CHAPTER XI

Entertaining in town and country—Critical guests—A subscription

ball—_Le dernier cri_ from London—Dancing in a bog—Why the

ladies went home—The search for Spanish gaiety—A disappointed

artist—Afternoon calls—Arab hospitality—Ladies at work—Spanish

unpunctuality—A new winter coat—Maria’s compliment—Open house

to old servants—Carmen the _cigarrera_.

It does not cost much to entertain in Spain, at any rate in the smaller

towns. In the large towns things are otherwise, and it may be as well to

begin by relating an incident that I heard of in connection with some

very pleasant friends who lived in one of the “capitals,” which means

the chief town of the great provinces into which Spain is divided. Here

there is a great deal of _cursileria_—a slang term best translated as

“snobbishness”—and as every lady who gives a party wishes to spend more

than any other lady, and as pride is everywhere more plentiful than

pesetas, little hospitality is shown to or by people who are not rich.

[Illustration: POSED FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER.]

An heiress had married the head of an old and noble family who himself

possessed hardly anything beyond the family estate in Castile. Just when

her eldest girl put on her first long frock and was about to be presented

at Court, my friend lost almost all her money through some unfortunate

speculation on the part of her husband—for the husband, be it observed,

is absolute master of his wife’s property in Spain. After the first shock

the Condesa removed to a smaller house, and arranged her mode of life to

suit her altered circumstances, while the Conde, a Colonel in the King’s

Guard, went to Madrid as usual to fulfil his duty at Court.

One of the things saved from the wreck was a grand piano, for the Condesa

was a first-rate musician, and on Salud’s eighteenth “name-day” a party

was arranged with the double object of “offering the new house” to their

large circle of acquaintance, and giving the girl a little amusement at

home, since it was now out of the question for her to have a season at

Madrid. The three daughters set to work and made paper flowers—a pretty

accomplishment in which Spanish ladies excel—and garlands of leaves to

adorn the patio. The Condesa herself superintended the preparation of

various dainty little refreshments for her guests, and everything on the

eventful night was as bright and attractive as good taste and willing

hands could make it.

But there were no ices, no champagne, no set supper, and no band,

the girls of the house taking turns to play endless _seguidillas_,

_rigodones_, and valses for their guests. And when the dance was over and

the Condesa and her daughters stood in the patio saying good-bye to those

whom they had done their best to entertain, they heard one aristocratic

dame remark to another of her kind—

“Were you ever before invited to anything quite so shabby? Really, if

Maria de las Nieves could not afford something better than that, she had

no business to invite us at all!”

But this specimen of aristocratic courtesy was displayed in a “capital,”

and things fortunately are very different in more out-of-the-way places.

In these I have seen young people meet together to talk and laugh and

dance for hours, quite satisfied with no more costly refreshment than a

bottle of water with a single glass from which they all drank in turn;

while a lady who held weekly receptions to which we were invited once

for the whole year, was regarded as quite a liberal hostess because she

provided weak coffee and biscuits _ad lib._

It was in a country town that I had the pleasure of attending my first

and only subscription ball in Spain. The King’s approaching marriage had

brought everything English very much into fashion, and we were received

on entering the theatre, where the ball was held, by the young gentleman

who had got us the tickets, dressed as a Pierrot but wearing a bowler hat

from Christie’s, whose label was displayed by an ingenious turn of the

hand as he led me into the dancing-room, otherwise the auditorium of the

theatre.

It was Carnival, and most of the dancers were in fancy dress. The place

was prettily decorated, and the boxes and dress circle were crowded with

spectators. All the elder ladies were wearing black or white mantillas or

Manila shawls, and one ought to have received an impression of smartness

or even of elegance. But something was wrong somewhere to our English

eyes, and instead of admiring the _coup d’œil_ one cast about to see

why one felt as if one had accidentally intruded upon a festivity in

Whitechapel.

“Will you dance with me?” asked the Pierrot of a girl of our party, who,

by the way, wore a realistic beggar’s dress, all red and yellow rags,

which her Spanish friends thought very absurd because it had cost only a

few pesetas. And as the couple moved off together I suddenly discovered

why the scene reminded me of a London coster dance. Every young man and

many of the old ones wore a hat—generally a bowler—and even if he took it

off to valse, which not many of them did, he carried it carefully under

his arm as he danced, regardless of the inconvenience to his partner.

“What do you think of our ball?” asked an acquaintance, who was smoking a

cigarette as well as wearing his hat.

I was tactless enough to say that it looked odd to us to see so many

hats about, and I noticed that the young man’s face fell. I learnt

afterwards that the bowler from Christie’s was believed to be absolutely

the _dernier cri_ in England, and that being so, it was considered as

appropriate to the ballroom as to the street.

The entertainment was got up by the rank and fashion of the town,

so everybody behaved with great dignity, and there was none of the

rollicking fun we expected to see at a Carnival ball. The ladies in the

boxes continually threw serpentinas and confetti at the dancers, until

the floor was inches deep in them, and an Irish girl in our party said

she felt as if she was dancing in one of her native bogs. But no one got

excited, and an English artist on the look out for local colour began to

bewail the absence of the light and life that he had believed inseparable

from Spanish society.

A little before 1 a.m. there was a universal move towards the centre of

the theatre, and at a given signal the heavens seemed to open and a mass

of paper flowers, confetti, and bonbons concealed behind the garlands

draping the ceiling, showered down on our heads, while a number of white

pigeons were let loose and flew about in terror; but still nobody got

excited. When this was over the Pierrot in charge of our party called the

eldest of the Englishmen aside and asked him to take his ladies home,

“because other ladies would be coming now”—a gentle hint, on which all

the English and most of the Spanish dames hastily took their departure.

The artist was the only one of us who stayed, hoping that with the advent

of the “other ladies” he might see something of the celebrated animation

which he wanted to introduce into his pictures of Spanish life. He told

us next day that he had stopped till 4 a.m., and then came home escorted

by half the Spanish army and all the Spanish navy—as represented at the

ball—most of them rather and some of them very drunk, but solemn to the

last.

“Spanish gaiety is a fraud,” he indignantly declared, and departed in

dudgeon, shaking the dust of our town off his feet.

But when I came to know more of Spanish society I understood why all the

ladies and many of the men were so solemn on that occasion. Being at a

subscription and thus a semi-public ball, they considered that it would

be _infra dig._ to show that they were amused. I never went to another

such dance, for I prefer natural fun among young people at a party, but

I would not have missed that one for the world; it was so delightfully

unlike anything else of the kind one had ever seen.

Afternoon calling in Spain is very different from the quarter-of-an-hour

duty visit or the formal leaving of cards which is customary in

England—or was when I left my native country ten years or so ago.

Here it is a serious matter for those who have any sort of occupation,

for one is expected to stay never less than an hour, and indeed your

intimate friends are hurt if you don’t remain the whole afternoon.

It is absolutely contrary to etiquette to go out when you have visitors,

no matter how important an engagement you may have made before the

uninvited guests appeared. I have known friends fail to arrive when

expected to a ceremonious dinner at our house, and the all-sufficient

reply to my reproaches has been, “I was very sorry, but what was I to do?

We had visitors.”

This exaggerated regard for the duties of hospitality in your own house,

coupled with a calm disregard of any obligation imposed by an engagement

to visit your neighbours, is another of the innumerable survivals of

Arabic tradition, and as such must be respected by all who would enjoy

the friendship of Spaniards. It is stronger in the south than in the

north, where the Oriental influence was comparatively ephemeral and

made no lasting impression on the natives. And it is even said that

in Barcelona the Catalans sometimes turn up punctually when they have

made a business engagement. This, I am credibly informed, is one of the

causes, as well as an effect, of Cataluñan prosperity. But the Catalans

are reputed to make a boast of their virtues, and this ridiculous regard

for punctuality and the rest is one of their many offences in the eyes

of _e.g._ the Andalucians, who are to the Catalans as oil to water, and

never will agree with them on any single question to the crack of doom.

The extraordinary indifference of Spaniards to fixed hours and previously

made engagements caused me no little trouble in connection with the

photograph facing the head of this chapter. I wanted to take a pretty

group formed day after day by the friends with whom I was staying, as

they sat at work in their charming old patio, with some small nieces

playing about them, and a typically Spanish air of ease and comfortable

_négligé_ pervading the whole scene. So I asked them to be in their usual

rocking-chairs on a certain day, fixed by themselves, and arranged with

the photographer to come at three o’clock on that afternoon, this being

the time when my friends were always sitting there with their needlework,

and the one hour in the whole day when the light in the patio, which was

shadowed by a large orange tree, admitted of successful photography.

At three o’clock the patio was empty, save for a baby niece and her

nurse. The girls, I was told, were dressing for the occasion. At

three-thirty the photographer came. By that time the baby niece, badly

bored, had begun to cry, and she continued to cry until at last she

had to be taken away. She was a pretty baby, and I did not want to

lose her from the picture. At four o’clock, when the light in the

patio was already bad, the girls at last appeared, not, as had been

arranged, in their everyday dresses prepared to sit down for a couple

of hours’ needlework, but in the costume of peasant girls got up for

the fair, and quite obviously ladies in fancy dress. Nor was this the

only disappointment to a writer who wanted a picture of Spanish ladies

at home, for the sight of the camera had attracted all the children of

my friends’ friends within range, and I was told by my hostess that

great offence would be given if they were not allowed to figure in the

photograph.

As it was evidently useless now to attempt to get the sort of group I

wanted, I gave way with such grace as I could command. The weeping baby

was brought back, still weeping and refusing to be comforted even by some

artificial flowers offered by its mother, who had put on a beautiful

Manila shawl as an appropriate garment for sewing in the patio. The

children from over the way planted themselves as seemed good to them, and

the grown ladies settled themselves as the photographer recommended. When

all was ready half an hour or so later, the sun went behind a cloud, the

baby gave an extra howl, my particular friend stepped out of focus, and

the photograph was of course hopelessly spoiled.

When the superfluous children had run away thinking it was all over,

and most of the ladies had taken their leave, the sun reappeared, and

the photographer hastily snapped the two prettiest girls, with the

baby’s mother pretending to be the nurse of the elder nieces, who yawned

violently and informed us that their dolls had gone to sleep.

All things considered, I think the result was fairly good, but it is not

a picture of Spanish ladies sitting at home with their sewing in the

reposeful attitudes characteristic of the land where one hour is as good

as another. I gave that up after wasting a whole afternoon and a certain

amount of money in the manner here described. Neither the ladies nor the

photographer seemed at all concerned at the fiasco, nor were the former

at all contrite at having caused it by their unpunctuality. Indeed one

of them, adding insult to injury, informed me that if I had had Señor

Fulano instead of Don Mengano to take those photographs I should have

obtained better results. And I think it should be counted to me for

righteousness that I refrained from pointing out what admirable pictures

my photographer produced when he had not to deal with society ladies.

The subjects of conversation at these friendly sewing parties are apt to

be somewhat limited in scope, but one that never fails to please is dress

in all shapes and forms.

The day after the photograph fiasco was the saint’s day, or name-day,

of Maria de las Mercédés, one of the two señoritas pretending to be a

peasant at the well in the patio. And in the afternoon I was invited

to eat cakes and drink wine, and be introduced to various callers who

had come to offer the usual congratulations. Mercédés had received, as

a name-day present from her brother, a new winter coat of the latest

fashion, and first she had to put it on to exhibit to every woman and

girl who called, and then every girl who called had to take the coat and

try it on for herself. How they could do this I can’t imagine, for it was

a blazing hot day of St. Martin’s summer, and in deference to a lady who

had a cold we were all together in a small sitting-room with the windows

shut. But one after the other of Mercédés’ young friends slipped into the

garment, studied her appearance in the mirrors with which every Spanish

sala is plentifully provided, suggested improvements in this or that

detail, and invariably ended by asking how much the coat cost and telling

the owner that it was a wonderful bargain.

If the señoritas had brought gifts themselves, there might have been some

excuse for their insatiable curiosity as to the price of the brother’s

present; but no: on Spanish name-days (which are equivalent to our

birthdays) it is the heroine of the day who makes offerings, represented

by cakes and wine, instead of receiving them. I trust that my readers

will not cry “enough of King Charles’s head” if I again remark that this

is an Oriental tradition, just as many of the cakes themselves are made

after Oriental recipes.

The custom of asking the price of whatever they admire is universal here,

and is not in the least considered bad manners. The first Spanish lady

whose acquaintance we made in Spain asked us what we were paying at the

hotel we were staying at. When we took a house we were always asked what

rent we paid, and when finally we bought the house in which we hope to

end our days, all our Spanish friends asked us what the price was, and

held up their hands in congratulatory amazement, exclaiming, “How cheap!”

It is always a compliment to say you have made a good bargain, and if you

wish to annoy, you have only to remark, “How they have cheated you!”

An old servant who lived with us for a good many years hoarded all her

wages and spent nothing beyond the “tips” she received from visitors. To

my certain knowledge she never bought a new dress for herself all the

time she was with us, but wore my cast-off clothes when doing her work,

and a brown, or as she called it, “Carmelite” cloth skirt, given her by a

visitor, for Mass and the street, year in year out, until some one else

gave her a blue serge which she turned and made to look like new. She was

under a vow from her childhood never to wear any colour out of doors but

brown, in honour of Our Lady of Carmel; but the vow somehow slipped into

the background when she received the blue serge, and this will probably

last her till she dies, for she is well over seventy.

This old lady, the first time she saw me in a new (and rather expensive)

dress, came up and fingered the silk very carefully, and walked round

and round me with expressions of enthusiastic admiration, such as—

“Señora, how beautiful! How handsome you are in your new costume! Never

have I seen you look so well and so fat!” (As in the East, stout women

are greatly admired here.)

And to finish up with, she said—

“Señora, the material is excellent. What did you pay for the dress, and

where did you get it? To-morrow I shall go to the shop and buy myself

just such another!”

I am afraid I did not receive this proposal with enthusiasm; but after a

while I became used to talk of the kind, for I discovered that old Maria

had no more idea of copying my clothes than she had of making a trip to

England, and merely intended to suggest that sincerest form of flattery

which is found in imitation.

I have met with many odd incidents showing how in certain ways the most

complete familiarity prevails between master and servant, although in

others there is a gulf fixed which seems to be impassable.

Servants, male and female, who have been engaged in a house even for a

short time, especially in the country, are made more or less free of

it for the rest of their lives. They may go away to other situations,

or marry and set up their own homes, but always when they come to see

their former mistress they walk in as if the house belonged to them, and

are treated as if they had a perfect right to be there. A laundress or

charwoman will arrive with three or four small children at her heels,

and these will sit about in the laundry or the patio all day, while the

mother does her work. I am bound to say that the little things generally

behave very well, being trained in the hard school of necessity,

and as soon as they can walk and talk they begin to run errands for

the household. They soon become useful in this way, for errands are

innumerable here. Save in big country houses which depend largely on

their own farms and fruit gardens for provisions, it is the exception to

have a storeroom, and every pennyworth of household sundries, down to

salt, pepper, and spices, is bought from day to day. As no attempt is

made to furnish a list of requirements for the day’s meals when the cook

goes to market, every item used in the cooking has to be got when it is

found to be wanted—a system which accounts for much of the unpunctuality

of meals in Spanish houses, and for the resultant national tendency to

various forms of dyspepsia.

This of course does not apply to the poor, whose food is of the

simplest. They eat bread and _morcilla_ or _chorizo_ (varieties of dried

sausage highly flavoured with garlic) for their lunch, and _puchero_ or

_cocido_—of which more later on—for their dinner. In the towns they buy

everything by the day, like their employers. But in the country they

largely live on what they grow themselves, unless the whole family is

engaged on the farm at a wage which includes food. And they thrive on

bread, _morcilla_, and water, not even coffee being drunk by country

cottagers, as I have discovered when accepting their hospitality on

my archæological excursions. Thus they have no need to be continually

running to the _comestibles_ shop, like their town friends, which is just

as well when the nearest town may be anything from two to ten miles away.

To return to the manners of Spanish servants. I was sitting one evening

with friends over the after-dinner coffee when a picturesque creature in

a purple garment of penitence, with a white handkerchief on her head,

and a pair of twins in her arms, strolled in to tell the family that she

had had a letter from her brother, a soldier in Morocco. They were all

obviously interested, and while I listened to their sympathetic inquiries

about the young man’s health and happiness, I finished my coffee and

handed my cup for a fresh supply. The bearer of the twins broke off short

in her talk on noticing that I refused sugar.

“Is it possible that the Señora drinks coffee without sugar? Never have I

heard of such a thing. Is it not very unpleasant to the taste?”

And then and there she shifted both babies on to one arm, took the unused

spoon from my saucer, dipped it into my cup, and proceeded to try for

herself what coffee without sugar tasted like.

I had much ado to refrain from laughing, the woman’s simple

unconsciousness of offence was so funny. One of my friends asked me in

English—

“What do you think of Spanish impudence?” but no one else took any notice.

This particular act was unusual, because everybody takes sugar in their

coffee, so that few opportunities arise for a servant to sample the

unsweetened coffee in her master’s cup. But the licensed familiarity that

underlay it is widespread.

Sometimes, however, an excess of familiarity brings about condign

punishment, as in a case that occurred in the hotel in which we stayed on

our first arrival in Spain.

I was alone in our little sitting-room one day, strumming on a guitar,

when the door suddenly opened and in marched a large blowsy woman with

big black eyes, a wilted rose in her hair, and a cigarette in her mouth.

She plumped herself down on the only easy-chair in the place, took the

guitar from my unresisting hands, remarked “I can play better than _that_

at any rate!” and struck up the twanging chords which preface every

south-Spanish song.

It was perfectly true that she played better than I did, though that

was not saying much, for she could hardly have played worse. And I was

so much amused at her calm assurance that I just sat and laughed, while

she twanged the guitar and beat on the floor with her slippered foot

preparatory to bursting into song. But the concert was quickly brought to

an end by the entrance of an indignant chambermaid, who seized the guitar

and soundly cuffed the guitarist with an _Anda! Vete tu!_(“Go! Get out!”)

full of wrath and indignation.

“She seems fond of music,” said I deprecatingly, for the whole scene had

been as good as a play to me.

“Fond of music! _Ca!_” retorted the chambermaid. “She’s the washerwoman,

and she’s drunk!”

Further inquiry elicited that the washerwoman was a _cigarrera_ by

profession—hence the cigarette, for respectable women in Spain do not

smoke. And her name was Carmen! Shades of Bizet and his “toreador”!

Alas! The landlady dismissed her next morning, and I never had another

scene from that play enacted before me. Incidentally I may remark that

drunkenness among women is extremely rare in Spain, and I can only

remember coming into direct contact with one other old lady the worse for

_aguardiente_ in all the years I have lived here.

PART III.—WINTER

CHAPTER XII

A December festival—The “Mystery”—A holy war—The story of the

_Seises_ and their Dance—The Triduum of Carnestolendas—The

real Don Juan—The Dancers of Corpus Christi—The defeat of Don

Jaime de Palafox—The Christmas Ship—Marzapan and _Polvorón_—The

Cock’s Mass on Christmas Eve—“Nativities”—The midnight “lunch”

in the mansion—The “Good Night” of the poor.

Probably every one who takes any interest at all in Spain has heard of

the famous Dance of the Seises before the high altar of Seville Cathedral

on certain festivals, _i.e._ that of the Immaculate Conception of Our

Lady in December, the Carnival in February, and Corpus Christi in June.

But no one either in Spain or out of it can give definite information

with chapter and verse about the origin of the dance, still less of the

name.

[Illustration: THE DANCE OF THE SEISES IN SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.

(From the picture by Gonzalo Bilbao. By permission of the owner, the Earl

of Rosebery, K.G.)]

In Spanish the word _seises_, plural of _seis_, means “sixes,” and it

is usual to conclude that the name was given because six little boys

performed the curious old-world movements known as the “dance.” But as

a matter of fact ten little boys take part, and one seventeenth-century

writer speaks of twelve and another of seven, and although my impression

is that these two figures were slips of the copyists, there is no

evidence that the number ever was precisely six, as it must have been

for that to be the origin of the name. It looks, therefore, as if the

assumption that _seises_ here means sixes (and why not Six instead

of Sixes as if they were dice?) were one of those hasty philological

generalisations based upon sound alone which constantly crop up to puzzle

the conscientious historian.

Those who pin their faith to the obvious translation of the word as

written to-day, suggest that originally there were only six dancing

boys, and that the other four were the attendants of the Archbishop,

placed by way of ornament at the four corners of the carpet on which the

dance takes place—and a very beautiful old carpet it is, by the way. But

here we meet with the objection that, whereas the corner boys are the

tallest of the ten, those who attend the Archbishop are the smallest, and

moreover that two and not four follow in his train. To us who know how

great is the force of tradition in southern Spain, it is inconceivable

that the Dean and Chapter, or the Archbishop, or even the Pope himself,

should arbitrarily and for no apparent purpose, at a time which is not

stated in any record, have added four more to the six boys whose number

is supposed to have given the name to their dance. Nor is it probable

that this particular dance should have been made numerically more

important when all over Christendom the religious dances of the Middle

Ages were dying out or were being deliberately suppressed by the Church.

The most rational explanation appears to be that of a friend of mine,

a distinguished Orientalist, who propounded a theory that the dance is

a survival of the Mozarabic ritual, and that the little “Seises” were

originally the _sais_, or attendants on the priests, at the time when

Arabic was the only language used in Seville, not only by the Moslems in

their mosques, but by the Arabicised Christians who maintained their own

forms of worship although they had forgotten their own tongue. Two little

_sais_ are seen in one of the illuminations of the _Cántigas_ of Alfonso

the Wise (1252) in attendance upon a priest who is worshipping the image

of Our Lady of the See (_Sede_—now over the high altar in the Cathedral),

and they were provided with rations and education by a Bull of Pope

Eugene IV. in 1438. But nowhere do we find any mention of their number,

as we could hardly fail to do had it been limited to six; whereas nothing

would seem more natural than the conversion of the Arabic _sais_ into

the Spanish _seis_, when Castilian was made the language of reconquered

Andalucia by law of Alfonso the Wise.

But for the loss of the deeds and archives relating to the faithful

Mozarabs of this diocese and their metropolitan Church of Saint Mary

during the troubled half-century between 1200 and the reconquest in 1248,

we might have known something about the true origin of the Seises, of

the mediæval fresco of “Our Lady of the Old Time,” and others of Mozarab

tradition, of the celebrated Guilds and Brotherhoods which come out in

procession in Holy Week, and of other curious details of Sevillian

ritual touched upon in a later chapter.

I will take the festivals enlivened by the Dance of the _Seises_ in their

order, beginning with the Octave of the Immaculate Conception of the

Blessed Virgin (to give the feast its full official title), for this not

only comes first in point of time, its vigil being on 7th December, when

winter weather has hardly yet begun in this favoured clime, but it is in

point of fact the greatest festival in the whole ecclesiastical year in

Seville, which city from first to last was the self-constituted champion

of this “Mystery.”

No one seems to know when the belief that Mary as well as her Son was

born without human agency first began to gain ground in Seville, but

Don Manuel Serrano, who has spent most of his life in the study of

Sevillian Church history and art, believes he has evidence that her

“sinless birth” was venerated from the fourth century onwards, and that

St. Isidore, the “learned doctor” of Seville, found it in the primitive

rite and transferred it to his own liturgy not very long before the

Moslem invasion. And since the Isidorian or Sevillian ritual (_Rito

hispalense_) was the one used here by the Mozarabs throughout the

dominion of Islam until San Fernando replaced it by the Roman rite in

1248, Sevillian archæologists have some ground for claiming that this see

was _par excellence_ “the land of the Blessed Virgin” (_tierra de Maria

Santisima_) throughout its chequered history. At any rate, some evidence

in favour of their claim is that the feast of the Immaculate Conception

of the Virgin does not figure in the Mozarab ritual of Toledo before the

year 1300, whereas it seems to have been in full swing here in 1248, for

Alfonso the Wise in his _Chronicle_ refers to the use in Seville of the

ritual of “Saint Isidre é de San Leadre” (SS. Isidore and Leander), which

contains this feast.

The belief in the “Mystery” was by no means universally accepted after

the reconquest even in Seville, whatever may have been the case among the

faithful Mozarabs, but feeling did not wax really hot over it until the

seventeenth century. Then the Franciscans and Jesuits combined to work

for its acceptance by the whole Church, while the Dominicans controverted

it, and Seville took the lead in what became almost a holy war.

Extraordinary acts of devotion were witnessed, among the most remarkable

being the selling of himself back into slavery by a freed slave, who

gave the price of his own flesh and blood to the cult of the “Most

Pure.” He and his fellow-negroes maintained an altar to the Conception

in the church of Our Lady of the Angels, and it was for this that the

freed slave desired to raise money. And a priest in an excess of ecstasy

actually had the A.M. (Ave Maria) branded on his face.

The burning of a Dominican monastery was considered an intervention

of Providence against those who “insulted” Our Lady by denying her

miraculous birth, and it gave rise to serious rioting, only quelled at

last by the ecclesiastical authorities placing over the door of the

monastery the inscription, “Mary, conceived without sin.” To this

period of storm and stress are to be assigned the numerous repetitions

of the monogram A.M. (Ave Maria) seen over the doors of old houses in

almost every town and village in Andalucia and other provinces where the

controversy raged, and from this century dates the addition of an image

of the Virgin to almost every one of the Holy Week processions, with its

accompanying banner called the _Sin Pecado_, because embroidered with

those words in testimony to Mary’s immaculate conception. And of this

period too is a remarkable festival cope in the church of San Lorenzo

at Seville, made of white brocade woven all over with the monogram A.M.

and the initials S.P.O., so that on every fold it reads “Hail Mary! Born

without original sin” (_Ave Maria, Sin Pecado Original_).

And now the ancient Dance of the Seises became one of the most brilliant

features in the festival of the Conception. Hitherto, one gathers, no

special pains had been bestowed upon the costumes of the boys, but in

1654 it was thought desirable to bring them “up to date.” One would give

a good deal to know how they were dressed before this, for probably the

costumes were traditional and centuries old in style if not material. But

the wealthy and pious Sevillians had then as now but scant regard for

relics of the past. The Chapter which thought it a great deed to remove

the robes in which San Fernando was buried in 1252 and replace them with

the costume of their own day (in which costume the embalmed corpse of the

great general and saintly monarch is still displayed to the gaze of his

worshippers three times in every year)—such a Chapter would be incapable

of seeing anything worth preservation in the dancing-boys’ dress of,

say, the thirteenth century. And they readily found a devout old couple

to present a complete new set of “ornaments” for the festival of the

Conception in the Cathedral, including costumes for the _Seises_.

The benefactors were Don Gonzalo Nuñez and his wife, Doña Mercia, who

had recently returned from the Indies with a handsome fortune. He was

old and crippled with gout and other ailments, but he was borne into the

Cathedral on a carrying-chair to attend the octave of the feast from the

7th to the 14th of December 1654, and thus he was able to witness “the

incredible delight of the entire city” at the splendid trappings provided

for the popular ceremony by his own and his wife’s munificence.

No less than 150,000 ducats, or £40,000 of our money, did the pious pair

set aside to endow the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, “in order

to make it as splendid as that of Corpus Christi,” and they gave the

money in their lifetime too, instead of bequeathing it by will so as to

enjoy it themselves as long as they lived. There were new blue and white

vestments for the priests, blue and white draperies for the pulpit, the

reading-desk, and the Archbishop’s throne, blue and white banners, even

cushions of blue and white for the Archbishop to kneel on in the choir

and before the high altar. Now for the first time the little boys were

given vestments of blue and white, “colours of the Mystery,” and so

comprehensive was the scheme laid down by the generous Don Gonzalo that,

as the archive says, “even the Singing Children called Seises” had “all

their borders and fringes of equal cost and richness” with those of the

Dean himself.

Nor were women entirely left out in this endowment, for it was ordered

that “certain poor maidens” should be provided with dowries out of the

£40,000, and these maidens were to walk in the processions throughout

the Octave clad to match the Seises in white robes and hooded mantles of

blue, such as Murillo was depicting then in his representations of the

Virgin. Doña Mercia for her part endowed the _Capilla de las Doncellas_

(Chapel of the Maidens) in the cathedral, and here until recent

years the dowries provided by her husband and herself were annually

distributed, and here portionless girls even now go to pray for good

husbands, although unfortunately most of the endowment funds mysteriously

disappeared in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

One of the interesting details in this donation is the light it throws on

the condition of the silk weaving industry of Seville in the seventeenth

century. All the vestments, of whatever class, the altar and other

hangings, the costumes of the Seises, and the dresses for the maidens,

were to be “of the finest possible materials,” and they were “to be woven

for the purpose in the city of Seville, which in such weaving does not

give place either to Milan or Naples.” Such is the wording of the deed

of gift. Had Don Gonzalo himself been a silk merchant we might have

suspected prejudice in favour of his own manufactures; but not so, he

had made his fortune as a general trader with the New World.

The silk industry of Seville dated from Arabic times, and appears to have

been at its height in the eleventh century under the beneficent rule of

the Abbadite kings, who brought civilisation and luxury here to a greater

height than ever was attained in Cordova, always more distinguished for

literature and science than for arts or industries. The Beni Abbad were

Yemenite Arabs, and their family with many others of Yemenite descent

(contrary to what is generally supposed) had peacefully established

themselves side by side with the Christian natives in the eighth century.

They had a full appreciation of the benefits of commerce and industry,

for the Yemenites were not nomads like many other Arabs, but had

developed, with the aid of their conquerors the Persians, a remarkable

civilisation and art in their beloved capital, Sana, the traditional

glories of which were still the theme of their poets several centuries

after the Arab occupation of Spain. Thus we find in the silks, damasks,

and brocades manufactured in Seville right down to the seventeenth

century a curious Egypto-Persian influence in design, an influence

which, strange to say, even now persists in the beautiful work done by

Andalucian women, whether lace, embroidery, or drawn thread, and in the

naïve traditional birds and beasts painted on the pottery of Triana.

So characteristic are these designs that it is easy to recognise the

Seville school of art from the earliest Arabic times down to the present

day, while the productions of the seventeenth century can be dated with

tolerable accuracy by a new feature which then appeared, as a result of

the Sevillian devotion to the “Immaculate.”

New, however, is hardly the correct word, for it had its root in the

sacred lotus of Egypt, whose pointed leaves symbolised the flame of life,

worshipped from prehistoric ages.

As far back as the thirteenth century this lotus or lily (_azucena_)

had been adopted as their heraldic device by the knightly Order of Our

Lady of Old Time, and in 1400 when they began to rebuild the Cathedral

of Seville it was assumed as the heraldic arms of the Chapter. Now, in

consequence of the general devotion to the “Mystery,” the device became

known as the “Heraldic Arms of the Virgin,” and henceforth the jar or

vase, with the two-branched lily springing from it, is ubiquitous in

Andalucian design. The calix of the lotus flower turned into the vase,

while the stamens and pistils grew into the two branches. Some artists

indeed went so far as to paint the Virgin sitting on a water-lily with

two stems, one of which had its root in the breast of St. Anna, her

mother, and the other in that of St. Joachim, her father. We can hardly

imagine that an idea so foreign to Western hagiology would have sprung up

spontaneously after the Mozarab rite had been suppressed in favour of the

Roman on the reconquest of Seville, whereas it would only be natural that

the art of the Mozarabic Church should be influenced by Eastern ideas at

the time when the members of that Church were in intimate contact with

the Arabic civilisation and were practically isolated from the rest of

Christendom. As for the Egyptian (or Coptic) tradition, the Yemenite

Arabs would have brought it with them in the eighth century, when they

came to Spain after their conquest of Egypt, and it would be reinforced

by the close intimacy which existed in the eleventh century between the

Fatimite Khalifs and the Abbadite court in Seville.

Thanks to Don Gonzalo Nuñez the celebration of the Immaculate Conception

has been observed in Seville since 1654 with greater magnificence than

anywhere else. The columns of the transepts and nave are draped from

top to bottom with crimson velvet curtains, for which the merchants of

Seville subscribed £17,000 towards the close of the century, the whole of

the reredos and the high altar are covered with plates of chased silver,

and the pyx is placed in a shrine of gold surrounded by a coronal of

blazing diamonds, each as large as a small pea. This is raised high above

the actual altar, and gleams dazzlingly through the dim light of the

candles placed round it. When the bell rings for the Elevation, after the

dance of the Seises is over, the red velvet curtains screening the Host

are slowly drawn back; soft orchestral music fills the air; the Cardinal

Archbishop steps forward to give the benediction, and the thousands of

worshippers kneel in silent adoration. Then indeed one realises the

extraordinary hold that the “Mystery” has taken upon the imagination of

the people of Seville.

The little Seises, no matter what imps of mischief they may be at other

times, comport themselves with great gravity on this occasion. Filled

with honourable pride, convinced that their dance is the event towards

which moves all the magnificent ritual of the whole Cathedral year,

each small boy feels that everything depends on the perfection of his

own performance. Should a single _Seis_ err in the minutest detail, the

whole stately dance would break up in confusion. For this “dance” is in

truth a series of complicated arabesques traced by small feet upon a

velvety carpet, each movement growing out of and depending upon those

before and after. There are over two hundred musical settings, but there

is only one rule for the dance, and a choir boy, however clever, has to

practise it for a whole year before he can be promoted to the dignity of

a _Seis_, the summit of his ambition. Indeed to be a _Seis_ is something

like winning a scholarship, for when he outgrows his costume and his

voice begins to break, his future is taken care of by the Chapter, who

train him for the priesthood if he has a bent that way, or apprentice

him to some trade whereby he may eventually earn his living, unless,

as frequently is the case, he be the son of parents able to give him a

professional career.

Their dresses are still made after the seventeenth-century fashion,

though somewhat modified, and, alas! no longer of “the best materials”

to be obtained in Seville. The trunks of an earlier day have degenerated

into knickerbockers down to the knee, but we still see the white shoes

and the white stockings which once were trunk-hose, the round hats turned

up at one side with feathers, doublets of white satin with strips of

blue edged with gold, and streamers to match hanging from the shoulders,

as once did the elegant cloaks of which these are the modest survival.

For all the changes and diminished glories of their dress, the little

Seises strike a ringing note from the past as they hurry across the broad

aisle to the choir before their dance begins, eight of them passing along

the railed-off gangway leading from the choir to the high altar, while

the two smallest place themselves one on either side of the great carved

reading-desk with its immense old missals, ready to take their place of

honour behind the Cardinal-Archbishop when he moves from his throne to

the altar. The tiny blue and white figures constitute an enchanting touch

of childish insouciance among the sombre purples of the canons’ robes

and the rich brown of the carved cedar stalls, the top of which they can

hardly look over, for they are only seven or eight years old; and they

stand first on one foot and then on the other through the long vespers

intoned by the choir-men and the beneficed clergy, trying in vain to

behave as if they were big boys not at all tired by the drone of phone

and antiphone over their small heads.

At last evensong is over and their moment of moments comes. Preceded by

the _Pertiguero_ with his silver wand of office, in tie-wig, wide falling

collar, and sixteenth-century robe of black serge, the Chapter marches

in solemn procession down the railed gangway from the choir to the high

altar, the Cardinal-Archbishop in his magnificent scarlet robe with a

_Seis_ at each side bringing up the rear. The dignitaries all kneel down

beside broad wide-armed sixteenth-century chairs placed to the right at

the foot of the altar steps, and remain on their knees throughout the

dance; the orchestra strikes up and the Hymn of the Seises begins. It

is never accompanied by the organ, but always by a string band composed

of laymen, placed opposite the seats of the dignitaries, to the left of

the altar steps. And this lay band suggests that the dance was initiated

before organs were used in the primitive Spanish Church.

There is nothing Oriental either in the hymn or in the music of the dance

which follows it; all is sweet, tender, and reverent as a religious

ceremony performed by children in a church should be. But at the close

of each couplet we are suddenly reminded of the East by the rattle of

castanets held all this time hidden in the palms of the boys’ hands,

and now played by them with a mastery of crescendo and diminuendo, that

shows how the castanets may be made instruments of music, not merely of

rhythmical noise. Here strikes the note of tradition once again, for the

castanets are Oriental and must have been introduced into the Cathedral

service, like the dance itself, by the Arabicised Christians of Seville

under Islam.

The hymn has two verses and the dance is gone through twice; then the

ten little boys run lightly up the steps, five on either side of the

altar, make their reverence to the Elements shut away from sight in the

golden pyx above the image of “Mary most pure”—a fine sculpture in wood

by Martinez Montañes—and disappear into the sacristy at the back of that

wealth of silver and brocade provided by the long-forgotten Don Gonzalo.

But before the music of the Benediction begins half the congregation

seated in the transept rise and hastily make their way to the Door of

the Poles under the Giralda tower, for that is the way the Cardinal goes

out to his palace across the square, and the pious Sevillians think an

especial blessing will be their portion if they can intercept his passage

and kiss his beautiful amethyst ring as he leaves the Cathedral after the

Dance of the Seises in the Octave of the Immaculate Conception of Our

Lady.

The next time the boys dance is during the three days of Carnival, and

if we ask why this very secular occasion be chosen, the archives of the

Chapter give us the explanation.

In 1682 there died in Seville one Don Francisco de Contreras de Chaves,

Knight of the Order of Santiago, Gentleman of the King, Familiar of

the Holy Order of the Inquisition, and one of the _Veintecuatros_

(twenty-four), an order of nobility granted to Seville and Seville

alone, in the thirteenth century. This distinguished individual was

distressed at the vain and worldly amusements indulged in during the

_Carnestolendas_ (the Latin _carnis tollendus_), which are the three

days in which meat is eaten in preparation for the forty of abstinence

beginning with Ash Wednesday; and he fondly hoped that by introducing

the Dance of the Seises into the Cathedral services of those three days,

the tide of profane entertainment might be stemmed. So he willed that

after his wife’s death all his “large fortune” should be bestowed on “the

triduum of Carnestolendas” in order that these days should be celebrated

in the Cathedral with as much pomp and magnificence as the Conception and

Corpus Christi.

When his estate came to be cleared up it was found that thirteen thousand

_pesos escudos de plata_ (about £1260) were available for the purpose,

and in testimony of gratitude to their generous benefactor the Chapter

ordered all the minor clergy and dependants of “the holy House” to attend

his funeral, half of them bearing yellow candles and half white, while

the bier was covered with the pall used at interments of prebendaries.

Further, a requiem Mass was celebrated in the church of San Francisco

(now the Town Hall) where the defunct Inquisitor was buried, and the

Chapter attended this in copes and birettas, and the Cathedral musicians

sang the Mass, which was recited by three dignitaries, the sermon being

preached by a fourth.

“In such wise,” says a contemporary writer, “the Chapter did honour to

Don Francisco de Contreras for having left all his fortune to improve the

worship of God, from whom he will have received his reward.”

Don Francisco died the same year as Murillo, but we are not told that

the Chapter bestowed any such funeral honours upon him. Presumably they

thought that having paid for his pictures they had done their duty by

the artist, although he had devoted his life to the service of religion,

painted thirty-two pictures of the Conception, and turned his back upon

worldly honours and rewards lest he should offend the Holy Office by

producing works other than religious.

The dresses provided for the Seises by the bequest of Don Francisco

are of the same style and materials as those worn for the Conception,

but where the latter are blue the Carnival garb is red, and these red

and white costumes are worn also at Corpus Christi, which takes place

early in June. There is, however, a notable difference between this

ceremony and the two former ones, for whereas they take place within the

Cathedral, that procession of Corpus goes out with the Host into the

streets, passes the Town Hall where all the rank and fashion of the town

assemble to receive it, on stands erected for the occasion, and makes

a long round through the heart of the oldest part of Seville before

returning with its sacred burden to the Mother Church.

The feast of Corpus Christi, although officially instituted in the

thirteenth century, and probably a survival of one of those pagan

ceremonies which the early Fathers, instead of quarrelling over, so

wisely adapted to Christian worship, was not developed in its full

splendour until 1613, and then the benefactor who endowed it was none

other than that interesting historical character, Don Mateo Vazquez de

Leca, Archdeacon of Seville, known in poetry and romance as “Don Juan.”

The only child of wealthy parents who died when he was yet a youth,

he became a priest and was given a high place in the Chapter at the

early age of twenty-three. It was not to be wondered at that, as a

contemporary puts it, “as his age was short and his rents were long, his

steps were not so well balanced as his ecclesiastical state demanded.”

His palatial mansion indeed was conducted on lines more befitting a

plutocrat than a priest, and his licentious life was the scandal of the

town. But when he was thirty “Heaven pleased to warn him of the peril he

was in,” by a miraculous intervention which has been erroneously attached

to the name of Don Juan Mañara, a contemporary of Murillo who gave much

gold to the Hospital of the Caridad in Seville, and ordered “Here lies

the worst man that ever lived,” to be inscribed upon his tombstone in the

church of the Hospital. Thanks to this exhibition of posthumous humility,

the adventure of Don Mateo has been attributed by the romancists to Don

Juan Mañara, instead of to the real hero, the Archdeacon, who really was

a far more picturesque personality.

The year was 1600, the day that of the feast of Corpus Christi—and

we need have no fear of error in the date, for the event figures in

the archives of the Chapter. Don Mateo, more intent upon his personal

elegance than his holy office, arrayed himself for the occasion in a

beautiful brocade under-dress, trusting that its brilliancy of silk and

gold thread would gleam through the diaphanous silk of his soutane and

the transparent lace of his rochet. For he had his mind and his eye

fixed upon a mysterious lady whom he had observed of late among the

congregation in the Cathedral, and he hoped his handsome face and richly

clad figure might win her favour on this day of religious and secular

cheer. All through the protracted ceremony in the Cathedral and the slow

progress of the long procession, he contrived to keep her in view, and

when at length he was free to divest himself of his ecclesiastical garb

and go where he would, he found her waiting for him outside the sacred

building, and immediately tried to address her.

But the lady was very coy, notwithstanding her coquettish glances at the

Archdeacon during the ceremony, and when he approached her she moved

away so fast that he could not obtain even a glimpse of her face beneath

the long black veil wrapped round her head and shoulders, nor could he

overtake her although he followed her all through the centre of the town,

into the Macarena and out round the city walls until she led him back

again into the Cathedral.

Within the building it was now twilight, for the whole afternoon had been

consumed in the pursuit, and the lady flitted from chapel to chapel, and

altar to altar, until at length she paused before that of Our Lady of the

Old Time. Don Mateo trembled, for this image had always been his especial

devotion. But the flesh after so many years of self-indulgence was too

strong for the spirit. He clasped the lady in his arms, forgetful of the

sacred spot on which he stood, and tore off her veil, intent on seeing

the lovely features of the woman who had defied him so long. One word was

breathed into his ear, like a sigh from another world.

“ETERNITY!” was the word he heard, and down the long empty aisles it

seemed to float away, only to rise again and roll out louder—louder until

it sounded like thunder on the ears of the wretched priest.

And then with a horrible rattle of dry bones, the warm living body he

held in his arms sank into a shapeless heap on the floor. That for which

he had committed sacrilege was nothing but a withered and disintegrated

skeleton.

From that moment the Archdeacon led a new life, and in his deep

repentance he became the most devout of all the priests in the Chapter.

He left his magnificent mansion and moved to a mean house in the alley

of Santa Marta, under the shadow of the Cathedral; he devoted his whole

fortune to pious and charitable uses; and he endowed with large rents for

ever the feast of Corpus Christi, because on that day God had seen fit

to rescue him from his life of sin. He gave for the feast no less than

an hundred silver candlesticks, hangings and canopy for the high altar,

and silver altars to carry in the procession through the streets. He gave

a complete set of white vestments to be used only on that day, for all

the Chapter, the minor clergy, the singers, musicians, and servants of

the altar, including of course the Seises. He gave altar-frontals for

the portable altars, hangings for the pulpit and the Cathedral cross,

curtains for the silver shrine, and rich draperies for the platform on

which the shrine with the pyx within is carried through the town. And he

endowed the preachers, bell-ringers, illuminations, and procession—in

short, everything relating to the festival, not excepting the Guild of

Our Lady of the Pomegranate, which maintains an altar in the Chapel of la

Granada (pomegranate) under the Giralda, and still preserves the weighty

poles on which until recent times they carried the platform with the

shrine, in the genuine old Arabic fashion.

From the earliest times the procession of Corpus Christi had been

attended not only by the little Seises in their gala dress, but also

by groups of men and women dancers similar in idea to the Giants and

Bigheads which figure in the festival of Our Lady of the Pillar at

Zaragoza, as described in Chapter XVII. These have now been suppressed

for so long that few know what they once were, but I find a mention of

the Giants in the year 1690, when the Civil Governor or _Asistente_, as

he was then called, combined with the Archbishop, Don Jaime de Palafox,

in a determined attempt to put down celebrations which they considered

inconsistent with the dignity of the Church.

They knew very well that if the public became aware beforehand of what

was intended it would be impossible to carry out their scheme, so nothing

was said until six o’clock in the morning of the festival. Then the

announcement was made that no group of Dancers should enter the Cathedral

on pain of a fine of one hundred ducats for the leader of any such party,

and fifty ducats and four years’ imprisonment for the bearer of any

one of their banners. But the Archbishop and the _Asistente_ reckoned

without their host, for although the people, stupefied by this unexpected

interference with their immemorial rights, remained quiet as if stunned

by the blow, the lawyers of the Town Council (which provided funds for

the “Dancers”) went straight to the Court of Justice, and presently the

Archbishop was informed that he had no legal status in the matter, that

the “Dancers” were immediately to take their accustomed places in the

procession within the Cathedral, and the ceremony was to proceed in the

usual order.

The Archbishop, furious at his authority being disputed, ordered that

if the Dancers entered the Cathedral the procession should be at once

withdrawn, and the Host in its magnificent silver _Custodia_ (a replica

in miniature of that erected in the “Monument” during Holy Week) should

be taken back to its own place. But now the priests, friars, and other

ecclesiastics turned against him, saying that they had been invited by

the Chapter to attend the carrying forth of the Host among the people,

and they could not leave the Cathedral until this sacred duty had been

fulfilled.

Meanwhile the public, angry and disappointed, saddened by a quarrel over

what they held sacred, and terrified lest the divine wrath should descend

upon the city because the feast-day was not being honoured according to

the ritual of their forefathers, collected in the Plaza de San Francisco,

and clamoured for the procession to start, while the gentler and more

timorous spirits knelt down all along the streets and prayed to God to

remove the difficulties which had so suddenly and unexpectedly arisen.

At long last the Archbishop withdrew, his place being taken by a lesser

dignitary, and the procession came out of the Cathedral with the Dancers

in their usual places, followed by the Brotherhood of the Tailors (of

whom more anon), the Capuchins, Mercenaries, Augustines, and Carmelite

friars, the Tribunal of the Inquisition, the canons, and the _Asistente_,

who could not dissimulate his indignation at the defeat of himself and

the Archbishop, over which the whole town was rejoicing all along the

route.

Don Jaime de Palafox then appealed to the King and the Pope, but all

he got was an order that women should be excluded from the Dances and

that no masks or other disguises should be worn by the Dancers in the

Cathedral, no attempt being made to put a stop to the dances themselves,

because “this kind of festival had always continued in Seville.” The

Archbishop was charged neither to impede nor to embarrass the entry of

the Dancers into the Cathedral, and he got a rap over the knuckles from

the King for having tried “to introduce novelties.”

Don Jaime de Palafox was not the man to own himself beaten, and ten years

later came the turn of the _Seises_. On June 18th of the year 1700 he

got an order from the Pope to the Chapter to “suppress the abuse of the

dances of the Seises,” apparently thinking he would thereby put an end to

that traditional performance. The Dean, however, was as stout a fighter

as Don Jaime himself. He represented to the Holy Father that the Hymn and

the Dance of the Seises could not be fairly judged of by hearsay but

must be seen to be understood, and he reminded the Pope that the first

principle of the Council of Trent was that no judgment should be given

in any dispute until both sides of the case had been heard. He stuck to

his point until he obtained permission to take the Seises, costumes,

castanets, and all, to Rome to dance before the Pope, and the final

result was that the dance remained a recognised part of the ritual of the

Cathedral of Seville, and has been performed at its appointed seasons

without intermission ever since.

Thus it survives to-day, to the pious delight of all good Sevillians.

But, as said the chronicler of the attempt to suppress it, “Only he who

sees it can comprehend it, and it is worth seeing. For it is performed

with the greatest seriousness and composure, with the result that it is

one of the most remarkable things in this Holy Church, very far removed

from irreverence, but rather an example of an especial respect to the

Lord.”

* * * * *

About a week before _Noche Buena_—the Good Night—which is Christmas Eve,

the grocers’ shops in Seville blossom out into still-life pictures,

generally with a huge ship of wicker-work as the centre, having oars of

Bologna sausages, a great ham as a sail, and a cargo of gold in the shape

of oranges. Silver is represented by Tangerine oranges wrapped in lead

paper, and vacant corners are filled up with a variety of sweetmeats,

while the rigging consists of tinsel streamers. A banner of the national

colours, of more or less expensive silk, flies of course over the whole,

and this “flagship” is flanked by a squadron of lesser fry in every shape

and form, but always of wicker-work. The whole fleet and its constituent

parts are offered for sale at exaggerated prices, and the crew in every

case consists of one or more bottles of wine.

These baskets of provender are bought for Christmas gifts, and if we may

judge from the absence of any special attractions in other shops, they

are the most popular kind of present, except marzapan cakes. Of these

the confectioners offer a considerable variety, the majority in the form

of bulls or dragons, but some representing the beloved ham, which is so

favourite an article of food, while some, but these are the minority,

are made in pretty and artistic rounds, diamonds, or floral forms. All

consist of the same rich almond paste, and all are adorned with preserved

fruits and bonbons. Several varieties of a kind of nougat called _turrón_

also appear at Christmas and on two or three other great festivals, and

some of them are delicious.

The marzapan cakes, like the _turrón_ and the baskets of groceries, are

all very expensive, which is not surprising in a country where even the

locally made beetroot sugar is so heavily taxed that the consumer has to

pay 70 centimes a pound for it. Thus the above dainties are only for the

rich. The Christmas cake of the poor is called _polvorón_, and consists

of a curious dry substance like extra short short-cake, made chiefly

of almond flour, sugar, and white of egg. The Christmas _polvorón_ is

a large round cake, about half an inch thick, and it generally has

a preserved orange in the middle, into which an artificial flower is

stuck. It is always sold on a cardboard tray, because its consistency is

such that it would otherwise fall to pieces of its own weight. Although

it costs a mere trifle compared to the marzapan and _turrón_ eaten in

well-to-do houses, it is nevertheless of excellent flavour.

Indeed I doubt whether the workers do not prefer their _polvorón_

to marzapan, if only because they get so much more of it for their

money. It is customary to give a cake to your servants for Christmas,

and I recollect that on one occasion, when talking over a projected

kitchen-party with my cook, she politely gave me to understand that

much as they had enjoyed the beautiful marzapan dragon of the previous

Christmas, they would really prefer a _polvorón_ this time, as the same

expenditure on that class of cake would allow all their friends to cut

and come again, instead of being limited to a mere mouthful, as had been

the case with the five-dollar dragon of last year.

Whatever be the cake you give to the _ménage_, the best part of it will

be set aside to offer to the master and mistress and their family. If it

be a bull, the head and horns will be kept; if a dragon, the head and

tail; and on the evening after the servants’ party, when your dinner is

over, the cook will hastily don a white apron and knot her best silk

handkerchief round her head, and will march into the dining-room bearing

the remains of the cake with all its inedible decorations carefully

rearranged to hide what has gone. This she will courteously offer to

every one at table, pressing them to taste and see how rich a dish the

Señores have provided for the delectation of those in their employ. And

as often as not some talented member of the household will stand at the

door meanwhile, and sing at the top of his or her voice an improvised

couplet setting forth the generosity and amiability of his employers.

Of the actual giving of Christmas parties there is very little. Christmas

trees are, of course, quite foreign to the soil, and I have never heard

of a Christmas dance, outside of Madrid, save those given by foreign

residents. But Christmas Eve is celebrated by high and low, and rich

people at this time spend a good deal of money in what seems to us a

singular and unpractical method of displaying their religious fervour.

This consists in setting up a _Nacimiento_ (Nativity), or representation

of the birth of Christ, which is prepared in the private chapel of the

house, if there is one, or in a principal reception-room, in as elaborate

a form as the means of the family permit.

Even the poorest try to procure something of the kind for their children,

and the necessary figures for it are sold in the streets and in the

shops for a week or so before the great day, at prices varying from one

centime to hundreds of pesetas. I have bought the whole scene modelled in

coarse crudely painted clay by the vendor, for a peseta. The stable of

such a _Nacimiento_ has three little walls and no roof, the Virgin and

St. Joseph kneel on either side of the Babe, two tiny plumes of pampas

grass and some cocks and hens represent the rural surroundings which

these artists imagine to be appropriate, and, regardless of the Bible

story, the beloved St. John as a grown man will be found somewhere in

the background. One cannot please a poor family more than by presenting

them with a _Nacimiento_ of this class. It will be set up in the place

of honour on the chest of drawers, whose top is always devoted to their

“saints”—appallingly bad images, as a rule—and family photographs; while,

if the exiguous wages permit, one or more candles will be lighted in

front of the treasure every night until the “Day of the Kings,” which

is our Twelfth Night, a far greater festival to Spanish children than

Christmas or New Year’s Day. And the smallest infant is taught that no

sacrilegious finger is to be laid on the sacred toy.

The _Nacimientos_ in rich houses are put up with an absolute disregard of

cost (I remember seeing one of which a single figure cost £4), but the

idea is the same—a plastic representation of the Nativity. Here, however,

it is made the occasion of a social function, and it is curious to read

in the papers on Christmas Day how a magnificent _Nacimiento_ was set up

over-night in the gorgeous chapel of the splendid mansion of the Dukes

of Mengano or the Counts of Fulano, and how, after the Reverend Bishop

of this or the learned Canon of that had read the Office and delivered

an inspired address, the whole family adjourned to the dining-room at 1

a.m. and were regaled with “a succulent lunch,” which was “made the more

agreeable by abundance of _champán_.”

In this country the press reports of functions of this kind are not

sparing in their adjectives. The accounts are paid for like any other

advertisement, and the rich hosts of the “new” nobility like to have

value for their money just as much as do the wealthy merchants and

financiers. As for the old rural nobility, they are mostly too much

reduced in fortune for display at Christmas or any other time, and if

they are still well off, their tastes and traditions are averse from

newspaper celebrity, so that reporters have little chance of getting

inside their grave old houses, still less of obtaining fees for

advertisements in the shape of adulatory narratives of their religious

observances.

In Seville all old customs still keep an extraordinary hold on the

popular imagination. Of these one of the most curious is a religious

ceremony called the “Cock’s Mass” (_Misa del Gallo_), which takes place

on Christmas Eve. So strange is it and so archaic that at one time

efforts were made to get the Pope to prohibit it; but the Franciscan

Friars of the Monastery of San Buenaventura appealed to him in person;

permission was given for a commission of the Brothers to perform the

Cock’s Mass at the Vatican, and after hearing it for himself the Pope

gave a special licence for its continuance in a slightly modified form.

San Buenaventura is the church to go to on Christmas Eve in Seville

if one would hear the Cock’s Mass in its most refined form, with good

singing and organ-playing; but for real local colour and a passionate

fervour which overflows all the bonds of self-restraint, we must find

standing-room, if we can, in the little chapel of San Antonio Abad, in

the street called Alfonso XII., for this is the chosen resort of the

poor, to whom their religion is as real as their daily bread.

The Mass begins on the stroke of midnight, but hours before that the

little church will be occupied by silent worshippers, who kneel on the

floor praying, with their eyes fixed on the high altar. Here is displayed

the Nativity, and prominent among the figures is a donkey, the pride and

glory of the congregation, because it is the only life-sized model of the

kind to be seen in any church in Seville.

People drop in every minute or so to look at the _Nacimiento_, kneel for

a short time in prayer, and then go out again to meet their friends and

pass the time till the Mass begins. The streets are crowded, and every

café and restaurant is full, for people go from one church to another to

see the different _Nacimientos_, and few of them will get to bed before

two or three in the morning; so the system must be sustained with coffee

and cakes, or wine and ham, or _aguardiente_ and crab claws, or cold

water and roasted chestnuts or acorns, according to personal taste and

depth of purse.

At midnight the Mass begins at San Antonio Abad with a clash of barbaric

sounds, the small organ being reinforced by guitars, tambourines,

castanets, triangles, and an Oriental instrument called a _zambomba_,

which must be an inheritance from the most primitive times of Arabic

music. This is made of coarse clay, and is in shape something like a

flower-pot, with a waist in the middle and with no bottom. The wider end

is covered with a tightly stretched parchment, through which is thrust a

thin piece of cane, tightly tied underneath. The “music” is produced by

wetting the hand and then rubbing the cane up and down, and the noise it

makes is indescribable. If one can imagine a drum bellowing like a cow

that has lost her calf, one would come somewhere near the sound of the

_zambomba_: but it must be heard to be appreciated. The Andalucians love

it, and if they can’t afford to buy a _zambomba_ for the _Noche Buena_

they will make one of a flower pot with a wet cloth stretched over it

instead of the skin—a substitute which produces even weirder noises than

the legitimate vessel.

This instrument of torture is not now often to be heard in the churches,

and it is to be feared that even in San Antonio Abad it will soon cease

to delight the Christmas Eve congregation; but when we first went to

Seville it was still an essential part of the orchestra.

The whole of the Cock’s Mass is but a gradual leading up to the crowning

act of the “Good Night”—the presentation of the Babe to be kissed by the

worshippers. In most of the churches this is a solemn ceremony, and one

feels how intensely in earnest are those who file past the altar steps

to kneel before the image of the infant Saviour. The blazing lights that

surround the image, the gorgeous vestments of the priests, the dim light

of the side aisles whence the veiled worshippers glide out, kneel to

kiss the foot of the little figure, and then disappear into the darkness

again,—all this combines to make the Cock’s Mass in many of the churches

a picturesque and emotional spectacle. In such churches there is only

the organ, or perhaps a string band, and there is nothing archaic in the

traditional Cock’s Mass save the name.

But in San Antonio Abad and other minor churches frequented mainly if not

entirely by the poor, the Mass has quite another character.

In some of these the music begins as early as eleven, soft and low at

first, and gradually increasing in tone and cheerfulness as time goes on

and the church fills more and more. And the spirits of the people rise

with the music, until some piece with a strongly marked rhythm strikes

up, and the congregation seem to lose their heads altogether. They sway

from side to side, keep time with their heads and hands, and finally

break into step with their feet, completely carried away by excitement as

the “Good Night” draws nearer and nearer to its climax.

They recover themselves when the bell rings for the elevation of the

Host, and all kneel down, although they are so tightly packed that it

is a gymnastic feat to get up again. There is a pause, as if they were

taking breath, during the Benediction, and then, as the head priest takes

his seat on the altar steps with the image of the Infant on his knee, the

music bursts out again, organ, guitars, tambourines, _zambombas_, in a

triumphant medley of sound without any particular form or rhythm, and

the whole crowd moves simultaneously towards the Nativity, one step at

a time, without the least pushing or shoving, but all resolved to adore

their Christ, to see and touch “The Child” who is also “The Lord.”

It means a good deal to some of them: nothing less, indeed, than an

augury for good or ill for the year to come. I heard one woman in the

crowd tell another as they left the church one Christmas Eve that she

would have good fortune now, for _El Niño_ had looked up at her and

smiled as she knelt to worship Him: and her naïve confidence in the happy

omen explained much that would otherwise have puzzled me in the demeanour

of the crowd during the Cock’s Mass.

[Illustration: THE BRIDEGROOM’S DOOR.]

CHAPTER XIII

The Columbus country—The way to Moguer—A rickety

bridge—An historical family—Blue eyes and honourable

hearts—Fifteenth-century iron work—Martin Alonso Pinzón, the

friend of Columbus—His history as told by his descendant—Palos

de la Frontera—The castle of the Pinzóns—The church of St.

George—The Virgin of Columbus—The bridegroom’s door—La Rabida:

what it is and what it might be.

February in southern Spain is already spring as a rule, but I visited the

Columbus country in 1912, and in that unusual year the winter ran on well

into the middle of February, a month which generally carpets the fields

with blue iris, golden buttercups, and scarlet poppies. So my trip to

Moguer, Palos de la Frontera, and La Rabida may come under the heading

of Winter Sketches, and perhaps my readers will like to know that it is

possible to explore these remote villages even in showery weather.

I started with the intention of doing a few days’ digging in a buried

town on the banks of the Rio Tinto, on my way to the Tharsis copper

mines, away up in the Sierra de Huelva, where I was going to see a little

museum of objects found by the Company in their various shafts. But the

weather, perfect when I left Seville, changed in the night, and I woke

next morning to see a downpour of rain which put excavations out of the

question—the more so because to reach my site I had to cross the Rio

Tinto by a ford which is impassable after rain. So I left my _jamugas_

and tools in the charge of the amiable landlady of the uncomfortable

rooms I had been compelled to engage because there was no other within

many miles of the ruins, and went on to Moguer, furnished with an

introduction to the family of Pinzón, lineal descendants of Martin

Alonso Pinzón, who with his two brothers accompanied Columbus on his

epoch-making voyage from Palos de la Frontera to the Bahamas.

I left the train in a heavy shower at the wretched little station of San

Juan del Puerto, a poverty-stricken village lying on the mud-flats of the

Rio Tinto near its junction with the Odiel. This is the nearest station

to Moguer, and people who want to see the district, which is very pretty

as well as full of historical interest, should not be misled by the

guide-books into taking any other route to La Rabida, for reasons which I

will presently explain.

Moguer is only about a mile and a half from the station, and a diligence

meets every train. It is true that it is not a luxurious conveyance, and

sometimes if one does not rush to secure a seat one may find oneself left

behind. So unless the trip is a sudden thought, as mine was, it is well

to write to the landlady of the Fonda Almirante Pinzón at Moguer, and she

will not only send a carriage to the station, but reserve one of her few

bedrooms for you, and add an extra dish to her simple dinner in view of

your arrival. It is always advisable, when possible, to give notice of

your coming to modest little hostelries like this.

The diligence was not crowded the day I first went to Moguer. In fact

it contained, besides myself, only an old doctor and his young wife,

and the village idiot from San Juan, who rode on the step outside until

he realised that nothing was to be got out of the doctor or me by his

whines, and then he dropped off and strolled back in the rain to his own

place.

Not far out of San Juan there is a long low wooden bridge on trestles

across the Rio Tinto, which here is very wide. It creaked and groaned

a good deal as we crossed it, and the doctor remarked that it had been

condemned long ago as unsafe by the Inspector of Roads, and every time he

crossed it he wondered whether it would hold up till he got to the other

side.

“Oh, Cayetano! How can you say so, when we have to return by the same

road to-morrow!” shrieked his wife.

I looked at the turbid yellow water, already swollen with the rain. A

bath in it would be highly unpleasant, even if it were nothing worse than

a bath. But we got safely across, and rattled up a gentle rise into the

pretty little town, where at every turn one meets reminders of the wealth

and splendour that it enjoyed in the sixteenth century, when the gold

that poured in from America enriched every one connected with those who

adventured in the New World.

The Fonda del Almirante Pinzón is established on the ground floor of

the house belonging to the Admiral’s grandson, and when I was there the

family, reduced in means like so many of the old nobility, were living on

the floor above. Ever since the great days of their voyages with Columbus

the head of the Pinzóns has been a sailor, and the Admiral whose name

is given to the hotel distinguished himself in the Peninsular War, and

quite recently a cruiser was sent to convey his remains to the national

pantheon of illustrious mariners at San Fernando. And his son upheld and

his grandson still upholds the traditions of a family which Charles V.

honoured with a grant of nobility, and the same arms as those given to

Columbus himself—the three historic caravels and the motto—

“_A Castilla y à Leon_

_Nuevo mundo dió Pinzón._”

(To Castile and to Leon

A new world was given by Pinzón.)

But the proudest boast of the Pinzóns, who were wealthy when their great

ancestor first set sail for the unknown west, is that they have never

soiled their hands with ill-gotten gains, and that one Admiral Pinzón

after another has held high posts under Government and has left office

no richer than when he entered it. Honesty such as this, in a country

where politics and office are universally regarded as a short road to a

fortune, argues a standard of morality as lofty as it is rare. Sigismund

Moret, the Liberal statesman who was three times intrigued out of the

Premiership because he would not buy party support, died a poor man,

and all the Spanish press united to proclaim the fact as the highest

honour they could pay him. As yet it is vain to hope for the honest

administration of public money, but we must trust that in the long-run

the example of the Pinzóns and the Morets and their like will prevail.

For it is one of the tragedies of Spain that her natural wealth, mineral

and agricultural, is immense, and she only needs honest and common-sense

administration to become one of the richest, instead of the poorest

country in Europe.

This digression is excusable because in the Columbus country you meet the

Pinzóns at every turn, and it is they and their like who some day will

leaven the lump. It is usual to say that Spain will never rise because

the dead weight of egoism and self-seeking lying on the top of the good

dough underneath will prevent any sound morality from getting to the top.

But _qui vivra verra_. I, personally, believe that cracks are spreading

in the crust of administrative selfishness, and I hope before I die to

see some such awakening here as took place in my own country when I was

young, and English society suddenly began to realise that it had not

fulfilled its whole duty to the poor by giving them blankets and beef-tea.

The little _fonda_ with its grand name is not a place one wants to stay

long at, for although clean the beds are somewhat hard, and the food

is such as might be expected for five pesetas a day _tout compris_.

But in the modest patio there is a large painting of the Virgin of

Montemayor which belonged to the Admiral and his forbears. And in the

simply furnished dining-room there is a beautiful wrought-iron well-head

dating from the fifteenth century, in style and design identical with the

pulpit in the little church of Palos de la Frontera, whence was read the

decree of Isabel the Catholic calling on her lieges of the port to man

and furnish the ships _Santa Maria_ and _Niña_ for the expedition into

the unknown. These ships, according to the Pinzóns, were the property of

Martin Alonso Pinzón and his brothers, although in the lawsuit brought

many years after by Diego, the son of Columbus, against the State a

different account was given. The papers relating to that long quarrel

have been the basis for much of what has been written about Columbus’

first expedition, so if my readers find the family traditions widely

varying from popular histories of the period, they must remember that the

Pinzón point of view naturally differs from that of the other side in an

unhappy lawsuit, and they may choose for themselves which story they will

believe.

The day after my arrival at Moguer was bright and sunny, and the Señora

de Pinzón, after studying my credentials, allowed her young daughter

Conchita (otherwise Maria de la Concepción) to join me in my expedition

to La Rabida. This was really a great favour, for Spanish mothers never

like to let their girls out of their sight until they are safely married.

But Conchita had been educated by the Irish nuns of the Loretto at

Gibraltar, and the Señora could not resist her appeal to be allowed

to spend the day with me to practise her English, which she said she

was afraid of forgetting. It seemed to make the dry bones of history

curiously alive to go over the ground with that bright young creature and

hear her continual references to “my ancestor Martin Alonso” as we drove

along a pretty lane to the famous Palos, greeted by every man, woman, and

child we met with a cordiality which showed in what esteem the family are

held here.

“We never were very rich,” said Conchita, “although our vineyards and

olive orchards formerly brought in a good deal more than they do now, so

it was not our money that made my family popular here. No, it is what my

ancestor did for Spain that is never forgotten. You see he lived here all

his life, while Columbus was only a foreign visitor, who came to find

ships and went away again. It is no wonder that the people remember my

ancestor better than him.”

The intense pride of my little friend in her family history shone through

every word she spoke. She expressed it more openly, perhaps, than an

English girl would have done in her place, but I am bound to say I

cordially sympathised with her. I am proud enough of my own ancestors,

whose deeds made but the faintest mark on the history of their time. If

they had helped to discover America there would have been no holding me!

Palos, the once famous port about half-way between La Rabida and Moguer,

now lies high and dry, with a strip of pasturage between the village

and the estuary. Even the little caravels of 1483 could now not anchor

anywhere near the ruined castle, and the whole place seems to sleep away

the days, resting on its fame in the past.

“The castle belonged to my ancestor,” said Conchita, pointing out a

ruined wall on a slight eminence behind the little church. “There was

only a tower left when Columbus came, and my ancestor’s residence was at

Moguer. But the Pinzóns kept their vessels here, and it was here that

Columbus came to look for Martin Alonso and talk to him about the voyage

he wanted to make. He had made Martin Alonso’s acquaintance in Rome,

where they were both studying navigation. You know it was a favourite

study in those days with rich men who loved the sea. How ridiculous it is

to say that Columbus came here by chance! You see what an out-of-the-way

place it is. And if he had wanted to get to Huelva to visit his

brother-in-law, as Washington Irving says, he would have been a fool to

go to La Rabida, to which there is no road at all except this, while

Huelva was on the main road. It says in our family papers that Columbus

came to look for his friend Martin Alonso Pinzón and discuss with him

plans for the voyage, and Martin Alonso went with him to La Rabida. The

story of his asking for food and drink at La Rabida is silly. As if my

ancestor would have let him leave his house without giving him and his

child a good dinner! It makes me angry to see that absurd picture at La

Rabida of the porter giving bread and water to his little boy. It is

quite modern and not at all well painted, I am glad to say!”

We had climbed up to investigate the ruined wall, melancholy relic of the

strong fortress that gave Palos its importance as a frontier town (_de la

frontera_) during the civil war between Moslems and Mozarabs in the ninth

century, when all this district was in the hands of descendants of King

Witiza, the last legitimate monarch of the Goths, whom for twenty-five

years the Sultans of Cordova sought in vain to dislodge. From this

eminence I could see that, before it silted up, the little harbour of

Palos would have been a safe and convenient shelter from the west winds

sweeping up the broad estuary.

“Two of the ships belonged to the Pinzóns,” said Conchita, “but the

family were out of favour with the Catholic Kings—we have never found

out why—and they could not lend them to Columbus without asking leave of

the Queen, who had put an embargo on them by way of punishment for some

unknown offence. When Columbus and my ancestor had well talked over the

proposed adventure, they went to La Rabida to ask the Prior, Juan Perez

de Marchena, to use his influence with Isabella to remove the embargo,

so that Martin Alonso and his brothers might lend Columbus their ships.

The Pinzóns could not go to the Court themselves, because they were

in disgrace. I wish we knew why. The family papers tell us nothing,

and there is only a vague tradition that it was something to do with

religion. I cannot imagine what it could be, for the Pinzóns have always

been good Catholics, and they had not long before restored or rebuilt

part of this church, which as you see is very old indeed.”

While we talked we were sitting on a bench in the little church of St.

George. On our left was the wrought-iron pulpit whence the call for

volunteers was read; on the right was the ancient image of the Virgin

which local tradition claims as the one which Columbus took with him on

board the _Santa Maria_.

It is by no means improbable that local tradition is correct, for the

image is mediæval, and as such would have been the object of special

adoration by the people of Palos then as now. Thus Martin Alonso Pinzón,

the lord of Palos, could do no greater honour to his friend Columbus, and

find no surer way to calm the fears of the families of their crews, than

by taking this venerated image as the patroness of the expedition. The

ships were bound to come safe home again, the people of Palos would say,

having their beloved Virgin on board.

Traditions about the patron image of a town do not grow up spontaneously,

although as the centuries go by the original story becomes adorned and

overlaid with the additions made to it by one generation after another.

Without some foundation in fact, it is most unlikely that the statement

that this was the image in question should have been made and accepted,

and thenceforth handed on as a tradition by the people of Palos. Little

was seen of Columbus at Palos after his return from his first voyage.

The Pinzóns attribute this to the early death of Martin Alonso, said

by historians to be due to his disappointment that Columbus should have

obtained more honour and rewards than himself after his “base desertion”

of the Admiral at Cuba. The family naturally ignore, if indeed they are

not now ignorant of, all that was alleged against their ancestor in the

lawsuit of Diego Colon. For them Martin Alonso’s death was brought about

by the hardships he suffered and the illness he contracted when through

stress of weather his ship was separated from that of Columbus, whom he

never saw again until both the great navigators returned to Palos, one

in the morning and the other in the evening of 15th March 1493, seven

months and a half after they had left the little port together. Be this

as it may, it must be admitted that Pinzón and his brothers played an

important part in the discovery of the New World, and that it was their

great misfortune to be under a cloud at Court when favours and rewards

were being showered upon the man whom they had so materially aided at the

outset.

Perhaps if I had visited Palos with a descendant of Columbus instead of

a daughter of the other house, the part played by Pinzón would assume

smaller proportions in my retrospect of that far-off time. But as things

were, I felt as if I had got the story from the very actors themselves,

and I could no more doubt that this was indeed the patron image which

watched over the adventurers from the chapel set up on the _Santa Maria_

by her owner, Martin Alonso Pinzón, when he handed his ship over to

Columbus as commander of the “fleet,” than I could doubt that Martin

Alonso was more sinned against than sinning in the reports that were

spread of his disappearance on the coast of Cuba.

And when Conchita took me out round the west end and down a flight of

steps to the north door of the church, which is decorated with red and

white brickwork of the style called “Mozarabic,” and told me that it

was known as the “Door of the Bridegrooms” when the Pinzóns lived at

the castle, and was only opened to admit the eldest son of the family

on his wedding-day, I found myself quite able to accept her statement,

regardless of various inherent improbabilities which afterwards suggested

themselves.