distance, is La Cartuja, the Carthusian church and monastery, lying upon
a hill-slope called Hinadamar, across the city and on its outskirts, due
west from the Alhambra. The monks who formerly occupied it have, in
common with those of other orders, been driven out of Spain; so that we
approached the church-steps through an old arched gate-way, no longer
guarded, and by way of a grass-grown enclosure that bore the appearance
of complete neglect. The interior, however, is very well preserved. It
was curious to walk through it, under the guidance of a pursy old woman,
and, afterward, of the lame sacristan, who did his best with chattering
gossip to rob the place of whatever sanctity remained to it. The
refectory (fitly inhabited by an echo) stands bare and empty, save for
the reading-desk, from which the monks used to be refreshed with
Scripture while at their meals; and on the wall at one end of this long,
high hall hangs apparently a wooden cross, which at first it is
impossible to believe is only painted there. The barren, round-arched
cloisters are frescoed with an interminable series of scenes by Cotan,
the same artist who painted the cross; and in this case he was given a
free commission, of which he availed himself to the utmost in depicting
the most distressing incidents of Carthusian martyrology. Especially
does he seem to have delighted in the persecutions inflicted by English
Protestants under Henry VIII. on San Bruno, the founder of this order.
How strange the conception of a holy and exalted life which led men in
religious retirement to keep before their eyes, in these corridors meant
for mild exercise and recreation, representations so full of blood and
horror! In fact, one cannot escape the impression, stamped more vividly
on the mind here in Granada than anywhere else, except perhaps in
Toledo, that Christianity in Spain meant barbarism. But where it was
released from the immediate purposes of ecclesiastic dogma, Christian
art showed a taste not so much barbarous as barbaric, and the results of
its activity were often beautiful. In this same monastery is a splendid
example of that tendency. The church is not remarkably fine or
impressive; but the sacristy is a marvel of sumptuous decoration, and
decoration very peculiar in kind. Its walls are wholly incased in a most
effective species of green and white marble, cut in smooth, polished
slabs, the natural veinings of which present grotesque resemblances to
human and other forms, which are somewhat trivially insisted upon by the
custodian and guide, and should be allowed to lose themselves in the
general richness of aspect. The great doors of this sacristy are inlaid
with ebony, silver, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell, in designs of
much intricacy and richness; and all around the room (which is provided
with an altar, so that it becomes a sort of sub-church or chapel,
adjoining the main church) are low closets fitted into the wall. These
were originally used for holding the vestments of the brotherhood. Made
of sweet-scented cedar, they are adorned on the outside with the same
inlaid work that appears on the doors. The dim, veiled shimmer of the
mother-of-pearl, the delicate, translucent browns of the tortoise-shell,
and the wandering threads of silver, form a decorative surface wonderful
in its refinement, its perfection of elegance. I scarcely know how to
give an idea of its appearance, unless I say that it was somewhat as if
layers of spider-webs had been spread, with all their mystery of exact
curves and angles, over the wood-work, and then had had their fibres
changed by some magic into precious and enduring materials. The frail
but well-adjusted fabric has outlasted the dominion of those for whose
selfish and secluded pride of worship it was made; and, seeing it, one
may pardon them some of their mistakes. It is pleasant also to find that
the art of making this inlay, after having long fallen out of use, has
been revived in Granada; for in these days of enlightened adaptation and
artistic education there seems to be no reason why such a handicraft
should be lost or even confined to Spain.
The gypsies of Granada are disappointing, apart from their peculiar
quivering dance, performed by _gitanas_ in all Spanish cities under the
name of _flamenco_.[10] Their hill-caves, so operative with one's
curiosity when regarded from across the valley, gape open in such dingy,
sour, degraded foulness on a nearer view, that I found no amount of
theory would avail to restore their interest. Yet some of the
fortune-telling women are spirited enough, and the inextinguishable
Romany spark smoulders in their black eyes. Perhaps it was an
interloping drop of Celtic blood that made one of them say to me,
"Señorito, listen. I will tell you your fortune. But I speak French--_I
come from Africa!_" And to clinch the matter she added, "You needn't pay
me if every word of the prediction isn't true!" Much as I had heard of
the Spanish bull, I never knew until then how closely it resembled the
Irish breed.
Fortuny's model, Marinero, who lives in a burrow on the Alhambra side,
occasionally starts up out of the earth in a superb and expensive
costume, due to the dignity of his having been painted by Fortuny. Dark
as a negro, with a degree of luminous brown in his skin, and very
handsome, he plants himself immovably in one spot to sell photographs of
himself. His nostrils visibly dilate with pride, but he makes no other
bid for custom. He expands his haughty nose, and you immediately buy a
picture. Velveteen chanced upon Marinero's daughter, and got her to
pose. When he engaged her she was so delighted that she took a rose from
her hair and presented it to him, with a charming, unaffected air of
gratitude, came an hour before the time, and waited impatiently. She
wore a wine-colored skirt, if I remember, a violet jacket braided with
black, and a silk neckerchief of dull purple-pink silk. But that was not
enough: a blue silk kerchief also was wound about her waist, and in
among her smooth jet locks she had tucked a vivid scarlet flower. The
result was perfect, for the rich pale-brown of her complexion could
harmonize anything; and in Spain, moreover, combinations of color that
appear too harsh elsewhere are paled and softened by the overpowering
light.
[Illustration: GYPSIES.]
Episodes like these tinged our dreams of the Alhambra with novel dashes
of living reality. Even the tedious bustle of a Spanish town, too, has
its attractions. The moving figures on the steep Albaycin streets, that
perpetually break into flights of steps; the blocks of pressed snow
brought in mule panniers every night from the Sierra to cool sugar-water
and risadas of orange at the cafés; peasants coming in to the beautiful
old grain market with gaudy mantles over their shoulders, stuffing into
their sashes a variety of purchases, and becoming corpulent with a day's
transactions; the patient efforts of shop-keepers to water the main
street, Zacatin, with a pailful at a time--all this was amusing to
watch. The Generalife was another source of pleasure, for in its topmost
loggia one may sit like a bird, with the Alhambra spread out below in
all the distinctness of a raised map. In the saloons of the Generalife
hang the portraits of the Moorish and the Christian ancestors of the
present owner. Their direct descendant is a woman; therefore she has
married an Italian count, and flitted from this ideal, quite
unparalleled eyry, returning to her ancestral home only at rare
intervals.
There came an hour when we too flitted. To oblige an eccentric
time-table we had to get up at dawn; but the last glimpse of the
Alhambra at that early hour was a compensation. The dim red towers
already began to soften into a reminiscence under this tender blending
of moonlight and morning; but a small constellation in the east sparkled
on the blue like a necklace of diamonds, and Saturn still flamed above
the mountains, growing momently larger, as if it were a huge topaz in
the turban of some giant Moor advancing in the early stillness to
reclaim the Alhambra throne.
_MEDITERRANEAN PORTS AND GARDENS._
I.
[Illustration: A]
A gypsy dance! What does one naturally imagine it to be like? For my
part, I had expected something wild, free, and fantastic; something in
harmony with moonlight, the ragged shadows of trees, and the flicker of
a rude camp-fire. Nothing could have been wider of the mark. The
_flamenco_--that dance of the gypsies, in its way as peculiarly Spanish
as the church and the bull-ring, and hardly less important--is of
Oriental origin, and preserves the impassive quality, the suppressed,
tantalized sensuousness belonging to Eastern performances in the
saltatory line. It forms a popular entertainment in cafés of the lower
order throughout the southern provinces, from Madrid all the way around
to Valencia, in Sevilla and Malaga, and is gotten up as a select and
expensive treat for travellers at Granada. But we saw it at its best in
Malaga.
We were conducted, about eleven o'clock in the evening, to a roomy,
rambling, dingy apartment in the crook of an obscure and dirty street,
where we found a large number of sailors, peasants, and _chulos_ seated
drinking at small tables, with a very occasional well-dressed citizen
or two here and there. In one corner was a stage rising to the level of
our chins when we were seated, which had two fronts, like the
Shakspearian stage in pictures, so that spectators on the side might
have a fair chance, and be danced to from time to time. On this sat
about a dozen men and women, the latter quite as much Spanish as gypsy,
and some of them dressed partially in tights, with an affectation of
sailors' or pages' costume in addition. At Madrid and Sevilla their
sisters in the craft wore ordinary feminine dresses, and looked the
possessors of more genuine Romany blood.
But here, too, the star _danseuse_, the chief mistress of the art
_flamenco_, was habited in the voluminous calico skirt which Peninsular
propriety prescribes for this particular exhibition, thereby doing all
it can to conceal and detract from the amazing skill of muscular
movement involved. A variety of songs and dances with guitar
accompaniments, some effective and others tedious, preceded the gypsy
performance. I think we listened nearly half an hour to certain
disconsolate barytone wailings, which were supposed to interpret the
loves, anxieties, and other emotions of a _contrabandista_, or smuggler,
hiding from pursuit in the mountains. Judging from the time at his
disposal for this lament, the smuggling business must indeed be sadly on
the decline. The whole entertainment was supervised by a man precisely
like all the chiefs of these troupes in Spain. Their similarity is
astounding; even their features are almost identical: when you have seen
one, you have seen all his fellows, and know exactly what they will do.
He may be a little older or younger, a little more gross or less so, but
he is always clean-shaven like the other two sacred types--the
bull-fighter and the priest--and his face is in every case weakly but
good-humoredly sensual. But what does he _do_? Well, nothing. He is the
most important personage on the platform, but he does not pretend to
contribute to the programme beyond an exclamation of encouragement to
the performers at intervals. He is a Turveydrop in deportment at
moments, and always a Crummles in self-esteem. A few highly favored
individuals as they come into the café salute him, and receive a
condescending nod in return. Then some friend in the audience sends up
to him a glass of chamomile wine, or comes close and offers it with his
own hand. The leader invariably makes excuses, and without exception
ends by taking the wine, swallowing a portion, and gracefully spitting
out the rest at the side of the platform. He smokes the cigars of
admiring acquaintances, and throws the stumps on the stage. All the
while he carries in his hand a smooth, plain walking-stick, with which
he thumps time to the music when inclined.
[Illustration: GYPSY DANCE.]
At last the moment for the _flamenco_ arrives. The leader begins to beat
monotonously on the boards, just as our Indians do with their tomahawks,
to set the rhythm; the guitars strike into their rising and falling
melancholy strain. Two or three women chant a weird song, and all clap
their hands in a peculiar measure, now louder, now fainter, and with
pauses of varying length between the emphatic reports. The dancer has
not yet risen from her seat; she seems to demand encouragement. The
others call out, "Ollé!"--a gypsy word for "bravo!"--and smile and nod
their heads at her to draw her on. All this excites in you a livelier
curiosity, a sort of suspense. "What can be coming now?" you ask.
Finally she gets up, smiling half scornfully; a light comes into her
eyes; she throws her head back, and her face is suffused with an
expression of daring, of energy, and strange pride. Perhaps it is only
my fancy, but there seems to creep over the woman at that instant a
reminiscence of far-off and mysterious things; her face, partially
lifted, seems to catch the light of old traditions, and to be imbued
with the spirit of something belonging to the past, which she is about
to revive. Her arms are thrown upward, she snaps her fingers, and draws
them down slowly close before her face as far as the waist, when, with
an easy waving sideward, the "pass" is ended, and the arms go up again
to repeat the movement. Her body too is in motion now, only slightly,
with a kind of vibration; and her feet, unseen beneath the flowing
skirt, have begun an easy, quiet, repressed rhythmical figure. So she
advances, her face always forward, and goes swiftly around a circle,
coming back to the point where she began, without appearing to step. The
music goes on steadily, the cries of her companions become more
animated, and she continues to execute that queer, aimless, yet dimly
beckoning gesture with both arms--never remitting it nor the snapping of
her fingers, in fact, until she has finished the whole affair. Her feet
go a little faster; you can hear them tapping the floor as they weave
upon it some more complicated measure; but there is not the slightest
approach to a springing tendency. Her progress is sinuous; she glides
and shuffles, her soles quitting the boards as little as
possible--something between a clog dance and a walk, perfect in time,
with a complexity in the exercise of the feet demanding much skill. She
treats the performance with great dignity; the intensity of her
absorption invests it with a something almost solemn.
Forward again! She gazes intently in front as she proceeds, and again as
she floats backward, looking triumphant, perhaps with a spark of latent
mischief in her eyes. She stamps harder upon the floor; the sounds
follow like pistol reports. The regular _clack_, _clack-clack_ of the
smitten hands goes on about her, and the cries of the rest increase in
zest and loudness.
"Ollé! ollé!"
"Bravo, my gracious one!"
"Muy bien! muy bien!"
"Hurrah! Live the queen of the ants!" shouts the leader. And the
audience roars at his eccentric phrase.
The dancer becomes more impassioned, but in no way more violent. Her
body does not move above the hips. It is only the legs that twist and
turn and bend and stamp, as if one electric shock after another were
being sent downward through them. Every few minutes her activity passes
by some scarcely noted gradation into a subtly new phase, but all these
phases are bound together by a certain uniformity of restraint and fixed
law. Now she almost comes to a stand-still, and then we notice a
quivering, snaky, shuddering motion, beginning at the shoulders and
_flowing_ down through her whole body, wave upon wave, the dress drawn
tighter with one hand showing that this continues downward to her feet.
Is she a Lamia in the act of undergoing metamorphosis, a serpent, or a
woman? The next moment she is dancing, receding--this time with smiles,
and with an indescribable air of invitation in the tossing of her arms.
But the crowning achievement is when the hips begin to sway too, and,
while she is going back and forward, execute a rotary movement like that
of the bent part of an auger. In fact, you expect her to bore herself
into the floor and disappear. Then all at once the stamping and clapping
and the twanging strings are stopped, as she ceases her formal
gyrations: she walks back to her seat like one liberated from a spell,
and the whole thing is over.
Velveteen and I came to Malaga direct from the Alhambra. The transition
was one from the land of the olive to that of the palm. When we left
Granada, an hour after daybreak, the slopes of the Sierra Nevada below
the snow-line were softly overspread with rose and gold upon the blue,
and the unmatchably pale bright yellow-white of the grain fields along
the valley was spotted with the dark clumps of olive-trees, at a
distance no bigger than cabbages. The last thing we saw was a sturdy
peasant in knee-breeches and laced legs, with a tattered cloak flung
around his chest and brought over the left shoulder in stately folds,
that gave him the mien of a Roman senator, and put to shame our vulgar
railroad plans. As the day grew, the hills in shadow melted into a warm
citron hue, and those lifting their faces to the light were white as
chalk, with faint blue shadows down in the clefts.
It was in this same neighborhood that we saw peasant women in trousers
doing harvest-work. To the enormity of donning the male garb they added
the hardihood of choosing for the color of their trousers a bright
sulphur-yellow. My friend the artist, I believe, secretly envied them
this splendor denied to men; and in truth they would make spirited and
effective material for a painter. Their yellow legs descended from a
very short skirt of blue or vermilion, a mere concession to prejudice,
for it was mostly caught up and pinned in folds to keep it out of the
way. Above that the dress and figure were feminine; the colored kerchief
around the throat, and the gay bandanna twisted around the dark loose
hair under a big straw hat, finishing off the whole person as something
dashing, free, novel, and yet quite natural and not unwomanly.
An old man at Bobadilla offered us some _palmitos_--pieces of pith from
the palm-trees, tufted with a few feathery young leaves, and considered
a delicacy when fresh. It had a bitter-sweet, rather vapid taste, but I
hailed it as a friendly token from the semi-tropical region we were
approaching. So I bought one, and my companion presented the old man
with some of the lunch we had brought; whereupon the shrivelled
merchant, with a courtesy often met with in Spain, insisted upon his
taking a _palmito_ as a present. Thus, bearing our victorious palm
leaves, we moved forward to meet the palms themselves. The train rumbled
swiftly through twelve successive tunnels, giving, between them,
magnificent glimpses of deep wild gorges; fantastic rocks piled up in
all conceivable shapes, like a collection of giant crystals arranged by
a mad-man, amid mounds of gray and slate-colored clay pulverized by the
heat, and reduced absolutely to ashes. The last barrier of the
Alpujarras was passed, and we rushed out upon lower levels, immense and
fertile vales, dense with plantations of orange and lemon, interspersed
with high-necked, musing palms and brilliant thickets of pomegranate.
Through the hot earth in which these plantations were placed ran the
narrow canals, not more than two feet wide, containing those streams of
milky water from the snow-fields on which all the vegetation of the
region depends.
It is of this and the neighboring portions of Spain that Castelar, in
one of his recent writings, says: "The wildest coasts of our
peninsula--those coasts of Almeria, Alicante, Murcia, where the fruits
of various zones are yielded--compensate for their great plenty by years
of desolation comparable only to those described in the chronicles of
the Middle Ages, and suffered in the crowded lands of the Orient.... The
mountains of those districts, which breathe the incense of thyme and
lavender, are carpeted with silky grasses, and full of mines, and
intersected by quarries. The _honduras_, or valleys, present the palm
beside the pomegranate, the vine next to the olive, barley and
sugar-cane in abundance, orange orchards and fields of maize; in fine,
all the fruits of the best zones, incomparable both as to quantity and
quality. The azure waves of their sea, resembling Venetian crystals,
contain store of savory fish; and the equality of the temperature, the
purity of the air, the splendor of the days, and the freshness, the
soothing calm of the nights, impart such enchantment that, once
habituated to them, in whatever other part of the world you may be, you
feel yourself, alas! overcome by irremediable nostalgia." The eloquent
statesman has something to say, likewise, of the people. "Nowhere does
there exist in such vitality," he declares, "the love of family and the
love of labor.... Property is very much divided; the customs are
exceedingly democratic; there exist few proprietors who are not workers,
and few workers who are not proprietors." Democratic the country is, no
doubt; too much so, perhaps, for peace under monarchical rule. These
fervid, fertile coast lands, containing the gardens of Spain, are also
the home of revolution.
[Illustration: A SPANISH MONK.]
The north was the Carlist stronghold; the south furnished in every city
a little Republican volcano. Nor is the simple, patriarchal state of
society which Castelar indicates quite universal. Here, as in other
provinces, we found luxurious wealth flourishing in the heart of
pitiable poverty. The Governor of Malaga was on our train, and a
delightfully honest and amiable old gentleman in our compartment, seeing
him on the platform surrounded by a ring of dapper sycophants, who
laughed unreasonably at his mild jokes, began to exclaim, in great
wrath, "So many cabals! so many cabals! Unfortunate nation! there is
nothing but cabal and intrigue all the time. Those men have got some
sugar they want to dispose of to advantage, and so they fawn on the
Governor. It is dirty; it is foul," etc.
At Malaga there was a coast-guard steamer lying in the harbor, and, as
we were looking at it, I asked our companion, a resident, whether they
caught many smugglers.
"Oh, sometimes," was the answer. "Just enough to cover it."
"Cover what?"
"Oh, the fraud. Out of twenty smuggling vessels they will take perhaps
one, to keep up appearances." And he made the usual significant movement
of the fingers denoting the acceptance of bribes.
The heat at Malaga surpassed anything we had encountered before. The
horses of the cabs had gay-colored awnings stretched over them on little
poles fixed to the shafts, so that when they moved along the street they
looked like holiday boats on four legs. The river that runs through the
city was completely dry, and, as if to complete the boat similitude, the
cabs drove wantonly across its bed instead of using the bridges. These
equipages, however, are commonplace compared with the wagons used for
the transportation of oil and water jars (_tinajas_) in the adjoining
province of Murcia. A delightful coolness was diffused from the sea at
evening, when the fashionable drive--the half-moon mole stretching out
to the light-house--was crowded with stylish vehicles, and the sea-wall
all along the street was lined with citizens, soldiers, priests, and
pretty women, who dangled their feet from the low parapet in blissful
indolence. Then, too, the lamps were lighted in the floating bath-houses
moored in the harbor, and one of them close to the mouth of a city drain
seemed to be particularly well patronized. The streets, almost forsaken
by day, were crowded after nightfall. The shops were open late. By eight
or nine o'clock life began.
The Café de la Loba (the Wolf)--an immense building, where there is a
court entirely roofed over by a single grape-vine, spreading from a stem
fifteen inches in diameter, and rivalling the famous vines of Hampton
Court and Windsor--was well filled, and in many small _tiendas de vino_
heavy drinking seemed to be going on. But the Malaguenese do not imbibe
the rich sweet wines manufactured in their vicinity. These are too
heating to be taken in such a climate, as we were able to convince
ourselves on tasting some fine vintages at one of the _bodegas_ the next
day. Nevertheless, the lower class of the inhabitants find no difficulty
in attaining to a maximum of drunkenness on milder beverages. Even the
respectable idlers in the café under our hotel drank a great deal too
much beer, if I may judge from their prolonging their obstreperous
discussion of politics into the small hours, while we lay feverish in a
room above listening to their voices, blended with the whistle of a
boatswain on some ship at the neighboring quay; ourselves meanwhile
enduring with Anglo-Saxon reserve the too effusive attentions offered by
mosquitoes of the Latin race.
[Illustration: TRANSPORTATION OF POTTERY.]
In justice to the Spaniards it should be said that excessive drinking
is a rare fault among them. As a nation they surpass all other civilized
peoples in setting an example of temperance as to potations (excepting
water), and of remarkable frugality in eating. The Mediterranean ports,
through their commerce with the outside world, are tinged by foreign
elements; license creeps in with notions of liberty; the sailors, and
that whilom powerful fraternity the smugglers, have likewise assisted in
fostering turbulent characteristics.
[Illustration: GARLIC VENDER.]