GARDENS OF THE ALCÁZAR.]
[Illustration: SAN FERNANDO SQUARE.]
the characteristics of a forest primeval; and all these, absent in
Córdova, are to be found in the Cathedral of Seville. But if this
cathedral be compared to a petrified forest, it must be to a forest of
giant trees. There is something supremely massive, colossal, mammoth, in
the huge, high pillars of this building--something which makes one
wonder, as do the Pyramids of Egypt, that human might should have
sufficed to place these monstrous stones in an upright position, and in
symmetrical rows. The Córdovan pillars are mere walking sticks in
comparison, and the ceiling which they support only one quarter as high
as that in the Seville Cathedral, which is the largest--and its tower
the highest--in Spain. So vast is its interior space that,
notwithstanding its ninety-three windows, a dim, mysterious twilight
pervades every part all day long.” Yet, although Seville is the warmest
and sunniest place in Spain, and this cathedral its coolest spot, the
flock of worshippers is very small indeed. The number of priests who
officiate at the thirty chapels and eighty-two altars, have been reduced
from 133 to 100; but it seems as if to-day one quarter that number would
suffice for all needful purposes.
[Illustration: THE ALCÁZAR, AMBASSADOR’S HALL, SEVILLE.]
The Alcázar, built on the ruins of the Roman Prætorium, was, in the
design of its creators, the principal feature in the scheme of the
city’s fortification. It was also the palace of the Moorish Kings, and
is to-day the residence of the Spanish sovereign; but the exterior, with
its masses of bare masonry and its embattled towers, still preserves
the character of a mediæval castle. The Alcázar is in an excellent state
of preservation, and its charms are bewildering; while its associations
with the crisores and amours of three races of kings lend it an historic
interest. The ornamentation of the rooms is superbly beautiful, and the
variety of designs and colours, the gold and the gems, with which the
walls are decorated, produce in the brain a feeling of tiredness and
confusion. All that is marvellous in complicated design, all that is
rich and exquisite in tone and material, all that genius and workmanship
is capable of, has been enlisted in the beautifying of this palace of
delight. One gazes from the friezes to the fairy-like columns, from the
capricious arches to the bejewelled ceilings, from the secret doors to
the lovely little windows, and in the mysterious gloom one feels again
the thrill of exaltation and amazement that only love, or wine, or the
spectacle of the sublime and the mysterious can beget. The Alcázar,
taken in conjunction with its history, is a dose of artistic and
imaginative intoxication that no living soul shall resist.
[Illustration: A DOORWAY IN THE ALCÁZAR, SEVILLE.]
Seville is instinct of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Here is the house in
which he lived, and the house in which he died: here in the picture
gallery are over a score of his paintings, and here are the originals of
the beggar-boys, which are admitted to be beyond praise. Here, too, in
the centre of the _Plaza del Museo_, is the statue of the painter that
was erected in 1866.
[Illustration: SEVILLE.
A STREET IN SEVILLE.]
[Illustration: GALLERY OF PILATE’S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY GRATING, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.]
[Illustration: THE COURT OF DOLLS, ALCÁZAR.]
Everybody who visits Seville goes to the _La Fabrica de Tabacos_; and
travellers who delight in the picturesque should not omit to make a call
at _El Corral del Conde_, where the washerwomen follow their avocation.
The crowd, the clatter of female tongues, the groupings, the attitudes,
the draperies, and the babble of children, make up a scene which would
move Mr. Beerbohm Tree to enthusiasm. The tobacco factory is, of course,
an institution, and the women employed there are made famous by the
opera of “Carmen.” The building is an enormous quadrangular edifice, and
has 28 interior _patios_; and some 5,000 women and girls are engaged in
the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes. The stories of the beauty and
diablerie of these ladies that had been told me were strangely
conflicting. From some I had gathered that they were a collection of
alluring sultanas; while others had described them as plain, coarse, and
unattractive. But I found them to be very much as I expected. They were
not all Carmens, but the majority of them were something more than
interesting, and many were downright beautiful. The architecture of the
building makes accommodation for the workers in three vast rooms, and
each room is sub-divided into three by three rows of pilasters. The
girls work in dishabille, and silence is _not_ imposed. In order to
obtain the maximum measure of freedom, they discard their finery, which
is suspended on the walls, and forms an amazing mass of black and red,
slashed with vivid streaks of white, purple, and yellow. A fancy dress
warehouse could not present a braver display of colour, nor a _corps de
ballet_ at rehearsal a sartorial exhibition of more engaging scantiness.
The whole place is alive with colours and with sound. There is no noise
but a kind of incessant buzzing. If these girls were English, their
voices would produce a clatter; but the soft, singing accents of
Andalusia, even when several hundred girls are talking altogether,
sound harmonious and soothing. The amount of pay earned varies according
to the capacity and industry of the workers, and the majority appear to
be both busy and skilful. Some there are that look dull and sleepy;
others, as we enter, are asleep with their heads pillowed on their arms,
that are crossed on the table, but they are wakened by a nudge or a
whisper; and even the most absorbed labourer finds time to give us a
glance as we pass. It is said that the morality of the tobacco workers
is a trifle loose--babies are numerous in _la Fabrica de Tabacos_. A
friend who was with me remarked their presence to the manager: “There
would seem to be more babies here than married women,” he said. “It is
possible,” was the reply, “some married women are blessed with more than
one.” We looked at our guide with questioning eyes, but he did not so
much as smile.
[Illustration: CIGAR MAKERS, SEVILLE.]
Immediately around Seville are green gardens and vineyards, and olive
and orange orchards, and beyond them the level, marshy country with
grass in plenty, in which are bred flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and
horses, and mosquitoes of singular malignity. No trees arrest the eye,
nothing but green, flat plains, traversed by roads bordered by hedgerows
of prickly pear surmounted with their yellow flowers--substantial,
business-like hedges that do not require the artificial embellishment of
barbed wire or spikes to make them deadly to would-be trespassers. Such
hedges would keep out an army--unless of course it be an army composed
of beggars, whom no fortification, natural or created,
[Illustration: SEVILLANA]
A SEVILLIAN.]
would keep out. There are beggars everywhere; sick beggars, and sorry
beggars, sad beggars, smiling beggars, blind beggars, beastly beggars,
old beggars, and baby beggars. There is no escaping them. They follow
you along the roads, crawl out in front of you from the hedges, cluster
around you if you stop to take a momentary observation. _Toujours_
beggars! You drive up to your hotel--there is a small crowd of them
awaiting you. If you hesitate a moment in handing the fare to the
driver, they hem you in on every side, whining for “Señor, una limosnita
por el amor de Diós” (“A little alms, sir, for the love of God”). A tiny
boy of some seven summers explains with dignity that he is not begging
for himself--he would scorn to beg for himself--but it is for the little
señorita, and he points to a tiny girl of four who looks pleading up at
you out of great eyes. A blind man at your elbow commences to scrape out
the ghost of a tune on a wretched fiddle, and a filthy segment of
humanity thrusts the stump of an amputated arm before your face. It is
horrible to the visitor; it is equally repulsive to the Spaniard. The
Englishman feels sick and angry: the Spaniard feels sick and sorry. The
former bolts into the shelter of his hotel with a malediction between
his teeth, the latter thrusts his hand into his pocket instinctively and
gives.
[Illustration: THE “SEVILLANAS” DANCE.]
A large number of the beggars are children, who are brought up to
mendicity as a profession, and they never desert it. They beg, as do
their similars in Naples, in Constantinople, or in Colombo, for their
fathers and mothers and for the love of God. They are so importunate, so
bright, and, in many cases, so pretty that they reap a living wage even
from the British visitors. One gets to love these Spanish children--it
is impossible to resist them. Their childish dignity and politeness, and
their eagerness to be of assistance if the opportunity presents itself,
is delightful. I remember well a little chap we encountered at the
railway station at Chinchilla, where, for reasons best known to the
railway officials, we had to change trains in the middle of the night.
He fastened on to us directly we dismounted from the train, and desired
to be made of some service. He followed us into the waiting room, and
suggested that we should commission him to notify us when our train was
due. We charged him with this mission, and so great was his zeal in the
discharge of it that he had us out again upon the platform, where we
stood, exposed to the rain and the cold night air, for a quarter of an
hour before the train arrived. He was very pleased with himself; and
when, after bundling our traps into a compartment, he was rewarded with
a whole peseta, his gratification was unbounded. He bit the piece
between his teeth, and then, approaching a porter who stood near with a
lamp in one hand and an open umbrella in the other, he got him to cast
the light of his lantern upon it. Then he took another bite at the
coin--bad money is not so rare in Spain as it is in this country--and
came back to us, and his face was one expansive smile. He climbed up to
the carriage window, as we supposed, with Feste’s importunation in his
mind: “But that it would be double dealing, sir, I would you could make
it another.” But he had only come to place himself at our entire
disposal. Were we wanting anything, he would fetch it; did we wish to
send letters, or telegrams, or messages, he would carry them. I sent him
to get me another pillow, and on his return gave him half a peseta. His
delight was humorous. He desired that God would treat me according to my
great deservings, that my journey would be a safe and comfortable one,
and that my days might be many. The bow he gave me as the train steamed
out of the station was quite worth one and a-half pesetas.
Spanish trains are invariably slow, and, as often as not, they are
overcrowded. For some reason or other, which I have failed to plomb, the
so-called fast trains travel at night, and the times are so arranged
that one generally has to leave a place and arrive at one’s destination
at about two o’clock in the morning. The Spaniard is a lover of the
night, not from poetical or sentimental motives, but because it is only
before sun-up and after sun-down that one gets a sufficiency of the
much-longed-for shade. Shade is to the Spaniard what gold is to the Jew,
or English origin is to the American. Hence the Spaniard rises early and
gets through as much work as he can before the heat of the day sets in;
hence, also, he makes his siesta as long as he can; and, consequently,
he is able and ready to pursue his business or his pleasure far into the
night. It is in the cool of the evening in Seville that one sees the
promenades full, the highways alive with splendid Andalusian
horses--when one sees in one week of evenings more feminine beauty than
can be seen anywhere else in a month.
But to return to the railways, and the subject brings to mind the
reflections and the prophecy indulged in by Ford when the undertaking
was in contemplation:--“Certainly if the rail can be laid down in Spain
by the gold and science of England, the gift like that of steam will be
worthy of the Ocean’s Queen, and one of the world’s real leaders of
civilisation: and what a change will then come over the spirit of the
Peninsula! how the siestas of torpid man vegetation will be disturbed by
the shrill whistle and panting snort of the monster engine! how the
seals of this long, hermetically-shut-up land will be broken! how the
cloistered obscure and dreams of treasures in Heaven will be enlightened
by the flashing fire-demon of the wide-awake money worshipper! what owls
will be vexed, what bats disost, what drones, mules, and asses will be
scared, run over and annihilated! Those who love Spain, and pray, like
the author, daily for her prosperity, must indeed hope to see this
‘network of rails’ concluded, but will take special care
[Illustration: SEVILLE.
HALL OF AMBASSADORS, ALCÁZAR.]
[Illustration: INTERCOLUMNIATION, WHERE DON FADRIQUE WAS ASSASSINATED,
ALCÁZAR.]
[Illustration: HALL OF AMBASSADORS, ALCÁZAR.]
[Illustration: SULTANA’S QUARTERS, ALCÁZAR.]
at the same time not to invest one farthing in the imposing
speculation.”
Richard Ford, who wrote the foregoing in 1846, was not far out in his
calculations. Although the network of rails is not yet complete, the
railroad now connects most of the principal cities of Spain, and its
introduction has been a blessing to the country. But its cost has been
enormous. French capital has been, for the most part, sunk in the
venture; and those who followed Ford’s advice, with respect to investing
their money in it, have little to complain of. The speed, which seldom
exceeds twenty miles an hour, and averages not more than ten miles, is
regulated by law, and the management of the entire system might with
advantage be reorganised. But the delays at junction stations, the
slowness of the pace, and the other inconveniences, which the traveller
accustomed to British or American railroads finds so great a trial on
his patience, are not necessarily the result of bad management. They are
rather the effects of a combination of natural causes and temperamental
prejudices. The danger incurred by the starting of rails exposed to the
full heat of the sun on sandy plains and the menace of mountain torrents
govern, to an extent, the regulation as to speed. Moreover, this is
always to be borne in mind, that the railways are primarily for the
convenience of the Spanish people, and the Spaniards are never in a
hurry. But that there is not a little red-tape about the whole thing
cannot be denied.
A short time ago I was travelling from Valencia to Barcelona by the East
Coast Railway. Rain had been falling for a week, and some doubt was
expressed as to the train being able to complete the journey. Time was
precious just then, and the only alternative route was _via_ Madrid,
which would be very much the same as going from London to Hull _via_
Cardiff. “We may be delayed,” my companion admitted, “I was twenty-four
hours late on the same journey once before, but we shall get through. We
will start, in any case--at the worst it is only an excursion.” So we
started, and the rain continued. We were within sight of Murviedro, or
Saguntum as it was known by the Romans, when the train stopped, and we
were informed that something had happened to the line just ahead of us.
Further information told of a rushing torrent which had carried away a
seven-arch bridge, and that further progress was impossible. Then a
German commercial traveller, who was in our carriage, published his
opinion aloud upon the railway system, the officials, and everything
connected with “this damned country.” He compared Spain with Germany,
and his eloquence was up to the high water mark of his indignation. He
damned everything in English, and the bridge in particular. He said that
in Germany they would have ferried the passengers over the stream,
placed them in another train which would have been awaiting on the other
side, and not lost more than an hour by the accident.
As our wait was likely to be somewhat lengthy, we decided to walk along
the rails and inspect the scene of the breakdown for ourselves, and our
German critic was surprised to find that the “stream” he had wished to
be ferried over was a mad, boiling torrent in which no boat--not even a
boat “made in Germany”--could have lived for thirty seconds. We wandered
back and interviewed the engine-driver, the guard, and the other train
officials. We were all agreed that the only thing to be done was for the
train to return to Valencia. But the engine-driver would not act without
instructions--on that point he was adamant. He wired to Barcelona, and
he wired also to Madrid, explaining the situation, and requesting
permission to return the way he had come. After four hours’ delay the
necessary orders arrived, and we looked for an immediate start on the
backward
[Illustration: ANDALUSIAN GALANTRY.]
[Illustration: ENTERTAINING THE BULL-FIGHTERS.]
[Illustration: THE BOUQUET.
THE DAWN OF ST. JOHN’S DAY IN ZARAGOZA.]
journey. But this the officials could not think of. We could not return
in that slapdash fashion--we were the 8.30 from Valencia to Barcelona,
and if we went bundling back into Valencia like an old tramp steamer
that had sprung a leak, the entire railway system of the country would
be thrown into confusion. The point was debated warmly, but without
haste; and, eventually, the engine-driver, who had been consulting his
time-table, discovered that if we waited a further couple of hours we
should be able to re-enter Valencia with our dignity unimpaired as the
4.47 from Barcelona. Which we did, and nobody but the German appeared to
see anything foolish or unmethodical in this solution of the difficulty.
“You do not find the arrangement incongruous?” asked my companion, for
the German was still swearing. I smiled. “For three months I was a
season ticket holder on a certain South of England railway,” I
explained.
But if the railway system of Spain has its drawbacks, it is the
embodiment of luxury and speed compared with the old-fashioned posting
facilities for those who are in a hurry. If time is no object, and the
weather is fine, there is no pleasanter way of seeing the country. The
engine is of course driving the mule team further and further from the
large cities, but the delights of posting are not yet banished from the
Peninsula. In the northern provinces posting is still very general, and
in many parts it is excellent. The oaths of the drivers would,
doubtless, shock the unaccustomed ear that was sufficiently versed in
the jargon of the road to understand it, but the pace leaves nothing to
be desired. The Spaniard is a born muleteer; and, as I have invariably
found him, a good fellow. His vocabulary of objurations is varied and
peculiar, and he keeps it in first-class working order by continual
practice. The customs of the road are like the laws of the Medes and
Persians in their unalterableness. You may improve the diligence off
the road, but while it remains on it, it cannot be improved. A French
minister described the stage as a “clumsy, inconvenient carriage drawn
by mules which have no other spur or rein than the voice of their
guides. On seeing them harnessed together and to the shafts merely by
cords, and observing them traversing as it were at random the winding
and sometimes unfrequented roads of the Peninsula, the traveller at
first conceives himself as deriving all his dependence for safety from
the care and kindness of Providence: but on the slightest appearance of
danger, a simple and short exclamation from the _mayoral_ restrains and
directs these tractable animals.”
The foregoing, which might have been written yesterday, was, as a matter
of fact, indicted a hundred years ago. It is evident that the worthy
French minister did not understand the purport of those “simple and
short” exclamations, and I am inclined to think, from his remarks upon
the tractability of the animals, that he must have been asleep when the
start was made. For the mules appear to entertain a rooted and
conscientious objection to starting, and the scene is diverting. All the
skill and patience and language of the _mayoral_, and the united efforts
of ostlers, helpers, and all the hangers-on of a posthouse are required
to persuade them to take the first step. For several minutes one’s ears
are assailed with a perfect tornado of shouts, and orders, imprecations,
and deprecations; which, beginning with “Anda!” (Go) “Anda!” “Anda!”
invariably end, when breath and patience are exhausted, in an
abbreviated form of “Da! Da! Da!” and then, after a good deal of
kicking, the team starts suddenly across the road or over a heap of
stones, with an occasional leg over the traces, at a pace that threatens
to bring the carriage and its cargo to inevitable grief. Only a Spanish
muleteer could bring this riotous team into order, and pilot
[Illustration: AT THE FOUNTAIN, CÓRDOVA.]
[Illustration: A SEVILLIAN PATIOS.]
[Illustration: AT THE SPRING, CÓRDOVA.]
them with such patience until they drop into a more moderate pace. Ford
has described those exciting starts, and the motion of the “dilly,” as
away it goes, “pitching over ruts deep as routing prejudices, with its
pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea.”
It goes without saying that the observant Ford did not fail to note the
vituperative supremacy of the Spanish muleteer. “Their language,” he
tells us, “is limited only by the extent of their anatomical,
geographical, astronomical, and religious knowledge: it is so
plentifully bestowed on their animals--‘un muletier a ce jeu vaut trois
rois’--that oaths and imprecations seem to be considered as the only
language a mute creation can comprehend: and as actions are generally
suited to the words, the combination is remarkably effective.... The
Spanish oath is used as a verb, as a substantive, as an adjective, just
as it suits the grammar or the wrath of the utterer.” But why, the
reader may ask, does the _mayoral_ swear to this degree, or with this
fluency? Unless it is a part of his habit, I cannot answer. It is told
that a traveller once asked the same question, and received a similar
reply. The _mayoral_ had uttered an oath of such peculiar force and
aptness that a fellow traveller remarked upon it with good humoured
appreciation: “That’s one on the devil!” “But why?” queried the seeker
for information, “why does he swear so?” The Spaniard stared in
astonishment. “Because he is the _mayoral_!” was all he said.
In Southern Andalusía.
Idle as a “painted ship upon a painted ocean,” fair Cadiz sleeps beneath
her white mantle and dreams of the succeeding storms that she has
endured since Hercules brought her into being eleven hundred years
before the advent of the Messiah. For century after century Cadiz played
her important part in the world--the world that ended at her glistening
shores. Yet it might, from external evidence, have been built yesterday,
and whitewashed this morning. But beneath that white covering lies the
rust of three thousand years. The natives compare their spotless city to
a silver dish; Fernan Caballero describes it as an ivory model set in
emeralds. It is an architectural symbol of purity. Extreme neatness and
scrupulous cleanliness are its leading characteristics--white is its
prevailing and only colour. The Venice of Spain, so far as my
opportunities of making a comparison extends, is decidedly the best-kept
city in the Peninsula. The impression is heightened by the ever-ready
brush of the whitewasher, which keeps the houses and walls in the most
immaculate condition.