[Illustration: A MANDURRA SOLO.]
SPANISH VISTAS
BY
GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP
_ILLUSTRATED_
BY
CHARLES S. REINHART
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1883
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
* * * * *
_All rights reserved._
TO
FRANCES M. LATHROP
WHOSE TASTE FOR TRAVEL AND OBSERVATION EARLY PROMPTED HIS OWN
These Sketches are Dedicated
BY HER SON
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
The two great Mediterranean peninsulas which, in opposite quarters, jut
southward where--as George Eliot says, in her "Spanish Gypsy"--
"Europe spreads her lands
Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep,"
may not inaptly be likened to a brother and sister, instead of taking
their places under the usual similitude of "sister countries." They have
points of marked resemblance, in their picturesqueness, their treasures
of art, their associations of history and romance; but, just as the
physical aspect of Spain and its shape upon the map are broader, more
thick-set and rugged than the slender form and flowing curves of Italy,
so the Spanish language--with its Arabic gutturals interspersed among
melodious linguals and vowel sounds--has been called the masculine
development of that Southern speech of which the Italian presents the
feminine side. The people of both countries exhibit a similar excitable,
ardent quality in their characters; but the national temperament of the
Spaniards is, perhaps, somewhat hardier, more virile, and sturdier in
its passionateness.
It seems to be true that, while the Greek spirit transferred itself to
Italy in the days of Augustus, renewing its influence at the period of
the Renaissance, and leaving upon people and manners an impress never
since quite effaced--an influence tending toward a certain feminine
refinement--the spirit of Rome also transferred itself to the subject
country, Hispania, and imbued that region with the strong, austere, or
wilful characteristics of purely Latin civilization, which are still
traceable there.
But, however we may account for the phenomena, it is likely that the
mingled contrasts and resemblances of Italy and Spain will more and more
induce travellers to visit the Iberian Peninsula. Italy has now been so
thoroughly depicted in all its larger phases, from the foreigner's point
of view, that investigation must hereafter chiefly be concerned with the
study of special and local features. Spain, on the other hand, offers
itself to the general observer and to the tourist as a field scarcely
more explored than Italy was forty or fifty years ago; and the evidence
is abundant that the current of travel is setting vigorously in this
direction. With the extension of a railroad system and the incursion of
sight-seeing strangers in larger number, we must of course expect that
many of the most interesting peculiarities of the people will undergo
modification and at length disappear. This, however, cannot be helped;
and the following chapters, at the same time that they may encourage and
aid those who are destined to bring about such changes, may also serve
to arrest and preserve for future reference the actual appearance of
Spain to-day.
Much might be written, with the certainty of an eager audience,
concerning the present political condition of the country, by any one
who had had opportunities for examining it; and Mr. John Hay, a few
years ago, gave some glimpses of it in his charming volume, "Castilian
Days." My own brief sojourn afforded no adequate opportunity for such
observation. But it may be not inadmissible to record here one of the
casual remarks which came to my notice in this connection. On a
Mediterranean steamer I met with an exceedingly bright and healthy man
of the middle class, fairly well educated--one of those specimens of
solid, temperate, active manhood fortunately very common in Spain, on
whom the future of the country really depends--and, noticing from my
lame speech that I was not a native, he asked me, guardedly, if I was an
Englishman.
"No," I said; "I am an American of the North, of the United States."
His manner changed at once; he thawed: more than that, his face lighted
with hope, as if he had found a powerful friend, and he gazed at me with
a certain delighted awe, attributing to my humble person a glory for
which I was in no way responsible. "You are a republican, then!" he
exclaimed.
"Yes."
He gave me another long, silent look, and then confessed that he, too,
was a firm believer in republicanism.
"Are there many Spaniards now of that party?" I inquired.
His reply showed that he appreciated the difficulties of the national
problem. "Party!" he cried. "Listen: in Spain there is a separate
political party for every man." After a slight pause he added, bitterly,
"Sometimes, _two_!"
It may still be said with a good deal of accuracy, though not of course
with the literalness and the sweeping application that Paul de Saint
Victor gave the words, in speaking of the French Charles II.'s reign,
that "Spain no more changes than the arid zone that encircles a volcano.
Kings pass, dynasties are renewed, events succeed each other, but the
foundation remains immobile, and Philip II. still rules."
I have not attempted to review political matters; and neither have I
tried to give an exhaustive account of the country in any other respect.
The pictures which I have given I have endeavored to make vivid and
faithful; and, if I have succeeded, they will present the essential
characteristics of Spain. What has thus been the object of the text has
certainly been attained in the drawings by Mr. Reinhart, which supply
much the greater part of the illustrations in this volume. Made after
sketches from life, which were prepared with unflagging zeal, and often
under great difficulties, they frequently tell more than language can
convey. Their graphic touch, their variety and humor, their technical
merit, give them the best of recommendations; but a word of distinct
recognition is due here to the artist for the fidelity and spirit with
which he has reproduced so many scenes peculiar to the country.
It is hoped that the concluding chapter of "Hints to Travellers" will
prove useful, as supplying certain information not always accessible in
guide-books, and also as condensing the practical particulars of the
subject in a convenient form.
THE WAYSIDE, _Concord_, _April 1, 1883._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
_FROM BURGOS TO THE GATE OF THE SUN_ 1
_THE LOST CITY_ 34
_CORDOVAN PILGRIMS_ 70
_ANDALUSIA AND THE ALHAMBRA_ 103
_MEDITERRANEAN PORTS AND GARDENS_ 152
_HINTS TO TRAVELLERS_ 186
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
A MANDURRA SOLO _Frontispiece_
INITIAL LETTER 1
TWO ASSASSINS IN LONG CLOAKS 2
THE NIGHT-WATCH 4
DANCING BOYS 6
THE ARCH OF ST. MARY 8
PEASANTS IN THE MARKET-PLACE 11
IN THE MIRADOR 13
LANDSCAPE BETWEEN BURGOS AND MADRID 17
THE PLAZA MAYOR 21
WATER-DEALER 23
OLD ARTILLERY PARK 24
THE ESCORIAL 25
ON THE ROAD TO THE BULL-FIGHT 27
PLAN OF THE BULL-RING 28
A STREET SCENE 32
TAIL-PIECE 33
INITIAL LETTER 34
ENTRANCE TO TOLEDO 35
THE NARROW WAY 36
SPANISH PEASANT (from a Drawing By William M. Chase) 37
SINGING GIRL 41
CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN OF THE KINGS 42
A BIT OF CHARACTER 43
SPANISH SOLDIERS PLAYING DOMINOS 44
A NARROW STREET 45
WOMAN WITH BUNDLE 46
THE SERENADERS 47
A PLENTIFUL SUPPLY OF PLATES 50
THE TOILET--A SUNDAY SCENE 51
A TOLEDO PRIEST 53
TOLEDO SERVITORS AT THE FOUNTAIN 55
A PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR 57
A GROUP OF MENDICANTS 58
A PATIO IN TOLEDO 59
THE HOME OF "SOLITUDE" 61
"MEN AND BOYS SLUMBER OUT-OF-DOORS EVEN IN THE HOT SUN"67
A STRANGE FUNERAL 68
TAIL-PIECE 69
INITIAL LETTER 70
WHETSTONE 71
COFFEE AT CASTILLEJO 72
PRIMITIVE THRASHING 74
WHILE THE WOMEN ARE AT MASS 75
WATER-STAND IN CORDOVA 77
THE GAY COSTER-MONGERS OF ANDALUSIA 79
THE MEZQUITA 80
RELIC PEDDLERS 81
THE GARDEN OF THE ALCAZAR 83
PRIEST AND PURVEYOR 85
FLOWERS FOR THE MARKET 85
TRAVELLERS TO CORDOVA 87
"ARRÉ, BURR-R-RICO!" 89
THE FRUIT OF THE DESIERTA 94
MEMENTO MORI 97
DIFFICULT FOR FOREIGNERS 101
THE JASMINE GIRL 101
INITIAL LETTER 103
MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE CATHEDRAL, SEVILLA
(from a Photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid) 105
THE GIRALDA TOWER
(from a Photograph By J. Laurent & Co., Madrid) 107
THE "UNDERGROUND" MAIL 109
A STREET CORNER 115
FIGARO 118
"STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE" 121
IN "THE SERPENT" 123
"ALL THE DAY I AM HAPPY" 127
GRANADA UNDERTAKER 130
THE MOORISH GATE, SEVILLA 131
A WATER-CARRIER 133
BIT OF ARCH IN A COURT OF THE ALHAMBRA
(from a Photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid) 137
THE TOILET TOWER
(from a Photograph by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid) 139
BOUDOIR OF LINDARAXA 141
GYPSIES 150
INITIAL LETTER 152
GYPSY DANCE 154
A SPANISH MONK 158
TRANSPORTATION OF POTTERY 160
GARLIC VENDER 161
DIVING FOR COPPERS 164
A MODERN SANCHO PANZA 167
STREET BARBER 168
BIBLES _VERSUS_ MELONS 169
CUSTOMS OFFICERS 171
POST INN, ALICANTE 172
ALICANTE FRUIT-SELLER 173
METHOD OF IRRIGATION NEAR VALENCIA 175
CHURCH OF SANTA CATALINA, VALENCIA 176
A VALENCIA CAB 178
BARCELONA FISHERMEN 180
TAIL-PIECE 185
INITIAL LETTER 186
ST. JOHN AT BURGOS--CHERUBS IN ADORATION 210
SPANISH VISTAS.
_FROM BURGOS TO THE GATE OF THE SUN._
I.
[Illustration: W]
We took our places, for the performance was about to begin. The scene
represented a street in Burgos, the long-dead capital of old Castile.
Time: night.
Ancient houses on either side the stage narrow back to an archway in the
centre, opening through to a pillared walk and a dimly moonlit space
beyond. Muffled figures occasionally pass the aperture.
Suddenly enters Don Ramiro--or Alvar Nuñez, I really don't know
which--and advances toward the front. To our surprise he does not open
the play with a set speech or any explanation, but continues to advance
until he disappears somewhere under our private box, as if he were going
from this street of the play into some other adjoining street, just as
in actual life. A singular freak of realism! He is closely pursued,
however, by two assassins in long cloaks, who, like all the other
figures we have seen, move noiselessly in soft shoes or canvas sandals.
Presently a shriek resounds from the quarter toward which Don Ramiro
betook himself. Have they succeeded in catching him, and is that the
sound of his mortal agony? We have just concluded that this is the
meaning of the clamor, when, after a second or two, the shriek resolves
itself into laughter. Then we begin to recall that we didn't pay
anything on entering; and, as we glance up toward the folded curtain
above the scene, discover that its place is occupied by the starry sky.
The houses, too, have a singularly solid look, and do not appear to be
painted. While all this has been dawning upon us, we become conscious
that the mixed sound of agony or mirth just heard was merely the signal
of amusement caused to certain wandering Spaniards by some convulsingly
funny episode; and the next moment their party comes upon the scene at
about the point where the foot-lights ought to be. They exchange a
good-night; some go off, and others thunder at sundry doors with ancient
knockers, awaking mediæval echoes in the dingy thoroughfares, without
causing any great surprise to the neighborhood.
[Illustration: TWO ASSASSINS IN LONG CLOAKS.]
In truth, we had simply been looking from the window of an inn at which
we had just arrived; but everything had grouped itself in such a way
that it was hard to comprehend that we were not at the theatre. That day
we had been hurled over the Pyrenees, and landed in the dark at our
first Peninsular station; then, facing a crowd of fierce, uncouth faces
at the depôt door, we had somehow got conveyed to the Inn of the North
through narrow, cavernous streets, brightened only by the feeble light
of a few lost lanterns, and so found ourselves staring out upon our
first picturesque night in Spain. The street or plazuela below us,
though now deserted, went on conducting itself in a most melodramatic
manner. Big white curtains hung in front of the iron balconies, flapping
voluminously, or were drawn back to admit the cool night air. Crickets
chirped loudly from hidden crevices of masonry, and a well-contrived bat
sailed blindly over the roofs in the penumbral air, through which the
moon was slowly rising. Lights went in and out; some one was seen
cooking a late supper in one dwelling; windows were opened and shut, and
a general appearance of haunting ghosts was kept up. Now and then a
woman came to the balcony and chatted with unseen neighbors across the
way about the festival of the morrow. By-and-by one side of the street
blew its lamps out and prepared for bed; but the wakeful side insisted
on talking to the sleepy one for some time longer, until warned by the
cry of the night-watch that midnight had come. Anything more desolate
and peculiar than this cry I have never heard. It was a long-drawn,
melancholy sounding of the hour, with a final "All's well!" terminating
in a minor cadence which seemed to drop the voice back at once into the
Middle Ages. This same chant may have resounded from the days of Lain
Calvo and the old judges of Castile unaltered, and for a time it made me
fancy that the little Gothic town had returned to its musty youth. We
were walled into a sleepy feudal stronghold once more, and perhaps at
that very moment the Cid was celebrating his nuptials with Ximena,
daughter of the count he had murdered for an insult, in the old ruined
citadel up there on the hill, above the cathedral spires. But the
watchman came and went, and the present resumed its sway. He passed
with slow step, in a big cloak and queer cap, carrying a long bladed
staff, and a lantern which cast swaying squares of light around his
feet; silent as a black ghost, and seeming to have been called into life
only with the lighting of his lamp-wick. But, after he had disappeared,
the lonely quaver of his cry returned to us from farther and farther
away, penetrating into the comfortless apartment to which we now retired
for sleep.
[Illustration: THE NIGHT-WATCH.]
The Inn of the North was dirty and unkempt; a frightful odor from the
donkey-stable and other sources streamed up into our window between
shutters heavy as church doors; and the descant of the watch, relieved
by violent cock-crows, disturbed us all night. Nevertheless, we awoke
with a good deal of eagerness when the alert young woman with dark pink
cheeks and snapping eyes who served us came to the door with chocolate
and bread, water and _azucarillos_, betimes next morning. It was the
festival of Corpus Christi; but although every one was going to see the
procession, no one could tell us anything about it. Unless he be
extraordinarily shrewd, a foreigner can hardly help arriving in Spain on
some kind of a feast-day. When the people cannot get up a whole holiday,
they will have a fractional one. You go about the streets cheerfully,
thinking you will buy something at leisure in the afternoon; but when
you approach the shop commerce has vanished, and is out taking a walk,
or drinking barley-water in honor of some obscure saint. You engage a
guide and carriage to visit some public building, and both guide and
carriage are silent as to the religious character of the day until you
arrive and find the place shut, when full price, or at least half, is
confidently demanded. Church feasts are a matter of course, but you are
expected to know about them, and questions are considered out of place.
In this case we had kept Corpus Christi in mind, and as Burgos is a
small place, the "function" could not by any possibility escape us.
The garrison turned out, and military music played in the procession,
but otherwise it was a quaint reproduction of the antique. The quiet
streets, innocent of traffic, were filled with peasants whose garments,
odoriferous with age and dirt, made a dazzle of color, especially the
bright yellow flannel skirts of the women, and the gay handkerchief
which men and women alike employ here. Sometimes it is worn around the
shoulders, sometimes around the head, and sometimes both: but everywhere
and always handkerchiefs are brought into play as essentials. From
almost every balcony, too, hung bedquilts, or sheets scalloped with red
and blue, in emulation of the tapestries and banners that once graced
these occasions. Amid a tumultuous tumbling of bells up amid the carven
gray stone-work of the cathedral, the candles and images and tonsured
priests, clad in resplendent copes, moved forth, attended by civil
functionaries in swallow-tailed coats or old crimson robes of the
twelfth century. But the prettiest sight, and a much more striking one
than the gilt effigies of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen and the rest,
under toy canopies and wreathed with false flowers, was that of two
little boys, nude except for the snowy lamb-skins they wore, who
personated Christ and St. John. The Christ rode on a lamb, and kept his
head very steady under a big curled wig made after the old masters. We
saw him afterward in his father's arms, still holding his hands
prayerfully, as he had been drilled, with a look of sweet, childish awe
in his face.
[Illustration: DANCING BOYS.]
When the procession was about to return, we were amazed, in gazing at
the small street from which it should emerge, to behold eight huge
figures, looking half as high as the houses, in long robes, and with
placidly unreal expressions on their gigantic faces, advancing with that
peculiar unconscious gait due to human leg-power when concealed under
papier-maché monsters. It took but a glance, as they filed out and
aligned themselves on the small sunny square, to recognize in them the
Kings of the Earth, come in person to do homage before the Christ. One
bore a crown and ermine as insignia of the Castilian line; others were
Moors; and even China was represented. After them danced a dozen boys,
in pink tunics and bell-crowned hats of drab felt quaintly beribboned,
throwing themselves about fantastically, with snapping fingers and
castanets. They formed in two ranks, just under the grand shadowy
entrance arch, to receive the pageant. A drummer and two _flautistas_ in
festive attire accompanied them; and whenever a monstrance or holy image
was borne past, the flutes mingled with the drum eccentric bagpipe
discords, at which the boys broke into a prancing jig and rattled their
castanets to express their devout joy. Two other men in harlequin dress,
wearing tall, pointed hats, stood on the edge of the eager crowd, and
belabored those who pressed too close with horse-hair switches attached
by a long cord to slender sticks. This part of the performance was
conducted with great energy and seriousness, and seemed to be received
with due reverence by the thick heads which got hit. A more heathenish
rite than this jig at the sanctuary gate could hardly be imagined.
"Are these things possible, and is this the nineteenth century?"
exclaimed my friend and companion, who, however, had been guilty of an
indigestion that day.
I confess that for myself I enjoyed the dance, and could not help being
struck by the contrast of this boyish gayety with the heavy gorgeousness
of the priests and the immobile frown of the sculptured figures on the
massive ogee arch.[1] Then when the Host was carried by in the
_custodia_, and the motley crowd kneeled and bared their heads, we sunk
to the pavement with them, our knees being assisted possibly by the
statement we had heard that, a few years since, blows or knives were the
prompt reward of non-conformity. Afterward, when secular amusements
ensued, our boys went about, stopping now and then in open places to
execute strange dances, with hoops and ribbons and wooden swords, for
the general enjoyment. A gleeful sight they made against backgrounds of
old archways, or perhaps the mighty Arch of Santa Maria, one of the
local glories, peopled with statues of ancient counts and knights and
rulers.
[Illustration: THE ARCH OF ST. MARY.]
No Spanish town is without its paseo--its public promenade; and in
Burgos this is supplied by The Spur--a broad esplanade skirting the
shrunken river, with borders of chubby shade trees and shrubbery. On
Corpus Christi the citizens also turned out in the arcades of the Main
Plaza. Here, and later in the dusty dusk of The Spur, they crowded and
chatted, in accordance with native ideas of enjoyment; and except that
their mantillas and shoulder-veils[2] made a difference, the señoras and
señoritas might have passed for Americans, so delicate were their
features, so trim their daintily-attired figures, though perhaps they
hadn't a coin in their pockets. The men had the universal Iberian habit
of carrying their light overcoats folded over the left shoulder; but
their quick nervous expression and spare faces would have been quite in
place on Wall Street. Spanish ladies are allowed far more liberty than
the French or English in public; but though they walked without male
escort, they showed remarkable skill in avoiding any direct look at men
from their own lustrous eyes. During the accredited hours of the paseo,
however, gallants and friends are suffered to walk close behind them--so
close that the entire procession often comes to a stand-still--and to
whisper complimentary speeches into their ears; no one, not even
relatives of the damsels, resenting this freedom.
At Las Huelgas, a famous convent near the town, much resorted to by nuns
of aristocratic family (even the Empress Eugénie it was thought would
retire thither after her son's death), the fête was renewed next day;
and it was here that we saw beggars in perfection. A huge stork's nest
was perched high on one end of the chapel, as on many churches of Spain.
Bombs were fired above the crowd from the high square tower that rose
into the hot air not far from the inner shrine; and in the chapel below
the nuns were at their devotions, caged behind heavy iron lattices that
barely disclosed their picturesque head-dress. Meanwhile peasants and
burghers wandered aimlessly about, looking at pictures, relics, and
inscriptions in an outer arcade; after which the holiday of the people
began. Holiday here means either walking or sleeping. In a sultry, dusty
little square by the convent, covered with trees, the people went to
sleep, or sat talking, and occasionally eating or drinking with much
frugality. The first object that had greeted us by daylight in Burgos
was a marvellous mendicant clad in an immense cloak, one mass of
patches--in fact, a monument of indigence--carrying on his head a mangy
fur cap, with a wallet at his waist to contain alms. The beggars
assembled at Las Huelgas were quite as bad, except that they mostly had
the good taste to remain asleep. In any attitude, face down or up, on
stone benches or on the grass, they dozed at a moment's notice, reposing
piously. One sat for a long time torpid near us, but finally mustered
energy to come and entreat us. He received a copper, whereupon he kissed
the coin, murmured a blessing, and again retreated to his shadow.
Another, having acquired something from some other source, halted near
us to find his pocket. He searched long among his rags, and plunged
fiercely into a big cavity which exposed his dirty linen; but this
proved to be only a tear in his trousers, and he was at last obliged to
tie his treasure to a voluminous string around his waist, letting it
hang down thence into some interior vacancy of rags.
It may not be generally known that beggars are licensed in Spain.
Veteran soldiers, instead of receiving a pension, are generously endowed
with official permission to seek charity; the Church gives doles to the
poor, and citizens consider it a virtue to relieve the miserable objects
who petition for pence at every turn. As we came from Las Huelgas we saw
the maimed and blind and certain more robust paupers creeping up to the
door of a church, where priests were giving out food. A little farther
on an emaciated crone at a bridge-head, with eyes shut fast in sleep,
lifted her hand mechanically and repeated her formula. We were convinced
that, since she could do this in her slumbers, she must have been
satisfied with merely dreaming of that charity we did not bestow.
It was a favorable season for the beggars, and many of them sunned their
bodies, warped and scarred by hereditary disease, on the cathedral
steps. But professional enterprise with them was constantly hindered by
the tendency to nap. One old fellow I saw who, feeling a brotherhood
between himself and the broken-nosed statues, had mounted into a
beautiful niche there and coiled himself in sleep, first hauling his
wooden leg up after him like a drawbridge.
Meanwhile the peasants kept on swarming into the town, decorating it
with their blue and red and yellow kerchiefs and kirtles, as with a mass
of small moving banners. The men wore vivid sashes, leather leggings,
and laced sandals. It was partly for enjoyment they came, and partly to
sell produce. All alike were to be met with at noon, squatting down in
any sheltered coigne of street or square, every group with a bowl in its
midst containing the common dinner. There were also little
eating-houses, in which they regaled themselves on bread and sardines,
with a special cupful of oil thrown in, or on salt meat. A lively trade
in various small articles was carried on in the Main Plaza; among them
loaves of tasteless white bread, hard as tiles, and delicious cherries,
recalling the farms of New York. Another product was offered, the
presence of which in large quantity was like a sarcasm. This was Castile
soap. It must have taken an immense effort of imagination on the part of
these people to think of manufacturing an article for which they have so
little use. I am bound to add that I did not see an ounce of it sold;
and I have my suspicions that the business is merely a traditional
one--the same big cheese-like chunks being probably brought out at every
fair and fête, as a time-honored symbol of Castilian prosperity. But,
after all, so devout a community must be convinced that it possesses
godliness; and having that, what do they need of the proximate virtue?
This is the region where the inhabitants refer to themselves as "old and
rancid Castilians;" and the expression is appropriate.
[Illustration: PEASANTS IN THE MARKET-PLACE.]
The most intolerable odor pervaded the whole place. It was a singular
mixture, arising from the trustful local habit of allowing every kind
of garbage and ordure to disperse itself without drainage, and
complicated with fumes of oil, garlic, general mustiness, and a whiff or
two of old incense. The potency of olive-oil, especially when somewhat
rank, none can know who have not been in Spain. That first steak--how
tempting it looked among its potatoes, but how abominably it tasted! We
never approached meat with the same courage afterward, until our senses
were subdued to the level of fried oil. Combine this with the odor of
corruption, and you have the insinuating quality which we soon noticed
even in the wine--perhaps from the custom of transporting it in badly
dressed pig-skins, which impart an animal flavor. This astonishing local
atmosphere saluted us everywhere; it was in our food and drink; we
breathed it and dreamed of it. Yet the Burgalese flourished in calm
unconsciousness thereof. The splendidly blooming peasant women showed
their perfect teeth at us; and the men, in broad-brimmed, pointed caps
and embroidered jackets, whose feet were brown and earthy as tree-roots,
laughed outright, strong in the knowledge of their traditionary soap, at
our ignorant foreign clothes and over-washed hands! Among the humbler
class were some who were prepared to sell labor--an article not much in
demand--and they were even more calmly squalid than the beggars. They
sat in ranks on the curb-stones of the plaza, a matchless array of
tatters; and if they could have been conveyed without alteration to
Paris or New York, there would have been sharp competition for them
between the artists and paper-makers.
So my companion, the artist, assured me--whom, by-the-way, in order to
give him local color, I had rechristened Velazquez. But as he shrank
from the large implication of this name, I softened him down to
Velveteen.
We had been twenty-four hours in Burgos before we saw a carriage,
excepting only the hotel coach, which stood most of the time without
horses in front of the door, and was used by the porter as a private
gambling den and loafing place for himself and his friends. When wheels
did roll along the pavements they awoke a roar as of musketry. Perhaps
the most important event which took place during our stay--it was
certainly regarded with a more feverish interest by the inhabitants than
the Corpus Christi ceremonies--was the bold act of our landlady, who
went out to drive in a barouche, while her less daring spouse hung out
of the window weakly staring at her. The house-fronts were filled with
well-dressed feminine heads, witnessing the departure; a grave old
gentleman opposite left his book and glared out intently. When the
wheels could no longer even be heard, he turned to gaze wistfully in the
opposite direction, dimly hoping that life might vouchsafe him a
carriage.
[Illustration: IN THE MIRADOR.]
Although, as I have said, women avoid meeting male glances when on the
sidewalk, they enjoy full license to stand at their high windows, which
are called _miradores_, or "lookers," and contemplate with entire
freedom all things or persons that pass; which, in view of the complete
listlessness of their lives, is a fortunate dispensation. Existence in
Burgos is essentially life from the window point of view. It proceeds
idly, and as a sort of accidental spectacle. Yet there is for strangers
a dull fascination in wandering about the narrow, silent streets, and
contemplating ancient buildings, the chiselled ornaments and armorial
bearings of which recall the wealth and nobility that once inhabited
them during the great days of the town. Where have all the dominant
families gone? Are they keeping store, or tending the railroad station?
Their descendants are sometimes only too happy if they can get some
petty government office at five hundred dollars a year. I strolled one
afternoon into the Calle de la Calera, and through a shabby archway
penetrated to a stately old ruined court, around which ran an
inscription in stone, declaring this palace to have been reared by an
abbot of aristocratic line a century or two since. It is used now as an
oil factory. A pretty girl was looking out over a flower-pot in an upper
window, and, as I strayed up the noble staircase, I met a sad-looking
gentleman coming down, who I afterward learned was a widower, formerly
resident in Paris, but now returned with his daughter to this strange
domicile in his native place. Some of the lower rooms, again, were
devoted to plebeians and donkeys.
The humble ass, by-the-way, begins to thrust himself meekly upon you as
soon as you set foot in the Peninsula, and you must look sharp if you
wish to keep out of his way. His cheap labor has ruined and driven out
the haughtier equine stock of Arabia that once pawed this devoted soil.
Even the Cid, however, did not boast a barb of the desert in the earlier
days of his prowess; for when King Alfonso bade him quit the land, "then
the Cid clapped spurs to the mule upon which he rode, and vaulted into a
piece of ground which was his own inheritance, and answered, 'Sire, I am
not in your land, but in my own.'" This little incident occurred near
Burgos, and the drowsy city still keeps some dim memory of that great
Warrior Lord the Cid Campeador, Rodrigo de Bivar, whose quaint story,
full of hardihood, robbery, and cruelty, gallant deeds and grim pathos,
trails along the track of his adventures through half of Spain. But
there is a curious cheapness and indifference in the memorials of him
preserved. In the Town-hall, for the sum of ten cents, you are admitted
to view the modern walnut receptacle wherein all that is left of him is
economically stored. Those puissant bones, which went through so many
hard fights against the Moors, are seen lying here, dusty and loose,
with those of Ximena, under the glass cover. Among them reposes a portly
corked bottle, in which minor fragments of the warrior lord were placed
after the moving of his remains from the Convent of San Pedro in chains,
where for many years he occupied a more seemly tomb. Imagine George
Washington, partially bottled and wholly disjointed, on exhibition under
glass! The Spaniards, in no way disconcerted by the incongruity, have
graven on the brass plate of the case a high-sounding inscription; but
a tribute as genuine and not less valuable, though humbler, was the big,
spruce-looking modern wagon I saw in the market-place one day, driven by
an energetic farmer, and bearing on its side the title _El Cid_.
One would look to see the conqueror's dust richly inurned within the
cathedral--a noble outgrowth of the thirteenth century, enriched by
accretions of later work until its whitish stone and wrought marble
connect the Early Pointed style with that of the Renaissance in its
flower. But perhaps this temple has enough without the Cid. Strangely
placed on the side of a hill, with houses attached to one corner, as if
it had sprung from the homes and hearts of the people, it seems to hold
down the swelling ground with its massive weight; yet the spires,
through the open-work of which the stars may be seen at night, rise with
such lightness you would think the heavy bells might make them tremble
and fall. I passed an hour of peace and fresh air above the fetid
streets, looking down from the citadel hill on these pinnacles, while
around and below them lay the town--an irregular mass of gray and mauve
pierced with deep shadows--in the midst of bare, rolling uplands. Before
the fair high altar hangs the victorious banner of Ferdinand VII.,
recalling to the people the great battle of Tolosa Plains. And when one
sees peasants--rough spots of color in the sombre choir--studying the
dark, fruit-like wood-carvings through which the Bible story wreathes
itself in panel after panel, one feels the teaching power of these old
churches for the unlettered. In one of the corner chapels appears
another less favorable phase of such teaching, in the shape of a
miracle-working Christ, amid deep shadows and dim lantern-light,
stretched on the cross, and draped with a satin crinoline. This doubtful
reverence of putting a short skirt on the figure of the Saviour, often
practiced in Spain, may perhaps mark an influence unconsciously received
from the Moorish dislike for nudity. The cathedral bells were
continually clanging the summons to mass or vespers, and their loud
voices, though cracked and inharmonious, seemed still to assert the
supremacy of ecclesiastical power. But while a priest occasionally
darkened the sidewalks, many others, on account of the growing prejudice
against them, went about in frock-coats and ordinary tall hats. And
under all its crowning beauty the old minster, motionless in the centre
of the stagnant town--its chief entrance walled up, and a notice painted
on its Late Roman façade warning boys not to play ball against the
tempting masonry--wore the look of some neglected and half-blind thing,
once glorious, symbol of a power abruptly stayed in its prodigious
career.
Meanwhile the daily history of Burgos went on its wonted way, sleepy but
picturesque--a sort of illuminated prose. Women chaffered in the
blue-tiled fish-market; the _bourgeoisie_ patronized the sweetmeat
shops, of which there were ten on the limited chief square; the
tambourine-maker varied this ornamental industry with the construction
of the more practical sieve; a peasant passed with a bundle of
purple-flowering vetches on his head for fodder, and another drove six
milch goats through the streets, seeking a purchaser. To this last one
the proprietor of the principal book-store came running out to see if he
could strike a bargain. One morning I met an uncouth countryman and his
stout wife on the red-tiled landing of the inn stairs (they bowed and
courtesied to me) with chickens and eggs for sale. In this simple manner
our hotel was supplied. All the bread was got, a few pieces at a time,
from a small bakery across the plazuela, in a dark cellar just under the
niche of a neglected stone saint--a new arrival causing our maid to run
hurriedly thither for a couple of rolls; and the water also came from
some neighbor's well in earthen jars. The barber even exercises his
primitive function in Burgos: he is called a "bleeder," and announces on
his shop sign that "teeth and molars" are extracted there. Democratic
and provincial the atmosphere was, and not unpleasantly so; yet during
our stay Italian opera from Madrid was performing in the theatre, and
large yellow posters promised "Bulls in Burgos" at an early date.
II.
To pass from this ancient city to Madrid is to experience one of those
astonishing contrasts in which the country abounds.
We dropped asleep in the rough, time-worn regions of Old Castile, and in
the morning found ourselves amid the glare and bustle of reconstructed
Spain, as it displays itself on the great square called the Gate of the
Sun--a spot with no hint of poetry about it other than its name. Madrid
adopts largely the Parisian style of street architecture, and has in
portions a resemblance to Boston. The sense of remoteness aroused in the
north here suddenly fades, though the traits that mark a foreign land
soon re-assemble and take shape in a new framework. Perhaps, too, our
first rather flat impression was due to an exhausting night journey and
some accompanying incidents.
[Illustration: LANDSCAPE BETWEEN BURGOS AND MADRID.]
"The Spaniards are a nation of robbers!" a cheerful French gentleman of
Bordeaux had told us;[3] and he threw out warnings of certain little
coin tricks in which they were adepts. When two Civil Guards, armed with
swords and guns, inspected our train at the frontier, we recalled his
statement. These guards persistently popped up at every succeeding
station. No matter how fast the train went, there they were always
waiting; always two of them, always with the same mustached faces, and
the same white havelocks fluttering on their bunchy cocked hats of the
French Revolution, and making their swarthy cheeks and black eyes
fiercer by contrast. In fact, they were obviously the same men. Every
time they marched up and down the platform, scanning the cars in a
determined manner, and scowling at our compartment in a way that fully
persuaded us some one must be guilty. Indeed, before long we became
convinced that we ourselves were suspicious; but it would have been a
relief if they had taken us in hand at once. Why should they go on
glaring at us and swinging their guns, as if it were a good deal easier
to shoot us than not, unless it was that we were too rich a "find" to be
disposed of immediately--squandered, as it were? Perhaps the torture of
suspense suited the enormity of our case, but it was certainly cruel.
There was some satisfaction, however, in finding that when we left the
depôt they allowed us a restricted liberty, and kept out of our way. If
it had been otherwise, I don't know what they would have done to us at
Burgos, for it was there that the landlady forced upon us a gold piece
that would not pass, in exchange for a good one which we had given her.
This very simple device was one of which the French gentleman had told
us. But we were too confiding. The money to pay the bill was sent away
by a servant, and once out of sight was easily replaced with inferior
coin. Disturbed by this episode, we went to our train, which started
with the watchman's first hail at eleven, and stumbled hastily into an
empty compartment, which we soon converted into a sleeping-carriage by
making our bundles pillows, drawing curtains, and pulling the silk
screen over the lamp. Our nap was broken only by a halt at the next
station. There was a long, drowsy pause, during which the train seemed
to be pretending it hadn't been asleep. It was nearly time to go on,
when feminine voices drew near our carriage; the door was thrown open,
and two ladies quickly entered. There was no time for retreat; the usual
fish-horn and dinner-bell accompaniment announced our departure, and the
wheels moved. Then it was that one of the new-comers uttered a half
scream, and we saw that she was a nun!
Had it been a cooler night our blood might have frozen; but as it failed
us, we did what we could by feeling greatly embarrassed. The nun and her
travelling companion had been speaking Spanish as they approached, and
we tried in that language to impress on them our harmless devotion to
their convenience.
"But he said it was reserved for ladies," murmured the sister, in good
English.
The terrible truth was now clear. My eye caught, at the same instant, a
card in the window which proved beyond question that we had got into the
carriage for señoras.
The result of this adventure was that we found the nun to be an English
Catholic, employed in teaching at a religious establishment, and her
friend another Englishwoman protecting her on her journey. Pleasant
conversation ensued, and we had almost forgotten that we were criminals,
when the speed of the engine slackened again, and the thought of the
Civil Guards returned to haunt us. We did not dare remain, yet we were
sure that our military pursuers would confront us again on the platform.
There indeed they were, when we tumbled out into the obscurity, with
their white-hooded heads looming above their muskets in startling
disconnectedness. Telling Velazquez, with all the firmness I possessed,
to bare his breast to the avenging sword, I hastened to get into a
coupé, preferring to die comfortably. He, however, ignominiously
followed me. It is true, we were not molested; but the shock of that
narrow escape kept us wakeful.
Not even our own prairies, I think, could present so dreary and
monotonous an outlook as the wide, endless, treeless Castilian plains
while morning slowly felt its way across them. Brown and cold they were,
skirted by white roads, and all shorn of their barley crops, though it
was but middle June. Now and then a village was seen huddled against
some low slope--a church lifting its tall, square campanario above the
humble roofs against the pearling sky. Interior Spain is a desolate
land, but the Church thrives there and draws its tax from the
poverty-stricken inhabitants--a crowned beggar ruling over beggars.
If the first man were now to be created from the clay of this region, he
would doubtless turn out the very type of a lean hidalgo. The human
product of such soil must perforce be meagre and melancholy; and the
pensiveness which we see in most Spanish faces seems a reflection of the
landscape which surrounds them.
The Madrileños offer not a flat, but rather an extremely round
contradiction to this general and accepted idea of the national
appearance. Slenderness is the exception with them. Their city is a
forced flower in the midst of mountain lands, and the men themselves
rejoice in a rotund and puffy look of success, which also partakes of
the hot-house character. They are people of leisure, and, after their
manner, of pleasure. How they swarm in the cafés in the Gate of the
Sun--where they keep up the Moorish custom of calling waiters by two
claps of the hands--or on the one great thoroughfare, Calle de Alcalá,
or in the bull-ring of a Sunday! They are never at rest, yet never
altogether active. They never sleep, or, if they do, others take their
places in the public resorts. The clamor of the streets, and even the
snarling cry of the news-venders--"_La Correspondencia_," or "_El
Demó-crata-a_"--is kept up until the small hours; and at five or six the
restless stir begins again with the silver tinkling of fleet mule-bells.
There are no night-howling watchmen in Madrid; but the custom of
street-hawking is rampant in Spain; and here, in addition to the
newsmen, we have the wail of the water-criers, ministering to an
unquenchable popular thirst, the lottery-ticket sellers, the wax-match
peddlers, and a dozen others. The favorite bird of the country is a kind
of lark called _alondra_, much hung in cages outside the windows, whence
they utter--with that monotonous recurrence which seems a fixed
principle of all things Spanish--a hard, piercing triple note impossible
to ignore. This loud, persistent "twit, twit-twit," resembling at a
distance the click of castanets, begins with daybreak, and gives a most
discouraging notion of the Spanish musical ear.
But the watchmen are merciful. They are called, as elsewhere,
_serenos_, which may mean either "quiet," or "night-dews," but their
function in Madrid is peculiar. Early in the evening they come out by
squads, with staves of office, and at their girdles bright lanterns and
an immense bunch of keys. These are the night-keys of all the houses on
each man's beat, the residents not being allowed to have any. When a
person returns home late--and who does not, in Madrid--he is obliged to
find his sereno, and if that officer is not in sight, calls him by
name--"Frascuelo," or "Pepino." Whereupon Frascuelo, or Pepino, or
Santiago, if he hears, will come along and unlock the door. This curious
system should at least encourage good habits; for, unless a man be
sober, his watchman may have unpleasant tales to tell of him.
The feline race being too often homeless, and having a proverbial taste
for nocturnal wanderings, the average male citizen of the capital
feelingly nicknames himself a "Madrid cat." This shows a frankness of
self-characterization, to say the least, unusual. Of course there is
home life, and there is family affection, in Madrid, but the stranger
naturally does not see a great deal of these; and then it may be doubted
whether they really exist to the same extent as in most other civilized
capitals. It becomes wearisome to make sallies upon the town, and day
after day find so much of the population trying to divert itself, or
killing time in the cafés and clubs. The feeling deepens that they
resort to these for want of a sufficiently close interest in their
homes. More than that, they do not seem really to be amused. Even their
language fails to express the amusement idea; the most that anything can
be for them, in the vernacular, is "entertaining." Still the choice of
light diversion is varied enough. Opera flourishes in winter; in spring
and summer the bull-fight; theatres are always in blast; cocking-mains
are kept up. Hitherto gambling has been another favorite pastime until
checked by the authorities. Not content with all this, the Madrileños
seek in lottery shops that excitement which Americans derive from
drinking-saloons. The brightly lighted lottery agency occurs as
frequently as that other indication of disease, the apothecary's window,
or the stock-market "ticker," in American cities. People of all classes
hover about them both by day and by night. Posters confront you with
announcements of the Child Jesus Lottery, the lottery to aid the Asylum
of Our Lady of the Assumption, or the National, which is drawn thrice a
month, with a chief prize of thirty-two thousand dollars, and some four
hundred other premiums. There are many small drawings besides constantly
going on: not a day passes, in fact, without your being solicited by
wandering dealers in these alluring chances at least half a dozen times.
[Illustration: THE PLAZA MAYOR.]