Drinks of Spain--Water--Irrigation--Fountains--Spanish
Thirstiness--The Alcarraza--Water Carriers--Ablutions--Spanish
Chocolate--Agraz--Beer Lemonade.
In dipping into Spanish liquids we shall not mix wine with water, but
keep them separate, as most Spaniards do; the latter is entitled to rank
first, by those who prefer the opinion of Pindar, who held water to be
the best of things, to that of Anacreon, who was not member of any
temperance society. The profound regard for water of a Spaniard is quite
Oriental; at the same time, as his blood is partly Gothic and partly
Arab, his allegiance is equally mixed and divided; thus, if he adores
the juice of flints like a Moslem, he venerates the juice of the grape
like a German.
Water is the blood of the earth, and the purificator of the body in
tropical regions and in creeds which, being regulated by latitudes,
enforce frequent ablution; loud are the praises of Arab writers of wells
and water-brooks, and great is their fountain and pool worship, the
dipping in which, if their miraculous cases are to be credited, effects
more and greater cures than those worked by hydropathists at Grafenberg;
a Spaniard’s idea of a paradise on earth, of a “garden,” is a
well-watered district; irrigation is fertility and wealth, and
therefore, as in the East, wells, brooks, and water-courses have been a
constant source of bickering; nay the very word _rivality_ has been
derived from these quarrel and law-suit engendering rivers, as the name
given to the well for which the men of Gerah and Isaac differed, was
called _esek_ from the contention.
[Sidenote: FOUNTAINS.]
The flow of waters cannot be mistaken; the most dreary sterility edges
the most luxuriant plenty, the most hopeless barrenness borders on the
richest vegetation; the line of demarcation is perceived from afar,
dividing the tawny desert from the verdurous garden. The Moors who came
from the East were fully sensible of the value of this element; they
collected the best springs with the greatest care, they dammed up
narrow gorges into reservoirs, they constructed pools and underground
cisterns, stemmed valleys with aqueducts that poured in rivers, and in a
word exercised a magic influence over this element, which they guided
and wielded at their will; their system of irrigation was far too
perfect to be improved by Spaniard, or even destroyed. In those favoured
districts where their artificial contrivances remain, Flora still smiles
and Ceres rejoices with Pomona; wherever the ravages of war or the
neglect of man have ruined them, the garden has relapsed into the
desert, and plains once overflowing with corn, gladness, and population,
have shrunk into sad and silent deserts.
[Sidenote: THIRST.]
The fountains of Spain, especially in the hotter and more Moorish
districts, are numerous; they cannot fail to strike and please the
stranger, whether they be situated in the public walk, garden,
market-place, or private dwelling. Their mode of supply is simple: a
river which flows down from the hills is diverted at a certain height
from its source, and is carried in an artificial canal, which retains
the original elevation, into a reservoir placed above the town which is
to be served; as the waters rise to their level, the force, body, and
altitude of some of the columns thrown up are very great. In our cold
country, where, except at Charing Cross, the stream is conveyed
underground and unseen, all this gush of waters, of dropping diamonds in
the bright sun, which cools the air and gladdens the sight and ear, is
unknown. Again there is a waste of the “article,” which would shock a
Chelsea Waterworks Director, and induce the rate-collector to refer to
the fines as per Act of Parliament. The fondest wish of those Spaniards
who wear long-tailed coats, is to imitate those gentry; they are ashamed
of the patriarchal uncivilised system of their ancestors--much prefer
the economical lead pipe to all this extravagant and gratuitous
splashing--they love a turncock better than the most Oriental Rebecca
who comes down to draw water. The fountains in Spain as in the East are
the meeting and greeting places of womankind; here they flock, old and
young, infants and grandmothers. It is a sight to drive a water-colour
painter crazy, such is the colour, costume, and groupings, such is the
clatter of tongues and crockery; such is the life and action; now trip
along a bevy of damsel Hebes with upright forms and chamois step light
yet true; more graceful than opera-dancers, they come laughing and
carolling along, poising on their heads pitchers modelled after the
antique, and after everything which a Sèvres jug is not. It would seem
that to draw water is a difficult operation, so long are they lingering
near the sweet fountain’s rim. It indeed is their al fresco rout, their
tertulia; here for awhile the hand of woman labour ceases, and the urn
stands still; here more than even after church mass, do the young
discuss their dress and lovers, the middle-aged and mothers descant on
babies and housekeeping; all talk, and generally at once; but gossip
refresheth the daughters of Eve, whether in gilded boudoir or near mossy
fountain, whose water, if a dash of scandal be added, becomes sweeter
than eau sucrée.
The Iberians were decided water-drinkers, and this trait of their
manners, which are modified by climate that changes not, still exists as
the sun that regulates: the vinous Greek Athenæus was amazed that even
rich Spaniards should prefer water to wine; and to this day they are if
possible curious about the latter’s quality; they will just drink the
wine that grows the nearest, while they look about and enquire for the
best water; thus even our cook Francisco, who certainly had one of the
best places in Seville, and who although a good artiste was a better
rascal--qualities not incompatible--preferred to sacrifice his interests
rather than go to Granada, because this man of the fire had heard that
the water there was bad.
[Sidenote: INTENSE HEAT.]
The mother of the Arabs was tormented with thirst, which her
Hispano-Moro children have inherited; in fact in the dog-days, of which
here there are packs, unless the mortal clay be frequently wetted it
would crumble to bits like that of a figure modeller. Fire and water are
the elements of Spain, whether at an _auto de fé_ or in a church-stoop;
with a cigar in his mouth a Spaniard smokes like Vesuvius, and is as
dry, combustible, and inflammatory; and properly to understand the truth
of Solomon’s remark, that cold water is to a thirsty soul as refreshing
as good news, one must have experienced what thirst is in the exposed
plains of the calcined Castiles, where _coup de soleil_ is rife, and a
gentleman on horseback’s brains seem to be melting like Don Quixote’s
when Sancho put the curds into his helmet. It is just the country to
send a patient to, who is troubled with hydrophobia. “Those rayes,” to
use the words of old Howell, “that do but warm you in England, do roast
you here; those beams that irradiate onely, and gild your honey-suckled
fields, do here scorch and parch the chinky gaping soyle, and put too
many wrinkles upon the face of your common mother.”
Then, when the heavens and earth are on fire, and the sun drinks up
rivers at one draught, when one burnt sienna tone pervades the tawny
ground, and the green herb is shrivelled up into black gunpowder, and
the rare pale ashy olive-trees are blanched into the livery of the
desert; then, when the heat and harshness make even the salamander
muleteers swear doubly as they toil along like demons in an ignited
salitrose dust--then, indeed, will an Englishman discover that he is
made of the same material, only drier, and learn to estimate water; but
a good thirst is too serious an evil, too bordering on suffering, to be
made, like an appetite, a matter of congratulation; for when all fluids
evaporate, and the blood thickens into currant jelly, and the nerves
tighten up into the catgut of an overstrung fiddle, getting attuned to
the porcupinal irritability of the tension of the mind, how the parched
soul sighs for the comfort of a Scotch mist, and fondly turns back to
the uvula-relaxing damps of Devon!--then, in the blackhole-like thirst
of the wilderness, every mummy hag rushing from a reed hut, with a
porous cup of brackish water, is changed by the mirage into a Hebe,
bearing the nectar of the immortals; then how one longs for the most
wretched _Venta_, which heat and thirst convert into the Clarendon,
since in it at least will be found water and shade, and an escape from
the god of fire! Well may Spanish historians boast, that his orb at the
creation first shone over Toledo, and never since has set on the
dominions of the great king, who, as we are assured by Señor Berni, “has
the sun for his hat,”--_tiene al sol por su sombrero_; but humbler
mortals who are not grandees of this solar system, and to whom a _coup
de soleil_ is neither a joke nor a metaphor, should stow away
non-conductors of heat in the crown of their beavers. Thus Apollo
himself preserved us. And oh! ye our fair readers, who chance to run
such risks, and value complexion, take for heaven’s sake a parasol and
an _Alcarraza_.
[Sidenote: SPANISH WATER-SELLERS.]
This clay utensil--as its Arabic name _al Karaset_ implies--is a porous
refrigeratory vessel, in which water when placed in a current of hot
air becomes chilled by evaporation; it is to be seen hung up on poles
dangling from branches, suspended to waggons--in short, is part and
parcel of a Spanish scene in hot weather and localities; every _posada_
has rows of them at the entrance, and the first thing every one does on
entering, before wishing even the hostess Good morning, or asking
permission, is to take a full draught: all classes are learned on the
subject, and although on the whole they cannot be accused of
teetotalism, they are loud in their praises of the pure fluid. The
common form of praise is _agua muy rica_--very rich water. According to
their proverbs, good water should have neither taste, smell, nor colour,
“_ni sabor, olor, ni color_,” which neither makes men sick nor in debt,
nor women widows, “_que no enferma, no adeuda, no enviuda_;” and besides
being cheaper than wine, beer, or brandy, it does not brutalize the
consumer, nor deprive him of his common sense or good manners.
[Sidenote: WANT OF CLEANLINESS.]
As Spaniards at all times are as dry as the desert or a sponge, selling
water is a very active business; on every alameda and prado shrill
voices of the sellers of drinks and mouth combustibles--_vendedores de
combustibles de boca_--are heard crying, “Fire, fire, _candela_--Water;
who wants water?”--_agua; quien quiere agua?_ which, as these Orientals
generally exaggerate, is described as _mas fresca que la nieve_, or
colder than snow; and near them little Murillo-like urchins run about
with lighted ropes like artillerymen for the convenience of smokers,
that is, for every ninety and nine males out of a hundred; while
water-carriers, or rather retail pedestrian aqueducts, follow thirst
like fire-engines; the _Aguador_ carries on his back, like his colleague
in the East, a porous water-jar, with a little cock by which it is drawn
out; he is usually provided with a small tin box strapped to his waist,
and in which he stows away his glasses, brushes, and some light
_azucarillos_--_panales_, which are made of sugar and white of egg,
which Spaniards dip and dissolve in their drink. In the town, at
particular stations water-mongers in wholesale have a shed, with ranges
of jars, glasses, oranges, lemons, &c., and a bench or two on which the
drinkers “untire themselves.” In winter these are provided with an
_añafe_ or portable stove, which keeps a supply of hot water, to take
the chill off the cold, for Spaniards, from a sort of dropsical habit,
drink like fishes all the year round. Ferdinand the Catholic, on seeing
a peasant drowned in a river, observed, “that he had never before seen a
Spaniard who had had enough water.”
At the same time it must be remembered that this fluid is applied with
greater prodigality in washing their inside than their outside. Indeed,
a classical author remarks that the Spaniards only learnt the use of
_hot_ water, as applicable to the toilette, from the Romans after the
second Punic war. Their baths and _thermæ_ were destroyed by the Goths,
because they tended to encourage effeminacy; and those of the Moors were
prohibited by the Gotho-Spaniards partly from similar reasons, but more
from a religious hydrophobia. Ablutions and lustral purifications formed
an article of faith with the Jew and Moslem, with whom “cleanliness is
godliness.” The mendicant Spanish monks, according to their practice of
setting up a directly antagonist principle, considered physical dirt as
the test of moral purity and true faith; and by dining and sleeping from
year’s end to year’s end in the same unchanged woollen frock, arrived at
the height of their ambition, according to their view of the odour of
sanctity, insomuch that Ximenez, who was himself a shirtless Franciscan,
induced Ferdinand and Isabella, at the conquest of Granada, to close and
abolish the Moorish baths. They forbade not only the Christians but the
Moors from using anything but holy water. Fire, not water, became the
grand element of inquisitorial purification.
[Sidenote: CHOCOLATE.]
The fair sex was warned by monks, who practised what they preached, that
they should remember the cases of Susanna, Bathsheba, and La
Cava,--whose fatal bathing under the royal palace at Toledo led to the
downfall of the Gothic monarchy. Their aqueous anathemas extended not
only to public, but to minutely private washings, regarding which
Sanchez instructs the Spanish confessor to question his fair penitents,
and not to absolve the over-washed. Many instances could be produced of
the practical working of this enjoined rule; for instance, Isabella, the
favourite daughter of Philip II., his eye, as he called her, made a
solemn vow never to change her shift until Ostend was taken. The siege
lasted three years, three months, and thirteen days. The royal garment
acquired a tawny colour, which was called _Isabel_ by the courtiers, in
compliment to the pious princess. Again, Southey relates that the devout
Saint Eufraxia entered into a convent of 130 nuns, not one of whom had
ever washed her feet, and the very mention of a bath was an abomination.
These obedient daughters to their Capuchin confessors were what Gil de
Avila termed a sweet garden of flowers, perfumed by the good smell and
reputation of sanctity, “_ameno jardin de flores, olorosas por el buen
odor y fama de santidad_.” Justice to the land of Castile soap requires
us to observe that latterly, since the suppression of monks, both sexes,
and the fair especially, have departed from the strict observance of the
religious duties of their excellent grandmothers. Warm baths are now
pretty generally established in the larger towns. At the same time, the
interiors of bedrooms, whether in inns or private houses, as well by the
striking absence of glass and china utensils, which to English notions
are absolute necessaries, as by the presence of French pie-dish basins,
and duodecimo jugs, indicate that this “little damned spot” on the
average Spanish hand, has not yet been quite rubbed out.
However hot the day, dusty the road, or long the journey, it has never
been our fate to see a Spanish attendant use a single drop of water as a
detergent, or, as polite writers say, “perform his ablutions;” the
constant habit of bathing and complete washing is undoubtedly one reason
why the French and other continentals consider our soap-loving
countrymen to be cracked. Under the Spanish Goths the Hemerobaptistæ, or
people who washed their persons once a day, were set down as heretics.
The Duke of Frias, when a few years ago on a fortnight’s visit to an
English lady, never once troubled his basins and jugs; he simply rubbed
his face occasionally with the white of an egg, which, as Madame Daunoy
records, was the only ablution of the Spanish ladies in the time of
Philip IV.; but these details of the dressing-room are foreign to the
use made in Spain of liquids in kitchen and parlour.
One word on chocolate, which is to a Spaniard what tea is to a
Briton--coffee to a Gaul. It is to be had almost everywhere, and is
always excellent; the best is made by the nuns, who are great
confectioners and compounders of sweetmeats, sugarplums and
orange-flowers, water and comfits,
“Et tous ces mets sucrés en pâte, ou bien liquides,
Dont estomacs dévots furent toujours avides.”
[Sidenote: ICED DRINKS.]
It was long a disputed point whether chocolate did or did not break
fast theologically, just as happened with coffee among the rigid
Moslems. But since the learned Escobar decided that _liquidum non rumpit
jejunium_, a liquid does not break fast, it has become the universal
breakfast of Spain. It is made just liquid enough to come within the
benefit of clergy, that is, a spoon will almost stand up in it; only a
small cup is taken, _una jicara_, a Mexican word for the cocoa-nuts of
which they were first made, generally with a bit of toasted bread or
biscuit: as these _jicaras_ have seldom any handles, they were used by
the rich (as coffeecups are among the Orientals) enclosed in little
filigree cases of silver or gold; some of these are very beautiful, made
in the form of a tulip or lotus leaf, on a saucer of mother-o’-pearl.
The flower is so contrived that, by a spring underneath, on raising the
saucer, the leaves fall back and disclose the cup to the lips, while,
when put down, they re-close over it, and form a protection against the
flies. A glass of water should always be drunk after this chocolate,
since the aqueous chasse neutralizes the bilious propensities of this
breakfast of the gods, as Linnæus called chocolate. Tea and coffee have
supplanted chocolate in England and France; it is in Spain alone that we
are carried back to the breakfasts of Belinda and of the wits at
Button’s; in Spain exist, unchanged, the fans, the game of ombre,
_tresillo_, and the _coche de colleras_, the coach and six, and other
social usages of the age of Pope and the ‘Spectator.’
[Sidenote: ICED LEMONADE.]
Cold liquids in the hot dry summers of Spain are necessaries, not
luxuries; snow and iced drinks are sold in the streets at prices so low
as to be within the reach of the poorest classes; the rich refrigerate
themselves with _agraz_. This, the Moorish _Hacaraz_, is the most
delicious and most refreshing drink ever devised by thirsty mortal; it
is the _new_ pleasure for which Xerxes wished in vain, and beats the
“hock and soda water,” the “_hoc erat in votis_” of Byron, and sherry
cobler itself. It is made of pounded unripe grapes, clarified sugar, and
water; it is strained till it becomes of the palest straw-coloured
amber, and well iced. It is particularly well made in Andalucia, and it
is worth going there in the dog-days, if only to drink it--it cools a
man’s body and soul. At Madrid an agreeable drink is sold in the
streets; it is called _Michi Michi_, from the Valencian _Mitj e Mitj_,
“half and half,” and is as unlike the heavy wet mixture of London, as a
coal-porter is to a pretty fair Valenciana. It is made of equal portions
of barley-water and orgeat of _Chufas_, and is highly iced. The
Spaniards, among other cooling fruits, eat their strawberries mixed with
sugar and the juice of oranges, which will be found a more agreeable
addition than the wine used by the French, or the cream of the
English,--the one heats, and the other, whenever it is to be had, makes
a man bilious in Spain. Spanish ices, _helados_, are apt to be too
sweet, nor is the sugar well refined; the ices, when frozen very hard
and in small forms, either representing fruits or shells, are called
_quesos_, cheeses.
Another favourite drink is a weak bottled beer mixed with iced lemonade.
Spaniards, however, are no great drinkers of beer, notwithstanding that
their ancestors drank more of it than wine, which was not then either so
plentiful or universal as at the present; this substitute of grapeless
countries passed from the Egyptians and Carthaginians into Spain, where
it was excellent, and kept well. The vinous Roman soldiers derided the
beer-drinking Iberians, just as the French did the English _before_ the
battle of Agincourt. “Can sodden water--barley-broth--decoct their cold
blood to such valiant heat?” Polybius sneers at the magnificence of a
Spanish king, because his home was furnished with silver and gold vases
full of beer, of barley-wine. The genuine Goths, as happens everywhere
to this day, were great swillers of ale and beer, heady and stupifying
mixtures, according to Aristotle. Their archbishop, St. Isidore,
distinguished between _celia ceria_, the ale, and _cerbisia_, beer,
whence the present word _cerbeza_ is derived. Spanish beer, like many
other Spanish matters, has now become small. Strong English beer is rare
and dear; among one of the infinite ingenious absurdities of Spanish
customs’ law, English beer in barrels used to be prohibited, as were
English bottles if empty--but prohibited beer, in prohibited bottles,
was admissible, on the principle that two fiscal negatives made an
exchequer affirmative.
[Sidenote: WINES OF SPAIN.]