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GATHERINGS FROM SPAIN.
BY THE
AUTHOR OF THE HANDBOOK OF SPAIN;
CHIEFLY SELECTED FROM THAT WORK, WITH
MUCH NEW MATTER.
_NEW EDITION._
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1851.
TO THE
HONOURABLE MRS. FORD,
These pages, which she has been so good as to peruse and approve of, are
dedicated, in the hopes that other fair readers may follow her example,
By her very affectionate
Husband and Servant,
RICHARD FORD.
PREFACE.
Many ladies, some of whom even contemplate a visit to Spain, having
condescended to signify to the publisher their regrets, that the
Handbook was printed in a form, which rendered its perusal irksome, and
also to express a wish that the type had been larger, the Author, to
whom this distinguished compliment was communicated, has hastened to
submit to their indulgence a few extracts and selections, which may
throw some light on the character of a country and people, always of the
highest interest, and particularly so at this moment, when their
independence is once more threatened by a crafty and aggressive
neighbour.
In preparing these compilations for the press much new matter has been
added, to supply the place of portions omitted; for, in order to lighten
the narrative, the Author has removed much lumber of learning, and has
not scrupled occasionally to throw Strabo, and even Saint Isidore
himself, overboard. Progress is the order of the day in Spain, and its
advance is the more rapid, as she was so much in arrear of other
nations. Transition is the present condition of the country, where
yesterday is effaced by to-morrow. There the relentless march of
European intellect is crushing many a native wild flower, which, having
no value save colour and sweetness, must be rooted up before
cotton-mills are constructed and bread stuffs substituted; many a trait
of nationality in manners and costume is already effaced; monks are
gone, and mantillas are going, alas! going.
In the changes that have recently taken place, many descriptions of ways
and things now presented to the public will soon become almost matters
of history and antiquarian interest. The passages here reprinted will be
omitted in the forthcoming new edition of the Handbook, to which these
pages may form a companion; but their chief object has been to offer a
few hours’ amusement, and may be of instruction, to those who remain at
home; and should the humble attempt meet with the approbation of fair
readers, the author will bear, with more than Spanish resignation,
whatever animadversions bearded critics may be pleased to inflict on
this or on the other side of the water.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
.....PAGE
A General View of Spain--Isolation--King of the Spains--Castilian
Precedence--Localism--Want of Union--Admiration of Spain--M. Thiers in
Spain.....1
CHAPTER II.
The Geography of Spain--Zones--Mountains--The Pyrenees--The Gabacho, and
French Politics.....7
CHAPTER III.
The Rivers of Spain--Bridges--Navigation--The Ebro and Tagus.....23
CHAPTER IV.
Divisions into Provinces--Ancient Demarcations--Modern
Departments--Population--Revenue--Spanish Stocks.....30
CHAPTER V.
Travelling in Spain--Steamers--Roads, Roman, Monastic, and Royal--Modern
Railways--English Speculations.....40
CHAPTER VI.
Post Office in Spain--Travelling with Post Horses--Riding post--Mails
and Diligences, Galeras, Coches de Colleras, Drivers and Manner of
Driving, and Oaths.....53
CHAPTER VII.
Spanish Horses--Mules--Asses--Muleteers--Maragatos.....65
CHAPTER VIII.
Riding Tour in Spain--Pleasures of it--Pedestrian Tour--Choice of
Companions--Rules for a Riding Tour--Season of Year--Day’s
Journey--Management of Horse; his Feet; Shoes; General Hints.....80
CHAPTER IX.
The Rider’s Costume--Alforjas: Their contents--The Bota, and How to use
it--Pig Skins and Borracha--Spanish Money--Onzas and smaller
Coins.....94
CHAPTER X.
Spanish Servants: their Character--Travelling Groom, Cook, and
Valet.....105
CHAPTER XI.
A Spanish Cook--Philosophy of Spanish Cuisine--Sauce--Difficulty of
Commissariat--The Provend--Spanish Hares and Rabbits--The
Olla--Garbanzos--Spanish Pigs--Bacon and Hams--Omelette--Salad and
Gazpacho.....119
CHAPTER XII.
Drinks of Spain--Water--Irrigation--Fountains--Spanish Thirstiness--The
Alcarraza--Water Carriers--Ablutions--Spanish Chocolate--Agraz--Beer
Lemonade.....136
CHAPTER XIII.
Spanish Wines--Spanish Indifference--Wine-making--Vins du Pays--Local
Wines--Benicarló--Valdepeñas.....145
CHAPTER XIV.
Sherry Wines--The Sherry District--Origin of the Name--Varieties of
Soil--Of Grapes--Pajarete--Rojas Clemente--Cultivation of Vines--Best
Vineyards--The Vintage--Amontillado--The Capataz--The Bodega--Sherry
Wine--Arrope and Madre Vino--A Lecture on Sherry in the Cellar--at the
Table--Price of Fine Sherry--Falsification of Sherry--Manzanilla--The
Alpistera.....150
CHAPTER XV.
Spanish Inns: Why so Indifferent--The Fonda--Modern Improvements--The
Posada--Spanish Innkeepers--The Venta: Arrival in
it--Arrangement--Garlic--Dinner--Evening--Night--Bill--Identity with the
Inns of the Ancients.....165
CHAPTER XVI.
Spanish Robbers--A Robber Adventure--Guardias Civiles--Exaggerated
Accounts--Cross of the Murdered--Idle Robber Tales--French
Bandittiphobia--Robber History--Guerrilleros--Smugglers--Jose
Maria--Robbers of the First Class--The Ratero--Miguelites--Escorts and
Escopeteros--Passes, Protections, and Talismans--Execution of a
Robber.....186
CHAPTER XVII.
The Spanish Doctor: His Social Position--Medical
Abuses--Hospitals--Medical Education--Lunatic Asylums--Foundling
Hospital of Seville--Medical Pretensions--Dissection--Family
Physician--Consultations--Medical
Costume--Prescriptions--Druggists--Snake Broth--Salve for
Knife-cuts.....213
CHAPTER XVIII.
Spanish Spiritual Remedies for the Body--Miraculous Relics--Sanative
Oils--Philosophy of Relic Remedies--Midwifery and the Cinta of
Tortosa--Bull of Crusade.....236
CHAPTER XIX.
The Spanish Figaro--Mustachios--Whiskers--Beards--Bleeding--Heraldic
Blood--Blue, Red, and Black Blood--Figaro’s Shop--The Baratero--Shaving
and Toothdrawing.....255
CHAPTER XX.
What to observe in Spain--How to observe--Spanish Incuriousness and
Suspicions--French Spies and Plunderers--Sketching in
Spain--Difficulties; How Surmounted--Efficacy of Passports and
Bribes--Uncertainty and Want of Information in the Natives.....265
CHAPTER XXI.
Origin of Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious Character--Fiestas
Reales--Royal Feasts--Charles I. at one--Discontinuance of the Old
System--Sham Bull-fights--Plaza de Toros--Slang Language--Spanish
Bulls--Breeds--The Going to a Bull-fight.....286
CHAPTER XXII.
The Bull-fight--Opening of Spectacle--First Act, and Appearance of the
Bull--The Picador--Bull Bastinado--The Horses, and their Cruel
Treatment--Fire and Dogs--The Second Act--The Chulos and their
Darts--The Third Act--The Matador--Death of the Bull--The Conclusion,
and Philosophy of the Amusement--Its Effect on Ladies.....300
CHAPTER XXIII.
Spanish Theatre; Old and Modern Drama; Arrangement of Play-houses--The
Henroost--The Fandango; National Dances--A Gipsy Ball--Italian
Opera--National Songs and Guitars.....318
CHAPTER XXIV.
Manufacture of Cigars--Tobacco--Smuggling _viâ_ Gibraltar--Cigars of
Ferdinand VII.--Making a Cigarrito--Zumalacarreguy and the
Schoolmaster--Time and Money wasted in Smoking--Postscript on Spanish
Stock.....335
GATHERINGS FROM SPAIN.
CHAPTER I.
A general view of Spain--Isolation--King of the Spains--Castilian
precedence--Localism--Want of Union--Admiration of Spain--M. Thiers
in Spain.
[Sidenote: KING OF THE SPAINS.]
[Sidenote: LOCALISM OF SPANIARDS.]
The kingdom of Spain, which looks so compact on the map, is composed of
many distinct provinces, each of which in earlier times formed a
separate and independent kingdom; and although all are now united under
one crown by marriage, inheritance, conquest, and other circumstances,
the original distinctions, geographical as well as social, remain almost
unaltered. The language, costume, habits, and local character of the
natives, vary no less than the climate and productions of the soil. The
chains of mountains which intersect the whole peninsula, and the deep
rivers which separate portions of it, have, for many years, operated as
so many walls and moats, by cutting off intercommunication, and by
fostering that tendency to isolation which must exist in all hilly
countries, where good roads and bridges do not abound. As similar
circumstances led the people of ancient Greece to split into small
principalities, tribes and clans, so in Spain, man, following the
example of the nature by which he is surrounded, has little in common
with the inhabitant of the adjoining district; and these differences are
increased and perpetuated by the ancient jealousies and inveterate
dislikes, which petty and contiguous states keep up with such tenacious
memory. The general comprehensive term “Spain,” which is convenient for
geographers and politicians, is calculated to mislead the traveller, for
it would be far from easy to predicate any single thing of Spain or
Spaniards which will be equally applicable to all its heterogeneous
component parts. The north-western provinces are more rainy than
Devonshire, while the centre plains are more calcined than those of the
deserts of Arabia, and the littoral south or eastern coasts altogether
Algerian. The rude agricultural Gallician, the industrious manufacturing
artisan of Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly
vindictive Valencian, are as essentially different from each other as so
many distinct characters at the same masquerade. It will therefore be
more convenient to the traveller to take each province by itself and
treat it in detail, keeping on the look-out for those peculiarities,
those social and natural characteristics or idiosyncracies which
particularly belong to each division, and distinguish it from its
neighbours. The Spaniards who have written on their own geography and
statistics, and who ought to be supposed to understand their own country
and institutions the best, have found it advisable to adopt this
arrangement from feeling the utter impossibility of treating Spain
(where union is not unity) as a whole. There is no king of _Spain_:
among the infinity of kingdoms, the list of which swells out the royal
style, that of “Spain” is not found; he is King of the Spains, Rex
Hispaniarum, _Rey de las Españas_, not “_Rey de España_.” Philip II.,
called by his countrymen _el prudente_, the prudent, wishing to fuse
down his heterogeneous subjects, was desirous after his conquest of
Portugal, which consolidated his dominion, to call himself King of
Spain, which he then really was; but this alteration of title was beyond
the power of even his despotism; such was the opposition of the kingdoms
of Arragon and Navarre, which never gave up the hopes of shaking off the
yoke of Castile, and recovering their former independence, while the
empire provinces of New and Old Castile refused in anywise to compromise
their claims of pre-eminence. They from early times, as now, took the
lead in national nomenclature; hence “_Castellano_,” Castilian, is
synonymous with Spaniard, and particularly with the proud genuine older
stock. “_Castellano á las derechas_,” means a Spaniard to the backbone;
“_Hablar Castellano_,” to speak Castilian, is the correct expression for
speaking the Spanish language. Spain again was long without the
advantage of a fixed metropolis, like Rome, Paris, or London, which have
been capitals from their foundation, and recognized and submitted to as
such; here, the cities of Leon, Burgos, Toledo, Seville, Valladolid,
and others, have each in their turns been the capitals of the kingdom.
This constant change and short-lived pre-eminence has weakened any
prescriptive superiority of one city over another, and has been a cause
of national weakness by raising up rivalries and disputes about
precedence, which is one of the most fertile sources of dissension among
a punctilious people. In fact the king was the state, and wherever he
fixed his head-quarters was the court, _La Corte_, a word still
synonymous with Madrid, which now claims to be the only residence of the
Sovereign--the residenz, as Germans would say; otherwise, when compared
with the cities above mentioned, it is a modern place; from not having a
bishop or cathedral, of which latter some older cities possess two, it
has not even the rank of a _ciudad_, or city, but is merely denominated
_villa_, or town. In moments of national danger it exercises little
influence over the Peninsula: at the same time, from being the seat of
the court and government, and therefore the centre of patronage and
fashion, it attracts from all parts those who wish to make their
fortune; yet the capital has a hold on the ambition rather than on the
affections of the nation at large. The inhabitants of the different
provinces think, indeed, that Madrid is the greatest and richest court
in the world, but their hearts are in their native localities. “_Mi
paisano_,” my fellow-countryman, or rather my fellow-county-man,
fellow-parishioner, does not mean Spaniard, but Andalucian, Catalonian,
as the case may be. When a Spaniard is asked, Where do you come from?
the reply is, “_Soy hijo de Murcia--hijo de Granada_,” “I am a son of
Murcia--a son of Granada,” &c. This is strictly analogous to the
“Children of Israel,” the “Beni” of the Spanish Moors, and to this day
the Arabs of Cairo call themselves _children_ of that town, “_Ibn el
Musr_,” &c.; and just as the Milesian Irishman is “a _boy_ from
Tipperary,” &c., and ready to fight with any one who is so also, against
all who are not of that ilk; similar too is the clanship of the
Highlander; indeed, everywhere, not perhaps to the same extent as in
Spain, the being of the same province or town creates a powerful
freemasonry; the parties cling together like old school-fellows. It is a
_home_ and really binding feeling. To the spot of their birth all their
recollections, comparisons, and eulogies are turned; nothing to them
comes up to their particular province, that is, their real country. “_La
Patria_,” meaning Spain at large, is a subject of declamation, fine
words, _palabras_--palaver, in which all, like Orientals, delight to
indulge, and to which their grandiloquent idiom lends itself readily;
but their patriotism is parochial, and self is the centre of Spanish
gravity. Like the German, they may sing and spout about _Fatherland_: in
both cases the theory is splendid, but in practice each Spaniard thinks
his own province or town the best in the Peninsula, and himself the
finest fellow in it. From the earliest period down to the present all
observers have been struck with this _localism_ as a salient feature in
the character of the Iberians, who never would amalgamate, never would,
as Strabo said, put their shields together--never would sacrifice their
own local private interest for the general good; on the contrary, in the
hour of need they had, as at present, a constant tendency to separate
into distinct _juntas_, “_collective_” assemblies, each of which only
thought of its own views, utterly indifferent to the injury thereby
occasioned to what ought to have been the common cause of all. Common
danger and interest scarcely can keep them together, the tendency of
each being rather to repel than to attract the other: the common enemy
once removed, they instantly fall to loggerheads among each other,
especially if there be any spoil to be divided: scarcely ever, as in the
East, can the energy of one individual bind the loose staves by the iron
power of a master mind; remove the band, and the centrifugal members
instantaneously disunite. Thus the virility and vitality of the noble
people have been neutralised: they have, indeed, strong limbs and honest
hearts; but, as in the Oriental parable, “a head” is wanting to direct
and govern: hence Spain is to-day, as it always has been, a bundle of
small bodies tied together by a rope of sand, and, being without union,
is also without strength, and has been beaten in detail. The much-used
phrase _Españolismo_ expresses rather a “dislike of foreign dictation,”
and the “self-estimation” of Spaniards, _Españoles sobre todos_, than
any real patriotic love of country, however highly they rate its
excellences and superiority to every other one under heaven: this
opinion is condensed in one of those pithy proverbs which, nowhere more
than in Spain, are the exponents of popular sentiment: it runs
thus,--“_Quien dice España, dice todo_,” which means, “Whoever says
Spain, says everything.” A foreigner may perhaps think this a trifle too
comprehensive and exclusive; but he will do well to express no doubts on
the subject, since he will only be set down by every native as either
jealous, envious, or ignorant, and probably all three.
[Sidenote: DISUNION OF SPANIARDS.]
[Sidenote: ADMIRATION OF SPAIN.]
[Sidenote: M. THIERS IN SPAIN.]
To boast of Spain’s strength, said the Duke of Wellington, is the
national weakness. Every infinitesimal particle which constitutes
_nosotros_, or ourselves, as Spaniards term themselves, will talk of his
country as if the armies were still led to victory by the mighty Charles
V., or the councils managed by Philip II. instead of Louis-Philippe.
Fortunate, indeed, was it, according to a Castilian preacher, that the
Pyrenees concealed Spain when the Wicked One tempted the Son of Man by
an offer of all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. This,
indeed, was predicated in the mediæval or dark ages, but few peninsular
congregations, even in these enlightened times, would dispute the
inference. It was but the other day that a foreigner was relating in a
_tertulia_, or conversazione of Madrid, the well-known anecdote of
Adam’s revisit to the earth. The narrator explained how our first father
on lighting in Italy was perplexed and taken aback; how, on crossing the
Alps into Germany, he found nothing that he could understand--how
matters got darker and stranger at Paris, until on his reaching England
he was altogether lost, confounded, and abroad, being unable to make out
any thing. Spain was his next point, where, to his infinite
satisfaction, he found himself quite at home, so little had things
changed since his absence, or indeed since the sun at its creation first
shone over Toledo. The story concluded, a distinguished Spaniard, who
was present, hurt perhaps at the somewhat protestant-dissenting tone of
the speaker, gravely remarked, the rest of the party coinciding,--_Si,
Señor, y tenia razon; la España es Paradiso_--“Adam, Sir, was right, for
Spain is paradise;” and in many respects this worthy, zealous gentleman
was not wrong, although it is affirmed by some of his countrymen that
some portions of it are inhabited by persons not totally exempt from
original sin; thus the Valencians will say of their ravishing _huerta_,
or garden, _Es un paradiso habitado por demonios_,--“It is an Eden
peopled by subjects of his Satanic Majesty.” Again, according to the
natives, Murcia, a land overflowing with milk and honey, where Flora and
Pomona dispute the prize with Ceres and Bacchus, possesses a _cielo y
suelo bueno, el entresuelo malo_, has “a sky and soil that are good,
while all between is indifferent;” which the _entresol_ occupant must
settle to his liking.
Another little anecdote, like a straw thrown up in the air, will point
out the direction in which the wind blows. Monsieur Thiers, the great
historical romance writer, in his recent hand-gallop tour through the
Peninsula, passed a few days only at Madrid; his mind being, as
logicians would say, of a _subjective_ rather than an _objective_ turn,
that is, disposed rather to the consideration of the _ego_, and to
things relating to self, than to those that do not, he scarcely looked
more at any thing there, than he did during his similar run through
London: “Behold,” said the Spaniards, “that little _gabacho_; he dares
not remain, nor raise his eyes from the ground in this land, whose vast
superiority wounds his personal and national vanity.” There is nothing
new in this. The old Castilian has an older saying:--_Si Dios no fuese
Dios, seria rey de las Españas, y el de Francia su cocinero_--“If God
were not God, he would make himself king of the Spains, with him of
France for his cook.” Lope de Vega, without derogating one jot from
these paradisiacal pretensions, used him of England better. His sonnet
on the romantic trip to Madrid ran thus:--
“Carlos Stuardo soy,
Que siendo amor mi guia,
Al _cielo de España_ voy,
Por ver mi estrella Maria.”
“I am Charles Stuart, who, with love for my guide, hasten to the heaven
Spain to see my star Mary.” The Virgin, it must be remembered, after
whom this infanta was named, is held by every Spaniard to be the
brightest luminary, and the sole empress of heaven.
[Sidenote: GEOGRAPHY OF SPAIN.]