AN EXCURSION
Murcia was very hot, very dusty and very sultry. We did not mind mere
heat--though Spanish midsummer heat was not the best of pick-me-ups for
the influenza--dust we could outlive, but the sultriness of the Murcian
valley was beyond our physique. This flat valley, which is ten miles
wide between abrupt mountains, is irrigated over the whole of its
breadth and is one of the richest agricultural parts of Spain. The
evaporation of the water makes the heat of Murcia damp; the summer in
addition was cloudy, and the sun shining on to the clouds seemed to cook
the air enclosed in the valley until the atmosphere resembled that of a
glass-house for orchids. We wished to leave Murcia in spite of an
affection which was growing in us for the town.
Luis met us at one o'clock on the terrace of the Reina Victoria. We had
_café au lait_ while waiting for the tartana. Luis said that the milk in
the coffee was not good: he deduced preservatives. But the lean waiter
stood loyally by his hotel.
"The milk is excellent, I assure you, Señor," he said. "My stomach is
excessively delicate; the slightest thing and it is ... I assure you
that I drink pints of this milk in this hotel. In fact my stomach is so
delicado that I am a connoisseur in milk, es vero.[11] If the milk were
bad this fatality would happen to me."
He gave a dumb-crambo exhibition of the results of bad milk on his
delicate digestion; it needed no words.
With deference he then proposed a new _café au lait_, which Luis sipped
with a judicial but unconvinced manner.
The tartana was a tight fit. It is about as large as a governess-cart
inside, and we were six. Luis, Jan and myself, a monk in brown, a thin
pale Señor who had long eyelashes and many rings, and another passenger,
a world type, the result of overwork and underpay, neither smart nor
slovenly, with a rough manner covering a kindly nature.
THE DRIVE
[Illustration]
We discovered why tartanas have bulging hoods. The vehicles roll and
rock so much over the bad roads that it is necessary to make room for
the passengers' heads to jerk backwards. Otherwise cerebral concussion
would be the invariable result.
_Luis_ (to the little monk): "Excuse me, but are not your clothes very
hot?"
_The Monk_ (spreading out his hands): "They are hot, but nevertheless
they keep out the sun."
We come out of the town into the gardens. There are flat fields of
cultivation spotted with mulberry trees, the trunks of which seem vivid
purple in the afternoon light.
I make a remark in Spanish. (Jan was still at the stage of appreciative
listener).
_The Clerkly Man_: "Señora, your Spanish is good for a stranger--you can
pronounce the Spanish J, which is difficult for foreigners."
_I_: "I have learned that from speaking German; it is rather like the
German _ch_."
A discussion on idioms at once begins. The Spaniard, though he speaks
foreign languages badly, has an inextinguishable interest in the subject
of tongues. If ever you are bored in Spanish company start an argument
about languages. After the discussion has been going on for some while
the pale Señor says:
"Nevertheless it is sad that the Catalans wish to root Castilian out of
their country."
_Luis_ (with some heat): "Well! why should they not? They are the
hardest working and the most valuable people of Spain. Why should not
they do as they like? Why should everybody not do as he likes if he
hurts nobody else?"
_The pale Señor_ (with frigidity): "But that is Bolshevism."
_Luis_ (with increasing heat): "If that is Bolshevism then I do not mind
being a Bolshevik."
Conversation is at an impasse. The carriage flings us to and fro for a
while.
A motor-car passes us. The dust which is about six inches deep on the
road is whirled up in a cloud so thick that we have to halt for a few
minutes to allow it to settle, or we might have driven into the deep
water-channels which edge each side of the road.
_Luis_ (to the Clerkly Man): "My friends want to live for a while out in
the mountains. Do you by any chance know of a house?"
_The Clerkly Man_: "I am living with my family in the monastery of Fuen
Santa. There is a guest house there and habitations are to let. I will
find out all about them if you wish."
_The pale little Señor_ (who has apparently forgotten all about
Bolshevism): "There are one or two houses in my village of Verdolay. The
proprietor is a friend of mine. I will inquire for you about it."
The tartana stops.
In front of a solitary house is a small wooden frame on which a few
strips of dusty meat are hung. The driver buys some of this from the
woman who comes out of the house.
_The Driver_ (confidentially to the passengers): "Better get a bit of
meat while you have the chance."
Nobody follows his example. The carriage bumps on.
The sun is now shining through the thin dust-laden trees which edge the
road: they appear as flames of pale gold.
We mount over a bridge. A broad deep but waterless canal stretches away
to right and left.
_The little Señor_: "We are now nearing Verdolay. It is still too hot
for you to go hunting for a house. I shall be delighted if you will take
possession of my house until the sun is cooler."
_Luis_: "Señor, I thank you very much, but we cannot do it."
_The little Señor_: "I insist--you will come?"
_Luis_: "Thank you very much."
This is Spanish courtesy. A single invitation is for politeness only,
like the last piece of bread and butter left for Miss Manners. A second
invitation means that it is really offered.
We pass a group of houses the colour of baked bread; the most
arid-looking spot we have seen as yet. The gardens come to an abrupt
end. The road rises slightly, and grey-green olive foliage over gnarled
trunks throw a thin lacework of shadow on the dry earth.
The tartana stops.
We all get out.
The clerkly man goes east; the priest south; we, led by the pale Señor,
west.
* * * * *
We were at the entrance of a village. It spread over a mound at the foot
of the higher hills. It was like a pyramid with toy houses coloured
yellow, orange, green and grey upon the ledges, and all around trees
like those from a child's play box. The village was fronted by a line of
houses painted a deep crimson-vermilion. An iron windmill for pumping
water was placed on the extreme point of the mound.
The little Señor showed us through the village to his house and left us
in the entrada, while he went to get beer. The room was decorated with
wooden "art-nouveau" chairs, oleographs and an extremely bad oil
painting of a bull with banderillas shedding much blood. On a cane table
was a gramophone.
The little Señor had shut a door made on the system of a Venetian blind
to keep out the sun, and presently the lattice-work was crowded with
children trying to peer in at us.
The Señor returned preceded by a large English setter. He drew the corks
of the beer and asked us to make ourselves at home.
"The house and all that is in it is at your service," he said in the
phrase of Spanish courtesy.
I was patting the dog.
"That dog," said the little Señor, "is a very valuable dog. It is unique
in the province and possibly is unique in the south of Spain. It has a
romantic history. It is bred by the monks in high Switzerland, and when
the snow is deep on the mountains it goes out to hunt for lost
travellers. It is the only specimen of a San Bernar' in the south of
Spain."
We looked at the setter; and drank some more beer.
"That bull," went on the Señor, pointing to the picture, "was painted by
one of the best bull painters in Spain."
We looked at the picture and again took refuge in beer. Luis, who did
not know about setters, but did know about pictures, drank in sympathy.
The Señor wound up his gramophone.
"Do you know 'Frou-Frou'?" he inquired.
"'Frou-Frou'?" we said.
"Yes, the French Comic Opera."
"But," said Luis, "have you not by chance a disc of Spanish music? You
see," he added as excuse, "the Señors are foreign. It interests them to
hear the national music, the Flamenco."
The little Señor pursed his lips.
"But," he said, "it is so vulgar. Nobody wants to hear that."
He possessed, however, a disc or two which he turned on, to our delight.
But before we left him he insisted that we should sit through his
favourite "Frou-Frou."
We went away. The strains of "Frou-Frou" which the little Señor had
turned on once more followed us on the still air. The setter-St. Bernard
walked with us to the beginning of the hill, from whence he turned
sedately homewards.
We strode upwards--past cottages of all colours, past a large rambling
monastery, which, perched on the far side of the Verdolay hill, very
cubic in shape, is as romantic as it is possible for a building to be;
past a watercourse, above which were dwellings hollowed out of the soft
rock of the mountain-side, cave dwellings, and out on to the side of
the mountains lying between Murcia and Carthagena. From here we could
appreciate the width, flatness and verdure of the Murcian valley in the
midst of which was the town, the campanile of the cathedral soaring into
the air.
Here we had our first experience of a Spanish country walk. We were all
wearing alpagatas, the canvas sides of which are not exceedingly thick.
The dried herbage of the hills was intermingled with all manner of
prickly weeds. The vegetation protects itself in this way from being
eaten by anything less leather-tongued than a goat. The results are
uncomfortable for the walker. The little hairlike spines pierce the
shoes and break off, remaining as a continual irritant until the shoe is
removed. Even then the spines, almost microscopic in size and almost
flesh colour, are often difficult to find. The same uncomfortable fate
is in wait for the unwary stranger who sits down without having
carefully explored the place where he is going to seat himself. Indeed
the fate is worse, because the thorns thus encountered cannot with
decency be extracted in a public place and the victim is condemned to a
lot similar to that of the naughty schoolboy.
The sun poured the full of its summer power on to the hill-side, which
reflected both heat and light with overpowering intensity. Though it was
almost four o'clock in the afternoon we felt that our salamandrine
limits were being put to a test. A broad white road, mounting up the
hill, crossed our path and we turned into it.
"We are going to the monastery of La Luz," said Luis. "I have heard that
they sometimes take visitors for short periods. It would be interesting
for you to spend a fortnight in a monastery."
[Illustration]
The road climbed up beneath high black cliffs. The other side of the
valley was coloured orange and red upon which the sun was shining with
all its force. The side of the hill was dotted with aloes, some having
upright flower stems fifteen feet high in the air, around the flowers
of which the bees were swarming in harmonious halos. A stately stone
pine overshadowed a medley of old buildings which sprang from the top
of a precipice out of which sprouted the weird branches of the prickly
pear cactus. The road circled round the foot of this cliff, and still
mounted till, making a full semicircle, it brought us on to a platform.
On one side of the flat space was an open cistern into which led a pipe.
From the pipe a deliberate trickle of water fell. Two women and two men
sat about this pipe slowly filling their amphoras of Grecian form,
while donkeys waited patiently in the background bearing panniers for
the water-vessels on their backs. On the other side of the platform the
monastery showed a high wall with a large gate leading into a courtyard
from which arose the face of the church, painted a Cambridge blue.
We could find no bell. The water-carriers shouted instructions to us.
The bell clanged with an empty sound, as though echoing through miles of
untenanted corridors. We rang again. No response. We rang three or four
times before we heard the sound of shuffling steps. A peep-hole, shaped
like a cross, opened and an eye examined us. The door swung slowly open,
revealing a small obsequious man dressed in peasant costume. Through
passages we came into a cloister which was built around a small
courtyard full of flowers. In the middle of the courtyard was a high
statue of the Virgin. It was framed and almost hidden by a creeper which
offered to it a tribute of gorgeous purple bell-shaped flowers. At the
foot of the figure was stretched a large cat. A strange thought came to
me that the cat did not bother itself about the Virgin other than as
something which threw a grateful shadow.
The apologetic little peasant monk, who had let us in was evidently an
underling. He murmured something about Brother Juan and went away.
Brother Juan came groaning along the corridor with rheumatic steps. He
had a tiny head and large-framed body; dressed in peasant's clothes,
white shirt, black cummerbund, short knee trousers, long white drawers
to the ankle and sandals on bare feet. He was rather like a dear old
gardener who has been in the family for years, and who has supported the
teasings of generations of children. Age and a sweet nature had carved
his face with horizontal wrinkles of kindliness; rheumatism and pain had
crossed these with downward seams of depression.
Luis introduced the object of our visit. Brother Juan doubtingly shook
his head. They did have visitors, yes, but those were always well-known
to the monastery. Introductions would be necessary. But, in any
circumstance, the Father Superior was in Murcia at the moment, and
nothing could be done without him.
I, made conceited by the praise of the clerkly man in the carriage, then
tried to charm Brother Juan by a series of apposite remarks in my most
careful Spanish.
Brother Juan scratched his head.
"Doubtless, what the Señora says is very interesting." He raised his
hands and eyes in pantomimed dismay. "But, oh, these languages! I can't
understand a word!"
Brother Juan, groaning with rheumatism, led us to the gate. By some
means an old woman dressed in black had joined us. As Juan was taking
his leave of us his eyes suddenly lit up with a merry twinkle.
"If you will excuse me," he said to Luis, "it would be better, when you
see the Father Superior, if the woman would dress rather less
indecently. You see, we are monks and are not used to it."
We went down the hill accompanied by the old woman in black, who was
chuckling at Brother Juan's last remark.
"If only the woman would ... he ... he ... we are monks and aren't used
to it ... ho ... ho."
I was surprised. It had not seemed to me that I was indecent. I was
wearing an ordinary English midsummer walking dress. Luis said:
"I think it was the opening at your neck that worried him. You see we
haven't really taken up the open neck in Murcia as yet."
Directed by the old woman, we scrambled down steep paths to the bottom
of the orange-coloured ravine, and up the other side past the aloes; we
went through an olive grove, and again up a steep zigzag road to the
second monastery. Here lived the clerkly man, but we did not know his
name. This monastery began with a terra-cotta-coloured Gothic church
with three tall towers and a cupola of blue glazed tiles, and rambled on
up the ridge of a long hill to end in a tall building which looked like
an overgrown Turkish bath. A grey building with a huge entrance door was
pointed out as the _pension_ of the monastery. We wandered into a large
courtyard and to us came a fat priest wearing a biretta. He was
courteous but firm.
"We have no room," he said.
But we remembered that the clerkly one had said that there was room. I
suppose again my dress was the real objection.
We went back towards the village of the little Señor. On our way we
again crossed the dusty road which led to La Luz. A carriage was driving
along it. In the carriage were two priests. Luis said:
"There probably goes the Father Superior. Shall we ask him now?"
After a moment's hesitation we turned and strode up the hill. We had to
walk fast to catch the carriage, but at last the driver, perceiving that
we were following him, halted.
"No," said one of the priests, "we are not the Superior of La Luz.
Indeed, at this moment he is behind you. There."
He pointed out an old man in the costume of a peasant, who, bent with
age, was toiling up the hill aided by his staff. The Father Superior was
still some distance away. Hastily, with a brooch, we pinned my blouse up
close around my throat.
The Father Superior had the face of one designed to be an ascetic, but
his expression was inscrutable. He was very suave. He felt honoured, he
said, by the request of the Señors, but there was no room. Now Brother
Juan had said that there was room.
Luis tried to urge the matter: he instanced our Red Cross work in
Serbia. The Father Superior said it was very praiseworthy of us, but
... and bowing unfelt regrets he left us.
We went back to our little Señor.
He found for us a woman with the usual pound's weight of keys and
conducted us to two bright red houses. Both were one story in height,
but one was for three months' tenancy only. We decided to take the
other. It was occupied to its limits by a Spanish family, so we took but
the most cursory of glances into it. Then, our business settled, we said
au revoir to the little Señor, who in Spanish fashion offered us his
services whenever they should be needed.
We walked down a road and, in a short while, came to the village of
Alverca. This was the first typical Spanish village we had passed
through. It was long, stretched on the edge between the bare mountain
and the fertile valley. The houses were low, one-storied for the most
part, and the dust was all-prevalent. In the dusty street boys were
playing football, which in Spain seems to be a summer game. In the
middle of the village was a shop, which advertised itself as a Tobacco
Agency, for tobacco is a Spanish government monopoly and can be sold
only in licensed places. We went in to get a drink and to ask if by
chance they had some tobacco, for all the while we were in Spain there
was a famine of tobacco.
The inside of the shop was a curious mixture of the modern and of the
very ancient. At one end of the counter was a modern brass beer machine,
with carbonic acid gas cylinder--which gives to the tepid beer an extra
fizz--pressure gauge and lead-lined sink. At the other end of the shop
were huge jars four feet high, and nine or ten feet in circumference;
amphoras of pale porous unglazed pottery, direct successors of the
Grecian vase; small drinking pots of clay with short spouts for water or
of glass with long spouts for wine, the latter in shape not unlike the
brass drinking-vessels of Benares. Pendent from the ceiling hung candles
two or three feet in length, for devotional purposes, and side by side
with the candles were festooned strings of orange-coloured, highly
flavoured sausages, which appeared very ominous. Some day one felt that
one would be tempted by a Spanish friend to eat one of these sausages,
and the fear of the experiment was always within us. Wine of a deep ruby
tinged with brown filled a large glass barrel; wine which could be
bought for one halfpenny a glass.
Inside the shop, leaning against the zinc bar, were two tramps; the one
swart with three days' beard on his chin, dressed in a blue jean smock
and soiled yellow velveteen trousers; the other leaner, more pallid,
furtive: in spite of the heat of the day he was covered with a large
black cloak.
They at once offered us their glasses of wine.
"Gracias. Buen aproveche," said we in customary refusal. They offered
cigarettes to Jan and Luis. These, by courtesy, had to be accepted.
While we were drinking our tepid beer--fizzed up with the carbonic acid
gas--Jan asked for and bought a box of matches. The Spanish matches,
very bad, a government monopoly, are packed in a small cardboard box.
This box is quite difficult to open. Whichever way you push it, like the
well-known trick matchbox, the inside part seems to have two bottoms and
no opening. The impatient traveller usually tears the box to pieces
trying to get at the forty matches which are inside.
Jan asked for tobacco.
"There is not," sighed the fat woman.
Outside the shop the two tramps were waiting for us. The swart one
peered quickly from left to right.
"We have tobacco," he said in a hoarse whisper. He snapped his fingers
at his companion, who produced from beneath the cloak, furtively, a
square orange packet.
"Good tobacco from Gibraltar," growled "Swart"; "will you buy?"
"No," said Luis.
The pallid man slid the tobacco beneath the cloak again. The two
slouched off through the dust.
"That would be tobacco at each end and cabbage or other refuse in the
middle," said Luis.
We turned towards the setting sun.
Murcia has a tramway system. Blue cars run all over the town and reach
out into the country at several spots. We came to the terminus in this
direction at Palma, on the road to Carthagena. The people of the village
crowded about us in curiosity; but by this time we were becoming used to
a publicity which is, as a rule, only reserved for Royalty.
As the tram carried us home--with several halts due to failure of the
electrical supply--we noticed through an open door a delightful
interior, decorated with the huge water-jars--on a raised step--with
which beautiful specimens of old Spanish pottery were arranged.
The village of the little Señor had pleased us so much that we made
arrangements to move out there as soon as possible; for the heat of
Murcia was now unbearable and we were in consequence on the verge of
being really ill.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: That is truth.]