“THE SWEETEST MORSEL OF THE PENINSULA.”--COB-WALLS OR THE HOUSE
THAT CAIN BUILT.--PALMS.--THE GOOD WORKS OF THE SISTERS.--THE
PRIESTS AND THE PEOPLE.--IS SPAIN UTOPIA?
The journey from Cordova to Malaga lasts from six in the morning till
five in the afternoon. You are, of course, aroused at four and carried
off to the station at five; so that you are really on the way much
longer. But the scenery of Andalusia is so varied and beautiful that you
are almost sorry when the train reaches its destination.
Beautiful Andalusia! so quaintly called by a lover of it, “the sweetest
morsel of the Peninsula.” Who can forget or over-praise its voluptuous
southern sky, its rich brown plains, its glistening white villages
peeping amid groves of the cistus, the ilex, and the cork-tree, its
green slopes crowned with Moorish towers and palaces, its delicious
climate, its trickling streams, its sweet-smelling flowers?
The railway is new and carries one through a most astounding bit of
country. After passing leagues of olive orchards, we found ourselves
suddenly in a wholly different world. First came range after range of
cold grey mountains, then perpendicular columns of limestone of gigantic
size, evidently thrown up by volcanic action. These rocks and their
counterparts have been admirably drawn by Gustave Doré in his splendid
_Don Quixote_, and are quite awful in their height and barrenness.
The train went at a snail’s pace right through the heart of the gorge,
and during this part of the journey, most of the passengers got out and
walked! I suppose the line was not quite safe, and indeed the soil is so
light and sulphurous that it seems impossible ever to make it so. We
kept our seats, however. What a slow journey it was! Sometimes we hardly
seemed to move at all, and kept stopping at little signal stations so
long that we read and wrote letters, worked, and sketched, as if at home
in our own drawing-room.
The guards were most civil, as usual, and did their best to explain
matters to us. The railway would go quickly enough by-and-by, they said,
but the road was a difficult one to work, &c., &c. _Mañana, mañana_
(to-morrow), everything will go quickly to-morrow, is the usual cry.
The villages of Andalusia are very picturesque, and remind you of the
west of England, only here the foliage is richer, the skies are of a
deeper blue, the landscape is wilder and more varied. Here the white
cottages glisten, not amid groves of beech, elm, and willow, but amid
the orange-tree, the ilex, and the olive; whilst the uncultivated
plains, instead of being purple with heath and golden with gorse, are
barren and sunburnt as the face of a gipsy, save where thickets of the
cistus and the cork-tree break the dreary sameness.
But there is more than a fancied resemblance between the home of the
Andalusian peasant and the Devonshire labourer. The walls of his
cottage are constructed after precisely the same fashion, and of
precisely the same materials--that primitive, cheap, durable mixture of
earth and reeds, which, when whitewashed, tones down into a beautiful
cream colour, surpassing the richest marble for softness and mellowness
of tint. In beautiful Andalusia, “the poor cottager contents himself
with cob for his walls, and thatch for his covering;” as quaintly says
an old English writer, and what in England is called cob, with all its
varieties of concrete cob, dry cob, rad and dab, &c., is only another
variety of the tapia, or mud wall of the Arab and Moro-Andalusian. Of
concrete cob indeed, that is, a mixture of lime, rough sand, pebbles,
earth, and reeds rammed into cases, are formed not only the noble walls
of Cordova and Granada, but the Moorish watch-towers or _atalayas_, that
so grandly rise along the southern sea-coast. We might, if we were so
disposed, trace this economical and excellent masonry down to Cain, the
builder of the first city--at least, so says a learned authority on the
subject.[8] And guided by the finger-mark of learned authorities, we
might follow its progress from east to west; for the simple art of
cob-building links the cities and civilizations of the ancient
Egyptians and Phœnicians with those of the Devonshire peasant, the
Andalusian, and the Moor of Barbary, of to-day. No one who travels
through the south of Spain will fail to observe the picturesque aspect
of its villages; and I have gone out of my way to notice this feature in
them, because any relationship in the arts is interesting to a
traveller. He will find traces of cob alike in India, in Mexico, in
Greece, and in Italy; but nowhere is the original architecture of the
Phœnicians more noteworthily copied than in the sunny plains of
Andalusia.
After traversing this wilderness of limestone run mad, we glided into a
warmer and lovelier zone. We fancied ourselves in Algeria. There were
golden plumes of palm-trees waving against a deep blue sky; orange and
lemon groves at the foot of bluer hills; hedges of aloe and wild cactus
by the roadside; flowers and sunshine and sweetness everywhere. It was
Sunday, too, and pretty it was to see the handsome Andalusian peasants
in their gay dresses alight and descend at the different stations, with
orange-branches, bearing golden fruit and glossy leaf, in their hands.
Wherever we stopped there came Murillo-like children to the door,
bringing glasses of fresh water, saying, “Agua fresca, agua fresca.”
At the end of these beautiful Eastern pictures came Malaga, a large,
white, dusty town, with a quiet blue sea at its feet, and above and
around it the most wonderfully-coloured hills, purple, rose-colour,
violet, blood-red, rainbow-hued in the sunset and colourless never.
We found Malaga, in spite of its delicious climate, its bright sea, its
gorgeous hills, and its Eastern gardens, a disagreeable place. The
streets always smelt of fish,--raw fish, cooked fish, fresh fish, dried
fish, stale fish. The common people are dirty and unpleasant, a mongrel
race, half-gipsy, half-bandit, with an evil look. The pavements are
filthy, and all the time of our stay a sirocco was blowing, so that we
were choked with dust wherever we went.
We stayed here several days nevertheless; and though we never liked
Malaga, could not fail to be enchanted with the oriental look of the
place. Just outside of the town were lovely gardens full of roses and
geraniums in blossom, and here and there clusters of palms
overspreading white-domed Moorish _algibe_, or wells; whilst we drove
for miles along a road hedged in by the beautiful African reed, so like
gigantic corn, that is golden in the sunshine and black as the cypress
at twilight.
The colouring of the mountains is most delicious, and in part makes up
for the fishiness and filthiness of the streets. A ray of the setting
sun turns the whole wild sierra into a pageantry of pink, deepest
violet, crimson, and amber, and makes you long to be an artist in order
to transfix the wonderful scene. Mountain and palm, city and tower and
sea, seen through the medium of so rare an atmosphere, might well tempt
an artist to linger here.
The English Consul was very kind to us, and from him we learned a good
deal that was interesting about the place. He took us to the Protestant
Cemetery--a beautifully kept garden covering a hill by the sea-side,
from whence we had a lovely view. It is a sweet spot; the graves lie in
clusters around the chapel, and are half hidden by all kinds of tropic
trees and flowers, the graceful pepper-tree, the orange, the lemon, the
palmetto, the cistus, the lily; whilst above them stretch sunny slopes,
newly planted with the vine and the fig. The soil is very red in colour
and full of iron, which accounts for the beauty and the fertility of the
landscape everywhere. I believe that for this boon of a burial-place,
alike English and foreign Protestants are solely indebted to the father
of the present Consul. Protestantism is an obnoxious weed in Catholic
Spain, and all those unfortunate Protestants who died at Malaga before
our Consul’s intervention, were buried like dogs in holes dug along the
sea-shore. Now, no matter what a man’s faith and nation may be, if shut
out of the Spanish burial-ground, he finds a resting-place here.
What gave us as much pleasure as anything in Malaga, was the sight of
some orphanages, founded by a young, rich, and beautiful Spanish widow
lady, who, having lost her husband and children by sudden deaths,
devotes all her time and money to charitable works. The schools are
under the direction of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and the
letter of introduction we carried with us procured ready admittance. The
Sisters who received us had beautiful faces, a little sad perhaps, but
expressive of the utmost peace and piety. One was a girl of twenty, and
she had the sweetest eyes, brown, soft, and shy, with a child’s
complexion, all pink and white, and a child’s rosy mouth--though not a
child’s gaiety.
“But you are a Frenchwoman, _ma sœur_,” we said; “and you too!” we
added, turning to the elder sister. “How is this? Are there not Spanish
women enough to work for their own poor and fatherless?”
The elder sister shook her head.
“There are plenty of good Spanish women devoted to charity,” she
answered, “but they seem wanting in energy and the love of organisation.
They are content to serve, but have no desire to act and to travel. Now,
we go to the uttermost ends of the earth and like it.”
“Yes; you see plenty of the world, _ma sœur_, you are always busy on
good works. It is an enviable lot.”
She smiled, part pleased, part sad.
“We are content if we can do a little in the service of the Virgin and
the blessed Saviour; but, alas! how little!”
“Do not say that, _ma sœur_. We who stand outside the Church are made
better for your example of self-denial and benevolence.”
“Ah! you are Protestants, of course. Many come here to see the children
at work.”
We now made the round of the school-rooms and _ateliers_, where we found
children divided according to age. The little ones, from three to five,
were seated on tiers of benches, as in our infant-schools, and were at
lessons under the superintendence of a sweet-looking young woman, also a
native of France. The system seemed admirable. The teacher held up a
letter, and instantaneously every little hand waved, and every little
mouth opened to say, “I see an A,” “I see a B,” “I see a C,” and so on,
till the whole alphabet had been gone through. Their little lessons in
spelling and arithmetic were gone through on the same plan, every
response being accompanied by a gesture. The children seemed thoroughly
to enjoy the lesson, and no wonder. It was as good as a game of
gymnastics to them. I am sure this system is the only desirable one to
pursue with very young children, who are like young animals, always
wanting to frisk about. Every one who has had anything to do with
village schools knows how difficult it is for the mistress to keep the
little ones still, and how they are scolded, sent to the corner, and
kept over hours for sinning in this respect. But the Sisters have no
troubles of this kind, and by keeping body and mind alike active no time
or temper is wasted on either side.
From the infant-school we went into the class-room and _ateliers_ of the
elder girls, and examined some very beautiful needlework, thread-lace,
and embroidery, some completed and ready for sale, others in process.
These children are all taken from the lowest classes; their work is sold
and the proceeds set apart for them till such a time as they need a
dowry, or outfit for service. Each child is, therefore, laying up a
little nest-egg for herself, and is, at the same time, acquiring a
profitable and womanly handicraft, and, what is even more important, a
good moral training.
In a town like Malaga, where the lower ranks have been leavened with the
yeast of brigandage, such an influence must be invaluable. I do not
remember the average number of little scholars who come daily to be fed
and taught by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, but it is a large one.
What Malaga must be in the summer-time I have no idea, not having lived
in tropical climates; but whilst we were there, in the last week of
November, the heat was very trying. The much-vaunted Alameda, which is
really a pretty walk, was unbearable on account of the wind, and sun,
and dust; and it was not till we had got a mile out of the town that the
air was fresh and pure. There are some charming country-houses with
gardens, around Malaga, but it is only within the last half-dozen years
that the proprietors have been able to use or let them. The banditti
ruled the country with a rod of iron; land was comparatively worthless;
travelling unsafe. As late as 1857 murder and assassination were so
common in the streets of Malaga that a resident[9] wrote home, “The
country is in a miserable state. The streets are not safe for a single
person late at night. Murder is not thought much more of here than
pocket-picking in England.”
Later, however, government has been working with a will to put down the
brigands, and with such success that purchasing land is become a
profitable speculation. People may now build country-houses, plant
groves, and vineyards in safety. It is a pity there is no good hotel in
the suburbs, for I think few invalids could support the bad smells and
heat of the town.
Besides the palms and the purple hills, Malaga possesses superb
vineyards. Who does not associate the very name of the place with
raisins and sweet wine? And those who want to know what a Spanish
vintage is, should come here in the early autumn. Wherever we went, we
came in contact with mules heavily laden with boxes of raisins, of which
I believe a million are exported every year; but the vintage was over,
and after a week we were ready to go into Granada. Whilst we are yet in
Catholic Spain (for who thinks of anything but the Moors at Granada?)
let me recur to a very important subject. Of course, the passing
traveller through Spain has very little opportunity of judging such
important questions as the practical working of the Church. But it is a
question of the deepest interest, and cannot fail to rise in an earnest
mind again and again. Spain is the country of all others which Romanists
will be inclined to regard as the faithful child of the only true
Church. Is she indeed as faithful as tradition warrants--as love takes
on credence? Alas! I fear the most devoted Catholic would not be able to
say, yes. The first thing that strikes you on coming into the country is
the contemptuous tone taken by all classes when speaking of the priests.
What wonder, indeed? The priesthood is recruited from the lowest ranks;
the priest is uneducated, ill-paid, often reputed to be immoral, always
without dignity. Confessional is a dead letter. Infidelity is found
among the rich; immorality among the poor. Wherever we went, we noticed
the coarse, dull faces of the priests, and the irreverence of the people
towards them. Of course there are exceptions, but, as a rule, the priest
is held in slight esteem, whether deserving or no. “Not even the
courtesy of Spaniards can make them behave decently to a priest,” says a
candid and careful writer, who spent several years in Spain, and
published some admirable letters on the practical working of the Church
there.[10] From these letters, and my own observations, I have come to
the painful conclusion that good Romanists will find Spain far from
being the orthodox Utopia of their imagination. The churches are falling
into ruin, the clergy are miserably paid, partly by a tax, partly by
fees, a parish priest receiving about £80 a year, a _beneficiado_, or
curate, about £40. Confessional and Communion are neglected by the
young; and, where orthodoxy exists, it goes hand in hand with the
deepest ignorance. Mariolatry is carried to the highest pitch, and the
most absurd stories of modern miracles are believed in, and the
Scriptures are a sealed book. In a little volume called the _Manual of
the Seminarista_, is a chapter on the Scriptures which, the author
states, “boys and women are not to have, because their natural
simplicity is often mixed with ignorance and presumption, and leads them
into heresies.” “Never shall I forget,” says the author first quoted,
“the eagerness with which Don F---- borrowed my Spanish Testament when
he found it was what he called _puro_. “We only get garbled scraps
here,” he said; and he gives some most interesting and valuable letters
from a Spanish priest to an English clergyman, wherein occur the
following passages: “As you well know, the true and genuine gospel of
Christ cannot be preached in Spain, but the gospel of the Pope, which is
a very different thing indeed from that. Here there is not the Spirit,
for where the Spirit is there is liberty. Our very bishops have nothing
in common with the Apostles: they do not preach the Word--they do not
instruct the people. All they do is for hire; they accommodate
everything to their sensual conceptions and earthly desires.... The
Bishop of ---- has never preached the word of God, and so ignorant is he
that he knows nothing except the ceremonies, and this is all that he
requires in a priest. At the last synod for providing _curas_ (priests)
he forbade the theologians, as is the old custom, to test the
candidates’ sufficiency by theological questions and dissertations! The
Spaniards, having all these things before their eyes, laugh at the
mission of the Christian priesthood, are losing their faith and morals,
and sinking into atheism.... It cannot be denied that the Spaniards of
the present day are generally opposed to Roman practices, and rather
agree with you and me in thinking and doing than with them; such is the
force of reason and truth. However, while they are giving up the errors
of Romanism, they have no rule of faith and morality to embrace, and,
led as by a blind impulse, each has prescribed a liberal and irregular
belief for himself, which sometimes he follows and sometimes
relinquishes.... Will you, then, associate yourselves together for the
work of the Gospel in these regions? Will you, in your charity, lead
this people to the true faith of Christ? Will you recall them from
atheism or indifferentism to the Church of God? Establish evangelical
missions, and support them with your pious alms. The Romanists labour
night and day to propagate their errors; they send their fanatical
missionaries to go round the world, and all sorts of sectaries run
eagerly to the work. But ye, who profess the true faith of Christ, will
ye leave a thirsty people to perish, and give them naught out of your
abundance when they ask?” These extracts, short as they are, throw
floods of light upon the present state of religious feeling in Spain. I
remember that we saw, with some surprise, a translation of Renan’s _Vie
de Jésus_ in a bookseller’s shop at Madrid, and heard two young men
discuss it over their purchases with no few heresies expressed or
implied. I suppose infidelity is a lesser crime than Protestantism in
Catholic Spain. Protestantism is, in fact, entirely forbidden.
Foreigners, being Protestants, are allowed to meet together for
religious purposes at the office or house of their respective Consuls;
but any Spaniard found among the congregation would be liable to some
punishment. In 1850, the Rev. James Meyrick was assured by a canon of
Cordova Cathedral that, according to the existing law of Spain, any
Spaniard departing from the Romish doctrine is liable to capital
punishment, though he added that he thought no government would now
attempt to enforce that law. Any Protestant reading the service of the
Protestant Church, excepting under the protection of his flag, would,
with his congregation, be liable to fines, imprisonment, or dismissal
from the country.
A few years ago it was necessary to have a certificate of confession
before holding any office under the government, and the certificates
were bought and sold for tenpence! Of course the greatest ignorance
exists regarding the Scriptures. People confound the legends of modern
times with the sacred history, and have as much faith in the one as the
other. Every one has read Borrow’s extraordinary adventures in Spain,
and will recall the story of the Alcalde, who after discoursing
learnedly about Bentham, Lope de Vega, and Plato, took up the New
Testament and asked, “What book is this?” Upon Borrow answering him he
said, “Ha, ha! how very singular!--yes, I remember. I have heard that
the English highly prize this eccentric book. How very singular that the
countrymen of the great Bentham should set any value upon that old
monkish book!” Mariolatry is carried to the same excess one sees in
Italy. Ford, in his _Gatherings_, gives a striking instance of this in
describing the execution of the robber Veneno. “The criminal exclaimed
_Viva la religion! Viva el rey! Viva el nombre de Jesus!_ All of which
met no echo from those who heard him. His dying cry was, _Viva la Virgen
Santisima!_ At these words the devotion to the goddess of Spain broke
forth in one general acclamation, _Viva la Santisima!_”
In the reign of Charles III., 1759-1780, a law was enacted, requiring a
declaration upon oath of a firm belief in the Immaculate Conception,
from everybody taking his degree at the university, or being admitted
into any corporation, civil or religious, or even into a mechanic’s
guild. The Virgin’s altars, images, robes and jewels, are gorgeous
beyond description. At her name both priest and congregation made
reverence. It is to her altars that the people flock. It is she who is
represented as the guide and ruler of the Church, and the intercessor
between God and man. To her are addressed most of the hymns and prayers
by which indulgences are obtained. There is one hymn in a little book of
prayers called the _Novena_, the repetition of which will procure more
indulgence than a year of rigorous penances. This indulgence clears you
from penance, or the indefinite consequences of neglected penance in
purgatory; and if by a certain number of litanies, rosaries, and hymns,
so much indulgence is gained, who would fast or otherwise do penance?
One cannot but lament this state of things, and equally lamentable is
the condition of the priests and the position of the priesthood. There
are, doubtless, many good and devout men in their ranks, but, as a body,
they have lost caste and influence. When the friars were all ejected
from the monasteries, they were weighed in the balance and found
wanting; and friars and priests alike suffer still from a tide of
antagonistic opinion. “No one knows, and no one will know until a
revolution takes place,” said a Spaniard to me, “how the priests are
disliked.” We ourselves noticed on several occasions a very low type of
face among the priests with whom we came in contact, and their
appearance is slatternly and often dirty in the extreme. These
circumstances are easily accounted for when one reads of the way in
which the army of the church is recruited. Most of the ejected friars
were sons of peasants; and such a prejudice exists against taking holy
orders, that very few parents of any social standing care to dedicate
their sons to a profession so poor and so despised. It is true that a
begging student of Salamanca may become a bishop, but that is the
exceptionable case, the usual fate of a Spanish priest is to end his
days a parish _cura_ with an income of £40 a-year. I am sorry to say
that the moral character of the clergy stands low.
It is pleasant to turn from such unsatisfactory prospects to the Sisters
and their good works. Their predecessors had also their share of
suffering. At the same time that the Government turned out the friars,
many rich convents were confiscated too. There were three at Malaga that
shared this fate. The nuns had entered with a dowry of from £120 to
£400, which the abbess had spent on lands. They were living in the
utmost comfort, each with her own apartments and servant. On a sudden,
all was taken, and they were thrust out of their paradise as naked and
helpless as Adam and Eve. Most of them had no home to go to, and gladly
procured the humblest employment; some, it is said, perished of want.
The worst of all was that the tide of public feeling had set so strongly
against them, that they suffered torments of fear. No wonder that the
priests were hated, for the memory of the Inquisition was still fresh,
but the poor nuns had led harmless lives, often charitable ones,
nursing the sick, and teaching the ignorant.[11]
There is no doubt that the ill-judged favour of royalty does more than
anything else to fan the flames of popular dislike towards both priest
and nun. Who is the Père Claret, the Queen’s confessor? An adventurer,
who has been alternately soldier, ecclesiastic, author, missionary, and
who formerly gained a certain notoriety for having written a coarse
book. Who is the Sœur Patrocinio, abbess of the convent of St. Pascual
d’Aranjuez? An intriguing impostor, once condemned by the public
tribunal for having pretended to the miraculous possession of the
Stigmata, or wounds of Christ.
Alas! I think every impartial traveller in Catholic Spain must conclude
his observations in the words of Pugin:--“_Pleasant meadows, happy
peasants, all holy monks, all holy priests, holy everybody. Such charity
and such unity where every man was a Catholic. I once believed in this
Utopia myself, but when tested by stern facts, it all melts away like a
dream._”
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