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SUN AND SHADOW IN SPAIN
[Illustration: THE ARAB QUARTER, TANGIERS.]
SUN AND SHADOW
IN SPAIN
BY
MAUD HOWE
AUTHOR OF “ROMA BEATA,” “TWO IN ITALY,” ETC.
WITH PICTURES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
AND ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1908
_Copyright_, 1908,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published November, 1908
The Tudor Press
BOSTON, U. S. A.
To
ISABEL ANDERSON
THIS BOOK
IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
_CHILD’S PLAY_
_On the silver sands of First Beach in the Island of Rhode Island,
children were at play digging foundations, raising fortifications,
laying out the parks and streets of a city. They worked long and hard;
time was short, and the tide was coming in. Each wave, as it hissed and
broke upon the beach, sent its thin line of foam a little nearer the
brave outer wall of the town. Then came the inevitable inundation; the
children shrieked with glee as the city wall crumbled, the church
steeple toppled down, the courthouse collapsed. When nothing of the
thriving sand city remained, save its trees and flowers,--floating
bunches of red and green seaweed--the children, tired with much digging,
sat down and looked across the water._
_“What is over there?” asked the youngest, pointing an uncertain finger
to the East._
_“That is the Atlantic Ocean,” answered the eldest, “the nearest land is
the coast of Spain.”_
_“When I grow up I shall go there,” said the youngest, “to see what
Spain is like.”_
_After many years the child sailed across the Atlantic from the New
World to the Old, passed between the Pillars of Hercules, through the
“southern entrance of the ocean,” and landed on the Rock of Gibraltar.
Sitting there by the lighthouse of Europa Point, and looking back across
the waste of waters, the child had a vision of the city on the sands.
This Rock, this last spur of Europe, how many sand cities has it seen
washed away by the tides of time? The Calpe of the Phœnicians, the Jebel
al Tarac of the Arabs, the Gibraltar of the Spaniards. Where Queen
Adelaide’s lighthouse now sends its ray of light out into the darkness,
the famous shrine of the Virgen de Europa once stood. Here, once upon a
time, Jupiter, in the shape of a milk-white bull, plunged into the sea
with the lovely Europa on his back, and swam with her to Crete, where
she became the mother of Minos, whose ruined palace has just been
discovered in that wonderful island of Crete. The land, more steadfast
than the sea, keeps in its breast some of the things men prize most. In
the palace of Minos they found a small, finely modeled, gold figure of a
man with a bull’s head, cast in memory of the son of Jupiter and the
lovely Europa._
_As the stars pricked out from the blue, the child perceived they were
the stars she knew at home, and that the constellation of Taurus was
visible,--Taurus, the bull, still the animal of worship and of sacrifice
in the Peninsula._
_“When I have seen what Spain is like, I will tell the other children
about it,” said the child; then she took out the guidebook and opened
the map._
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE THORN IN SPAIN’S SIDE 1
II. A SIBYL OF RONDA 27
III. THE WHITE VEIL 58
IV. THE BLACK VEIL 82
V. SEVILLE FAIR 109
VI. A HOUSE IN SEVILLE 136
VII. CORDOVA 166
VIII. GRANADA 195
IX. TANGIERS 217
X. MADRID 251
XI. THE PRADO 279
XII. CARNIVAL 300
XIII. TOLEDO 315
XIV. THE BRIDE COMES 343
XV. THE KING’S WEDDING 364
XVI. WEDDING GUESTS 373
XVII. HASTA OTRA VISTA 393
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE ARAB QUARTER, TANGIERS. COLORED FRONTISPIECE
PAGE
OUR LADY OF O., SEVILLE 58
SEVILLE CATHEDRAL 64
ENTRANCE TO COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE 68
THE SCULPTOR MARTINEZ MONTANES 72
In the Prado Museum.
PORTRAIT OF MONTANES’ SON 72
In the Prado Museum.
PORTRAIT OF PHILIP II. _Coello_ 85
In the possession of John Elliott.
PORTRAIT OF VELASQUEZ, BY HIMSELF. DETAIL OF “LAS MENINAS” 96
In the Prado Museum.
PORTRAIT OF HIS WIFE. _Velasquez_ 96
In the Prado Museum.
THE GIRALDA, SEVILLE 107
BULL-FIGHTERS 122
SPANISH GYPSIES 122
ST. JOSEPH AND THE INFANT JESUS. _Murillo_ 164
In the Provincial Museum, Seville.
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. _Murillo_ 164
In the Cathedral, Seville.
THE MOSQUE, CORDOVA 167
THE MOSQUE, CORDOVA 188
LA PUERTA DEL SOL, TOLEDO 188
GATE OF JUSTICE, ALHAMBRA. In color 195
COURT OF LIONS, THE ALHAMBRA 196
GARDEN OF THE GENERALIFE, GRANADA 196
WINDOW, TOWER OF THE CAPTIVE, ALHAMBRA 199
GYPSIES OF GRANADA 203
LA PUERTO DEL VINO, GRANADA 207
A COURT OF THE ALHAMBRA 207
RETABLO, CARVED IN HIGH AND LOW RELIEF. _Roldan_ 211
MOORISH COLUMNS IN THE ALHAMBRA 214
TANGIERS. In color 218
STREET IN TANGIERS 226
SPANISH PEASANTS 232
ALI AND ZULEIKA 232
DETAIL FROM “THE MAIDS OF HONOR.” _Velasquez_ 259
In the Prado Museum.
DETAIL FROM “THE SURRENDER OF BREDA.” _Velasquez_ 279
In the Prado Museum.
THE TIPPLERS. _Velasquez_ 282
In the Prado Museum.
THE DUKE OF OLIVARES. _Velasquez_ 285
In the Prado Museum.
VENUS AND CUPID. _Velasquez_ 288
National Museum.
DON BALTASAR CARLOS. _Velasquez_ 291
In the Prado Museum.
DETAIL FROM “MOSES.” _Murillo_ 300
In the Prado Museum.
DETAIL FROM “MOSES.” _Murillo_ 308
In the Prado Museum.
TOLEDO BY MOONLIGHT. In color 326
DETAIL FROM “THE BURIAL OF COUNT ORGAZ.” _Greco_ 341
VILLEGAS IN HIS STUDIO 376
THE SPINNERS. _Velasquez_ 379
In the Prado Museum.
THE DOGARESSA. _Villegas_ 394
In the possession of Mrs. Larz Anderson.
THE DEATH OF THE MATADOR. _Villegas_ 398
In the possession of the artist.
IMPERIO. _Villegas_ 408
In the possession of Miss Dorothy Whitney.
SUN AND SHADOW IN SPAIN
I
THE THORN IN SPAIN’S SIDE
If you will look at the general map of Spain and Portugal, you will see
that the outlines of the Peninsula suggest the head of a man--a broad,
square head, with a high forehead and plenty of room for a large brain.
The profile, lying sharply cut on the blue Atlantic, shows a crest of
disordered hair, a slightly swelling forehead, a long, sensitive,
aristocratic nose with a sharply cut nostril, firm lips set close
together, a fine chin tapering to a small pointed beard, a slight
fulness under the chin; the throat, set well back and surrounded by a
blue collar--the Straits of Gibraltar--joins the head to the
shoulders--the continent of Africa. The more you look at the face, the
more certain you become that it is a familiar one, that it is the face
of one you hold dear, till at last complete recognition flashes upon
you; it is the face of Don Quixote de la Mancha! Look again; it is a
face such as Velasquez painted, not once, but many times; it is the
typical Spanish face, proud, high-bred, reserved.
So you need not land alone and unwelcomed upon the shore of fabled
Hispagna, now looming dim and blue upon the horizon, now growing
distinct and green. Two great spirits, Cervantes and Velasquez, come to
meet you! Their hands are stretched out to you; if you so elect, they
will walk with you in all your wanderings, and with their help you shall
know Spain.
Gibraltar, a lion couchant, head on paws, fronts the sea. Cross the bay
from Algeciras, the lion rears its head--a lion no longer--the pillar of
the coast of Europe, blue at first, then purple; when you are close in
its shadow you look up at a grim gray mountain towering above you. It
greets you like an old friend. You have known it under many names; first
as Calpe under its first master, Hercules, for that glorious old fellow,
the first “Great African Traveler,” was here. Wishing to show other
travelers who should come after that the “inner seas,” where it was safe
to sail, ended here, he took up a mountain and tore it in two to make
the bounds; half he set down in Africa, on the south, half in Europe, on
the north. These are the Columns of Hercules; the African column is
Abyle; the European, Calpe.
“_Ne plus ultra_,” said Hercules, as he wrapped his lion’s skin about
him and set sail for Libya to call on Atlas. Every time you write the
sign for the dollar ($) you draw the Columns of Hercules and the scroll
for his parting words, “_Ne plus ultra._”
Carthage was here! The poor Carthaginians built a tower on Calpe, to
watch for the dreaded Roman galleys sweeping down from Ostia, while in
Rome’s senate implacable Cato thundered his eternal “_Delenda est
Carthago._” Of course the Romans were here,--it is impossible to escape
them; wherever you travel in Europe or Africa you are always meeting
those grave ghosts!
Tarik was here; he and his Berbers, sailing over from Morocco, landed on
Calpe, and built a magnificent castle fortress to protect their retreat
and keep open the way back to Africa. Moors and Berbers made a long stay
in Europe; they held the Rock seven hundred years, until Moor and
Mahomet were driven out by Ferdinand and Isabel,--a service Spain holds
the Christian world has too soon forgotten. A pitiful flying remnant of
the Moors of Granada took ship at Gibraltar and sailed back to Morocco,
leaving behind them the imperishable Legacy of the Moor, taking with
them the keys of their houses in that lost paradise, Granada. Since
Tarik landed, the Rock has stood fourteen sieges, has passed from
master to master, but this is still the Hill of Tarik (Jebel Tarik),
though we pronounce it Gibraltar.
So, coming after Hercules, Carthage, Rome, Tarik, we are here! We landed
at night. As we passed down the steamer’s companionway to the tug, the
_Kaiser_ roared a hoarse farewell, her screw beat the “inner sea” to a
white lather. From the upper deck a girl’s handkerchief fluttered, a
man’s voice cried “Good luck!” Two thousand Italian steerage passengers,
the menace and amusement of the voyage, chaffed and laughed at us from
the lower deck. For nine days the steamer _Kaiser_, sailing on even
keel, had been all our world; a creature-comfortable world, with only
too much beef, beer, and skittles.
“There are no boats but the German--except a few of the English--fit to
cross the Atlantic,” a fat Hanoverian drummer said at dinner, that last
evening on board; “Germans and English are the only sailors.”
Don Jaime, the Andalusian, who sat opposite, looked at him.
“_Claro_,” he assented, graciously, in Spanish, “but--do you happen to
know how many Germans and English Columbus had with him on his caravel?”
The Hanoverian only grunted, like the pig he was.
The tug sheered away; we looked up from our dancing cockle-shell to the
_Kaiser_, looming vast above us, shutting out the stars. The glare of
her lights, the throb of her engines were still the all-important facts
of the universe, until--a long finger of light stretched out from
Tarik’s Hill and touched us.
“You see?” said a voice in the dark beside us, “the searchlight!
Gibraltar never sleeps.”
The searchlight faded, the tender turned her nose to shore. The
_Kaiser_, a little floating bit of Germany, was left behind; before us
towered England, a mighty Rock hung from peak to base with chains of
diamond lights. The tender drew alongside the Old Mole. At the gate a
young English sergeant in a smart uniform looked us over.
“Are you a British subject, sir?” he said to J., the first man ashore.
J. said he was.
“Pass in, sir,” said the sergeant; then to me: “British subject, marm?”
“I am an American----” I began.
“One shilling, if you please, marm; after gunfire only subjects may
enter Gibraltar without----”
“That is to say,” I explained, “I am the wife of this gentleman; _you_
may consider me a--a British sub----”
“Very good, marm, certainly,” murmured the sergeant, consolingly; “pass
in.”
“So an American birthright is only worth one shilling?” J. jeered, and
the international incident was closed, for the moment.
We slept at the Hotel Cecil, a comfortable house, with Spanish waiters
and Hispano-Anglo fare. At breakfast we made the acquaintance of a
pretty young officer, who wore his watch in a leather bracelet on his
wrist. He laughed at our impatience to have done with tea and marmalade
and be off to see the sights.
“Not much to see in Gib,” he said, “a beastly place! There’s the
Trafalgar Cemetery, if you care for that sort of thing. See that old
chap with the beard? If you want a guide he’s the best. He’s lying in
wait for you, a real Rock Scorpion; don’t let him sting you on the
‘tips.’ He’s a native; must have come into the world before the law
forbidding aliens to be born in Gibraltar.”
We thought that law must be hard to enforce. He said it was, but that
there was so little living room on the Rock “they” were very strict
about it. All ladies, except the wives of British subjects, must cross
over to the main land before the birth of their children. Spain, he
said, liked the law, because in the old days it had sometimes happened
that sons of Spaniards born on the Rock had refused to serve in the
Spanish army, claiming to be British subjects.
We asked how long strangers might stay in Gibraltar. He said that
generally speaking they might stay as long as they wished. The hotel
proprietor would get us the necessary permit; it might be extended for
ten days. The Governor, Sir George White (he who was in command in
Ladysmith when the garrison was relieved), was very exact about such
matters.
Again commending us to Old Scorp, our friend with the watch bracelet
left us, and we went out “for to admire and to see.” We avoided Old
Scorp, a little gray creeping man with shabby European clothes, but he
saluted us with the air of one who bides his time.
First we explored the North Town, crouching at the Rock’s base.
Waterport Street, the main artery of trade, lies at the lowest level,
the town rising in a series of terraces two hundred feet above. Houses,
churches, hospitals, barracks, stables, all built of a uniform gray
limestone, seem to have been honeycombed out of the Rock. The names at
the street corners have a bold British military flavor; Prince Edward’s
Ramp, Bomb House Lane, Devil’s Gap Steps, Victualling House Lane, Ragged
Staff Stairs. The shops are small and stuffy, with stale meagre wares;
the high-sounding names over their doors, Moorish, Spanish, Jewish
names, such as Alcantara, Barabiche, Vallerinos, Montegriffos, show in
whose hands the trade of Gibraltar has fallen. There are many names
beginning with Ben, such as Beneluz and Beneliel. I believe that all the
“Bens” are of Moorish descent: I have known a good many such, their
dark, impenetrable eyes, their skilful hands, the frequent touch of
genius they show, are a part of the Moor’s Legacy.
It was still early morning; the sky was a vault of blue fire, the air
was keen with the salt and seaweed of the Mediterranean. The orange
trees in the garden of the old Franciscan convent--now the Governor’s
house--were covered with fruit and blossoms; there was a sound of
bugles, the tramp of a regiment in Commercial Square; the soft cracked
bells of the old cathedral clanged the hour; from far away, where the
gunners were at practice, came the deep boom of cannon. Color, life,
movement all around us! This was no time to dream, to remember, to
entertain ghosts; breathless we looked through the kaleidoscope to-day
at the gay little pieces flickering with the pulse of time!
North Town has the most variegated population in Europe; to match it one
must cross the Straits to Tangiers. A British officer passed on a small
milk-white stallion; an Ethiopian, with gold earrings, and a beauty line
gashed on either cheek; a pair of sharp-eyed Jewish children, books
under arm, on their way to school; an Andalusian widow, draped like a
Tanagra figurine with soft dusky veils hanging to her shoe; another
officer of higher rank, a blond man with a face like a mask, who gave us
one quick challenge of the eye as he went his way--and I was aware that
I was a guest, while he was at home, a master in his own house. He was
followed by two ladies, his British wife and daughter, all fresh and
shining with soap and energy. Both were Saxons, with hair like spun gold
and calm blue eyes; they wore London clothes, and drove an English cob
in an Irish jaunting car. They were at home, too, and looked as if the
earth belonged to them. There were many soldiers loafing in twos and
threes, marching in files, walking singly--all with a jauntiness, a
buoyancy, that no other mere mortal men possess. Some of them--oh,
joy!--wore real uniforms with red coats; dull clod-colored khaki is good
enough for war, in peace there is no excuse for it.
The dash of winter in the air that was as the elixir of life to the
English, making their horses prance, their cheeks glow, their eyes
sparkle, affected the other inhabitants differently; the Spaniards
looked pale, the Moors ashen. We met Don Jaime, black sombrero pulled
over the eyes, black capa thrown over the shoulder, toga-fashion,
muffling mouth and chin and showing an amber plush lining. The Don
uncovered with a noble gesture, but we did not stop to speak to him, he
was in such evident terror of taking cold. There were frigid tears in
the almond eyes of Mr. Pohoomull as he stood at the door of the
Indo-Persian Bazaar inviting us to enter. Though he wore a lovely gray
embroidered cashmere cap and a Persian lamb coat, his teeth chattered.
We lingered somewhat, beguiled by his Benares trays, Burmese silver,
Persian carpets, ivory elephants, and were only saved from bankruptcy by
the vision of a figure in the street, more truly Oriental than anything
in Mr. Pohoomull’s shop. A tall, bronzed Moor in a green turban, a pink
kaftan, yellow slippers, and a big hairy brown _sulham_, drawn over his
head and falling to his knees, walked slowly down the middle of the
road, driving before him with a rod as long as himself a flock of green
and bronze turkeys. We followed to the Moorish market, where he entered
into discussion with another Morisco in a white _sulham_ and red morocco
slippers, presumably touching the price of turkeys. As an excuse to
linger near, we bought pistachio nuts in a fresh lettuce leaf, dates
from the desert on their yellow stalks, golden apples of
Hesperides--they called them tangerines--with dark, glossy leaves. The
market was noisy with the bickering of poultry, pigeons, and netted
quails in wicker baskets. In the English market on the other side of
the way, we bought for half a _peseta_ violets, roses, and splendid
Tyrian purple bourganvillia. The flower sellers, a group of withered
women sitting on the ground, looked like the Fates. The fish market was
a picture. The fish of the Mediterranean seem brighter colored than
other fish. Like wet jewels the red mullet, like silver the turbot, like
many-colored enamels the big variegated conger eels the Romans liked so
well. Gibraltar, which produces nothing, is splendidly victualled. The
beef comes from Morocco, the vegetables from Spain, the fruit from every
Mediterranean port. At the fruit stalls were bunches of Spanish grapes,
long, purple, white, hanging thick overhead, a background for Barbary
baskets filled with citrons, persimmons, cocoanuts, apples, and pears.
In the foreground were heaps of black olives and smooth green melons,
the latter a cross between watermelon and cantaloupe. The Spaniards know
how to keep them fresh half the winter. The vegetable stalls were quite
as handsome in their way, the color used skillfully in broad masses.
Deep chrome gourds, violet eggplant, a long cane basket of vermilion
tomatoes and gray-green artichokes; the beauty of color so enthralled us
that we were not quick enough in making way for a majestic British
matron, followed by a neat Spanish maid. The lady must have been at
least a colonel’s wife--if such go to market--for she looked through
us, without seeing us, as if we had been so much glass. To make amends,
the little servant gave us soft welcoming glances, but we felt abashed
and went sadly away. As we left the market, we saw our young officer of
the watch bracelet sniffing at the carcass of a mighty new-killed
pig--then we knew that he was of the “commissariat.”
Outside the market we met the turkey-herd again; he had sold no turkeys,
but added a pair of white ones to his flock. As we stood admiring him,
Patsy joined us, kodak in hand.
“I must snap that Moor,” he said; “please stand before me. If he sees me
he will be frightened and think I mean to do him a mischief.” Patsy
adjusted his camera; he was on the point of turning the button when a
policeman interfered:
“Beg pardon, sir, it’s against the rules to photograph the
fortifications.”
“But I wasn’t,” Patsy explained. “I was only taking a shot at that old
boy with the turkeys.”
The man pointed to the bastion behind the Moor; it would certainly have
come within the kodak’s focus. We tried to comfort Patsy by reminding
him that Gibraltar was a fortress, that we were here on sufferance; but
he was much chagrined and kept repeating that he was not a spy. At that
moment of discomfiture we heard a voice, deep as an organ note, behind
us, rumbling out the words:
“I am the book.”
We turned and saw Old Scorp.
“I am the _Century_.”
“Looks old enough to be,” murmured Patsy.
“I am _Harper’s Magazine_.”
“Indeed? You scarcely look it,” said J.
“Don’t you see?” I cried, “he is the _guide_, he has been mentioned in
_Harper_ and the _Century_.”
“Take him along!” begged Patsy. “He knows the ropes; he’ll keep us from
getting into any more scrapes.”
Old Scorp had crawled in our wake all the morning; his time had come; he
claimed us for his own. From that moment till we left the Rock, we were
scarcely out of his company, except when asleep or at meals. When not
busy guiding travelers, he acted as Moorish interpreter of the law
court. A little gliding man, like a composite of all the peoples who
have held the Rock, his clothes were English, his manners Spanish, his
fanatical eyes were Berber, his energy, in spite of his age, ancient
Roman, his keenness as to pounds, shillings, and pence was Phœnician,
his manner of cracking a nut--where had I seen that action? In the
monkey cage at the Zoo.
The original inhabitants of Gibraltar, a tribe of half-tame, tailless
apes, still hold the steep west front of the Rock. They are descended
from those apes of Tarshish sent to Solomon, together with peacocks,
ivory, and gold, every three years. They live on the summit, where the
sweet palmetto and the prickly pear grow. In summer, when man and monkey
grill upon the arid Rock, the soldiers at the Signal Station save water
for their poor relations, and look the other way when the simian troop
goes on a raid to rob the Governor’s fruit garden; they even keep a sort
of parish register of monkey births and deaths. How these blue Barbary
apes, the only African monkeys in Europe, ever found their way here, is
a mystery, like the presence of the Basques in the Pyrenees.
“I wonder if they were here before the convulsion of nature that tore
apart the coasts of Africa and Europe,” Patsy ruminated.
Why not say, when Hercules tore them apart? It’s so much prettier!
From the market-place we went to the parade-ground, a quadrangle
surrounded by solid stone barracks, where a squad of the King’s Own were
drilling. Inside the barracks a military band played Sousa’s “Stars and
Stripes Forever.” The King’s Own were brisk, young, and fresh-looking
newcomers, with the beef and beer of Old England still in their blood;
they will not have such pretty complexions when they leave, after three
summers on the Rock. The climate that we found delicious in December
must be terrific in July. Scorp admitted that it was a trifle warm,
though it suited him; we could fancy him basking on the Rock, as if he
belonged in one of its crevices. At luncheon we asked Bracelet how he
found the summer here. From what he said, Gibraltar cannot be a nice
place when the black levanter blows, the dark cloud cap settles on the
summit, the clamminess comes into the air, and the stifling east wind
takes the heart out of a man and sets his nerves jangling, till he feels
like Prometheus chained to the burning Rock. They make out very well in
the winter, Bracelet said, with the warships coming and going, people
from home running down to the Hotel Maria Cristina over in Algeciras,
and occasional shooting trips in the Atlas Mountains. Of course, the
great institution is the Calpe Hunt.
“Fox hunting _here_?” Patsy interrupted.
“No, no, over there.” Bracelet nodded towards the narrow ribbon of sand
that ties the Rock to Spain. “In the old days, though, the place swarmed
with foxes. Rockwood and Ranter, the first couple of hounds an old
parson had out from England, gave ’em some rattling good runs up the
face of the Rock.”
More ghosts--the ghosts of the first two foxhounds whose names, Rockwood
and Ranter, are a matter of history. Never was such a place for ghosts
as Mons Calpe!
Patsy catechized Bracelet about the hunting half through luncheon; that
was not fair. He asked more than his share of questions; when it comes
to dogs, horses, or sport of any kind, men never are fair, they are so
greedy. I had a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but I had to listen
and pretend to be interested. From November, after the rains are over,
till March, when the ground is too dry to carry the scent, they have two
joyous runs a week. It’s the only thing that makes life here possible.
The ride to the meets is almost always along the Spanish beach; some of
them are a goodish distance; Long Stables, for instance, is thirteen
miles away, Almoraima is twelve. We could imagine the relief of a gallop
in the salt air after being cooped up on the Rock. There is every sort
of country,--thick woods, coverts, crags; only, Bracelet complained, no
jumping, because there are no fences or hedges in this benighted land.
Everybody hunts, of course. An old gentleman, a sort of Nestor of the
chase, died as he had lived, following the hounds. He was drowned at
Washerwoman’s Ford the other day, on his way home from the meet. Quite
a decent exit, wasn’t it? To die in the saddle at the end of a day’s
hunting. He was a goodish age, too, turned seventy-six.
We had one disappointment: demanding to be taken to St. Michael’s Cave,
we learned that it was no longer shown. Scorp, who in his far-off youth
had known it well, was easily led to talk of the mysterious cave. I was
the only one of the party who had grace to listen. The others were
welcome to monopolize Bracelet--young, handsome, full of delicious
insularity; I preferred the little old gray man. There are many
impetuous merry lads; there is but one Rock Scorpion! There was
something reptilian about the man. His language, full of Oriental
allegory, moved sluggishly along, then broke into sudden bursts of
antediluvian slang, and on every possible occasion stung us with the
words, “You tip the hand.”
“‘_Metuendus acumine caude_,’ Ovid says of the scorpion,” Patsy quoted,
“or, as one might say, Fearful with the sting of his tip!”
According to Old Scorp, the entrance to St. Michael’s Cave is now one
thousand feet above the sea, about two thirds up the face of the
mountain. Once upon a time the sea was level with the cave. Had not he
and his brother, when they were boys, found fossil shells there, and the
remains of a sea beach outside? The entrance was low, he remembered,
but inside it was big as the Mosque of Cordova. Its wonderful stalactite
columns, fifty feet high, looked like yellow alabaster; there were
pointed arches springing from column to column. Lighted up with blue
fire, as he had once seen the cave, it was a sight that, man or boy, he
had never seen equalled. Except for its being so dark, those who lived
here had a fine commodious dwelling. Yes, men have lived, fought, and
died in the great cave, and left their flint knives, their stone axes,
and their bones to tell the tale. Women have lived and worked there;
they left their necklaces, their anklets, their bone needles, their
household pottery behind them. There have been feasts here, for amphoræ
with traces of wine have been found. There were other caves--oh, many!
sea caves and land caves; some “professors” say that the old name Calpe
means caved mountain. Whether or not that is true, Scorp, of his own
knowledge, assured us that the Rock is full of secret caverns. As if
these were not enough, the English are always burrowing and tunnelling.
They have dug three tunnels under the Rock; in one they found what is
more precious than gold, good water. No, we might not see the tunnels,
not even the last of the smaller caves--the secrets of the mountain are
jealously guarded.
Listening to the old man’s talk, we climbed a street of stairs cutting
directly through a tangle of narrow alleys where Jews and other aliens
live, to the upper level of North Town, where we found the Church of the
Sacred Heart, its doors hospitably open. As it was the only door in
Gibraltar, except the Cecil’s, that had not been shut and barred against
us, we went in. The smell of the incense, the red light of the candles,
was pleasantly familiar; the statues of saints and Virgin greeted us
like old friends.
“I haf a friend in Brooklyn, Unity States,” said a voice beside us. “He
send me weekly paper. I hope you know my friend--his name is----. Mebbe
he spoke with you of Father Jims, of the Sacred Heart?”
Father Jims was young and soft-eyed, with a face such as Murillo painted
in his “St. Joseph and the Holy Child.” He was so sure we had come to
find him out, with some message from his friend, that it went to our
hearts to undeceive him. He said he meant shortly to go to Brooklyn;
from what his friend wrote, _there_ was a rare field for missionary
work! Father Jims was a Catalan; his eyes burned with a zeal that
augured well for his mission among the heathen of Brooklyn. He showed us
the modest treasures of his church, and presented us with a picture of
St. Bernard, the patron of Gibraltar. As we parted we gave him a little
money for his poor; he took it with a radiant smile I shall not soon
forget. Among all the tremendous impressions we brought away from
Gibraltar, the smile of the little Spanish servant maid in the
market-place, and the smile of the poor Catalan priest in the church,
are the kindest, and will perhaps remain with us the longest.
Near the church is the fine new hospital; an inscription tells that Lord
Napier, of Magdala, laid the foundation stone.
In Lord Napier’s hospital there are women nurses. Teaching and nursing
nuns are in charge of several charitable institutions, and in the post
office reigns a postmistress; so, though Gibraltar is the most mannish,
English-speaking place I know, there is plenty of civic and charitable
work for women. It was strange to learn that the place is a colony and a
port, as well as a fortress. On this tiny speck of earth you can find
all the complex machinery of civil, military, and colonial existence, as
neatly organized as life in an ant-hill. As to the port, it is now of
consequence as a coaling station only. Prosaic enough, compared to the
palmy days when it was the first smugglers’ headquarters of the
Mediterranean! Tobacco is still smuggled into Spain, where it is a
government monopoly, and is, consequently, very bad and very dear. The
smuggling is largely carried on by dogs. The poor innocents are taken
out in a boat at night from Gibraltar; when near the Spanish coast,
small water-tight casks filled with contraband tobacco are fastened on
either side of them, they are put overboard and swim to land. They learn
not to bark or make a noise, but to scramble silently ashore into the
arms of their _contrabandista_ partners, just as in the days of the
Deerfield Massacre, babies in New England were taught not to cry on
account of the Indians.
After luncheon we went to see the “Galleries.” Our Scorp convoyed us;
Gunner Wilkinson, a lean old war dog, received us and led the way into a
dim passage, with sanded floor and whitewashed roof, tunnelled out of
the bowels of the Rock. The narrow gallery ascends at an easy slope, now
and again widening out into a small chamber, as a Roman catacomb expands
into the chapel of Christian martyr or saint. Only here, in this aerial
catacomb, instead of the statue of a saint, stands a great gun, its
black nozzle poking through a loophole. The Gunner explained the
working, patting the gun as one pats a favorite horse. At the lightest
touch the monster swung smoothly on its swivel, and the loophole was
free for us to look out at the magnificent view. Below us was Gibraltar
Bay, the cork woods of Algeciras, and the blue line of Sierras beyond.
We were in no hurry to leave the gallery, as we should probably never be
here again. Gunner Wilkinson refused a shilling, but accepted a cigar;
and finally understanding that we really were interested in his
wonderful Cyclopean galleries, he unbent and gossiped about them in a
friendly way.
During the “Great Siege,” a non-commissioned officer, Sergeant Ince,
heard the commandant, General Eliott, say that he would give a thousand
dollars to be able to drop shells on the enemy from a certain point
where the Rock’s face was a sheer precipice. The practical genius of the
plain soldier found out the way. If there was no place for the guns on
the Rock, make a place for them in the Rock. So the famous Rock
Batteries, at Ince’s suggestion, were blasted out of the living cliffs.
They had done great service in their day, but now, frankly, this cannon,
that to me looked so deadly, was quite out of date. The real guns were
mounted--elsewhere! Yes, La Vieja (the old dog) had a new set of teeth;
she could bite now as well as bark. Beyond this the Gunner would say
nothing of the modern defences, nor of those secret forbidden parts of
“Gib” I longed to see. His talk was all of old wars, old heroes, of
Ince, who rose from the ranks and was made an ensign of the Royal
Garrison Battalion as a reward for his batteries. One day, when he was
an aged man, riding to his work on an ancient nag, he met the Governor,
the Duke of Kent, the father of “_the_ Queen.”
“That horse is too old for you, Mr. Ince,” said the Duke.
“I like to ride easy, your Royal Highness,” Ince answered meekly.
“Right,” said the Duke, “but you deserve a better mount.”
A few days later the Duke sent Ince a fiery young horse, far too
spirited for the old overseer to manage. The next time the Duke met Ince
he was riding his shambling nag. The Duke stopped and asked where the
new horse was. Ince confessed that it was more than he could manage, and
begged leave to send it back to the Duke’s stable.
“No, no, Overseer, if you can’t ride him, put him in your pocket,” said
the Duke handsomely. Ince took the hint and sold the horse for a good
price.
Gunner Wilkinson talked of Nelson’s visit and the banquet given him in
St. George’s Hall, the magnificent rock chamber at the end of the
galleries, as if it had all happened last year, and first, last, and
always he talked of the great siege.
A red flash, a puff of white smoke, a dull roar told that a yacht had
just entered the harbor. As I looked through the narrow loophole,
watching the sailors furl the sails, I glanced across the bay to the
cork woods of Algeciras, and the lower foothills of the Sierras--and
again I _remembered_ the past. This is the thirteenth of April, 1783,
the great day of the “Great Siege,” that began on a September morning
three years before, when Mrs. Skinner touched off the first gun of the
defence to General Eliott’s signal, “Britons strike home.” This day, the
allies believe, will see the obstinate garrison that has held out so
long, against scurvy and starvation within, as well as the enemy’s guns
without, come to terms. The old General who has lived for more than a
week on four ounces of rice per diem, just to prove how little a man
need eat to live and fight, will hoist the white flag before evening
gunfire. Down there in the bay lies the combined fleet of France and
Spain, forty-seven “sail of the line”--real line of battleships, with
white figureheads and wings and pleasant windowed balconies astern, and
nice brass cannon shining through long rows of portholes. Alongside
these three deckers and frigates are the strangest craft Gibraltar Bay
has ever seen--ten famous unsubmergible, incombustible, floating
batteries; uncouth monsters with bulging sides padded with wet sand, and
hanging roofs covered with damp hides. Those Algeciras hills are
crowded with spectators, come from all over Spain, to see the fall of
Gibraltar. For eight hours the besiegers’ five hundred guns roared and
spat fire and shells, and the garrison’s ninety and six answered with
Boyd’s deadly hot shot. The bay was a gallant sight at sunrise--who
would have seen it at evening gunfire? Not the people who had come to
watch the great victory; they melted away from the hills like summer
snow, for the victory was to the “old dog!” The indestructible floating
batteries were destroyed, the beautiful ships sunk or in flames, their
sides blackened, their sails tattered. That day’s fight cost the
garrison something less than two hundred men, and the allies more than
two thousand.
“Old Eliott stood there on the King’s Bastion during the fight,” the
Gunner said. I wondered if he had shouted the slogun of his people in
the debatable land. The Gunner asked what that might be. I gave him the
old border cry of the Black Eliotts:
“My name is little Jock Eliott, and wha’ daur meddle wi’ me?”
Wilkinson, chuckling grimly, repeated it, surmised that “per’aps ’ee
did,” and gave this parting anecdote:
When, after peace was declared, the French commander, Duc de Crillon,
visited Gibraltar, Eliott showed him Ince’s galleries. De Crillon
called the attention of his suite with these words:
“Notice, gentlemen, that these works are worthy of the Romans.”
(Shade of Scipio Africanus! didst hear and wert appeased?)
While in the Gunner’s company we heard much rolling of drums and
sounding of “tuckets”; some military business was going on not far away.
It was stirring to the pulses, and made us feel martial and
bloodthirsty. We parted with the Gunner at evening gunfire; when we
shook hands my bones crunched in his mighty grip, but I believe I did
not flinch. We marched back to the hotel, keeping step to the march a
military band was playing in the Alameda. That night, just as the floor
of my room at the Cecil began to heave with the slow even roll of the
_Kaiser_, a strain of sleepy lullaby music melted into my dream. I
roused and looked at the watch. It was ten o’clock; the bugler at the
barracks was playing “taps” on a silver bugle. It was all true! We were
here, sleeping in the “Key to the Mediterranean!”
II
A SIBYL OF RONDA
Dawn in a garden of Andalusia.... To the south, across the Straits of
Gibraltar, the faint purple outlines of the Atlas Mountains mark the
mysterious coast of Africa. To the north, beyond the green _vega_, four
ranges of clear cut Sierras Gazoulos rise, one behind the other, from
gray, vaporous valleys of mist. The only sounds are the rhythmic
breaking of waves on the beach; the short breathing of a herd of
goats--black, tawny, and white, with coarse hair and fierce, yellow
eyes, and the crisp crunch, crunch of their teeth cropping the roadside
grass. The night flowers hang their heads and go to sleep, the day
flowers lift their faces to the sun; the smell of heliotrope drenched in
dew is an unforgetable thing. Breakfast is memorable, too; dates from
Morocco, and rich Spanish coffee flavored with cinnamon, served under an
arbor of Marechal Neil roses.
So began our first day in Spain, at a place the Romans called Portus
Albus, and the Moors--they settled here soon after landing on Gibraltar,
Jezirat-I-Kadra--“the green island.” Can you derive the modern name of
Algeciras from that? You must. Our old friend Tarik was here,--witness
the great aqueduct he built, that still brings Algeciras his royal gift
of water, always the legacy of Roman or of Moor.
To-day, Gibraltar is England’s key to the Mediterranean; yesterday,
Algeciras was the Moors’ key to Spain. They held the Peninsula seven
hundred years, think of it!--nearly twice as long as white men have held
America; then it was wrenched from them, the door was locked against
them. Less than three hundred years ago our ancestors landed on Plymouth
Rock, but how should we, in New England, feel if the Indians, the
Mexicans, or the Canadians rose up and drove us out of our stately
cities, our green pastures, our fertile wheat fields? The Moors made a
brave stand at Algeciras--it was their last ditch--and put up a good
fight here. In the year 1344, the town was besieged by Alonzo XI of
Castile, with the help of crusaders from every part of Christendom. The
siege lasted twenty months. Chaucer, writing forty years later,
describes a true knight as one who “had fought at Algecir,” as we might
say of one of Thermopylæ’s Three Hundred or of Balaclava’s Six Hundred.
In 1760, four hundred years afterwards, the Spanish King, Charles III,
rebuilt and fortified the place, “to be a hornet’s nest against the
English.” For one hundred years Gibraltar and Algeciras--now deadly
places, both of them bristling with guns, full of dynamite--have
glowered at each other across the bay. The other day the English came
again to Algeciras. Armed this time with British capital, they have
built one of the hotels of the world here, and called it the Reina Maria
Cristina, as a compliment to the Spanish Queen Mother.
“We did not expect to find such a fine hotel in Spain,” I said to the
capable English manageress.
“Ah, well! we hardly count this as Spain, you know!” she answered, with
a fine insular contempt for all things “foreign.”
“She’s right!” cried Patsy. “_Por Dios._ Shall we never get out of
England?” and willy-nilly he carried us off to lunch at Don Jaime’s
_fonda_, in the old part of the town.
The Don was waiting for us on a bench outside the inn door, smoking his
inevitable cigarette, in the soft spring air. He looked a little bleary
about the eyes, as if he had not had enough sleep.
“Don Jaime is up early to-day for our sake,” Patsy explained; “as he
goes to bed at four in the morning, he does not usually appear before
two in the afternoon.”
“The morning is a disease,” said the Don. “I find it best not to go out
until the day is well aired.”
“Please observe,” Patsy interrupted, “that this place has a proper odor
of garlic; at last we are out of the smell of English roast beef!”
The Don sighed. “Nevertheless, I comfortably recall the roast beef we
had at school in Stoneyhurst,” he said; “it was rare, with plenty good,
red gravy.”
“That was all right in England; we’re in Andalusia now. Let’s begin with
an _olla_, then a dish of rice, saffron, _pimientos_, and little
birds,--and wine from that fattest wineskin. I counted ten of them
outside in the road, leaning jovially together against the wall of the
_fonda_.”
When he got his wine from the “fattest wineskin”--it tasted a little of
the “leather botelle”--Patsy raised his glass.
“We will drink,” he cried, “to everything Spanish, _muchachas_, _ollas_,
_dons_, _torrones_, and _fondas_, and confusion to all interlopers.
Isn’t this jolly little place better than the Maria Cristina? Isn’t the
company more friendly and far more diverting? See the notary and the
doctor at the table near the door; at the next, the priest and the
professor (they’re both taking snuff); that fat, military man with the
green gloves is a colonel of infantry. Those swell English officers you
admired so much at the Reina Cristina simply own the hotel! We’re
admitted to the smoking and billiard rooms purely on sufferance. I like
your inn best, Don Jaime.”
“Ah, well,” said the Don, “I like bath every morning, and all that
luxushness when I stayed at the Reina, though it was much pain to put on
cocktail coat every night for dinner.”
“Treasure every gem of speech he lets fall,” murmured Patsy, “they grow
rarer--don’t you notice?--as his English comes back to him.”
“He’s always been like that,” said J., “it’s because he learned English
when he was young.” “Some days he speaks as well as you or I, then again
he talks a hodge podge no man can understand.”
“What’s the matter with the wine, Don?” cried Patsy. “You don’t like
it.”
“Wine is not agreeable to my belly,” said the Don. “I will take to keep
you company, _un poco de ginebra, de campaña_, with much water.”
“You must not expect ice,” Patsy explained.
“You will not hanker for it,” said the Don, taking a clay water bottle
from the shelf behind him. “This _alcarraza_ is--how you say? holey--no,
porous, keeps water as cold as you might drink him, by evaporation.” He
poured out the water and put the _alcarraza_ back. It had a rounded
bottom and could not stand upright. The Romans used the same kind of
vessel; you see them at Pompeii. They were made in this shape because
they were used to pour libations of lustral water to Vesta, and would
have been defiled if they had been set down on the ground.
By this time the fruit was put on the table. All the other guests had
left the room except the priest and the professor, who were playing a
game of dominoes. A large melon was placed before J. He looked at me as
he cut it:
“You remember what I have always said? Till you come to Spain it is
impossible to know what a melon can be.”
“No earthly melon can taste as good as this one smells,” said Patsy. “It
is as if all the spices of Arabia had been let loose in this room!”
The servants had withdrawn, the clatter of the dishes had ceased. Some
one opened a window; from the garden came the music of a guitar played
by a master hand, a man’s voice singing a song of Andalusia:
“_Me han dicho que tu te casas,_
_y asi lo dice la gente,_
_todo sera en un dia_
_tu casamiento y mi muerte._”
(They have told me thou art to wed, so people say; all shall be in one
day, thy marriage and my death.)
Don Jaime’s thimbleful of gin and his two cups of black coffee--he ate
scarcely anything--had waked him up wonderfully. He smoked, with my
permission, between the courses throughout lunch, flicking the ash from
his cigarette with the phenomenally long nail of his little finger; his
hands were white, handsome, and exquisitely kept. Lunch over and the
serenade finished, Don Jaime settled his old black _sombrero_ jauntily
on the side of his head, buttoned up his threadbare coat--its darning
was a work of art--and declared himself ready to show us the town.
“You would like to paint it red, wouldn’t you?” said Patsy.
“White better is suited to that climate,” said Don Jaime. _His_ slang
was current in the England of the sixties, and he took ours literally,
but he laughed buoyantly because Patsy laughed.
Algeciras is a clean, pretty town, with neat, whitewashed houses,
handsome iron gratings to doors and casements, and curious metal
gargoyles and gutters painted green. Here and there from a window, or,
in the more important houses, from a balcony like a small grated out of
doors boudoir, leaned a handsome Algeciras girl, her dark, smooth hair
beautifully dressed, with a bright flower worn over the middle of the
forehead,--a pink rose, a white camelia, or one of the gorgeous red or
yellow carnations one must come to Andalusia to see. We walked in the
_alameda_, a well laid out promenade, with neat little gardens, each
with a small pavilion on either side. We loitered in the city square,
admired its beauties, and the handsome uniforms of the smart, well set
up Spanish officers, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes outside the
more fashionable cafés.
“_Miré_ (look)! this is the bull-fighters’ café,” said Don Jaime, as we
turned into a side street, “and there is Bombito, the first matador in
Spain. He has come down from Madrid for the bull-fight to-morrow.”
An open door gave a glimpse of a tawdry interior with large mirrors, red
plush seats, and atrocious decorations. At a table near the window sat
the matador, a magnificently built man, with a frank, open face and a
courageous eye. He was dressed in Andalusian costume,--a short,
close-fitting coat like an Eton jacket, red sash, very tight trousers,
wide-brimmed hat of hard gray felt. His hair, tied in a cue, was turned
up under his hat; his full ruffled shirt was fastened by large diamonds;
a superb cabuchon ruby burned on his finger. Around him sat a group of
_aficionados_, the fancy, the young bloods of Algeciras. As we passed,
Bombito, looking up, recognized Don Jaime. The matador smiled and
nodded, and the _aficionados_ turned to see the fortunate man to whom
Bombito waved his hand.
“Spain at last, Spain of the songs I have sung, the pictures on fans and
guava boxes I have collected,” Patsy burbled joyously.