Spanish Servants: their Character--Travelling Groom, Cook, and
Valet.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF SPANISH SERVANTS.]
Don Quixote’s first thought, after having determined to ride forth into
Spain, was to get a horse; his second was to secure a squire; and as the
narrative of his journey is still an excellent guide-book for modern
travellers, his example is not to be slighted. A good Sancho Panza will
on the whole be found to be a more constant comfort to a knight-errant
than even a Dulcinea. To secure a really good servant is of the utmost
consequence to all who make out-of-the-way excursions in the Peninsula;
for, as in the East, he becomes often not only cook, but interpreter and
companion to his master. It is therefore of great importance to get a
person with whom a man can ramble over these wild scenes. The so doing
ends, on the part of the attendant, in an almost canine friendship; and
the Spaniard, when the tour is done, is broken-hearted, and ready to
leave his home, horse, ass, and wife, to follow his master, like a dog,
to the world’s-end. Nine times out of ten it is the master’s fault if he
has bad servants: _tel maître tel valet_. _Al amo imprudente, el mozo
negligente._ He must begin at once, and exact the performance of their
duty; the only way to get them to do anything is, as the Duke said, to
“frighten them,” to “take a decided line.” It is very difficult to make
them see the importance of detail and of doing exactly what they are
told, which they will always endeavour to shirk when they can; their
task must be clearly pointed out to them at starting, and the earliest
and smallest infractions, either in commission or omission, at once and
seriously noticed, the moral victory is soon gained. The example of the
masters, if they be active and orderly, is the best lesson to servants;
_mucho sabe el rato, pero mas el gato_; the rats are well enough, but
the cats are better. Achilles, Patroclus, and the Homeric heroes, were
their own cooks; and many a man who, like Lord Blayney, may not be a
hero, will be none the worse for following the epical example, in a
Spanish venta: at all events a good servant, who is up to his work, and
will work, is indeed a jewel; and on these, as on other occasions, he
deserves to be well treated. Those who make themselves honey are eaten
by flies--_quien se hace miel, le comen las moscas_; while no rat ever
ventures to jest with the cat’s son; _con hijo de gato, no se burlan los
ratones_. The great thing is to make them get up early, and learn the
value of time, which the groom cannot tie with his halter, _tiempo y
hora, no se ata con soga_: while a cook who oversleeps himself not only
misses his mass, but his meat, _quien se levanta tarde, ni oye misa, ni
compra carne_. If (which is soon found out) the servants seem not likely
to answer, the sooner they are changed the better; it is loss of time
and soap, and he who is good for nothing in his own village will not be
worth more either in Seville or elsewhere, so says the proverb.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF SPANISH SERVANTS.]
The principal defects of Spanish servants and of the lower classes of
Spaniards are much the same, and faults of race. As a mass, they are apt
to indulge in habits of procrastination, waste, improvidence, and
untidiness. They are unmechanical and obstinate, easily beaten by
difficulties, which their first feeling is to raise, and their next to
succumb to; they give the thing up at once. They have no idea indeed of
grappling with anything that requires much trouble, or of doing anything
as it ought to be done, or even of doing the same thing in the same
way--accident and the impulse of the moment set them going. They are
very unmechanical, obstinate, and prejudiced; ignorant of their own
ignorance and incurious as Orientals; partly from pride, self-opinion,
and idleness, they seldom will ask questions for information from
others, which implies an inferiority of knowledge, and still more seldom
will take an answer, unless it be such a one as they desire; their own
wishes, opinions, and wants are their guides, and self the centre of
their gravity, not those of their employers. As a Spaniard’s _yes_, when
you beg a favour, generally means _no_, so they cannot or will not
understand that your _no_ is really a negative when they come
petitioning to be idle; at the same time a great change for the better
comes over them when they are taken out of the city on a rambling tour.
The nomad life excites them into active serviceable fellows; in fact the
uncertain harum-scarum nomad existence is exactly what suits these
descendants of the Arab; they cannot bear the steady sustained routine
of a well-managed household; they abhor confinement; hence the
difficulty of getting Spaniards to garrison fortresses or to man ships
of war, from whence there is no escape.
As for what we call a well-appointed servants’ hall, the case is
hopeless in Spanish field or city, and is equally so whether the life be
above or below stairs. In the house of the middle or highest classes
this is particularly shown in everything that regards gastronomics,
which are the tests and touchstones of good service. In truth, the
Spaniard, accustomed to his own desultory, free and easy, impromptu,
scrambling style of dining, is constrained by the order and discipline,
the pomp and ceremony, and serious importance of a well-regulated
dinner, and their observance of forms extends only to persons, not to
things: even the grandee has only a thin European polish spread over his
Gotho-Bedouin dining table; he lives and eats surrounded by an humble
clique, in his huge ill-furnished barrack-house, without any elegance,
luxury, or even comfort, according to sound trans-pyrenean notions: few
indeed are the kitchens which possess a _cordon bleu_, and fewer are the
masters who really like an orthodox _entrée_, one unpolluted with the
heresies of garlic and red pepper: again, whenever their cookery
attempts to be foreign, as in their other imitations, it ends in being a
flavourless copy; but few things are ever done in Spain in _real style_,
which implies forethought and expense; everything is a make-shift; the
noble master _reposes_ his affairs on an unjust steward, and dozes away
life on this bed of roses, somnolescent over business and awake only to
intrigue; his numerous ill-conditioned, ill-appointed servants have no
idea of discipline or subordination; you never can calculate on their
laying even the table-cloth, as they prefer idling in the church or
market to doing their duty, and would rather starve, dance, and sleep
out of place and independently, than feast and earn their wages by fair
work; nor has the employer any redress, for if he dismisses them he will
only get just such another set, or even worse.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF SPANISH SERVANTS.]
In our own Spanish household, the instant dinner and siesta were over,
the cook with his kitchen-man, the valet with the footman invariably
stripped off their working apparel--liveries are almost unheard
of--donned their comical velvet embroidered hats, their sky-blue
waistcoats, and scarlet sashes, and were off with a guitar to some scene
of song and love-making, leaving their master alone in his glory to
moralize on the uncertainty of human concerns and the faithlessness of
mankind.
[Sidenote: SPANISH AND ENGLISH MANNERS.]
[Sidenote: TRAVELLING EXPENSES.]
What can’t be cured must be endured. To resume, therefore, the character
of these Spanish servants; they are very loquacious, and highly
credulous, as often is the case with those given to romancing, which
they, and especially the Andalucians, are to a large degree; and, in
fact, it is the only remaining romance in Spain, as far as the natives
are concerned. As they have an especial good opinion of themselves, they
are touchy, sensitive, jealous, and thin-skinned, and easily affronted
whenever their imperfections are pointed out; their disposition is very
sanguine and inflammable; they are always hoping that what they eagerly
desire will come to pass without any great exertion on their parts; they
love to stand still with their arms folded, while other men put their
shoulders to the wheel. Their lively imagination is very apt to carry
them away into extremes for good or evil, when they act on the moment
like children, and having gratified the humour of the impulse relapse
into their ordinary tranquillity, which is that of a slumbering volcano.
On the other hand, they are full of excellent and redeeming good
qualities; they are free from caprice, are hardy, patient, cheerful,
good-humoured, sharp-witted, and intelligent: they are honest, faithful,
and trustworthy; sober, and unaddicted to mean, vulgar vices; they have
a bold, manly bearing, and will follow well wherever they are well led,
being the raw material of as good soldiers as are in the world; they are
loyal and religious at heart, and full of natural tact, mother-wit, and
innate good manners. In general, a firm, quiet, courteous, and somewhat
reserved manner is the most effective. Whenever duties are to be
performed, let them see that you are not to be trifled with. The
coolness of a determined Englishman’s manner, when in earnest, is what
few foreigners can withstand. Grimace and gesticulation, sound and fury,
bluster, petulance, and impertinence fume and fret in vain against it,
as the sprays and foam of the “French lake” do against the unmoved and
immoveable rock of Gibraltar. An Englishman, without being
over-familiar, may venture on a far greater degree of unbending in his
intercourse with his Spanish dependants than he can dare to do with
those he has in England. It is the custom of the country; they are used
to it, and their heads are not turned by it, nor do they ever forget
their relative positions. The Spaniards treat their servants very much
like the ancient Romans or the modern Moors; they are more their
_vernæ_, their domestic slaves: it is the absolute authority of the
father combined with the kindness. Servants do not often change their
masters in Spain: their relation and duties are so clearly defined, that
the latter runs no risk of compromising himself or his dignity by his
familiarity, which can be laid down or taken up at his own pleasure;
whereas the scorn, contempt, and distance with which the said courteous
Don would treat a roturier who presumed to be intimate, baffle
description. In England no man dares to be intimate with his footman;
for supposing even such absurd fancy entered his brain, his footman is
his equal in the eye of man-made law, God having created them utterly
unequal in all his gifts, whether of rank, wealth, form, or intellect.
Conventional barriers accordingly must be erected in self-defence: and
social barriers are more difficult to be passed than walls of brass,
more impossible to be repealed than the whole statutes at large. No
master in Spain, and still less a foreigner, should ever descend to
personal abuse, sneers, or violence. A blow is never to be washed out
except in blood, and Spanish revenge descends to the third and fourth
generation; and whatever these backward Spaniards have to learn from
foreigners, it is not the duty of revenge, nor how to perform it. There
should be no threatenings in vain, but whenever the opportunity occurs
for punishment, let it be done quietly and effectively, and the fault
once punished should not be needlessly ripped up again; Spaniards are
sufficiently unforgiving, and hoarders-up of unrevenged grievances
require to be reminded. A kind and uniform behaviour, a showing
consideration to them, in a manner which implies that you are accustomed
to it, and expect it to be shown to you, keeps most things in their
right places. Temper and patience are the great requisites in the
master, especially when he speaks the language imperfectly. He must not
think Spaniards stupid because they cannot guess the meaning of his
unknown tongue. Nothing again is gained by fidgeting and overdoing, and
however early you may get up, daybreak will not take place the sooner:
no por _mucho madrugar_, _amanece mas temprano_. Let well alone: be not
zealous overmuch: be occasionally both blind and deaf: shut the door,
and the devil passes by: keep honey in mouth and an eye to your cash:
_miel en boca y guarda la bolsa_. Still how much less expenditure is
necessary in Spain than in performing the commonest excursion in
England!--and yet many who submit to their own countrymen’s extortions
are furious at what they imagine is an especial cheating of them,
_quasi_ Englishmen, abroad: this outrageous economy, with which some are
afflicted, is penny wise and pound foolish: pay, pay therefore with both
hands. The traveller must remember that he gains caste, gets brevet rank
in Spain--that he is taken for a grandee incog., and ranks with their
nobility; he must pay for these luxuries: how small after all will be
the additional per centage on his general expenditure, and how well
bestowed is the excess, in keeping the temper good, and the capability
of enjoying unruffled a tour, which only is performed once in a life! No
wise man who goes into Spain for amusement will plunge into this
guerrilla, this constant petty warfare, about sixpences. Let the
traveller be true to himself; hold his tongue; avoid bad company, _quien
hace su cama con perros, se levanta con pulgas_, those who sleep with
dogs get up with fleas; and make room for bulls and fools, _al loco y
toro da le corro_, and he may see Spain agreeably, and, as Catullus said
to Veranius, who made the tour many centuries ago, may on his return
amuse his friends and “old mother:”--
“Visam te incolumem, audiamque Iberum
Narrantem loca, facta, nationes,
Sicut tuus est mos.”
which may be thus Englished:--
May you come back safe, and tell
Of Spanish men, their things and places,
Of Spanish ladies’ eyes and faces,
In your own way, and so well.
[Sidenote: TRAVELLING SERVANTS.]
Two masters should take two servants, and both should be Spaniards: all
others, unless they speak the language perfectly, are nuisances. A
Gallegan or Asturian makes the best groom, an _Andaluz_ the best cook
and personal attendant. Sometimes a person may be picked up who has some
knowledge of languages, and who is accustomed to accompany strangers
through Spain as a sort of courier. These accomplishments are very rare,
and the moral qualities of the possessor often diminish in proportion as
his intellect has marched; he has learnt more foreign tricks than words,
and sea-port towns are not the best schools for honesty. Of these
nondescripts the Hispano-Anglo, who generally has deserted from
Gibraltar, is the best, because he will work, hold his tongue, and
fight; a monkey would be a less inconvenience than a chattering
Ibero-Gallo; one who has forgotten his national accomplishments--cooking
and hairdressing, and learnt very few Spanish things, such as good
temper and endurance. Whichever of the two is the sharpest should lead
the way, and leave the other to bring up the rear. They should be
mounted on good mules, and be provided with large panniers. One should
act as the cook and valet, the other as the groom of the party; and the
utensils peculiar to each department should be carried by each
professor. Where only one servant is employed, one side of the pannier
should be dedicated to the commissariat, and the other to the luggage;
in that case the master should have a flying portmanteau, which should
be sent by means of _cosarios_, and precede him from great town to great
town, as a magazine, wardrobe, or general supply to fall back on. The
servants should each have their own saddle-bag and leathern bottle,
which, since the days of Sancho Panza, are part and parcel of a faithful
squire, and when all are carried on an ass are quite patriarchal. “_Iba
Sancho Panza sobre su jumento, como un patriarca con sus alforjas y
bota._”
[Sidenote: WHAT TO TAKE ON A JOURNEY.]
The servants will each in their line look after their own affairs; the
groom will take with him the things of the stable, and a small provision
of corn, in order that a feed may never be wanting, on an unexpected
emergency; he will always ascertain beforehand through what sort of a
country each day’s journey is to be made, and make preparations
accordingly. The valet will view his masters in the same light as the
groom does his beasts; and he will purvey and keep in readiness all that
appertains to their comfort, always remembering a moskito net--we shall
presently say a word on the fly-plague of the Peninsula--with nails to
knock into the walls to hang it up by, not forgetting a hammer and
gimlet; common articles enough, but which are never to be got at the
moment and place where they are the most wanted. He will also carry a
small canteen, the smaller and more ordinary the better, as anything out
of the common way attracts attention, and suggests, first, the coveting
other men’s goods, and so on to assaults, batteries, robberies, and
other inconveniences, which have been exploded on our roads; although F.
Moryson took care to caution our ancestors “to be warie on this head,
since theeves have their spies commonly in all innes, to enquire into
the condition of travellers.” The manufactures of Spain are so rude and
valueless that what appears to us to be the most ordinary appears to
them to be the most excellent, as they have never seen anything so good.
The lower orders, who eat with their fingers, think everything is gold
which glitters, _todo es oro lo que reluce_; as, after all, it is what
is _on_ the plate that is the rub, let no wise man have such smart forks
and knives as to tempt cut-throats to turn them to unnatural purposes.
However, avoid all superfluous luggage, especially prejudices and
foregone conclusions, for “_en largo camino paja pesa_,” a straw is
heavy on a long journey, and the last feather breaks the horse’s back. A
store of cigars, however, must always be excepted; take plenty and give
them freely; it always opens a conversation well with a Spaniard, to
offer him one of these little delicate marks of attention. Good snuff is
acceptable to the curates and to monks (though there are none just now).
English needles, thread, and pairs of scissars take no room, and are all
keys to the good graces of the fair sex. There is a charm about a
present, _bachshish_, in most European as well as Oriental countries,
and still more if it is given with tact, and at the proper time;
Spaniards, if unable to make any equivalent return, will always try to
repay by civilities and attentions.
[Sidenote: COOKING UTENSILS.]
Every one must determine for himself whether he prefers the assistance
of this servant in the kitchen or at the toilet; since it is not easy
for mortal man to dress a master _and_ a dinner, and both well at the
same time, let alone two masters. A cook who runs after two hares at
once catches neither. No prudent traveller on these, or on any
occasions, should let another do for him what he can do for himself,
and a man who waits upon himself is sure to be well waited on. If,
however, a valet be absolutely necessary, the groom clearly is best left
in his own chamber, the stable; he will have enough to do to curry and
valet his four animals, which he knows to be good for their health,
though he never scrapes off the cutaneous stucco by which his own illote
carcass is Roman cemented. From long experience we have found that if
the rider will get into the habit of carrying all the things requisite
for his own dressing in a small separate bag, and employ the hour while
the cook is getting the supper under weigh, it is wonderful how
comfortably he will proceed to his puchero.
[Sidenote: SPANISH BREAD.]
The cook should take with him a stewing-pan, and a pot or kettle for
boiling water; he need not lumber himself with much batterie de cuisine;
it is not much needed in the imperfect gastronomy of the Peninsula,
where men eat like the beasts which perish; all sort of artillery is
rather rare in Spanish kitchen or fortress; an hidalgo would as soon
think of having a voltaic battery in his sitting-room as a copper one in
his cuisine; most classes are equally satisfied with the Oriental
earthenware _ollas_, _pucheros_, or pipkins, which are everywhere to be
found, and have some peculiar sympathy with the Spanish cuisine, since a
stew--be it even of a cat--never eats so well when made in a metal
vessel; the great thing is to bring the raw materials,--first catch your
hare. Those who have meat and money will always get a neighbour to lend
them a pot. A _venta_ is a place where the rich are sent empty away, and
where the poor hungry are not filled; the whole duty of the man-cook,
therefore, is to be always thinking of his commissariat; he need not
trouble himself about his master’s appetite, that will seldom
fail,--nay, often be a misfortune; a good appetite is not a good _per
se_,[6] for it, even when the best, becomes a bore when there is nothing
to eat; his _capucho_ or mule hamper must be his travelling larder,
cellar, and store-room; he will victual himself according to the route,
and the distances from one great town to another, and always take care
to start with a good provision: indeed to attend to the commissariat
is, it cannot be too often repeated, the whole duty of a man cook in
hungry Spain, where food has ever been _the_ difficulty; a little
foresight gives small trouble and ensures great comfort, while perils by
sea and perils by land are doubled when the stomach is empty, whereas,
as Sancho Panza wisely told his ass, all sorrows are alleviated by
eating bread: _todos los duelos, con pan son buenos_, and the shrewd
squire, who seldom is wrong, was right both in the matter of bread and
the moral: the former is admirable. The central table-lands of Spain are
perhaps the finest wheat-growing districts in the world; however rude
and imperfect the cultivation--for the peasant does but scratch the
earth, and seldom manures--the life-conferring sun comes to his
assistance; the returns are prodigious, and the quality superexcellent;
yet the growers, miserable in the midst of plenty, vegetate in cabins
composed of baked mud, or in holes burrowed among the friable hillocks,
in an utter ignorance of furniture, and absolute necessaries. The want
of roads, canals, and means of transport prevents their exportation of
produce, which from its bulk is difficult of carriage in a country where
grain is removed for the most part on four-footed beasts of burden,
after the oriental and patriarchal fashion of Jacob, when he sent to the
granaries of Egypt. Accordingly, although there are neither sliding
scales nor corn laws, and subsistence is cheap and abundant, the
population decreases in number and increases in wretchedness; what boots
it if corn be low-priced, if wages be still lower, as they then
everywhere are and must be?
The finest bread in Spain is called _pan de candeal_, which is eaten by
men in office and others in easy circumstances, as it was by the clergy.
The worst bread is the _pan de municion_, and forms the fare of the
Spanish soldier, which, being sable as a hat, coarse and hard as a
brickbat, would just do to sop in the black broth of the Spartan
military; indeed, the expression _de municion_ is synonymous in the
Peninsula with badness of quality, and the secondary meaning is taken
from the perfection of badness which is perceptible in every thing
connected with Spanish ammunition, from the knapsack to the citadel.
Such bread and water, and both hardly earned, are the rations of the
poor patient Spanish private; nor can he when before the enemy reckon
always on even that, unless it be supplied from an ally’s commissariat.
[Sidenote: THRESHING AND WINNOWING.]
[Sidenote: BREAD.]
Perhaps the best bread in Spain is made at Alcalá de Guadaira, near
Seville, of which it is the oven, and hence the town is called the
Alcalá of bakers. There bread may truly be said to be the soul of its
existence, and samples abound everywhere: _roscas_, or circular-formed
_rusks_, are hung up like garlands, and _hogazas_, loaves, placed on
tables outside the houses. It is, indeed, as Spaniards say, _Pan de
Dios_--the “angels’ bread of Esdras.” All classes here gain their bread
by making it, and the water-mills and mule-mills are never still; women
and children are busy picking out earthy particles from the grain, which
get mixed from the common mode of threshing on a floor in the open air,
which is at once Biblical and Homeric. At the outside of the villages,
in corn-growing districts, a smooth open “threshing-floor” is prepared,
with a hard surface, like a fives court: it is called the _era_, and is
the precise Roman _area_. The sheaves of corn are spread out on it, and
four horses yoked most classically to a low crate or harrow, composed of
planks armed with flints, &c., which is called a _trillo_: on this the
driver is seated, who urges the beasts round and round over the crushed
heap. Thus the grain is shaken out of the ears and the straw triturated;
the latter becomes food for horses, as the former does for men. When the
heap is sufficiently bruised, it is removed and winnowed by being thrown
up into the air; the light winds carry off the chaff, while the heavy
corn falls to the ground. The whole operation is truly picturesque and
singular. The scene is a crowded one, as many cultivators contribute to
the mass and share in the labour; their wives and children cluster
around, clad in strange dresses of varied colours. They are sometimes
sheltered from the god of fire under boughs, reeds, and awnings, run up
as if for the painter, and falling of themselves into pictures, as the
lower classes of Spaniards and Italians always do. They are either
eating and drinking, singing or dancing, for a guitar is never wanting.
Meanwhile the fierce horses dash over the prostrate sheaves, and realise
the splendid simile of Homer, who likens to them the fiery steeds of
Achilles when driven over Trojan bodies. These out-of-door threshings
take place of course when the weather is dry, and generally under a most
terrific heat. The work is often continued at nightfall by torch-light.
During the day the half-clad dusky reapers defy the sun and his rage,
rejoicing rather in the heat like salamanders; it is true that their
devotions to the porous water-jar are unremitting, nor is a swill at a
good passenger’s _bota_ ever rejected; all is life and action; busy
hands and feet, flashing eyes, and eager screams; the light yellow
chaff, which in the sun’s rays glitters like gold dust, envelopes them
in a halo, which by night, when partially revealed by the fires and
mingled with the torch glare, is almost supernatural, as the phantom
figures, now dark in shadows, now crimsoned by the fire flash, flit to
and fro in the vaporous mist. The scene never fails to rivet and enchant
the stranger, who, coming from the pale north and the commonplace
in-door flail, seizes at once all the novelty of such doings. Eye and
ear, open and awake, become inlets of new sensations of attention and
admiration, and convey to heart and mind the poetry, local colour,
movement, grouping, action, and attitude. But while the cold-blooded
native of leaden skies is full of fire and enthusiasm, his Spanish
companion, bred and born under unshorn beams, is chilly as an icicle,
indifferent as an Arab: he passes on the other side, not only not
admiring, but positively ashamed; he only sees the barbarity, antiquity,
and imperfect process; he is sighing for some patent machine made in
Birmingham, to be put up in a closed barn after the models approved of
by the Royal Agricultural Society in Cavendish Square; his bowels yearn
for the appliances of civilization by which “bread stuffs” are more
scientifically manipulated and manufactured, minus the poetry.
To return, however, to dry bread, after this new digression, and all
those who have ever been in Spain, or have ever written on Spanish
things, must feel how difficult it is to keep regularly on the road
without turning aside at every moment, now to cull a wild flower, now to
pick up a sparkling spar. This corn, so beaten, is very carefully
ground, and in La Mancha in those charming windmills, which, perched on
eminences to catch the air, look to this day, with their outstretched
arms, like Quixotic giants; the flour is passed through several hoppers,
in order to secure its fineness. The dough is most carefully kneaded,
worked, and re-worked, as is done by our biscuit-makers; hence the
close-grained, caky, somewhat heavy consistency of the crumb, whereas,
according to Pliny, the Romans esteemed Spanish bread on account of its
lightness.
[Sidenote: LUNCHEON.]
The Spanish loaf has not that mysterious sympathy with butter and cheese
as it has in our verdurous Old England, probably because in these torrid
regions pasture is rare, butter bad, and cheese worse, albeit they
suited the iron digestion of Sancho, who knew of nothing better: none,
however, who have ever tasted Stilton or Parmesan will join in his
eulogies of Castilian _queso_, the poorness of which will be estimated
by the distinguished consideration in which a round cannon-ball Dutch
cheese is held throughout the Peninsula. The traveller, nevertheless,
should take one of them, for bad is here the best, in many other things
besides these: he will always carry some good loaves with it, for in the
damper mountain districts the daily bread of the natives is made of rye,
Indian corn, and the inferior cerealia. Bread is the staff of the
Spanish traveller’s life, who, having added raw garlic, not salt, to it,
then journeys on with security, _con pan y ajo crudo se anda seguro_.
Again, a loaf never weighs one down, nor is ever in the way; as Æsop,
the prototype of Sancho, well knew. _La hogaza no embaraza._
[Sidenote: THE OLLA.]
Having secured his bread, the cook in preparing supper should make
enough for the next day’s lunch, _las once_, the eleven o’clock meal, as
the Spaniards translate _meridie_, twelve or mid-day, whence the correct
word for luncheon is derived, _merienda merendar_. Wherever good dishes
are cut up there are good leavings, “_donde buenas ollas quebran, buenos
cascos quedan_;” and nothing can be more Cervantic than the occasional
al fresco halt, when no better place of accommodation is to be met with.
As the sun gets high, and man and beast hungry and weary, wherever a
tempting shady spot with running water occurs, the party draws aside
from the high road, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; a retired and
concealed place is chosen, the luggage is removed from the animals, the
hampers which lard the lean soil are unpacked, the table-cloth is spread
on the grass, the _botas_ are laid in the water to cool their contents;
then out with the provision, cold partridge or turkey, sliced ham or
_chorizo_--simple cates, but which are eaten with an appetite and relish
for which aldermen would pay hundreds. They are followed, should grapes
be wanting, with a soothing cigar, and a sweet slumber on earth’s
freshest, softest lap. In such wild banquets Spain surpasses the
Boulevards. Alas! that such hours should be bright and winged as
sunbeams! Such is Peninsular country fare. The _olla_, on which the
rider may restore exhausted nature, is only to be studied in larger
towns; and dining, of which this is the foundation in Spain, is such a
great resource to travellers, and Spanish cookery, again, is so
Oriental, classical, and singular, let alone its vital importance, that
the subject will properly demand a chapter to itself.
[Sidenote: A SPANISH COOK.]