Manufacture of Cigars--Tobacco--Smuggling _viâ_ Gibraltar--Cigars
of Ferdinand VII.--Making a Cigarrito--Zumalacarreguy and the
Schoolmaster--Time and Money Wasted in Smoking--Postscript on
Stock.
But whether at bull-fight or theatre, be he lay or clerical, every
Spaniard who can afford it, consoles himself continually with a cigar,
sleep--not bed--time only excepted. This is his _nepenthe_, his pleasure
opiate, which, like Souchong, soothes but does not inebriate; it is to
him his “Te veniente die et te decedente.”
[Sidenote: SMUGGLED CIGARS.]
The manufacture of the cigar is the most active one carried on in the
Peninsula. The buildings are palaces; witness those at Seville, Malaga,
and Valencia. Since a cigar is a _sine quâ non_ in every Spaniard’s
mouth, for otherwise he would resemble a house without a chimney, a
steamer without a funnel, it must have its page in every Spanish book;
indeed, as one of the most learned native authors remarked, “You will
think me tiresome with my tobacconistical details, but the vast bulk of
readers will be more pleased with it, than with an account of all the
pictures in the world.” They all opine, that a good cigar--an article
scarce in this land of smoking and contradiction--keeps a Christian
hidalgo cooler in summer and warmer in winter than his wife and cloak;
while at all times and seasons it diminishes sorrow and doubles joy, as
a man’s better half does in Great Britain. “The fact is, Squire,” says
Sam Slick, “the moment a man takes to a pipe he becomes a philosopher;
it is the poor man’s friend; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and
makes a man patient under trouble.” Can it be wondered at, that the
Oriental and Spanish population should cling to this relief from whips
and scorns, and the oppressor’s wrong, or steep in sweet oblivious
stupefaction the misery of being fretted and excited by empty larders,
vicious political institutions, and a very hot climate? They believe
that it deadens their over-excitable imagination, and appeases their too
exquisite nervous sensibility; they agree with Molière, although they
never read him, “Quoique l’on puisse dire, Aristote et toute la
philosophie, il n’y a rien d’égal au tabac.” The divine Isaac Barrow
resorted to this _panpharmacon_ whenever he wished to collect his
thoughts; Sir Walter Raleigh, the patron of Virginia, smoked a pipe just
before he lost his head, “at which some formal people were scandalized;
but,” adds Aubrey, “I think it was properly done to settle his spirits.”
The pedant James, who condemned both Raleigh and tobacco, said the bill
of fare of the dinner which he should give his Satanic majesty, would be
“a pig, a poll of ling, and mustard, with a pipe of tobacco for
digestion.” So true it is that “what’s one man’s meat is another man’s
poison;” but at all events, in hungry Spain it is both meat and drink,
and the chief smoke connected with proceedings of the mouth issues from
labial, not house chimneys.
Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, like
spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed article in all
civilized societies. In Spain, the Bourbon dynasty (as elsewhere) is the
hereditary tobacconist-general, and the privilege of sale is generally
farmed out to some contractor: accordingly, such a trump as a really
good home-made cigar is hardly to be had for love or money in the
Peninsula. Diogenes would sooner expect to find an honest man in any of
the government offices. As there is no royal road to the science of
cigar-making, the article is badly concocted, of bad materials, and, to
add insult to injury, is charged at a most exorbitant price. In order to
benefit the Havañah, tobacco is not allowed to be grown in Spain, which
it would do in perfection in the neighbourhood of Malaga; for the
experiment was made, and having turned out quite successfully, the
cultivation was immediately prohibited. The iniquity and dearness of the
royal tobacco makes the fortune of the well-meaning smuggler, who being
here, as everywhere, the great corrector of blundering chancellors of
exchequers, provides a better and cheaper thing from Gibraltar.
[Sidenote: SMUGGLED CIGARS.]
The proof of the extent to which his dealings are carried was
exemplified in 1828, when many thousand additional hands were obliged to
be put on to the manufactories at Seville and Granada, to meet the
increased demand occasioned by the impossibility of obtaining supplies
from Gibraltar, in consequence of the yellow fever which was then raging
there. No offence is more dreadfully punished in Spain than that of
tobacco-smuggling, which robs the queen’s pocket--all other robbery is
treated as nothing, for her lieges only suffer.
The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smuggling of cigars at
Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood and ill will between
the Spanish and English governments. This most serious evil is contrary
to all treaties, injurious to Spain and England alike, and is beneficial
only to aliens of the worst character, who form the real plague and sore
of Gibraltar. The American and every other nation import their own
tobacco, good, bad, and indifferent, into the fortress free of duty, and
without repurchasing British produce. It is made into cigars by Genoese,
is smuggled into Spain by aliens, in boats under the British flag, which
is disgraced by the traffic and exposed to insult from the revenue
cutters of Spain, which it cannot in justice expect to have redressed.
The Spaniards would have winked at the introduction of English hardware
and cottons--objects of necessity, which do not interfere with this,
their chief manufacture, and one of the most productive of royal
monopolies. There is a wide difference between encouraging real British
commerce and this smuggling of foreign cigars, nor can Spain be expected
to observe treaties towards us while we infringe them so scandalously
and unprofitably on our parts.
[Sidenote: LIGHTING CIGARS.]
Many tobacchose epicures, who smoke their regular dozen or two, place
the evil sufficient for the day between fresh lettuce-leaves; this damps
the outer leaf of the article, and improves the narcotic effect; _mem._,
the inside, the trail, _las tripas_, as the Spaniards call it, should be
kept quite dry. The disordered interior of the royal cigars is masked by
a good outside wrapper leaf, just as Spanish rags are cloaked by a
decent _capa_, but l’habit ne fait pas le cigarre. Few except the rich
can afford to smoke good cigars. Ferdinand VII., unlike his ancestor
Louis XIV., “qui,” says La Beaumelle, “haïssoit le tabac singulièrement,
quoiqu’un de ses meilleurs revenus,” was not only a grand compounder but
consumer thereof. He indulged in the royal extravagance of a very large
thick cigar made in the Havañah expressly for his gracious use, as he
was too good a judge to smoke his own manufacture. Even of these he
seldom smoked more than the half; the remainder was a grand perquisite,
like our palace lights. The cigar was one of his pledges of love and
hatred: he would give one to his favourites when in sweet temper; and
often, when meditating a treacherous _coup_, would dismiss the
unconscious victim with a royal _puro_: and when the happy individual
got home to smoke it, he was saluted by an Alguacil with an order to
quit Madrid in twenty-four hours. The “innocent” Isabel, who does not
smoke, substitutes sugar-plums; she regaled Olozaga with a sweet
present, when she was “doing him” at the bidding of the Christinist
camarilla. It would seem that the Spanish Bourbons, when not
“cretinised” into idiots, are creatures composed of cunning and
cowardice. But “those who cannot dissimulate are unfit to reign” was the
axiom of their illustrious ancestor Louis XI.
[Sidenote: LIGHTING CIGARS.]
In Spain the bulk of their happy subjects cannot afford, either the
expense of tobacco, which is dear to them, or the _gain_ of time, which
is very cheap, by smoking a whole cigar right away. They make one afford
occupation and recreation for half an hour. Though few Spaniards ruin
themselves in libraries, none are without a little blank book of a
particular paper, which is made at Alcoy, in Valencia. At any pause all
say at once--“_pues, señores! echaremos un cigarrito_--well then, my
Lords, let us make a little cigar,” and all set seriously to work; every
man, besides this book, is armed with a small case of flint, steel, and
a combustible tinder. To make a paper cigar, like putting on a cloak, is
an operation of much more difficulty than it seems, although all
Spaniards, who have done nothing so much, from their childhood upwards,
perform both with extreme facility and neatness. This is the mode:--the
_petaca_, Arabicè Buták, or little case worked by a fair hand, in the
coloured thread of the aloe, in which the store of cigars is kept, is
taken out--a leaf is torn from the book, which is held between the lips,
or downwards from the back of the hand, between the fore and middle
finger of the left hand--a portion of the cigar, about a third, is cut
off and rubbed slowly in the palms till reduced to a powder--it is then
jerked into the paper-leaf, which is rolled up into a little squib, and
the ends doubled down, one of which is bitten off and the other end is
lighted. The cigarillo is smoked slowly, the last whiff being the bonne
bouche, the _breast_, _la pechuga_. The little ends are thrown away:
they are indeed little, for a Spanish fore-finger and thumb are quite
fire-browned and fire-proof, although some polished exquisites use
silver holders; these remnants are picked up by the beggar-boys, who
make up into fresh cigars the leavings of a thousand mouths. There is no
want of fire in Spain; everywhere, what we should call link-boys run
about with a slowly-burning rope for the benefit of the public. At many
of the sheds where water and lemonade are sold, one of the ropes,
twirled like a snake round a post, and ignited, is kept ready as the
match of a besieged artilleryman; while in the houses of the affluent, a
small silver chafing-dish, with lighted charcoal, is usually on a table.
Mr. Henningsen relates that Zumalacarreguy, when about to execute some
Christinos at Villa Franca, observed one (a schoolmaster) looking about,
like Raleigh, for a light for his last dying puff in this life, upon
which the General took his own cigar from his mouth, and handed it to
him. The schoolmaster lighted his own, returned the other with a
respectful bow, and went away smoking and reconciled to be shot. This
urgent necessity levels all ranks, and it is allowable to stop any
person for fire; this proves the practical equality of all classes, and
that democracy under a despotism, which exists in smoking Spain, as in
the torrid East. The cigar forms a bond of union, an isthmus of
communication between most heterogeneous oppositions. It is the _habeas
corpus_ of Spanish liberties. The soldier takes fire from the canon’s
lip, and the dark face of the humble labourer is whitened by the
reflection of the cigar of the grandee and lounger. The lowest orders
have a coarse roll or rope of tobacco, wherewith to solace their
sorrows, and it is their calumet of peace. Some of the Spanish fair sex
are said to indulge in a quiet hidden _cigarilla_, _una pajita_, _una
reyna_, but it is not thought either a sign of a lady, or of one of
rigid virtue, to have recourse to these forbidden pleasures; for, says
their proverb, whoever makes one basket will make a hundred.
[Sidenote: TIME LOST BY TOBACCO.]
Nothing exposes a traveller to more difficulty than carrying much
tobacco in his luggage; yet all will remember never to be without some
cigars, and the better the better. It is a trifling outlay, for although
any cigar is acceptable, yet a real good one is a gift from a king. The
greater the enjoyment of the smoker, the greater his respect for the
donor; a cigar may be given to everybody, whether high or low: thus the
_petaca_ is offered, as a polite Frenchman of La Vieille Cour (a race,
alas! all but extinct) offered his snuff-box, by way of a prelude to
conversation and intimacy. It is an act of civility, and implies no
superiority, nor is there any humiliation in the acceptance; it is twice
blessed, “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” It is the
spell wherewith to charm the natives, who are its ready and obedient
slaves, and, like a small kind word spoken in time, it works miracles.
There is no country in the world where the stranger and traveller can
purchase for half-a-crown, half the love and good-will which its
investment in tobacco will ensure, therefore the man who grudges or
neglects it is neither a philanthropist nor a philosopher.
A calculation might be made by those fond of arithmetic--which we
abhor--of the waste of time and money which is caused to the poor
Spaniards by all this prodigious cigarising. This said tobacco
importation of Raleigh is even a more doubtful good to the Peninsula
than that of potatoes to cognate Ireland, where it fosters poverty and
population. Let it be assumed that a respectable Spaniard only smokes
for fifty years, allow him the moderate allowance of six cigars a
day--the Regent, it is said, consumed forty every twenty-four
hours--calculate the cost of each cigar at two-pence, which is cheap
enough anywhere for a decent one; suppose that half of these are made
into paper cigars, which require double time--how much Spanish time and
private income is wasted in smoke? That is the question which we are
unable to answer.
[Sidenote: SPANISH STOCK.]
Here, alas! the pen must be laid down; an express from Albemarle-street
informs us, that this page must go to press next week, seeing that the
printer’s devils celebrate Christmas time with a most religious
abstinence from work. Many things of Spain must therefore be left in our
inkstand, filled to the brim with good intentions. We had hoped, at our
onset, to have sketched portraits of the Provincial and General
Character of Spanish Men--to have touched upon Spanish Soldiers and
Statesmen--Journalism and Place Hunting--Mendicants, Ministers and
Mosquitoes--Charters, Cheatings, and Constitutions--Fine Arts--French
and English Politics--Legends, Relics, and Religion--Monks and Manners;
and last, not least--reserved indeed as a bonne bouche--the Eyes, Loves,
Dress, and Details of the Spanish Ladies. It cannot be--nay, even as it
is, “for stories somehow lengthen when begun,” and especially if woven
with Spanish yarn, even now the indulgence of our fair readers may be
already exhausted by this sample of the _Cosas de España_. Be that as it
may, assuredly the smallest hint of a desire to the flattering contrary,
which they may condescend to express, will be obeyed as a command by
their grateful and humble servant the author, who, as every true Spanish
Hidalgo very properly concludes on similar, and on every occasion,
“kisses their feet.”
_Postscript._--In the first number of these Gatherings, at page 38, some
particulars were given of Spanish Stock, derived, as was believed, from
the most official and authentic sources. On the very evening that the
volume was published, and too late therefore for any corrections, the
following obliging letter was received from an anonymous correspondent,
which is now printed verbatim:--
_London, 30th November, 1846._
SIR,
I HAVE just perused your valuable and amusing work, ‘Gatherings
from Spain;’ but must own I felt somewhat annoyed at seeing so
gross a misrepresentation in the account you give of the national
debt of that country; the amount you give is perfectly absurd. You
say it has been increased to 279,033,089_l._--this is too bad. Now
I can give you the exact amount. The 5 per cents. consists of
40,000,000_l._ only; the coupons upon that sum to 12,000,000_l._;
and the present 3 per cents. to 6,000,000_l._; in all,
58,000,000_l._, and their own domestic debt, which is very
trifling. Now this is rather different to your statement; besides,
you are doing your book great injury by writing the Spanish Stock
down so; more particularly so, as there is no doubt some final
settlement will be come to before your second Number appears [?].
The country is far from being as you misrepresent it to
be--bankrupt. She is very rich, and quite capable of meeting her
engagements which are so trifling--if you were to write down our
Railroads I should think you a sensible man, for they are the
greatest bubbles, since the great South Sea bubble. But Spanish is
a fortune to whoever is so fortunate as to possess it now. I am,
and have been for some years, a large holder, and am now looking
forward to the realization of all my plans, in the present Minister
of Finance, Señor Mon, and the rising of that stock to its proper
price--about 60 or 70.
I should, as a friend, advise you to correct your book before you
strike any more copies, if you wish to sell it, as a true
representation of the present existing state of the country. Your
book might have done ten years ago, but people will not be gulled
now; we are too well aware that almost all our own papers are
bribed (and, perhaps, books), to write down Spanish, and Spanish
finance, by raising all manner of reports--of Carlist bands
appearing in all directions, &c. &c. &c. &c., which is most
absurd--the Carlists’ cause is dead.
[Sidenote: THE AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT.]
I hope, Sir, you will not be offended with these lines, but rather
take them as a friendly hint, as I admire your book much; and I
hope you will yourself see the falsity of what has been inserted in
a work of amusement, and correct it at once.
I remain, Sir,
Your obedient and humble Servant,
A FRIEND OF TRUTH.
_To ---- Ford, Esq._
It is a trifle “too bad” to be thus set down by our complimentary
correspondent as the inventor of these startling facts, figures, and
“fallacies,” since the full, true, and exact particulars are to be found
at pages 85 and 89 of Mr. Macgregor’s Commercial Tariffs of Spain,
presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1844 by the command of Her
Majesty. And as there was some variance in amount, the author all
through quoted from other men’s sums, and spoke doubtingly and
approximatively, being little desirous of having anything connected with
Spanish debts laid at his door, or charged to his account. He has no
interest whatever in these matters, having never been the fortunate
holder of one farthing either in Spanish funds or even English
railroads. Equally a friend of truth as his kind monitor, he simply
wished to caution fair readers, who might otherwise mis-invest, as he
erroneously it appears conceived, the savings in their pin-money. If he
has unwittingly stated that which is not, he can but give up his
authority, be very much ashamed, and insert the antidote to his errors.
He sincerely hopes that all and every one of the bright visions of his
anonymous friend may be realized. Had he himself, which Heaven forfend!
been sent on the errand of discovery whether the Madrid ministers be
made, or not, of squeezable materials, considering that Astræa has not
yet returned to Spain, with good governments, the golden age, or even a
tariff, his first step would have been to grease the wheels with
_sovereign_ ointment; and with a view of not being told by ministers and
cashiers to call again to-morrow, he would have opened the _negocio_ by
offering somebody 20 per cent. on all the hard dollars paid down; thus
possibly some breath and time might be economised, and trifling
disappointments prevented.
London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word _Gabacho_, which is the most offensive vituperative of the
Spaniard against the Frenchman, and has by some been thought to mean
“those who dwell on Gaves,” is the Arabic _Cabach_, detestable, filthy,
or “qui prava indole est, moribusque.” In fact the real meaning cannot
be further alluded to beyond referring to the clever tale of _El Frances
y Español_ by Quevedo. The antipathy to the Gaul is natural and
national, and dates far beyond history. This nickname was first given in
the eighth century, when Charlemagne, the Buonaparte of his day, invaded
Spain, on the abdication and cession of the crown by the chaste Alonso,
the prototype of the wittol Charles IV.; then the Spanish Moors and
Christians, foes and friends, forgot their hatreds of creeds in the
greater loathing for the abhorred intruder, whose “peerage fell” in the
memorable passes of Roncesvalles. The true derivation of the word
_Gabacho_, which now resounds from these Pyrenees to the Straits, is
blinked in the royal academical dictionary, such was the servile
adulation of the members to their French patron Philip V. _Mueran los
Gabachos_, “Death to the miscreants,” was the rally cry of Spain after
the inhuman butcheries of the terrorist Murat; nor have the echoes died
away; a spark may kindle the prepared mine: of what an unspeakable value
is a national war-cry which at once gives to a whole people a
shibboleth, a rallying watch-word to a common cause! _Vox populi vox
Dei._
[2] _Razzia_ is derived from the Arabic _Al ghazia_, a word which
expresses these raids of a ferocious, barbarous age. It has been
introduced to European dictionaries by the Pelissiers, who thus
_civilize_ Algeria. They make a solitude, and call it peace.
[3] Faja; the Hhezum of Cairo. Atrides tightens his sash when preparing
for action--Iliad xi. 15. The Roman soldiers kept their money in it.
Ibit qui _zonam_ perdidit.--Hor. ii. Ep. 2. 40. The Jews used it for the
same purpose--Matthew x. 9; Mark vi. 8. It is loosened at night. “None
shall slumber or sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be
loosed.”--Isaiah v. 27.
[4] The dread of the fascination of the evil eye, from which Solomon was
not exempt (Proverbs xxiii. 6), prevails all over the East; it has not
been extirpated from Spain or from Naples, which so long belonged to
Spain. The lower classes in the Peninsula hang round the necks of their
children and cattle a horn tipped with silver; this is sold as an amulet
in the silver-smiths’ shops; the cord by which it is attached _ought_ to
be braided from a black mare’s tail. The Spanish gipsies, of whom Borrow
has given us so complete an account, thrive by disarming the _mal de
ojo_, “_querelar nasula_,” as they term it. The dread of the “_Ain ara_”
exists among all classes of the Moors. The better classes of Spaniards
make a joke of it; and often, when you remark that a person has put on
or wears something strange about him, the answer is, “_Es para que no me
hagan mal de ojo_.” Naples is the head-quarters for charms and coral
amulets: all the learning has been collected by the Canon Jorio and the
Marques Arditi.
[5] The _garañon_ is also called “_burro padre_” ass father, not “_padre
burro_.” “_Padre_,” the prefix of paternity, is the common title given
in Spain to the clergy and the monks. “Father jackass” might in many
instances, when applied to the latter, be too morally and physically
appropriate, to be consistent with the respect due to the celibate cowl
and cassock.
[6] When George IV. once complained that he had _lost_ his royal
appetite, “What a scrape, sir, a _poor_ man would be in if he _found_
it!” said his Rochester companion.
[7] The very word _Novelty_ has become in common parlance synonymous
with danger, change, by the fear of which all Spaniards are perplexed;
as in religion it is a heresy. Bitter experience has taught all classes
that every change, every promise of a new era of blessing and prosperity
has ended in a failure, and that matters have got worse: hence they not
only bear the evils to which they are accustomed, rather than try a
speculative amelioration, but actually prefer a bad state of things, of
which they know the worst, to the possibility of an untried good. _Mas
vale el mal conocido, que el bien por conocer._ “How is my lady the wife
of your grace?” says a Spanish gentleman to his friend. “_Como está mi
Señora la Esposa de Usted?_” “She goes on without Novelty”--“_Sigue sin
Novedad_,” is the reply, if the fair one be much the same. “_Vaya Usted
con Dios, y que no haya Novedad!_” “Go with God, your grace! and may
nothing new happen,” says another, on starting his friend off on a
journey.
[8] Forks are an Italian invention: old Coryate, who introduced this
“neatnesse” into Somersetshire, about 1600, was called _furcifer_ by his
friends. Alexander Barclay thus describes the previous English mode of
eating, which sounds very _ventaish_, although worse mannered:--
“If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther flesche or fische,
Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe.”
[9] The kings of Spain seldom use any other royal signature, except the
ancient Gothic _rubrica_, or mark. This monogram is something like a
Runic knot. Spaniards exercise much ingenuity in these intricate
flourishes, which they tack on to their names, as a collateral security
of authenticity. It is said that a _rubrica_ without a name is of more
value than a name without a rubrica. Sancho Panza tells Don Quixote that
his rubrica alone is worth, not one, but three hundred jackasses. Those
who cannot write rubricate; “_No saber firmar_,”--not to know how to
sign one’s name,--is jokingly held in Spain to be one of the attributes
of grandeeship.
[10] “Chacun fuit à le voir naître, chacun court à le voir
mourir!”--_Montaigne._
[11] Hallarse en _Cinta_ is the Spanish equivalent for our “being in the
family way."
[12] Recopilacion. Lib. iii. Tit. xvi. Ley 3.
[13] The love for killing oxen still prevails at Rome, where the
ambition of the lower orders to be a butcher, is, like their white
costume, a remnant of the honourable office of killing at the Pagan
sacrifices. In Spain butchers are of the lowest caste, and cannot prove
“purity of blood.” Francis I. never forgave the “Becajo de Parigi”
applied by Dante to _his_ ancestor.
* * * * *
Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:
which recal the memory of those=> which recall the memory of those {pg
250}