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.
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF OBSERVING.]
Now that the most approved methods of travelling, living, and being
buried in Spain have been touched on, our kind readers will naturally
inquire, what are the peculiar attractions which should induce gentlemen
and ladies who take their ease at home, to adventure into this land of
roughing it, in which _rats_ rather than hares jump up when the least
expected. “What to observe” is a question easier asked than answered;
who indeed can cater for the multitudinous variety of fancies, the
differences by which Nature keeps all nature right? Who shall decide
when doctors disagree, as they always do, on matters of taste, since
every one has his own way of viewing things, and his own hobby and
predilection? Say not, however, with Smellfungus, that all is a
wilderness from Dan to Beersheba,--nor seek for weeds where flowers
grow. The search for the excellent is the high road to excellence, as
not to appreciate it when found is the surest test of mediocrity. The
refining effort and habit teaches the mind to think; from long pondering
on the beautiful world without, snatches are caught of the beautiful
world within, and a glimpse is granted to the chosen few, of glories
hidden from the vulgar many. They indeed have eyes, but see not; nay,
scarcely do they behold the things of external nature, until told what
to look for, where to find it, and how to observe it; then a new sense,
a second sight, is given. Happy, thrice happy those from whose eyes the
film has been removed, who instead of a previous vague general and
unintelligent stare, have really learnt to _see_! To them a fountain of
new delights, pure and undefiled, welling up and overflowing, is opened;
in proportion as they comprehend the infinite form, colour, and beauty
with which Nature clothes her every work, albeit her sweetest charms
are only revealed to the initiated, reserved as the rich reward of those
who bow to her shrine with singleness of purpose, and turn to her
worship with all their hearts, souls, and understandings.
It was with these beneficent intentions that our good friend John Murray
first devised Handbooks; and next, by writing them himself, taught
others how to dip into inkstands for red books, which tell man, woman,
and child what to observe, to the ruin of _laquais de place_, and
discomfiture of authors of single octavos and long vacation excursions.
Few gentlemen who publish the notes of their Peninsular gallop much
improve their light diaries by discussing heavy handbook subjects;
skimming, like swallows, over the surface, and in pursuit of insects,
they neither heed nor discern the gems which lurk in the deeps below;
they see indeed all the scum and straws which float on the surface, and
write down on their tablets all that is rotten in the state of Spain.
Hence the sameness of some of their works; one book and bandit reflects
another, until writers and readers are imprisoned in a vicious circle.
Nothing gives more pain to Spaniards than seeing volume after volume
written on themselves and their country by foreigners, who have only
rapidly glanced at one-half of the subject, and that half the one of
which they are the most ashamed, and consider the least worth notice.
This constant prying into the nakedness of the land and exposing it
afterwards, has increased the dislike which they entertain towards the
_impertinente curioso_ tribe: they well know and deeply feel their
country’s decline; but like poor gentlefolks, who have nothing but the
past to be proud of, they are anxious to keep these family secrets
concealed, even from themselves, and still more from the observations of
those who happen to be their superiors, not in blood, but in worldly
prosperity. This dread of being shown up sharpens their inherent
suspicions, when strangers wish to “observe,” and examine into their
ill-provided arsenals and institutions, just as Burns was scared even by
the honest antiquarian Grose; so they lump the good and the bad, putting
them down as book-making Paul Prys:--
[Sidenote: DISLIKE TO OBSERVERS.]
“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I rede ye tent it;
A chiel’s amang ye, taking notes,
And faith! he’ll prent it.”
The less observed and said about these Spanish matters, these _cosas de
España_--the present tatters in her once proud flag, on which the sun
never set--is, they think, the soonest mended. These comments heal
slower than the knife-gash--“_Sanan cuchilladas, mas_ NO _malas
palabras_.” Let no author imagine that the fairest observations that he
can take and make of Spain as she is, setting down nought in malice, can
ever please a Spaniard; his pride and self-esteem are as great as the
self-conceit and low consequence of the American: both are morbidly
sensitive and touchy; both are afflicted with the notion that all the
world, who are never troubling their heads about them, are thinking of
nothing else, and linked in one common conspiracy, based in envy,
jealousy, or ignorance; “you don’t understand us, I guess.” Truth,
except in the shape of a compliment, is the greatest of libels, and is
howled against as a lie and forgery from the Straits to the Bidasoa;
Napier’s history, for example. The Spaniard, who is hardly accustomed to
a free, or rather a licentious press, and the scavenger propensity with
which, in England and America, it rakes into the sewers of private life
and the gangrenes of public, is disgusted with details which he resents
as a breach of hospitality in strangers. He considers, and justly, that
it is no proof either of goodness of breeding, heart, or intellect, to
be searching for blemishes rather than beauties, for toadstools rather
than violets; he despises those curmudgeons who see motes rather than
beams in the brightest eyes of Andalucia. The productions of strangers,
and especially of those who ride and write the quickest, must savour of
the pace and sources from whence they originate. Foreigners who are
unacquainted with the language and good society of Spain are of
necessity brought the most into contact with the lowest scenes and the
worst class of people, thus road-scrapings and postilion information too
often constitute the raw-head-and-bloody-bones material of their
composition. All this may be very amusing to those who like these
subjects, but they afford a poor criterion for descanting on whatever
does the most honour to a country, or gives sound data for judging its
real condition. How would we ourselves like that Spaniards should form
their opinions of England and Englishmen from the Newgate calendars, the
reports of cads, and the annals of beershops?
[Sidenote: DISLIKE TO OBSERVERS.]
Various as are the objects worth observing in Spain, many of which are
to be seen there only, it may be as well to mention what is _not_ to be
seen, for there is no such loss of time as finding this out oneself,
after weary chace and wasted hour. Those who expect to meet with
well-garnished arsenals, libraries, restaurants, charitable or literary
institutions, canals, railroads, tunnels, suspension-bridges,
steam-engines, omnibuses, manufactories, polytechnic galleries, pale-ale
breweries, and similar appliances and appurtenances of a high state of
political, social, and commercial civilization, had better stay at home.
In Spain there are no turnpike-trust meetings, no quarter-sessions, no
courts of _justice_, according to the real meaning of that word, no
treadmills, no boards of guardians, no chairmen, directors,
masters-extraordinary of the court of chancery, no assistant poor-law
commissioners. There are no anti-tobacco-teetotal-temperance-meetings,
no auxiliary-missionary-propagating societies, nothing in the blanket
and lying-in asylum line, nothing, in short, worth a revising-barrister
of three years’ standing’s notice, unless he be partial to the study of
the laws of bankruptcy. Spain is no country for the political economist,
beyond affording an example of the decline of the wealth of nations, and
offering a wide topic on errors to be avoided, as well as for
experimental theories, plans of reform and amelioration. In Spain,
Nature reigns; she has there lavished her utmost prodigality of soil and
climate, which Spaniards have for the last four centuries been
endeavouring to counteract by a culpable neglect of agricultural
speeches and dinners, and a non-distribution of prizes for the biggest
boars, asses, and labourers with largest families.
[Sidenote: WHAT TO OBSERVE.]
The landed proprietor of the Peninsula is little better than a weed of
the soil; he has never observed, nor scarcely permitted others to
observe, the vast capabilities which might and ought to be called into
action. He seems to have put Spain into Chancery, such is the general
dilapidation. The country is little better than a terra incognita, to
naturalists, geologists, and all other branches of ists and ologists.
Everywhere there, the material is as superabundant as native labourers
and operatives are deficient. All these interesting branches of inquiry,
healthful and agreeable, as being out-of-door pursuits, and bringing the
amateur in close contact with nature, offer to embryo authors who are
ambitious to _book something new_, a more worthy subject than the old
story of dangers of bull-fights, bandits, and black eyes. Those who
aspire to the romantic, the poetical, the sentimental, the artistical,
the antiquarian, the classical, in short, to any of the sublime and
beautiful lines, will find both in the past and present state of Spain,
subjects enough in wandering with lead-pencil and note-book through this
singular country, which hovers between Europe and Africa, between
civilization and barbarism; this land of the green valley and barren
mountain, of the boundless plain and the broken sierra; those Elysian
gardens of the vine, the olive, the orange, and the aloe; those
trackless, vast, silent, uncultivated wastes, the heritage of the wild
bee;--in flying from the dull uniformity, the polished monotony of
Europe, to the racy freshness of that original, unchanged country, where
antiquity treads on the heels of to-day, where Paganism disputes the
very altar with Christianity, where indulgence and luxury contend with
privation and poverty, where a want of all that is generous or merciful
is blended with the most devoted heroic virtues, where the most
cold-blooded cruelty is linked with the fiery passions of Africa, where
ignorance and erudition stand in violent and striking contrast.
[Sidenote: WHAT TO OBSERVE.]
“There,” says the Handbook, in a style which qualifies the author for
the best bound and fairest edited album, “let the antiquarian pore over
the stirring memorials of many thousand years, the vestiges of
Phœnician enterprise, of Roman magnificence, of Moorish elegance, in
that storehouse of ancient customs, that repository of all elsewhere
long forgotten and passed by; there let him gaze upon those classical
monuments, unequalled almost in Greece or Italy, and on those fairy
Aladdin palaces, the creatures of Oriental gorgeousness and imagination,
with which Spain alone can enchant the dull European; there let the man
of feeling dwell on the poetry of her envy-disarming decay, fallen from
her high estate, the dignity of a dethroned monarch, borne with
unrepining self-respect, the last consolation of the innately noble,
which no adversity can take away; let the lover of art feed his eyes
with the mighty masterpieces of ideal Italian art, when Raphael and
Titian strove to decorate the palaces of Charles, the great emperor of
the age of Leo X. Let him gaze on the living nature of Velazquez and
Murillo, whose paintings are truly to be seen in Spain alone; let the
artist sketch frowning forms of the castle, the pomp and splendour of
the cathedral, where God is worshipped in a manner as nearly befitting
his glory as the arts and wealth of finite man can reach. Let him dwell
on the Gothic gloom of the cloister, the feudal turret, the vasty
Escorial, the rock-built alcazar of imperial Toledo, the sunny towers of
stately Seville, the eternal snows and lovely vega of Granada; let the
geologist clamber over mountains of marble, and metal-pregnant sierras;
let the botanist cull from the wild hothouse of nature plants unknown,
unnumbered, matchless in colour, and breathing the aroma of the sweet
south; let all, learned and unlearned, listen to the song, the guitar,
the castanet; or join in the light fandango and spirit-stirring
bullfight; let all mingle with the gay, good-humoured, temperate
peasantry, free, manly, and independent, yet courteous and respectful;
let all live with the noble, dignified, high-bred, self-respecting
Spaniard; let all share in their easy, courteous society; let all admire
their dark-eyed women, so frank and natural, to whom the voice of all
ages and nations has conceded the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has
bequeathed her magic girdle of grace and fascination; let all--but
enough on starting on this expedition, ‘where,’ as Don Quixote said,
‘there are opportunities, brother Sancho, of putting our hands into what
are called adventures up to our elbows.’”
[Sidenote: SUSPICION OF OBSERVERS.]
Nor was the La Manchan hidalgo wrong in assigning a somewhat adventurous
character to the searchers in Spain for useful and entertaining
knowledge, since the natives are fond, and with much reason, of
comparing themselves and their country to _tesoros escondidos_, to
hidden treasures, to talents buried in napkins; but they are equally
fond of turning round, and falling foul of any pains-taking foreigner
who digs them up, as Le Sage did the soul of Pedro Garcias. Nothing
throughout the length and breadth of the land creates greater suspicion
or jealousy than a stranger’s making drawings, or writing down notes in
a book: whoever is observed _sacando planes_, “taking plans,” _mapeando
el pais_, “mapping the country,”--for such are the expressions of the
simplest pencil sketch--is thought to be an engineer, a spy, and, at all
events, to be about no good. The lower classes, like the Orientals,
attach a vague mysterious notion to these, to them unintelligible,
proceedings; whoever is seen at work is immediately reported to the
civil and military authorities, and, in fact, in out-of-the-way places,
whenever an unknown person arrives, from the rarity of the occurrence,
he is the observed of all observers. Much the same occurs in the East,
where Europeans are suspected of being emissaries of their governments,
as neither they nor Spaniards can at all understand why any man should
incur trouble and expense, which no native ever does, for the mere
purpose of acquiring knowledge of foreign countries, or for his own
private improvement or amusement. Again, whatever particular
investigations or questions are made by foreigners, about things that to
the native appear unworthy of observation, are magnified and
misrepresented by the many, who, in every place, wish to curry favour
with whoever is the governor or chief person, whether civil or military.
The natives themselves attach little or no importance to views, ruins,
geology, inscriptions, and so forth, which they see every day, and which
they therefore conclude cannot be of any more, or ought not to be of
more, interest to the stranger. They judge of him by themselves; few men
ever draw in Spain, and those who do are considered to be professional,
and employed by others.
[Sidenote: OFFICIAL SUSPICION.]
One of the many fatal legacies left to Spain by the French, was an
increased suspicion of men with the pencil and notebook. Previously to
their invasion spies and agents were sent, who, under the guise of
travellers, reconnoitred the land; and then, casting off the clothing of
sheep, guided in the wolves to plunder and destruction. The aged prior
of the Merced, at Seville, observed to us, when pointing out the empty
frames and cases from whence the Messrs. Soult and Co. had “removed” the
Murillos and sacred plate,--“_Lo creira usted_--Will your Grace believe
it, I beheld among the _ladrones_ a person who grinned at me when I
recognised him, to whom, some time before the invaders’ arrival, I had
pointed out these very treasures. _Tonto de mi!_ Oh! simpleton that I
was, to take a _gabacho_ for an honest man.” Yet this worthy individual
was decorated with the legion of honour of Buonaparte, whose “first note
in his pocket-book” of agenda, _after_ the conquest of England, was to
“carry off the Warwick vase;” as Denon, who too had spoiled the
Egyptians, told Sir E. Tomason. We English, whose shops, “bursting with
opulence into the streets,” have not yet been visited, although the
temptation is held out by royal pamphleteers, can scarcely enter into
the feelings of those whose homes are still reeking with blood, and
blighted by poverty. The Castilian cat, who has been scalded, flies even
from cold water.
Some excuse, therefore, may be alleged in favour of Spanish authorities,
especially in rarely visited districts, when they behold a strange
barbarian eye peeping and peering about. Their first impression, as in
the East, is that he may be a Frank: hence the shaking, quaking, and
ague which comes over them. At Seville, Granada, and places where
foreign artists are somewhat more plentiful, the processes of drawing
may be passed over with pity and contempt, but in lonely localities the
star-gazing observer is himself the object of argus-eyed, official
observation. He is, indeed, as unconscious of the portentous emotions
and ill-omened fears which he is exciting, as was the innocent crow of
the meanings attached to his movements by the Roman augurs, and few
augurs of old ever rivalled the Spanish alcaldes of to-day in quick
suspicion and perception of evil, especially where none is intended.
Witness what actually occurred to three excellent friends of ours.
[Sidenote: DRAWING IN SPAIN.]
The readers of Borrow’s inimitable ‘Bible in Spain’ will remember his
hair-breadth escape from being shot for Don Carlos by the miraculous
intervention of the alcalde of Corcubion, who, if still alive, must be a
phœnix, and clearly worth observation, as he was a reader of the
“grand Baintham,” or our illustrious Jeremy Bentham, to whom the Spanish
reformers sent for a paper _constitution_, not having a very clear
meaning of the word or thing, whether it was made of cotton or
parchment. Another of the very best investigators and writers on Spain,
Lord Carnarvon, was nearly put to death in the same districts for Don
Miguel; Captain Widdrington, also one of the kindest and most honourable
of men, was once arrested on suspicion of being an agent of Espartero;
and we, our humble selves, have had the felicity of being marched to a
guard-house for sketching a Roman ruin, and the honour of being taken,
either for Curius Dentatus, an alligator, or Julius Cæsar,--as there is
no absurdity, no inconceivable ignorance, too great for the local
Spanish “Dogberries,” who rarely deviate into sense; when their fears or
suspicions are roused, they are as deaf alike to the dictates of common
reason or humanity as adders or Berbers; and here, as in the East, even
the best intentioned may be taken up for spies, and have their beards,
at least, cut off, as was done to King David’s envoyés. All classes, in
regard to strangers, generally get some hostile notions into their
heads, and then, instead of fairly and reasonably endeavouring to arrive
at the truth, pervert every innocent word, and twist every action, to
suit their own preconceived nonsense, until trifles become to their
jealous minds proofs as strong as Holy Writ. In justice, however, it
must be said, that when these authorities are once satisfied that the
stranger is an Englishman, and that no harm is intended, no people can
be more civil in offering assistance of every kind, especially the lower
classes, who gaze at the magical performance of drawing with wonder: the
higher classes seldom take any notice, partly from courtesy, and much
from the _nil admirari_ principle of Orientals, which conceals both
inferiority and ignorance, and shows good breeding.
[Sidenote: CAPTAIN-GENERAL’S PASSPORT.]
The drawing any garrison-town or fortified place in Spain is now most
strictly forbidden. The prevailing ignorance of everything connected
with the arts of design is so great, that no distinction is made between
the most regular plan and the merest artistical sketch: a drawing is
with them a drawing, and punishable as such. A Spanish barrack,
garrison, or citadel is therefore to be observed but little, and still
less to be sketched. A gentleman, nay, a lady also, is liable, under any
circumstances, when drawing, to be interrupted, and often is exposed to
arrest and incivility. Indeed, whether an artist or not, it is as well
not to exhibit any curiosity in regard to matters connected with
military buildings; nor will the loss be great, as they are seldom worth
looking at. The troops in our time were in a most admired disorder. If
they wore shoes they had no stockings; if they had muskets, flints were
not plentiful; if powder was supplied, balls were scarce; nothing, in
short, was ever according to regulation. Nay, the buttons even on the
officers’ coats were never dressed in file: some had the numbers up,
some down, some awry; but uniformity is a thing of Europe and not of the
East. At this moment, when the church is starved, when widows’ pensions
are unpaid, when governmental bankruptcy walks the land, whose bones,
marrow, and all are wasted to support the army, whose swords uphold the
hated men in office, the bands of the Royal Guard, the Prætorian bands,
do not keep tune, nor do the rank and file march in time. However
painful these things to pipe-clay martinets, the artist loses much, by
not being able to sketch such tumble-down forts and ragged garrisons,
each _Bisoño_ of which is more precious to painter eye than the officer
in command at Windsor; while his short-petticoated _querida_ is more
Murillo-like than a score of patronesses of Almack’s.
[Sidenote: ORIENTAL ANALOGIES.]
The safest plan for those who want to observe, and to book what they
observe, is to obtain a Spanish passport, with the object of their
curiosity and inquiries clearly specified in it. There is seldom any
difficulty at Madrid, if application be made through the English
minister, in obtaining such a document; indeed, when the applicant is
well known, it is readily given by any of the provincial
Captains-General. As it is couched in the Spanish language, it is
understood by all, high and low; an advantage which is denied in Spain
to those issued by our ambassadors, and even by the Foreign Office, who,
to the _credit_ of themselves and nation, give passes to Englishmen in
the French language, whereby among Spaniards a suspicion arises that the
bearer may be a Frenchman, which is not always pleasant. We preserve
among rare Peninsular relics a passport granted by our kind patron the
redoubtable Conde de España, and backed by the no less formidable
Quesada and Sarsfield, in which it was enjoined, in choice, intelligible
Castilian, to all and every minor rulers and governors, whether with the
pen or sword, to aid and assist the bearer in his examination of the
fine arts and antiquities of the Peninsula. These autocrats were more
implicitly obeyed in their respective Lord Lieutenancies than Ferdinand
himself; in fact, the pashas of the East are their exact types, each in
their district being the heads of both civil and military tribunals; and
as they not only administer, but suit the law according to the length of
their own feet, they in fact make it and trample upon it, and all in any
authority below them imitate their superiors as nearly as they dare.
These things of Spain are managed with a gravity truly Oriental, both in
the rulers and in the resignation of those ruled by them; these great
men’s passport and signature were obeyed by all minor authorities as
implicitly as an Oriental firman; the very fact of a stranger having a
Captain-General’s passport, is soon known by everybody, and, to use an
Oriental phrase, “makes his face to be whitened;” it acts as a letter of
introduction, and is in truth the best one of all, since it is addressed
to people in power in each village or town, who, true sheikhs, are
looked up to by all below them with the same deference, as they
themselves look up to all above them. The worth of a person recommended,
is estimated by that of the person who recommends; _tal recomendacion
tal recomendado_. To complete this thing of Oriental Spain, these three
omnipotent despots, who defied laws human and divine, who made dice of
their enemies’ bones, and goblets of their skulls, have all since been
assassinated, and sent to their account with all their sins on their
heads. In limited monarchies ministers who go too far, lose their
places, in Spain and Turkey their heads: the former, doubtless, are the
most severely punished.
Those who wish to observe Spanish man, which, next to Spanish woman,
forms the proper study of mankind, will find that one key to decipher
this singular people is scarcely European, for this _Berberia Cristiana_
is a neutral ground placed between the hat and the turban; many indeed
of themselves contend that Africa begins even at the Pyrenees. Be that
as it may, Spain, first civilized by the Phœnicians, and long
possessed by the Moors, has indelibly retained the original impressions.
Test her, therefore, and her males and females, by an Oriental standard,
how analogous does much appear that is strange and repugnant, if
compared with European usages. Take care, however, not to let either the
ladies or gentlemen know the hidden processes of your mind, for nothing
gives greater offence. The fair sex is willing, to prevent such a
mistake, to lay aside even their becoming _mantillas_, as their hidalgos
doff their stately Roman cloaks. These old clothes they offer up as
sacrifices on the altar of civilization, and to the mania of looking
exactly like the rest of the world, in Hyde Park and the Elysian Fields.
[Sidenote: INDIFFERENCE TO THE BEAUTIFUL.]
Another remarkable Oriental trait is the general want of love for the
beautiful in art, and the abundance of that Αφιλοκαλια with
which the ancients reproached the genuine Iberians; this is exhibited in
the general neglect and indifference shown towards Moorish works, which
instead of destroying they ought rather to have protected under
glasses, since such attractions are peculiar to the Peninsula. The
_Alhambra_, the pearl and magnet of Granada, is in their estimation
little better than a _casa de ratones_, or a rat’s hole, which in truth
they have endeavoured to make it by centuries of neglect; few natives
even go there, or understand the all-absorbing interest, the
concentrated devotion, which it excites in the stranger; so the Bedouin
regards the ruins of Palmyra, insensible to present beauty, as to past
poetry and romance. Sad is this non-appreciation of the Alhambra by the
Spaniards, but such are Asiatics, with whom sufficient for the day is
_their to-day_; who care neither for the past nor for the future, who
think only for the present and themselves, and like them the masses of
Spaniards, although not wearing turbans, lack the organs of veneration
and admiration for anything beyond matters connected with the first
person and the present tense. Again, the leaven of hatred against the
Moor and his relics is not extinct; they resent as almost heretical the
preference shown by foreigners to the works of infidels rather than to
those of good Catholics; such preference again at once implies their
inferiority, and convicts them of bad taste in their non-appreciation,
and of Vandalism in labouring to mutilate, what the Moor laboured to
adorn. The charming writings of Washington Irving, and the admiration of
European pilgrims, have latterly shamed the authorities into a somewhat
more conservative feeling towards the Alhambra; but even their benefits
are questionable; they “repair and beautify” on the church-warden
principle, and there is no less danger in such “restorations” than in
those fatal scourings of Murillo and Titian in the Madrid gallery, which
are effacing the lines where beauty lingers. Even their tardy
appreciation is somewhat interested: thus Mellado, in his late Guide,
laments that there should be no account of the Alhambra, of which he
speaks coldly, and suggests, as so many “English” visit it, that a
descriptive work would be a _segura especulacion!_ a safe speculation!
Thus the poetry of the Moorish Alhambra is coined into the Spanish prose
of profitable shillings and sixpences.
[Sidenote: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT.]
Travellers however should not forget, that much which to them has the
ravishing, enticing charms of novelty, is viewed by the dull sated eye
of the native, with familiarity which breeds contempt; they are weary,
oh fatal lassitude! even of the beautiful: alas! exclaimed the hermit on
Monserrat, to the stranger who was ravished by exquisite views, then and
there beheld by him for the first and last time, “all this has no
attraction for me; twenty and nine are the years that I have seen this
unchanged scene, every sunrise, every noon, every sunset.” But _sordent
domestica_, observes Pliny, nor are all things or persons honoured in
their own homes as they ought to be, since the days that Mahomet the
true prophet failed to persuade his wife and valet that his powers were
supernatural. Can it be wondered that ruins and “old rubbish” should be
held cheap among the Moro-Spaniards? or that their so-called “guides”
should mislead and misdirect the stranger? It cannot well be avoided,
since few of the writers ever travel in their own country, and fewer
travel out of it; thus from their limited means of comparison, they
cannot appreciate differences, nor tell what are the wants and wishes of
a foreigner: accordingly, scenes, costumes, ruins, usages, ceremonies,
&c., which they have known from childhood, are passed over without
notice, although, from their passing newness to the stranger, they are
exactly what he most desires to have pointed out and explained. Nay, the
natives frequently despise or are ashamed of those very things, which
most interest and charm the foreigner, for whose observation they select
the modern rather than the old, offering especially their poor pale
copies of Europe, in preference to their own rich, racy, and natural
originals, doing this in nothing more than in the costume and dwellings
of the lower classes, who happily are not yet afflicted with the disease
of French polish: they indeed, when they dig up ancient coins, will rub
off the precious rust of twice ten hundred years, in order to render
them, as they imagine, more saleably attractive; but they fortunately
spare themselves, insomuch that Charles III., on failing in one of his
laudable attempts to improve and modernise them, compared his loving
subjects to naughty children, who quarrel with their good nurse when she
wants to wash them.
[Sidenote: WANT OF INFORMATION.]
Again, no country in the world can vie with Spain, where the dry climate
at least is conservative, with memorials of auld lang syne, with tower
and turret, Prout-like houses and toppling balconies, so old that they
seem only not to fall into the torrents and ravines over which they
hang. Here is every form and colour of picturesque poverty; vines
clamber up the irregularities, while below naiads dabble, washing their
red and yellow garments in the all-gilding glorious sun-beams. What a
picture it is to all but the native, who sees none of the wonders of
lights and shadows, reflections, colours, and outlines; who, blind to
all the beauties, is keenly awake only to the degradation, the rags and
decay; he half suspects that your sketch and admiration of a smuggler or
bullfighter is an insult, and that you are taking it, in order to show
in England what Mons. Guizot will never be forgiven for calling the
“brutal” things of Spain; accordingly, while you are sincerely and with
reason delighted with sashes and _Zamarras_, he begs you to observe his
ridiculous Boulevard-cut coat: or when you sit down opposite to a
half-ruined Roman wall, some crumbling Moorish arch, or mediæval Gothic
shrine, he implores you to come away and draw the last spick and span
Royal Academical abortion, coldly correct and classically dull, in order
to carry home a sample which may do credit to Spain, as approximating to
the way things are managed at Charing Cross.
Without implicitly following the advice of these Spaniards of better
intention than taste, no man of research will undervalue any assistance
by which his objects are promoted, even should he be armed with a
captain-general’s passport, and a red Murray. Meagre is the oral
information which is to be obtained from Spaniards on the spot; these
incurious semi-Orientals look with jealousy on the foreigner, and either
fence with him in their answers, raise difficulties, or, being highly
imaginative, magnify or diminish everything as best suits their own
views and suspicions. The national expressions “_Quien sabe? no se
sabe_,”--“who knows? I do not know,” will often be the prelude to “_No
se puede_,”--“it can’t be done.”
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF SIGHT-SEEING.]
These impediments and impossibilities are infinitely increased when the
stranger has to do with men in office, be it ever so humble; the first
feeling of these Dogberries is to suspect mischief and give refusals.
“No” may be assumed to be their natural answer; nor even if you have a
special order of permission, is admission by any means certain. The
keeper, who here as elsewhere, considers the objects committed to his
care as his own private property and source of perquisite, must be
conciliated: often when you have toiled through the heat and dust to
some distant church, museum, library, or what not, after much ringing
and waiting, you will be drily informed that it is shut, can’t be seen,
that it is the wrong day, that you must call again to-morrow; and if it
be the right day, then you will be told that the hour is wrong, that you
are come too early, too late; very likely the keeper’s wife will inform
you that he is out, gone to mass, or market, or at his dinner, or at his
_siesta_, or if he is at home and awake, he will swear that his wife has
mislaid the key, “which she is always doing.” If all these and other
excuses won’t do, and you persevere, you will be assured that there is
nothing worth seeing, or you will be asked why you want to see it? As a
general rule, no one should be deterred from visiting anything, because
a Spaniard of the upper classes gives his opinion that the object is
beneath notice; he will try to convince you that Toledo, Cuenca, and
other places which cannot be matched in Christendom, are ugly, odious,
old cities; he is ashamed of them because the tortuous, narrow lanes do
not run in rows as straight as Pall Mall and the Rue de Rivoli. In fact
his only notion of a civilized town is a common-place assemblage of
rectangular wide streets, all built and coloured uniformly, like a line
of foot-soldiers, paved with broad flags, and lighted with gas, on which
Spaniards can walk about dressed as Englishmen, and Spanish women like
those of France; all of which said wonders a foreigner may behold far
better nearer home; nor is it much less a waste of time to go and see
what the said Spaniard considers to be a real lion, since the object
generally turns out to be some poor imitation, without form, angle,
history, nationality, colour, or expression, beyond that of utilitarian
comfort and common-place convenience--great advantages no doubt both to
contractors and political economists, but death and destruction to men
of the pencil and note-book.
[Sidenote: HOW TO BE ADMITTED.]
[Sidenote: OFFICIAL CORRUPTION.]
The sound principles in Spanish sight-seeing are few and simple, but, if
observed, they will generally prove successful; first, persevere; never
be put back; never take an answer if it be in the negative; never lose
temper or courteous manners; and lastly, let the tinkle of metal be
heard at once; if the chief or great man be inexorable, find out
privately who is the wretched sub who keeps the key, or the crone who
sweeps the room; and then send a discreet messenger to say that you
will pay to be admitted, without mentioning “nothing to nobody.” Thus
you will always obtain your view, even when an official order fails. On
our first arrival at Madrid, when but young in these things of Spain, we
were desirous of having daily permission to examine a royal gallery,
which was only open to the public on certain days in the week. In our
grave dilemma we consulted a sage and experienced diplomatist, and this
was the oracular reply:--“Certainly, if you wish it, I will make a
request to Señor Salmon” (the then Home Secretary), “and beg him to give
you the proper order, as a personal favour to myself. By the way, how
much longer shall you remain here?”--“From three to four weeks.”--“Well,
then, after you have been gone a good month, I shall get a courteous and
verbose epistle from his Excellency, in which he will deeply regret
that, on searching the archives of his office, there was no instance of
such a request having ever been granted, and that he is compelled most
reluctantly to return a refusal, from the fear of a precedent being
created. My advice to you is to give the porter a dollar, to be repeated
whenever the door-hinges seem to be getting rusty and require oiling.”
The hint was taken, as was the bribe, and the prohibited portals
expanded so regularly, that at last they knew the sound of our
footsteps. Gold is the Spanish _sesame_. Thus Soult got into Badajoz,
thus Louis Philippe put Espartero out, and Montpensier in. Gold, bright
red gold, is the sovereign remedy which in Spain smooths all
difficulties, nay, some in which even force has failed, as here the
obstinate heads may be guided by a straw of bullion, but not driven by a
bar of iron. The magic influence of a bribe pervades a land, where
everything is venal, even to the scales of justice. Here men who have
objects to gain begin to work from the bottom, not from the top, as we
do in England. In order to ensure success, no step in the official
ladder must be left unanointed. A wise and prudent suitor bribes from
the porter to the premier, taking care not to forget the
under-secretary, the over-secretary, the private secretary, all in their
order, and to regulate the douceur according to each man’s rank and
influence. If you omit the porter, he will not deliver your card, or
will say Señor Mon is out, or will tell you to call again _manaña_, the
eternal to-morrow. If you forget the chief clerk, he will mislay your
petition, or poison his master’s ear. In matters of great and political
importance, the sovereign, him or herself, must have a share; and thus
it was that Calomarde continued so long to manage the beloved Ferdinand
and his counsels. He was the minister who laid the greatest bribe at the
royal feet. “Sire, by strict attention and honesty, I have just been
enabled to economise 50,000_l._, on the sums allotted to my department,
which I have now the honour and felicity to place at your Majesty’s
disposal.”--“Well done, my faithful and good minister, here is a cigar
for you.” This Calomarde, who began life as a foot-boy, smuggled through
the Christinist swindle, by which Isabel now wears the crown of Don
Carlos. The rogue was rewarded by being made _Conde de Sª. Isabel_, a
title which since has been conferred on Mons. Bresson’s baby--a delicate
compliment to his sire’s labours in the transfer of the said crown to
Louis Philippe--but Spaniards are full of dry humour.
[Sidenote: SPANISH IGNORANCE.]
In the East, the example and practice of the Sultan and Vizier is
followed by every pacha, down to the lowest animal who wields the most
petty authority; the disorder of the itching palm is endemic and
epidemic, all, whether high and low, want, and must have money; all wish
to get it without the disgrace of begging, and without the danger of
highway robbery. Public poverty is the curse of the land, and all
_empleados_ or persons in office excuse themselves on dire necessity,
the old plea of a certain gentleman, which has no law. Some allowance,
therefore, may be made for the rapacity which, with very few exceptions,
prevails; the regular salaries, always inadequate, are generally in
arrear, and the public servants, poor devils, swear that they are forced
to pay themselves by conniving at defrauding the government; this few
scruple to do, as all know it to be an unjust one, and that it can
afford it; indeed, as all are offenders alike, the guilt of the offence
is scarcely admitted. Where robbing and jobbing are the universal order
of the day, one rascal keeps another in countenance, as one goître does
another in Switzerland. A man who does not feather his nest when in
place, is not thought honest, but a fool; _es preciso, que cada uno coma
de su oficio_. It is necessary, nay, a _duty_, as in the East, that all
should live by their office; and as office is short and insecure, no
time or means is neglected in making up a purse; thus poverty and their
will alike and readily consent.
Take a case in point. We remember calling on a Spaniard who held the
highest office in a chief city of Andalucia. As we came into his cabinet
a cloaked personage was going out; the great man’s table was covered
with gold ounces, which he was shovelling complacently into a drawer,
gloating on the glorious haul. “Many ounces, Excellency,” said we. “Yes,
my friend,” was his reply--“_no quiero comer mas patatas_,--I do not
intend to dine any more on potatoes.” This gentleman, during the
_Sistema_, or Riego constitution, had, with other loyalists, been turned
out of office; and, having been put to the greatest hardships, was
losing no time in taking prudent and laudable precautions to avert any
similar calamity for the future. His practices were perfectly well known
in the town, where people simply observed, “_Está atesorando_, he is
laying up treasures,”--as every one of them would most certainly have
done, had they been in his fortunate position. Rich and honest Britons,
therefore, should not judge too hardly of the sad shifts, the strange
bed-fellows, with which want makes the less provided Spaniards
acquainted. _Donde no hay abundancia, no hay observancia._ The empty
sack cannot stand upright, nor was ever a sack made in Spain into which
gain and honour could be stowed away together; _honra y provecho, no
caben en un saco o techo_; here virtue itself succumbs to poverty,
induced by more than half a century of mis-government, let alone the
ruin caused by Buonaparte’s invasion, to which domestic troubles and
civil wars have been added.
[Sidenote: A QUESTION OF DAYS.]
To return, however, to sight-seeing in Spain. Lucky was the traveller
prepared even to bribe and pay, who ever in our time chanced to fall in
with a librarian who knew what books he had, or with a priest who could
tell what pictures were in his chapel; ask him for _the_ painting by
Murillo--a shoulder-shrug was his reply, or a curt “_no hay_,” “there is
none;” had you inquired for the “blessed Saint Thomas,” then he might
have pointed it out; the _subject_, not the artist, being all that was
required for the service of the church. An incurious bliss of ignorance
is no less grateful to the Spanish mind, than the _dolce far niente_ or
sweet indolent doing nothing is to the body. All that gives trouble, or
“fashes,” destroys the supreme height of felicity, which consists in
avoiding exertion. A chapter might be filled with instances, which, had
they not occurred to our humble selves, would seem caricature
inventions. The not to be able to answer the commonest question, or to
give any information as to matters of the most ordinary daily
occurrence, is so prevalent, that we at first thought it must proceed
from some fear of committal, some remnant of inquisitorial engendered
reserve, rather than from bonâ fide careless and contented ignorance.
The result, however, of much intercourse and experience arrived at, was,
that few people are more communicative than the lower classes of
Spaniards, especially to an Englishman, to whom they reveal private and
family secrets: their want of knowledge applies rather to things than to
persons.
[Sidenote: UNCERTAINTY OF SPANISH THINGS.]
If you called on a Spanish gentleman, and, finding him out, wished
afterwards to write him a note, and inquired of his man or maid servant
the number of the house;--“I do not know, my lord,” was the invariable
answer, “I never was asked it before, I have never looked for it: let us
go out and see. Ah! it is number 36.” Wishing once to send a parcel by
the wagon from Merida to Madrid, “On what day, my lord,” said I to the
potbellied, black-whiskered _ventero_, “does your _galera_ start for the
Court?” “Every Wednesday,” answered he; “and let not your grace be
anxious”--“_Disparate_--nonsense,” exclaimed his copper-skinned,
bright-eyed wife, “why do you tell the English knight such lies? the
wagon, my lord, sets out on Fridays.” During the logomachy, or the few
words which ensued between the well-matched pair, our good luck willed,
that the _mayoral_ or driver of the vehicle should come in, who
forthwith informed us that the days of departure were Thursdays; and he
was right. This occurred in the provinces; take, therefore, a parallel
passage in the capital, the heart and brain of the Castiles. “_Señor,
tenga Usted la bondad_--My lord,” said I to a portly, pompous
bureaucrat, who booked places in the dilly to Toledo,--“have the
goodness, your grace, to secure me one for Monday, the 7th.”--“I fear,”
replied he, politely, for the _negocio_ had been prudently opened by my
offering him a real Havannah, “that your lordship has made a mistake in
the date. Monday is the 8th of the current month”--which it was not.
Thinking to settle the matter, we handed to him, with a bow, the
almanack of the year, which chanced to be in our pocket-book. “_Señor_,”
said he, gravely, when he had duly examined it, “I knew that I was
right; this one was printed at Seville,”--which it was--“and we are here
at Madrid, which is _otra cosa_, that is, altogether another affair.” In
this solar difference and pre-eminence of the Court, it must be
remembered, that the sun, at its creation, first shone over the
neighbouring city, to which the dilly ran; and that even in the last
century, it was held to be heresy at Salamanca, to say that it did not
move round Spain. In sad truth, it has there stood still longer than in
astronomical lectures or metaphors. Spain is no paradise for
calculators; here, what ought to happen, and what would happen elsewhere
according to Cocker and the doctrine probabilities, is exactly the event
which is the least likely to come to pass. One arithmetical fact only
can be reckoned upon with tolerable certainty: let given events be
represented by numbers; then two and two may at one time make three, or
possibly five at another; but the odds are four to one against two and
two ever making four; another safe rule in Spanish official numbers; _e.
g._ “five thousand men killed and wounded”--“five thousand dollars will
be given,” and so forth, is to deduct two noughts, and sometimes even
three, and read fifty or five instead.
[Sidenote: CERTAINTY OF BULL-FIGHTS.]
Well might even the keen-sighted, practical Duke say it is difficult to
understand the Spaniards exactly; there neither men nor women, suns nor
clocks go together; there, as in a Dutch concert, all choose their own
tune and time, each performer in the orchestra endeavouring to play the
first fiddle. All this is so much a matter of course, that the natives,
like the Irish, make a joke of petty mistakes, blunders,
unpunctualities, inconsequences, and pococurantisms, at which accurate
Germans and British men of business are driven frantic. Made up of
contradictions, and dwelling in the _pays de l’imprévu_, where exception
is the rule, where accident and the impulse of the moment are the moving
powers, the happy-go-lucky natives, especially in their collective
capacity, act like women and children. A spark, a trifle, sets the
impressionable masses in action, and none can foresee the commonest
event; nor does any Spaniard ever attempt to guess beyond _la situacion
actual_, the actual present, or to foretell what the morrow will bring;
that he leaves to the foreigner, who does not understand him.
_Paciencia y barajar_ is his motto; and he waits _patiently_ to see what
next will turn up after another _shuffle_.
There is one thing, however, which all know exactly, one question which
all can answer; and providentially this refers to the grand object of
every foreigner’s observation--“When will the bull-fight be and begin?”
and this holds good, notwithstanding that there is a proviso inserted in
the notices, that it will come off on such a day and hour, “if the
weather permits.” Thus, although these spectacles take place in summer,
when for months and months rain and clouds are matters of history, the
cautious authorities doubt the blessed sun himself, and mistrust the
certainty of his proceedings, as much as if they were ir-regulated by a
Castilian clockmaker.
[Sidenote: THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT.]