Sierra de los Gregos.--Mass.--Oropeza.--Talavera--Drawling
tirannas.--Talavera de la Reyna.--Reception at Santa Olaya.--The
lady of the house, and her dogs and dancers.
Sunday, December 9th, 1787.
The mountains I saw yesterday are called the Sierra de los Gregos, and
the winds that blow over their summits begin to chill the atmosphere;
but the sun is shining gloriously, and not a cloud obscures his
effulgence. The stars were still twinkling in the firmament, when I was
attracted to mass in the large gloomy church of a nunnery, by the voices
of the Lord’s spouses issuing from a sepulchral grate bristled with
spikes of iron. These tremulous, plaintive sounds filled me with such
sadness, and so many recollections of interesting hours departed never
to return, that I felt relieved when I found myself out of sight of the
convent, on a cheerful road thronged with passengers.
We passed Oropeza, a picturesque, Italian-looking town, on the brow of a
mountain; dined at a venda, in the midst of a savage tract of
forest-land, infamous till within this year or two for robberies and
assassinations; and reached Talavera de la Reyna by sunset.
More, I believe, has been said in praise of this town than it deserves.
Its appearance is far from cheerful or elegant; and the heavy
brick-fronts of the convents and churches as ill designed as executed.
The streets, however, are crowded with people, who seem to be moving
about with rather more activity than falls to the lot of Spaniards in
general. I am told the silk-manufactories at Talavera are in a
flourishing state, and have taken a good many hands out of the folds of
their mantles.
Colmenar is perpetually leading me into errors, and causing me
disappointments. He pretends that the inhabitants of this place are
nearly as skilful as those of Pekin and Macao in the manufacturing of
lacquered wares, and that their pottery is unrivalled; but, upon
inquiry, I found the Talaverans no particular proficients in varnish,
and that they had neither a cup nor basin to produce in the least
preferable to those of other villages.
In one art they are indefatigable, I can answer to my sorrow; that is,
singing drawling tirannas to the monotonous accompaniment of a sort of
hum-strum or hurdy-gurdy, or the devil knows best what sort of
instruments, for such as I hear at this moment under my windows are only
fit to be played in his dominions. I am quite at the mercy of these
untoward minstrels; if they cease not, I must defer sleeping to another
opportunity. Am I then come into Spain to hear hum-strums and
hurdy-gurdies? Where are the rapturous seguidillas, of which I have been
told such wonders? Do they exist, or, like the japanned wares of the
Talaverans, are they only to be found in books of travels and
geographical dictionaries?
Monday, December 10th.
I beg Talavera de la Reyna a thousand pardons; it is not quite so
frightful as it appeared in the twilight of yesterday evening. Many of
the houses have a palace-like appearance, and the interior of the old
gothic cathedral, though not remarkably spacious, has an air of
magnificence; the stalls of the choir are elaborately carved, and on
each side the high altar, curtains of the richest crimson damask fall
from the roof in ample folds, and cast a ruddy glow on the pavement.
If Talavera has nothing within its walls to be much boasted of, there
are many objects in its environs that merit praise. No sooner had we
left its dark crooked streets behind us, than we discovered a thick wood
of elms skirting an extensive lawn, beautifully green and level, from
which rises the convent of Nuestra Señora del Prayo, crowned by an
octangular cupola. This edifice is built of brick encrusted with stone
ornaments, and choked up by ranges of arcades and heavy galleries. I
have seen several structures which resembled it in the neighbourhood of
Antwerp and Brussels; but whether the Spaniards carried this clumsy
style of architecture into the Low Countries, or borrowed from thence,
is scarcely worth while to determine.
Not far from Nuestra Señora del Prayo we crossed the Tagus, and
continued dragging through heavy sands for five tedious hours, without
perceiving a habitation, or meeting any animal, biped or quadruped,
except herds of swine, in which, I believe, consist the principal riches
of this part of the Spanish dominions. I doubt whether the royal sty of
Ithaca was half so well garnished, as many private ones in New Castile
and Estremadura.
Having nothing to look at except a dreary plain bounded by barren,
uninteresting mountains, I was reduced to tumble over the trashy
collection of books, with which I happen in this journey to be provided;
poor fiddle-faddle Derrick’s Letters from Cork, Chester, and Tunbridge;
John Buncle, Esquire’s, life, holy rhapsodies, and peregrinations;
Shenstone’s, Mr. Whistler’s, and the good Duchess of Somerset’s
Correspondence; Bray’s tour, right worthy of an ass; Heley’s fulsome
description of the Leasowes and Hagley; Clarke’s ponderous account of
Spain; and Major Dalrymple’s dry, tiresome, and splenetic excursion.
There’s a set, equal it if you can. I hope to get a better at Madrid,
and throw my old stock into the Mançanares.
We dined at a village called Brabo, not in the least worth mentioning,
and arrived in due tiresome course, about six in the evening, at Santa
Olaya, where my courier had procured us an admirable lodging in the
house of a veteran colonel. The principal apartment, in which I pitched
my bed, was a lofty gallery, with large folding glazed doors, gilt and
varnished, its white walls almost covered with saintly pictures and
small mirrors, stuck near the ceiling, beyond the reach of mortal sight,
as if their proprietor was afraid they would wear out by being looked
into. On low tables, to the right and left of the door, stood
glass-cases, filled with relics and artificial flowers. Stools covered
with velvet, and raised not above a foot from the floor, were stationed
all round the room. On one of these I squatted like an oriental, warming
my hands over a brasier of coals.
The old lady of the house, followed by a train of curtseying handmaids
and snifling lapdogs, favoured me with her company the best part of the
evening. Her spouse, the colonel, being indisposed, did not make his
appearance. Whilst she was entertaining me with a most flourishing
detail of the excellent qualities and wonderful acquisitions of the
infant Don Louis, who died about two years ago at his villa in this
neighbourhood, some very grotesque figures entered the antechamber, and
tinkling their guitars, struck up a seguidilla, that in a minute or two
set all the feet in the house in motion. Amongst the dancers, two young
girls, whose jetty locks were braided with some degree of elegance,
shone forth in a fandango, beating the ground and snapping their fingers
with rapturous agility.
This sport lasted a full hour, before they showed the least sign of
being tired; then succeeded some languorous tirannas, by no means so
delightful as I expected. I was not sorry when the ball ceased, and my
kind hostess, moving off with all her dogs and dancers, left me to sup
and sleep in tranquillity.