Cadiz And Seville.
Voyage to Cadiz--Landing--The City--Its Streets--The Women of
Cadiz--Embarkation for Seville--Scenery of the Guadalquivir--Custom
House Examination--The Guide--The Streets of Seville--The Giralda--The
Cathedral of Seville--The Alcazar-Moorish Architecture--Pilate's
House--Morning View from the Giralda--Old Wine--Murillos--My Last
Evening in Seville.
"The walls of Cadiz front the shore,
And shimmer o'er the sea."
R. H. Stoddard.
"Beautiful Seville!
Of which I've dreamed, until I saw its towers
In every cloud that hid the setting sun."
George H. Boker.
Seville, _November_ 10, 1852.
I left Gibraltar on the evening of the 6th, in the steamer Iberia. The
passage to Cadiz was made in nine hours, and we came to anchor in the
harbor before day-break. It was a cheerful picture that the rising sun
presented to us. The long white front of the city, facing the East, glowed
with a bright rosy lustre, on a ground of the clearest blue. The tongue of
land on which Cadiz stands is low, but the houses are lifted by the heavy
sea-wall which encompasses them. The main-land consists of a range of low
but graceful hills, while in the south-east the mountains of Ronda rise at
some distance. I went immediately on shore, where my carpet-bag was seized
upon by a boy, with the rich brown complexion of one Murillo's beggars,
who trudged off with it to the gate. After some little detention there, I
was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half
an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his
private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to
Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable house on the Alameda.
Cadiz is soon seen. Notwithstanding its venerable age of three thousand
years--having been founded by Hercules, who figures on its
coat-of-arms--it is purely a commercial city, and has neither antiquities,
nor historic associations that interest any but Englishmen. It is
compactly built, and covers a smaller space than accords with my ideas of
its former splendor. I first walked around the sea-ramparts, enjoying the
glorious look-off over the blue waters. The city is almost insulated, the
triple line of fortifications on the land side being of but trifling
length. A rocky ledge stretches out into the sea from the northern point,
and at its extremity rises the massive light-house tower, 170 feet high.
The walls toward the sea were covered with companies of idle anglers,
fishing with cane rods of enormous length. On the open, waste spaces
between the bastions, boys had spread their limed cords to catch singing
birds, with chirping decoys placed here and there in wicker cages. Numbers
of boatmen and peasants, in their brown jackets, studded with tags and
bugles, and those round black caps which resemble smashed bandboxes,
loitered about the walls or lounged on the grass in the sun.
Except along the Alameda, which fronts the bay, the exterior of the city
has an aspect of neglect and desertion. The interior, however, atones for
this in the gay and lively air of its streets, which, though narrow, are
regular and charmingly clean. The small plazas are neatness itself, and
one is too content with this to ask for striking architectural effects.
The houses are tall and stately, of the most dazzling whiteness, and
though you could point out no one as a pattern of style, the general
effect is chaste and harmonious. In fact, there are two or three streets
which you would almost pronounce faultless. The numbers of hanging
balconies and of court-yards paved with marble and surrounded with elegant
corridors, show the influence of Moorish taste. There is not a
mean-looking house to be seen, and I have no doubt that Cadiz is the best
built city of its size in the world. It lies, white as new-fallen snow,
like a cluster of ivory palaces, between sea and sky. Blue and silver are
its colors, and, as everybody knows, there can be no more charming
contrast.
I visited both the old and new cathedrals, neither of which is
particularly interesting. The latter is unfinished, and might have been a
fine edifice had the labor and money expended on its construction been
directed by taste. The interior, rich as it is in marbles and sculpture,
has a heavy, confused effect. The pillars dividing the nave from the
side-aisles are enormous composite masses, each one consisting of six
Corinthian columns, stuck around and against a central shaft. More
satisfactory to me was the Opera-House, which I visited in the evening,
and where the dazzling array of dark-eyed Gaditanas put a stop to
architectural criticism. The women of Cadiz are noted for their beauty and
their graceful gait. Some of them are very beautiful, it is true; but
beauty is not the rule among them. Their gait, however, is the most
graceful possible, because it is perfectly free and natural. The
commonest serving-maid who walks the streets of Cadiz would put to shame a
whole score of our mincing and wriggling belles.
Honest old Blanco prepared me a cup of chocolate by sunrise next morning,
and accompanied me down to the quay, to embark for Seville. A furious wind
was blowing from the south-east, and the large green waves raced and
chased one another incessantly over the surface of the bay. I took a heavy
craft, which the boatmen pushed along under cover of the pier, until they
reached the end, when the sail was dropped in the face of the wind, and
away we shot into the watery tumult. The boat rocked and bounced over the
agitated surface, running with one gunwale on the waves, and sheets of
briny spray broke over me. I felt considerably relieved when I reached the
deck of the steamer, but it was then diversion enough to watch those who
followed. The crowd of boats pitching tumultuously around the steamer,
jostling against each other, their hulls gleaming with wet, as they rose
on the beryl-colored waves, striped with long, curded lines of wind-blown
foam, would have made a fine subject for the pencil of Achenbach.
At last we pushed off, with a crowd of passengers fore and aft, and a
pyramid of luggage piled around the smoke-pipe. There was a party of four
Englishmen on board, and, on making their acquaintance, I found one of
them to be a friend to some of my friends--Sir John Potter, the
progressive ex-Mayor of Manchester. The wind being astern, we ran rapidly
along the coast, and in two hours entered the mouth of the Guadalquivir.
[This name comes from the Arabic _wadi el-kebeer_--literally, the Great
Valley.] The shores are a dead flat. The right bank is a dreary forest of
stunted pines, abounding with deer and other game; on the left is the
dilapidated town of San Lucar, whence Magellan set sail on his first
voyage around the world. A mile further is Bonanza, the port of Xeres,
where we touched and took on board a fresh lot of passengers. Thenceforth,
for four hours, the scenery of the Guadalquivir had a most distressing
sameness. The banks were as flat as a board, with here and there a
straggling growth of marshy thickets. Now and then we passed a herdsman's
hut, but there were no human beings to be seen, except the peasants who
tended the large flocks of sheep and cattle. A sort of breakfast was
served in the cabin, but so great was the number of guests that I had much
difficulty in getting anything to eat. The waiters were models of calmness
and deliberation.
As we approached Seville, some low hills appeared on the left, near the
river. Dazzling white villages were planted at their foot, and all the
slopes were covered with olive orchards, while the banks of the stream
were bordered with silvery birch trees. This gave the landscape, in spite
of the African warmth and brightness of the day, a gray and almost wintry
aspect. Soon the graceful Giralda, or famous Tower of Seville, arose in
the distance; but, from the windings of the river, we were half an hour in
reaching the landing-place. One sees nothing of the far-famed beauty of
Seville, on approaching it. The boat stops below the Alameda, where the
passengers are received by Custom-House officers, who, in my case, did not
verify the stories told of them in Cadiz. I gave my carpet-bag to a boy,
who conducted me along the hot and dusty banks to the bridge over the
Guadalquivir, where he turned into the city. On passing the gate, two
loafer-like guards stopped my baggage, notwithstanding it had already been
examined. "What!" said I, "do you examine twice on entering Seville?"
"Yes," answered one; "twice, and even three times;" but added in a lower
tone, "it depends entirely on yourself." With that he slipped behind me,
and let one hand fall beside my pocket. The transfer of a small coin was
dexterously made, and I passed on without further stoppage to the Fonda de
Madrid.
Sir John Potter engaged Antonio Bailli, the noted guide of Seville, who
professes to have been the cicerone of all distinguished travellers, from
Lord Byron and Washington Irving down to Owen Jones, and I readily
accepted his invitation to join the party. Bailli is recommended by Ford
as "fat and good-humored" Fat he certainly is, and very good-humored when
speaking of himself, but he has been rather spoiled by popularity, and is
much too profuse in his critical remarks on art and architecture.
Nevertheless, as my stay in Seville is limited, I have derived no slight
advantage from his services.
On the first morning I took an early stroll through the streets. The
houses are glaringly white, like those of Cadiz, but are smaller and have
not the same stately exteriors. The windows are protected by iron
gratings, of florid patterns, and, as many of these are painted green, the
general effect is pleasing. Almost every door opens upon a _patio_, or
courtyard, paved with black and white marble and adorned with flowers and
fountains. Many of these remain from the time of the Moors, and are still
surrounded by the delicate arches and brilliant tile-work of that period.
The populace in the streets are entirely Spanish--the jaunty _majo_ in
his queer black cap, sash, and embroidered jacket, and the nut-brown,
dark-eyed damsel, swimming along in her mantilla, and armed with the
irresistible fan.
We went first to the Cathedral, built on the site of the great mosque of
Abou Youssuf Yakoub. The tall Giralda beckoned to us over the tops of the
intervening buildings, and finally a turn in the street brought us to the
ancient Moorish gateway on the northern side. This is an admirable
specimen of the horse-shoe arch, and is covered with elaborate tracery. It
originally opened into the court, or _hàram_, of the mosque, which still
remains, and is shaded by a grove of orange trees. The Giralda, to my eye,
is a more perfect tower than the Campanile of Florence, or that of San
Marco, at Venice, which is evidently an idea borrowed from it. The Moorish
structure, with a base of fifty feet square, rises to the height of two
hundred and fifty feet. It is of a light pink color, and the sides, which
are broken here and there by exquisitely proportioned double Saracenic
arches, are covered from top to bottom with arabesque tracery, cut in
strong relief. Upon this tower, a Spanish architect has placed a tapering
spire, one hundred feet high, which fortunately harmonizes with the
general design, and gives the crowning grace to the work.
The Cathedral of Seville may rank as one of the grandest Gothic piles in
Europe. The nave lacks but five feet of being as high as that of St.
Peter's, while the length and breadth of the edifice are on a commensurate
scale. The ninety-three windows of stained glass fill the interior with a
soft and richly-tinted light, mellower and more gentle than the sombre
twilight of the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe. The wealth lavished on the
smaller chapels and shrines is prodigious, and the high altar, inclosed
within a gilded railing fifty feet high, is probably the most enormous
mass of wood-carving in existence. The Cathedral, in fact, is encumbered
with its riches. While they bewilder you as monuments of human labor and
patience, they detract from the grand simplicity of the building. The
great nave, on each side of the transept, is quite blocked up, so that the
choir and magnificent royal chapel behind it have almost the effect of
detached edifices.
We returned again this morning, remaining two hours, and succeeded in
making a thorough survey, including a number of trashy pictures and
barbarously rich shrines. Murillo's "Guardian Angel" and the "Vision of
St. Antonio" are the only gems. The treasury contains a number of sacred
vessels of silver, gold and jewels--among other things, the keys of
Moorish Seville, a cross made of the first gold brought from the New-World
by Columbus, and another from that robbed in Mexico by Cortez. The
Cathedral won my admiration more and more. The placing of the numerous
windows, and their rich coloring, produce the most glorious effects of
light in the lofty aisles, and one is constantly finding new vistas, new
combinations of pillar, arch and shrine. The building is in itself a
treasury of the grandest Gothic pictures.
From the Cathedral we went to the Alcazar _(El-Kasr),_ or Palace of the
Moorish Kings. We entered by a long passage, with round arches on either
side, resting on twin pillars, placed at right angles to the line of the
arch, as one sees both in Saracenic and Byzantine structures. Finally, old
Bailli brought us into a dull, deserted court-yard, where we were
surprised by the sight of an entire Moorish façade, with its pointed
arches, its projecting roof, its rich sculptured ornaments and its
illuminations of red, blue, green and gold. It has been lately restored,
and now rivals in freshness and brilliancy any of the rich houses of
Damascus. A doorway, entirely too low and mean for the splendor of the
walls above it, admitted us into the first court. On each side of the
passage are the rooms of the guard and the Moorish nobles. Within, all is
pure Saracenic, and absolutely perfect in its grace and richness. It is
the realization of an Oriental dream; it is the poetry and luxury of the
East in tangible forms. Where so much depends on the proportion and
harmony of the different parts--on those correspondences, the union of
which creates that nameless soul of the work, which cannot be expressed in
words--it is useless to describe details. From first to last--the chambers
of state; the fringed arches; the open tracery, light and frail as the
frost-stars crystallized on a window-pane; the courts, fit to be
vestibules to Paradise; the audience-hall, with its wondrous sculptures,
its columns and pavement of marble, and its gilded dome; the garden,
gorgeous with its palm, banana, and orange-trees--all were in perfect
keeping, all jewels of equal lustre, forming a diadem which still lends a
royal dignity to the phantom of Moorish power.
We then passed into the gardens laid out by the Spanish monarchs--trim,
mathematical designs, in box and myrtle, with concealed fountains
springing up everywhere unawares in the midst of the paven walks; yet
still made beautiful by the roses and jessamines that hung in rank
clusters over the marble balustrades, and by the clumps of tall orange
trees, bending to earth under the weight of their fruitage. We afterward
visited Pilate's House, as it is called--a fine Spanish-Moresco palace,
now belonging to the Duke of Medina Coeli. It is very rich and elegant,
but stands in the same relation to the Alcazar as a good copy does to the
original picture. The grand staircase, nevertheless, is a marvel of tile
work, unlike anything else in Seville, and exhibits a genius in the
invention of elaborate ornamental patterns, which is truly wonderful. A
number of workmen were busy in restoring the palace, to fit it for the
residence of the young Duke. The Moorish sculptures are reproduced in
plaster, which, at least, has a better effect than the fatal whitewash
under which the original tints of the Alcazar are hidden. In the courts
stand a number of Roman busts--Spanish antiquities, and therefore not of
great merit--singularly out of place in niches surrounded by Arabic
devices and sentences from the Koran.
This morning, I climbed the Giralda. The sun had just risen, and the clay
was fresh and crystal-clear. A little door in the Cathedral, near the foot
of the tower, stood open, and I entered. A rather slovenly Sevillaña had
just completed her toilet, but two children were still in undress.
However, she opened a door in the tower, and I went up without hindrance.
The ascent is by easy ramps, and I walked four hundred yards, or nearly a
quarter of a mile, before reaching the top of the Moorish part. The
panoramic view was superb. To the east and west, the Great Valley made a
level line on a far-distant horizon. There were ranges of hills in the
north and south, and those rising near the city, clothed in a gray mantle
of olive-trees, were picturesquely crowned with villages. The
Guadalquivir, winding in the most sinuous mazes, had no longer a turbid
hue; he reflected the blue morning sky, and gleamed brightly between his
borders of birch and willow. Seville sparkled white and fair under my
feet, her painted towers and tiled domes rising thickly out of the mass of
buildings. The level sun threw shadows into the numberless courts,
permitting the mixture of Spanish and Moorish architecture to be plainly
discerned, even at that height. A thin golden vapor softened the features
of the landscape, towards the sun, while, on the opposite side, every
object stood out in the sharpest and clearest outlines.
On our way to the Muséo, Bailli took us to the house of a friend of his,
in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale,
straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is
flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak
stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to
be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more
of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who
was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs and an
Andalusian catch, full of fun and drollery.
The Muséo contains a great amount of bad pictures, but it also contains
twenty-three of Murillo's works, many of them of his best period. To those
who have only seen his tender, spiritual "Conceptions" and "Assumptions,"
his "Vision of St. Francis" in this gallery reveals a mastery of the
higher walks of his art, which they would not have anticipated. But it is
in his "Cherubs" and his "Infant Christs" that he excels. No one ever
painted infantile grace and beauty with so true a pencil. There is but one
Velasquez in the collection, and the only thing that interested me, in two
halls filled with rubbish, was a "Conception" by Murillo's mulatto pupil,
said by some to have been his slave. Although an imitation of the great
master, it is a picture of much sweetness and beauty. There is no other
work of the artist in existence, and this, as the only production of the
kind by a painter of mixed African blood, ought to belong to the Republic
of Liberia.
Among the other guests at the Fonda de Madrid is Mr. Thomas Hobhouse,
brother of Byron's friend. We had a pleasant party in the Court this
evening, listening to blind Pépé, who sang to his guitar a medley of merry
Andalusian refrains. Singing made the old man courageous, and, at the
close, he gave us the radical song of Spain, which is now strictly
prohibited. The air is charming, but too gay; one would sooner dance than
fight to its measures. It does not bring the hand to the sword, like the
glorious Marseillaise.
_Adios_, beautiful Seville!