The Writer Turns Churlish and Quits Madrid--Sleep under
Difficulties--A Bad Dream--Santa Cruz again--Off St.
Helena!--Dissertation on Stomach Matters--A Hint to British Railway
Directors--"Odds, Hilts and Blades"--A Delicate Little Gentleman is
Curious--The "Tierra Deleitosa"--That Butcher again.
"If you want to see real Spain," said the British Minister to me, "don't
stop here longer than you can help. Go south." That fixed me. With a
natural impulsiveness I pronounced "the imperial and crowned, very noble
and very loyal and very heroic town"--all which titles it bears--a fraud
and a failure as far as my calling was concerned. There had been great
cry and little wool. I was as churlish as a hangman cheated of his
client. That terrible thing which was perpetually on the eve of coming
to pass had not come to pass. After all, I reflected, it was for the
better; for if there had been stupendous tidings to wire, the
Government telegraphic system would have broken down under the
operation. A message more than twenty lines long was a shock to the
clerks, and set them discussing so excitedly that they let the fire of
their cigarettes die out. The "only court" grew hateful to my mind. It
had produced no men to charm by, save Frey Lope de Vega Carpio, Don
Pedro Calderon de la Barca, and the Maestro Tirso de Molina--and they
were dead. It was a nest of political hornets, and head-quarters of
hyperbole; flimsy feathers of lying gossip floated thick as midges in
midsummer air; as in Athens, the populace spent its leisure, which was
the best part of its life, in nothing but hearing or telling new
stories. I would shake the dust of the Prado off my feet, in testimony
against the unsatisfying capital. Architecturally, it was a
higgledy-piggledy of houses on a high bare site; climatically, it was a
mixture of furnace and hall of winds; socially, it was slow, and a
disappointment; intellectually, it was below zero. My parting words--I
cannot say my farewell--will be framed on those of Jugurtha to Rome:
"_Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emtorem invenerit._"
I paid a good-bye visit, with thoughts of a stirrup-cup, to Maceehan, at
the Fornos, and discovered him listening to Bret Harte's poem of "Table
Mountain," recited by Russell Young, who was lolling on a sofa in an
upstairs cabinet. The dentist did not seem to "take much stock in it."
An appreciation of the horrors of Chinese cheap labour requires a
liberal antecedent education on the Pacific slope. Dr. Maceehan was, for
his own sake, sincerely sorry I was going away; but for my sake he was
glad, as I had been overworking myself, and was badly in want of a kick
in the liver.
It is an error to speak of any city or people when you are under the
influence of sluggish bile, for you are liable to do them injustice. It
is a sin not to withdraw the unjust words. I am tempted to sin; but on
consideration I follow the example familiar in a certain legislature,
and take back the unparliamentary language into which I have been
betrayed by jecoral derangement. Honour to the manes of Uxem-Ali-Beck,
Ambassador from the Shah of Persia, who came to Madrid in 1601, and fell
in love there. He liked it. I fell in love ten times a day, but nobody
would fall in love with me.
On a Sunday night at nine o'clock, I quitted the city, and on Tuesday
morning I had my hair trimmed by a barber of Seville. The journey, like
most long railway journeys, is one of infinite weariness to the flesh.
The first-class carriages are roomy and well-padded, so that short
travelling, except for invalids, is comfortable enough. The correo, or
mail train--that which I took--leaves but once in twenty-four hours,
and, in consequence of carrying the mails, has to stop at every station,
so that its progress is slow, albeit the quickest to be had for money.
There were nine sociable young Spaniards in the compartment with me. The
gauge of the road is wide, admitting of five broad seats at each side,
and the motion of the train is easy and nurses to sleep, without that
violent rocking which one sometimes experiences while rattling
northwards from London in the Flying Scotchman. But the backs of the
seats are stiff and straight as a Prussian drill-sergeant, and do not
nurse, but "murder sleep," as I speedily found to my sorrow. However,
they do nurse a crick in the neck. I was woke out of a wayward doze just
as I was about to undergo the punishment of death by the garrote. I had
been dreaming a fearsome dream. In a weak moment I had accepted the
crown of Spain. I had granted my subjects every conceivable privilege,
pandered to all their crazes, gone so far as to give them a bull-fight
every day in the week and two on Sundays and festivals, paying all
expenses out of my own royal pockets. But they were not to be satisfied,
unless I would go into the bull-ring myself. That was the straw that
breaks the camel's back. I flatly refused. They rebelled, kicked me off
the throne, led me in a felon's yellow coat on a wretched donkey to the
place of execution, and planted me in the fatal chair. Most poignant
humiliation yet, all the crowned heads of Europe, led by the Czar of
Russia, were invited to the spectacle and joined in a howling chorus of
"Serve him right." I looked my last around, and woke up with a toss of
my noddle against the back of the seat. We were at Alcázar. A
fellow-traveller kindly offered to let me lay my head between his legs
if I would give him my carpet-bag for a pillow. There is nothing like
reciprocal accommodation on a journey. I agreed, the train started
again, and I lost myself in the land of Nod. This time I was following
the campaign against the Carlists. Suddenly I was roused by a cry--
"Santa Cruz!"
I knuckled my eyes, the carriage was motionless, and I distinctly heard
the name of the dreaded priest Santa Cruz repeated. This was no dream.
Had I mistaken the terminus? Had I been speeding northwards all this
time? I was in a most perplexed tangle of mind, half pleased at the
prospect of meeting the redoubtable Cura in person, half apprehensive
lest I might give lodging to a chance bullet, and miss the opportunity
of describing him. As I was preparing to jump out, the tram moved on
anew. I turned to the railway guide and discovered the explanation of
the mystery. Santa Cruz is a station on the Andalusian line between Val
de Peñas and Almuradiel. A third time I fell asleep, to be roused by
another cry--
"St. Helena!"
Taught by former experience, I was not to be discomposed now. We had
pierced the bowels of the Sierra Morena, and Santa Elena was but the
name of a station on its southern side. The next time I fell off I
enjoyed a genuine sleep. I do not think it would have roused me if "Salt
Lake" or "Skibbereen" had been shouted in my ear through a
speaking-trumpet.
At Menjibar, where we arrived about ten in the morning, there was a
delay of twenty minutes for breakfast. By way of whet, I presume, my
fellow-travellers all lit cigarettes as we were gliding up by the
platform. This Spanish railway restaurant was a reproach to Mugby
Junction. It was scrupulously clean, the fare was excellent, and the
tariff moderate. The price of every article was legibly painted in
distemper on the walls. Premising that a real is, roundly speaking,
twopence halfpenny of our money, a list of some of the viands and
liquids to be had and their cost will be interesting--only the reader is
requested not to open the book previous to bolting his food at the
hurry-up and grab-all refreshment-room at Amiens, or when he is about to
confront scalding soup and monumental sandwiches at some of our British
buffets. It might ruffle his temper and jeopardize his digestion. A
breakfast consisting of a couple of eggs, two plates of meat or fish,
dessert, bread and wine, can be had for twelve reals. The wine is the
common wine of the country, and pleasant and healthy tipple it is when
you get used to it. You can procure a baby bottle full for one real, and
if you like to be extravagant you can pay twenty-four for a bottle of
Bordeaux, or forty for a bottle of champagne. The Bordeaux is too dear.
As for champagne, nobody drinks that habitually except kings of the
Bonanza dynasty; but myriads of men, especially at race-meetings, drink
a beverage which they take for the bubbling, roseate, kindling nectar
with inspiration in every wavering pearlet. "Fizz," I think they call
it. I hope they enjoy it. "Compound of crime at a sovereign a quart"
(see James Smith's poems somewhere), I call it. He who quaffs champagne
at dinner, save on a foggy day, is unworthy of God's gifts. The proper
hour for the absorption of that delicious exhilarant is at eleven in the
forenoon, and then but two glasses at the most should be taken. These
glasses should not be the absurd shallow lapping-glasses, nor yet the
slender stork-glasses, but the goodly tumbler. If it be summer, there
should be a lump of ice in the crystal goblet; and the connoisseur will
always hold it between him and the sunlight before imbibition, and
ejaculate, "There's a picture!" For these hints I am indebted to that
princely gourmet of palate most exquisite, John Kavanagh, of the Inman
ocean-ferry line, Founder and President of the Cocktail Club, of which I
am the Laureate. Returning from our divagation, the amateur of beer may
have a big bottle at these Spanish railway hotels for four reals, but I
counsel him abstention. It is never advisable to drink beer in a
wine-growing country. The soul of Sir Wilfrid Lawson would be elevated
to the height of successful joke-making at the catalogue of the
teetotal drinks, which range from sugared water to milk and orangeade.
My weakness is egg-flip. For dinner, which is to be partaken of at
fourteen reals, one has a soup, a fry, an _entrée_, a roast, a salad,
two sweets or fruits, bread and wine. The _entrées_ are usually rib of
mutton, veal or a beefsteak, which sometimes makes you think there is
something like leather. A hen, which is a luxury, rates at fourteen
reals, but a tortilla of the hen's eggs is to be preferred. If any
complaints are felt to be necessary as to attendance or provand, the
station-master has a volume wherein to write them down at the disposal
of travellers.
From Menjibar we steamed along through a beautiful landscape of this
beautiful province of Andalusia. The fields were emerald green and ought
to be fertile, but they seemed to lack cultivation. Very few persons
were to be seen working in them. In proportion as nature had been
prodigal, man appeared to be lazy. Still, viewed as the painter, not the
agriculturist would view it, the landscape was delicious in its quiet
loveliness. Patches of silvery grey--that dreamy neutral silvery grey
which is to be caught in perfection on willows played upon by
moonlight--here and there lightened the mellow masses of verdure. Those
were olive groves. The hills on the horizon, seen through an odd curtain
of rain, for the day was showery, had the vaporous hazy outline of some
of Murillo's pictures. Anon we passed by the bridge of Alcolea, the
scene of the defeat of Queen Isabella's forces under Nouvaliches by
Serrano in 1868. The field is altogether too pretty to have been defiled
by a sanguinary episode of civil war. A gently winding stream courses
'mid rich undulating meadows at the base of a ridge of hills covered
with cottages enbowered in plantations and orchards. As if inflamed by
the warlike associations of the locality, my companions produced
sword-canes, dirks and poniards, and began comparing them with the air
of experts. Not one of these sociable young Spaniards was unprovided
with a lethal weapon. I was devoutly thankful that they had not got to
talking politics on the road, or I might have had to deplore the absence
of a bye-law applying to passengers carrying edged tools from that code
which so carefully shuts out the drunkard, and insists that nobody with
a loaded gun or pistol shall enter a carriage.
At Córdoba the train stopped, and we changed carriages for the
Andalusian capital. During my short stay I was invited to take my choice
of a varied assortment of daggers, navajas, skeens, and stylets, which a
sturdy hawker, who looked as if he knew how to handle them, had strung
round his waist.
The fellow was a perfect walking arsenal, or rather a peripatetic bit of
Sheffield, and expatiated affectionately on the temper and cutting
qualities of his wares. I declined to buy. He showed his teeth, and told
me I might go farther and fare worse. I was very happy to take him at
his word, and get into a carriage that was going as far as Seville,
which was occupied by only one person, a delicate little gentleman with
a bright, keen, kindly face. To him came a courier as he leant out of
the carriage-window.
"Why does one see so many Scotch caps about?" asked the little
gentleman, in English.
"Because Gibraltar is near, and there are smugglers there," answered the
courier.
"Why does one see so many dogs about?" asked the little gentleman.
"Because they find more food here than at home," answered the courier.
"Why does not one see the train start to time?" asked the little
gentleman.
"Because this is Spain," answered the courier.
That was conclusive, and the little gentleman drew in his head and sat
down opposite me. He was a charming companion, a young American of
culture and courtly manners, who was travelling in Spain for his health.
He loved the country and the people, and told me many anecdotes of acts
of kindness of which, being sickly, he had been the object from this
strange, tender, passionate race, as ready with generous help as with
the stiletto-point. Poor little gentleman! I fear he has made a void in
some fond household long since, for he was sore stricken with decline.
"The Spaniard," he said, "in fine, is the most courteous of men; he
never sits down to eat in your presence without offering you a share of
his meal." And it is true.
From Córdoba to Seville the way lies through a land of delights--the
"tierra deleitosa" of Andalusia. Again we swept by green fields and
silvery grey olive groves; anon we skirted vivid clusters of
orange-trees laden with the great luscious fruit, which is ever in
season. On we passed by plains bristling with huge spiky clumps of aloes
alternating with growths of Barbary figs, until, towards twilight, we
came in sight of the Guadalquivir with its boats, and on the farther
side, near a copse of cypress, the walls of the Cartuja Convent, now
turned into a porcelain factory by an enterprising Englishman, who makes
imitation Moorish tiles where the hooded friars sang matins and lauds.
It was seven o'clock when we drove into "proud Seville," too late to
look at any of her marvels, but not too late to enjoy a good dinner in
the Fonda de Paris, a namesake and branch of the hotel where I had been
stopping at Madrid. My _vis-à-vis_ at the dinner-table was the Saragossa
butcher--I began to think now he was a political agent--who had been my
_vis-à-vis_ on my tedious ride over the mountains from Beasain to
Alsasua. Was this varlet on my track? I began to entertain serious
apprehensions on the score. It has been my lot for years to have been
shadowed by _mouchards_, gendarmes, detectives, and policemen.
My goings-out and my comings-in have been noted; my house has been
watched by hulking louts in uniform whom their foolish superiors pitched
upon as accomplished pryers; nay, even a female with _pince-nez_,
sealskin jacket, long purse, and an Ollendorffian intimacy with most
Continental tongues, has been cunningly slipped at my heels. I have
been, thank the Lord, misunderstood by fools, belied by knaves, avoided
by the timorous, tabooed by the contemptibly "respectable" (odious
word), and slandered by scoundrels whom I had befriended. Heads have
been wagged, and I have been adjudged a deep card and a dangerous
character. Nothing could be got out of _me_.
The explanation is simple. I had nothing to conceal. You cannot squeeze
aqua tofana out of a stone. I was suspected, I take it now, because, in
the exercise of my vocation, I had been thrown into the society of
Communists, Nihilists, Fenians, and Carbonari. Had I confined myself to
card-sharpers, prize-fighters, copper captains, hypocrites, libertines,
and ladies of the Loosened Cincture, all would have been well. And yet,
'fore Heaven, I can assure the Powers, great and small, I have never
meditated wrong to a State or a potentate, never harboured an unkind
thought for a dog, and never joined a secret society but the Order of
Antediluvian Buffaloes, and they expelled me from the lodge for
unbuffalo-like behaviour.
If I was sure that Saragossa butcher was a spy, I would not put prussic
acid in his chocolate, but I almost think I would sprinkle cowhage
between his sheets.