about three feet long, gay with decorations of coloured paper. While
they make ready, others play with the bull, gradually tiring it: one
throws aside his cape and awaits the charge with folded arms; the bull
rushes at him, and the man without moving his feet twists his body away
and the savage brute passes on. There is a great burst of applause for a
daring feat well done.
Each _matador_ has two _banderilleros_, and it is proper that three
pairs of these darts should be placed. One of them steps to within
speaking distance of the animal, and holding a _banderilla_ in each hand
lifted above his head, stamps his foot and shouts insulting words. The
bull does not know what this new thing is, but charges blindly; at the
same moment the man runs forward, and passing, plants the two darts
between the shoulders. If they are well placed there is plentiful
hand-clapping; no audience is so liberal of applause for skill or
courage, none so intolerant of cowardice or stupidity; and with equal
readiness it will yell with delight or hiss and hoot and whistle. The
second _banderillero_ comes forward to plant his pair; a third is
inserted and the trumpets sound for the final scene.
This is the great duel between the single man and the bull. The
_matador_ advances, sword in hand, with the _muleta_, the red cloth for
the passes, over his arm. Under the president's box he takes off his
hat, and with fine gesture makes a grandiloquent speech, wherein he vows
either to conquer or to die: the harangue is finished with a wheel round
and a dramatic flinging of his hat to attendants on the other side of
the barrier. He pensively walks forward. All eyes are upon him--and he
knows it. He motions his companions to stand back and goes close to the
bull. He is quite alone, with his life in his hands--a slender figure,
very handsome in the gorgeous costume glittering with fine gold. He
arranges the _muleta_ over a little stick, so that it hangs down like a
flag and conceals his sword. Then quite solemnly he walks up to the
bull, holding the red rag in his left hand. The bull watches
suspiciously, suddenly charges, and the _muleta_ is passed over its
head; the _matador_ does not move a muscle, the bull turns and stands
quite motionless. Another charge, another pass. And so he continues,
making seven or eight of various sorts, to the growing approbation of
the public. At last it is time to kill. With great caution he withdraws
the sword; the bull looks warily. He makes two or three passes more and
walks round till he gets the animal into proper position: the forefeet
must be set squarely on the ground. '_Ora! Ora!_' cry the people. 'Now!
Now!' The bull is well placed. The _matador_ draws the sword back a
little and takes careful aim. The bull rushes, and at the same moment
the man makes one bound forward and buries the sword to the hilt between
the brute's shoulders. It falls to its knees and rolls over.
Then is a perfect storm of applause; and it is worth while to see
fourteen thousand people wild with delight. The band bursts into joyous
strains, and the mules come galloping in, gaily caparisoned; a rope is
passed round the dead beast, and they drag it away. The _matador_
advances to the president's box and bows, while the shouting grows more
frantic. He walks round, bowing and smiling, and the public in its
enthusiasm throws down hats and cigars and sticks.
But there are no intervals to a bull-fight, and the _picadors_
immediately reappear and take their places; the doors are flung open,
and a second bull rushes forth. The _matador_ still goes round bowing to
the applause, elaborately unmindful of the angry beast.
Six animals are killed in an afternoon within two hours, and then the
mighty audience troop out with flushed cheeks, the smell of blood strong
in their nostrils.
XXVI
[Sidenote: On Horseback]
I had a desire to see something of the very heart of Andalusia, of that
part of the country which had preserved its antique character, where
railway trains were not, and the horse, the mule, the donkey were still
the only means of transit. After much scrutiny of local maps and
conversation with horse-dealers and others, I determined from Seville to
go circuitously to Ecija, and thence return by another route as best I
could. The district I meant to traverse in olden times was notorious for
its brigands; even thirty years ago the prosperous tradesman, voyaging
on his mule from town to town, was liable to be seized by unromantic
outlaws and detained till his friends forwarded ransom, while ears and
fingers were playfully sent to prove identity. In Southern Spain
brigandage necessarily flourished, for not only were the country-folk in
collusion with the bandits, but the very magistrates united with them to
share the profits of lawless undertakings. Drastic measures were needful
to put down the evil, and in a truly Spanish way drastic measures were
employed. The Civil Guard, whose duty it was to see to the safety of the
country side, had no confidence in the justice of Madrid, whither
captured highwaymen were sent for trial; once there, for a few hundred
dollars, the most murderous ruffian could prove his babe-like innocence,
forthwith return to the scene of his former exploits and begin again. So
they hit upon an expedient. The Civil Guards set out for the capital
with their prisoner handcuffed between them; but, curiously enough, in
every single case the brigand had scarcely marched a couple of miles
before he incautiously tried to escape, whereupon he was, of course,
promptly shot through the back. People noticed two things: first, that
the clothes of the dead man were often singed, as if he had not escaped
very far before he was shot down; that only proved his guardians' zeal.
But the other was stranger: the two Civil Guards, when after a couple of
hours they returned to the town, as though by a mysterious premonition
they had known the bandit would make some rash attempt, invariably had
waiting for them an excellent hot dinner.
The only robber of importance who avoided such violent death was the
chief of a celebrated band who, when captured, signed a declaration that
he had not the remotest idea of escaping, and insisted on taking with
him to Madrid his solicitor and a witness. He reached the capital alive,
and having settled his little affairs with benevolent judges, turned to
a different means of livelihood, and eventually, it is said, occupied a
responsible post in the Government. It is satisfactory to think that his
felonious talents were not in after-life entirely wasted.
* * *
It was the beginning of March when I started. According to the old
proverb, the dog was already seeking the shade: _En Marzo busca la
sombra el perro_; the chilly Spaniard, loosening the folds of his
_capa_, acknowledged that at mid-day in the sun it was almost warm. The
winter rains appeared to have ceased; the sky over Seville was
cloudless, not with the intense azure of midsummer, but with a blue that
seemed mixed with silver. And in the sun the brown water of the
Guadalquivir glittered like the scales on a fish's back, or like the
burnished gold of old Moorish pottery.
I set out in the morning early, with saddle-bags fixed on either side
and poncho strapped to my pommel. A loaded revolver, though of course I
never had a chance to use it, made me feel pleasantly adventurous. I
walked cautiously over the slippery cobbles of the streets, disturbing
the silence with the clatter of my horse's shoes. Now and then a mule or
a donkey trotted by, with panniers full of vegetables, of charcoal or of
bread, between which on the beast's neck sat perched a man in a short
blouse. I came to the old rampart of the town, now a promenade; and at
the gate groups of idlers, with cigarettes between their lips, stood
talking.
An hospitable friend had offered lodging for the night and food; after
which, my ideas of the probable accommodation being vague, I expected to
sleep upon straw, for victuals depending on the wayside inns. I arrived
at the _Campo de la Cruz_, a tiny chapel which marks the same distance
from the Cathedral as Jesus Christ walked to the Cross; it is the final
boundary of Seville.
Immediately afterwards I left the high-road, striking across country to
Carmona. The land was already wild; on either side of the bridle-path
were great wastes of sand covered only by palmetto. The air was cool and
fresh, like the air of English country in June when it has rained
through the night; and Aguador, snorting with pleasure, cantered over
the uneven ground, nimbly avoiding holes and deep ruts with the
sure-footedness of his Arab blood. An Andalusian horse cares nothing for
the ground on which he goes, though it be hard and unyielding as iron;
and he clambers up and down steep, rocky precipices as happily as he
trots along a cinder-path.
I passed a shepherd in a ragged cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, holding a
crook. He stared at me, his flock of brown sheep clustered about him as
I scampered by, and his dog rushed after, barking.
'_Vaya Usted con Dios!_'
I came to little woods of pine-trees, with long, thin trunks, and the
foliage spreading umbrella-wise; round them circled innumerable hawks,
whose nests I saw among the branches. Two ravens crossed my path, their
wings heavily flapping.
The great charm of the Andalusian country is that you seize romance, as
it were, in the act. In northern lands it is only by a mental effort
that you can realise the picturesque value of the life that surrounds
you; and, for my part, I can perceive it only by putting it mentally in
black and white, and reading it as though between the covers of a book.
Once, I remember, in Brittany, in a distant corner of that rock-bound
coast, I sat at midnight in a fisherman's cottage playing cards by the
light of two tallow candles. Next door, with only a wall between us, a
very old sailor lay dying in the great cupboard-bed which had belonged
to his fathers before him; and he fought for life with the remains of
that strenuous vigour with which in other years he had battled against
the storms of the Atlantic. In the stillness of the night, the waves,
with the murmur of a lullaby, washed gently upon the shingle, and the
stars shone down from a clear sky. I looked at the yellow light on the
faces of the players, gathered in that desolate spot from the four
corners of the earth, and cried out: 'By Jove, this is romance!' I had
never before caught that impression in the very making, and I was
delighted with my good fortune.
The answer came quickly from the American: 'Don't talk bosh! It's your
deal.'
But for all that it was romance, seized fugitively, and life at that
moment threw itself into a decorative pattern fit to be remembered. It
is the same effect which you get more constantly in Spain, so that the
commonest things are transfigured into beauty. For in the cactus and the
aloe and the broad fields of grain, in the mules with their wide
panniers and the peasants, in the shepherds' huts and the straggling
farm-houses, the romantic is there, needing no subtlety to be
discovered; and the least imaginative may feel a certain thrill when he
understands that the life he leads is not without its æsthetic meaning.
* * *
I rode for a long way in complete solitude, through many miles of this
sandy desert. Then the country changed, and olive-groves in endless
succession followed one another, the trees with curiously decorative
effect were planted in long, even lines. The earth was a vivid red,
contrasting with the blue sky and the sombre olives, gnarled and
fantastically twisted, like evil spirits metamorphosed: in places they
had sown corn, and the young green enhanced the shrill diversity of
colour. With its clear, brilliant outlines and its lack of shadow, the
scene reminded one of a prim pattern, such as in Jane Austen's day young
gentlewomen worked in worsted. Sometimes I saw women among the trees,
perched like monkeys on the branches, or standing below with large
baskets; they were extraordinarily quaint in the trousers which modesty
bade them wear for the concealment of their limbs when olive-picking.
The costume was so masculine, their faces so red and weather-beaten,
that the yellow handkerchief on their heads was really the only means of
distinguishing their sex.
But the path became more precipitous, hewn from the sandstone, and so
polished by the numberless shoes of donkeys and of mules that I hardly
dared walk upon it; and suddenly I saw Carmona in front of me--quite
close.
XXVII
[Sidenote: By the Road--I]
The approach to Carmona is a very broad, white street, much too wide for
the cottages which line it, deserted; and the young trees planted on
either side are too small to give shade. The sun beat down with a fierce
glare and the dust rose in clouds as I passed. Presently I came to a
great Moorish gateway, a dark mass of stone, battlemented, with a lofty
horseshoe arch. People were gathered about it in many-coloured groups, I
found it was a holiday in Carmona, and the animation was unwonted; in a
corner stood the hut of the _Consumo_, and the men advanced to examine
my saddle-bags. I passed through, into the town, looking right and left
for a _parador_, an hostelry whereat to leave my horse. I bargained for
the price of food and saw Aguador comfortably stalled; then made my way
to the Nekropolis where lived my host. There are many churches in
Carmona, and into one of these I entered; it had nothing of great
interest, but to a certain degree it was rich, rich in its gilded
woodwork and in the brocade that adorned the pillars; and I felt that
these Spanish churches lent a certain dignity to life: for all the
careless flippancy of Andalusia they still remained to strike a nobler
note. I forgot willingly that the land was priest-ridden and
superstitious, so that a Spaniard could tell me bitterly that there were
but two professions open to his countrymen, the priesthood and the
bull-ring. It was pleasant to rest in that cool and fragrant darkness.
My host was an archæologist, and we ate surrounded by broken
earthenware, fragmentary mosaics, and grinning skulls. It was curious
afterwards to wander in the graveyard which, with indefatigable zeal, he
had excavated, among the tombs of forgotten races, letting oneself down
to explore the subterranean cells. The paths he had made in the giant
cemetery were lined with a vast number of square sandstone boxes which
had contained human ashes; and now, when the lid was lifted, a green
lizard or a scorpion darted out. From the hill I saw stretched before me
the great valley of the Guadalquivir: with the squares of olive and of
ploughed field, and the various greens of the corn, it was like a vast,
multi-coloured carpet. But later, with the sunset, black clouds arose,
splendidly piled upon one another; and the twilight air was chill and
grey. A certain sternness came over the olive-groves, and they might
well have served as a reproach to the facile Andaluz; for their cold
passionless green seemed to offer a warning to his folly.
At night my host left me to sleep in the village, and I lay in bed alone
in the little house among the tombs; it was very silent. The wind sprang
up and blew about me, whistling through the windows, whistling weirdly;
and I felt as though the multitudes that had been buried in that old
cemetery filled the air with their serried numbers, a vast, silent
congregation waiting motionless for they knew not what. I recalled a
gruesome fact that my friend had told me: not far from there, in tombs
that he had disinterred the skeletons lay huddled spasmodically, with
broken skulls and a great stone by the side; for when a man, he said,
lay sick unto death, his people took him, and placed him in his grave,
and with the stone killed him.
* * *
In the morning I set out again. It was five-and-thirty miles to Ecija,
but a new high road stretched from place to place and I expected easy
riding. Carmona stands on the top of a precipitous hill, round which
winds the beginning of the road; below, after many zigzags, I saw its
continuation, a straight white line reaching as far as I could see. In
Andalusia, till a few years ago, there were practically no high roads,
and even now they are few and bad. The chief communication from town to
town is usually an uneven track, which none attempts to keep up, with
deep ruts, and palmetto growing on either side, and occasional pools of
water. A day's rain makes it a quagmire, impassable for anything beside
the sure-footed mule.
I went on, meeting now and then a string of asses, their panniers filled
with stones or with wood for Carmona; the drivers sat on the rump of the
hindmost animal, for that is the only comfortable way to ride a donkey.
A peasant trotted briskly by on his mule, his wife behind him with her
arms about his waist. I saw a row of ploughs in a field; to each were
attached two oxen, and they went along heavily, one behind the other in
regular line. By the side of every pair a man walked bearing a long
goad, and one of them sang a _Malagueña_, its monotonous notes rising
and falling slowly. From time to time I passed a white farm, a little
way from the road, invitingly cool in the heat; the sun began to beat
down fiercely. The inevitable storks were perched on a chimney, by their
big nest; and when they flew in front of me, with their broad white
wings and their red legs against the blue sky, they gave a quaint
impression of a Japanese screen.
A farmhouse such as this seems to me always a type of the Spanish
impenetrability. I have been over many of them, and know the manner of
their rooms and the furniture, the round of duties there performed and
how the day is portioned out; but the real life of the inhabitants
escapes me. My knowledge is merely external. I am conscious that it is
the same of the Andalusians generally, and am dismayed because I know
practically nothing more after a good many years than I learnt in the
first months of my acquaintance with them. Below the superficial
similarity with the rest of Europe which of late they have acquired,
there is a difference which makes it impossible to get at the bottom of
their hearts. They have no openness as have the French and the Italians,
with whom a good deal of intimacy is possible even to an Englishman, but
on the contrary an Eastern reserve which continually baffles me. I
cannot realise their thoughts nor their outlook. I feel always below the
grace of their behaviour the instinctive, primeval hatred of the
stranger.
Gradually the cultivation ceased, and I saw no further sign of human
beings. I returned to the desert of the previous day, but the land was
more dreary. The little groves of pine-trees had disappeared, there were
no olives, no cornfields, not even the aloe nor the wilder cactus; but
on either side as far as the horizon, desert wastes, littered with
stones and with rough boulders, grown over only by palmetto. For many
miles I went, dismounting now and then to stretch my legs and sauntering
a while with the reins over my shoulder. Towards mid-day I rested by the
wayside and let Aguador eat what grass he could.
Presently, continuing my journey, I caught sight of a little hovel where
the fir-branch over the door told me wine was to be obtained. I fastened
my horse to a ring in the wall, and, going in, found an aged crone who
gave me a glass of that thin white wine, produce of the last year's
vintage, which is called _Vino de la Hoja_, wine of the leaf; she looked
at me incuriously as though she saw so many people and they were so much
alike that none repaid particular scrutiny. I tried to talk with her,
for it seemed a curious life that she must lead, alone in that hut many
miles from the nearest hamlet, with never a house in sight; but she was
taciturn and eyed me now with something like suspicion. I asked for
food, but with a sullen frown she answered that she had none to spare. I
inquired the distance to Luisiana, a village on the way to Ecija where
I had proposed to lunch, and shrugging her shoulders, she replied: 'How
should I know!' I was about to go when I heard a great clattering, and a
horseman galloped up. He dismounted and walked in, a fine example of the
Andalusian countryman, handsome and tall, well-shaved, with
close-cropped hair. He wore elaborately decorated gaiters, the usual
short, close-fitting jacket, and a broad-brimmed hat; in his belt were a
knife and a revolver, and slung across his back a long gun. He would
have made an admirable brigand of comic-opera; but was in point of fact
a farmer riding, as he told me, to see his _novia_, or lady-love, at a
neighbouring farm.
I found him more communicative and in the politest fashion we discussed
the weather and the crops. He had been to Seville.
'_Che maravilla!_' he cried, waving his fine, strong hands. 'What a
marvel! But I cannot bear the town-folk. What thieves and liars!'
'Town-folk should stick to the towns,' muttered the old woman, looking
at me somewhat pointedly.
The remark drew the farmer's attention more closely to me.
'And what are you doing here?' he asked.
'Riding to Ecija.'
'Ah, you're a commercial traveller,' he cried, with fine scorn. 'You
foreigners bleed the country of all its money. You and the government!'
'Rogues and vagabonds!' muttered the old woman.
Notwithstanding, the farmer with much condescension accepted one of my
cigars, and made me drink with him a glass of _aguardiente_.
We went off together. The mare he rode was really magnificent, rather
large, holding her head beautifully, with a tail that almost swept the
ground. She carried as if it were nothing the heavy Spanish saddle,
covered with a white sheep-skin, its high triangular pommel of polished
wood. Our ways, however, quickly diverged. I inquired again how far it
was to the nearest village.
'Eh!' said the farmer, with a vague gesture. 'Two leagues. Three
leagues. _Quien sabe?_ Who knows? _Adios!_'
He put the spurs to his mare and galloped down a bridle-track. I, whom
no fair maiden awaited, trotted on soberly.
XXVIII
[Sidenote: By the Road--II]
The endless desert grew rocky and less sandy, the colours duller. Even
the palmetto found scanty sustenance, and huge boulders, strewn as
though some vast torrent had passed through the plain, alone broke the
desolate flatness. The dusty road pursued its way, invariably straight,
neither turning to one side nor to the other, but continually in front
of me, a long white line.
Finally in the distance I saw a group of white buildings and a cluster
of trees. I thought it was Luisiana, but Luisiana, they had said, was a
populous hamlet, and here were only two or three houses and not a soul.
I rode up and found among the trees a tall white church, and a pool of
murky water, further back a low, new edifice, which was evidently a
monastery, and a _posada_. Presently a Franciscan monk in his brown cowl
came out of the church, and he told me that Luisiana was a full league
off, but that food could be obtained at the neighbouring inn.
The _posada_ was merely a long barn, with an open roof of wood, on one
side of which were half a dozen mangers and in a corner two mules.
Against another wall were rough benches for travellers to sleep on. I
dismounted and walked to the huge fireplace at one end, where I saw
three very old women seated like witches round a _brasero_, the great
brass dish of burning cinders. With true Spanish stolidity they did not
rise as I approached, but waited for me to speak, looking at me
indifferently. I asked whether I could have anything to eat.
'Fried eggs.'
'Anything else?'
The hostess, a tall creature, haggard and grim, shrugged her shoulders.
Her jaws were toothless, and when she spoke it was difficult to
understand. I tied Aguador to a manger and took off his saddle. The old
women stirred themselves at last, and one brought a portion of chopped
straw and a little barley. Another with the bellows blew on the cinders,
and the third, taking eggs from a basket, fried them on the _brasero_.
Besides, they gave me coarse brown bread and red wine, which was coarser
still; for dessert the hostess went to the door and from a neighbouring
tree plucked oranges.
When I had finished--it was not a very substantial meal--I drew my chair
to the _brasero_ and handed round my cigarette-case. The old women
helped themselves, and a smile of thanks made the face of my gaunt
hostess somewhat less repellent. We smoked a while in silence.
'Are you all alone here?' I asked, at length.