PIGS, VULGAR AND ARISTOCRATIC.--THE GIPSY CAPTAIN BEWITCHES US.--WE
GO DOWN TO THE POTTER’S HOUSE.--A FAMILY DANCE.--AN AWFUL
DISCOVERY.--A BOOKSELLER OF TARSHISH.
I heard two horrid stories at Granada, which I would not repeat except
that I feel some of their truth. We were walking in the town one day,
and observing an unusual air of stir and excitement, asked a stander-by
what it meant.
The person in question told us that a certain Señor, Don So-and-so, had
just died, and that as he was a great enemy to the Liberal party, and a
great tyrant, there was rejoicing among the people. We were interested
in the matter, and talked of it afterwards to an old _Granadino_, whose
acquaintance we had made during our stay, and he more than confirmed the
report.
“He was a bad man,” he said, “but of the _sangre azul_ (blue blood), a
thorough aristocrat, and very powerful. I could tell you stories of what
he did that you would not believe. Oh! the people who have blue blood in
their veins can do anything in Spain, I assure you. It is a _cosa de
España_. Now just listen to a thing this Señor Don L---- did not more
than nine years ago. A poor honest man known to me, was taken up accused
of committing a theft. He belonged to the Liberal party, and was hated
by the blue blood. Well, this man, who is just dead, had him brought
into the Plaza de Toos, and tied him up to one of the posts by the
hands. ‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he asked. ‘Señor, I
know nothing of it. I am as innocent as a child,’” Then this Señor
Don ---- ordered his man to hammer on to the prisoner’s hands with an
iron hammer.
“‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he was asked again by the
great gentleman of the blue blood. ‘Señor, I have said I am innocent.’
Again the hammer fell on the poor man’s hands, and again and again, till
the bones were broken, and he still denying the deed. At last, finding
him so obstinate, they let him go back to prison, where he was kept for
weeks. When he came out I saw with my own eyes the ruin they had made of
his poor hands.”
“But that is as bad as the Inquisition,” I said, horrified.
The old man, with a good deal of Spanish punctiliousness, had a touch of
Moorish resignation, or what might better be called perhaps fatalism.
“We have had to bear such things. I can tell you what happened to me in
my youth, when there was still more difference between the law for the
blue blood and the white.[13] I am of the white of course, no Don or
Caballero, but a humble Señor, of little account. I was a dealer in
pigs, Señoras; and I sold a fine lot of pigs to a certain aristocratic
gentleman whom I will call Don Serafin. Don Serafin agreed to buy my
pigs for five hundred dollars, paying half the sum down, and giving me a
written document engaging to pay the other at the end of three months.
My beautiful pigs went, and the three months passed. No money from Don
Serafin. As I did not wish to appear impertinent, (being of the white
blood, therefore, nobody, you know, Señoras) I waited patiently till
three months more had slipped away. Then I waited on Don Serafin, and
respectfully demanded my money. ‘I owe him money!’ cried the great man
to his servants, ‘turn the impertinent fellow away, _Es un mentira_. He
lies.’
“I saw that nothing remained for me but to sue him for my money, which I
did. On the day appointed, we appeared before the Alcalde, who received
Don Serafin with bows and scrapes, gave him the seat of honour, begged
to know to what chance he was indebted for the pleasure of seeing him,
and so on. ‘Why, it is that fellow there,’ said Don Serafin, ‘who has
brought me here with a cooked-up story about some pigs, _Es un
mentira_. I never bought his pigs, or if I did, paid for them long ago.
Don’t believe a word of it.’ The Alcalde then turned to me, who stood
by, hat in hand, like a criminal. ‘Speak out, _hombre_,’ he said,
sternly, ‘of what do you accuse his grace, Don Serafin de So and so and
So and so’ (the blue-blooded race have very long titles, you know).
‘Señor,’ I said, still standing, ‘I sold Don Serafin a lot of beautiful
pigs, and he agreed to give five hundred dollars for them, paying half
the sum down and the other at the end of three months. Señor, I have
never received the last half of the money.’ The Alcalde turned to Don
Serafin, smiling sweetly; ‘Senor Don Serafin, you hear what this fellow
says--is it true or not?’
“‘_Es un mentira_, a pack of lies and nothing more,’ again answered his
grace Don Serafin; ‘don’t believe half a syllable of the story.’
“The Alcalde looked at me with a scowl as if he could devour me.
“‘How dare you accuse a gentleman of such a thing? Get along with you,
you lying rogue.’
“I then with great humility brought out the paper signed by Don Serafin
himself, in which the money was promised at a certain date. ‘Señor,’ I
said, ‘your grace will recognise this writing. The money is a large sum
to a poor man like me; I hope you will pay it at once.’
“The Alcalde looked at the paper and was obliged to admit my claim. But
he still smiled sweetly on Don Serafin, and looked as fiercely at me as
if I were robbing them both.
“Don Serafin tossed back the paper scornfully, and with it a note for
fifty dollars. ‘You shall have the rest in two months’ time,’ he said,
‘will that satisfy you?’
“‘Pardon me, your grace,’ I said, ‘but I am a poor man and I want the
money. It seems, I dare say, but a mere trifle to you, it is a little
fortune to me. Please pay me my two hundred and fifty dollars.’
“Don Serafin looked at the Alcalde, making a sign. The Alcalde was
silent. ‘You fellow, to dictate to me in that way; take the fifty
dollars and be thankful to the Virgin; or leave them if you please, I
don’t care.’
“I turned to the Alcalde and humbly asked his intercession; but it was
quite clear I had little enough to expect of him. He seemed to think I
was mighty lucky to get anything at all; so, after standing in the
presence of the great man till I was ready to drop, I took the fifty
dollars and went away.”
“And did you ever get the remaining two hundred dollars?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“No, Signorita, not I. I got a part, ten dollars one month, ten another,
and so on, but never the whole. _Es una cosa de España._ We of the white
blood must submit to those of the blue.”
These stories are both worth something as testimony of things as they
are, or very lately were, in Spain, and we heard others which I remember
less clearly.
There are a great many gipsies at Granada still, and, though they have
lost their prestige for romance and daring, a good deal of interest is
attached to them. They seem now to be held as very inoffensive sort of
people, are miserably poor, dirty, and live troglodyte fashion, in
caves hollowed in the hill-side. The King of the Gipsies, or _El
Capitan_ as he is called, is a fine musician, and we invited him to come
up to the hotel one evening and play to us. Captain Antonio’s company is
not to be had for the asking. He is, or affects to be, a little shy,
wants coaxing and persuading, will not play except before a large
audience; and, as Bensaken said to us, “He is a great man in his way,
and you couldn’t offer him less than two dollars.”
After disappointing us on several occasions, Captain Antonio came. He
had pleaded a sore finger as excuse for his delay, but I am inclined to
think that he waited in expectation of a larger audience and more
dollars; for the arrival of an American family healed the Captain’s
finger miraculously fast. It was sore in the morning, very bad indeed!
and, lo and behold! in the evening it was quite well; but let that
pass--Captain Antonio’s music made us very forgiving.
He came in--a tall, superbly built man in the prime of life, with a
tawny skin, eyes of extraordinary brilliancy, receding jaws, and very
low brow, long narrow throat, and altogether, of an Egyptian, ancient
look, as if he had been one of the old Nile gods come to life.
He bowed graciously, threw off his Spanish cloak, for the gitanos, like
all the rest of the world, are growing conventional now, losing costume
and characteristics every day; and commenced tuning his guitar.
It was a wretchedly poor instrument, and we began to wonder what sort of
torments were about to be inflicted on us, when, on a sudden, the tuning
ceased and the music seized hold of us like galvanism. For it was such
music as one had never dreamed of before. His fingers but touch the
chords, and all at once your breath is taken away, your blood is warmed
as if by strong wine, your brain whirls, your eyes see visions, your
ears hear marvellous voices, your senses are all mastered by a power
that seems to shake the very spheres.
You see the strangest forms and faces, imp, devil, witch, and wizard;
you hear a jargon of voices, in love, in anger, in war, in worship, in
joy, in despair. Beautiful gitanos come in the charmed circle, join
hands, dance for a moment and vanish, or it is filled by a gipsy
camp--the fires are blazing, you see men and women feasting, singing,
making love, when, all at once, a cry of alarm is heard, and the scene
is changed to bloodshed and horrors. Every phase of savage life is
brought before your eyes and made real, as if you were tasting it in the
flesh. You are indeed for the nonce a gipsy, and know what the gipsy’s
world is, above, below, in heaven and in hell; your pulses are quickened
to gipsy pitch, you are ready to make love and war, to heal and slay, to
wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and
do anything for the sake of the sweet, untrammelled life of the tent,
the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, the joyous
dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love.
All at once the gipsy stopped, and the spell was broken. We had never
been gipsies, after all; the camp-fires burning under the dark night,
the flashing knives, the peaceful dance, the happy loves, the vagabond
wanderings over plain and mountain, the midnight encounter,--all these
had been but shadows evoked by Captain Antonio’s guitar, and we were a
company of ladies and gentlemen, whose utmost vagabondage had not
exceeded boiling a pic-nic kettle in Epsom Forest, or, more likely,
taking tea on our own lawns. We felt thankful to Señor Antonio for
having given us so full an experience of wild life in the space of a few
minutes. I cannot say how real it had all seemed. We had wandered with
him over so many southern lands, had bivouacked under such fiery suns,
that I looked at a fair-haired English lady present, almost with a
feeling of wonder to see her hair still golden and her cheeks still
rosy.
The gipsy captain received our expressed thanks, as I thought,
indifferently, but looked into our faces as if he would read our real
criticisms there. Whether he approved either of them or of us, it were
quite impossible to say; he had a face as unreadable as a bit of
hieroglyphic writing, except that whilst playing, a strange fiery light
shone in his eyes, as if he were himself possessed by the devilry of his
music.
When he had rested a little and drunk a _copita_, or thimbleful of
brandy, we asked him for a sacred song, and he said he would play us a
Christmas hymn. What a change! It was as touching and sweet a melody as
any of our Christmas carols, and quite as solemn.
By-and-by some one proposed a dance. Would Captain Antonio oblige us by
a bolero or fandango? Most readily, he answered, but he must have a
partner; of course,--so we went down into the kitchen, and, after much
pressing, up came the daughters of the house, Pepita and little Pepita,
Maria, and a friend as young and pretty and playful as themselves. The
brother, our little waiter, threw aside his napkin and took up the
gipsy’s guitar as naturally as if he had been a musician by profession;
one of the young ladies, after a little coyness, consented to become
Captain Antonio’s partner, and the dance commenced,--that musical,
monotonous dance, so popular among the pleasure-loving Andalusians. But
to gain a thorough idea of a gipsy dance, you must get up what is called
a _funcion_,--rather a costly affair; that is to say, you must invite a
troop of gipsies, who will not come to dance and sing and play to you
without being well paid. Captain Antonio every one should hear and see;
he is quite a genius, and if enticed to London or Paris, would create a
sensation. We said to him,--
“You should purchase a better guitar, Señor Antonio, and go to London.
You would come home a rich man.”
He smiled, showing his glittering white teeth and shook his head:--
“I have a wife and five children, Señora,” he replied; “London is too
far off.”
And he did not like the disparagement of his guitar, I think, for he
took it up and tuned it in a caressing sort of way, as if it were a
living pet we had been slighting.
There is nothing of romance left to the gipsies in Spain now but their
costume, even that fast disappearing, and their music. When Borrow wrote
of them more than sixty years ago, he speaks of the happy effects of
Charles the Third’s edicts, which, by admitting the gipsies into the
pale of civilised society, has done more than the fierce persecutions of
his predecessors to assimilate this savage race with others. Ferdinand
and Isabella and the Philips, did their utmost to put down what they
called the Egyptians, publishing edict after edict against them, but in
vain. Whilst they were a proscribed caste, whilst the very privilege of
sanctuary was denied them, whilst they were hunted down and persecuted
by fire and sword, the Egyptians, or Gitanos, flourished and had their
palmy days; murdering, stealing, cheating, telling fortunes, hating the
Busnees, and all who were not Romanys, to their heart’s content.
_Gitanisimo_--that is to say, quoting Borrow, gipsy villany of every
description, flourished till _Gitanisimo_ was declared to be no more.
Charles the Third, in 1733, published a humane edict in which he
declared the gipsies capable of following any career of arts and
sciences, and altogether ignored that they were a separate people,
amenable to separate laws. What was the consequence? _The law of Carlos
Tercero has superseded gipsy law_, say the gipsies a little regretfully.
_Gitanisimo_, or gipsydom, if not wholly transformed, has been modified.
The gipsies no longer wander about living by murder and theft. The women
still tell fortunes, and the men, as dealers in horses and mules, are
not to be trusted, but they are everywhere spoken of as a poor and
harmless set of people; and though the instinct of caste is just as
strong as ever among themselves, they are no longer feared or hated. At
the time Borrow wrote the gipsies in Spain numbered 40,000 souls; at the
commencement of the present century they numbered only 20,000, so that
the race here, as elsewhere, seems dying out, or, at any rate, greatly
decreasing. Indeed, nothing else could have been expected of them. Wild
animals from African deserts are not more out of place, caged in English
gardens, than these kings and queens of savagedom compelled to sleep
under a roof, and to consider killing as murder. But their dancing and
music are worthy of a less lawless and terrible race, and are _cosas de
España_, not to be missed by any travellers.
In the afternoon we drove to the Albaycin, or old town, in search of
pottery. The views from this part of Granada are very fine, but the
inhabitants are so unused to the sight of travellers, and are such
strange, half-civilised beings, that you are hardly able to see
anything. We alighted in one place to walk a few yards, and in a moment,
as wasps gather round a fallen peach, we were surrounded by a youthful
rabble who looked at us suspiciously, and not content with that, caught
hold of our clothes, begged from us, laughed at us--all but tore us to
pieces. We had left our coachman behind, as we had come by a way not
_carrossable_, in order to see a view, and our poor old guide was wholly
inefficient to keep off the tribe of persecutors. Two or three big
gipsyish girls of twelve or thirteen, caught hold of his coat, and I
expected to see his pockets attacked every moment. The noise and
noisomeness of this dirty, unkempt mob of juveniles no words can
describe. Bensaken’s mild reproof, “Are not these señoras like other
señoras? why do you behave so rudely to them?” had no effect. We lost
temper, shook our umbrellas threateningly, scolded, and pushed on, never
waiting to see the view, and only too glad to close the carriage-door on
the merciless, miserable little rabble. Any Englishwoman venturing alone
in the streets of the Albaycin would have reason to regret such a piece
of audacity as long as she lived. I believe she would be pelted with mud
and stones. Nothing is too bad to expect from those awful children. What
are the priests after, that they are left in such a state of savagedom?
But the Albaycin has pleasanter aspects. Bensaken now took us to a
little spot far away from the scene of our persecution, and we soon
found ourselves in a scene so peaceful, so poetic, and so lovely, that
the ugly dream faded away from our memories. It was the potter’s house
we had come to see. The outer walls were whitewashed and bare, after the
fashion of Moorish houses, but no sooner was the threshold passed than
all was life and colour.
Picture to yourselves a sunny little court with a fountain in the midst,
pots of flowers here and there, dogs basking in the sun, pigeons
fluttering over head, and rows of lustrous pottery, blue, green, yellow,
and brown, placed against the walls, or heaped up in the corners. We
entered a little sitting-room and were made welcome by the whole family.
There was a grandmother, an aunt, a cousin, and I do not know how many
more, but I am only concerned with the young potter and his mother. The
first was a lad of nineteen, with quite an artist’s face, sensitive,
refined, full of happy expression; the second was a handsome, portly
creature, a regular type of the Andalusian matron, and as ready to sing
or dance a bolero, as the youngest of her daughters.
We were enchanted with the pottery, which is often rude in shape and
colouring, but never without a certain childish grace and feeling for
art. Some of the designs are wonderfully good, bold, simple, and unique,
whilst the coloured patterns often testify a richness of fancy and
comprehension of decorative art, quite astonishing in artists so
untaught. The prevailing colour is dark rich blue, reminding one of old
Wedgwood, and there is always a liberality of imagination both in shape
and ornament; no vases or dishes are alike either in the one respect or
the other. But, alas! cheap as this quaint pottery is, and plentiful as
it would be if appreciated, the manufactures of France and England are
taking its place, and by-and-by travellers will have to look far and
wide for specimens of it.
The boy seemed delighted at our appreciation of his work, and took us
into his atelier. It reminded us of the prophet who said, “I went down
into the potter’s house, and he wrought a work on the wheels,” the place
was so primitive and Eastern. The young potter sat down at his work, and
fashioned a dish for us; then he took up one already “tried in the
fire,” and showed us his manner of colouring. It was quite beautiful to
see the dexterity with which he worked, and the fondness with which he
regarded his work. We tried our hand and found the matter not so easy as
it had appeared.
When we had seen enough and made our purchases, noticing a guitar that
lay near, we asked for some music. The request was granted smilingly.
Our young potter sat down and played a fandango, his mother and one of
the younger women dancing for us. They were all so kindly pleasant, and
so amused at being able to amuse us.
We bade these nice people adieu with some regret, and hoped that all
other travellers would be guided by some lucky star to their pretty
Moorish “potter’s house.” It was pretty enough to make us forget all
other diabolical spirits haunting the Albaycin, or old town of Granada.
In the modern town, there is little to be seen excepting a very
beautiful old Moorish _passage_, with horse-shoe arches, sculptured
friezes, and delicate marble columns. Of course, this will soon be a
thing of tradition only, but whilst it lasts, it is perfectly Eastern
and very picturesque. I went out shopping several times, though it
requires an effort to quit the fairy-like region of the Alhambra, and
descend into such dingy, ill-paved, smelling streets.
One morning, to our infinite consternation, we found that we had come to
an end of our books. We looked into each other’s faces with dismay, and
turned over our treasures again and again. Yes, it was but too true. We
had read Ford from beginning to end, we had read _Don Quixote_, we had
read our beloved Street, our Stirling, our Borrow, our one volume of
Wordsworth, our guides and geographies, our _Vie de Cervantes_, again
and again; and last, but not least, our Benjamin of books, viz., Owen
Jones’ _Handbook to the Alhambra_. We had even devoured with avidity
some odd chapters of French novels, given for translation into Spanish,
in a little book recommended to me by my Spanish master in Madrid. And
as to newspapers, a number of the _Petit Journal_ would have been a mine
of wealth to us, in this intellectual desert. We had purchased a stray
copy of a Granada paper, grandiosely called, _El Triumfo Granadino_, and
found it a very poor affair indeed, made up of gossip, poor jokes,
advertisements, and feuilleton.
We were confidently assured that there were books in plenty to be
obtained in the town, English, French, or in Spanish, so I set off in
the search, Bensaken accompanying me.
“Mind,” said my friend, “and bring home something light, witty, and
entertaining. A good French novel or two, or one of the last Tauchnitz
editions.”
I promised to do my best, but experience proved that there was no
judgment to be exercised in the matter. It was simply a case of Hobson’s
choice. There was only one bookseller’s shop, and in that bookseller’s
shop was only one book--that is to say, available book. The bookseller,
a very nonchalant person indeed, smoked a cigarette, and chatted with a
neighbour, whilst I investigated his stock in trade.
On the first shelf stood a row of school-books and penny parts of cheap
illustrated editions of Cervantes, Paul de Koch, Eugene Sue, and _Gil
Blas_; on the second, were a few novels of Alex. Dumas, fils, in the
well-known green covers, at a franc each; on the third, were, firstly,
Victor Hugo’s _Travailleurs de Mer_; secondly, an odd volume of Byron;
thirdly, the American edition of Washington Irving’s _Tales of the
Alhambra_; fourthly, an English story, called _Once and Again_,
published by Tauchnitz. The first-named books we had, of course, read;
but oh! how greedily I seized upon that little English story, and
carried it home with me! How we gloried in the possession of it, and
glowed over the love-story of it! The book was by no means stirring as a
story, or first-rate as a work of art, but we had been living without
novels for months past, and it was like being made quite youthful again.
If ever it be my fate to meet the author of that little story in the
flesh, I mean to thank her for the pleasure she gave us in a bookless
“city of Tarshish.”
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