Gallery, we had no inclination to neglect
this end for any other. As a substitute for personal experience, we read
Spanish newspapers, modern Spanish novels, and plays; and though, as far
as the latter goes, it was rather hard work, we felt the curriculum to
be instructive. Putting aside the charming stories of Caballero and
Trueba, the modern Spanish novel is a poor affair, and the play a poor
affair too; but any one who really wishes to be entertained and
instructed should read the social sketches of such writers as Don Ramon
Mesonero de Romanos, Pedro de Medrazo, and José de Larra, who describe
their country and countrymen with inimitable grace, satire, and
discrimination.
And the newspapers, what is to be said of them? I think this paragraph
might be headed,--“There are no newspapers in Spain;” for except as
mediums of advertisements and local gossip, they don’t exist. On first
installing ourselves in the comfortable Hôtel de Paris, we used to fly
eagerly to the reading-room, laying hands on _La Correspondencia de
España_, _La Gaceta_, _La Regeneracion_, &c., &c.; but very little did
they tell us excepting the small-beer chronicles of every nation under
the sun, and of Spain above all. Then there would be _feuilletons_ of
very inferior quality, long lists of advertisements for wet-nurses, and
invitations to the friends of the late Don or Doña So-and-so to attend
his or her funeral obsequies.
Of anything like political news, much less political discussion, there
was seldom a vestige.
But though the Government has succeeded in bridling the tongue of the
press, there is abundance of contraband talk in Madrid. No matter with
whom you converse, the topic is sure to be of bloody revolutions and
retributions unequalled in history. But mention the Royal name, and,
whether you are among aristocrats or peasants, you will see dark looks,
meaning shrugs of the shoulder, gestures significant of bitterest
meaning.
“It must come soon,” people say to you; “and the sooner the better,
though dire will be the coming of it. Never in history were such wrongs,
such hatred, such tyranny, to be washed out in blood. We can only watch
and wait.”
The acquaintance of a day,--nay, of an hour, is sufficient to warrant
all sorts of confidences on public matters from a Spaniard, and this
incautiousness, or rather candour, makes you forgive even his love of
the bull-fight. It is, indeed, a most consolatory fact, that it is but a
watching and waiting in Spain, and that underneath a semblance of
indifference burns and rages a wholesome desire of liberty.
“We are at the present moment enduring a tyranny of which foreigners
have no conception,” said a cultivated Spaniard to me, one day, in
English; “and yet, despite of all that is going on secretly among us, no
one can say when things will change. Change they must; we shall have
the French Revolution acted over again in the streets of Madrid.”[2]
Again: we were taken to see the graves of some young officers of high
family who were shot in prison during the disturbances of last year. A
respectable man of the lower ranks was standing near, and he said, with
tears in his eyes, but half-suppressed curses on his lips,--
“They were as innocent as new-born babes; though, thank God! this murder
won’t long want vengeance.”
It would be almost impossible to convey any idea of the bitterness and
hatred we found underlying the public mind at this epoch.
People gave us their confidences without any reason for doing so,
confidences which all amounted to one and the same thing--contempt of
the tyranny and resolutions to overturn the tyrants. “No one can tell
how uncomfortable it is to live in Madrid now,” said an English lady to
me one day. “It is the old fable of the sheep and the wolves over and
over again. We are constantly laying in stores for three or four weeks’
siege; but I’ve done it so often in vain that I have determined never to
do it again, and I daresay the consequence will be that a revolution
will come and find my larder empty.”
And yet how gay it was in Madrid! Though the north-east wind blew from
the mountains, ladies promenaded the streets bareheaded; and
Opera-house, Plaza de Toros, Prado, and every other haunt of amusement,
was crowded. We naturally tried each in turn. We saw a review on the
Queen’s birthday, went to the Opera, drove on the Prado, and, much
against my inclination, I spent twenty minutes at a bull-fight. The
review was a spiritless affair, every one had prophesied some sort of
outbreak on that day, but none came; and the Queen, who had been hissed
at the theatre a few days before, did not appear. The King took her
place, and very flushed and uncomfortable he looked. Not so le Père
Claret, the Queen’s confessor. As he descended the palace steps to his
handsome carriage drawn by four splendid mules, he looked quite
contented with the existing order of things,--which I suppose is but
natural,--and stepped along in his purple robes with as much dignity as
if he had been the Pope himself. This man’s history and position are so
extraordinary that one cannot but look after him with interest. By
turns, soldier, ecclesiastic, missionary, and bishop, he has won a
certain celebrity for his sermons and the publication of a coarse book
called _La Clave de Oro_, and he has also won the royal ear. His rival
in this latter respect is a nun, called Maria-Dolorès Patrocinio, abbess
of the convent of St. Pascual d’Aranjuez, who was tried and condemned
some time since by the tribunal, because she gave herself out to be the
subject of a miracle, pretending to have the wounds of Christ on her
hands. One can but pity the Queen, who has laid herself open to such
unmitigated obloquy by her favouritism. No young sovereign ever passed
through stormier ordeals than Isabella the Second. Pity that experience
has not taught her wisdom, and that by her own hand she has undone,
Penelope-wise, good deeds done in the gentleness of youth! There is a
little book called _The Attaché in Madrid_, which gives some highly
interesting sketches of the Spanish Court and capital during the
eventful July of 1854. It was a reign of terror, and the Queen was as a
shuttlecock driven hither and thither; but a Spanish mob is not a French
mob, and always showed some threadbare kind of respect for royalty. An
English writer on the affairs of Spain, says, “The Queen of Spain is
not unpopular with the bulk of her subjects” (which statement I doubt),
“and her great failing is, that feminine one to which Dr. Reaumur
attributes all Mary Queen of Scots’ errors, ‘_Sie konnte nicht ohne
Männer leben_.’” But it seems to me that it is faults of both heart and
head that have made the throne of Isabella the Second the bed of thorns
it is. If, despite a bad government, Spain is making undeniable
progress, who can doubt what she might be under a good? I think no one
who has had opportunity of studying her domestic history during the last
thirty years will be inclined to agree with Mr. Buckle’s sweeping
assertions. He despaired of the regeneration of Spain, but slow though
the process must be, it has undoubtedly commenced. In commerce, in
education, in literature, it has commenced; and who shall stem the flow
of that slow but inevitable tide?
The great hindrance is from the badness and uncertainty of the
government. There is no security in the land, without which there can be
no spirit of enterprise. Who can say what to-morrow will bring forth? “A
Spanish cabinet,” an English writer wittily says, “may be compared to a
Chili house, constructed on a calculation that an earthquake will occur
within the year.” All the best energy of the nation is spent upon the
unhealthy excitement of political transformations. It is like living in
an atmosphere overcharged with electricity. One moment, there is a
succession of lightning-flashes, all sorts of brilliant miraculous
heralds of a tempest that is to clear the air; then comes a growl of
thunder, an outburst of popular feeling in Barcelona or some distant
part; and all is hushed again for a short space, when the symptoms occur
again and again without coming to a crisis.
But this underlying suspense and unrest do not interfere with the gay,
out-of-door life of Madrid. The weather is always fine, and the Prado is
always crowded.
There is nothing livelier in Europe than this same Prado, with its crowd
of pretty ladies, picturesque cavaliers, dear little carriages for
babies drawn by spotlessly white lambs, nurses from Estramadura in
short, brown petticoats, embroidered with gold, water-sellers in
sombrero and leathern gaiters, and an infinity of equipages, costumes,
and cries, to distract the eye and ear of the foreigner. But if you are
tired of gaiety, in ten minutes you can get into a scene so peaceful and
quiet, that you might fancy yourself miles away from a capital. Drive
down to the green banks of the Manzanares, where a thousand peasant
women are beating linen in the afternoon sun. Their red and yellow
skirts, and plentiful black hair, make quite a picture, and their blithe
talk and singing never cease for a moment. Yet how tranquil and rustic
it is here! One has a superb view of Madrid, with its background of blue
and white mountains, palace and church and house-top flushing in the
light of the setting sun, whilst the hum of its busy life seems silenced
for a while. The river winds amid sloping banks of lustrous green,
lightly sprinkled with yellow foliage, and team after team winds its
sleepy way towards some village seen in the distance.
It sounds incredible, and yet it is true, that, within half-an-hour’s
drive of Madrid, the roads are impracticabilities for any carriage
having springs. I do not think there is a lane in Sussex, or in any
heavy land district of Suffolk, where you could be so jolted in a
tumbril as we were in a light cab just outside the Spanish capital. We
found the same state of things throughout our journey. I suppose there
is no functionary answering to that of our parish surveyor. No one seems
to mind having his bones rattled over the stones, as if he were a
“pauper whom nobody owns.”
I feel in duty bound to say a word about the Bull-fight, though let no
one shut this book, thinking that I am about to describe that horror of
horrors. Heaven knows, it is a sight that any one might make something
of, for added to the accessories of a burning blue sky, and a
picturesque assemblage of nine thousand people excited to the verge of
frenzy, there are all the savage elements of the human and animal nature
called into full play. But what I saw of “this bloody amphitheatre of
Rome, with spectators in hats and coats,” as Ford calls it, so sickened
me, that I never recur to the subject without repugnance. Before I left
England I was told by an educated Spaniard that bull-fights were going
out of fashion, and that his countrymen, at least those of the upper
classes, no longer attended them. But what did personal experience
teach me? It taught that Spanish ladies do go to bull-fights, and,
moreover, that they take with them their young children, who clap their
hands at the close of every bloody act, and watch the whole cruel drama
as eagerly as their elders.
To judge fairly of those horrid amusements, you should go behind the
scenes. There, in a dreary chapel, you see the _matadors_, the
_banderilleros_, and all the other wretched actors in the play, taken by
turns to confess and receive absolution at the hands of a priest. How
ghastly pale and craven they look in their tinselly dresses!--more like
culprits going to execution than the proud heroes of great feats.
Adjoining the chapel is a room fitted up as a hospital, which is too
often called into requisition; and from this you are led to the stables,
where stand wretched hacks, soon to be blindfolded and tortured to
death. These poor animals, it is said,--let us hope without truth,--are
often the discarded and superannuated favourites of gentlemen; but no
matter what they may have been, they are brought on the stage to be
gored by turns, and their blood and agony count for nothing.
The arena is by no means imposing till it is filled with spectators; and
the procession is tawdry enough. The dogs and mules which figure in it,
are alone worth looking at. The former are called into requisition to
madden any bull that does not show game, the latter to drag away the
dead horses and bulls. But as soon as the horrid play begins, the place
becomes a very _infernus_. Men and women vie with each other in noises,
screams, and cries; now it is some unfortunate _chulo_ who is the butt
of the whole assembly, because he has allowed the bull to attack the
horse too soon; now it is a _picador_, who gets praised by shouts,
clappings of the hand, and all sorts of uproarious applause; and now it
is the bull who becomes the pet of the moment for having skilfully
overturned horse and rider. If anything can be more unbearable than the
spectacle itself, it is the behaviour of the spectators. The noise is
deafening,--nay, maddening; and when the first act of the drama ended,
we rushed away too horrified to put our horror into words.
The wide street leading to the Plaza de Toros was so crowded with people
going to the bull-fight, that it was with some difficulty we could get
along. All Madrid seemed turning out for the sight, and yet it was a
weekly one; and, on this occasion, of no exceptional attractiveness. On
grand festivals there are extra bulls killed and far greater crowds; but
all who wish to know more about bull-fights, past and present, should go
to that fountain-head of knowledge on Spanish affairs, Richard Ford.[3]
There is one consideration apt to be overlooked by those who are
studying the subject, and that is, the hand-to-hand struggle between man
and brute. From the moment the show commences till its close every
player, whether he be chulo or banderillero, picador or matador, places
his life in peril--not for the love of sport, mind, but for the sake of
gain--and frequent occurrence of grave accidents, and the possibility of
fatal ones, may well account for the pale faces of these desperate
creatures. Only a few weeks before our arrival at Madrid, a well-known
matador had been killed at Seville, and the whole horrid scene was
described to us by an eye-witness. There was no show of sympathy made
for the man; but cries of “Brava, toro! Bravo, toro!” filled the arena
from end to end. The son of the murdered man took his father’s place!
For my part all my sympathies go with the bull. He, poor beast! is often
the most peace-loving creature in the world, and, anyhow, suffers ten
times more than the horse, which is not goaded into frenzy by shouts,
arrows, fire-works, sword-pricks, and dogs, but is allowed to die
quickly. The bull is tortured to the last as if he were a heretic.
Pitiful it is to see him crawl into some quiet corner to die, with what
regrets for his peaceful pastures, with what horror of his tormentors,
with what quivering agony in every nerve, Heaven alone knows!
It sounds incomprehensible, and yet it is quite true, that bull-fights
are often held for charitable purposes. A few years back a new church at
Madrid was to be built. A committee was formed for the purpose,
consisting of an archbishop, several bishops, noblemen, and others; the
land was given, and the building commenced. But some money was wanting,
and so they had a bull-fight, the proceeds of which helped them on a
little. Later, their necessities were even more pressing, and they tried
another bull-fight. This time, however, the owner of the bull-ring
refused to give them a benefit, and other means had to be tried.
Cruelty begets cruelty, and as if the appetite for blood were not
satisfied at the circus, the churches offer more in abundance. Anything
more revolting than the bleeding, bruised Christs and saints, cannot be
conceived. No shape nor symbol of suffering is left out of the dreary
catalogue till one comes away, sick with the ghastly blasphemies
witnessed on every side. This is all the sadder, since a real spirit of
religious fervour seems predominant; and the brighter side of Romanism
is never wholly hidden from the eyes of even the most superficial or
prejudiced observer.
And what has not Murillo done to beautify this Church of Spain, whose
annals are so stained with blood and tears?
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CHAPTER IV.
VELASQUEZ, THE PAINTER OF MEN.--MURILLO, THE PAINTER OF
ANGELS.--RIBERA, THE PAINTER OF INQUISITORS.--ZURBARAN, THE PAINTER
OF MONKS.--GOZA, THE HOFFMAN OF SPANISH ART.--THE QUIETUDE OF THE
GALLERIES.
We had come ostensibly to Madrid to see the works of Velasquez, and we
carried out our intention, not glancing at, but really looking into and
studying them as we study Homer, or Shakespeare, or Cervantes. The
journey from London to Madrid is costly and fatiguing; but I advise any
one to make it who is desirous of receiving a good lesson in art. I own
that no one has taught me such a lesson on the largeness of it, the
perfectibility of it, the ease of it. Velasquez’ work is simple
creation, and that is the truth of it. Where will you find work like it?
He was no poet like Murillo or Raphael. He sucked in no golden
atmosphere that saints and seraphs breathe; he heard no music of the
upper spheres, but he lived among ordinary men and women, and portrayed
them, flesh and spirit, without an extravagance, without an idealism,
without the hairbreadth of a deviation from the truth. Thus it happens
that when you come away from his pictures, you forget the painter and
the painting, and you remember only the subjects,--not elevated
subjects, often quite the contrary, but æsthetically conceived by an
intellect so unswerving, and touched with a hand so masterly, that they
seem to “live, and move, and have their being.”
As has been truly said, “He drew the minds of men; they live, breathe,
and seem ready to walk out of their frames. The dead come forth conjured
up; we behold what written history cannot give--their actual semblance
in life. His power of painting circumambient air, his knowledge of
lineal and aërial perspective, the gradation of tones in light, and
shadow, and colour, give an absolute concavity to the flat surface of
his canvas; we look into space, into a room, into the reflexion of a
mirror.” And elsewhere, “Aucun maître ne saisit comme lui un personnage
pour le faire vivre, agir, respirer devant vous. En même temps, quelle
tournure il lui donne! Comme il a le secret de cette fleur d’insolence
et de ces belles rodomontades, dont à nos yeux l’hidalgo Castilien est
le type!”
I suppose most people would prefer Murillo to Velasquez, because
imagination is generally set on a pedestal above intellect. Murillo’s
imagination is like an upsoaring fountain, ever sunny and ever luminous,
whilst Velasquez did not dream, but reason. He is, indeed, the most
logical of painters; and what makes his works so valuable to artists and
lovers of art is the quality they have in common with the masterpieces
of antiquity, and which has been well called the perfection of good
sense. As a French author has said, “Velasquez écrit en prose, mais,
pour le portrait, du moins, il est le premier des prosateurs.”
The Museo of Madrid contains more than sixty pictures of this great
master,--the Voltaire of art, who tried his hand at everything and
succeeded in everything,--portraits, landscapes, historic subjects,
animals, interiors, flowers, fruit. There is nothing he left untried
excepting the marine. It is quite astounding with what nobility he
treated ignoble subjects, such as dwarfs, beggars, dull Infantas, and
kings with “the foolish hanging of the nether lip,” painting all to the
life; for though Velasquez was a courtier and a court-painter, he never
flattered his royal patrons one iota. He treated ignoble subjects nobly,
that is, faithfully, seeing and respecting in dwarfs, beggars, and
foolish Infantas and kings, the same humanity that he saw in such lofty,
stately Spaniards as he has elsewhere given.
Study one of Velasquez’ greatest pictures as a whole, as a creation in
fact, and then set yourself to look into the manner of it, how much
remains still to marvel at and admire. Moratin said, “Velasquez knew how
to paint the air;” and nothing is more striking in his pictures than
this clear, palpable, sunny atmosphere; one seems to breathe in it, and
not in that of the galleries.
But when you have made this discovery, you will make others no less
striking. Take, for instance, his colouring. Perhaps no painter ever
employed fewer colours than he; he is as sparing of bright tints as a
classic writer in the use of similes, yet his pictures glow with life
and are perfect miracles of harmony and truth to nature. His painting
has been well compared to a stately gentleman who maintains in his
conduct, his actions and his words, a perfect and dignified equilibrium,
and who avoids loud laughter or talking, or anything that might disturb
the general harmony of his bearing and appearance.
His work, indeed, resembles his life, which was courtly, dignified, and
complete. Though a courtier, he kept intact his pure manners and morals,
his kindly nature, and his passionate love of art. All that is known of
him redounds to his honour, from the period of his early youth, when he
worked in the studio of Pacheco, and by his fine qualities of heart and
brain won his master’s affection and the hand of his master’s daughter,
to the fatal journey to Irun in 1660, where he brought on his death by
overworking himself in preparing the ‘Ile de Faisans’ for the Infanta’s
marriage. Of all noble Spaniards, hardly Cervantes seems to have been
nobler than he.
It were worth any one’s while to make the journey to Madrid, if only to
see his _Borrachos_; and there is a good story about our English Wilkie,
who came to Madrid for the purpose of studying Velasquez, and went away
having studied this one masterpiece only.
Wilkie used to visit the gallery every day, no matter what the weather
might be, and to establish himself in a chair opposite this picture.
After having contemplated it fixedly for three hours in silent ecstasy,
he would utter a long and profound “ouf,” seize his hat, and rush away.
Hanging close (if I remember rightly) to the wonderful “Las Meninias,”
is a religious picture, which every one should look at, for never had
picture a stranger and more touching history.
Don Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez, the rich courtier, the
familiar friend of the king, and the renowned artist, had a mulatto
slave named Juan Pareja. It was Pareja’s office to mix the colours, to
prepare the canvas, to clean the brushes, to arrange the palettes; and
these occupations kept him perpetually in his master’s studio. He felt
himself to be a born painter all the time that he exercised these humble
duties, he watched his master at work, he listened to the instruction
he gave his pupils, he spent his nights in making sketches and copies
secretly. At last, when he was forty-five years old, he thought himself
sufficiently accomplished in his art to make his secret known.
Accordingly, one day he placed a small picture of his own, with its face
turned to the wall, among his master’s; and when the king came to the
studio, as he often did, brought it forward. “That’s a beautiful
picture,” said Philip; “whose work is it?” Upon which Pareja threw
himself on his knees and avowed that it was his own. Velasquez freed him
from slavery by a public act, and received him, from that day, among his
pupils and equals. But poor Pareja was so used to service and so devoted
to his master, that he would fain have served him as a freedman; and
after the great painter’s death continued so to serve his daughter.
From Velasquez, who lived in an age when Spain was great, and
interpreted the spirit of it with the faithfulness of photography, and
an introspective power quite Shakspearian, one naturally turns to his
friend and pupil, the divine Murillo.
At first sight, the blazing sun of Velasquez’ genius would seem to
obscure and dwarf the paler orb of Murillo’s. It is like passing from
Cervantes to Calderon; and if the one paints men and manners with
inimitable force and humours, the other takes us straight up to heaven,
where we abide with saints and angels.
It is curious that the distinctive recognition of Murillo as a great
religious painter should not yet have generally taken place in England.
People who do not travel and read Mr. Ruskin’s criticisms, think of
Murillo only or chiefly as a painter of dirty and vicious humanity, such
as beggar boys and the like. Yet how unlike is such an impression, and
how easy it is to know what Murillo really has done, even without going
to Spain! There is one picture alone, in the possession of Mr.
Tomline,[4] of Orwell Park, Ipswich, which tells you more about Murillo
than anything English critics ever wrote. I did not see this picture
till after I returned from Spain, though I had endeavoured to do so
(having ridden eighteen miles for the purpose), but other travellers
will be wise to see everything they can, not only of Murillo, but of
Velasquez and other Spanish masters, before starting for tawny Spain.
Some of Murillo’s finest pictures are at Seville, but as the Gallery of
Madrid contains forty-five of his works, it is not necessary to go to
Seville to see what this man of such rare gifts could do.
Murillo’s life was very different to that of Velasquez; and if his works
are unequal,--some being inferior both in conception and finish--it must
be remembered that he was no favoured friend of royalty, working at his
leisure, and never hurried into laboured or crude execution by the
necessity of money. Murillo painted for the public and for his bread;
and whilst some of his works are glorious achievements of fancy and
skill, fullblown blossoms of beauty that have ripened in the sun, others
have evidently been too hastily conceived and matured. A French author,
who has written discriminately about Murillo, draws an admirable
distinction between his works and those of Velasquez, Titian, or Da
Vinci, when he says that a _chef d’œuvre_ of Murillo is only a _chef
d’œuvre_ relatively, and by comparison, whilst a _chef d’œuvre_ of the
latter painter’s is a _chef d’œuvre_ absolute, defying all comparison
whatever. He says, and very truly, that the possessor of one canvas of
Murillo, were it the most beautiful of all, would have but a very
incomplete idea of this painter, whilst a single masterpiece of Raphael
or Titian suffices to attest their genius to the full.[5]
But setting aside criticisms and comparisons, what a legacy of beauty
has Murillo left the world! With what deep religious fervour and poetic
feeling he has embodied all that was most divine in the Catholic
religion! There is not a phase of heavenly contemplation, or fervid
ecstasy, that he has not made incarnate and immortal in enchanted
colours; and if you contemplate his pictures for awhile, you seem to
drop your fleshly garments and float in golden ether with rapt virgins
and smiling cherubs. His colour has well been called ravishing; it is
something impossible to describe, and as much the soul of the picture as
essence is the soul of the flower.
This colouring is so delicious that it is no less of a vision to seeing
eyes than miraculous healing would be to the blind man. I ought,
perhaps, to say to Northern eyes, since Murillo’s atmospheres are hardly
less luminous and lovely than those of his native Andalusia. He painted
Andalusian beauty too, like Velasquez preferring to portray real to
ideal human nature, though, unlike Velasquez, he contented himself with
loveliness only. “One might say,” says M. Viardot, “that Velasquez is
the painter of earth, and Murillo the painter of heaven.” He should have
added,--of heaven as peopled by the believing Catholic with beautiful
beneficent Christs, with archangels, angels, seraphs, with the noble
army of martyrs, with Virgins ever fair and ever young, with crowned
saints, and heavenly hosts shining resplendent round celestial thrones.
To understand a great religious painter like Murillo, one must have some
sympathy with the age in which he lived, and the public which was his
patron. He was eminently the painter of the people, from the time of his
unlettered and humble boyhood, when he sold little pictures of Virgins
and Christs at a few rials the dozen in the streets of Seville, to the
last years of his long, independent, prosperous, honoured life. It must
be remembered that the Inquisition kept a strict _surveillance_ on
artists, their works and their patrons; and that Velasquez is almost an
exception in his divergence from the only fair field open to all, an
exception impossible perhaps except to a royal favourite. Murillo’s more
plastic genius accommodated itself to the circumstances surrounding it,
and the result is, these marvels of colour and celestial expression,
that realize the spirit of the time at once.
Whilst Velasquez may be said to have embodied in his works the
aristocratic spirit of the most aristocratic age of Spain, and Murillo
the purely devotional, Zurbaran may be called the painter of the
ascetic, and Ribera, better known as Spagnoletto, of the Inquisitorial.
Amateurs will not, I think, care much for Ribera’s pictures, except in
so far as they show the cruel side of the same religion that in
Murillo’s hands was so sweet and lovely. Ribera, or, as he has been
called, “this cruel forcible imitator of ordinary ill-selected nature,”
may be well studied at Madrid. Here you have every form and fashion of
suffering and repulsive humanity, such, as Ford said, could be conceived
by a bull-fighter, and please a people whose sports are blood and
torture; and if for the sake of the powerful in drawing, and the
wonderful mastery of light and shadow, you can contemplate those
terrible subjects one after the other, you will have more powers of
endurance and more passion for art than the present writer. This Spanish
Caravaggio, who obtained his name of _lo Spagnoletto_, the little
Spaniard, when he was a begging student in the streets of Rome, lived so
much in Italy, and had such a passion for the great Italian masters,
Correggio and Caravaggio, whom he studied, that, except in Madrid, one
hardly thinks of him as a Spaniard at all. His busy and afterwards
prosperous life was mostly spent at Naples, then a province of Spain,
though the greater part of his pictures have been recovered by his
native country; but it was not a life to look into so fearlessly as that
of Velasquez or Murillo, and one gladly turns alike from the master and
his work to others less painful.
Zurbaran has left no story. Like so many of the greatest Spanish
painters, he arose from the humblest ranks, and that is almost all one
knows of him. But he was a very great artist, and his pictures have the
same historic interest as those of Murillo, portraying, as they do, a
distinct phase of Catholic Spain. Indeed, a French critic has gone so
far as to say that if by a miracle the remembrance of Spain were effaced
from the universal human mind; and if we were ignorant of her moral and
religious history, such pictures as these of Murillo, Zurbaran, Ribera,
and Herrera, would lose half their worth. It is quite certain that
Zurbaran’s pictures do owe much of their interest to the ascetic element
prevailing in them, however far we may be from accepting the above
conclusion. He saw a monk, and painted a monk introspectively, as no one
else could do; and every one will do well to study his pictures, the
finest of which are at Seville, and very few of which are at Madrid.
They portray the austere element of the same religion which Murillo made
so enticing with visions of light, loveliness, and colour. These three
masters, Murillo, Ribera, and Zurbaran, may be said to express and
eliminate the three vital principles of Romanism, such as men like
Loyola and women like St. Theresa had made it, namely, ecstatic vision,
torture, and asceticism. It seems as if in Spain the Trinity must stand
or fall together.
The schools of Spanish art are generally divided into three, the
Castilian, the Valencian, and the Sevillian; properly speaking, the
kingdom of Aragon possessed another, though little known. Gallegos, who
introduced the style of Van Eyck and Albert Dürer; Moralès, whose Ecce
Homos and Madonna Dolorosas are scattered all over Spain; _El Mudo_, the
dumb, who brought from Italy something of the rich Venetian colouring;
El Greco, who was at once an architect, a sculptor, and a painter,
“truly Spanish, unequal and eccentric,” and whose “streaky lights,” as
Mr. Stirling says, “are sharper than Toledo blades;”--may be said to
represent the school of Castile; whilst that of Valencia, the most
effeminate and superstitious province of Spain, is represented by
Ribaeta, the disciple of L. Carracci and Domenichino, and Ribera,
Orrente, the Bassano of Spain. Then we come to Seville, the capital of
sunny, many-gifted Andalusia. The school of Seville boasts of other
honourable names before we come to its greatest--Velasquez, Murillo, and
Zurbaran. There was Herrera, the first master of Velasquez; Pacheco, his
second master and afterwards father-in-law, not only a painter of some
pretensions, but a learned writer on art,--“coldly correct and
classically dull in whatever he did,” says a critic; but let that pass.
There was Pablo de Cespedes, also famous for achievements of pen and
pencil; Juan de las Ruelas, the worthy pupil of Correggio and Giorgione,
whose pictures are only to be seen in Andalusia. Alonzo Cano, alike
architect, sculptor, and painter, whose passion for art was so strong,
that on his dying bed he impatiently put a crucifix from his lips
because it was badly carved.
What a splendid muster-roll is this! Who will not be tempted to come and
judge for himself? The works of many of these artists, however, are only
to be seen in the churches and convents of their native provinces, where
they remain “hanging like golden oranges on their native boughs.”
But before leaving Madrid, you must give a little time--not too much,
since it is so precious--among “these acres of canvas,” to the
fantastic and not pleasing pictures of Goya, the last Spanish painter of
any note, who died in 1828, at the age of eighty-six. Goya has been
compared to Hogarth for his quality of humour; to Callot, for
imagination; to Rembrandt, for vigour of execution, elsewhere to
Velasquez and to Reynolds; but his pictures are so characterised by a
sort of Hoffman-like revelling in the weird and the impossible, that it
is difficult to understand and like them. Like Ribera he bids you sup on
horrors.
And after this survey of all the Spanish painters, how much remains yet
to see! Here are grand pictures of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, of
Michel-Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, of Domenichino,--indeed, of all the
Italian, Flemish, and French masters, and amongst so much to see, the
only fear is of seeing nothing.
Our principal object in coming to Madrid was Velasquez, who is to be
studied nowhere else, and we therefore saw many other pictures
imperfectly. Other travellers may be less circumscribed as to time, and
fortunate are they who, having leisure, can support the rarefied air of
Madrid long enough to do justice to the greatest picture-gallery in the
world. It is not only the greatest but the best-arranged, the quietest
and the most comfortable. You leave your carriage at the door and stroll
in for an hour or so. All is quiet, and silent, and orderly as in a
church; the rooms are unadorned and perfectly lighted; the pictures are
never hidden by crowds of copyists; the place is never crowded or noisy;
and after contemplating your favourite pictures or picture for a time,
you leave the gallery, not tired and blinded by too many impressions,
but refreshed and invigorated with a calm intellectual enjoyment that is
as good and simple as it is deep and lasting.
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CHAPTER V.
A LEAR OF CITIES.--GOTHIC, ROMAN, AND MOORISH
REMAINS.--COMMENTARIES ON STREET’S GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, AND ON
TOLEDAN LANDLORDS.--TILES, AND A DISCOURSE THEREON.
The railway journey from Madrid to Toledo is easy enough, occupying
about eight hours. Time is given for refreshment on the way, and you are
almost certain to be alone if you travel first-class, which, if you are
a wise traveller, you will be sure to do. Every one knows how much
easier it is to take long journeys in an uncrowded vehicle, and by
following this precaution always we saved up strength for future ordeal.
Toledo looks imposing from the railway station, but it is the dirtiest,
dreariest, most uncomfortable town in the world. We were driven from the
station at a furious rate in the diligence drawn by four mules, and the
driver lashed them so furiously and vociferated so franticly that we
thought he must be mad or drunk. Over the bridge we went at a galloping
rate, and so on, up-hill, down-hill, till we reached the town. Here, at
least, I thought, we should stop in our mad career, for the streets of
Toledo, like all Moorish streets, are mere bridle-tracks, paved with
flint-stone; and as the town, like Rome, is built on seven hills, you
are always ascending or descending. But our driver never slackened whip
or reins for one moment; and, wonderful to say, the cumbersome vehicle
emerged safely from break-neck alleys which looked hardly wide enough
for a wheelbarrow. With such dash, indeed, did we drive into the
court-yard of the Hôtel de Leno that we had taken the flattering unction
to our souls that we were very welcome guests. But on alighting no one
took any notice of us; and, though the master of the house, with a staff
of waiters and maids, were standing about, it never seemed to occur to
them that we needed their services. There we stood in the midst of our
luggage--two portmanteaus and ten packages of smaller dimensions--for
about a quarter of an hour, when the landlord came up and with a civil
manner conducted us to our rooms. This apparent uncourteousness meant
nothing more than Spanish indifference, as we afterwards found out, for
never were we better treated than in this same Fonda de Leno. Finding
that we objected to dine in the smoky _salle-à-manger_, the master
himself served us in our rooms, and served us, I believe, to the best of
his ability. He was a heavy-looking man, and his manners at first were a
little disconcerting, but we liked him on better acquaintance, and he
chatted a good deal about English travellers. I think our patience and
smattering of “Castellano” won his good graces. The house was
scrupulously clean, and the food, though ultra-Spanish, quite good
enough for any one excepting an epicure.
Toledo boasts of an excellent guide, without whom the traveller would
fare ill there, despite clean beds and wholesome food. What a debt of
gratitude do we not owe to you, good Señor Cabezas, for having guided us
so well through this more than Cretan myth--not I am sure from gain’s
sake only, but from an honest antiquarian love of it! “I am a son of
Toledo, _hijo de Toledo_,” he said to us; “and there is not a stone of
the place unknown to me:” and this speech was made without any
self-arrogance or vanity. It was the simple truth. There is this good
trait about the Spaniard of the lower ranks, that he never affects, and
is consequently never a snob. He treats you--a little too familiarly, I
daresay, to please aristocratic palates--but always with a quiet dignity
and self-possession, reminding you of the Arabs, and most likely
inherited from them. How much, indeed, has not the Spaniard inherited
from the Arab?
Señor Cabezas is a slightly-built, prematurely old man, with eyes of
extraordinary vivacity, very small hands and feet (a veritable _cosa de
España_), and a chronic cough that makes one think the climate of Toledo
does not suit her son. He carries a stick, with which he points out any
precious relic that comes in the way, and is so peremptory and so like a
schoolmaster in making you understand the history of it, that you dread
lest the stick should descend upon your knuckles or shoulders if guilty
of inattention. But only really idle people would deserve the stick,
for Cabezas thoroughly understands what he is talking about, and, like
all wise men, reserves his talk for occasions worthy of it. You are
never wearied by him, but follow his eyes and the point of the stick
with unflagging interest.
Cabezas is always busy, and we had to accept thankfully as much of his
time as he could spare.
“I have engaged myself this afternoon,” he said, “to an old French
gentleman, a silk-merchant bound to Murcia, but, if you like, you can
accompany us in our rounds.” This we did, and the silk-merchant proved
not only an inoffensive, but a very amusing person.
The poor man seemed so tormented with the idea of seeing all the sights
of Toledo that one would have fancied he was thereby doing penance for
his sins. When he found himself in the Cathedral, his melancholy became
overwhelming. The beautiful painted windows, the richly-carved stalls of
the choir, the exquisite Retablo, the chapels, each so full of monuments
and treasures, the pictures, relics, and jewels of the Sacristy, and
the _coup d’œils_ of the whole interior, could only elicit from him a
dreary expression of regret that there was so much to see.
As we were led from chapel to chapel, he raised his hands and repeated,
“Il y a trop à voir, il y a trop à voir”--which was perfectly true.
There is too much to see, but then why not accept the fact cheerfully?
To see every part of the Cathedral of Toledo would indeed require weeks,
and to describe it, even in general terms, would fill a volume. I advise
all travellers who have no time for a series of visits, or a scrupulous
reading of many books, to go into the Cathedral alone and read nothing
about it whatever. By following this plan you obtain one distinct and
ineffaceable impression, whilst a hurried visit, with a garrulous
_cicerone_ at your heels, and a guide-book in your hands, results in
very little but mortification. Grateful as we felt to good Señor Cabezas
for his painstaking services, we were never so happy in the grand old
place, as when we stole in by ourselves at early morning and twilight.
Nothing then marred the prevailing impression of splendour and beauty;
and we wandered up and down the quiet aisles, and looked at the tiers
of gorgeously-coloured windows, lost in a rapture of wonder and delight.
I do not remember to have seen any finer sight in Europe than the
interior of Toledo Cathedral; the whole is so magnificent, the detail so
harmonious, the colouring so beautiful; such an impression never fades
from the mind’s eye, but remains “a thing of joy,” and a storehouse of
beauty, for ever.
It is a great pity that the exquisite chapels are so disfigured with
images and altars dressed up in every form and fashion of tinsel. You
are taken too to see the jewels and wardrobe of the Virgin--the
strangest sight. It is difficult to reconcile the character of the lowly
Mother of Christ with these gorgeous robes of velvet and brocade, stiff
with gold and pearls, with these necklets, rings, and bracelets; with
these tiaras of diamonds and emeralds. But everywhere you see the same
thing, only on a smaller scale; the Virgin is petted and pampered with
costly gifts as if she were something below an ordinary woman, since
even ordinary women aspire to higher things than a fine toilette.
There was a homely German lady in the Sacristy with us, who had
surveyed the aisles very calmly, but went into raptures over these
jewelled mantles and petticoats.
“_Himmel!_” she said, touching the rich stuffs gingerly with her
fingers, “what a pity such beautiful things are not worn; the silks must
have cost six thalers a-yard at least.”
Putting aside the idea of profanity, no one can help enjoying the blaze
of so many gems. It is like walking in Aladdin’s enchanted garden.
Diamonds, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, rubies, are here collected in
such masses, that one’s eyes get too dazzled and blinded at last to see
any more. Nor does the treasure-house of the Cathedral stop here. There
is a fabulous amount of gold and silver in the form of candelabras,
urns, reliquaries and _incensarios_, or vessels for holding incense;
there is an altar composed of pure amber; there are banners heavy with
gold and precious stones, relics of saints more precious to the good
Catholic than any jewels, and last, not least, illuminated Bibles and
missals blazing with gold.
Well might the silk-merchant raise his hands and sigh, “There is too
much to see!” I think it would take a month to see all these wonderful
things fairly, and more than that to master their history. Then there
are the sacred legends which would, doubtless, outnumber the Virgin’s
pearls and diamonds, and are of infinite more comfort to the humblest of
her worshippers. And how beautiful and tender are some of them! that,
for instance, of the shrine of San Ildefonso. San Ildefonso was the
primate of Toledo, and one day the Virgin came down from heaven to
attend matins at the Cathedral. It all happened on a sudden, as miracles
do. A moment before, the place had been empty, now it was filled--by
whom? Could it be any other than the Mother of God, with those sweet
eyes, that golden hair, that shining aureole around her head? Think of
the awe, and bewilderment, and pious joy of the people worshipping
there, especially the poor, who thrill with pride at sight of an earthly
Queen. How they must have wept and wondered then! how they must have
wept and smiled at repeating the story afterwards!
It is thirteen hundred years since this took place; the marble slab
where the Virgin’s feet alighted has been hollowed with the kisses of
thousands of worshippers, and the story moves to tears of joy still. No
one can help feeling the enduring power of these old church legends
before such evidence, and no one can help being, for the time, carried
away by their simple pathos or burning faith. You should never travel in
Spain without a book about the saints and martyrs. Every step you take
leads across some way watered with holy blood and tears. Every town is
peopled with the sorrowful ghosts of men and women whom the Church has
tried and crowned; and only those who are obstinately blind can deny the
influence exercised by their names still. Often and often have I found
myself, as in the convent of _Las Huelgas_, realising the religious
spirit of the middle ages in its vigour and purity. But, alas! only for
a little while, and I think the most devout Romanist would hardly find
Spain the country of his expectation.
Excepting the Cathedral, nearly all the glories of Toledo are Moorish.
The Moors, those true artists and most conscientious workers, have here
left an Alcazar, gateways, bridges, mosques, palaces, and towers, to
perpetuate their golden age; and though the grand old metropolitan
church remains the crowning jewel of the desolate old city (a Lear of
cities, deaf, blind, decaying), all these anticipate the marvels of
Cordova and Granada. But the Cathedral takes you back to quite another
epoch of art and religion. Pass along the tortuous street called the
Calle de la Chapinerier, and enter the north transept, and you might
fancy yourself in one of the early Gothic churches of France.
The view into the double aisles round the choir across the magnificent
Capilla Mayor, and down the side aisles of the nave, is superb, whilst
the atmosphere of the whole place, so dusky, and twilight always, gives
wonderful solemnity to the whole. The windows are large and numerous,
but all are filled with beautiful stained glass, so that not a ray falls
that is not quite marvellous in beauty of colours. The choir and aisles
are arranged in three gradations of height, and the effect of the three
tiers of coloured windows is full of charm. It is in the intermediate
aisle that the practised eye recognises at a glance the influence of the
Moor, for the arcade of the triforium has the unmistakeable horse-shoe
arch; and very beautiful is the effect, and testifying to the good sense
of the architect who so wisely imitated what was good in foreign art.
Spend hours in wandering from aisle to aisle from chapel to chapel, till
you have mastered the grand outline of the architect in all its
simplicity and perfection, and then how much yet remains to study! There
is the beautiful arrangement of columns, about which Mr. Street writes
so enthusiastically, the noble rose-window of the transept, the doorway
of St. Catharine with its elaborate mouldings, the screens round the
Coro, the chapel of San Ildefonso with its richly-sculptured tombs, all
remarkable as specimens of fourteenth century work; then there are the
cloister and chapel of San Blas; the chapel of Santiago, great and
interesting works of the fifteenth century; the massive brass and iron
screens, the grand and gorgeous Retablos, and lastly, the beautiful
stained glass medallions of all periods. What treasures of tradition, of
thought, of time, are here! Who leaves Toledo without a regret that
none can be properly studied in a passing visit?
The cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo were all that we were able to see of
Gothic architecture in Spain, but these more than fulfilled any
expectations held out to us. Toledo, I presume, equals any church in
Europe in the grandeur of its plan and the beauty of every part; and
certainly surpasses any I have seen for solemnity. I would fain set out
on another pilgrimage at some future time, to see the Cathedrals of
Leon, Segovia, Salamanca, and the beautiful old churches of Cataluña.
Indeed, so rich is Spain in ecclesiastical architecture, often exotic,
but belonging to her by right of possession nevertheless, and so more
than rich in church furniture, that such a journey would be unequalled
in interest and instruction. Think for a moment of the treasures
scattered by the way. There are the magnificent Retablos of Salamanca
and Gerona, richly sculptured and covered with gold, with silver and
with painting; there are the elaborately carved choir stalls of Toledo
and Valencia, the sumptuous monuments of Avila, Miraflores, and Burgos,
the exquisite screens or Rejas in metal, so plentiful in all the
churches, curious old organs, carved doors and ceilings, regal
magnificence and abundant labour manifested everywhere.
What is very curious in the history of Moorish and Christian art in
Spain, is their distinction from each other. The two arts ran in
parallel lines; and whilst the Moors were building the Mosque at
Cordova, the Alcazar and Giralda at Seville, and the Alhambra, the
Christians were raising the beautiful Gothic churches so thickly
scattered all over the country. To this rule there are, of course,
exceptions; such for instance as the triforium of the choir at Toledo,
which is decidedly Moorish in design, the Moorish carpentry plentifully
found in late Gothic buildings, the Moorish battlement constantly seen
on the walls of Spanish towns; and there are other examples, though none
on the whole of importance. The Moors and Christians were alternately
conquerors and vanquished, and always enemies; so that it was not to be
expected that they should have copied each other’s art, however ready
they might be to adopt modifications of it. The Moorish builders and
architects often worked for and with their Christian masters; and this
accounts for the Moorish elements predominant in the streets and
buildings of such a city as Toledo. But the arts of the two people
remained as separate as their languages.
Toledo is a most bewildering place, and without good Señor Cabezas, the
traveller would find himself lost in every sense. The streets are
thoroughly Moorish, tortuous, narrow, steep, and ill-paved; and you
might fancy yourself in Algiers in any one of these dark alleys, so
admirably built for coolness, seclusion, and security. You might fancy
yourself in Algiers, or indeed, in any Eastern city, on other accounts,
especially the singing,--that monotonous, dreary, interminable singing
you hear everywhere among the Arabs. The Spaniard, among other things,
has borrowed of the Oriental those dreary “howlings of Tarshish,”[6]
which in Toledo, in Cordova, and in Granada, recall the East, if the
East has come within your range of travel, and if not, set you
wondering whence so lively a people acquired so melancholy a kind of
recreation. Anything more depressing than these same “howlings of
Tarshish” cannot be conceived. If you are in a thoroughly Spanish inn
you hear them incessantly from morning to night. The servants begin
hours before you rise, the children of the house take up the strain,
master and mistress sing over their cookery and ledger-writing,
stable-boy and gardener sing over their work without. Strive as you may,
you cannot get away from the sound. It is better to sing yourself, and
then you like it.
Again, setting aside the old Moorish houses still remaining, you find
that the modern Toledans have built on the same plan, shutting
themselves up within four walls like true Orientals, and delighting
their eyes with foliage and fountain in sunny courts. But the beautiful
precept of cleanliness is not imposed on the Toledans as it was on the
Moors, and everywhere one regrets it. The streets are filthy, and so
rugged that they make you lame in an hour; and yet there is so much to
see that, lame or no, you must keep walking on.
What irritates you beyond endurance is the culpable neglect of
everything valuable to both historian and antiquary. Ruin runs riot as
she pleases, and not a hand is put forth to stay her progress. Inlaid
ceilings of cedar-wood, delicate diapers of plaster-work, pavements of
beautiful tiles,--all are allowed to go to ruin; and they go so fast,
that my advice to all interested in the wonderful Moorish antiquities of
Toledo is, that they should see them at once. A few years hence there
will be none to see.
Cabezas, who has a genuine love of what is really good in art and
curious in antiquities, bewailed with us this cruel contempt of both on
the part of his countrymen. There was something quite touching in the
way he lingered over every relic, as if it were a living thing fading
before his eyes. It is the same with every kind of artistic or
archæological treasure, Roman, Gothic, and Moorish, all share the same
fate. I don’t think Spaniards, as a rule, care much for what the Moors
left behind them; rather it is cavilled at and despised.
A few years ago a most precious treasure-trove was discovered near
Toledo and sold--oh! indifferent Spain!--to the Emperor of the French.
It consisted of five or six crowns, with crosses suspended to them, and
three smaller ones without crosses,--all of pure gold, beautifully
worked and adorned with jewels. These crowns, now exhibited in the Hôtel
de Cluny, are relics of the Gothic kings of Spain, and are evidently
votive crowns, of the age of Recesvinthus, and the episcopate of San
Ildefonso; and, though belonging to a very early period of art, about
650-672, exhibit extraordinary knowledge of the goldsmith’s art.
Doubtless, from time to time, other _reliquiæ_, quite as interesting,
will come to light; but what will become of them, Heaven only knows.
I don’t know which phase of Spanish history is most generally
interesting--the Mahomedan, the Catholic, or the Aristocratic: the
former being typified in the Alhambra, the second in the paintings of
Murillo and Zurbaran, and the third in the splendid courts of the
Philips. I confess that for me the Mahomedan phase, so graceful, so
artistic, so beneficent as it was, surpasses in interest every other.
Look a little into the history of Spain, and what do facts tell you? To
whom is she indebted for her most sumptuous monuments, her most fertile
districts, her most elegant arts, her most picturesque costumes, her
most precious products?--To the Moors. Who brought down the cool waters
from rocky prisons, turning whole wastes into sunny vineyards and
gardens?--The Moors. Who built bridges, fortifications, and
watch-towers?--The Moors. Who made the Spanish language what it is now,
the most sonorous and picturesque of any in Europe?--The Moors. Who
planted the orange-tree and the palm, the fig and the olive?--The Moors.
One cannot help crying out against the ingratitude of the Spaniards, who
not only disclaim the good things thus inherited, but do their best to
defile them. Nowhere is this defilement more obvious than at Toledo. It
is as if everything Moorish were infected with the plague.
A wonderful lesson in history is this dreary old Spanish town, and
offering food enough and to spare for the hungry antiquary. Toledo may
be called a palimpsest; in its outermost surface is the Spanish
writing, clear, and new, and plain; scratch it, and you see the Moorish,
all glowing in colour and gold; scratch deeper, and you have the stately
Roman; deeper, still, the rude Gothic; deeper still, the barbaric
Carthaginian. Take up a handful of dust, and who can say what it
is--ashes of Roman prætors, Gothic kings, or Moorish patrons of art and
science? Or cast your eyes over the vast panorama of bridge and gateway,
watch-tower and church, fort and pleasure-ground--which of these is not
as much Roman as Moorish, more Moorish than Christian, and has not first
belonged to an earlier civilization than either?
Nothing more forcibly recalls the East than the embroidered
mule-trappings one meets at every step. Here in Toledo, as in all
Moorish cities, the mules are as gorgeously dressed up as if each
belonged to a prince; and, with that inexhaustible invention and love of
ornament one finds among Orientals, no two trappings are made alike.
These bits of colour in some measure redeem the monotony of the streets,
which are tiring both to feet and eyes. All the beauties are hidden in
ugly backgrounds, like toads’ eyes, and without a good guide you would
never find them out. With such helps as Ford, Street, and good Señor
Cabezas, the intelligent traveller need not remain ignorant of any; and
though the relics of Moorish art may not have the attractions for every
one that they had for us, none can but admire the exquisite little
mosque turned into a place for Christian worship, the superb ceilings of
cedar-wood, blue and white, the arches, courts, doors, tiles, and other
_disjecta membra_ of the age of the royal race of Granada long passed
away.
We were particularly interested in the beautiful encaustic tiles, of
which one sees so many specimens here. Cabezas very obligingly took us
to a private house rich in this sort of ornament, and we spent the whole
afternoon in copying the prettiest specimens. The master and mistress
were handsome young people who seemed to have nothing to do but laugh
and talk in their balcony, overlooking the _patio_ where we sat. It was
a very pretty place, so Eastern in colour and character. The court was
open to the sky, the floor was of coloured tiles, the walls pure white
above and gay with tiles below, whilst overhead burned and glowed a
bright blue Southern sky.
Our host and hostess watched us at our work with child-like curiosity,
and quizzing us not a little. “What curious people are they, these
English! What in the world do they want to copy our tiles for?” said the
lady, and the husband answered, “To sell ’em, I suppose.” “Come now,
Señor Cabezas,” said the lady, “and tell us who these ladies are, and
what they come here to paint for? I should think they might find
something better to do than paint a few old Moorish tiles.” Cabezas
explained apologetically that we were tourists much interested in
anything Moorish, that one of us had a house in Algiers, that we had
come to Spain on purpose to see the beautiful ruins of Toledo and
Granada, and so forth.
“But how queerly they dress! Do all English ladies wear those funny
things on their heads instead of mantillas?--And then they don’t wear
chignons: what frights they look, to be sure!”
To be sure there is no accounting for tastes: we had thought the immense
lumps of wool and false hair worn by Spanish women of all classes
anything but pretty.
The lady had a hundred more questions to ask, the great object of
inquiry seeming to be the relationship between my companion and myself.
“It’s impossible they can be sisters,” she observed, “for one is twice
as big as the other.”
“Oh! what has that to do with it?” rejoined her husband; “one often sees
sisters as unlike each other as can be.”
“Well, I should say,” the lady went on, “that the tall one with the
golden hair is no relation to the little one whatever--unless it be her
brother’s wife.” And finally they settled it so.
Meantime we got on admirably with our work, and made copies of several
very beautiful tiles. Before coming away, the lady of the house
descended from the balcony to look at them and us.
“They are very pretty,” she said, turning over the drawings one by one;
“but what are they good for?”
“We want to compare them with those in the Alhambra and in the old
Moorish buildings in Algeria,” we said, “to see which are the
prettiest.”
She seemed by no means convinced.
“But what does it matter which is the prettiest?”
To this, of course, we found no satisfactory answer. What, indeed, does
anything about anything matter to some people? and to the little Spanish
lady, like Peter Bell, a Moorish tile and a primrose was a Moorish tile
and a primrose--nothing more.
My friend did a little sketching out-of-doors and was sure to have a
little crowd round her. In most cases it would be grave, portly,
well-dressed peasants, who came to look on, and their behaviour was
always respectful and intelligent. I liked the look of these Castilian
farmers and shepherds, who wear their sheepskin, or coarse brown woollen
rug bordered with colours over their shoulders with quite a noble air.
They would come up to us, say simply “Buenos dias,” and then stand by,
without either impertinence or apology. This pleasant freedom of manner,
alike removed from obsequiousness or vulgarity, strikes a foreigner as
much as the fine, thoughtful Velasquez face he often sees among the
Castilian peasantry.
Once it was a dozen schoolboys who gathered round the English Señora to
see what she was drawing. They were just coming home from school, and,
by way of keeping them out of my companion’s light, I drew them aside
and asked to look at their books. This seemed to create no little
amusement; but when I opened a grammar and began a random examination,
there was a chorus of laughter. It was a very learned and dry grammar
that these young Toledans, all apparently of the lower classes, had to
learn; but they seemed to know it very well. And there were also dry
books of a theological tendency, besides a catechism and a history. No
wonder Toledo remains orthodox in religion and grammar, when the sons of
artisans and peasants are instructed so exclusively in both. It is said
that here the noble Castilian tongue is spoken in all its purity; a
matter in which the passing traveller is hardly able to judge, but the
multitude of priests thronging the streets bespeaks the thoroughgoing
Catholicism of the place. Despite the railway and the increased number
of travellers it brings, an English lady seems to be as much an object
of curiosity here as ever; and though the curiosity is not ill-natured,
it rather spoils the enjoyment of one’s walks. Yet one is obliged to
walk from morning to night; there is so much to see, and as _fiacres_
are not to be heard of, there is no other way of getting about. The
streets are not picturesque in themselves, but the view of the vast,
scattered, decayed, and decaying old city, with its grand gates, walls,
and bridges, from the Alcazar to the river side, is extraordinarily
fine. The Tagus is a narrow, deep green stream, which runs amid dark
rocks of rugged and fantastic shape: or waters soft green _vegas_, the
sweeter, because so rare. Hardly the Tiber is more historic, and one
leaves its banks lingeringly.
We had not seen half enough of Toledo when we came away, and should have
stayed longer but for the cold. It was warm and brilliant all day long;
but when evening came, and, tired and footsore, we reached our Fonda,
the cold seemed insupportable. There were no fireplaces anywhere, and
no other means of heating the room but a charcoal-pan, which is a
wretched contrivance, never of use except when so heated as to be
dangerous. We took refuge, as usual, in our soft, clean beds, and, by
dint of rugs and wraps, contrived to get warm at last.
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CHAPTER VI.
A MIDNIGHT HALT.--ITS CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS.--DON QUIXOTE’S
COUNTRY.--THE SLEEP AT CORDOVA.--THE WAKE IN THE EAST.--SHOPPING.
It was with real regret we left Toledo, as one leaves some rare old
book, only glanced at, but enticing months’ study. Notwithstanding the
depressing gloom and stagnation of the old city, we loved it for its
beautiful and precious monuments, and for the historic solemnity hanging
round each. We liked the people too--Cabezas our invaluable guide; our
hotel-keeper; Pepa, our bright little chambermaid; and the homely but
respectful waiters, who were so slow to understand what we wanted, and
so slow to bring it when understood. When you leave a Spanish Fonda
there is none of that obsequious crowding round you that you find in
France and England. Chambermaids and waiters never hover about you,
hinting by their looks that they expect vails, but say simply “Adios,
adios,” and go their ways.
But I especially dwell on the civility we met with at the Fonda de Leno,
because we afterwards heard it so terribly abused. We were dining at the
_table d’hôte_ at Granada, and a party of American travellers began
talking of fondas in general, and of the fondas at Toledo in particular.
“I shan’t easily forget the boorishness of the landlord,” said one; “I
really thought he would have turned us clean out-of-doors. Why, we
civilly asked what there was for breakfast, and he said ‘Eel and chops,’
and turned on his heel without asking which we chose to have! And what
cooking! everything tasted of tomatoes and garlic!”
“And what wretched rooms!” put in a young lady; “as bare of furniture as
prisons.”
There were two young Frenchmen present who had also been at Toledo, and
they now joined in the cry. They were starved, unhandsomely treated,
badly housed, overcharged.
“But there _is_ a comfortable hotel at Toledo,” I said; “we found very
good food, moderate charges, and such civil people, at the Hôtel de
Leno.”
There was a general exclamation of surprise.
“That is the very place we are complaining of!” they all said; and we
compared notes with as much perplexity as amusement.
I don’t at all understand the usual tone taken by tourists in describing
Spanish inns. We never found anything to complain of, and yet how few
people admit the possibility of ladies travelling comfortably in Spain!
Carry with you a tolerable supply of patience and gold pieces, you will
do very well. Carry with you, also, always ready for use, a little
courteous _Castellano_, which will often stand in good stead of many
more costly things, such as time, money, and temper. Moreover, reverse
the Micawber principle, and never expect anything to turn up, for that
will save many a discomfort to yourself and others. The Spaniards are
terribly slow and procrastinating, but the fact must be accepted as it
is, and made the best of; as well expect an American to be lethargic as
a Spaniard to be quick.
From Toledo to Cordova is a very long railway journey. You have to wait
from seven o’clock in the evening till midnight to catch the down train
from Madrid, which waiting might, of course, be easily avoided. Fancy
waiting five or six hours at Didcot for the Leamington train! But
_mañana, mañana_, all the good changes will take place in time!
We found the waiting at Castilejo not so bad as might be. Tourists had
said to us with a shrug of the shoulders, “It is a terrible ordeal to go
through, that waiting at Castilejo. There will, very likely, be neither
fire nor light, and you will have to choose between a dark hole of a
waiting-room, full of men smoking, or get into an empty railway-carriage
and wait there.”
We certainly were agreeably surprised to find a blazing fire; a room
that, if not exceptionally clean, was at least airy and wholesome; and
instead of the crowd of smokers we had been led to expect, a young
Madrid lady with her maid and dog, two or three respectable servant
girls, and one elderly railway guard, who might have been Don Quixote,
he was so grim and so gallant. The girls dropped off to sleep one by
one; the guard puffed away his inoffensive little cigarette deep in
thought, and we got out our books and amused ourselves very well. There
was a livelier scene at the buffet just behind the waiting-room, for,
when I went to beg an extra light and to ask for chocolate, I found a
number of soldiers and peasants regaling on hot little bits of meat that
came, as if by magic, from behind the counter.
The young woman in attendance was, as usual, civil but indifferent.
“Have you chocolate?” I asked.
“I don’t think we have, Señora,” she replied; “I’ll see by-and-by.”
“Have you chocolate?” I asked, when the by-and-by had come.
“I don’t think we have, Señora,” was the answer a second time; “I’ll see
by-and-by.”
I waited a little while, and then repeated the question, always in the
politest way possible. This time I added that the Señora with me was
very tired, and sadly in need of refreshment, and that if there was
chocolate to be had I should be very much obliged.
“The mistress of the Fonda is gone to bed, and I don’t know where she
keeps the chocolate,” was the reply this time; ‘but I have sent to
hear, and if there is any you shall be served.’
About two hours from the time of my first inquiry came two delicious
little cups of chocolate, which, I am sure, we should never have got
except by means of patience and pretty speeches. The traveller who has
not a goodly supply of both these things would, I fear, fare very ill.
After a time the sleepers woke up, and began to talk in very lively
fashion. A smart young lady, who seemed to belong to the station, soon
came in, wished everybody “buenas noches,” and sat down, evidently with
the intention of being amused. The young lady and her maid did not hold
aloof from the conversation, the grave-looking guard joined in
occasionally, and the two English ladies were not excluded.
The young women, who wore black silk mantillas, and chignons as large as
cocoa-nuts, were immensely inquisitive about English ladies in general,
and ourselves in particular. When we had satisfied their curiosity, we
talked of _Cosas de España_, mantillas, fans, bull-fights, &c.
“Now, tell me,” I said to the young lady belonging to the station, “do
you really like bull-fights or no? I have never heard the opinion of a
Spanish lady on the subject.”
“That is, because foreigners make such a fuss about bull-fights,” she
replied, archly; “people are afraid to speak their minds about it. For
my part, I own that the sight is a horrid one, but it amuses me.”
“It don’t amuse me,” put in one girl; “I get sick and frightened, and
want to come away.”
“Well,” added another, “it’s all very well for people to say they don’t
like it; they go all the same. These English Señoras went, I’ll be
bound; and yet they’ll go back to England and talk about us.”
My companion shook her head. I pleaded guilty.
“But,” I said in extenuation, “I only went to convince myself, with my
own eyes, that the sport is so popular as travellers report. I couldn’t
have believed it otherwise.”
Meantime train after train came and went, the train to Badajoz, the
train to Alicante, the train to Saragosa, and, at last, the one which
was to bear us to Cordova. There it came, creeping through the darkness
with its big red eyes, like some monster of Eastern fable, but much more
kindly, for it gave us what we needed--quiet, and sleep, and solitude.
As usual, we found the ladies’ coupé empty, and, as usual, we curled
ourselves up in our rugs, wished each other “good night,” and went to
sleep.
There is a cant phrase about railways having done away with the poetry
of travelling. Was ever such an absurdity uttered and believed in? I
think if ever the poetry of travel was realised, it is now, especially
at night and in Spain. You are whirled from region to region apparently
by elemental fire alone. You pass through new, sweet, starry
atmospheres, like a bird; you go to sleep, and never know under what
strange or happy auspices you will awake. This beautiful moonlight
landscape of tiny homesteads lying on the banks of a silvery river, of
green meadows skirting snow-tipped mountains, and long lines of
fir-trees pricking against a blue-black sky,--is it real or a picture
only? These dreary table-lands that seem to stretch into infinity, these
sloping olive-grounds, these sharp sierras, these alternating scenes of
loveliness, and grandeur, and desolation, seem more like the
phantasmagoria of dreams than anything else.
And then the aspects of human life, though fleeting, are yet so full of
charm. You see faces that tell their own story, and in a moment they
have vanished. You are let into little domestic scenes touching, or
comic, or painful, or passionate, as the case may be. You cannot stop
five minutes at a village station, or linger five minutes in a village
waiting-room, without being moved to smiles or tears.
For my part I have never taken a railway journey, however short, that
has not had some incident worth remembering; but in Spain, which is a
collection of kingdoms, each rich in different sorts of interest, one is
troubled, like the silk-merchant at Toledo, with the _embarras de
richesses_. You see a hundred landscapes in a day you would fain
remember. You see a hundred faces and hear a hundred things, that seem
too characteristic to forget. But, like the changing colours of the
sunset, these impressions melt one into the other, and, unless seized at
the moment, are utterly lost. When day broke we found that we were
traversing a mountainous region of olive-orchards and bare brown fields
made ready for sowing, some no larger than a cottager’s garden, others
covering acres. A tawny land is this Spain, as Shakespeare says, a gipsy
among gipsies, and a Moor by complexion.
We were now in Don Quixote’s country,--such a dreary country, that every
one should take Cervantes’ book to read on the way. Then La Mancha,
though a mere waste of steppes, with here and there wretched mud-hovels,
becomes enchanted ground, and every village named on the map, as sacred
as Mecca. “Never let Don Quixote be out of our reader’s saddle-bags,”
says _the_ guide to Spain; “it is the best HAND-BOOK to La Mancha, moral
and geographical; there is nothing in it imaginary except the hero’s
monomania.”
What is more real than fiction after all?
The battle-fields of Spain are not more interesting than the spots
immortalized by Cervantes’ marvellous novel, and one longs to make a
pilgrimage to each. As we glide through the charmed region, how familiar
do the names and aspects of places seem to us? We are near the village
of El Toboso, where lived Dulcinea, whose real name was said to be
Aldonza Corchuelo; we pass group after group of windmills, any of which
are grim enough to appear like giants to a madman now; here the Don was
knighted, there he did penance; amid those craggy heights of the Sierra
Morena, he found Cardenio; there glides the stream in which beautiful
Dorothea bathed her feet. New names, new faces, new associations, seem
alone untrue, unreal, and out of place; and we live all day in Don
Quixote’s country among Don Quixote’s friends; Dulcinea, the hospitable
goatherd, the wicked little Duchess, the homely Maritornes, the curate
and the niece, all are here; and we look across the brown lines of the
table-land, and see, or seem to see, the Don himself, spare and
spectre-like, followed by burly Sancho Panza, riding out in search of
adventure.
There are some who say that _Don Quixote_ should be eaten and drunk on
Spanish ground, or its delicate flavour is wholly lost. For my part, I
think if ever a book could bear translation and transportation, it is
Cervantes’ novel of novels. There is nothing like it in any
literature,--so new, so true, and so wonderful. What would life be
without it? Take away the charms of style and the beauties of a language
rare in beauties, and yet all remains that we most care for. Don
Quixote, Sancho Panza, as creations, are too simple and too true to
stand or fall by the ordinary test. Why, _Don Quixote_ translated into a
language as rude as that of Fighi islanders, would be every inch _Don
Quixote_ still, and of what other novel can so much be said? Few
travellers will omit Cervantes’ Biography from their saddle-bags. He was
the noblest of noble Spaniards, and his life shines like a diamond
without one flaw. What a sad life, too! Even _Don Quixote_, the blossom
of his riper intellect, brought no good fortune with it.
We leave La Mancha, and now the scene wholly changes. The air becomes
soft and balmy; we see a garden of roses here, a cluster of palms there;
white villages at the feet of green hills; sunny streams and golden
sunshine everywhere. We are in Andalusia!
We had been recommended by our hotel-keeper in Madrid to the Hôtel
Suisse, and, notwithstanding his recommendation, entered its walls with
fear and trembling. The English gentleman’s words rang yet in our ears,
“Don’t sleep at Cordova!” and we could hardly believe our eyes when we
drove into a pretty Moorish court, with flowers and orange-trees and a
fountain in the midst, and light galleries running round, all white and
shining as if of marble. But, after all, this might be only the
whitewashing of the sepulchre. We forbore any exclamation of surprise,
and asked to see our rooms. A respectable-looking chambermaid led the
way to three very well-furnished, clean, and airy rooms, in which we
installed ourselves, feeling no longer any apprehension of discomfort.
Indeed, we found everything good at Cordova,--attendance, beds, and
food; we had nice coffee or chocolate in our own rooms at seven o’clock,
a breakfast of cold game, omelettes, cutlets, and fruit at mid-day, and
an excellent _table d’hôte_ dinner in the evening. Of course, we did not
get, or expect to get, anything like English dishes; but we found the
Spanish ones eatable and nutritious, and _quid multa_? I only allude to
this subject, because it is a fashion to rail against Spanish inns,
and, I think, unjustly. The charges are not higher than in Paris or
Vienna, and the accommodation, in most cases, very good. You are not
mulcted largely in the matter of vails, and though the servants are
slow, they are obliging, and we found them, at least, honest.
The dilatoriness is very amusing. For instance, on the eve of quitting
Cordova, we rang for our bill, ordering, at the same time, a basket of
provisions to take with us. The summons was answered pretty promptly,
and we were assured that our orders should be obeyed forthwith. After
waiting a good hour, we rang again, for we were to rise next morning at
five o’clock, and wished to go to bed. This time another waiter
appeared, who seemed, however, to have a clear notion of what we wanted;
and vanished, promising to see to things himself. Another hour passed,
no bill, no basket, no trace of either; and as it was now ten o’clock, a
very late hour for travellers, we determined to countermand the order,
and stand our chance of procuring provisions by the way. But the third
ring was answered to more purpose.
First came the bill, borne by the head-waiter; secondly, came a pair of
roast partridges, steaming hot; thirdly, a loaf of bread: then there was
a solemn pause of about a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time
we got our change, our basket with the remaining provisions, and quiet
for the night! Fancy, a simple order like this requiring nearly three
hours for its execution anywhere but in Spain!
The best plan is to carry about with you an amusing novel, and take it
up whenever you have to wait for anything or anybody. Scolding does no
good,--rather, I think, aggravates the evil. At least, we never found
that we were worse off than other people who did scold.
But I must go back to the time of our arrival. Cordova is a brighter and
more bustling place than Toledo, and more Oriental. The houses, the
dress, the handicrafts, the tools, and the songs, are thoroughly Arab;
the climate is soft, the sky clear and southern, and flowers are out as
if it were June!
Here, too, one sees plenty of costume. The sheepskin jacket, the
national _sombrero_, the brilliant sash, the beautifully-embroidered
gaiters of Cordova leather. The women, for the most part, wear cheap
cotton dresses that have evidently come from Manchester, but the
mantilla and fan are always used at mass.
We were too late to see inside the Mosque that afternoon, and having
looked longingly at its beautiful old walls, now mellowed to a deep
orange by the setting sun, we strolled to the bridge. Never, I think,
have I seen a picture more sweet and peaceful. The Guadalquivir (how
Arabic does the word sound as pronounced here!) reflected an opal sky,
that changed from violet to pink, and from pink to pale daffodil. The
olive-clad slopes lay in tender shadow, and beyond river, and bridge,
and roof, rose the dark ridge of the Sierra Morena. The air was so warm
that we sat down by the river-side till the colours died out of the sky
and landscape, and the grave and beautiful twilight enveloped all. Then
we went home to our comfortable inn, and brought out our books, and read
so much of the glories of Cordova, that we dreamed all night that we
were living in the times of Haroun Al Raschid. Why describe what has
been described so often and so well? In these days, when every one
travels, and every one who does not travel, reads the experience of
others, it would seem, then, useless to supplement Ford, and Borrow, and
Gautier, and all the clever writers who have gone over the same ground.
But it is impossible to write of Spain, and leave out Cordova, the
Carthaginian capital, the rival of Cadiz in wealth and traffic, the
birthplace of the Senecas, of Lucan, and of Averroes; alike the Athens
and the Bagdad of the West; and the seat of a Caliphate, whose story
reads like a page of the _Arabian Nights_. We can understand how the
Moors came to love Andalusia, and make it their home, planting the palm,
the orange, and the vine, building mosque, and palace, and tower,
turning into a paradise the lovely land they had sought in exile. A
thousand years ago, the Ommiad Caliphs, descendants of a lonely refugee,
ruled in a splendid city containing a million of inhabitants, three
hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, six hundred inns, and all the
elegancies and refinements of the most graceful civilization the world
has yet seen. The Arabian historian, Al-Makkari, describes, in glowing
words, “the running streams, limpid waters, luxuriant gardens, stately
buildings, magnificent palaces, throngs of soldiers, pages, eunuchs,
and slaves of all nations and religions, sumptuously attired in robes of
silk and brocade; crowds of judges and Katib, theologians and poets,
walking with becoming gravity, through the magnificent halls, spacious
ante-rooms, and ample courts of the palace;” and having gone on to
describe the ruin that overtook all, adds, with true Mahomedan
resignation, “There is no God but Allah, the great, the Almighty!” And
what is Cordova now, once the learned, the luxurious, the aristocratic?
“It withered under the Spaniard,” says Mr. Ford, with pardonable
sarcasm, “and, rich and learned under Roman and Moor, is now a dirty,
benighted, ill-provided, decaying place, with a population of about
fifty-five thousand.” He says elsewhere, “Cordova, poetic Cordova! when
seen from afar with its drooping palms, the banners of the clime, its
Moorish towers, walls, and pinnacles, appears beautiful as in the days
of the luxurious, high-bred Abderrahman.... Alas for poor Cordova!”
But the Mosque remains still, though how defiled and degraded! Many of
the portals have been walled up; the beautiful seat of the Caliph is
filled with all kinds of church finery; the walls, once so delicately
and richly carved, are hidden by tawdry decorations. You feel inclined
to cry out vengeance against the despoilers of a temple which Solomon’s
could not have surpassed.
It is the most wonderful place, and one can understand what a grand
religious conception the Moors must have had when inside this, their
temple of temples. After all, the Mahomedans were much more tolerant and
enlightened than the people they alternately ruled and served, and were
Unitarians, _pur et simple_, praying to the universal God, in whose name
never was raised a more fitting house of prayer.
To have seen the Mosque of Cordova forms an era in one’s life. It is so
vast, so solemn, so beautiful. You seem to be wandering at sunset time
in a large and dusky forest, intersected by regular alleys of tall,
stately palms. No matter in what direction you turn your face,
northward, southward, eastward, westward, the same beautiful perspective
meets your eye, file after file of marble and jasper columns supporting
the double horse-shoe arch. Nothing can be more imposing, and at the
same time graceful, than this arrangement of transverse aisles; and the
interlaced arches, being delicately coloured in red and white, may not
inaptly be compared to foliage of a palm-forest, flushed with the rays
of the setting sun. If so impressive now, what must this place have been
in the glorious days of Abderrahman, the Al-Raschid of Cordova, when the
roofs blazed with arabesques of red and blue and “patines of bright
gold;” the floors were covered with gorgeous carpets, and the aisles
swarmed with thousands of worshippers in their bright Eastern dresses?
The richest imagination cannot ever paint the scene, the readiest fancy
cannot embellish it, and only those who have imbibed the rich colours of
the East can close their eyes and dream of it. When the dream is over,
cast your eyes along the long lines of columns, and you will see where
the shoulders of spectators and worshippers of ages have left an
enduring mark--a touching sight!--and then go into the once exquisite
Maksura or Caliph’s seat, and weep to see what becomes of beautiful
things in Spain!
Words are not strong enough to condemn the desecration of such a
temple,--a temple worthy of the purest religion the world will ever
know. Let the Catholic services be celebrated within its walls, let the
priests preach from its altars, let the people kneel on its floors--but
why, in heaven’s name, should every exquisite relic of Moorish art, and
every vestige of Moorish devotion, be ruthlessly destroyed? One marvels
to see even the pillars and horse-shoe arches left intact--who knows for
how long? And there are still some inlaid ceilings of thuya wood, and
some fragments of arabesque stucco, as remarkable for richness of design
and delicacy of work as any of the Alhambra. But to those who are
curious in such things, I say--See them soon, or you will be too late.
It is always a question of Now or Never in Spain.
It is curious that Cespedes, the Spanish Crichton, or, as some call him,
the Spanish Michel-Angelo, wrote a learned dissertation, trying to prove
that, where this glorious Mosque now stands, a temple once stood
dedicated to Janus, erected by the Romans after the conquest of Spain.
Cespedes was a native of Cordova (_hijo de Corduba_), and a man of whom
she has every reason to be proud. He was a scholar, an antiquary, a
poet, a painter, a critic. Look at his pictures “if ever you should go
to Cordova.”
When you have seen the Mosque you will have seen all that the Spaniards
have left there. There were formerly Roman antiquities of no ordinary
interest, aqueducts, an amphitheatre, and monuments, of which not a
trace remains. Will it be believed that, in making the prisons of the
Inquisition, some statues, mosaics, and inscriptions were found, all of
which were covered again by the holy tribunal as being Pagan.[7] Of the
Aladdin-like palaces of Abderrahman, there is not a vestige; mediæval
Cordova, with its architecture, its arts, and its prosperity, is
disappearing, bit by bit, whilst, like some physical manifestation of
energetic disease, a large and splendid Plaza for bull-fights has sprung
up!
A melancholy Italian acted as _cicerone_, and carried us to a lovely
Eastern garden, just outside the town. Here were orange-trees bearing
blossom and fruit, and the paler lemon, bosquets of myrtle and cistus
making the air heavy with sweetness; clusters of gorgeous tropical
flowers, crimson and yellow and purple; palm-trees glowing against the
deep blue sky; ponds full of gold and silver fish, and everything lovely
and gracious to both eye and senses.
Then we went to the market-place--a picturesque sight, for it was
covered from end to end with heaps of the pretty hand-painted pottery of
Andujar and Talavera. My friend was so enchanted with the taste
displayed in this ware, both as to form and colour, that she bought a
great quantity of it,--jugs, plates, cups, and basins, all shaped and
coloured differently, and each piece costing no more than a few rials.
This and lace from La Mancha--Don Quixote’s country--was all we found
worth buying at Cordova; for the leather-work was not nearly so
elaborate, and much costlier, than that so plentiful in Algiers. The
lace is made of coarse thread, but is very pretty, and is used
plentifully in Andalusia for decorating sheets and pillow-cases. We
could but notice the extreme civility of the humble sellers of pottery
in the market-place, and the impertinent _nonchalance_ of the smart
shopman who sold us the lace. The former, a well-to-do Andalusian
peasant-woman, could not take too much pains about pleasing us, carried
us home to her little house, in order to show us her stock-in-trade,
introduced us to her daughter, and smiled alike whether we approved or
no. The shopmen puffed away at their cigars, laughed and talked among
themselves whilst attending to their customers, cared little whether we
bought or no, and greeted us in quite a familiar fashion when we came
away. Certainly the Spaniards play at business in a most amateur style,
and can never be accused, as we are, of being a nation of shopkeepers.
The ladies laugh and talk with the shopmen over their purchases; and if
we may believe Mesonero and other satirists of the day, many a
rendezvous is made under the pretext of “shopping.” You cannot take up a
fashionable Spanish novel or play in which the ladies don’t talk of
assignations and shops as if the one belonged to the other; and whilst
the scrupulous way in which young girls are chaperoned wherever they go,
would seem to hint at some danger lurking in their favourite occupation.
Young Spanish ladies never walk out unattended, and whenever
Englishwomen chose to do so, their deviation from social orthodoxy is
severely commented upon. Spanish ladies too, I have read somewhere, when
promenading the streets _en grande tenue_, are flattered by the
admiration, expressed or implied, of passers-by!--a notion so opposed to
our English sense of delicacy that it is entertained with difficulty.
Yet the bearing of the pretty, dark-eyed ladies we saw about us,
coquetting with the fan, sweeping the ground with long trains only
suitable for a ball or presentation, raising their skirts with ungloved
jewelled hands, so as to show their pretty feet, go far to support the
notion. A well-dressed English lady does not think of her dress; one
cannot help seeing that a well-dressed Madrilenian does. She is very
attractive, notwithstanding.
I would not advise any one to hurry away from Cordova, especially if he
is an artist. The place is so picturesque in itself, and so full of
poetic association, that a few days may well be devoted to it,
especially in the beautiful autumn, when all kinds of glories are cast
about hill, and tower, and river.
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHAPTER VII.
“THE SWEETEST MORSEL OF THE PENINSULA.”--COB-WALLS OR THE HOUSE
THAT CAIN BUILT.--PALMS.--THE GOOD WORKS OF THE SISTERS.--THE
PRIESTS AND THE PEOPLE.--IS SPAIN UTOPIA?
The journey from Cordova to Malaga lasts from six in the morning till
five in the afternoon. You are, of course, aroused at four and carried
off to the station at five; so that you are really on the way much
longer. But the scenery of Andalusia is so varied and beautiful that you
are almost sorry when the train reaches its destination.
Beautiful Andalusia! so quaintly called by a lover of it, “the sweetest
morsel of the Peninsula.” Who can forget or over-praise its voluptuous
southern sky, its rich brown plains, its glistening white villages
peeping amid groves of the cistus, the ilex, and the cork-tree, its
green slopes crowned with Moorish towers and palaces, its delicious
climate, its trickling streams, its sweet-smelling flowers?
The railway is new and carries one through a most astounding bit of
country. After passing leagues of olive orchards, we found ourselves
suddenly in a wholly different world. First came range after range of
cold grey mountains, then perpendicular columns of limestone of gigantic
size, evidently thrown up by volcanic action. These rocks and their
counterparts have been admirably drawn by Gustave Doré in his splendid
_Don Quixote_, and are quite awful in their height and barrenness.
The train went at a snail’s pace right through the heart of the gorge,
and during this part of the journey, most of the passengers got out and
walked! I suppose the line was not quite safe, and indeed the soil is so
light and sulphurous that it seems impossible ever to make it so. We
kept our seats, however. What a slow journey it was! Sometimes we hardly
seemed to move at all, and kept stopping at little signal stations so
long that we read and wrote letters, worked, and sketched, as if at home
in our own drawing-room.
The guards were most civil, as usual, and did their best to explain
matters to us. The railway would go quickly enough by-and-by, they said,
but the road was a difficult one to work, &c., &c. _Mañana, mañana_
(to-morrow), everything will go quickly to-morrow, is the usual cry.
The villages of Andalusia are very picturesque, and remind you of the
west of England, only here the foliage is richer, the skies are of a
deeper blue, the landscape is wilder and more varied. Here the white
cottages glisten, not amid groves of beech, elm, and willow, but amid
the orange-tree, the ilex, and the olive; whilst the uncultivated
plains, instead of being purple with heath and golden with gorse, are
barren and sunburnt as the face of a gipsy, save where thickets of the
cistus and the cork-tree break the dreary sameness.
But there is more than a fancied resemblance between the home of the
Andalusian peasant and the Devonshire labourer. The walls of his
cottage are constructed after precisely the same fashion, and of
precisely the same materials--that primitive, cheap, durable mixture of
earth and reeds, which, when whitewashed, tones down into a beautiful
cream colour, surpassing the richest marble for softness and mellowness
of tint. In beautiful Andalusia, “the poor cottager contents himself
with cob for his walls, and thatch for his covering;” as quaintly says
an old English writer, and what in England is called cob, with all its
varieties of concrete cob, dry cob, rad and dab, &c., is only another
variety of the tapia, or mud wall of the Arab and Moro-Andalusian. Of
concrete cob indeed, that is, a mixture of lime, rough sand, pebbles,
earth, and reeds rammed into cases, are formed not only the noble walls
of Cordova and Granada, but the Moorish watch-towers or _atalayas_, that
so grandly rise along the southern sea-coast. We might, if we were so
disposed, trace this economical and excellent masonry down to Cain, the
builder of the first city--at least, so says a learned authority on the
subject.[8] And guided by the finger-mark of learned authorities, we
might follow its progress from east to west; for the simple art of
cob-building links the cities and civilizations of the ancient
Egyptians and Phœnicians with those of the Devonshire peasant, the
Andalusian, and the Moor of Barbary, of to-day. No one who travels
through the south of Spain will fail to observe the picturesque aspect
of its villages; and I have gone out of my way to notice this feature in
them, because any relationship in the arts is interesting to a
traveller. He will find traces of cob alike in India, in Mexico, in
Greece, and in Italy; but nowhere is the original architecture of the
Phœnicians more noteworthily copied than in the sunny plains of
Andalusia.
After traversing this wilderness of limestone run mad, we glided into a
warmer and lovelier zone. We fancied ourselves in Algeria. There were
golden plumes of palm-trees waving against a deep blue sky; orange and
lemon groves at the foot of bluer hills; hedges of aloe and wild cactus
by the roadside; flowers and sunshine and sweetness everywhere. It was
Sunday, too, and pretty it was to see the handsome Andalusian peasants
in their gay dresses alight and descend at the different stations, with
orange-branches, bearing golden fruit and glossy leaf, in their hands.
Wherever we stopped there came Murillo-like children to the door,
bringing glasses of fresh water, saying, “Agua fresca, agua fresca.”
At the end of these beautiful Eastern pictures came Malaga, a large,
white, dusty town, with a quiet blue sea at its feet, and above and
around it the most wonderfully-coloured hills, purple, rose-colour,
violet, blood-red, rainbow-hued in the sunset and colourless never.
We found Malaga, in spite of its delicious climate, its bright sea, its
gorgeous hills, and its Eastern gardens, a disagreeable place. The
streets always smelt of fish,--raw fish, cooked fish, fresh fish, dried
fish, stale fish. The common people are dirty and unpleasant, a mongrel
race, half-gipsy, half-bandit, with an evil look. The pavements are
filthy, and all the time of our stay a sirocco was blowing, so that we
were choked with dust wherever we went.
We stayed here several days nevertheless; and though we never liked
Malaga, could not fail to be enchanted with the oriental look of the
place. Just outside of the town were lovely gardens full of roses and
geraniums in blossom, and here and there clusters of palms
overspreading white-domed Moorish _algibe_, or wells; whilst we drove
for miles along a road hedged in by the beautiful African reed, so like
gigantic corn, that is golden in the sunshine and black as the cypress
at twilight.
The colouring of the mountains is most delicious, and in part makes up
for the fishiness and filthiness of the streets. A ray of the setting
sun turns the whole wild sierra into a pageantry of pink, deepest
violet, crimson, and amber, and makes you long to be an artist in order
to transfix the wonderful scene. Mountain and palm, city and tower and
sea, seen through the medium of so rare an atmosphere, might well tempt
an artist to linger here.
The English Consul was very kind to us, and from him we learned a good
deal that was interesting about the place. He took us to the Protestant
Cemetery--a beautifully kept garden covering a hill by the sea-side,
from whence we had a lovely view. It is a sweet spot; the graves lie in
clusters around the chapel, and are half hidden by all kinds of tropic
trees and flowers, the graceful pepper-tree, the orange, the lemon, the
palmetto, the cistus, the lily; whilst above them stretch sunny slopes,
newly planted with the vine and the fig. The soil is very red in colour
and full of iron, which accounts for the beauty and the fertility of the
landscape everywhere. I believe that for this boon of a burial-place,
alike English and foreign Protestants are solely indebted to the father
of the present Consul. Protestantism is an obnoxious weed in Catholic
Spain, and all those unfortunate Protestants who died at Malaga before
our Consul’s intervention, were buried like dogs in holes dug along the
sea-shore. Now, no matter what a man’s faith and nation may be, if shut
out of the Spanish burial-ground, he finds a resting-place here.
What gave us as much pleasure as anything in Malaga, was the sight of
some orphanages, founded by a young, rich, and beautiful Spanish widow
lady, who, having lost her husband and children by sudden deaths,
devotes all her time and money to charitable works. The schools are
under the direction of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and the
letter of introduction we carried with us procured ready admittance. The
Sisters who received us had beautiful faces, a little sad perhaps, but
expressive of the utmost peace and piety. One was a girl of twenty, and
she had the sweetest eyes, brown, soft, and shy, with a child’s
complexion, all pink and white, and a child’s rosy mouth--though not a
child’s gaiety.
“But you are a Frenchwoman, _ma sœur_,” we said; “and you too!” we
added, turning to the elder sister. “How is this? Are there not Spanish
women enough to work for their own poor and fatherless?”
The elder sister shook her head.
“There are plenty of good Spanish women devoted to charity,” she
answered, “but they seem wanting in energy and the love of organisation.
They are content to serve, but have no desire to act and to travel. Now,
we go to the uttermost ends of the earth and like it.”
“Yes; you see plenty of the world, _ma sœur_, you are always busy on
good works. It is an enviable lot.”
She smiled, part pleased, part sad.
“We are content if we can do a little in the service of the Virgin and
the blessed Saviour; but, alas! how little!”
“Do not say that, _ma sœur_. We who stand outside the Church are made
better for your example of self-denial and benevolence.”
“Ah! you are Protestants, of course. Many come here to see the children
at work.”
We now made the round of the school-rooms and _ateliers_, where we found
children divided according to age. The little ones, from three to five,
were seated on tiers of benches, as in our infant-schools, and were at
lessons under the superintendence of a sweet-looking young woman, also a
native of France. The system seemed admirable. The teacher held up a
letter, and instantaneously every little hand waved, and every little
mouth opened to say, “I see an A,” “I see a B,” “I see a C,” and so on,
till the whole alphabet had been gone through. Their little lessons in
spelling and arithmetic were gone through on the same plan, every
response being accompanied by a gesture. The children seemed thoroughly
to enjoy the lesson, and no wonder. It was as good as a game of
gymnastics to them. I am sure this system is the only desirable one to
pursue with very young children, who are like young animals, always
wanting to frisk about. Every one who has had anything to do with
village schools knows how difficult it is for the mistress to keep the
little ones still, and how they are scolded, sent to the corner, and
kept over hours for sinning in this respect. But the Sisters have no
troubles of this kind, and by keeping body and mind alike active no time
or temper is wasted on either side.
From the infant-school we went into the class-room and _ateliers_ of the
elder girls, and examined some very beautiful needlework, thread-lace,
and embroidery, some completed and ready for sale, others in process.
These children are all taken from the lowest classes; their work is sold
and the proceeds set apart for them till such a time as they need a
dowry, or outfit for service. Each child is, therefore, laying up a
little nest-egg for herself, and is, at the same time, acquiring a
profitable and womanly handicraft, and, what is even more important, a
good moral training.
In a town like Malaga, where the lower ranks have been leavened with the
yeast of brigandage, such an influence must be invaluable. I do not
remember the average number of little scholars who come daily to be fed
and taught by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, but it is a large one.
What Malaga must be in the summer-time I have no idea, not having lived
in tropical climates; but whilst we were there, in the last week of
November, the heat was very trying. The much-vaunted Alameda, which is
really a pretty walk, was unbearable on account of the wind, and sun,
and dust; and it was not till we had got a mile out of the town that the
air was fresh and pure. There are some charming country-houses with
gardens, around Malaga, but it is only within the last half-dozen years
that the proprietors have been able to use or let them. The banditti
ruled the country with a rod of iron; land was comparatively worthless;
travelling unsafe. As late as 1857 murder and assassination were so
common in the streets of Malaga that a resident[9] wrote home, “The
country is in a miserable state. The streets are not safe for a single
person late at night. Murder is not thought much more of here than
pocket-picking in England.”
Later, however, government has been working with a will to put down the
brigands, and with such success that purchasing land is become a
profitable speculation. People may now build country-houses, plant
groves, and vineyards in safety. It is a pity there is no good hotel in
the suburbs, for I think few invalids could support the bad smells and
heat of the town.
Besides the palms and the purple hills, Malaga possesses superb
vineyards. Who does not associate the very name of the place with
raisins and sweet wine? And those who want to know what a Spanish
vintage is, should come here in the early autumn. Wherever we went, we
came in contact with mules heavily laden with boxes of raisins, of which
I believe a million are exported every year; but the vintage was over,
and after a week we were ready to go into Granada. Whilst we are yet in
Catholic Spain (for who thinks of anything but the Moors at Granada?)
let me recur to a very important subject. Of course, the passing
traveller through Spain has very little opportunity of judging such
important questions as the practical working of the Church. But it is a
question of the deepest interest, and cannot fail to rise in an earnest
mind again and again. Spain is the country of all others which Romanists
will be inclined to regard as the faithful child of the only true
Church. Is she indeed as faithful as tradition warrants--as love takes
on credence? Alas! I fear the most devoted Catholic would not be able to
say, yes. The first thing that strikes you on coming into the country is
the contemptuous tone taken by all classes when speaking of the priests.
What wonder, indeed? The priesthood is recruited from the lowest ranks;
the priest is uneducated, ill-paid, often reputed to be immoral, always
without dignity. Confessional is a dead letter. Infidelity is found
among the rich; immorality among the poor. Wherever we went, we noticed
the coarse, dull faces of the priests, and the irreverence of the people
towards them. Of course there are exceptions, but, as a rule, the priest
is held in slight esteem, whether deserving or no. “Not even the
courtesy of Spaniards can make them behave decently to a priest,” says a
candid and careful writer, who spent several years in Spain, and
published some admirable letters on the practical working of the Church
there.[10] From these letters, and my own observations, I have come to
the painful conclusion that good Romanists will find Spain far from
being the orthodox Utopia of their imagination. The churches are falling
into ruin, the clergy are miserably paid, partly by a tax, partly by
fees, a parish priest receiving about £80 a year, a _beneficiado_, or
curate, about £40. Confessional and Communion are neglected by the
young; and, where orthodoxy exists, it goes hand in hand with the
deepest ignorance. Mariolatry is carried to the highest pitch, and the
most absurd stories of modern miracles are believed in, and the
Scriptures are a sealed book. In a little volume called the _Manual of
the Seminarista_, is a chapter on the Scriptures which, the author
states, “boys and women are not to have, because their natural
simplicity is often mixed with ignorance and presumption, and leads them
into heresies.” “Never shall I forget,” says the author first quoted,
“the eagerness with which Don F---- borrowed my Spanish Testament when
he found it was what he called _puro_. “We only get garbled scraps
here,” he said; and he gives some most interesting and valuable letters
from a Spanish priest to an English clergyman, wherein occur the
following passages: “As you well know, the true and genuine gospel of
Christ cannot be preached in Spain, but the gospel of the Pope, which is
a very different thing indeed from that. Here there is not the Spirit,
for where the Spirit is there is liberty. Our very bishops have nothing
in common with the Apostles: they do not preach the Word--they do not
instruct the people. All they do is for hire; they accommodate
everything to their sensual conceptions and earthly desires.... The
Bishop of ---- has never preached the word of God, and so ignorant is he
that he knows nothing except the ceremonies, and this is all that he
requires in a priest. At the last synod for providing _curas_ (priests)
he forbade the theologians, as is the old custom, to test the
candidates’ sufficiency by theological questions and dissertations! The
Spaniards, having all these things before their eyes, laugh at the
mission of the Christian priesthood, are losing their faith and morals,
and sinking into atheism.... It cannot be denied that the Spaniards of
the present day are generally opposed to Roman practices, and rather
agree with you and me in thinking and doing than with them; such is the
force of reason and truth. However, while they are giving up the errors
of Romanism, they have no rule of faith and morality to embrace, and,
led as by a blind impulse, each has prescribed a liberal and irregular
belief for himself, which sometimes he follows and sometimes
relinquishes.... Will you, then, associate yourselves together for the
work of the Gospel in these regions? Will you, in your charity, lead
this people to the true faith of Christ? Will you recall them from
atheism or indifferentism to the Church of God? Establish evangelical
missions, and support them with your pious alms. The Romanists labour
night and day to propagate their errors; they send their fanatical
missionaries to go round the world, and all sorts of sectaries run
eagerly to the work. But ye, who profess the true faith of Christ, will
ye leave a thirsty people to perish, and give them naught out of your
abundance when they ask?” These extracts, short as they are, throw
floods of light upon the present state of religious feeling in Spain. I
remember that we saw, with some surprise, a translation of Renan’s _Vie
de Jésus_ in a bookseller’s shop at Madrid, and heard two young men
discuss it over their purchases with no few heresies expressed or
implied. I suppose infidelity is a lesser crime than Protestantism in
Catholic Spain. Protestantism is, in fact, entirely forbidden.
Foreigners, being Protestants, are allowed to meet together for
religious purposes at the office or house of their respective Consuls;
but any Spaniard found among the congregation would be liable to some
punishment. In 1850, the Rev. James Meyrick was assured by a canon of
Cordova Cathedral that, according to the existing law of Spain, any
Spaniard departing from the Romish doctrine is liable to capital
punishment, though he added that he thought no government would now
attempt to enforce that law. Any Protestant reading the service of the
Protestant Church, excepting under the protection of his flag, would,
with his congregation, be liable to fines, imprisonment, or dismissal
from the country.
A few years ago it was necessary to have a certificate of confession
before holding any office under the government, and the certificates
were bought and sold for tenpence! Of course the greatest ignorance
exists regarding the Scriptures. People confound the legends of modern
times with the sacred history, and have as much faith in the one as the
other. Every one has read Borrow’s extraordinary adventures in Spain,
and will recall the story of the Alcalde, who after discoursing
learnedly about Bentham, Lope de Vega, and Plato, took up the New
Testament and asked, “What book is this?” Upon Borrow answering him he
said, “Ha, ha! how very singular!--yes, I remember. I have heard that
the English highly prize this eccentric book. How very singular that the
countrymen of the great Bentham should set any value upon that old
monkish book!” Mariolatry is carried to the same excess one sees in
Italy. Ford, in his _Gatherings_, gives a striking instance of this in
describing the execution of the robber Veneno. “The criminal exclaimed
_Viva la religion! Viva el rey! Viva el nombre de Jesus!_ All of which
met no echo from those who heard him. His dying cry was, _Viva la Virgen
Santisima!_ At these words the devotion to the goddess of Spain broke
forth in one general acclamation, _Viva la Santisima!_”
In the reign of Charles III., 1759-1780, a law was enacted, requiring a
declaration upon oath of a firm belief in the Immaculate Conception,
from everybody taking his degree at the university, or being admitted
into any corporation, civil or religious, or even into a mechanic’s
guild. The Virgin’s altars, images, robes and jewels, are gorgeous
beyond description. At her name both priest and congregation made
reverence. It is to her altars that the people flock. It is she who is
represented as the guide and ruler of the Church, and the intercessor
between God and man. To her are addressed most of the hymns and prayers
by which indulgences are obtained. There is one hymn in a little book of
prayers called the _Novena_, the repetition of which will procure more
indulgence than a year of rigorous penances. This indulgence clears you
from penance, or the indefinite consequences of neglected penance in
purgatory; and if by a certain number of litanies, rosaries, and hymns,
so much indulgence is gained, who would fast or otherwise do penance?
One cannot but lament this state of things, and equally lamentable is
the condition of the priests and the position of the priesthood. There
are, doubtless, many good and devout men in their ranks, but, as a body,
they have lost caste and influence. When the friars were all ejected
from the monasteries, they were weighed in the balance and found
wanting; and friars and priests alike suffer still from a tide of
antagonistic opinion. “No one knows, and no one will know until a
revolution takes place,” said a Spaniard to me, “how the priests are
disliked.” We ourselves noticed on several occasions a very low type of
face among the priests with whom we came in contact, and their
appearance is slatternly and often dirty in the extreme. These
circumstances are easily accounted for when one reads of the way in
which the army of the church is recruited. Most of the ejected friars
were sons of peasants; and such a prejudice exists against taking holy
orders, that very few parents of any social standing care to dedicate
their sons to a profession so poor and so despised. It is true that a
begging student of Salamanca may become a bishop, but that is the
exceptionable case, the usual fate of a Spanish priest is to end his
days a parish _cura_ with an income of £40 a-year. I am sorry to say
that the moral character of the clergy stands low.
It is pleasant to turn from such unsatisfactory prospects to the Sisters
and their good works. Their predecessors had also their share of
suffering. At the same time that the Government turned out the friars,
many rich convents were confiscated too. There were three at Malaga that
shared this fate. The nuns had entered with a dowry of from £120 to
£400, which the abbess had spent on lands. They were living in the
utmost comfort, each with her own apartments and servant. On a sudden,
all was taken, and they were thrust out of their paradise as naked and
helpless as Adam and Eve. Most of them had no home to go to, and gladly
procured the humblest employment; some, it is said, perished of want.
The worst of all was that the tide of public feeling had set so strongly
against them, that they suffered torments of fear. No wonder that the
priests were hated, for the memory of the Inquisition was still fresh,
but the poor nuns had led harmless lives, often charitable ones,
nursing the sick, and teaching the ignorant.[11]
There is no doubt that the ill-judged favour of royalty does more than
anything else to fan the flames of popular dislike towards both priest
and nun. Who is the Père Claret, the Queen’s confessor? An adventurer,
who has been alternately soldier, ecclesiastic, author, missionary, and
who formerly gained a certain notoriety for having written a coarse
book. Who is the Sœur Patrocinio, abbess of the convent of St. Pascual
d’Aranjuez? An intriguing impostor, once condemned by the public
tribunal for having pretended to the miraculous possession of the
Stigmata, or wounds of Christ.
Alas! I think every impartial traveller in Catholic Spain must conclude
his observations in the words of Pugin:--“_Pleasant meadows, happy
peasants, all holy monks, all holy priests, holy everybody. Such charity
and such unity where every man was a Catholic. I once believed in this
Utopia myself, but when tested by stern facts, it all melts away like a
dream._”
[Illustration: text decoration]
CHAPTER VIII.
“A BOAT, A BOAT, MY KINGDOM FOR A BOAT!”--THE VICTIMS OF A TUNNY
FISH.--SENOR BENSAKEN SPEAKS HIS MIND, AND WE ARE
REPROVED.--RUNNING WATERS.--HOWLINGS OF TARSHISH.--PEPA’S FAMILY.
We had another amusing instance of Spanish _nonchalance_ at Malaga. The
original plan of our journey was this:--to see the galleries of Madrid,
the Moorish antiquities of Cordova, Seville, and Granada, and from the
south of Spain cross over to Oran, and visit the beautiful old city of
Tclemcen, the Granada of the West. But to get to Oran it was necessary
to obtain information about boats, and this seemed an undertaking simply
impossible. We ran hither and thither to the different steam-boat
offices; we telegraphed to head-quarters at Gibraltar; we wrote dozens
of letters of inquiry; we spent time, money, and patience; all availed
nothing. Sometimes a glimpse of something like hope was vouchsafed to
us. There was a weekly boat to Algeciras. There was a fortnightly boat
from Gibraltar to Oran; there was a surfeit of boats one day, the next
none at all. We were by turns advised to trust to the Algeciras boat,
the Gibraltar boat, the Cadiz boat, till we came to the disheartening
conclusion that we must give up Tclemcen altogether. No two statements
ever agreed, and in this state of uncertainty we went off to Granada.
At six o’clock in the afternoon the diligence was to start, a great
cumbersome vehicle divided into three compartments--berlina, coupé, and
rotunda, and drawn by nine splendid mules in gay harness. We had taken
the precaution to engage the berlina to ourselves,--a precaution I
should earnestly recommend to all travellers who visit Spain before the
completion of the railways brings back another age of gold. The berlina
is a small compartment containing three seats and numerous little bags
and hooks for the stowage of small baggage; it is somewhat narrow, it is
true, and an imprisonment of fifteen hours within such a compass, not a
pleasant ordeal to go through. But what is that to the inconveniences of
the rotunda, where you are crowded and cramped so that you cannot stir a
limb, where you are stifled with smoke and deafened with the noise of
voices, where you are poisoned by foul air and bad smells, and where you
are subject to tyranny a thousand times worse than that of fleas? We had
been forewarned of these things in time, and were thus enabled to
perform the wearisome night-journey to Granada without too much fatigue.
The first part of it was amusing enough. We drove out of the town with a
tremendous dash; and as we had a coachman, a postilion, and a runner to
urge the mules on, no wonder that we got on very fast. The journey was
all up-hill, and the diligence was heavily laden; but the mules seemed
so anxious to go fast that one might have fancied a pack of wolves was
at their heels. The runner had a very bad time of it. He seemed to know
every mule by name, and made the most extraordinary noises to urge his
beasts on. Every now and then he sprang on to the step and rested
awhile; then, on a sudden, just as the mules were slackening their pace
a little, he would jump to the ground, crack his whip, and utter the
most diabolical sounds.
The night was starlight, and we were able to see something of the wild
country through which we passed. At regular intervals we came upon a
couple of _guardia civile_, or gendarmes, standing on each side of the
road. They were motionless as statues and looked very brigand-like in
their fierce sombreros, hanging cloaks, and tight-fitting gaiters. One
of these _guardia civile_, well-armed, always accompanies the diligence,
though the road is considered safe. Our escort was a thin,
cadaverous-looking, but soldierly man, who alighted whenever we changed
horses, to smoke a cigarette and drink a cup of chocolate, or glass of
water. Spaniards seem to live on cigarettes and chocolate.
At five o’clock in the morning we stopped at a posada for nearly an
hour, and very refreshing it was to stretch one’s limbs and breathe the
cool mountain air. The posada was an enormous rambling old place, but
quiet and clean. The landlord showed us, with other travellers, into a
room with a little fire, and very civilly promised us chocolate. There
were two Englishmen among the rest who bitterly complained of the coupé.
“Think of it,” they said, “we took the coupé to ourselves, and have had
such horrid company all the way--a big, strong-smelling, dried
tunny-fish!”
“Perhaps it will be taken out here,” I said, consolingly.
They shrugged their shoulders in a very low-spirited fashion and one
replied despairingly,--
“It’s ticketed to Granada, so there’s no chance for us. Five hours
longer of it! It’s enough to drive one mad.”
It was certainly enough to drive one into a very evil temper. The smell
of salted tunny-fish is nearly as bad as anything in the way of smells
can be, and reminds one of those odious combinations with which clever
chemists once proposed to supersede shot and shell in driving away one’s
enemies. The victims in this instance were very long-suffering, and
seemed to forget their troubles in a cigarette. They, too, ordered
chocolate, but, like ourselves, had to wait for it.
At the last moment, just as the diligence was ready to start, came
cakes and chocolate, and after hastily swallowing a little of both, we
entered our berlina. Here another amusing scene occurred. At the
tail-end of the last moment, such packages as were addressed to Loja,
the name of our halting-place, had to be brought from the roof to the
diligence. Amongst others, was a light deal-box, which, by some
mismanagement or other, fell with an awful crash into the gutter! Out
came, as if by magic, all the paraphernalia of some poor little maiden’s
wardrobe and belongings: mantilla, gloves, dresses, slippers,
needle-work, chocolate-boxes, love-letters tied up with ribbon, missal,
rosary,--all lay sucking up the mire in inextricable confusion. Driver,
postilion, landlord, and gendarme, stood still, looking overwhelmed and
hopeless. After some minutes the driver picked up a glove, the postilion
a shoe, the landlord a love-letter, the gendarme a thimble. Then, as if
by mutual consent, they slowly and patiently rescued the miry treasures,
stopping now and then to sigh over the ruinous condition of each. It was
a very humble little outfit, doubtless of some nursemaid or milliner’s
apprentice, which made the accident all the more deplorable, and I
daresay many of those muddy spots were washed out by tears alone. No one
grumbled at the delay, and no one seemed to think that the reason of it
was not a legitimate one. How unlike our English promptitude and bustle!
It was quite touching to see the concern of the stately gendarme when he
took up a neck-ribbon the beauty of which was gone for ever. “_La
pobrecita! La pobrecita!_ (Poor little thing! poor little thing!) she’ll
never be able to wear that again,” he ejaculated.
When everything had been replaced in the broken box, we went on. Now
came the tiresome part of the journey. The early morning air was very
cold, the road monotonous, and the berlina seemed to become narrower and
more suffocating every league we went.
At last we reached Granada. At first sight we were disappointed with the
aspect of the place; and indeed Cordova and Toledo are infinitely more
impressive as approached by the ordinary road, but afterwards our
preconceived ideas were a hundred-fold realised.
Crowds of beggars, the halt, the lame, and the blind, surrounded the
diligence, and it was with some difficulty we got out. Some of the
beggars were of loathsome appearance, victims of horrible disease and
depravity, and all were terribly importunate. Amongst the crowd was a
tall, thin, poor-looking old man, wrapped in a shabby Spanish cloak, who
came up to us at once and said in excellent English, “How much baggage
have you, ladies?” and on our replying, busied himself with it, and with
us, in a way that seemed a little unwarrantable. Commissionnaires and
guides stick to you like leeches, and we had determined to employ
Bensaken, the well-known cicerone of Ford, of Owen Jones, and of
hundreds of travellers. This old man looked more like a beggar than
anything else, and, but for his proud manner, I think I should have
bribed him with a few cuartos to go away. As it was, I sent a little lad
after a fiacre, and managed my luggage myself, not feeling inclined to
accept anonymous services, after having heard such golden reports of
Emmanuel Bensaken. Our old friend, however, seated himself on the box,
and not thinking it worth while to deprive him of the pleasure of the
drive, we said nothing, and drove off.
Never was a hotel so enchantingly situated as the Hotel Ortiz, to which
we had been recommended.
The Hotel Ortiz stands in the Alhambra gardens. The windows let in
golden sunshine, and you look over bright yellow avenues of elms and
panoramic views of plain and mountain. The Alhambra is quite near. Here
you have a glimpse of battlement, superb in colour and outline, there a
tower. The air is light, and warm, and balmy. Everybody has a pleasant
smile and a brisk air, and goes about singing. The rooms are sunny, and
have charming views, and the Alhambra is close by! It seems too good to
be true.
After a bath and some excellent tea and bread and butter, the first we
had tasted in Spain, and a little rest, we asked for Señor Bensaken.
Señor Bensaken was in the house, and would wait upon the Señoras at
once, was the reply. After waiting an hour, again we asked for Bensaken.
“Has he not been?” was the surprised answer. “We sent him to you long
ago.” But no Bensaken appeared, and as it was now late in the
afternoon, we gave up all idea of seeing the Alhambra that day, and
strolled into the gardens instead.
I should say there is no lovelier time than autumn for these beautiful
avenues of tall elms, these shelving banks and trickling streams. The
melancholy of the season harmonizes with the melancholy of this place;
and the setting suns bestow a blood-red pomp, as of a battle-field, upon
the glorious plain of the Vega.
The great charm of the Alhambra gardens is the constant purling and
plashing of water. You never lose sight or sound of this purling and
plashing of melted snow charmed from cool haunts in the Sierra Nevada,
and both sight and sound grow upon you like sweet music. The
flower-beds, once so carefully kept, are now sadly neglected, but the
borders of myrtle and violets are lovely in neglect, and the orange and
lemon trees bear blossom and fruit as of old. We lingered till sunset,
when the old towers and the yellow forest of elm-trees, were burnished
to the hue of brightly-polished copper, and the plain below was flecked
with deep shadows, black and purple, and golden. Beyond rose the blue
and grey mountains of the Sierra Nevada, their crests shining with the
silvery brightness of everlasting snow, in a belt of rosy sky. It was a
scene of enchantment.
When we returned to our hotel, we were informed that Bensaken awaited us
in the corridor, or _salle à manger_; what was our surprise to find
Bensaken, the renowned guide, and our old friend in the threadbare
cloak, one and the same person!
“Why, Señor Bensaken,” we said, “you should have introduced yourself to
us at first. We had no idea it was you, or we should have engaged you as
guide on the spot.”
The old man was evidently much offended with us.
“Señora,” he said, “it is not my habit to push myself in where I am not
wanted, and you preferred to employ that Spanish boy. _Corriente!_ you
had to please yourselves.”
“But,” we urged, “how could we know that you were Señor Bensaken? Why
did you not give us your card? We had come to Granada with the intention
of employing no other guide but Bensaken. We sent for you this
afternoon, and you did not come.” He had evidently stayed away out of
displeasure, and we found it very difficult to heal the sore of which we
felt so innocent. At last, growing a little impatient, we said
sharply,--
“Señor Bensaken, it is really through your own stupidity, and no fault
of ours, that this mistake occurred. If you are willing to act as guide
to us, we are willing to engage you, and let the matter end.”
The matter did end, and Señor Bensaken became our cicerone. He is a very
old man, stiff in manner, aristocratic in appearance, and very
entertaining when the mood takes him; full of stories of the great men
he has known, Longfellow, Irving, and others. His English is wonderfully
elegant, and he speaks several European languages, besides Arabic. But
travellers must make haste to Granada who wish to secure his services,
for he is in the sere and yellow leaf, and he coughs terribly.
The next day being Sunday, the Alhambra was not open, so we went to see
the Cathedral and the Carthusian Convent. The Convent is very rich in
inlaid doors and altars of silver, ebony, and tortoise-shell, and is
curious in many respects. On the cloister walls are some paintings that
Spanish guides show English tourists with sly looks. They represent the
persecutions of the English Carthusians by Henry VIII., and one finds
the same subject illustrated in other Carthusian convents, which is but
natural. Lutheran bigotry still appears to the orthodox Spaniard as
dreadful as it then was. The youthful Spanish mind is as vigorously
infused with a hatred and fear of heresy as ever, and in the history of
Spain used for schools and institutions of the second instruction (_Los
Institutos y Colegios de segunda enseñanza_) occur such passages as
these:--
“Por los Paises Bajos prosperaban,
Los odiosos errores de Lutero.”
(The odious errors of Luther were prospering in the Low Countries.)
There is a charming view from the terrace of the convent, which,
perhaps, repays the traveller for his trouble more than anything to be
seen within its walls. The Cathedral every one will naturally visit, on
account of the superb monuments of Ferdinand and Isabella. Mass was
going on when we entered, and we could not but notice the terribly
irreverent behaviour of the congregation, the choristers, and acolytes.
They had, some of them, vicious faces, and all stared about and
whispered to each other, and behaved as if they were at a bull-fight.
In the afternoon we drove on the Alameda, very gay at this hour, with a
band playing, and ladies promenading, as a Spanish author says, in all
their “atractivos;” officers darting past on pretty Andalusian horses,
and all the world of Granada out for a holiday.
Granada is very conservative,--_Españolisimo_ still to the backbone,
which is rather trying to a traveller’s patience. In spite of the annual
influx of foreigners, a foreigner is still stared at and commented on.
If you sit down to make a sketch, you are sure to have an obtrusive
crowd around you, and I don’t think English ladies could walk with
comfort in the town unless accompanied by a guide. At least, we were
advised not to try it. It is not that the common people are malicious,
but they are so childishly astonished at the sight of strangers, that
you feel as if you were a bear being led through a country-town on fair
day. Every one has something to say about the bear.
Some of the people were, nevertheless, delightful, the family at the
Ortiz, for example. The father acted as cook, the mother as
house-keeper, the daughters as chambermaids, and the son as waiter. All
were kindly, intelligent, and as gay as larks from morning till night.
There was always singing in the house and garden, the same monotonous
Arab singing we used to hear at Toledo and Cordova, but here, in
sprightly Andalusia, it was infinitely improved upon. The daughters of
the house were very pretty, with bright eyes, small regular features,
elegant little figures, and great vivacity of expression. One was
married, and had a dear little girl, about three, who used to greet us
with an English “good morning!” she had learned somewhere. When their
work was done, and it seemed done very early in the day, the sisters
used to sit on the doorsteps, a friend or two would join them, and what
with gossip, needle-work, and singing, they had a merry time of it.
The hotel was quite a little paradise of pleasantness and comfort. From
every window were long views of the Alhambra walls and garden; there
were very few visitors excepting ourselves, so that we had the _salle à
manger_ to ourselves, and the people were so kind and careful of our
comfort that we could willingly have stayed a month.
Though we were already in December the weather was perfect, soft,
golden, and balmy. We were glad of a little wood fire at night, but
could have roamed about all day without our bonnets on. Roses and
geraniums blossomed in the garden; and, whenever we walked out, little
Murillo-like boys offered us bunches of violets.
Before entering the charmed precincts of the Alhambra I must mention a
horrifying scene we witnessed just outside our windows. It was a
pauper’s funeral. We were warned of its approach by the sound of loud
talking and laughter, and, on looking out, saw a wretched coffin borne
by four men, smoking cigarettes, followed by a few lookers-on, all
appearing equally unconcerned, and preceded by two or three men, who
were, I suppose, the mourners, bearing lighted candles in their hands.
There was no priest, no pall, no semblance of decency, and by-and-by our
disgust was increased to the last pitch by the bearers setting the
coffin on the bank, and leaning on it to rest themselves!
There is no sort of respect for death in Spain. The body of the pauper
is carried to the cemetery in a coffin that belongs to the parish, and
is thrust sometimes almost naked into a hole. The priests do not perform
burial-service except for those who can afford to pay for it; they read
a short service over the body in the church; and when once that ceremony
is over, there is no more regard shown for the dead than for the
slaughtered horse at a bull-fight. It is horrible.
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CHAPTER IX.
DAYS IN THE ALHAMBRA.--THE GRANDEUR WITHOUT AND THE BEAUTY
WITHIN.--“CIELED WITH CEDAR, AND PAINTED WITH VERMILION.”--AZULEJOS
AND ARTESONADOS.--MR. OWEN JONES’ HANDBOOK.
There is no place in the world like the Alhambra, so graceful, so
perfect, so sad. No words can describe it, no pencil can portray it; it
remains apart in the heart and fancy, like some second, more golden
youth, that has come for a brief season, and made us happy and passed
away.
The gardens are bordered with violets and myrtle, and shadowy with
orange and lemon trees; the marble floors, the dried fountain, the
slender alabaster columns, the gorgeous ceilings, the walls covered with
delicate arabesques and verses, the airy courts, the sunny fish-ponds,
the luxurious baths, the silence and desolation that have fallen over
all, are indeed indescribable, and grow upon one like the graces of a
most musical poem.
It is a fairy tale for men and women of all countries and religions--a
realization of beauty, the most inconceivable and the most
intoxicating--a sweet and subtle embodiment of Eastern thought and art.
The Alhambra is so ruined as a whole, and yet so perfect in parts, so
bare here, so rich in colour there, so desolate and yet so haunted by
voices, that it reminds one most, I think, of beautiful antique
jewellery. Some of the jewels have dropped out, the gold is tarnished,
the clasp is broken, the crown is bent, but gaze a little while, and all
becomes as it once was. Pearl and amethyst, emerald and opal, blaze out
on some lovely throat, a golden clasp is wound on some round white arm,
and a crown shines on some golden head, perhaps of a goddess, perhaps of
a woman. Nothing is lost, or changed, or dead.
One doesn’t know what to admire most in this small but exquisite realm
of enchantment. Like children at a fair, who clap their hands and laugh
for joy at every new toy, crying out,--“This is best! no, this! no,
this!” we passed from court to court, and hall to hall, declaring each
to rival each as we went along. At one time I held that the court of
Lindaraja bore the palm, at another the Alberca; but each is so perfect
in its way that it is almost impossible to have preference for any. The
view of the Alberca, or fish-pond court, is very sweet on a sunny day.
We first saw it when the sunlight were playing on the water, and the
rainbow-coloured reflexion of it on the delicate alabaster colums was
magical. But all is magical--the Court of Lions, the Baths, the Hall of
Ambassadors, the Mezquita, the Hall of the Two Sisters; and one could
weep at the desecration that has done its best to ruin them.
What never ceases to surprise you is the richness and the delicate, one
might almost say, effeminate finish and elaborateness of every part. The
walls are covered with coloured _faïence_ and arabesques; the ceilings
are either of inlaid pine or cedar wood, and hollowed after the fashion
of stalactite caves; the floors are of polished white marble, the
palm-like columns, of alabaster and fountains abound everywhere. There
is nothing to add and nothing to take away from this Palace of Aladdin;
and as you learn to know the place, you love it, and marvel at it more
and more. But if it is a Palace of Aladdin now, what must it have been
when the fountains were shedding floods of pearl in the sunlight; when
all the courts were filled with perfume of myrtle, of oleander, and of
orange-blossom; when the glistening white floors were partly hidden by
gorgeous carpets; when the delicate columns were covered with gold, and
the fretted domes blazed with colour, orange, purple, and red; when the
Caliph administered justice, surrounded by his courtiers, a second
Solomon with more than Solomon’s glory; when the Alberca Court rang with
the merry voices of Moorish girls, who bathed, and played, and told each
other love-stories all day long; when every hall echoed with voices, and
was bright with the rich Oriental dresses, what must it have been
indeed? Only the poets and chroniclers of the time can tell us; but
their name is Legion, for never did the sun of patronage shine brighter
than under the Ommeyad dynasty, and the glories and disasters of
beautiful Granada formed a favourite theme of both poet and poetess.
The Alhambra is not understood in a day. At first sight you are apt to
be disappointed. The courts are smaller than you thought, or they seem
over-laden with ornament, or they want breadth here, loftiness there;
but this is only the captiousness of ignorance. Like a beautiful,
capricious child, who tries you and torments you one moment, and the
next is all sweetness and grace, and only in need of caresses, the
Alhambra must be taken on trust; and when you have seen it as we saw it,
in the pearly light of early morning, in the blaze of noon-day sun, in
the dusky twilight, in the silvery night, you will come away, filled
with the joy that is born of beauty, and thank the happy chance that led
your steps to Granada. The outer walls and towers are very grand; but to
enjoy their grandeur you must lose sight of the Palace of Charles V.,
the rankest toad-stool that ever grew up amid sweet summer flowers.
We had come to Granada in the season of sunsets, and what sunsets they
were! Then the long lines of broken wall, ordinarily of that rich
yellow colour, with which the pipe stains white marble, were flushed
into deepest crimson, the faded elms were aglow with rosy light, the
whole world seemed floating in golden mist. Or if we lost sight of the
walls, and turned our faces westward, we looked across a broad purple
plain, bounded by the snow-tipped Sierra, behind which the sun was
setting in an unutterable splendour of colour and light. Another moment,
and the blaze was gone; pink clouds, like rose-leaves, floated about the
sky and disappeared slowly one by one, and, last of all, came the
bluish-grey twilight, and myriads of large southern stars.
One grows so rooted to the place, for sake of its many-sided
beauty,--beauty of art, of atmosphere, of everything, that one never
wishes to leave it. That is to say, if one were an intellectual being
one would never wish to leave it; but the material part of every poor
person and every Protestant must make the thought of dying at Granada
simply horrible. I never felt such a distaste for Catholic Spain, and
such a respect for Mahomedan Spain, as here. The Moors made Granada the
paradise we find it, and it was an evil hour for the civilised world
when their enlightened rule came to an end. Everything good in Granada
is Moorish; instead of arts, philosophy, toleration, charity, and
wealth, came ignorance, the Inquisition, superstition, misery,
pauperism.
But let us forget these things and give our time and thoughts to the
Alhambra. It is quite marvellous that such a creation--what other name
can one use in speaking of the Alhambra?--should have been the work of
the last period of Mahomedan glory. Like some flower, the last and
loveliest of an Indian summer, it only reached maturity when the sun,
that had ripened it, was on the wane; and hardly had the petals opened
one by one when they were nipped by frost and wind. Everything that
contempt and malice, and it must be admitted also earthquakes, could do,
was done to despoil the fairy palace of the Moors, and the only marvel
is, that anything remains to show what it once was. This mixture of
beauty and desolation on every side reminds one of Heidelberg; only
that Heidelberg is less perfect and less melancholy, since with its
prosperity, the civilisation that had called it into existence did not
pass away.
Descriptions, however poetic or minute, photographs, water-colour
drawings, fail to give one a complete idea of the Alhambra. A single
visit disappoints all preconceived expectation. To know it and value it
for what it is, it must be seen again and again, and studied in every
part; and to appreciate it according to its real worth, requires real
knowledge of Moorish art and sympathy with its deep religious feeling.
“The architecture of the Arabs,” says Mr. Owen Jones, “is essentially
religious, and the offspring of the Koran, as Gothic architecture is of
the Bible. And this truth must always be held in the traveller’s
remembrance. Indeed, it is impossible to understand any of the great
works of the Moors without having read the Koran, their reverence for
which is testified in the numerous texts from it with which they adorned
their walls. In the Alhambra these sacred writings have been most
gorgeously and elaborately inscribed; and what Arabic scholars consider
as a labour of love, with no omission of vowel or grammatical sign. In
writing ordinary Arabic the vowels are treated as if they were women and
are kept out of sight, but as the Koran admits women to Paradise, so Art
admits the inferior letters into his service.”[12]
The life of the East is so full of charm, that it is grateful alike to
the heart and fancy to find in Arab architecture a transcript of it. Who
can doubt that the graceful columns were suggested by the still more
graceful palm, the light colonnade by the airy tent, the arabesques of
colour and gold, by the silk stuff of Damascus? And the Alhambra itself,
so gorgeous within, so unadorned and warlike and well defended without,
may be called an embodiment of the spirit of the Koran, which is at the
same time, religious, warlike, luxurious, sensuous, æsthetic.
If you wish to study Moorish art in detail, take in hand one of the
beautiful marqueterie, or _artesonado_ ceilings, or a glazed tile, or
_azulejo_. In both these cases the history of the word is the history of
the thing. _Artesonado_ means a kneading-trough; which, doubtless, first
suggested the form of these ceilings; and _azulejo_ is directly derived
from the Arabic word _zuluja_, a varnished tile, and _azul_, which in
its turn is derived from _luzmad_, lapis lazuli. Most names for colour
in Spanish are derived from the same source in all arts, for as in the
case of the _azulejo_, or coloured tile, the teachers of the art had to
supply the name. Both _artesonado_ roofing and _azulejo_ pavements are
very Oriental and ancient. We read in the Bible of the houses “cieled
with cedar and painted with vermilion,” and of the “pavements of
saphire,” &c.
Nothing can equal the taste and good sense,--always an infallible
criterion of art--displayed in both these triumphs of form, colour, and
convenience. The tile, which is always of graceful pattern and
beautifully enamelled colours, is cool, clean, and exactly the flooring
suited for hot climates. Labour both of brain and hand are never spared,
for wherever good _azulejo_ work exists, there is sure to be plenty of
variety, both as to colour and design. But it is chiefly in the
_artesonado_ ceilings that the Moorish artist is unrivalled. Here his
gorgeous fancy runs riot, and the eyes are dazzled by the wonderful
combinations of form and colour that have no counterpart save in his
equally intricate and equally rich poetry. A verse of the Koran is just
as florid and harmonious to the ear of the Arab scholar, as one of their
designs must be to the eye of any artist, no matter what his nation may
be.
But the simplicity of the original plan is the most striking point to
consider. The Arab was as thorough a geometrician as he was an artist,
and brought his geometry to bear upon his art in an extraordinary
fashion.
Some of the most beautiful tiles and ceilings are to be seen at the
Generalife, the summer palace of the kings of Granada. A pretty walk
leads to it; and here, even in December, I found the gardens full of
roses and other summer flowers in blossom. Granada is indeed a garden of
roses; and the Generalife is the lightest, airiest summer-house ever
reared by Oriental lover of coolness, and running streams and bosquets
of myrtle. It recalls how:--
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-house decree.”
But why say more of Granada? After all, descriptions are all but
useless. _Vidi tantum!_ Having seen the Alhambra, one seems to have seen
everything.
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CHAPTER X.
PIGS, VULGAR AND ARISTOCRATIC.--THE GIPSY CAPTAIN BEWITCHES US.--WE
GO DOWN TO THE POTTER’S HOUSE.--A FAMILY DANCE.--AN AWFUL
DISCOVERY.--A BOOKSELLER OF TARSHISH.
I heard two horrid stories at Granada, which I would not repeat except
that I feel some of their truth. We were walking in the town one day,
and observing an unusual air of stir and excitement, asked a stander-by
what it meant.
The person in question told us that a certain Señor, Don So-and-so, had
just died, and that as he was a great enemy to the Liberal party, and a
great tyrant, there was rejoicing among the people. We were interested
in the matter, and talked of it afterwards to an old _Granadino_, whose
acquaintance we had made during our stay, and he more than confirmed the
report.
“He was a bad man,” he said, “but of the _sangre azul_ (blue blood), a
thorough aristocrat, and very powerful. I could tell you stories of what
he did that you would not believe. Oh! the people who have blue blood in
their veins can do anything in Spain, I assure you. It is a _cosa de
España_. Now just listen to a thing this Señor Don L---- did not more
than nine years ago. A poor honest man known to me, was taken up accused
of committing a theft. He belonged to the Liberal party, and was hated
by the blue blood. Well, this man, who is just dead, had him brought
into the Plaza de Toos, and tied him up to one of the posts by the
hands. ‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he asked. ‘Señor, I
know nothing of it. I am as innocent as a child,’” Then this Señor
Don ---- ordered his man to hammer on to the prisoner’s hands with an
iron hammer.
“‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he was asked again by the
great gentleman of the blue blood. ‘Señor, I have said I am innocent.’
Again the hammer fell on the poor man’s hands, and again and again, till
the bones were broken, and he still denying the deed. At last, finding
him so obstinate, they let him go back to prison, where he was kept for
weeks. When he came out I saw with my own eyes the ruin they had made of
his poor hands.”
“But that is as bad as the Inquisition,” I said, horrified.
The old man, with a good deal of Spanish punctiliousness, had a touch of
Moorish resignation, or what might better be called perhaps fatalism.
“We have had to bear such things. I can tell you what happened to me in
my youth, when there was still more difference between the law for the
blue blood and the white.[13] I am of the white of course, no Don or
Caballero, but a humble Señor, of little account. I was a dealer in
pigs, Señoras; and I sold a fine lot of pigs to a certain aristocratic
gentleman whom I will call Don Serafin. Don Serafin agreed to buy my
pigs for five hundred dollars, paying half the sum down, and giving me a
written document engaging to pay the other at the end of three months.
My beautiful pigs went, and the three months passed. No money from Don
Serafin. As I did not wish to appear impertinent, (being of the white
blood, therefore, nobody, you know, Señoras) I waited patiently till
three months more had slipped away. Then I waited on Don Serafin, and
respectfully demanded my money. ‘I owe him money!’ cried the great man
to his servants, ‘turn the impertinent fellow away, _Es un mentira_. He
lies.’
“I saw that nothing remained for me but to sue him for my money, which I
did. On the day appointed, we appeared before the Alcalde, who received
Don Serafin with bows and scrapes, gave him the seat of honour, begged
to know to what chance he was indebted for the pleasure of seeing him,
and so on. ‘Why, it is that fellow there,’ said Don Serafin, ‘who has
brought me here with a cooked-up story about some pigs, _Es un
mentira_. I never bought his pigs, or if I did, paid for them long ago.
Don’t believe a word of it.’ The Alcalde then turned to me, who stood
by, hat in hand, like a criminal. ‘Speak out, _hombre_,’ he said,
sternly, ‘of what do you accuse his grace, Don Serafin de So and so and
So and so’ (the blue-blooded race have very long titles, you know).
‘Señor,’ I said, still standing, ‘I sold Don Serafin a lot of beautiful
pigs, and he agreed to give five hundred dollars for them, paying half
the sum down and the other at the end of three months. Señor, I have
never received the last half of the money.’ The Alcalde turned to Don
Serafin, smiling sweetly; ‘Senor Don Serafin, you hear what this fellow
says--is it true or not?’
“‘_Es un mentira_, a pack of lies and nothing more,’ again answered his
grace Don Serafin; ‘don’t believe half a syllable of the story.’
“The Alcalde looked at me with a scowl as if he could devour me.
“‘How dare you accuse a gentleman of such a thing? Get along with you,
you lying rogue.’
“I then with great humility brought out the paper signed by Don Serafin
himself, in which the money was promised at a certain date. ‘Señor,’ I
said, ‘your grace will recognise this writing. The money is a large sum
to a poor man like me; I hope you will pay it at once.’
“The Alcalde looked at the paper and was obliged to admit my claim. But
he still smiled sweetly on Don Serafin, and looked as fiercely at me as
if I were robbing them both.
“Don Serafin tossed back the paper scornfully, and with it a note for
fifty dollars. ‘You shall have the rest in two months’ time,’ he said,
‘will that satisfy you?’
“‘Pardon me, your grace,’ I said, ‘but I am a poor man and I want the
money. It seems, I dare say, but a mere trifle to you, it is a little
fortune to me. Please pay me my two hundred and fifty dollars.’
“Don Serafin looked at the Alcalde, making a sign. The Alcalde was
silent. ‘You fellow, to dictate to me in that way; take the fifty
dollars and be thankful to the Virgin; or leave them if you please, I
don’t care.’
“I turned to the Alcalde and humbly asked his intercession; but it was
quite clear I had little enough to expect of him. He seemed to think I
was mighty lucky to get anything at all; so, after standing in the
presence of the great man till I was ready to drop, I took the fifty
dollars and went away.”
“And did you ever get the remaining two hundred dollars?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“No, Signorita, not I. I got a part, ten dollars one month, ten another,
and so on, but never the whole. _Es una cosa de España._ We of the white
blood must submit to those of the blue.”
These stories are both worth something as testimony of things as they
are, or very lately were, in Spain, and we heard others which I remember
less clearly.
There are a great many gipsies at Granada still, and, though they have
lost their prestige for romance and daring, a good deal of interest is
attached to them. They seem now to be held as very inoffensive sort of
people, are miserably poor, dirty, and live troglodyte fashion, in
caves hollowed in the hill-side. The King of the Gipsies, or _El
Capitan_ as he is called, is a fine musician, and we invited him to come
up to the hotel one evening and play to us. Captain Antonio’s company is
not to be had for the asking. He is, or affects to be, a little shy,
wants coaxing and persuading, will not play except before a large
audience; and, as Bensaken said to us, “He is a great man in his way,
and you couldn’t offer him less than two dollars.”
After disappointing us on several occasions, Captain Antonio came. He
had pleaded a sore finger as excuse for his delay, but I am inclined to
think that he waited in expectation of a larger audience and more
dollars; for the arrival of an American family healed the Captain’s
finger miraculously fast. It was sore in the morning, very bad indeed!
and, lo and behold! in the evening it was quite well; but let that
pass--Captain Antonio’s music made us very forgiving.
He came in--a tall, superbly built man in the prime of life, with a
tawny skin, eyes of extraordinary brilliancy, receding jaws, and very
low brow, long narrow throat, and altogether, of an Egyptian, ancient
look, as if he had been one of the old Nile gods come to life.
He bowed graciously, threw off his Spanish cloak, for the gitanos, like
all the rest of the world, are growing conventional now, losing costume
and characteristics every day; and commenced tuning his guitar.
It was a wretchedly poor instrument, and we began to wonder what sort of
torments were about to be inflicted on us, when, on a sudden, the tuning
ceased and the music seized hold of us like galvanism. For it was such
music as one had never dreamed of before. His fingers but touch the
chords, and all at once your breath is taken away, your blood is warmed
as if by strong wine, your brain whirls, your eyes see visions, your
ears hear marvellous voices, your senses are all mastered by a power
that seems to shake the very spheres.
You see the strangest forms and faces, imp, devil, witch, and wizard;
you hear a jargon of voices, in love, in anger, in war, in worship, in
joy, in despair. Beautiful gitanos come in the charmed circle, join
hands, dance for a moment and vanish, or it is filled by a gipsy
camp--the fires are blazing, you see men and women feasting, singing,
making love, when, all at once, a cry of alarm is heard, and the scene
is changed to bloodshed and horrors. Every phase of savage life is
brought before your eyes and made real, as if you were tasting it in the
flesh. You are indeed for the nonce a gipsy, and know what the gipsy’s
world is, above, below, in heaven and in hell; your pulses are quickened
to gipsy pitch, you are ready to make love and war, to heal and slay, to
wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and
do anything for the sake of the sweet, untrammelled life of the tent,
the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, the joyous
dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love.
All at once the gipsy stopped, and the spell was broken. We had never
been gipsies, after all; the camp-fires burning under the dark night,
the flashing knives, the peaceful dance, the happy loves, the vagabond
wanderings over plain and mountain, the midnight encounter,--all these
had been but shadows evoked by Captain Antonio’s guitar, and we were a
company of ladies and gentlemen, whose utmost vagabondage had not
exceeded boiling a pic-nic kettle in Epsom Forest, or, more likely,
taking tea on our own lawns. We felt thankful to Señor Antonio for
having given us so full an experience of wild life in the space of a few
minutes. I cannot say how real it had all seemed. We had wandered with
him over so many southern lands, had bivouacked under such fiery suns,
that I looked at a fair-haired English lady present, almost with a
feeling of wonder to see her hair still golden and her cheeks still
rosy.
The gipsy captain received our expressed thanks, as I thought,
indifferently, but looked into our faces as if he would read our real
criticisms there. Whether he approved either of them or of us, it were
quite impossible to say; he had a face as unreadable as a bit of
hieroglyphic writing, except that whilst playing, a strange fiery light
shone in his eyes, as if he were himself possessed by the devilry of his
music.
When he had rested a little and drunk a _copita_, or thimbleful of
brandy, we asked him for a sacred song, and he said he would play us a
Christmas hymn. What a change! It was as touching and sweet a melody as
any of our Christmas carols, and quite as solemn.
By-and-by some one proposed a dance. Would Captain Antonio oblige us by
a bolero or fandango? Most readily, he answered, but he must have a
partner; of course,--so we went down into the kitchen, and, after much
pressing, up came the daughters of the house, Pepita and little Pepita,
Maria, and a friend as young and pretty and playful as themselves. The
brother, our little waiter, threw aside his napkin and took up the
gipsy’s guitar as naturally as if he had been a musician by profession;
one of the young ladies, after a little coyness, consented to become
Captain Antonio’s partner, and the dance commenced,--that musical,
monotonous dance, so popular among the pleasure-loving Andalusians. But
to gain a thorough idea of a gipsy dance, you must get up what is called
a _funcion_,--rather a costly affair; that is to say, you must invite a
troop of gipsies, who will not come to dance and sing and play to you
without being well paid. Captain Antonio every one should hear and see;
he is quite a genius, and if enticed to London or Paris, would create a
sensation. We said to him,--
“You should purchase a better guitar, Señor Antonio, and go to London.
You would come home a rich man.”
He smiled, showing his glittering white teeth and shook his head:--
“I have a wife and five children, Señora,” he replied; “London is too
far off.”
And he did not like the disparagement of his guitar, I think, for he
took it up and tuned it in a caressing sort of way, as if it were a
living pet we had been slighting.
There is nothing of romance left to the gipsies in Spain now but their
costume, even that fast disappearing, and their music. When Borrow wrote
of them more than sixty years ago, he speaks of the happy effects of
Charles the Third’s edicts, which, by admitting the gipsies into the
pale of civilised society, has done more than the fierce persecutions of
his predecessors to assimilate this savage race with others. Ferdinand
and Isabella and the Philips, did their utmost to put down what they
called the Egyptians, publishing edict after edict against them, but in
vain. Whilst they were a proscribed caste, whilst the very privilege of
sanctuary was denied them, whilst they were hunted down and persecuted
by fire and sword, the Egyptians, or Gitanos, flourished and had their
palmy days; murdering, stealing, cheating, telling fortunes, hating the
Busnees, and all who were not Romanys, to their heart’s content.
_Gitanisimo_--that is to say, quoting Borrow, gipsy villany of every
description, flourished till _Gitanisimo_ was declared to be no more.
Charles the Third, in 1733, published a humane edict in which he
declared the gipsies capable of following any career of arts and
sciences, and altogether ignored that they were a separate people,
amenable to separate laws. What was the consequence? _The law of Carlos
Tercero has superseded gipsy law_, say the gipsies a little regretfully.
_Gitanisimo_, or gipsydom, if not wholly transformed, has been modified.
The gipsies no longer wander about living by murder and theft. The women
still tell fortunes, and the men, as dealers in horses and mules, are
not to be trusted, but they are everywhere spoken of as a poor and
harmless set of people; and though the instinct of caste is just as
strong as ever among themselves, they are no longer feared or hated. At
the time Borrow wrote the gipsies in Spain numbered 40,000 souls; at the
commencement of the present century they numbered only 20,000, so that
the race here, as elsewhere, seems dying out, or, at any rate, greatly
decreasing. Indeed, nothing else could have been expected of them. Wild
animals from African deserts are not more out of place, caged in English
gardens, than these kings and queens of savagedom compelled to sleep
under a roof, and to consider killing as murder. But their dancing and
music are worthy of a less lawless and terrible race, and are _cosas de
España_, not to be missed by any travellers.
In the afternoon we drove to the Albaycin, or old town, in search of
pottery. The views from this part of Granada are very fine, but the
inhabitants are so unused to the sight of travellers, and are such
strange, half-civilised beings, that you are hardly able to see
anything. We alighted in one place to walk a few yards, and in a moment,
as wasps gather round a fallen peach, we were surrounded by a youthful
rabble who looked at us suspiciously, and not content with that, caught
hold of our clothes, begged from us, laughed at us--all but tore us to
pieces. We had left our coachman behind, as we had come by a way not
_carrossable_, in order to see a view, and our poor old guide was wholly
inefficient to keep off the tribe of persecutors. Two or three big
gipsyish girls of twelve or thirteen, caught hold of his coat, and I
expected to see his pockets attacked every moment. The noise and
noisomeness of this dirty, unkempt mob of juveniles no words can
describe. Bensaken’s mild reproof, “Are not these señoras like other
señoras? why do you behave so rudely to them?” had no effect. We lost
temper, shook our umbrellas threateningly, scolded, and pushed on, never
waiting to see the view, and only too glad to close the carriage-door on
the merciless, miserable little rabble. Any Englishwoman venturing alone
in the streets of the Albaycin would have reason to regret such a piece
of audacity as long as she lived. I believe she would be pelted with mud
and stones. Nothing is too bad to expect from those awful children. What
are the priests after, that they are left in such a state of savagedom?
But the Albaycin has pleasanter aspects. Bensaken now took us to a
little spot far away from the scene of our persecution, and we soon
found ourselves in a scene so peaceful, so poetic, and so lovely, that
the ugly dream faded away from our memories. It was the potter’s house
we had come to see. The outer walls were whitewashed and bare, after the
fashion of Moorish houses, but no sooner was the threshold passed than
all was life and colour.
Picture to yourselves a sunny little court with a fountain in the midst,
pots of flowers here and there, dogs basking in the sun, pigeons
fluttering over head, and rows of lustrous pottery, blue, green, yellow,
and brown, placed against the walls, or heaped up in the corners. We
entered a little sitting-room and were made welcome by the whole family.
There was a grandmother, an aunt, a cousin, and I do not know how many
more, but I am only concerned with the young potter and his mother. The
first was a lad of nineteen, with quite an artist’s face, sensitive,
refined, full of happy expression; the second was a handsome, portly
creature, a regular type of the Andalusian matron, and as ready to sing
or dance a bolero, as the youngest of her daughters.
We were enchanted with the pottery, which is often rude in shape and
colouring, but never without a certain childish grace and feeling for
art. Some of the designs are wonderfully good, bold, simple, and unique,
whilst the coloured patterns often testify a richness of fancy and
comprehension of decorative art, quite astonishing in artists so
untaught. The prevailing colour is dark rich blue, reminding one of old
Wedgwood, and there is always a liberality of imagination both in shape
and ornament; no vases or dishes are alike either in the one respect or
the other. But, alas! cheap as this quaint pottery is, and plentiful as
it would be if appreciated, the manufactures of France and England are
taking its place, and by-and-by travellers will have to look far and
wide for specimens of it.
The boy seemed delighted at our appreciation of his work, and took us
into his atelier. It reminded us of the prophet who said, “I went down
into the potter’s house, and he wrought a work on the wheels,” the place
was so primitive and Eastern. The young potter sat down at his work, and
fashioned a dish for us; then he took up one already “tried in the
fire,” and showed us his manner of colouring. It was quite beautiful to
see the dexterity with which he worked, and the fondness with which he
regarded his work. We tried our hand and found the matter not so easy as
it had appeared.
When we had seen enough and made our purchases, noticing a guitar that
lay near, we asked for some music. The request was granted smilingly.
Our young potter sat down and played a fandango, his mother and one of
the younger women dancing for us. They were all so kindly pleasant, and
so amused at being able to amuse us.
We bade these nice people adieu with some regret, and hoped that all
other travellers would be guided by some lucky star to their pretty
Moorish “potter’s house.” It was pretty enough to make us forget all
other diabolical spirits haunting the Albaycin, or old town of Granada.
In the modern town, there is little to be seen excepting a very
beautiful old Moorish _passage_, with horse-shoe arches, sculptured
friezes, and delicate marble columns. Of course, this will soon be a
thing of tradition only, but whilst it lasts, it is perfectly Eastern
and very picturesque. I went out shopping several times, though it
requires an effort to quit the fairy-like region of the Alhambra, and
descend into such dingy, ill-paved, smelling streets.
One morning, to our infinite consternation, we found that we had come to
an end of our books. We looked into each other’s faces with dismay, and
turned over our treasures again and again. Yes, it was but too true. We
had read Ford from beginning to end, we had read _Don Quixote_, we had
read our beloved Street, our Stirling, our Borrow, our one volume of
Wordsworth, our guides and geographies, our _Vie de Cervantes_, again
and again; and last, but not least, our Benjamin of books, viz., Owen
Jones’ _Handbook to the Alhambra_. We had even devoured with avidity
some odd chapters of French novels, given for translation into Spanish,
in a little book recommended to me by my Spanish master in Madrid. And
as to newspapers, a number of the _Petit Journal_ would have been a mine
of wealth to us, in this intellectual desert. We had purchased a stray
copy of a Granada paper, grandiosely called, _El Triumfo Granadino_, and
found it a very poor affair indeed, made up of gossip, poor jokes,
advertisements, and feuilleton.
We were confidently assured that there were books in plenty to be
obtained in the town, English, French, or in Spanish, so I set off in
the search, Bensaken accompanying me.
“Mind,” said my friend, “and bring home something light, witty, and
entertaining. A good French novel or two, or one of the last Tauchnitz
editions.”
I promised to do my best, but experience proved that there was no
judgment to be exercised in the matter. It was simply a case of Hobson’s
choice. There was only one bookseller’s shop, and in that bookseller’s
shop was only one book--that is to say, available book. The bookseller,
a very nonchalant person indeed, smoked a cigarette, and chatted with a
neighbour, whilst I investigated his stock in trade.
On the first shelf stood a row of school-books and penny parts of cheap
illustrated editions of Cervantes, Paul de Koch, Eugene Sue, and _Gil
Blas_; on the second, were a few novels of Alex. Dumas, fils, in the
well-known green covers, at a franc each; on the third, were, firstly,
Victor Hugo’s _Travailleurs de Mer_; secondly, an odd volume of Byron;
thirdly, the American edition of Washington Irving’s _Tales of the
Alhambra_; fourthly, an English story, called _Once and Again_,
published by Tauchnitz. The first-named books we had, of course, read;
but oh! how greedily I seized upon that little English story, and
carried it home with me! How we gloried in the possession of it, and
glowed over the love-story of it! The book was by no means stirring as a
story, or first-rate as a work of art, but we had been living without
novels for months past, and it was like being made quite youthful again.
If ever it be my fate to meet the author of that little story in the
flesh, I mean to thank her for the pleasure she gave us in a bookless
“city of Tarshish.”
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CHAPTER XI.
THE ARCHBISHOP BLESSES THE ENGINE, AND WE HELP HIM.--DELIGHTFUL
LOJA.--A FUNNY DINNER.--STARLIGHT, TWILIGHT, MORNING.
We “had heard, but not believed,” that the line of railway between
Granada and Malaga, as far as Loja, was to be opened on or about the day
we proposed leaving; and we determined that, if the train really ran, we
would be among its first passengers. But oh! the dreary difficulty of
learning anything from anybody about anything in Spain! We ran hither
and thither, we despatched messenger after messenger, but in vain; “_“No
sé_,” I know nothing--was the invariable answer received in each case,
and the nearer the time approached, the greater seemed the uncertainty.
But had it not been officially announced, and were we not bound to
believe an official announcement in official Spain, however at fault
individual information might be? So we quietly allowed all doubts and
disbeliefs to clear from our minds, and declared our intention of
proceeding to Loja by the first train, trusting to miracles that the
train would run. There is nothing like trusting to miracles in Spain.
You are promised that such and such a thing shall be done; you speculate
anxiously, it may be, but of necessity, curiously, as to the how and the
when; you wait, and wait, and wait, and without any apparent
intervention, the thing grows up like the prophet’s gourd.
So it was in this case. Nobody took any trouble about the train; no one
seemed responsible for the starting of the train; no one but ourselves
wanted to start by the train, and yet, after all, the train went. It was
like the old nursery story--water wouldn’t quench fire, fire wouldn’t
burn stick, stick wouldn’t beat pig, pig wouldn’t get over the stile,
and on a sudden water began to quench fire, fire began to burn stick,
stick began to beat pig, etc.
The train was to start for Loja at twelve o’clock precisely, but, of
course, we were driven to the station a good hour and a half in advance.
What a laughable scene it was! All the wags of Granada had come out to
see the train start, quite believing, I am sure, that it would not start
that day. The Andalusian is light-hearted, ready-witted, and prone to
say smart things. Here was a fine occasion of quibs and puns, and it was
not neglected. The train was treated like a charlatan or tumbler who has
promised to perform a certain trick, and at the eleventh hour would fain
call off. Every one and every thing connected with it came in for a
share of raillery, the priests who were to consecrate it, the guards who
were to drive it, the stokers who were to keep it going, the passengers
who were going by it, and the crowd who came to see it.
The very beasts of burden seemed to be in league against that
unfortunate train. We had driven down to the station in an omnibus drawn
by two handsome mules, that had been docile as possible on former
occasions, but, like all true-born Granadinos, they were thorough-going
conservatives, and would have nothing whatever to say to the train. So,
no sooner had we got in sight of the engine and line of carriages, than
they kicked, pranced, and, finally, ran right into a ditch. They were
stormed at, whipped, pulled, and coaxed out somehow; but neither blows
nor entreaties could induce them to move a step nearer the platform.
This incident naturally offered food for merriment to the wags, who
seemed divided between their admiration of the mules who wouldn’t
approach the train, and of amusement at the unfortunate travellers whom
they had upset. Having, after some delay, procured our tickets, we
crossed over to the platform, where a little crowd was already assembled
to witness the inaugural ceremony. By-and-by, two or three sacristans
appeared and erected a temporary altar, trimming it with gay artificial
flowers and ribbon. Then there was a pause of some minutes, at the end
of which came the Archbishop of Granada, dressed in gorgeous purple
vestments, accompanied by several priests. The Archbishop had a grand
look, irrespective of his robes. He was an old man with beautiful
features and a pure, intellectual expression. The priests would have
looked coarse and commonplace anywhere, but by the side of him they
looked doubly so; indeed a stronger term than either of these might have
been applied to them. They had almost a vicious look. And now the
candles were lighted, the Archbishop put on his mitre, the crowd fell on
their knees and the ceremony began. A litany was chanted first of all, I
think; then a prayer was read; and, last of all, the engine was
sprinkled with holy water, and the crowd received a benediction.
Everybody seemed a little _distrait_ except the good old Archbishop,
which was, perhaps, natural. How could people think of anything serious
at such an exciting time?
As soon as the consecration had finished the train really did start, and
great was the stir and loud the cheering, as we began to move off. It
was a sight to see the wall of eager faces on either side of us as we
glided slowly out of Granada. There were old men and women of ninety,
who held up their trembling hands and called on the Virgin in wonder;
there were _gamins_ and children of all sizes, who stood open-mouthed at
the sight; there were middle-aged peasants from the mountains, who
became children, too, in their great bewilderment. If only a John Leech
had been there to see and to sketch!
The cheers and shouts broke out intermittingly all the way to Loja, like
the signal fires that told of the taking of Troy from Asia to Greece. At
every village or station, or convenient point of sight, had collected
crowds of peasants, ladies in mantillas, priests, _arrieros_, and all
seemed disposed to welcome the new era.
The journey to Loja was beautiful. We had a good view of the Sierra
Nevada for the greater part of the way, and the fields of snow lying
lightly on the lapis lazuli mountains had a dreamy and sweet effect.
We reached Loja in about two hours. All the town had turned out to see
the train come in, and the platform was a gay scene with its tiers of
brightly-dressed ladies, fanning themselves in the sun. Spanish crowds
are never in a hurry to disperse, so we quietly waited half-an-hour in
our cosy carriage, by the end of which time we saw a little room on the
platform for ourselves, our bags, and our books.
A good-tempered, well-dressed man packed the latter on his donkey’s
back, and accompanied us to the town, about three-quarters of a mile
from the station. It was a very pretty walk along the river-side, and
the sky was of brilliant burning blue. Our light water-proof travelling
cloaks were much too warm.
Loja is very interesting and beautiful. We should like to have remained
there a month. The Parador was not a luxurious place; but if
white-washed walls, brick floors nicely sanded, a wash-hand basin, and
clean beds, are not enough to satisfy a weary traveller, what would be?
We rested on our beds delightfully for an hour, and then descended to
see if there was any possibility of getting mules and saddles for a
little excursion. But there was none: so, taking a guide with us, we set
out on foot. We strolled first through the narrow, crooked, Moorish-like
streets to the river-side, where we found a scene quite unique in tone
and colour. From the side of a lofty rock issued ten springs of crystal
water, and around each were gathered peasant women, in red and yellow
petticoats, busily washing their gay rags of clothing in the sunset. The
brilliant hues of the sky, the gay dresses of the women, the dark rocks,
the limpid river, the old Moorish fort that towered above all, made a
picture not easily to be forgotten; but when we had climbed to the fort,
and looked across the Alpuxarras flaming in the last rays of the sun,
and the bright green plain below, and the river narrowing to a thread in
the distance, we thought we had seen no more beautiful view in Spain.
The fort is now turned into a prison, and to reach the rampart we had to
pass through a low, gloomy room, full of soldiers and convicts returning
from their day’s labour on the railway. Wherever there is road-making or
rail-making to be done in Spain, you see lines of prisoners at work
linked in twos and fours, under strong military surveillance; which
seems a healthy and profitable prison system. We sat down on a broken
wall overgrown with prickly cactus, and watched the sun set over
mountain and plain, river and village, whilst our guide chatted with the
soldiers about themselves, their neighbours, and their doings. A Spanish
guide is not in the least conventional. He undertakes to conduct you to
a certain place, and there his responsibility ends; he does not bore you
with historical and geographical facts; he never knows anything about
anything; he picks up a companion on the way, and, whilst smoking his
tiny cigarette, talks over the affairs of the place. Our present
cicerone was no exception to this rule. He had called for a friend as we
came through the town, and the two young men, who were very intelligent
and well-mannered, seemed to enjoy the walk as much as we did. They
spoke no French, of course; but our imperfect Spanish never elicited a
smile from them. The Moro-Andalusian has certainly imbibed dignity of
bearing as well as other good things from the Arab.
After enjoying to the utmost the magical splendours of the sunset and
the sweet mountain air that seemed to blow from all corners of the
earth, we descended to the town and our parador. We were somewhat
footsore, and no wonder; for the pavement of Loja is a sort of hardbake,
of flints and stone.
At six o’clock we descended to dinner, and what a funny dinner it was!
The _comedor_, or _salle à manger_, was as big as a barn, and at the
upper end sat ten commercial travellers, laughing and talking with the
black-eyed, noisy mistress of the house. The cloth had been laid just
anyhow, and the dishes were brought on anyhow too. We helped ourselves
to plates and knives, and then to whatever came in the way. The fare was
certainly bountiful. First, came soup; secondly, the favourite dish of
_lengua de vaca_, or hot ox-tongue; thirdly, an odd mess of cabbage and
broth; fourthly, pork--for the Spaniards, as Ford says, combine Bacon
with Belief,--not good; fifthly, partridges, very good; lastly, raisins,
figs, cakes, and coffee. But it was the behaviour of our landlady that
made the dinner so entertaining. She seemed to think it incumbent upon
her, being hostess, to keep her guests in a roar of laughter, _ab ovo
usque ad mala_. She spoke so fast, and used so many proverbs, and
provincial expressions, that it was very difficult to catch her meaning;
but she went over the ground again for our benefit sometimes, and seemed
delighted to make us laugh too. Proverb followed proverb, repartee came
after repartee, story after story, till the peals of laughter became so
deafening that we were glad to retire to our rooms.
Will it be believed that we had to wait till midnight for the
diligence? Fancy having to wait at Tavistock ten hours for the
Launceston coach! But the truth is, that the railway company and the
diligence company don’t like each other at all, and between them both
unfortunate travellers have a hard time of it. We had to pay the full
diligence fare from Granada to Malaga, though we only took places from
Loja to Malaga, and the railway fare for the two hours journey from
Granada to Loja was so high that I verily believe we paid the whole
railway fare too. I name this imposition as an exceptional fact in our
Spanish experiences. We had both travelled a good deal, in America,
Algeria, Italy, Germany, and we were constantly saying to ourselves,
when discussing the matters of bills, waiters, porterage, and all other
things incidental to travellers, “They manage these things better in
Spain.” I cannot too strongly condemn the unfair assertions of English
travellers about Spain and the Spaniards; and I name the
Grenada-Loja-Malaga Unlimited Travellers’ Discomfort Company, because
the treatment we received at their hands was wholly unprecedented
throughout our travels in the Peninsula.
But the waiting at Loja was by no means disagreeable, even when night
came on, for we lay on our comfortable beds, and drowsed and dreamed
till midnight, when we were suddenly aroused by the diligence dashing up
the street, horn blowing, bells jingling, whips cracking, driver
hallooing. The noise was so sudden, and so infernal, that the very night
seemed too disturbed to settle into silence again. To add to it, in
rushed our hostess hurried and excited to such a pitch that you would
have fancied it must be at least an earthquake that so disturbed her,
crying, “La diligencia! La diligencia!” “Yes,” we said, quietly putting
on our bonnets, “we heard it.”
But she did not heed our answer, and rushed about the room, snatching up
our bags and bundles, knocking down coffee-cups and glasses, and still
crying “La diligencia! La diligencia!” The broken crockery and the spilt
coffee only increased her agitation, and she dashed out of the room as
she had dashed in, leaving us no little amused and amazed at so much
energy displayed upon so trifling an occasion.
We quite enjoyed the journey to Malaga. First came the starlight and
the weird, wild aspect of plain and sierra; then the cold grey dawn and
the re-creation of the world from end to end; then the lovely flush of
sunrise over the many-coloured hills, as if of altar fires raised to the
Power that had created them.
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CHAPTER XII.
WE GET TO ALGECIRAS, AND ARE MADE WRETCHED.--THE FAT SPANIARD AND
THE LEAN ENGLISHMAN.--A RED-LETTER DAY AT GIBRALTAR.--THE
LIGHTS.--ADIEU TO EUROPE.
All the old difficulties about boats recommenced at Malaga; and, much as
we disliked the place, which seemed to have grown dustier and fishier
since we had left it, we were obliged to remain there several days. At
last we learned somehow that there was a boat, named the _Adriana_,
doing weekly services between Malaga and Algeciras, and Malaga and
Tangiers, and that, as all communication by sea between Malaga and
Gibraltar had ceased on account of the cholera, on the _Adriana_ we must
build all our hopes.
But, as luck would have it, she had left the harbour just as we had come
in, so that there was nothing to do but await her return, and pray for
fair weather. What made our very fates, as it were, hang upon the
_Adriana_, was the information received by telegram that a boat left
Gibraltar for Oran on the following Friday. It was now Monday, and,
according to all accounts, the _Adriana_ was to return on Tuesday or
Wednesday, and go to Algeciras the next day. But Tuesday passed, and
Wednesday came; and people prophesied bad weather; and the _Adriana_ did
not appear. Cervantes and his fellow-captives at Algiers hardly looked
oftener for the ship that was to deliver them, than did we for the
_Adriana_. We were always running down to the beach and straining our
eyes after some imaginary sail. But none appeared; and we were dining in
rather a melancholy state at the prospect of losing our boat to Oran,
when the master of the hotel sent us a message that the _Adriana_ had
arrived, and would set out for Algeciras at seven o’clock next morning.
We had splendid weather for the trip. The dawn was grey and pearly, and
from its heart, like some gorgeous bird slowly soaring from a dusky
nest, arose the warm, brilliant, southern day. The sea was smooth as a
lake; the sky of deepest, warmest blue; the mountains, of loveliest form
and colour; the little sailing boats, fairy things, seen in so enchanted
a scene and atmosphere! Words, indeed, fail to give any idea of this
beautiful coast scenery; but it must be seen on such a day as we saw it.
One is not accustomed to think much of the beauty of Gibraltar, and the
first sight of it was quite a surprise to me. The Cornish coast has no
finer view than this colossal mass of limestone rock, and the colour of
it, so grey and silvery, and so soft, against a light-blue sky, is
something indescribable.
We had been assured again and again that we should reach Algeciras in
time to get into Gibraltar that night; but, as the afternoon wore on,
public opinion on board veered. The captain, who seemed quite confident
about the matter at noon, shook his head gravely an hour later.
“You doubt,” I said, “whether we shall reach Algeciras in time, or
whether we shall find means of getting into Gibraltar?”
“I doubt both,” he replied.
“But,” I continued, “we are going to start for Oran by the steamer that
leaves Gibraltar to-morrow. It is absolutely necessary that we get into
Gibraltar to-night, or the steamer may have left.”
“I don’t say that you can’t do it, Señora,” he said; “but there are
difficulties. It is difficult to get into Gibraltar by sea at all, on
account of the quarantine, and after four o’clock it is impossible.” He
pulled out his watch. “I am afraid by the time we reach Algeciras it
will be too late for that. As to riding round the bay, if we get into
harbour in pretty good time, and if you can get horses, and if it is
tolerably light, why you can do it, of course.”
There was nothing to do but wait; but the Captain’s prognostics
proved true. We did not reach Algeciras in time to get into
Gibraltar--supposing there had been boats to take us, which there were
not; and as to the latter part of his speech, that was also true; for
there was no obstacle in the way of riding round the bay that night,
except that there were no horses; and if there had been horses, there
was no time; and if there had been time, there was no light.
There is only one inn at Algeciras, and hither flocked all the unhappy
passengers by the _Adriana_, clamouring for horses, mules, boats,
guides, anything so long as they could get into Gibraltar that night.
It was a cry of “A horse, a horse, a kingdom for a horse!” you would
have fancied that everybody’s life hung upon getting into Gibraltar. I
think some gentlemen did get horses, but they were exceptions; and the
little inn was so crowded as to present the appearance of a camp. Beds
were made up _ex improviso_ all over the house, and we had to content
ourselves with a hole of a room, boasting neither window nor chimney,
nor chair, nor table, nor, indeed, any furniture but two beds, and fleas
innumerable.
Before retiring to this cell for the night, however, we had a very good
dinner, seasoned with some racy gossip of Gibraltar life. We were too
tired to dine at the _table d’hôte_ (if you are wise, avoid _table
d’hôtes_ when possible), and preferred to eat the crumbs that fell from
other travellers’ tables afterwards. These were served to us in a
pleasant little _comedor_, looking towards beautiful, inhospitable
Gibraltar, with its thousand lights shining like tiers of stars above
the dark blue bay. The waiter, who called himself an Englishman, though
on what grounds I cannot precisely determine--perhaps because he was
born in sound of Gibraltar gun-fire--served the dinner, and then sat
down to see us eat. He was so young, so evidently overworked, and so
unconventional as a waiter, that we took this familiarity as a matter of
course, and listened to what he had to say.
“You seem to be the only waiter in the place,” we said; “how do you
manage to attend upon everybody?”
He sighed a very long sigh.
“Yes, it’s awful work,” he said, in his queer Gibraltar English, “since
the Quarantine regulation keeps everybody out of Gib. I am ready to drop
of fatigue now, and this has been going on for weeks. We don’t get to
bed till midnight, and we are up at four or five o’clock in the morning,
and sleep just anywhere. The Quarantine is worse than the cholera, ten
times.”
“You are English?” I asked, a little cautiously.
“The Lord be praised, I am! Oh! the Spaniards are a bad set, I assure
you; and don’t we pitch into ’em when we get a chance! It was not very
long ago that we had a regular fight, six Englishmen against six
Spaniards, all of us young men, and the Spaniards came off very
shabbily. We killed one outright.”
“How shocking! but do you mean to say that the police don’t interfere?”
“That’s as it happens. The English have no business here in Algeciras,
you know, and if the Spanish gendarmes disturbed themselves whenever
knives are drawn, they’d have an uneasy time of it.”
He went on to tell us some more stories about the state of society in
Algeciras, which we took _cum grano salis_, having no personal
experience of it.
“Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?” was not applicable to the
unfortunate people whom unhospitable Gib. had driven into Algeciras. We
dined pretty well because we were not dainty; but so stringent were the
Quarantine regulations, that such refreshing luxuries as lemonade,
vegetables, and fresh fruits could not be had for love or money.
Whatever we asked for, and we only asked for very simple things, “was at
Gibraltar;” indeed, everything was at Gibraltar--except the fleas.
We went to bed early, having ordered horses and Spanish saddles at six
o’clock next morning; but the fleas would let us have no sleep. There
was no armour against them but Spanish patience. Glad indeed were we
when morning came, and, after a hasty toilet and a cup of horrible
coffee, we descended to the street, being informed that the horses were
ready. The word _ready_ does not however bear its English signification
in Spain. If you have ordered a horse in England and you are told it is
ready, you know that you have only to put on hat and gloves and mount.
In Spain, it suffices for an animal to exist, or for a thing to be known
to be somewhere, and they are both ready. We had made, perhaps, an
unwise bargain, but the only one that seemed possible to make, in
ordering horses of two proprietors, two of a very big Spaniard and one
of a very small Englishman. Of course this led to all sorts of
complications, but I must tell my story from the beginning. In the first
place, on being told that the horses were ready, and not finding them on
the spot, we sent a man to look after the lad who had gone to look after
the little boy who had gone to look after the horses that the Spaniard
and Englishman had promised to send, but didn’t. When the man had come
back to say that the lad told him that the little boy told him that the
men told him they were coming, we resigned ourselves for a little while,
and, by-and-by, the men and the horses did indeed come. But then ensued
an altercation as fierce as any detailed by Homer. It was like the fable
of the big boy with the little coat, and the little boy with the big
coat. The Englishman’s horse was small, but he had only a large saddle,
and the Spaniard had only a small saddle for a very large horse. There
was what is popularly called a “row,” and the inhabitants of Algeciras
turned out like a swarm of bees to see and hear and take part in it.
This commotion lasted nearly an hour, and not till two hours from the
time of our descent into the street did we set off.
The ride round the bay was so full of gracious, soothing beauty, that we
soon forgot all the discomforts gone through before. The atmosphere of
early morning is always delicious in the South; and, to-day, the pale
blue bay, the green heights, the glistening white sands, the terraced
city, and the grey rocks, seen through so transparent a medium, looked
more like a reflexion of a beautiful scene than a scene itself.
We rode quite close to the water’s edge, and the musical plashing of the
waves, and the sweetness and softness of the air, would have healed any
weariness of flesh and spirit, I think. We were weary enough at
starting, but had grown quite fresh and strong by the time we had
reached the “Lines.”
The only drawback to this delightful ride was the garrulousness of my
guide. The fat Spaniard had placed himself, with all the baggage, on his
strongest horse, and led the way, looking the picture of slothful,
self-indulgent _nonchalance_; my friend rode his second horse,
comfortably mounted on a Spanish saddle; I followed on the little
Englishman’s horse, a small, incapable beast, who had evidently been
over-worked and ill-fed during the last few busy weeks.
There are some people, luckily very few, who inspire one with
instinctive repugnance, and this little Englishman, as he called
himself, was one. He was so small, freckled, and ugly, so conceited, and
so envious of the big Spaniard, that he reminded one of the frog in
Æsop’s fables, which tried to blow itself out to the size of the ox.
“Look at that fellow going there,” he said in his queer Gibraltar
English, and pointing to his enemy; “he is the worst man in the world,
and would as soon stick a knife into you as look at you. Just because I
set up as horse-dealer and letter, he spites me so that he would kill me
if he dared; but I’m an Englishman, and he just knows that he’d better
keep his hands off me. He is as mad as a hornet because you English
ladies employed me, although he hadn’t another horse in the world. When
English travellers come to Algeciras, whom do you suppose they would
employ, Señora, an Englishman or a Spaniard?”
“Why, I suppose they would pick the best horses,” I replied wickedly;
“that is the most important point.”
He looked at his own poor brute a little ruefully. “I’d back my horse
against any in Gibraltar when he is fresh,” he said, “but he went this
same journey late last night, and has been hacking at it for days.”
“Precisely,” I answered, “he can only just put one foot before the
other, and if the saddle hurts him as much as it does me, the sooner I
get off the better for both of us.”
“Yes, I know the saddle goes badly,” he went on in the same aggrieved
tone; “but it’s all that bad man’s fault. His saddle just fits Bobby
here, and this one is just twice too big. I ran home and got the very
pillows from under my wife’s head, who is ill of ague, but they slip off
like nothing.”
“I’m sorry you robbed your wife of her pillows,” I said; “but, pillows
or no pillows, my saddle is as uneven as a gridiron, whilst the Señora
yonder rides as comfortably as possible.”
“Oh! yes; that bad man is rich, you know, and can afford to have
everything nice. It’s just such men as he who eat up poor young
beginners like us.”
“Of course,” I answered, coolly; “the man may be bad or good, but so
long as he supplies good horses and comfortable saddles, he’ll find
customers--though he is a Spaniard, and were to run a knife into
somebody every night.” And with this conclusion, we concluded.
We were now on English ground, and fancied ourselves in England. The
change happened all on a sudden. We had been in Spain a few minutes
back. Spain was not a hundred yards off, and now we were at home, among
home-like faces, friendly voices, and familiar scenes; and over our
heads, on the crest of the grand old rock waved the jolly “Union Jack.”
There was a hunt outside the town, and we met parties of officers in
scarlet, accompanied by fair-haired girls, managing their thoroughbreds
as only Englishwomen can; groups of red-haired, clear-complexioned
Highlanders, stood about the camps, and the infantine population of some
English village seemed out at play on the grass; sturdy housewives were
cooking, washing, and nursing babies in the tents; the roads were no
longer break-neck bridle-tracks, but real, broad, smooth roads, hard and
fit for use; the Spanish soldier, in tight moccasins and short brown
cloak, had disappeared as if by magic, giving way to the scarlet coat
and the tartan.
The “Spanish lines” are, indeed, no more nor less than a handful of
houses called by courtesy the town of La Linea. In Ford’s time, La Linea
consisted of “a few miserable hovels, the lair of greedy officials, who
live on the crumbs of Gibraltar;” at least so he writes of it in 1839,
but we were assured that there is a decent inn at La Linea now, and that
it is quite possible for belated travellers to sleep there. The contrast
between Spain and England--two opposed countries placed in such strange
juxtaposition--is most striking. You pass in five minutes from a land of
sleepy, blissful lethargy to a stirring, bustling, look-alive sea-port
and garrison town. I dare say Gibraltar would not be a pleasant place to
live in, but after spending so many weeks among people who think nothing
in the world worth hurrying about, and no one’s time of the slightest
importance whatever, it was delightful to breathe the business-like,
martial air of the place. You cannot help doing in Spain as the
Spaniards do, and by the time you have traversed the length and breadth
of Old Castile and Andalusia, you must be of a very unimpressionable
temperament indeed if you have not imbibed the _genius loci_, that
indescribable Oriental habit of living from morning to night without the
least inclination to trouble oneself about anything under the sun.
Here, in Gibraltar, you feel at once subjected to the military spirit
that rules it. The streets are alive with music; the sharp fife, the
warlike cornet, the rolling drum; there is always a “recall” being
sounded, or a _réveillé_, or a gun being fired. You might fancy war was
going on from the constant bustling to and fro of regiments and
recurrence of signals. And there is a stirring air about the streets
which is quite new. The town is alive with people, all intent on
business or pleasure, and if you have any business on hand, you find
means of doing it quickly and satisfactorily.
The day was delicious, and at the Club-house Hotel we were met by my
friend’s cousin, Colonel----, who carried us off to his pretty house
outside the town, and introduced us to his wife and beautiful little
fair-haired child. The house commanded a lovely view of the sea, and
was surrounded by roses and geraniums in full bloom; otherwise we might
have imagined ourselves in England, so thoroughly English was the tone
of the household. We had a long, busy, delightful day at Gibraltar,
driving about in Colonel----’s pretty English carriage; and the very
name of the place will always be pleasant to me on account of the
wonders of nature and art we saw there, the brilliant atmosphere that
made every impression doubly vivid, above all, the graceful and hearty
hospitality of our host and hostess. Gibraltar is magnificent. Sorry,
indeed, were we that we could not see it better and make it the
head-quarters of excursions to Ronda, Tangiers, and Tetuan. As it was,
we saw something of the stupendous galleries tunnelled in the rock,
something of the bastions and batteries, something of the marvellous
scenery from the heights, and something of the gay, rattling,
picturesque town. We saw nothing of the apes--a little colony who have
the topmost crags all to themselves, and are most religiously and wholly
tabooed, no one being allowed to molest or kill them--and nothing of
the three hundred classes of plants, which are said to flourish on the
rock. Neither did we see anything of those picturesque Ronda smugglers
whom Captain Scott describes so enthusiastically in his travels
published nearly thirty years ago. But we saw enough of Gibraltar to
leave it with regret and to look upon our last day in Spain--for I
suppose I may so call it--as one of the brightest.
At nine o’clock gun-fire we left the port in an open boat, and after an
hour’s rowing reached our steamer, the _Spahis_. The night was glorious,
and the sea as smooth as glass. Overhead shone myriads of large bright
stars, and the lights of Gibraltar made a lesser, but hardly less
brilliant, firmament lower down. We thought, as we looked alternately at
those shining fields above and below, we had happy auspices for our
onward journey.
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CHAPTER XIII.
A BRIDAL PARTY.--HORRIBLE STORIES.--A LONG DAY.--THE CAID AND THE
DRIVER.--A NEW ATMOSPHERE.--TCLEMCEN.
We had originally intended to take tickets for Oran, but finding that
the _Spahis_, if weather permitting, stopped at a little town called
Nemours, we resolved to stop there. By this plan we saved ourselves a
day and a night at sea, and alighted at a point on the African coast
much nearer Tclemcen than Oran. The weather favoured us. When we awoke
next morning the sun shone bright and warm in a cloudless sky, and the
steamer was gliding gently as a swan over the still, lake-like waters.
This sea-passage between Gibraltar and Oran is a dull one, and in our
case it was especially so, as we were the only first-class passengers,
excepting an old French gentleman, an _employé_ of the Imperial
Messagerie Company, who, with his son and daughter-in-law--a bride of a
few days--was bound also to Nemours.
One great resource was a bundle of English newspapers kindly supplied to
us at Gibraltar, and we pored over them from morning till the early
twilight, when there was a ringing of bells and a smell of dinner, and
an air of liveliness among the little company on board.
I joined the _table d’hôte_, and found it very amusing. The captain had
travelled all over the world, and had evidently made use of his eyes and
ears everywhere, and the bridal party were by no means dull. After
dinner the father-in-law ordered champagne, and the officers were
invited in to drink the health of the little bride. She, poor child, was
a little overcome, what with her new honour as Madame, sea-sickness, and
the prospect of exile at Nemours; but all the rest were merry enough,
and when we retired to our cabin we heard their talk and laughter till
late in the night. There was not much time to sleep, for about three
o’clock we were told to dress ourselves in readiness for the boat, and
an hour later we went on deck. It was cold and fine. The sea was
perfectly calm, but we heard it breaking on the shore with an angry,
threatening sound, and we saw in the dim, grey light, what a rocky coast
it was, and what a barrier there was, against which the smoothest sea
could not break silently. Nemours is, indeed, no harbour, but a mere
_rade_, and only approachable in the calmest weather, and by small
boats. A hard pull our good boatmen had of it ere we could reach the
landing-place, and the poor bride shivered in her thin summer dress.
“I was married in such a hurry,” she had said to me, “that mamma had no
time to prepare anything, and all my clothes are to be sent after me;”
but it seemed to me that a good warm shawl for the sea-journey would not
have required much preparation. However, we wrapped her up in spare rugs
and great-coats, and I think she took no harm.
We had to be carried ashore one at a time, and I thought of Gilliat, and
of the sea-faring life Victor Hugo has portrayed so fantastically, when
savage-looking men, their bare limbs shining like bronze in the pearly
light, dashed into the water, and bore us to the strand as easily as if
we were babies.
Much as we had enjoyed Spain, how glad we were to find ourselves in
France again, especially in African France!--to find ourselves speaking,
as it were, our native language, and not having to try at the stately
Spanish phrase, to hear the friendly French voice, and see the friendly
French faces around us, to know that wherever we went, we were really
and truly welcome, and that we might do exactly as we liked without
being thought extraordinary!
We found Nemours just like any other little French town in Algeria, very
formal and neat, with a little square, a little church, and boulevards
in their babyhood, and a certain indescribable air of order and
importance about it. We went straight to the inn--I think it was called
_l’Hôtel des Voyageurs_--and, after knocking once or twice, the landlord
came down, very shaggy and sleepy, but pleasant and amiable, as
Frenchmen always are. He went out at once to his neighbour, the baker’s,
and came back with a pan of red-hot ashes, which was very clever of
him, for we were bitterly cold, and nothing else would so effectually
have heated the room. Then he brought us out a bottle of good Bordeaux
and excellent bread and Rochefort cheese; and by the time we had
finished our meal, there was a clean bedroom ready for us and hot water:
and what more does a weary traveller require? The _douane_ did not
choose to wake up and give us our luggage till late in the morning; it
was such a lazy _douane_; and though I went again and again, and said
pretty things to the gendarmes, it was of no use. They said pretty
things in return, but kept the luggage. At last the _douane_ chose to
wake up and open its doors, and we got our portmanteaus, and were able
to get at brushes and combs and clean dresses, and to sit down to
breakfast clothed and in our right minds.
Then we obtained the services of an old soldier as guide, and went out
to see something of Nemours. The weather was perfect, and our guide just
the person to make you feel in a new world. He had something unexpected
to tell us about everything; the people of Nemours, the past of
Nemours, and the present aspect of French-African colonization
collectively.
A bright blue sea, glistening white sands, and bold dark rocks, will
make any place beautiful; but, otherwise, Nemours is uninteresting
enough. It is only when you are outside the town, and breathing the air
of the wild desolated hills, that you understand the romance of the
place. For the history of Nemours, if written with a vigorous pen, would
abound in incidents as thrilling as any conceived by the author of
_Monte Christo_, or of _The Last of the Mohicans_.
We passed through the town, and were just entering upon a picturesque
gorge, when our guide pointed to a little farm-house that peeped sunnily
from its orchards and gardens, and said,--
“Do you see a great patch of new whitewash, just above the door yonder?”
“Yes, we see it.”
“_Eh, bien!_ I will tell you the history of that patch of new whitewash.
A good colonist lived in that house, and was murdered a few weeks back
by the Arabs. He went to bed as usual, first having seen that every lock
was secure, and that his pistol was loaded--for only fools go unarmed
here by night or day--and at midnight woke suddenly, hearing the dogs
bark and the cocks crowing. ‘The Arabs!’ he says to his wife, who wakes
up too, and then he takes up his pistol and throws open the window,
ready to scare the scoundrels away. But before he can do it, he is shot
through his head, and his blood and brains are all over the wall, and so
it had to be whitewashed as you see.”
“And the poor widow, and the guilty Arabs?”
“The widow lives there still. The poor can’t indulge in fine feelings,
you see, Madame, and must stay where their bread is to be earned. The
Arabs got away to Morocco--they can do it in a few hours from here--and
_voilà l’histoire_!”
“A sad history indeed!”
“And not the saddest I could tell you. Ah! Madame, the life of us poor
colonists here on the borders of Morocco is hard enough. Only the good
God knows how to understand how hard it is” (_le bon Dieu sait seul
comment c’est dur_.)
“On account of the great insecurity, you mean?”
“Yes, Madame. We have to keep watch-dogs as fierce as tigers, to look
well to our bolts and pistols before going to bed, to distrust an Arab
as _le diable_, and, withal, we are always being burned out, robbed,
assassinated; and those who burn us out, rob us, and assassinate us, as
often as not get across to Morocco safe and sound.”
“But the soldiers protect you?”
“Mon Dieu, Madame! the soldiers have hard work to protect themselves!
and the soldiers, you see, are not always hand and glove with the
colonists. I often think we should do better in Algeria without soldiers
at all. Being a _colon_ myself now, I speak for the _colons_, of
course.”
We were now in a wild and beautiful spot at some distance from the town.
On either side rose green hills, sharply shutting in a little river that
flowed amid tamarisk and oleander, and, here and there, shone the round
white dome of some small Moorish sanctuary.
We sat down to rest a little while and enjoy the perfect solitude of the
place, and sketch the nearest of the mosques or marabouts.
“Ah! that is a marabout which will never be forgotten as long as the
French hold Oran. A few years ago there was sharp fighting in these
parts, and the Arabs, who were very strong, contrived to get a few
hundred of our brave fellows here by some diabolical cunning or other,
and, being thousands themselves, mowed them down like so much standing
corn. But this is only one story of hundreds. If blood of the bravest
would make lands rich, we ought to have fine crops here, indeed,
Madame.”
“The Arabs seem a very savage set here,” one of us said. “Around Algiers
they are, for the most part, harmless.”
“_Il y a des Arabes et des Arabes. Voilà, Madame._ We are close on
Morocco. The Arabs who have burned, murdered, and stolen in other places
flee hither, and so we are in a sort of Botany Bay of ’em.”
Just as he spoke a wild figure came running down the mountain side, and
made towards us, gesticulating, crying aloud, shaking his shaggy hair,
laughing a horrible laugh. So brown he was, and so uncouth an object,
that it seemed belying alike Frenchman and Arab to class him as either.
Instinctively we started and drew back.
“Don’t be alarmed, ladies,” said our old soldier, with a smile; “it’s
only a poor madman--he is harmless enough if not teazed. _Bon soir, bon
soir, Père Michie, ça va bien; tu vas te promener? C’est ça. Allons!_”
And the poor creature mouthed and laughed and went his way. This was the
only person we met in that solitary walk. When we returned, the short,
bright day was drawing to a close, and we were so tired that we were
even glad to lie down and shut out the glorious colours that spread in
fiery flakes across the sky, and the purple sea, that seemed like
another firmament in its immovableness and depth, and the large pale
stars that seemed to belong to both.
The stars were not pale when we arose next morning at three o’clock to
start for Tclemcen; it was worth one’s while to rise at that hour, if
only to see them, so large and brilliant and wonderful were they; and
shining out of heavens, neither blue, nor purple, nor black, but
indescribably beautiful. Never shall I forget that journey from Nemours
to Tclemcen. The day seemed interminable. First of all, we had the long,
long reign of stars,--stars that dazzled like suns, mildly luminous,
moonlike stars, and pale, primrose-coloured stars, that trembled and
heralded the dawn. Then we had the dawn,--a long, grey, cold dawn that
seemed a day in itself, and then the blessed sun, warming the day into
perfect ripeness, as if it were a flower, and then the twilight again,
with new stars.
But if the longest day of our lives, it was by no means the least
pleasant. The weather, as usual (for, I think, in point of weather,
travellers were never so fortunate as ourselves!), was all that could be
desired, warm, breezy, and bracing, and there was recreation for heart
and brain in the region through which we passed. Every feature and
aspect of the country was new to us. We had never before seen anything
like these undulating wastes of sand, and these interminable plateaux of
stone and grass, all bathed in the mellowest, warmest, most golden
light. The light was one long surprise to us. We looked up at some sheep
browsing on a rocky ledge, and they seemed turned into copper images of
sheep; and not the mere white woolly things they are generally figured
to be. We looked from a bit of rising ground across a broad steppe of
sand and stone, and we could hardly believe that the sun was not
setting, so yellow it was, and so full of misty, delicious warmth.
Everything seemed transfigured, and the transfiguration was almost
blinding. We were alone in the coupé of the diligence, and the only
passenger in the rotunda was a stately Caïd, magnificently dressed in
purple gaudoura and white bernous of softest, silkiest Algerian
manufacture. But what was the magnificence of his dress to the
magnificence of his complexion? To understand what an Arab complexion
is, one must have seen it, as we saw it, bronzing and glowing under a
southern sky. Transported to canvas or cold climates, the rich hue loses
half its life and warmth and beauty.
When we alighted, the Caïd invariably alighted too, and he would smile
down grandly upon us, as if we were children, and say a complacent word
or two in broken French, as if he thought we were afraid of him. We were
sorry enough that we could not talk with him, and tell him how far we
had come to see the great works of the Moors in Spain and Tclemcen. Our
driver was as picturesque as the Caïd, and almost as silent. I think he
was a Breton by his style of face, which was full of character and
nobility, and such as Rembrandt would have painted. He wore a fur cap,
very rich in colours, and a light blue coat of quaint shape, bordered
with the same sort of fur. Anything finer or more poetic than this man’s
appearance, I had never seen. But, beyond the courtesy of offering us
some of his wine, when we asked for water, he hardly opened his lips.
For the most part, the country was uncultivated and uninhabited. There
was no foliage excepting that of stunted olive, tamarisk, and palmetto,
and nothing to break the universal monotony but here and there a
_douar_, or Arab village, consisting of a cluster of tents, hedged in by
walls of wild cactus, or haulm. Whenever we passed close to such a
douar, the dogs would rush out yelling and barking, the whole little
brown-skinned community would come to the road-side and stare us out of
sight. The younger children were generally naked, though such a brown
skin seems a sort of clothing in itself, and the elder ones had nothing
on but one _cutty-sark_, of coarse sacking or woollen stuff. The men and
women were decently clothed, and would greet us with a grave
“Salamalek!” or “Bon jour!” whilst the children, veriest imps of fun and
impudence, ran after the carriage, begging for a sou as long as their
breath would carry them.
We reached Tclemcen about six o’clock, and established ourselves at the
Hôtel de France, a cool, pleasant, roomy house, where they gave us large
rooms and Algerian fare, and gracious Algerian courtesy. We could
willingly have stayed at Tclemcen for months.
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CHAPTER XIV.
TCLEMCEN.--THE GRANADA OF THE WEST.--ARAB POETS.--CHILDREN.--THE
MOKBARA.--MANSOURA.--PHILO-ARABES.--TEMPTATIONS TO TCLEMCEN.
At Tclemcen, we found ourselves in a second and hardly less beautiful
Granada--a Granada moreover peopled with those who had made it what it
was, a Granada not wholly dead, but teeming with happy, picturesque
Eastern life. The climate is delicious, and the whole atmosphere of the
place so gracious and sweet to live in, that one is never ready to come
away. We made up our minds to stay a week or ten days in this Capua of
Capuas, whose climate, scenery, and every element around us, gave wings
to the hours. We never knew how the time went; we only know that, like
Faust, we said to the hour, “Stay, for thou art fair,” and that it
escaped us like a vision. For those who wish to know what Tclemcen, the
“Queen of Marreb” (in Morocco), really is, and was, I refer them to the
beautiful and careful papers of M. Brosselard in the _Revue Africaine_.
If I were to say half what I want to say about Tclemcen, this little
book would swell into a big one; I will, therefore, do my utmost not to
be enthusiastic, since enthusiasm leads me into the rash use of so many
words.
The Arabs, who are enthusiastic about great things and small, have
described Tclemcen in language as brilliant as a bed of tulips. Listen,
for instance, to Abd-el-Kader, who made Tclemcen his capital after the
treaty of Tafna in 1837: “At sight of me,” says the great poet,
“Tclemcen gave me her hand to kiss; I love her as the child loves the
bosom of his mother. I raised the veil which covered her face, and my
heart palpitated with joy; her cheeks glowed like flames. Tclemcen has
had many masters, but she has showed indifference to all, turning from
them with drooping eyelids; only upon me has she smiled, rendering me
the happiest sultan in the world; she said to me, ‘Give me a kiss, my
beloved; shut my lips with thy lips, for I am thine.’”
Another Arab writer thus describes Tclemcen: “Tclemcen is a city
enjoying a pleasant climate, running waters, and a fertile soil. Built
on the side of a mountain, it reminds one of a fair young bride reposing
in beauty on her nuptial couch. The bright foliage which overshadows the
white roofs is like a green coronal circling her majestic brow. The
surrounding heights and the plain stretching below the town are made
verdant by running streams. Tclemcen is a city that fascinates the mind
and seduces the heart.” Thus wrote in the 15th century Ibn Khaldoun, the
Arab Prescott, whose work no one has completed; and though the sun of
Tclemcen has set, it is so beautiful as to fascinate the mind and seduce
the heart still.
It was under the bright, brief dynasty of the Abd-el-Ouadites that
Tclemcen was virtually the Queen of Morocco. Possessed of a large,
enlightened, and wealthy population, of commercial enterprise, of a
well-disciplined army, a brilliant court, munificent and cultivated
rulers, Tclemcen was one of the best governed and most polished capitals
in the world, as her monuments bear witness.
If you go farther back into history, you find Tclemcen was christened
“Pomaria” by the Romans, on account of its orchards and fruit-gardens,
but the Tclemcen of to-day is far more interesting. It is indeed the
Moorish Athens. The modern city lies at the foot of green hills, its
minarets standing out against the sky, its terraced houses surrounded by
belts of lustrous foliage, whilst beyond stretches a plain as grandly
covered with ruins as the seven hills of Toledo; only unlike the hills
of Toledo, green, and sunny, and gay.
The life of the streets is intoxicating to an artist. At every corner
you see children playing, as brightly dressed as little Prince Bedreddin
when he went with his slave to buy tarts; the boys wearing blue and
crimson vests, embroidered with yellow braid, scarlet Fez caps, and
spotlessly white trousers; the girls, such dainty, dark-eyed darlings!
in soft white dresses and haïks, their waists bound with broad silk
scarfs of many colours, and flowers stuck coquettishly behind their
little ears. Never were such children as those of Tclemcen, so pretty,
so frolicsome, so utterly kittenish and captivating. You could not help
stopping to play with them; one would like to adopt half-a-dozen of them
as nephews and nieces. The Negro and Jewish children are also very
pretty here. The Jewesses brighten the streets as much as the children.
They are handsomer here than in Algiers, and wear outside their brocades
and silks haïks of soft, bright crimson cloth, which envelope them from
head to foot. The Arab type is handsomer too; I should say much purer.
There was a boy of fifteen at the hotel whose face I shall never forget.
It was the face one should copy for a Christ in the Temple; perfectly
oval, the features refined and pensive; the eyes soft, dark, and full of
expression; the mouth sweet and serious. This boy acted as our guide,
and as soon as we had arranged our sketch-books and shawls, would lose
himself in a reverie. His face then was perfect.
We used to divide our days between the Arab village of Sidi Bou Medin
and the mines of Mansooua.
The way to Sidi Bou Medin lies amid one vast cemetery called the
_Mokbara_, where the Tclemcenites have been buried for hundreds of
years. A French guide-book has this remark upon the horrible condition
of this cemetery,--“Ici s’amoncellent depuis des siècles les tombes des
Tclemcéniens; le temps les a peu respectés:” but is it time alone that
has so mishandled the dead?
There was hardly a spot where time (or the road-maker?) had not laid
bare some skeleton, and in some places the bones lay in heaps. Some
pretty little Marabouts lie scattered about these acres of grave-yard,
and near one we saw a ragged Bedouin at afternoon prayer. The kneeling
man, the white temple peeping amid olive-trees, the long lines of the
cemetery, the yellow evening light bathing all, made a touching picture.
The dry bones preached to us. We thought of the Moors driven thither
from Spain, and of the sad hearts they brought into exile.
The village of Sidi Bou Medin covers a hill terrace-wise, and is
overtopped by a graceful minaret. It has a gracious and sunny aspect,
with its hanging gardens of myrtle, and orange, and pomegranate, its
running streams, its vineyards and olive-groves, its shining white domes
and minarets. Not a French element has entered the place; and when we
had climbed the precipitous shady path and entered the court of the
great Mosque, we felt as far from France as if Abd-el-Kader’s dream of a
new Mahomedan dynasty at Tclemcen were realised, and the Nureddin was
summoning, not Bedouins and beggars only, but turbaned princes and
rulers to prayer.
Sidi Bou Medin, from whom the village is called, was a great saint, and
his tomb (_koubba_) is considered the sight to see, it being very richly
decorated with draperies of cloth and gold, ostrich’s eggs set in
silver, chains and amulets of gold and beads, arabesques, mirrors in
mother-of-pearl frames, lustres and lamps. To enter this _koubba_, you
first descend into a little court, around which runs a graceful arcade
supported on pillars of onyx; the panels are decorated with
inscriptions, and hung with cages of singing birds, and the whole place
is wonderfully rich and fantastic.
The Arabs heap up wealth on the shrines of their favourites with a zeal
unequalled by Romanists, however fervent, and Bou Medin is the favourite
saint here. There are many strange, touching, and also--for even saints
have humour--comic stories about him. He was born in Spain, and was
brought up, first to arms, then to the profession of science; but, after
many wanderings to Cordova, to Bagdad, to Mecca, to Constantine, came to
Tclemcen, finding it, as he said, “a place in which the eternal sleep
must be sweet,” where he died with these noble words on his lips,--“God
alone is the Eternal Truth.”
His life, as are all the lives of Mahomedan saints, was meditative and
active, miraculous and ordinary, and abounds in legends. He could read
the most secret thoughts of men, in testimony of which the Arabs tell
this story:--“A certain Sheikh was angry with his wife, and wishing to
be separated from her, without feeling quite sure that he had reasonable
grounds for doing so, went one day without saying a word to anybody to
consult Sidi Bou Medin. Hardly, however, had he entered the room when
the Marabout looking at him, called out sharply,--
“‘Fear God, and don’t put away your wife!’
“Of course the Sheikh was at a loss to understand how the saint came to
quote the Koran so _à propos_, to which Sidi Bou Medin replied,--
“‘When you came in, I saw, as it were, the words of the Koran written on
your person, and I guessed at once what was in your mind.’”
From the court you enter the _koubba_ itself. The cenotaph, which is of
richly sculptured wood, lies under a dusky dome, only lighted by small
panes of coloured glass. A blessed disciple and friend of the saint lies
by his side.
But it is the beauty of the mosque that those who are not devotees at
Sidi Bou Medin’s shrine, care most to look at. Here you see _azulejos_
and _artesonados_ as original in design and as perfect in finish as any
in Grenada, and probably of the same period. The tiles of the three
primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, within, the sculptured red tiles
without, the sculptured porticoes and walls, are quite of the same
style, and in no degree unequal to the finest Moorish work we had seen
in Spain. There are intact some of those gorgeous inscriptions,
historical and religious, such as crowd the seat of the Caliph in the
mosque of Cordova, and I do not remember to have seen any defacement or
dilapidation anywhere. The building is a perfect specimen of Moorish
art, which is always simple where simplicity has its use, and always
profuse of ornament, where ornament is in place. Take, for instance, the
outer court where the Arabs perform their ablutions before prayer; there
you have a marble basin, a floor of _faïence_ in bright colours, all
shut in by an airy arcade and overhead a bright blue sky. What could you
add that would not spoil the purpose of the place?--a purifying place
that ought to be unadorned. But within, where the devout man has the
right to worship, having purified himself, flesh and spirit by the
outward and visible sign as well as the inward and spiritual grace, the
Mahomedan makes his temple magnificent for the one God and His Prophet.
Neither wealth nor workmanship is spared, and the result is what we see,
walls covered with ornamentation, most delicate both as to colour and
design, pillars of jasper and onyx, arcades of lovely fret-work, the
priestly seat or pulpit of cedar-wood richly sculptured--lavishness of
labour and perfection of form and colour everywhere.
The ruins of Mansourah, once the rival of Tclemcen, lie about two miles
off the town. It is now six centuries since this city was one vast
congeries of palaces, public buildings, gardens, baths, hospitals, and
mosques. Nothing remains now but ruined walls and the minaret, though
these alone are quite sufficient to show what Mansourah once was.
Photographs might help you a little to imagine the place, but, having
looked at them, you must shut your eyes and colour the minaret and the
walls with richest, reddest ochre, you must clothe the hills in living
green, fill the space between hill and sky with soft warm skies of
southern blue, and then set the whole picture floating and palpitating
in golden mist.
This minaret is unlike anything else in the whole world. It is like a
gigantic monolith of solid Indian gold, and is as wonderful as the
Pyramids. When you come closer you see what a ruin it is now, and what a
splendour it once was; it has been cleft in two like a pomegranate. The
construction is of a rich reddish-coloured tile, and these tiles are
arranged in panels sculptured and coloured. Some of the colour remains
wonderfully bright still, but the whole building would hardly stand the
shock of an earthquake, I think. Looking at the inner side, you see the
traces of inclined stairs by which mounted horsemen could ride to the
top, and by dint of a little patience, you are able to master the
original ground-plan of the place. The exquisite columns of jasper and
marble have been removed to the museums of Tclemcen, Algiers, and Paris,
where are also to be seen many beautiful mosaics, enamelled tiles,
shafts, and pedestals.
Whilst sitting at the foot of this minaret and looking from one scene of
ruin to another, we found some fragments of coloured glass, blue, green,
amber and red, which alone sufficed to show how splendid the mosque must
have been. We looked at these bits of broken glass which were brilliant
as jewels, and from them to the half-buried portico and the shattered
minaret; and gradually the past became vivid as a dream, the dry bones
were covered with flesh, the flesh palpitated with happy life, and the
city of Mansourah was young and fair and gay again!
But we did not live wholly in the Tclemcen of yesterday. There is quite
a little Protestant colony here, and we found ourselves taking up
threads of interests long laid aside, and here, in a remote corner of
Africa, discussing all those questions dear to the well-wisher of the
English Church. We talked naturally a good deal of the Arabs and
discovered that we were in a nucleus of what French writers on Algerian
affairs call _Philo-Arabes_. One gentleman, a German, I think, but of
whatever nation a most intelligent person, worked himself into quite a
passion of indignant eloquence.
“I assure you, Madame,” he said, “that much as I love Tclemcen, and well
as my affairs are thriving here, I do not know how to stay. The
treatment of the Arabs enrages me--who am a peaceable man--fifty times
a-day. You will hear wherever you go that the Arab is a sensual,
unprincipled wretch, given to slaying, stealing, and all kinds of vice.
You must not believe half what you hear, Madame; I have lived long
enough among the Arabs to know what they are, and this is what they
are,--harmless, generous, patient, hospitable, religious; they are all
this and often much more. If I go from Tclemcen to Oran, do you think I
want a pistol? Madame, I need never bear the expense of going to an
hotel; every Arab tent or house is open to me; at any man’s table I am
welcome to a meal; his children will play with me; his own sons will
tend or saddle my horse; at parting he will wring my hands and bid me
come again.”
“We don’t hear such things from everyone,” we said.
“Ay, because you have doubtless had more talk with the soldier rather
than the civilian, the ruler of the Arab than his fellow-man. But when a
Colonel, or a Major, or a _Chef du Bureau Arabe_, tells you how wicked
the Arabs are, and how necessary it is to beat them (_leur donner coups
de bâton_), he does not tell you all the story, Madame. He does not tell
you how there are some who make their fortune by bleeding the poor
Arabs, and then go back to Paris to live grandly. He does not tell you
how he administers justice, and that is worth your while to hear. I am a
_Chef du Bureau Arabe_, so we will suppose, and I want something, no
matter what,--a few jackal-skins for my wife’s drawing-room, a little
money, sheep, horses, anything. What do I do? The Arabs have all these
things, skins, money, cattle, so I call my Sheikhs together, and tell
them what I want, and they get it: what do I care how? and then people
wonder that the Arabs rob in their turn! I tell you, Madame, that the
Arab is unfairly treated in every way, and that those who treat him so
will suffer for it hereafter. He would assimilate with us if we would
only let him. To-day, for instance, I met a friend of mine, an Arab who
lives in Tclemcen, and I told him that I would bring some English
travellers to see his pretty Moorish house. He was as delighted as if he
had been a countryman of yours. ‘I will prepare a _diffa_ (feast),’ he
said; ‘there shall be a good _cous-cous-son_ to regale your friends,’
and if you go, you will find him, in every sense, a gentleman--polished,
kindly, and intelligent. Our boys play together. Do you suppose those
young Bedouins will not be influenced by the companionship? If I were to
leave Tclemcen to-morrow, there are some Arabs I should part from as
from my brothers.”
“And then,” said his young wife, treating the subject from a romantic
point of view, “there is something so poetic about everything they do!
If you ask a simple question, they answer you with parables and figures
of speech. It is like reading the Scriptures. Oh, Madame! my husband is
right in advocating the cause of the poor Arabs! I think they would
teach us Christians many a lesson of piety and resignation. If a parent
loses his child he says, ‘It is the will of Allah. Allah’s will be
done!’ The name of God is ever in their mouths, and I do believe in
their hearts.”
We heard a great deal more about the Arabs during our stay, and,
curiously enough, every one here spoke hopefully of them. I could write
a long chapter of the stories that were told us by these warm
_Philo-Arabes_, but they carry double weight when told with flashing
eyes and trembling lips. One hardly knows what to believe.
There are a good many Jews at Tclemcen, and it is consolatory to find
them--as indeed you find them all over Algeria--living happily among
their former enemies. The French conquest has certainly done a great
deal for the Jews, who, under the Turkish rule, suffered inexpressible
persecutions and hardships. Now they thrive, and thrive deservedly,
without any fear that their honestly earned gains will be snatched from
them, or that their derelictions will receive harsher punishment than
those of their Christian neighbours.
If any one wants to renew his health, or forget his troubles, let him
come to North Africa, and breathe the sweet, biblical, sunny atmosphere
of Tclemcen. You will find no more tourists there than you would do in
the heart of the Great Sahara; and whilst you enjoy all the charm of
romantic, isolated Eastern life, none of the material comforts of modern
civilization are missing.
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CHAPTER XV.
HOSPITABLE ORAN.--CHRISTMAS DAY AT LE SIG.--THE LAST OF THE
PHALANSTERIANS.--BARRAGES.--THE MALARIA.--ABD-EL-KADER’S
MOSQUE.--SAÏDA.
Sorry enough were we to leave beautiful Tclemcen, and the many friendly
faces that had made the place so homelike to us; but at the end of a
week we were obliged to turn our faces towards Oran.
The diligence--wretched diligence!--travelled of course at night, and we
set off for Oran in the evening, reaching our destination early next
day, and not our destination only, but our welcome letters, newspapers,
and books, luxuries of which we had been long deprived. Oran is a second
and more bustling Algiers, only that Algiers is far more picturesque and
Eastern. In Oran you are wholly in France--African France that is--with
a burning blue sky in December, and a burning blue sea reaching to the
foot of the town--if it were only cool enough to walk so far!
We kept indoors almost all day during our stay in Oran, resting
ourselves after the hard travel gone before, and in anticipation of the
hard travel to come. But we were as gay as possible; for what with
letters of introduction from friends and friends’ friends, we had
visitors all day long, and invitations for every evening. Certainly
hospitality flourishes on Algerian soil. It was quite delightful to be
so welcomed and so regretted, and I cannot think of Oran without wishing
to go there again--if life were long enough--just to shake hands and
exchange an hour’s talk with the kind and pleasant people whose
acquaintance I made there.
Amongst other acquaintances we found during our short stay at Oran was
that of M. Leon Beynet, whose “Drames du Désert,” and other stories of
African life, give one an admirable idea of the relative positions of
native and colonist, Arab and Frank. M. Beynet makes the heroine of one
of his stories a beautiful young Kabyle girl, who is certainly the most
charming little savage that ever went unwashed. These novels are quite
a feature in Algerian literature, and make you live in the wild scenes
and society they portray.
Oran is a handsome city. The houses are of enormous height, and are
built in blocks, so that the town is divided, so to say, into many
parts. From each side of the city rise green hills and rocky heights,
crowned by round white towers built by the Spaniards; and below lies the
beautiful sea, so calm and blue during those December days, that we
could hardly credit the bad weather written of from home. We had some
pleasant walks on the hills, which abound in wild flowers, and
everything else dear to the naturalist; but we were impatient to be
making the best of our way Algiers-wards, and did not stop at Oran more
than a few days.
Our next halting-place was Le Sig, where we spent Christmas-day. I doubt
whether Le Sig would be found on any map, and I should not mention it
except for an amusing error into which we were led respecting its claims
upon our attention. “By all means go to Le Sig,” people had said to us.
“What, not go to Le Sig! The Phalansterian colony; the little community
of Enfantinists and Fourierists!” So, as Le Sig lay on our way, we made
a halt there, and saw what was to be seen.
Sig Proper is a prosperous little half French, half Spanish town, but
Sig Phalansterian is a farm about a mile off; so as we reached the
former at night we put up there, and found ourselves tolerably well off.
The people were Spanish, and the cooking Spanish; whilst in Oran we were
constantly coming upon such little clusters of Spanish families, who
seemed thriving and happy.
Early next morning, we got a little Arab to show us the way to _La
Colonie_, as the farm of the Phalansterians is called, and after a hot
and dusty walk of half an hour, reached a rather deserted-looking
homestead, consisting of farm-houses and buildings surrounded by
orchards and vegetable gardens. This was the Phalanstery; but, alas!
where was the spirit that should have animated the place? Where were the
philosophical grinders of corn, and assiduous cultivators of the
beautiful? where were the hives of children happier at their work than
our children at their play? Nothing remains now of all this; and
instead of devout followers of Enfantin in broad-brimmed white hats, we
saw ordinary French labourers working after the ordinary way. The
Phalanstery has, in fact, dwindled down till only two of the original
occupants are left, and these, Monsieur and Madame B----, are a simple,
old-fashioned couple, who seem to concern themselves mighty little with
Fourierism, let out such of the land as they do not care to farm
themselves, and send their only child, a girl of twelve, to a convent
school. It seemed impossible to believe that only a few years back this
isolated spot was the centre of a fervid, determinate little community,
who had fled thither from the storms and passions of the world,
intending to plan a perfect life.
Monsieur and Madame B---- received us kindly, and took us all round the
premises, showing us the former dwellings of the Phalansterians, neat
little wooden houses in rows, now turned into stables and granaries. The
_jardin potage_ seemed very flourishing, and, indeed, so did the crops
of every kind. We tasted the home-grown and home-made wine, but that was
sour enough to have driven away the most ardent Fourierist going.
We had brought other letters to Le Sig, and by one of them were
introduced to a charming young English lady, Madame O----, who had spent
all her life in Africa, and was now settled down at Sig. Her husband was
a Frenchman, and held an official post of some authority there, being
entrusted with the supervision of the gigantic _barrages_, or
waterworks, which are turning the barren plain of Le Sig into gardens of
beauty and fruitfulness.
When the Emperor was at Algiers, he asked some great authority on
Algerian affairs what was most needed in the colony.
“Barrages, sire,” was the answer.
“Et après cela?”
“Encore barrages,” repeated the political economist; and the Emperor
gave heed to the words, as those who follow in our track from Oran to
Algiers will see. These gigantic and noble works are well worth
inspection, especially at Le Sig; and if future travellers have the good
fortune that fell to our share, they will come away with a very clear
idea of the importance and working of these monster systems of
irrigation. Monsieur O---- most kindly drove us to the _barrages_
himself, and told us, in round numbers the annual cost of the works and
the quantity of water dispensed; but I am afraid of quoting figures from
memory, especially when they come to millions, and refer the curious
reader to statistical reports.
The reservoirs are colossal. You drive through a pleasant and verdant
country, part cultivated, part pasture, and then come to the entrance of
a wild gorge, above which rises the colossal mass of masonry, like a
sentinel guarding the vast tracts beyond. The burning African sun shone
straight down upon the broad surface of the reservoir, turning the hard
grey of the granite to a soft and beautiful orange colour. One might
have thought the place a thousand years old. Whilst we rested here to
sketch a little, a grave Arab with three little girls came up to look at
us. The little girls had complexions the colour of ripe chestnuts, and
were as wild and fearless as monkeys, dancing to the very edge of the
stone platforms in a way that made us sick. There was no sort of coping,
and we were some hundred feet above the river bed.
Next to the extraordinary and monkey-like agility of these children, I
was struck by their obedience. The father had but to knit his brow, to
lift his finger, or to cry Ayesha, or Zorah, or Zaida, and these wild
creatures obeyed like soldiers. Yet they did not seem one whit afraid of
him, playing hide-and-seek behind the folds of his burnouse, caressing
his hands, smiling up into his face.
When we had seen enough of the _barrages_, we went back to the town and
spent a little time with Madame O---- and her children--half French,
half English children, with Saxon skins and hair, and dark brown eyes,
and speaking a pretty language of their own, mixed English, Arabic, and
French. The house was very large, and stood embosomed in Eastern
shrubberies; the orange, the oleander, the magnolia, the palm, and the
almond; Arab servants in handsome dresses were lounging about the hall,
and the whole made a pretty picture to bring away from the remote
country of Le Sig. Madame O---- looked as fresh as a rose, but the
children were a little fragile, and she told us how much they had
suffered from malaria.
“The fever is the curse of the place,” she said, “and every one falls
victim to it in turn. A few months back my husband was brought to
death’s door by it, and the poor children suffer frightfully. Ah! what
should we do but for that blessed, blessed quinine!”
Wherever we went, we heard the same complaints. The fever--the
fever--every one was ill, or had been ill, or was falling ill of the
fever. We were particularly warned from exposing ourselves to the smell
of freshly-ploughed soil. The earth seems to emit a sort of poison, and
there is no remedy for the evil--which is felt by thousands--save
planting and drainage. The only wonder is that colonisation has
prospered in these districts at all; especially when you consider that
there are other scourges, hardly less insupportable, such as locusts and
Arab incendiaries.
From Le Sig we journeyed--always by diligence, to Mascara, a town that
will always have a romantic interest as the birthplace of Abd-el-Kader.
Mascara is charming. Great chalk hills, each crowned with its little
mosque or marabout, rise round the town, and, when you have climbed
these hills, you come upon broad belts of half wild, half cultivated
country, flanked with settlers’ huts or Arab tents. The colouring of the
place is thoroughly Eastern; you get here, as in Andalusia, long lines
of wild cactus and aloe standing out against a burning blue sky, and
those indescribable effects of yellow and white that are only seen where
every building is whitewashed and every bit of ground is toasted and
bronzed and baked by a blazing sun.
The place itself is quite French, and herein we were a little
disappointed, as we had been led to expect a second Tclemcen, bright as
Joseph’s many-coloured coat, with Moorish costume. The Arab population
is a very shabby one, and is, for the most part, settled outside the
town, in wretched huts built of cob and rubble. We went inside the
mosque, now used as a granary, where Abd-el-Kader preached war against
the Christians, and found it very pretty, but in sad ruin. There
were formerly beautiful tiles and arabesques on the walls, not
a trace of which remains. Nothing, indeed, remains, but the
beautifully-proportioned domes and aisles and the ceiling of inlaid
cedar-wood.
From Mascara we made an excursion to Saïda, where we smelt the real air
of the Desert, and saw many wonderful things that must be described
without hurry. Finding that the diligence to Saïda possessed neither
coupé nor berlina, we engaged the whole vehicle to ourselves, and what a
concern it was! The glass was out of the windows, the seats were
rickety, the floor screeched ominously whenever we got in or out. Never
was such a crazy old diligence in the world, and, as we went along, it
had spasmodic attacks of creaking and cracking without any rhyme or
reason, and we expected nothing more nor less than a total collapse in
some wild spot or other--which, however, did not happen.
It takes a day to get from Mascara to Saïda, but not a long day. If
there were only tolerable roads and saddle-horses, the journey would be
trifling. As it is, you are shaken up and down in a way that turns you
sick and blackens and bruises you, and, though a halt of five minutes
and a breath of the sweet air of the Desert revives and heals, you get
to Saïda tired enough. What added to our discomfort was a high wind that
accompanied us all the way, first making us shiver with cold, and
afterwards burning us with a sirocco-like heat. We did our best to keep
out the alternate cold and heat, but it was difficult work as all the
windows were broken. As soon as one improvised curtain was up, another
was sure to be down; and at last we solved the difficulty by covering
our faces instead. I think the journey to Timbuctoo could hardly be
wilder or more solitary than this. For the most part we passed through a
totally uninhabited country--some parts all stone and sand; others
overgrown with rosemary, wild asparagus, fennel, candied tuft, thyme,
and stunted tuya and tamarisk trees. When the dust did not blow, the air
was very sweet and invigorating, and sometimes the sky looked suddenly
cold and blowy, and we could walk in comfort. After passing a vast and
beautiful plain we stopped at a little village or post to breakfast and
change horses. It was a curious half French, half Arab sort of
settlement; and from the Arab douar in the village close by came lots of
little half naked children to look at us. When we had breakfasted we
went up to the tents to sketch, and soon had an eager group round
us,--a stately Bedouin, his wives, his mother, and their children. Every
one wanted to be useful, to hold the umbrella or the palette, or fetch
water; and, when nothing remained to do, they watched the artist with
smiles of amazement and gratification. The grandmother was a delightful
old lady. She was by no means ugly as most old Arab women are, but had
quite a nice face with very bright eyes and very intelligent features.
She had keen observation too, as I saw, for, without being in the least
degree rude and troublesome, she looked at us so narrowly that she
doubtless preserves to this day an exact remembrance of what we were,
how we looked, and what we said, or what she thought we said to each
other. I should like to have adopted that old lady as my grandmother and
brought her to England. Her sympathy with the sketcher was quite
beautiful, and, when the children giggled and tittered and came so close
to her as to hinder her progress and bring forth some such expression as
this--“How are we to send these troublesome little things away,”--the
old lady understood at once and commanded them to be still, which they
were; and as the objects of the landscape were brought out one by one,
the dark-brown tents, the bright blue sky, the wavy, yellow plain, the
low line of purple hills beyond--she cried aloud in ecstacy.
Whilst we were so occupied, a little urchin of five years, utterly
naked, ran out of the tent close by and stood still, as much amused with
us as we were with him. All laughed aloud, but the father who looked a
little ashamed, and I think it was because he had been to Mascara or
some other town, and knew that nakedness was not quite the thing in the
great world. The women were like big children, and giggled, showing
their white teeth, if you but held up a finger.
When we had done we shook hands all round, and returned to the auberge
to see a pitiful sight. It was a little Arab child of fourteen months
old sick of the fever; he was riding on the shoulder of his grandfather,
a patriarchal-looking old man, with silky white hair and beard. I don’t
think I ever saw anything more touching than his care of the little
suffering thing. Its poor little face was perfectly livid, its eyes
leaden, its limbs shrunken. What could we do for it?
The mistress of the auberge came out and questioned the old man in
Arabic a little, then turned to us.
“Ah!” she said, “think of it--that poor baby has neither father nor
mother, no one to tend it but that old man, and it has been ill of fever
for months; but then we all suffer alike! Three of my five children are
ill now; that is, ill every other day with shivering fits and sickness,
and there is nothing to do but try quinine. But quinine is very dear,
and we have to do without it.”
“Do the Arabs try it?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders expressively.
“_Voyez-vous, madame_, the Arabs are poorer than we. We must buy bread
before quinine.”
We gave the poor old man a little money, and recollecting that I had
brought a small bottle of quinine from England, fearing these marsh
fevers myself, I got it out of my travelling-bag and gave it to the
woman. She promised to give the poor baby a dose, but I fear he was past
all help, and I looked sadly after the old man as he stalked away in his
tattered burnouse, bearing his poor little burden on his shoulders.
Farther on, we stopped to see some hot springs which lie within a few
leagues of Saïda. Following a small path that wound through labyrinthine
thickets of tuya, palmetto, and lentisk, we came suddenly upon a scene,
that with very little idealization might make as poetic a picture as one
could see.
It was a party of Arab girls bathing in a small round pool. The bathers
and the bathing-place were shut in by lustrous green foliage, above
which showed the dark lines of the tents, the bright blue hills, and the
brighter sky. A noontide shadow lay on the water, in which, like a flock
of young ducks, plashed and played, and dived and ducked, a dozen wild
young girls, their dark hair streaming to the waist, their faces
expressive of the utmost enjoyment, their limbs glistening as they rose
out of the water.
All at once they caught sight of us. There was a short succession of
screams, a unanimous splashing, a glimpse of bare feet, and all was
still again. They had fled the spot without even a thought of their
clothes; and we unfortunate intruders were only harmless women after
all!
After this we passed a tawny, monotonous region, all stone and sand, and
only here and there varied by oases of cultivation. These little oases,
poor patches of wheat and vegetables growing amid the intractable
palmetto, were showing green and bright, despite the rudeness of the
tillage; but, alas! the locusts had found them out. Both on our journey
to Saïda and back we saw swarms of these creatures settling like
glittering birds on the corn, or filling the air like snow-flakes. My
heart sank within me as I thought of the poor Arabs and the devastation
that threatened their little all.
We reached Saïda in good time that afternoon.
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CHAPTER XVI.
OPINIONS, CIVIL AND MILITARY.--A LOOK TOWARDS THE SAHARA.--WILD
GEESE.--OUR SPAHIS, AND THE CARE THEY TAKE OF US.--A NORMANDY
APPLE-ORCHARD IN AFRICA.--NEW YEAR’S DAY.
Some authorities declare Saïda to be an oasis in the Little Desert, some
declare it to be an oasis in the Great Desert, others declare it to be
in no desert at all. For my part, I wholly side with those who are of
opinion that Saïda stands on the skirts of the Sahara, the Dry Country
abounding in Dates, as the old maps have it; but I will leave the matter
an open question to the curious, merely describing Saïda as I found it.
We had a comfortable room in the house of our coachman--for as nobody
ever goes to Saïda there are no inns--whose wife was Spanish, and as
ugly and dull as he was handsome and bright. As he seemed devoted to
her, however, it didn’t much matter. They carried on almost as many
trades as there are weeks in the year, and were evidently making money.
They catered for the officers, they kept the diligence, they owned land,
they had geese and cattle, they managed the post--it would be hard to
say what they did not do. And they wore good clothes, lived on really
dainty food, and were of importance in the place, which must have been
some consolation under exile.
Our first thought was to inquire for horses and side-saddles, our second
to forward our letters to the Commandant. The first request proved
fruitless. There being no ladies at Saïda, how should there be ladies’
saddles? But M. le Commandant very kindly came to us at once, and told
us what to see and how to see it in this oasis, as he delighted to call
Saïda. He was a merry, middle-aged gentleman from Normandy, who had seen
a good deal of the Desert, and bore the responsibilities of his
post--which were heavy--with great ease.
“The life here seems dull,” he said, “but after long marches in the
Desert and hard fighting, I assure you I am very contented to remain
here. There isn’t a lady in the place, _c’est vraiment triste ça_, but
there is an infinity of distractions in the way of work and pleasure.
You see I represent both civil and military authority, having 40,000
Arabs under my jurisdiction, and this involves all sorts of intricacies,
out of which I make my way as well as I can. I have to act as military
commander, mayor, and prêfet, all in one; and these Arabs are difficult
people to manage, I assure you.”
“They are miserably poor, are they not?” we asked.
“_Pauvres diables!_ You may well say that, Madame. They are starving;
that’s just the truth of it; and what with those who steal and murder
because they are hungry, and those who steal and murder because they
like it, the road from hence to Fig-gig--our last post in the Desert--is
unsafe enough. Without a military escort it is impossible.”
“We were told at Oran,” I said, “that there were some grand waterfalls
we could see in the neighbourhood of Saïda. Is the excursion
practicable?”
M. le Commandant opened his eyes, and shrugged his shoulders
expressively.
“Madame, no one knows in Oran what is going on at Saïda. It is not
practicable. I tell you the simple truth when I say that. It is not
practicable. I will tell you what you can see here. You propose to
remain two days? _Eh, bien!_ to-morrow I will send an escort of Spahis
with you as far as the marabout of Sidi-ben-Baila, from whence you can
look over the plateaux which commence the Desert; you will see then what
sort of country it is; and if you went on as far as Géryville, our next
post, and Fig-gig our last, you would see no more. The next day you
would like to sketch, probably? _Bien_, I send my servant and a Spahi
with you to the ravine, and you will find fine things to draw; and when
my work is done, I will ride round and show you what else is to be seen
in our little Saïda;” and, after telling us a great deal more that was
interesting, the good-natured Commandant left us.
We carried out these plans, and all turned out satisfactorily. There was
only one sort of vehicle to be had, a sort of wheel-barrow on four
wheels, belonging to a butcher, which we gladly accepted for the drive
to the marabout. Our driver, the owner of the cart, proved a most
entertaining person. He was a Parisian by birth, an African by right of
long residence, and as rich in mother-wit as an American.
“You don’t mean to say that you think of leaving Saïda without going to
see the waterfalls?” he asked; “why, that is the only thing that is
really beautiful in the place.”
We said that we had been dissuaded from the excursion on account of the
unsafety of the roads; and, thereupon, the incredulity of the butcher’s
face was a sight to see.
“_Mon Dieu, Madame_, you mustn’t listen to what the military authorities
say--they always make mountains of mole-hills. I would undertake to
carry you safe to Fig-gig in this trap without as much as a pistol in my
belt. _Voilà!_”
“But you don’t attempt to convince us that the roads are safe, do you?”
“Madame, they are safe for you or for me; but I wouldn’t say as much for
myself if I were an officer. This is how it is, the Arabs hate the
military, and do them an ill turn when they can; but the Arabs, _ma
foi_, are not the bad set of people one would have you believe. Why, I
have travelled to Géryville and back, and to Fig-gig and back alone
before now alone, with money in my purse too, and the Arabs treated me
as if I had been a brother, made me a dish of cous-cous-sou, gave me a
bed under their tents, saddled my horse for me at parting, and bade me
God speed. Having been so kindly treated by the Arabs, can you wonder at
my speaking so of them? For my part I don’t see a pin to choose between
a good Christian and a good Mahomedan, a bad Christian and a bad
Mahomedan: _voilà ce que nous pensons_.”
We let our butcher have his way, for his talk was too racy and fresh to
be spared in a world where one has to endure so much commonplace. I
should fill a chapter if I were to repeat half the stirring stories and
original opinions he gave us; but as this little book is intended as a
stimulant to others longing “for the palms and temples of the South,” I
hope it may lead some to Saïda and the butcher’s acquaintance.
All this time we were driving through what seemed to be a stony desert,
flooded with an indescribably yellow, mellow, monotonous light, above
all, a pale blue sky. By-and-by, we came to a rocky height where we
halted to take in every feature and aspect of a wondrous scene. Below
lay a billowy waste of plain upon plain; those nearest to us broken by
Arab tents, or the shining dome of a marabout; those farthest off more
solitary, vaster, grander, than the surface of an ocean without a sail.
Where the plains ended and the sky began was a straight, continuous
line; and we looked at this line, so suggestive of distance, and
mystery, and unknown existence, till we longed to accept the butcher’s
offer, and, _coûte que coûte_, set off for Fig-gig, and the “Dry Country
abounding in Dates!”
What fascinated us more than anything was the wonderful briskness,
purity, and sweetness of the air. It seemed as if we never could have
breathed real air before, and the experience was too delicious to
describe. Softer and sweeter than the breath blown off Cornish moors
when the heather is out, fresher and more invigorating than the
sea-breezes one gets at Lowestoft pier on a bright September day; a
whiff of this air of the Desert amply repays any hardships undertaken to
obtain it. We felt as if we could never come away, as if we could never
drink deeply enough of such precious, reviving, rejuvenating wine. The
Commandant’s high spirits and comely looks, the butcher’s vivacity, the
general look of briskness, physical and mental, among the people of
Saïda, was accounted for. The sweet air of the Desert did it all. I
think if I went to live at Saïda the great-grandchildren of those who
read what I write about it now, might, if they journeyed thither, find
me alive and hearty.
About half a mile from our point of view stood the little marabout which
was to be our boundary mark, and, around it, we could see wreaths of
white smoke curling from the dark brown tents, and horses and cattle
feeding. Near to us were one or two wild-looking Bedouins keeping their
sheep, which were marvellously transformed in the yellow light, their
fleeces looking like bosses of bright, orange colour. Whilst resting
thus, a serried line of wild geese slowly flew towards us, keeping a
line like the German letter [Illustration: script L] till out of sight.
“Now we shall have rain,” said our driver. “One wants no weather-glasses
at Saïda, I assure you.”
What inventions of man does one want indeed at such a place as Saïda?
Place any one of quick mental capacity anywhere out of the world, that
is to say, out of the conventional, comfortable world of shops,
railways, and penny newspapers, and how readily does he shift for
himself. Such a man as this butcher of Saïda had as many interests in
life as any of us in these days of social, literary, and political
excitement; he was always solving some knotty point in Algerian
political economy, or speculating how this or that natural feature of
the country could be turned to account. He knew the geography, geology,
and mineralogy of every rood; he could tell what birds lived in the air,
what beasts haunted the wastes, what plants grew in the oases, and how
the Arabs lived in the Desert. It was curious to find how much more he
respected the Bedouin than the Spahis, and how lightly he esteemed the
moral influence of the French upon the people they had conquered. “Where
are our Spahis?” I asked, for we had never seen our escort all the way.
He smiled and pointed to a cluster of Arab douars at some distance.
“You can’t see a little red speck among those tents, I dare say, Madame;
but my eyes are used to looking a good way off, and I can. It is one of
your precious Spahis, and he’s just thinking as much of you as his wives
out there whom he has gone to see. I know ’em, those Spahis; they like
nothing better than to be sent _as escort_ with travellers, for that
means that they can pay a visit to their women, who begin to cook
cous-cous-sou as soon as ever they see a red cloak in the distance. When
your Spahis have eaten up everything that comes in their way and seen
enough of their good ladies, they’ll come home.”
And true enough, just as we were approaching Saïda, our escort came
galloping up, two as wild and fine-looking men as you could see, their
scarlet cloaks flung over their shoulders, their dark handsome faces
wrapped in white linen trimmed with camel’s hair, their brown muscular
arms bare to the elbow, their legs thrust in mocassins of crimson
leather richly embroidered. They rode pretty little barbs, and sat upon
their high-backed saddles with quite a royal air. Nothing in the world
could be more picturesque or brilliant.
Saïda, that is to say, the Saïda of yesterday,--for the present
settlement is entirely French,--was heroically defended by Abd-el-Kader,
and, as we drove home, we saw the ruined walls of the old town and the
deserted camp of the French soldiery. Throughout the entire province of
Oran, indeed, you are reminded of Abd-el-Kader, whose career has a wild,
sad, Saracenic pomp about it not at all in harmony with our present
civilization.
The French garrison of Saïda consists now of 800 men; and they have
sixteen pieces of cannon only. We saw no more of our driver after that
day. The superb air and savage plenty of such places as Saïda seem to
make people magnanimous, for he went off to Géryville next day, never
concerning himself about being paid for his services; and we were
constantly receiving little presents from some one or other during our
stay, ostriches’ eggs, beautifully polished stones, wild boars’ horns,
&c., &c.
Saïda is a land of Goshen in the matter of game, and there is plenty of
sport too. Jackals, hyenas, wild boars, abound in these rocky
wildernesses; there are also panthers and gazelles, though they are
found rarer. If it were not for the hunt and the chase, what would
become of the officers under exile?
Next day, M. le Commandant showed us his pretty garden, planted with
apple-trees by way of recalling his native Normandy, and promising to be
very beautiful by-and-by, when the rich tropical flowers should be out.
Then he went with us to a very savage and splendid gorge called _La
Source_. Here, issuing from a tiny aperture in the rock, a stream of
clear, rapid water had cleft its way through the rich red heart of the
mountain, and tossed and tumbled amid oleanders and tamarisks as far as
the eye could reach. The rock, piled in lofty masses on either side,
made natural ramparts to the little town of Saïda which lay a mile off,
forming the haunts of wild beasts and birds and Arab thieves.
“I have placed sentinels here for several nights of late,” said M. le
Commandant, “for the Arabs are like the jackals and steal down at night
to scavenge where they can. My Spahis will come here as soon as it is
dusk, and this precaution I must take till the thief or thieves are
caught.”
“And what will be done to them?”
“_C’est très simple_,” replied M. le Commandant coolly. “Whoever comes
down that pass at night gets a bullet through his head, that’s all.” On
our looking a little shocked he added, smiling, “_Que voulez-vous? Il
faut vous dire les choses comme elles sont._”
It seemed that the harvests had been very bad of late and that the Arabs
were driven to all sorts of desperation by hunger. Was there work for
those who chose to do it, we asked of the Commandant?
“In plenty, I assure you--in great plenty, Madame; but the Arabs don’t
like work, and will rather starve. Give a Kabyle a field to plough or a
house to build, and he’ll do it as well as a Frenchman, whilst an Arab
or Bedouin, you understand, is only good for fighting and plunder.”
“That is your opinion.”
“That is my experience, Madame.”
Thanks to the kindness of the Commandant, we came away from Saïda with a
pretty comprehensive idea of the perplexities and responsibilities of
his high post, and of the working of the military system of government
in Algeria.
Next day, the last day of the year, we returned to Mascara, and had, if
anything, a more trying journey than before; the wind was colder, the
sun was hotter, the clouds dustier, and every one prophesied rain.
We spent New Year’s day with some kind friends from Algiers, Monsieur
D----, an army surgeon, and his wife. What a sumptuous breakfast we had!
I do not mean sumptuous in the matter of dishes only, but in the matter
of conversation, which was as piquant and full of flavour as the fare.
Monsieur D---- and his wife were two of those happy mortals who are
gifted with perpetual youth, coupled with a habit of quick and just
observation. An hour’s talk with them was like reading a very witty and
very wise novel. Throughout the shifting scenes of their African life,
they had naturally fallen in with all sorts of characters and
conditions, and they gave us a lively picture of French society in Oran,
touching on the follies, errors, and good things of it, with kindly
satire.
“I will take you to see Madame la Générale,” said our hostess, “for I
don’t suppose in any of your travels you have been introduced to a
Moorish lady married to a French commanding officer. Now, our General’s
wife is one; and, though she does not speak French quite easily, you
will find her in dress and manner quite a Parisian. They have four
children, such little dark, handsome, wild things, and there is not one
of them so fond of sweets as mamma! Moorish ladies, you know, almost
live on sugar.”
Madame la Générale had a cold, however, and could see no one, so we had
to leave Mascara without personal intercourse with a Moorish lady turned
Parisian. It was certainly a disappointment.
It was quite a gay day at Mascara. New Year’s day is always gay in
France, and so warmly were we received by Monsieur and Madame D---- that
we did not feel as if we could be so far from home and in a spot so
remote as Mascara! French hospitality, at least as far as my experience
of it goes, is as genuine and gracious hospitality as any in the world;
and we were quite touched by the way in which people thought of us and
for us wherever we went.
To give one instance out of many:--On the eve of our departure from
Mascara, I was disturbed in my packing by a gentle rap at the door, and
on opening it saw Monsieur D---- followed by an Arab servant bearing a
small basket heavily laden.
“Ah, Mademoiselle!” he said, “I disturb you--but only for a little
moment, and then I will wish you ‘_bon voyage_’ for the last time, and
go. When you and Madame had left us to-day, we remembered that you
praised my wife’s preserved peaches and apricots, and we thought you
might like some to eat on the way.”
Then he helped his boy Hamed to unload the basket, which contained
several tin cases of fruit hermetically sealed. I thanked him, said it
was too bad of us to rob Madame when she had been at the trouble of
preserving the fruit herself, that we should take the cases to England,
that we should never forget the kind reception we had met at Mascara,
&c.
“And we shall not forget,” he said, with a hearty shake of the hand,
“what pretty things you have said about French ladies in your book of
Algerian travel! _Adieu, au revoir, Mademoiselle_; if not in Africa, in
Paris; if not in Paris, in England!” and then he went.
We were to rise very early next morning, but, though we went to bed at
eight o’clock, sleep was out of the question. New Year’s Day only
happens once a-year, and the good people of Mascara seemed determined to
make the best of it. I never heard anything like the noisiness of that
little town keeping holiday. Drums beat, bands played, trumpets sounded,
and mixed with the sounds of tipsy singing and laughter that continued
till long past midnight; and just as things were growing quiet and we
were getting drowsy, came a loud rat-tat-tat at our doors and the noise
of Arab porters crying out, “La Diligence! La Diligence!”
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CHAPTER XVII.
RAIN.--AN ENGLISH LADY’S OPINION ON THE ARABS.--WILD BIRDS.--THE
EARTHQUAKE.
And the blessed rain came. We had heard it pattering and plashing
between our dreams, and, when we came out into the open air, it was
moist and sweet and cool. For the first time throughout our entire
journey we were unable to procure the coupé to ourselves, for the
assizes were to commence at Mostaganem, and, what with witnesses,
lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, the diligence was more than crowded.
We could not see our companion, but, from the large share of the coupé
that he monopolized, we thought he must be a very stout person indeed;
alas, how we had hoped and prayed that he might prove thin! But there
was no help for it, and, by the time we began to be cramped in every
limb, came the blessed, beautifying daylight and the ever-shifting
African landscape, that made us forget everything else.
We forgave our fellow-traveller his burliness after a while, for he
proved so full of information and pleasant. He was a barrister, and told
us of all the most important cases coming off at Mostaganem, and a
fearful list it was. By far the greater number of prisoners were Arabs
charged with assassinations. We told this gentleman of what we had heard
at Tclemcen.
“In one place,” we said, “the Arabs are represented as harmless,
improvable, mild: in another as the incarnation of villany. What _are_
we to believe?”
“Well,” he said, “the fact is this, the Arabs are _pauvres diables_, and
they are poorer now than they were before we came--that is to say, the
Bedouin, the shepherd and the cultivator of a little land is poorer--and
the consequence is, they are led from theft to murder. When we stop to
change horses every one will alight to take coffee, and you will see a
couple of priests, one looking as if he had just come out of a
war-hospital. He was attacked near Tclemcen one evening, robbed, and
left on the road for dead. That is one of the worst cases we have,
though there are others of a piece with it. The priests ride on the box
with the coachman, and in the rotunda are some Arabs who are going to
witness on the side of the accused, one of them you must look at, too;
he is dressed like a prince and has the face of _le diable_. He is the
son of a Bach-Agha.”
By-and-by, we came to a little roadside caravansary, and every one got
out, the handsome, _nonchalant_ Arabs and their “murdered man,” among
the rest. The poor curé looked very ill still, and had a gentlemanly,
but shabby, appearance. The Bach-Agha’s son was dressed in purple and
fine raiment, and looked a king--till you saw his face closely--when he
looked a very Mephistopheles. It was an indescribably cruel, clever,
sensual face,--a face from which you turned with repugnance.
After passing through some very lovely tamarisk-groves, amid which wound
a broad, bright river, a branch of the Chelif, we entered upon the vast
monotonous plain of the Habra. These African plains are only varied here
and there by shifting bands of road-makers, military posts, and by
little French colonies or Arab douars; and when you commence your
journey, you feel as if it would never end. You cross horizon after
horizon. You see a white speck in the distance and say, “That must be
our halting-place;” but, when you arrive, it is a military post and
nothing more--the dogs rush out barking and yelling, French Zouaves, who
stand basking in the sun, come up to ask for newspapers and letters; and
the Spahis look at us whilst they smoke their paper cigarettes, and show
their white teeth as they say “Bon jour.” Then, after getting a glass of
water or wine, the diligence moves slowly off, and we leave behind the
glistening white post, the red-cloaked, brown-skinned Spahis, and the
pack of dogs.
How hot it is! When we alight and walk a little way, ankle-deep in alpha
grass and wild thyme, the leaves seem warm and dry as if the soil below
were burning away with volcanic fire. We shall be sunburnt to the
complexion of Moors before our journey is done, we say, and when inside
the diligence, and pin up shawls and cloaks to keep out the wind that is
as warm now as it was cold when we started. The plains have each a
climate of their own, and travellers should always plan their
journeys--as we did--to avoid crossing them at early morning or at
night, when a terrible miasma arises from the soil and is never
harmless, often as dangerous as poison.
Mostaganem is a lively little place, and on account of the assizes was
full of strangers. Greatly to our amusement we encountered our stout
_compagnon du voyage_ on the evening of our arrival, as shrunk from his
natural size as a rabbit after skinning. What strange metamorphose had
changed him in so short a space from the size of a Falstaff to a lean
and hungry-looking Cassius? It was very perplexing, but on a sudden it
flashed on us like a revelation, that as all his luggage had consisted
of a hat-box, and as he had doffed a thick grey travelling dress and
donned a suit of shining black cloth, he must have carried his wardrobe
on his back. It was very simple.
At Mostaganem I made the acquaintance of a countrywoman, the wife of a
French gentleman holding a responsible official post there. Every one
in Oran is sure to be an official if he is not in the army; and it is
curious to see how the difference of calling modifies the political and
social opinions. I never talked with a French officer who was not
entirely opposed to the assimilation of races and incredulous of Arab
civilization, nor with an official who was not equally enthusiastic
about both. A _prêfet_, a _sous-prêfet_, a _maire_, or any other of the
dozen gentlemen who administer justice and keep order in these
French-African towns, is pretty sure to speak hopefully and humanely of
the Arabs: a colonel or a commandant uses much the same tone about them
as our officers up-country do regarding the Sepoys and Seedy-boys.
My countrywoman spoke of the Arabs with great sympathy.
“My heart bleeds for the poor people,” she said: “think of what they
have suffered during the past year! They had planted their little bits
of cornfields, and the corn was shooting up in abundance, when the
locusts came in billions and trillions, and corn, potatoes, rye,
everything was destroyed. They starve, or else they steal and fill our
prisons and reformatories. People say, let them starve or work, but you
cannot change the habits of a people in a day.
“Most of these poor things under trial now are Bedouins, as ignorant as
savages from Timbuctoo. My husband told me yesterday of a poor little
boy condemned to five years’ imprisonment for having stolen a turkey! Do
you suppose, Madame, that that boy will come out of his prison a better
French subject than he went in? I have lived for years among the
Arabs--in Constantine, in Algeria, in Oran--I have studied Arabic on
purpose to hold intercourse with them and to be able to sympathize with
and understand my husband’s calling, and I have come to this
conclusion--Madame, it is only by assimilation that the Arab is to be
improved. There was a great outcry among the colonists after the Emperor
had visited Africa in 1865, because he was said to show partiality to
the Arab; but, good heavens, what a different position does the honest
_colon_ hold to the richest _indigène_? The _colon_ is a Frenchman, and
therefore a noble being; the _indigène_ is an Arab, and what isn’t good
enough for an Arab? For my part, I think the Emperor was wise in taking
that tone. I think the colonists have much to suffer, but the Arabs
incontestably more, and if the Emperor did not take their part, who
would?”
We rested two nights at Mostaganem, and the blessed rain kept falling
all the time, though no sooner were we on our way again, than the sun
came out and all was bright and warm.
Our next halting place was Relizane. We reached Relizane in six hours’
easy travelling through a monotonous country, part wild, part
cultivated, with flocks of cranes feeding on the pastures, vultures and
eagles flying overhead, coveys of partridges whirring from the
brushwood, and hares scuttling across the road as we passed along.
Whenever we passed an Arab village, a crowd of half, or wholly naked
children ran down and followed us, calling out for coppers. They would
run incredible distances thus, and when a coin was thrown out, there
would be a diving of little black polls in the grass, a momentary
scramble, then all was ready to start afresh. Those who are fortunate
enough to get the money, put it in their mouths--having no clothes they
could clearly have no pockets--and, if not as comfortable, it was
certainly a safe and convenient mode of carrying their spoils.
My journey properly ends at Relizane, since this is the last
halting-place in Oran, the last Spanish province of Algeria. But we set
foot on Algerian soil just as the first shock of earthquake had spread a
panic throughout the length and breadth of the country, and I will give
a page or two to that most terrible time.
Never shall I forgot our journey from Relizane to Algiers. We were
happily under no apprehension about those dear to us at Algiers, as we
had received telegrams from them assuring us of their safety, but every
one we met had some fearful story to tell of the loss of life and
property in the villages of the Metidja. We knew these villages well,
having spent many days there not twelve months back; and our hearts
failed us at the thought of what we were now to see in place of the
peace and plenty we had seen then.
The first town within the devastated circle, Milianah, stood intact,
though the prevailing panic was something indescribable. All the women
were looking white and wan, some had lost friends and relatives in the
Metidja, others had taken to their beds from sheer fright, a few awaited
a final shock which was to be the ‘crack of doom.’ Wherever we went we
heard descriptions of the terrible event, all more or less exaggerated.
According to one, the Zakkar, a mountain as high as Snowdon rising to
the north of Milianah, had rocked to and fro, emitting flames of fire;
according to another, many houses had been split and shaken by the
shock.
If the former account were true, we found the mouth of the Zakkar shut
close enough, and its sides had grown marvellously green again since the
catastrophe, though happening only a few days back. We walked round and
round the town and saw no houses that had taken any harm. The shock was,
nevertheless, awful, as we gathered from the plain, unvarnished account
given us by the prefêt. He had expected at the time nothing more nor
less than the entire destruction of Milianah.
The shock had been severely felt at Algiers and Blidah, but it was a
little cluster of villages in the Metidja, by name, Bou-kika,
Mouzaiaville, El-Affrom, and La Chiffa, that had suffered most. Our way
lay straight through that village; and so recent was the calamity, and
so inaccurate the accounts of it, that we set off to Algiers without in
the least knowing where we could break the journey. Some people said,
“Bou-kika is unharmed; you will find every accommodation at Bou-kika;”
others said, “You will have to go right to Blidah, and break your
journey there. Blidah is recovering itself, and you will find the hotels
much the same as if nothing had happened.” A third said, “Blidah is as
empty as a plundered place. There isn’t a crust of bread to be had
there.”
In this uncertainty we set off. It was a superb moonlight night, and as
we passed along, we saw woeful things.
We had talked of sleeping at Bou-kika, but Bou-kika was as dead and
silent as if death were in every dwelling. Every one, in fact, was
encamped outside the village, and a knot of soldiers, gathered round a
watch-fire, guarded the deserted houses. Here the ruin had been partial;
but soon we came to great, ghastly spectres of what, a week ago, had
been thriving little towns--each with its church, its hotel, its shops
and cafés. Here and there, above great heaps of brick and mortar, stood
out a chimney, a wall, or a doorway, or, indeed, a whole house, split
like a pomegranate; but the place had collapsed like a child’s
cardhouse. One must tread upon the heels of an earthquake to understand
what it is--the suddenness of it--the despair of it--the desolation of
it.[14]
More than a hundred souls had been buried alive here; and what testifies
to the paralysing nature of the shock is the great proportion of young
children. Mothers were so horrified that they rushed out of doors,
leaving their sleeping babies behind!
We reached Blidah early in the morning, and found the town as deserted
as if stricken by a plague. The large, prosperous hotel where we had
often stayed before, was shut up. The streets were silent, the shops
were all closed; thankful enough were we to get a little coffee and a
morsel of bread at a little cabaret before taking the early train to
Algiers. All Blidah was encamped outside the town, and the long lines of
tents, and the unwonted aspect of hundreds of wealthy families turned
out of house and home, and shifting for themselves in the best way they
could, was sad and strange. It was breakfast-time. Coffee was boiling on
every little camp-fire, children were running about borrowing a
neighbour’s cup or pitcher; ladies were making their toilettes as best
they could; men were wandering hither and thither, smoking away their
disturbed thoughts.
The Arabs alone looked unmoved. “It is the will of God,” they say when
any evil happens, and they resign themselves to it, outwardly calm as
statues.
In about an hour and a half we reached Algiers. The weather was
glorious; and as we drove up to the well-known villa on the green height
of Mustapha Supérieure, and looked down upon the bright, blue sea, and
the glistening shore, and the white Moorish city crowning the sunny
Sahel, we said that Spain had showed us no fairer prospect.
And yet we were sorry--who would not be?--that our journey had come to
an end. May all those who follow in our track find the same bright skies
and pleasant faces, and bring home from Spain and Oran as many happy
memories as we did.
[Illustration: text decoration]
LONDON:
Printed by STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “La puissance paternelle, il faut le reconnaître, perd chaque jour,
de son autorité. L’esprit d’independance qui se manifeste de plus en
plus dans la société, a penétré jusque dans la famille. Les tendances
de la jeunesse à devancer l’époque de son émancipation devaient
naturellement amener ce triste résultat, dont les fatales conséquences
ne nous out été que trop souvent révelées pendant l’exercice de nos
fonctions de magistrat. Nous avons donc considéré comme un devoir de
conscience de remédier à un tel état de choses, en cherchant les moyens
de ramener dans la voie du bien les enfants que l’inexpérience de l’âge
ou la précocité des inclinaisons mauvaises conduisaient à s’en écarter.
Tel est le but que nous avons cru pouvoir atteindre en fondant une
nouvelle institution, véritable collége de répression, comme l’a si
bien definie Monseigneur l’Evêque d’Orléans, où des jeunes gens sont
placés sous une discipline sévère, pendant le temps nécessaire pour
réprimer chez eux l’esprit d’insubordination et les fâcheux penchants
qu’ils out manifestés. N’ayant entre eux aucun rapport, ils n’ont
point à subir l’influence d’un contact trop souvent pernicieux. (Le
système de la séparation est si rigoureusement observé que les élèves
ne sauraient s’apercevoir, même à la chapelle.) Leur instruction se
poursuit donc dans les conditions les plus favorables, les études ne
sont pas interrompues; les élèves peuvent même continuer à composer,
comme par le passé, avec leurs condisciples au moyen des devoirs que
nous sont communiqués par leurs anciens professeurs. De cette manière,
l’émulation ne se ralentit pas, et, accompli en dehors de toute
distraction, le travail est des plus profitables. On enseigne aussi
les sciences, les langues étrangères, et les arts d’agrément. Avant
la fondation de notre maison, le seul parti extrême auquel les chefs
d’institution pussent recourir, était l’expulsion du collége; cette
mesure compromettait l’avenir de l’enfant sans le guères de ses mauvais
penchants. D’ailleurs la crainte de l’expulsion était inefficace à
ramener dans le désir certaines élèves insubordonnés qui faisaient
tous leurs efforts pour provoquer un renvoi. L’approche des vacances
multiplie les demandes d’admission de la part des familles. Qui ne
comprend le danger qu’il y aurait a récompenser un enfant, qui, pendant
toute l’année, n’a mérité que des reproches? et cependant les parents
se résigneraient difficilement à transformer leur maison en un lieu de
répression, au moment où tout est joie et fête dans la famille, surtout
lorsqu’il s’y trouve d’autres enfants dont on n’a qu’à se louer.... Les
heureux résultats obtenues depuis plus de dix ans nous ont déterminé à
signaler aux parents les incontestables services que notre fondation
est appelée à leur rendre. Nous ne saurions trop recommander aux
familles d’apporter la plus grande sollicitude à combattre de bonne
heure chez l’enfant toute la tendance à l’indiscipline et à la paresse,
dont les conséquences sont beaucoup plus graves qu’on ne serait porté
à le croire. On commence par être mauvais élève, on finit par devenir
mauvais sujet.”
[2] There are very able and interesting articles on the condition and
prospects of Spain in Mr. Grant Duff’s admirable _Studies in European
Politics_, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for September 1865, and in
_Fraser’s Magazine_ for December 1865. I quote one closing passage
from the writer in the _Revue_, M. Charles Mazade:--“L’Espagne est
dans un de ces états presque indéfinissables: à la veille encore on
dit qu’une révolution est impossible, parcequ’on n’aperçoit pas un but
précis, et au lendemain, lorsqu’elle a éclaté, on se demande comment
elle n’est pas arrivée plus tot, parceque tout le monde y travaillait.
Je ne veux point dire assurément que cet état si grave qu’il paraisse
lorsque ces crises deviennent plus aigues, que cet état soit sans
remède. L’Espagne possède, sans doute, en elle-même les élémens d’un
développement de fortune matérielle, comme elle a enfin tous les
éléments d’une puissance extérieure proportionnée à sa situation, à ses
interêts, et à ses ambitions légitimes; mais ce qui est vrai aussi,
c’est que les hommes, les partis, ont à secouer bien des préjugés,
bien des illusions, bien des passions, dont la trace est visible
dans la politique contemporaine, et qui ne sont point étrangères
aux crises actuelles. Ils ont à se pénétrer, tout d’abord, de cette
vérité d’où découlent toutes les autres, qui éclatent dans l’histoire
la plus récente,--que tout ce que favorise l’absolutisme accelère la
décomposition de la péril, qu’une politique libérale n’eut pas même
seulement une condition de progrès, qu’elle est plus encore peut-être
aujourd’hui, une stricte garantie d’ordre et de préservation.”
[3] Of all amusing writers on Spain, commend me to Richard Ford and
George Borrow. What a fantastic world they lived in, and how much they
contrived to see where other people would have beheld blank space and
“nothing more.” Ford’s opinions, and I should say Borrow’s stories,
must both be swallowed with a grain of salt; with the exception,
perhaps, of what the former says about bull-fights. See the _Quarterly
Review_, No. cxxiv., _The Handbook_, and _The Gatherings_.
[4] To see this and Mr. Tomline’s other fine pictures, it is necessary
to write for permission, which is most willingly granted. Without such
a precaution, you are like the foolish virgins unprovided with oil,
and have to go away in despair. The pretty scenery around may prove a
little consolation.
[5] Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1861. Du Goût Contemporaine.
[6] The name of Tarshish is supposed to have been applied to the
kingdom of Andalusia.
[7] Ford.
[8] “We shall trace cob,” he says, “for a long period as peculiarly
used by the Cainite branch. Cain built a city, ἠν οἰχοδομων πολιν.
To build a city infers a considerable population, and a certain
development of social life. As single houses must have preceded
cities, Cain certainly had previously constructed a house for himself
and his wife before the foundation of Enoch. It could not have been
a log-house: he was unprovided with instruments of iron to fell or
fashion timber, for the art of working metals was not discovered by
Tubal Cain till afterwards. It could not have been of stone, or brick,
or mortar: that implies a knowledge of chemistry. The use of bricks is
first recorded at the Tower of Babel, where bitumen was used instead of
mortar. Cain, we may fairly assume, must have built of mud or cob....
Mud was the obvious material to a tiller of the earth. Cain, an eater
of corn, must have observed the increased cohesiveness of clay when
mixed with stubble: he might have seen that exemplification in the
nests of some birds in the air. Mud mixed with straw would make his
cob, while fallen branches of trees and dried vegetable matter would
furnish his roof. His cottage, as to its colour, most _certainly_
resembled the red towers of the Alhambra, and the ferruginous cob of
Exeter; for as the first house was built near the site of Eden, it
must have been composed of the same earth from which the first man was
made,--that red earth, βωλος ἐρυθρος, which gave the ancient original
name of the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf,--that red dust from whence the
first man was called Adam--Adham, the red, the earthy man.”--_Quarterly
Review_, No. CXVI. Art. Cob Walls.
[9] Rev. James Meyrick.
[10] Rev. J. Meyrick, _Church of Spain_.
[11] Rev. J. Meyrick.
[12] I think the only book useful to all but the student who goes to
Gayangos, Pranzes, and the great work of Owen Jones, is the last-named
gentleman’s _Hand-book to the Alhambra, Crystal Palace_. Of course
everyone will carry his Ford; but, with regard to the Alhambra, Mr.
Owen Jones’s pamphlet is more explicit and exclusive, and, if mastered,
makes the Alhambra ever after familiar and easy of comprehension. We
carried it about with us as fondly as we had carried Street’s book
about the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo.
[13] Spain is divided among three populations. First, the aristocracy,
or blue blood: as Ford says, satirically, “The azure ichor of this
_élite_ of the earth is so called in contradistinction to common red
blood, the puddle that flows in plebeian veins; while the blood of
heretics, Lutherans, Protestants, and political enemies, is held by
Spanish sangrados, or heralds, to be black, pitchy, and therefore
combustible.” A Spaniard gave me the grades thus: blue blood,
aristocratic; red blood, middle class; white blood, plebeian.
[14] It is hardly necessary to say that everything that liberality,
active and passive, could do, was done, and done at once, for the
sufferers by the earthquake. Nothing was spared, money, counsel,
sympathy, and, I have no doubt that by this time, the villages
mentioned are rebuilt and re-inhabited.
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