LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA.
AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in
the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”
It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain.
I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no
one pretends to _ask_ the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the
parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted
in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels,
I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But
nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the
sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest
and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and
gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner,
between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them,
and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full
view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms
of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are
smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that
this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in
Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and
if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to
publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of Spain pay no
sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke.
I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches of Spain. “Oh
no, no,” he answered, with a pious horror; “it was shocking to think of
such a desecration.” “Then,” said I, “when I come to Spain to live, I
will get a little church for myself, for nowhere else in this country
can a man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied; “but perhaps the incense will make a smoke quite
as disagreeable as the _American_ weed.”
This was a double hit, as it reminded me of my Protestant aversion to
incense in churches, and also of the fact that the weed and the habit of
using it came from my part of the world.
By this time the compartment was so densely filled with smoke that I
opened the window and put out my head for breath, as a signal of
distress, in the hope, but vain, of enlisting the sympathies of the
smokers, and inducing them to forego their pleasures while I recovered.
I detected grim smiles of satisfaction on the dark faces of my
fellow-travellers, who puffed away the more vigorously, as they looked
on my woe-begone face.
Perhaps by advertising a reward for the discovery, it might be possible
to find a man in Spain who does not smoke. Yet, strange to say, the
culture of tobacco in Spain is forbidden by law. The soil and climate
are favorable, and its cultivation has been a great success. But by that
kind of legislation or decree peculiar to Spain, and constantly
reminding one of the Chinese, the mother country, Spain, is prohibited
from raising tobacco in order that the daughter, Cuba, may have the
monopoly. The right of importation is sold to contractors, who make a
great business of it. In the middle of the fifteenth century the
Spaniards began to get tobacco from America, and they have been getting
more and more of it ever since. In 1860 they smoked seven millions of
cigars, and cigars are not the thing they usually smoke. They have their
tobacco rolled up in little bits of paper, and these they carry in their
pockets, with matches. Often they carry the tobacco and the paper
separately, and make a cigarette when they want it, making one while
smoking another. These interesting manufactures are not peculiar to
Spain; they are common in our own country, but not so general. The weed
is used only for smoking and snuffing in Spain. I cannot learn that it
is _chewed_ at all.
Children smoke at an earlier age in Spain than in other countries. It is
not uncommon for them to begin at six, or even five years of age. And
they never leave it off till they die. Ladies smoke. Not often do we see
them with a cigarette in their pretty mouths on the street or in the
cars, but in the café and in the drawing-room they enjoy it, as well as
in the boudoir and the bath. By cool fountains, in a marble-paved patio,
among the orange-trees, or lolling at noon on their silken-hung couches,
they love to smoke, and their lords have spoiled their own breaths and
taste too effectually to make any objection. Where both eat garlic it
amounts to the same thing.
In Seville we saw a tobacco factory, erected more than a hundred years
ago, at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars then! It is 652 feet
long and 524 feet wide. Five thousand persons are at work in it all the
time, putting the imported tobacco into cigars or cigarettes, and making
snuff, and they use two millions of pounds of tobacco every year. Most
of these workers are women. Mothers who bring their children have
nursery arrangements provided for them during the hours of work. But the
most of them are young women, a class by themselves, known as
_cigareras_, or cigar-girls. Smart at their business in the factory,
they are wild as hawks and gay as larks at the bull-fight on Sundays, or
the dance on the green. This is the largest establishment of the kind in
Spain, and produces as good an article as any other, but the cigars made
in Spain are not as popular with good judges as those brought directly
from Cuba. The manufacturers there prefer sending the best to London,
New York, or Paris, where they find a readier market for the high-priced
article. And the Cubans are as cute in concocting peculiar flavors for
their cigars, as the French or the Italians for their wines, or
Jerseymen for their cider. The connoisseur in tobacco pays a quarter of
a dollar (more or less) for a “first-rate” cigar, and smokes it with
delicious enjoyment at his club, or after dinner in his study, rejoicing
in the dreamy, balmy languor that softly steals upon his senses, soothes
his nerves, and makes him sweetly oblivious of the cares and toils of
the day just passed. He is sure it does him good. And he does not know,
and will not believe when he is told, what every one knows who looks
into the subject to learn, that at the very root and source of the
business there is as much concoction of tobacco as there is of coffee or
wine. Potash and soda are in abundant use to impart peculiar pungency to
the plant. And many in the excited atmosphere of New York or London life
demand a sedative cigar more soporific than the narcotic plant in its
natural state. For them, cigars are made of tobacco leaves _steeped in
opium_. Many of our clergymen, renowned for eloquence and piety and
learning, denounce with blazing zeal the baneful practice of smoking or
chewing _opium_, a habit becoming almost as common in the United States
as in China. But these same excellent men are daily smoking opium in
their cigars, quite unconscious of the evils, physical and mental, they
are gradually but surely inhaling with every breath they draw through
this venomous weed. The cigar burns freely when first lighted, its ashes
are grayish white, and the ring is faint at the end, the smoke rises
lightly, and the taste, if any, is nearly imperceptible; therefore they
_know_ it is a good cigar. But the opium-eater is not more surely a
suicide than they. Dyspepsia often follows; and nervous debility,
despondency, melancholy, insomnia, maladies supposed to be relieved by
what is their producing cause. Epilepsy and apoplexy are not unknown
effects.
We now cross the wide pastoral regions of La Mancha. Readers of Don
Quixote recollect these plains as the scene of many a gallant exploit by
the knight-errant who took his title from this province. And we had no
sooner called him to mind than we saw a windmill, and then another, and
soon many more, brandishing their huge arms, as when the crazy hero
supposed them to be challenging him to fight, and with mad courage
rushed to the encounter. Flocks of sheep are roaming over the plains as
when he mistook them for hostile armies. His trusty squire Sancho
proposed that they should wait until they saw which side was likely to
come off conqueror, and join _that_; but the hero of the windmill
denounced the counsel as worthy only of a craven, insisting it would be
more becoming a valiant knight to join the weaker side, and insure it
the victory.
_No trees are seen._ This is the peculiar feature of the Spanish
landscape. Across vast plains that reach the horizon the eye seeks in
vain to find a single tree to relieve the monotony of the view. And when
the hills stretch away in graceful lines, bending and rising with
voluptuous swells that seem to be carved and set against the sky, they
are destitute of trees. In centuries past these have been stripped off,
and none have been planted since; and the country is as bare as the back
of your hand.
The sheep are tended by shepherds, who migrate from the higher to the
lower pastures, according to the season of the year. They constitute a
large part of the wealth of the people. Ten years ago there were
seventeen millions of sheep in Spain. The number is, doubtless, much
greater now. The wool trade of Spain was at one time of vast importance
to the world, but England and Germany now far outstrip it, and the trade
with Syria, in the coarser wools, has opened an outlet for the produce
of Lebanon and the plains of Mesopotamia.
Corn, including cereals of all kinds, does well in this central part of
Spain. It thrives in spite of the stupidest, or rather the most
primitive style of agriculture, still prevailing. “Tickle the ground
with a hoe,” and the crop will spring. But there is little tickling done
with a hoe. They plough to this day with a tree, the root sticking into
the ground and scratching it a little; or they leave a branch shooting
out at an angle from the stem of the tree, and sometimes they cover this
stick with a bit of iron, and with mules or oxen drag it along the
field. They sow broadcast, and plough it under. They use no harrows. It
is barely possible that one of the modern civilized ploughs has found
its way into Spain, but I saw none, and heard of nothing better than the
but-end of a small elm-tree. Yet agriculture is the great business of
Spain, suited to the habits and genius of the people, who love the sun
and enjoy the open air, and dislike trade or mechanics of any kind. And
more than any other people in Europe the Spanish do as their fathers
did, despising all innovations as unworthy of their ancestral dignity.
The farmers of Virgil and Homer, and the rural scenes which are
described in the Old Testament Scriptures, are the counterpart of what
may be seen in Spain to-day. I am reminded daily of the fields in Asia
Minor, in Syria, and Greece. If it were strange that improvements in
husbandry had made very little progress there, much more surprising it
is to find that all things in this country continue to be as they were.
They are so near the rest of the world, and the means of communication
are now so ready, it is a marvel of marvels that they are still in the
same ruts their fathers were in a thousand years ago.
But there are signs of better times. The law of primogeniture has been
abolished, and this new measure tends rapidly to the multiplication of
owners of real estate. The lands of the church have been sold and
divided. Vast tracts held by the crown have also been distributed by law
among the people, at a moderate price. Agricultural societies have been
formed, and cattle shows and fairs are becoming common. These things are
in the right direction. The government has established agricultural
schools and model farms. A few periodicals are published, with the
intent of spreading useful information among the people; and those who
can read will get some good out of them.
After crossing the plains of La Mancha we reach the Sierra Morena range
of mountains, and are to work our way through and over them. The daring
of the engineers who would push a road into such recesses is prodigious.
The precipices are frightful. Peaks of mountains start up suddenly, and
seem to pierce the clouds. Rocks of gigantic grandeur rise abruptly, and
sometimes stand apart in solitary dignity. Deep gorges are to be spanned
by the iron road. Long and frequent galleries lead, in gloomy state,
through the bowels of the mountains. The road is sublime, if safe, and
it appears to be well made. We come to a bridge under repairs. All the
passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the
bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its
load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer
would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not,
he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the
verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as
we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer
than ours. They err generally on the safe side, provoking us by their
delays, but very rarely breaking our necks. And, on the whole, their way
of doing things is the best.
At Manjibar we stopped for lunch, or breakfast, or dinner, whichsoever
any one might call it. It was hard to say where or when our last meal
was, and what was the name of this. Still more difficult was it to
ascertain the names of the dishes set before us. One dish _had been_
chicken, but in some advanced stage of its post-mortem existence it had
been consigned to a bath of pickle, and was now offered for our
consumption. A single taste sufficed. It probably returned to its brine,
to wait a bolder customer, with a better appetite. Then they gave us a
stew. I suggested that it was hare. My companion thought it a cat. I
gave it the benefit of the doubt, and turned away. The price of this
meal that we tried in vain to eat, was the same as the table-d’hôte
dinner at many hotels in Paris,—four francs.
Sick, I went into the air. I sat down on a trunk outside, sighing for
other lands, and something to eat. A servant came out and drove me off
the trunk, saying, “It is forbidden to sit here.” Into the waiting-room
I directed my steps. It was full of dirty, disgusting people, some of
them beggars, some gypsies, some in queer costumes, some in rags. The
fragrance was too much for me, and I walked out again. Over the way was
a table with candies and liquors to be sold. It was in front of a door
that opened into the side of a hill. There was no other sign of a house.
I went across the railway, and entered the open door. It let me into a
small room, nicely cemented above and on all sides; a fire in a neat
arrangement for it, and a chimney reaching out of the ground above. A
man was sitting by the fire; a babe was in a cradle; the wife was
bustling about. It was a very comfortable affair. Another room was the
bed-chamber; and a third was a storeroom; and the three completed the
underground cottage. In other climates it might be damp. Here it was dry
enough; cool in summer and warm in winter. I spent a few minutes very
cheerfully with these people, and they seemed to be pleased with a visit
from a stranger. It was a far better house than the rude huts we had
seen on the way.
We are now in Andalusia, and in one of the _worst_ parts of Spain. True,
it is ANDALUSIA, and the very sound of the name is musical, suggesting
beauty and pastoral delights. But in the province of Jaen, and we are
near the city of that name, out of a population of 360,000, more than
300,000 are unable to read; and as ignorance and crime go hand in hand,
the number of murders is between 350 and 400 every year, and nearly as
many robberies. Such is a picture of much of Spain. This is, perhaps, as
dark a picture as could be honestly drawn, but there are hundreds of
towns, of which the mayor or chief officer does not know how to read or
write.
Ten years ago, when the last census was made, in a population of
15,613,536, there were actually 12,543,169 who could not read and write,
leaving only 3,070,367 people in Spain possessed of these
accomplishments. In 1860 there were 1,101,529 children in the public
schools of Spain, and they must learn something.
It is encouraging to learn that the government is paying increased
attention to the subject of education. There are 25,000 primary schools
in the kingdom, which ought to be exerting a powerful effect upon the
people. Spain has ten universities, and the number of students in them
is far greater than one would expect under the low state of _popular_
education. They are thus distributed:—
Madrid 4,194
Barcelona 1,365
Seville 887
Valladolid 828
Granada 617
Valencia 624
Santiago 403
Saragossa 389
Salamanca 242
Oviedo 155
The course of study pursued in these institutions is substantially the
same as that in other countries: 2,040 of the students are in the
Philosophical and Literary course, 1,617 in the Exact Sciences, Physics,
and so forth; while Law, Theology, and Medicine include the rest. Some
of these universities once had a reputation as wide as the civilized
part of the world, and students from all nations flocked to them as to
the purest and sweetest fountains of knowledge in the earth. At
Salamanca, where now there are less than 250 students, there were 10,000
in the fourteenth century, and its reputation has been higher than
Oxford’s. It was at this university that the Copernican system of
astronomy was held and taught, when the Romish Church denounced it as
heretical and contrary to the Holy Scriptures. Yet even here Columbus
could make no impression in favor of his theory of another continent,
but all his arguments were treated with the greatest contempt by the
learned men of the university of Salamanca. The professors of the modern
school, which still retains the name and distinctions of the days of its
glory, get $600 a year for their services, and that is probably an index
of the estimation in which learning is held in these decayed and
benighted regions.
The present population of Spain, making due allowance for increase since
the last estimate, is about 16,400,000. It is therefore the _eighth_ of
the European powers in numbers, Italy and Turkey being both ahead of it.
The increase of population in Spain is only at the rate of less than the
half of one per hundred annually. At this rate the number would double
only once in 181 years, placing Spain behind every country in Europe, in
this respect, except poor Austria. She doubles once in 198 years; then
Spain; then France, once in 122 years; Holland, once in 80 years;
Scotland, once in 46 years; Prussia, once in 41 years; England and
Wales, once in 29 years.
One of the most curious questions in morals, politics, and physiology,
is started by these facts. They furnish food for thought. One class of
speculators will find moral causes to explain the circumstances, and
they may easily gather a pile of facts to sustain their positions.
Climate, too, has its influence. The civil government, with the physical
condition of the people, is to be considered. But when the physical, the
moral, the civil, and the social state of Austria, Spain, France,
Holland, Prussia, Italy, and England is duly examined, it still remains
to be ascertained why it is that the number of inhabitants increased
more rapidly among the colored people of the Southern States of North
America while they were slaves, and now increases more rapidly among the
Irish portion of the American population, than it does among these
highly favored countries of Europe. The statistics of births in New
England and other parts of the United States unhappily show that, with
the increase of the cost of living, and of luxury and effeminacy, the
number of children born is less and less from year to year. There is no
truth in social economy better established by the comparison of an
adequate number of facts than this, that the diminution in the number of
births is attended by, if not consequent upon, the deterioration of the
health and the morals of any people. Oppression which makes a wise man
mad may depress the spirits, exhaust the energies, and retard the
increase of a population, not supernaturally sustained as were the
Hebrews in Egypt, who, the more they were afflicted, the more they
multiplied and grew. But favored as the middle and southern countries of
Europe are by climate and soil, affording the people an easy and
comfortable subsistence, they might and would increase in numbers as
rapidly at least as the northern, if they were so disposed.
We are now coming down into the region of the aloe, the olive, the
orange, and the vine. Since we have crossed the Sierra Morena, the
climate has softened. At this season of the year (February), the
vegetation is not far advanced, but the leaves of the olive are always
green, and the orange and the lemon bear leaves and fruit and flowers at
the same time. The orange should, in some climates, like this and the
south of France, remain on the tree, after it appears to be ripe, for
two years, before it is sweet. Much of that delicious fruit which we
have in our country is too sour to be good, because gathered and sent to
market before it is fully ripe. Here, and all over the southern parts of
Spain, it is a _glorious_ fruit. It is very large, very yellow, and very
sweet; and being abundant, is very cheap. A cent of our money will buy
the largest, and the natives get them much cheaper than that. Sweet
lemons are also common. But they are not agreeable. They seem to me a
miserable attempt to be an orange. And the good sour lemons grow to an
enormous size. I got one in Cordova to measure, and my hat would hold
one lemon only! The skin was at least an inch thick; the juice not so
acid as of the lemon generally, and there was no more of it than in one
of ordinary size. These large lemons are used in preserves, the skin
being the only available part of the fruit.
We are now on the plains, in sight of the graceful hills of ANDALUSIA.
In the soft sunlight of this warm winter’s day the hills appear to be
sleeping and enjoying their repose. All nature, even now, invites to
rest. We begin to feel the languor of the clime. There are no trees but
the olive. No birds are singing, or we should know that summer is nigh.
We stop frequently at little stations, to leave and take the mail. The
letters and papers are tied up in a packet with a string, and are handed
from the mail-car to a boy or a woman on hand to receive them. The
letters _from_ the place are delivered to the mail-agent in the same
way. No bag, no box, no lock or key, not even a wrapper around the
letters protects them. It is the way they do things in this country.
Over these wide plains there are few or no habitations to be seen. The
peasants must travel many miles to their daily work, for they live in
villages far away from the lands they till. Few cattle are to be seen;
now and then a flock of sheep. More black sheep than white ones were in
sight, and many of the blacks were singularly marked, having but one
white spot on them, and that at the tip of their tails.
[Illustration: CORDOVA.]