“I have never been employed inside the palace,” said Enriqueta, “only to

wash table linen and such-like here in our own laundry. But that day

every one was so busy that we were all called to help with the packing.

There are certain things that the Queen herself directs the packing of,

and one of her ladies told me to carry a tray of silver and spoke rather

sharply because I was slow with it, being unused to such delicate work.

And a voice behind said in the kindest tone, ‘Don’t scold the poor girl;

I am sure she is doing her best.’ And there was the Queen herself, who

had come to see if the silver was ready! We would all go down on our

knees to serve their Majesties, who have kind words for everybody, and it

is a deep grief to me that when we live away from the palace I shall have

no chance of serving the Queen even by washing her table linen.”

I heard a pleasant story of the King at Ronda, which he visited a year or

so ago on his way from a military review at Algeciras.

The Alcalde, although of noble birth, was very old and had not been to

Court for so long that he had even forgotten how to address his King.

He began by taking the seat of honour in the carriage, and when the

King asked him the depth of the Tajo—that tremendous cleft in the rock

through which flows the Guadelevín—he replied that he did not know. The

Tajo is the pride and glory of all good Rondeños, for the gorge has a

sheer drop of between five hundred and six hundred feet, and great was

the indignation of the town when the Alcalde’s indifference to those

all-important local statistics became known.

The King was driven up to the new hotel, the Reina Victoria, on the crest

of a hill where the Tajo opens out into a fertile valley. And here the

Alcalde seems to have set his royal guest down and left him to his own

devices, without so much as having a glass of wine set before him.

Later in the day a poor muleteer, toiling up the winding path which leads

from the flour mills below to the “old town” on the top of the hill,

was accosted by a strange young gentleman who, with a companion, was

beginning the ascent. No one is more responsive to a pleasant greeting

than the Andalucian peasant, and the _arriero_ at once slipped off his

donkey in order to carry on the conversation more comfortably on foot.

“I suppose you gentlemen, being strangers, got a sight of the King this

morning,” said he. “They say he is very _simpático_, and very good to the

poor.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said one of the strangers, “but haven’t you

seen him yourself?”

“Not I,” said the _arriero_; “I can’t afford to lose my day’s wage merely

to enjoy myself, and I have no chance of seeing His Majesty unless he

comes down into the Tajo to look for me.”

They climbed on up the stony zigzag path, and presently the young man

asked the _arriero_ if the donkey could carry his weight, for he found

walking up the almost vertical hill rather hard work.

“Of course he could get on the donkey, and welcome. Castaño often carried

two hundredweight of potatoes up to the town, and the Señor certainly

did not weigh that. He, Castaño’s owner, thought very little of climbing

the hill several times a day when there was a lot of produce to take to

market, but he could understand that a _forastero_ [stranger—any one not

belonging to the speaker’s native place] who was not used to the Tajo

might find it heavy walking.”

So the gentleman got on the donkey, sitting on the panniers with his long

legs dangling on each side of the beast’s neck in true country fashion,

and in this wise the little procession reached the new road recently made

through a breach in the town walls to give an easy approach for motors.

Here the “stranger” dismounted and gave a gratuity to the _arriero_ which

left him speechless with surprise and delight, for it was more than a

week’s wages that he found in his hand.

“Thank you for my pleasant ride,” said the gentleman. “And you can tell

your friends that the King not only went to see you at the bottom of the

Tajo, but was very glad to borrow your donkey to come up again.”

When he left that evening King Alfonso is reported to have said that he

would never forget Ronda, for it was the first place he had been to in

all his life where he was neither offered nor asked for anything.

These are but a few of the many stories we hear of the King, the Queen,

and their people, but they will suffice to show the estimation in which

their Majesties are held, as well as some of the reasons for it. And to

end the chapter I will add one incident in very modern history, which

occurred as recently as November 1913, and is significant, it seems to

me, of the present state of Spanish politics.

The tax known in France as the _octroi_ and in Spain as the _consumos_,

because it is levied on nearly everything that is consumed in the

use,—_i.e._ food and firing,—bears heavily on the poor and causes more

discontent than any other detail of local administration. It is very

harshly enforced in many places, every box, basket, or bundle that enters

the town being examined with irritating and unnecessary thoroughness.

Every traveller has suffered from it on arrival at the railway station,

and what is worse, one often sees weary labourers forced to unload and

reload again their tired donkeys on their way home from work, because

the _consumista_ chooses to imagine that some article of food may be

concealed under a hundredweight of charcoal or firewood. I have myself

been detained in pouring rain at the entrance to a town after a long

day on the hills, while a surly official poked and prodded the panniers

of a mule laden with nothing more dutiable than ancient tiles, bricks,

and such-like from my excavations. A shocking accident occurred, in

connection with this tax, at a seaside village where we spent one

summer; for a poor woman had put her sleeping infant in the panniers of

her donkey, and the _consumista_, assuming without inquiry that they

contained vegetables, ran the baby through with the long sharp spike used

for testing the contents of a load that is not unpacked before them, and

killed it on the spot.

At election times, when the whole country is greatly excited, the

_consumos_ grievance is always prominent, and the popular indignation

is apt to explode in plain language about the Town Councils, for these

have a legal right to substitute some other local tax for the _consumos_,

if they choose to do so. Naturally the poor feel that they, in whose

starvation wages every farthing is of importance, suffer more by a direct

tax on food than do the rich, and thus it has become a class question,

needing extremely delicate handling at critical moments.

In a modest village of two or three thousand inhabitants, in the

province of Huelva, called Bolullos del Candado, feeling about the

_consumos_ had risen to boiling-point before the 1913 municipal elections

began, and some mismanagement at the Town Hall led the malcontents

to believe—perhaps justifiably—that the voting would not be fairly

conducted. In less than no time some five hundred people collected

outside the Town Hall, and the authorities, alarmed at their menacing

aspect, locked the doors and ordered the Civil Guard to fire on the

crowd. Infuriated by being shot at when they had done nothing wrong or

illegal, the people burst in the doors, and a free fight ensued. When it

ended they were masters of the situation, and then they sacked the Town

Hall and made a bonfire of the furniture in the village square.

But before a hand was laid on the municipal property, one of the

“rioters” took down a picture of the King, which hung in the

council-room, and a detachment of them conveyed it to a place of safety,

while the whole crowd shouted _Viva el Rey!_

It was the triumph of King Alfonso’s personality over political passion,

and shows, I think, that there is not much fear of a popular revolution

against the Monarchy in Spain.

[Illustration: A REST AT THE FORD.]

CHAPTER XVII

Music and the people—Arabic instruments—The _saetas_ of

Andalucia—The tango in the theatre—A working-class wedding—A

drama in a dance—The alarmed widow lady—The Jota of Aragón—Our

Lady of the Pillar—Spaniards in Morocco—Moors, savage and

civilised—The Sultan and his prisoners—The tragedy of the

Wolf’s Gorge—After the retreat—The salvation of a regiment—The

power of the guitar.

The influence of the traditional popular music on the life of the people

is perhaps in some ways more marked here than in any other country.

It may seem strange to us that this should be the case, for Western

ears find it difficult to catch the tuneless songs, with their curious

intervals and lack of tonality and rhythm, which are another of Spain’s

legacies from the time when her arts and sciences were all Oriental. But

the strange and to us pointless cadences of the Guajiras, Malagueñas,

Granadinas, Sevillanas, and the rest offer no difficulties to the

Andalucian, though even cultivated foreign musicians find them almost

impossible of reproduction.

During the time of the Moslem rule in Spain, Seville was noted for its

devotion to music; so much so that in the palmy days of the Khalifate,

when for nearly a century Seville and Cordova were on good terms with

each other, it was usual, when a rich man died in Cordova, to send his

musical instruments to Seville for sale. But during the Moslem period

music was cultivated everywhere in Spain, as is shown by treatises

on the art existing in the library of the Escorial, and by the long

list of instruments in use among the Arabs, some of which, or their

counterparts, exist to-day, although others are now unknown. Among these

were flutes made of bone and elegantly decorated with carved designs, an

almost perfect specimen of which was found in a tomb at Malaga, besides

fragments of two others in an excavation at Seville. Possibly the skill

of the Andalucian on the military bugle is a legacy from those times,

as also his fondness for drum and fife bands. The drum or tambor is of

Oriental origin, and I have already described a variety of it known as

the _zambomba_.

It is only to be expected that Arabic music should persist in the

repertoire of the people of Andalucia, as indeed it does. But the most

curious survival is not in the music of the theatre or the home, but

in improvised hymns sung in the streets by fervent devotees when the

images of Our Lord and His Mother are carried in procession during great

religious festivals, such as those of Holy Week, Corpus Christi, or the

patron saint of the locality.

The curious fact about these hymns is that while the music is Oriental,

the name, _saeta_, is not. It means “an arrow” (Lat. _sagitta_), and

the Spanish dictionary gives the other meaning, “a short hymn to excite

devotion,” without explanation. I think myself it must date from

early Christian times, before the Arab conquest, for one can hardly

suppose that the name was applied to these erotic outbursts or the

hymns themselves composed after the reconquest of Seville. One has only

to compare the hymns sung elsewhere at that period with the _saetas_,

to see how widely they differ in feeling. Here are two lines from a

thirteenth-century hymn by “Brother Henry of Pisa”:—

“Christ divine, Christ of mine,

Christ the Lord and King of all.”

And here are two lines from a _saeta_ to Our Lady, of the traditional

style improvised anew every year all over Andalucia when the people turn

out to see a religious procession:—

“Thou art the passion flower

That opens for thy Son.”

Even more exotic than the words is the ecstasy thrown into them by the

singer. Suddenly in the midst of the reverential silence which falls

on the laughing, chattering throng as the _Santos_ are carried past,

rises the pathetic minor cadence with which every _saeta_ is prefaced,

and as long as the hymn lasts those around stand still and listen. When

it is over (it never extends beyond four or five lines) the singer is

vigorously applauded, and the crowd again becomes mundane. The singer,

who for a brief moment seemed absolutely lost to the things of earth,

uplifted into unconsciousness of everything save the object of his

adoration, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the image, and his

whole body tense with pious emotion, comes straight down to earth again,

and smilingly accepts the compliments of his friends.

The _saeta_ is always a solo: not necessarily because it is improvised,

for there are a few traditional couplets that everybody knows, but

because no one attempts to sing a _saeta_ unless and until the spirit

moves him. And, the effusion being so short, it is all over before his

hearers could catch and join in the air, even if they wished to do so.

It is not the least curious feature of these _saetas_, considering how

infectious religious emotion has always been, that they are never turned

into choruses by the crowd. Perhaps this is due to the Arabic strain in

the people, for there seems to be nothing to indicate that the Moslem

musicians combined their instruments to produce orchestral effects, and

at the present time there is singularly little feeling for concerted

music of any kind in Spain compared with other European countries. But

the sympathy of the crowd with the singer, and still more with the

subject of his song, is shown by the breathless hush with which they

follow every trill and shake of the interminable recitative, so harsh and

unmusical to our ears, but so beautiful to theirs.

* * * * *

To turn to another branch of Spanish popular music. The so-called

Argentine tango is of course perfectly familiar here, and the echoes

which have reached Spain of the animated discussion in the English

press as to its morality or the reverse have caused a good deal of

amusement; for as every one here knows, the propriety or otherwise of

the tango—whether “Argentine” or Andalucian—depends entirely on the

performer. It can be a graceful and inoffensive drawing-room dance, or it

can be made an exhibition indecent enough to put a Solomon islander to

the blush.

Of its Oriental origin there can, of course, be no doubt whatever,

apart from the references in Spanish or Spanish-Arabic history to its

parent the _zambra_, against which the Church more than once fulminated,

apparently with very little effect. As for the improvised verses which

in Andalucia accompany the tango, they are as changeable as are the

movements of the dancer; but among the numerous printed couplets in my

possession there is not a word which could offend the most squeamish.

I first saw the tango danced by a handsome gipsy at a public performance,

and I am bound to say I never witnessed anything less graceful or more

disgusting. That was in the early days of our residence in Spain, and we

had stopped to see the end of the entertainment, unaware that everything

that might offend the proprieties is always reserved to the last, and

that the offence is likely to be considerable in the final scenes of a

late function.

It is easy to avoid these when one knows the ropes, for theatrical

shows are generally of the “triple bill” variety, and ladies may attend

the pieces put on before eleven o’clock quite comfortably. Popular

comediettas, musical or otherwise, are given from night to night at

different hours, and varied to suit all tastes, being carefully

Bowdlerised for the earlier audiences. A play called _Las Bribonas_ (The

Impostors—female) had an immense success one winter, and I went with a

party to a performance which began at ten. It was amusing and well acted,

but there was one scene which was decidedly vulgar, although not actually

indecent. I happened to speak of it afterwards to two English friends who

had seen it on different occasions. One, who went to an eight o’clock

performance, found it food for babes; the other unfortunate lady, who in

her ignorance had gone to the latest one, was almost too shocked to talk

about it. The tango, it is hardly necessary to say, was one of the chief

features in the doubtful scene in _Las Bribonas_.

The most amusing tango I ever saw was danced at the wedding of a servant

of ours, who had politely fixed the day to suit the convenience of

her Señores, so anxious was she to have the great event graced by our

presence.

The mother was a well-to-do laundress who rented the whole of the ground

floor of a small tenement house, and the guests overflowed from the

patio into the bridal _sala_ and _alcoba_. The _alcoba_ or alcove is a

recess curtained off from the sitting-room and furnished with a bed,

which, in the homes of the poor, generally completely fills it. The

same arrangement also obtains in the houses of the rich, and here it is

usual for the mistress’s bedroom to open out of the drawing-room, with

the doors between thrown back and the curtains drawn aside to display

the elegant appointments of the marital chamber. Although the other

bedrooms are often lacking in what we should call common necessaries,

this one is always furnished at least as handsomely as its corresponding

_sala_, forming a striking contrast to the rest of the private rooms.

The explanation is that, when a child is born, the mother receives her

whole family, her husband’s relatives, and all her intimate friends in

her bedroom when the infant is twenty-four hours old; thus this room

has to be at least as well furnished as the drawing-room; and the same

custom prevails in all classes of society. It never seems to occur to the

doctors or any one else that these social celebrations have anything to

do with the excessive mortality among young wives and their babies, and I

have often been pressed to go and sit with some unfortunate acquaintance,

seriously ill after a bad confinement, when I have called to inquire for

her and her child, on the ground that she had had only a few callers that

day and as she was very weak my company would cheer her up.

The _alcoba_ of Carolina, the laundress’ daughter, just held the bedstead

and a table with her _Santos_—a chromo-lithograph of a Murillo Virgin,

flanked by a St. Anthony of Padua and a “San Juan de Dios,” before which

were placed vases of artificial flowers and, on this great occasion, a

couple of lighted candles. All the rest of the bedroom furniture was in

the _sala_. Here we were invited by the bride to drink Manzanilla, and

as the guests of honour we (more fortunate than at Carmencita’s wedding)

each had a glass to ourselves. It was all clean and bright and gay, and

when we went out into the patio Carolina’s girl friends began dancing

_seguidillas_.

It was a pretty sight to see them dancing under the February sky, with

a brilliant moon irradiating the old courtyard and blending its beams

with those of an electric bulb hanging from the crazy balcony, which

was all the light a generous landlord provided for his twenty or thirty

tenants. The thrumming of the single guitar was completely drowned by the

hand-clapping and foot-stamping with which the spectators accompanied

the dancers, but we did not miss it. Indeed, it would be a powerful

instrument that could have made itself heard above all that rhythmical

clatter. Personally I find the _palmas_, as this hand-clapping is called,

very trying, for the noise is overwhelming; but that is because I have no

Eastern blood in my veins. To Andalucians of whatever class, noise of any

kind seems to be sheer delight.

Things gradually grew more lively as the slight restraint caused by our

arrival wore off, although the guests were always perfectly well-mannered

and decorous; and presently Carolina came to tell me that Juanillo

Carrera, a famous singer and dancer, would perform the tango in her

mother’s kitchen, if the Señores would care to see him.

“Why would he not dance in the patio?” I asked, for I was enjoying the

picture made by the moonlight.

“Oh, that would not suit the girls, who wanted to go on dancing

themselves. But if we would step into the kitchen and would kindly not

mind standing for a few minutes, Juanillo would dance on the table, so

that the _señora viuda_ (the widow lady) who came with the Señora, and so

much likes Andalucian dancing, would see him to the best advantage.”

Juanillo was a thin pock-marked man of forty or so, without a redeeming

feature in his face save a pair of brilliant deep-set black eyes. He

wore a striped cotton blouse and trousers with a black sash wound many

times round his waist, and bright yellow boots with long pointed toes. I

thought he looked an unfortunate specimen of the Andalucian dancer, but

I soon found that appearances were deceptive in this as in so many other

cases.

The widow lady, although no longer in her first youth, was tall,

handsome, and very well dressed. She had been for days past expressing

her desire to see this tango of which she had heard so much before

she came to Spain, and I am afraid she rather hoped to be shocked by

it. I saw the moment she came in that Juanillo admired her, and heard

him remark to Carolina that she was _guapisima_, meaning extremely

attractive. Carolina rapped him over the knuckles, unaware that I was

watching, and told him to behave himself and remember that the tango was

to be performed for distinguished ladies and must have nothing of the

_corral_ (low-class tenement house) about it; but I rather wondered what

was going to happen.

He sprang on to the table with the graceful agility of a cat, and began

the tapping with one foot which prefaces all these dances, his eyes

meanwhile fixed on the widow, who as yet had not realised that she was

his objective. Then suddenly, regardless of the din of voices, _palmas_,

and stamping in the patio, he burst into song.

I could not catch all the words, but I heard enough to grasp their

tenor. The rascal was addressing a passionate declaration of love to

the American widow; and now his cavernous eyes began to light up, and

even she, unconscious as she was of the meaning of his song, realised

that he was looking very hard at her. And when he began the dance not

only she but every one else in the room was made fully aware that the

entire performance was wholly and solely addressed to her. I never saw

a cleverer pantomime of devotion, jealousy, scorn, pride, humility,

and final despair than the impudent scamp contrived to act by his

movements in this tango. And all without moving from the middle of the

kitchen-table on which he danced—indeed, if he had not kept to the dead

centre of it he would inevitably have come down with a crash, for it did

not measure over three feet any way. The whole thing was dramatic to a

degree: one’s attention was caught at the outset by the expression of

his eyes, and he never allowed his hold on us to relax for an instant.

His ugly face, shabby dress, and hideous yellow boots all fell into the

picture, which was none the less effective because the only light was

a flaring petroleum lamp held up by the bridegroom, whose delight in

his friend’s performance caused him to wave it about dangerously in

his efforts to keep it, like the lime-light at a theatre, always on the

dancer’s face.

“I never saw anything so horrible in my life,” murmured the widow in my

ear when the tango came to an end. “Do let us go; I am quite frightened!

The man looks as if he could commit a murder. No more tangos for me,

thank you! I felt as if he might stick a knife into me at any moment.”

She was really frightened, and, humour not being her strong point, I

felt that it would be useless to try to make her see the joke of it.

Dramatic expression comes naturally to the Andalucian, and I knew that

Juanillo had taken her as the heroine of his pantomime simply because

she was the most noticeable member of our party, expecting her to be as

gratified as a Spanish Señorita would have been at the compliment. During

the remainder of her stay the lady ceased from troubling me with demands

to be taken to see the local dances; but when her nerves had recovered

from the shock it became evident that not the least pleasing of her

recollections of Spain would be the little comedy of admiration played

by Juanillo. In that version of the tango there was nothing to bring the

blush of shame to the cheek of modesty, but I imagine that it is not

quite what is danced in London or Paris.

* * * * *

Another dance with its accompanying song, which is known, at any rate by

repute, outside Spain, is the Jota of Aragón, the music of which does

not seem to be of Oriental origin. No one attempts to decide when it

first came into being, but the probability is that, like the “war dance”

of the Basques, it dates from prehistoric times, when women were won

not by favour but by force. Be this as it may, the Jota now is the hymn

of Aragón as well as her national dance, and has the same extraordinary

religious influence over the Aragonese as the _saeta_ has over the

Andalucians. Fully to appreciate its swing and dash one must hear it sung

by a native of the province, but wherever and by whomsoever performed it

sets the blood dancing when the refrain bursts out—

“_À la jota, jota,_

_Que viva Aragón_

_Y la Pilaríca_

_De mi corazón._”

(Sing to the jota,

Long live Aragón

And the Pilarica

Of my heart.)

The patron saint of Zaragoza, the capital of Aragón, is Our Lady of the

Pillar (_Nuestra Señora del Pilár_), who is said to have come down from

heaven when St. James was converting Spain, to encourage him in his holy

labours. She sat, so the story goes, on a pillar while he said Mass

before her, and he, as a good saint should, founded the Cathedral of

Zaragoza on that spot, with the pillar of Our Lady as its shrine.

Zaragoza has two Cathedrals, one dedicated to N. S. del Pilár, and the

other to Our Lord of the Seo (Aragonese for a cathedral church). The

people will assure you that that of the Pilár is much the older of the

two, regardless of their architectural styles, and it is quite possible

that the black image of Our Lady is older than anything in the Seo,

although when it comes to relics of the Mozarabic Church in Spain it is

never wise to dogmatise about dates. Indeed, there are cases in which

popular tradition has received material confirmation from unexpected

sources long after it had been pronounced mere fantasy by the learned.

The Cathedral of the Pilár, or as her adoring Aragonese love to call her,

the Pilarica, is quite modern, whereas parts of the Seo date from before

the twelfth century. But the actual image of Our Lady of the Pillar,

with the column on which it stands, are of immemorial antiquity. The

column had been so worn away by the kisses of the faithful that it is

now protected by a case of silver and crystal. One may imagine the many

centuries of devotion which must have gone by ere a stone could be thus

impressed by the touch of human lips alone.

A singular performance takes place in Zaragoza every year on the 12th

of October, the festival of the Pilarica, in which certain strange

figures called _gigantes y cabezudos_ take a prominent part. The giants

represent a man, a woman, and a negro (not a Moor), while the big-heads

(_cabezudos_), worn by men of ordinary height, seem to have no special

meaning. I have tried in vain to discover the origin of this festival.

It must date from before the reconquest of Zaragoza (which took place

about 1120), for the negro would certainly have been a Moor had it

been introduced after Zaragoza was incorporated with the dominions of

the King of Aragón, but no convincing record exists. A replica of the

Pilarica is borne through the streets, and the gorgeous procession of

the Cathedral Chapter, the military, civil, and municipal authorities,

all in their gala dress, the town band, and the devout of both sexes,

carrying candles, is wound up by these singular survivals of some

forgotten and probably pagan festivity. One of the fascinations of Spain

is this intimate connection between the present and the past, with its

picturesque and quite unintelligible jumble of the sacred and profane.

It is only natural that the love of the Pilarica, which is so bound up

with the religion of the Aragonese, should colour every action of their

daily life; and an incident that took place during the war in Morocco in

1909 is a good illustration of this.

The Aragonese are good fighting men, and make excellent soldiers,

although it is true that the same may be said of all the Spaniards. But

there are times in every war when the martial spirit droops before human

pain and the sorrow of seeing comrades cut down in the flower of their

youth. Such a day came to the Spanish troops at Melilla when the fatal

attack upon the mountain of Gurugú was made, to which I have already

referred in connection with mourning customs.

So little was heard about it in England at the time, owing to the

rigorous censorship, that I may be excused for briefly relating what I

heard from one of those engaged in it, who was himself severely wounded.

When the trouble with Morocco began, the Spanish Government made the

common mistake of underestimating the strength of the enemy. They had to

deal with scattered tribes, some of them barbarians of the most savage

description, others gentle, comparatively civilised, and quite ready to

take advantage of the commercial and educational facilities afforded by

contact with European nations.

Although they have no connection with the Pilarica and the Jota of

Aragón, it may be of interest to tell two little stories which illustrate

the wide difference between these two classes of Moors, for the facts

speak for themselves.

In the summer of 1913 a Spanish gun-boat, the _General Concha_, went

ashore in a fog on the Moorish coast, and a hostile tribe attacked the

wreck. They shot down some of the sailors who tried to swim ashore,

and after a plucky defence led by a junior officer, the captain and

the senior lieutenant having been killed by the first volley, they got

on board, looted the vessel, and took the survivors prisoners. To make

matters worse, they had begun by pretending that they belonged to a

friendly tribe, and thus had managed to get within close range of the

boat without opposition, opened fire from the cliffs above, and shot down

the two officers and several men before the crew could get the guns to

work.

Naturally the gravest fears were entertained for the fate of the

prisoners, but two or three weeks later it became known that through

the influence of a friendly chief they had been taken to the house of

one of his friends, where they were well treated and eventually aided

to escape to a small boat hidden on the beach a few miles from their

prison. The friendly Moors, besides guiding them to the boat, helped to

row them out to a Spanish man-of-war which had been sent to bombard the

coast villages. Not only had they been provided with the necessaries of

life as long as they remained with the friendly Moors, but the women had

done their best to cure the wounded, and thanks to them, only one—a case

for amputation—failed to recover. And the Moors carried those who were

unable to walk some twelve miles across the enemy’s country to the boat,

although they well knew that there would be short shrift for them and for

the prisoners were the flight discovered.

So much for the “civilised” Moors. Now for the reverse of the medal.

A Spanish officer told me that he had himself seen the following

incident, which was only one out of many that occurred during the eight

years that he was quartered at Ceuta, whence in times of peace his work

took him to various parts of the country.

The father of the present Sultan, who was opposed to any sort of change

in his methods of government, used to make an annual “royal progress”

from Fez to Morocco, and picked troops went before him to remove any

possible source of danger to the monarch. He paid these men a dollar for

a live prisoner and two for a dead one, so, said my friend, “you may

imagine that more were brought in dead than alive.” Any one who could

be even remotely suspected of disaffection was promptly beheaded and

his property confiscated. In a word, the “royal progress” was in fact a

murderous raid, the loot of which paid for the upkeep of the troops and

saved some collecting of extra taxes.

On one occasion my friend, in his official capacity, met the Sultan at a

place where two hundred prisoners were marshalled in a row, each with a

wooden collar round his neck, tied with a rope to that of the next man.

As the Sultan rode up a poor woman flung herself on the ground before

him, and clasped his horse’s knees with such force that it could not

move, crying that her son who was among the prisoners was innocent, and

imploring that the collar be taken off his neck. The Sultan turned to the

two negro executioners who accompanied him everywhere.

“Take off her son’s collar,” he said, “and his head with it, and give

them to the woman.”

And this was done on the spot.

“You will understand,” said the officer who told me the story, “why we

who have seen such things feel that we cannot abandon our civilising

mission in Morocco, although it may be years before we get any material

return for the blood and money it is costing us now. But,” he went on to

say, “every year we are making more friends among the tribes, and since

1909 we have been getting on very hopefully with our Spanish-Arabic

schools and hospitals and colleges of agriculture and commerce, while our

native troops are already the pride of our army in Morocco.”

But to return to the Jota, after this long digression. In the summer

of 1909 things were going very badly indeed, and the Government, true

to the time-honoured Spanish rule of directing a distant war from the

arm-chairs of Ministerial offices in Madrid, ordered the General in

command to make a frontal attack on the Gurugú, the peak which towers

over Melilla. This was intended partly to dislodge, once for all, the

hornet’s nest of sharp-shooters who were worrying the Spanish garrison,

but mainly to silence by a brilliant victory the growing murmurs of the

nation against a campaign which popular orators declared to have been

begun in the interest of a few wealthy capitalists owning valuable mines

in the immediate neighbourhood of Melilla.

The General, Marina, a good officer and able strategist, protested in

vain. The orders were explicit. Public opinion was dangerously excited,

and a brilliant and decisive action had to be fought at once. The attack

was accordingly attempted, with the result that one of the infantry

regiments was caught in an ambush, and a whole battalion of the Cazadores

de las Navas was practically wiped out. Considerably over a thousand

officers and men of that and other regiments fell in the Wolf’s Gorge

of the Gurugú, and so complete was the defeat that for three months the

bodies of those martyrs to duty and a preposterous governmental system

could not be recovered.

On the night of the catastrophe the Colonel of the Cazadores went

to offer what cheer he could to the few survivors of his ill-fated

regiment. Heart-broken himself, he found no words to say to the

heart-broken men who hardly had spirit enough to stand up and salute

him—half their comrades dead, their soldierly pride humbled, their

demoralisation seemingly beyond repair. But as he stood among them,

silent and grief-stricken as themselves, he saw that one of the men,

hardly conscious what he was doing, had picked up his guitar and was

lightly touching the strings. It must here be explained that although the

Cazadores de las Navas is a Catalan regiment, it is mostly recruited in

Aragón.

“A gleam of hope entered my heart,” said the Colonel, when many days

after he related what had taken place. “If only he would play loud enough

to be heard he would save us; I know what their music means to the men

of Aragón. I dared not speak, I was so afraid of putting him off, for

if he had known I was there he would have dropped the guitar to stand

at attention. But he went on, a little louder and a little louder, and

another man took up the air, and then another, until at last all the

regiment—all that was left of it—followed suit, and all began singing—

“‘_La Virgen del Pilár dice_

_Que no quiere moros ni moras,_

_Que quiere ser capitana_

_De la tropa aragonesa._’[8]

“Very softly they sang at first, as if it were a dirge for their dead

friends, but when they came to the chorus their voices rang out as

bravely and gaily as if all were well with us—

“‘_À la jota, jota,_

_Que viva Aragón,_

_Y la Pilaríca_

_De mi corazón._’

“Then,” said the Colonel, “I quietly slipped away. They no longer needed

consolation from me, for they remembered that, whatever they had lost,

they still had the Pilarica, the beloved of all hearts.”

When the Gurugú was finally taken, an English newspaper correspondent

commented on the extraordinary lightness of heart and irresponsible

gaiety of these Spanish soldiers, saying that he had actually seen one of

them carrying a guitar under his arm as he scrambled up the precipitous

slopes that had been the scene of disaster three months earlier. The

newspaper man jumped too hastily to his conclusion, for which, however,

he may be forgiven, for he could hardly know what the Jota, played on the

guitar, may mean to the men of Aragón.

[Illustration: THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT.]

CHAPTER XVIII

Holy Week in Seville—What not to see—The Blessing of the

Palms—Cathedral dignitaries—The Cardinal and the children—The

Dean’s smile—The Cathedral steps—The Entry into Jerusalem—Light

in dark places—Mozarabic ritual—The Display of the Banner—Our

Lady of the Old Time—Mozarabic art—The Banner of the

_Menestrales_—A portrait of San Fernando—The Roman eagles—The

Entombment—The silver shrine and its golden key—Wheeled traffic

forbidden—Brotherhoods, rich and poor.

I suppose _My Spanish Year_ would be incomplete without a chapter

about the Holy Week ceremonies and the Seville Fair; but so much has

already been written on these subjects from the tourist’s point of view

that, if I am to say anything about them, I must try to describe some

characteristic features which are apt to pass more or less unnoticed.

Every one knows that during Holy Week numerous Brotherhoods and Guilds

pervade the streets of Seville and other Andalucian towns in procession,

the original intention of which was to show images representing events in

the Passion of Our Lord, in order to bring home to the illiterate people

the tragedy of the Crucifixion. And every one who sees these processions

in Seville remarks on the artistic merit of many of the images, the

magnificent dresses, and the picturesque effects produced in the streets

and in the Cathedral by the innumerable candles flickering round the

platforms on which the images are borne.

These are the common-places of Holy Week in Seville. They catch the

eye of every visitor who has the slightest knowledge of or feeling for

art; but long before the week is out, those who come merely to see

something new are sick to death of the eternal repetition of the same

thing—the “Brothers” or the “Nazarenes” in their voluminous robes and

tall peaked hoods, the brass bands, the Civil Guard, the first _paso_

draped with velvet or satin, and surrounded with silver candelabra and

vases of flowers, with an image of Our Lord in the centre; more Brothers

or Nazarenes, more music, more Civil Guards, and then the _paso_ of Our

Lady, which closes every procession save some which were instituted

before the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin became a dogma of the

Roman Church.

When one has seen between twenty and thirty of the _pasos_, all creeping

along at a snail’s pace, with a pause every few yards for the bearers to

rest and the people to admire, one does begin to get a thought weary of

certain features in them. But we who know Seville have learnt what to see

and what to avoid, and we are careful not to exhaust ourselves physically

and mentally by attempting to watch the slow progress of a dozen _pasos_

past the same point on the same day, for indeed the processions are but

one feature in the manifold ceremonies of Holy Week, and if you set about

it the right way you may vary your emotions almost every hour of the day.

Therefore I, who have often felt sorry to see my compatriots enduring

the maximum of fatigue to see the minimum of what is most interesting in

these curious survivals of the early Church, will try to indicate a few

incidents in the long programme of ecclesiastical ceremonies which do not

figure in the official account of what are incongruously described as

_las fiestas de Semana santa_.

The Blessing of the Palms on Palm Sunday is one of the most beautiful of

all the Cathedral ceremonies. I go early—not later than 8 a.m., and as

much earlier as I find convenient, and when the early Mass is over I go

across to the Columbus monument in front of the south door, and there get

a perfect view of the procession on its stately march down the long aisle

to the door of San Miguel. First goes the bearer of the Cathedral cross,

its brass gleaming above the curious round frame here used to drape

the parish crosses with the ritual colour for the day. Then follow the

minor clergy in black soutanes and stiffly starched rochets with flowing

sleeves; the censer-bearers in beautiful dalmatics of old brocade,

swinging chased silver censers worthy of a place in a museum; the choir

boys in scarlet soutanes and white rochets; the beneficed clergy—recently

granted, as a special favour to the Cardinalate of Seville, permission

to wear red silk linings to their black silk cloaks (_capa corál_);

the portly canons in purple silk, the officiant and his servers in

magnificent embroidered vestments centuries old, and then, supported by

the Dean and the Arch-priest of the diocese, the Cardinal-Archbishop.

He is already very stout although hardly past middle life, but his

unwieldy figure is counterbalanced by a strong face with a powerful jaw

and friendly humorous grey eyes, and he looks magnificent in his white

fur hood and robe of scarlet silk, with a train four yards long, borne

behind him by two of the Seises, whose history has already been related.

He has only been here four years, and came after a long interregnum due

to two sudden deaths in the episcopate, but the way in which he has

stirred up the diocese is surprising. The Cathedral music, from being the

worst, now ranks among the best in Spain, the services begin punctually

instead of at any hour that happened to be convenient, and above all, he

has put a stop to the illicit sale by parish priests, monks, and nuns of

objects of artistic value belonging to their churches. Formerly a brisk

trade was carried on in such, but our energetic Cardinal has had every

picture, carving, and church ornament in his diocese inventoried, and now

not so much as a painted tile can be touched without a licence from the

palace.

Yet he is a kindly man, this vigorous prelate. I once followed in his

train at a charitable affair in which I had the privilege of presenting

to him some twenty small children of the working class whom I had put

into fancy dress, to their and my own great enjoyment. And for every

child the Cardinal, as he gave them his ring to kiss, had a smile and

a kind and a witty remark on their costume or the historical character

it represented; so that all the little faces beamed behind him as he

made his progress round the hall where they stood to attention. Kissing

episcopal rings is hardly in my line, but Cardinal Almaraz’s kindness

to the children always makes me remember my share in that ceremony with

pleasure.

Next in gorgeousness of vestment to the Cardinal comes the Dean, a most

courteous gentleman not much over forty, and blessed, like his Bishop,

with a strong sense of humour. On one memorable Palm Sunday, as the

procession passed the Columbus monument, the Dean caught sight of me

standing there with a tall English girl, whose broken Castilian he had

been helping out at a dinner party at our house a few weeks before, and

his eyes began to twinkle and his fingers instinctively went up to give

us an Andalucian salute. He recovered his gravity in an instant, and

with great presence of mind converted his salute into a motion which

the public would take for a blessing. But the deed had been done. When

next we met outside the Cathedral we thanked him for his “blessing,” and

now he can never look at us in the crowd during a procession without a

twinkle in his eyes and a visible compression of his lips, lest he should

indecorously smile at us again.

The attitude of a Spanish congregation during the Mass is remarkably

reverent compared with the behaviour in many foreign Cathedrals: one

really finds here an atmosphere of sincere devotion. But the processions

are regarded from a different standpoint. The dignitaries there are in

the midst of the crowd, and the crowd, although perfectly respectful,

does its best to win a sign of recognition from its friends and

acquaintances in the long lines of clergy, choir-men, and _monocillos_

(little monkeys), as the singing-boys are familiarly called.

The door of San Miguel—opposite to the College, or cloister of that

name, in which dwelt all the Mozarabic priests who still survived when

San Fernando entered Seville—is thrown wide open as the procession

approaches, and a wonderful shimmering effect of light and shade is

produced when the waving palms borne by the clergy move out from the

dimness of the Cathedral into the blazing sunshine of the street. But I

never follow the palms; one only gets lost in the crowd, and misses all

the best of the picture. As soon as the last gleam of the Cardinal’s

scarlet disappears through the door, I turn round and go to meet the

procession on its way back.

One has time to go out by the door of the Bells (_campanillas_), where

formerly bells were rung to call loiterers to Mass, and walk round to

that of los Palos—so-called because it once opened on to a grove of trees

(poles, _palos_, now long cut down)—getting a good view of the procession

as it comes round outside the Orange Court on the broad terrace raised

by six steps above the level of the road. This terrace is a relic of the

half-century during which the ancient Visigothic Cathedral was converted

to Moslem uses. Every Mozarabic church that was used as a mosque has a

raised terrace on one or more sides, like that of the mosque of Cordova.

It was originally intended to accommodate the overflowing congregations

during Ramadan, but after the reconquest the Christians allowed it to

degenerate into a meeting-place for merchants to transact business, like

the money-changers in the Temple, until the scandal became too great,

and the Casa Lonja (now containing the archives of the Indies) was built

in the seventeenth century. The terrace forms a fine vantage-ground for

those who want to see the Holy Week processions, the recent widening of

the Calle Canovas del Castillo giving an uninterrupted view from the door

of San Miguel, where they enter the Cathedral, right away to the Town

Hall.

Just as the Palm Sunday procession reaches the door of the Palos it is

closed, and the whole procession comes to a stop, while the Master of the

Cathedral Ceremonies raps on it three times. This, with the palms and

olive branches strewed before the Cardinal, represents the entry of Our

Lord into Jerusalem. A verse is intoned and then in the midst of a dead

silence the doors slowly open, and the many-coloured procession with its

waving palms fades into the twilight within, while women and children

try to secure an olive twig, for they, like the palms, are blessed. A

palm branch hung on the balcony protects the house from lightning, and

the olive branch brings peace and contentment if carried home and placed

before your “Saints.”

Palm Sunday evening is devoted to the first of the street processions.

These are late ones, reaching the stands of reserved seats in front

of the Town Hall when night is falling. It is wise to get one’s first

impressions from the Sunday evening _pasos_ after their candles are

lighted, so that the images of the Passion and of Our Lady convey the

beautiful symbolical idea of carrying with them light into dark places.

Formerly all the street lamps were extinguished on the line of march, so

that the way of the people was literally lighted by their “Saints”; but

that was a long time ago, and now we can only imagine how impressive the

old custom was, from the glow that floods the street of Sierpes before

the procession itself comes into sight.

It is impossible to compress into a single chapter all the interesting

and beautiful ceremonies of Holy Week in this Cathedral, apart from

their historic aspect. Seville does not retain the actual Mozarabic or

Visigothic ritual in any of her chapels, as does Toledo, for when San

Fernando got here the Popes for over a century and a half had been trying

to suppress the rite of the Church, which from force of circumstances had

been so long cut off from and almost independent of Rome, and therefore

the rite was not retained after the reconquest. But it is clear that the

sainted king permitted the faithful Mozarabic priests of the College

of San Miguel to take a leading part in the offices of the transformed

mosque when it once more became the Cathedral of Seville, for the

Oriental survivals we see to-day could never have been introduced in the

middle of the thirteenth century by priests and bishops from Castile.

Many such survivals are mere details, more interesting to ecclesiastical

archæologists than to laymen. But others are so striking that no visitor

of intelligence should miss them.

One of these is the so-called “Rending of the White Veil” after the

nine o’clock Mass on the Wednesday of Holy Week. This is represented by

drawing apart immense curtains of beautiful old white _tafetán_, a fine

soft silk of the kind worn by Moslem princes when Seville was celebrated

for her manufacture of velvets, brocades, and satins, all of which were

lined with this filmy _tafetán_. No one knows exactly why the White Veil

is rent on this day, though I am told that it is another heritage from

the Mozarabs. It is torn from the rod on which it hangs, so that when

divided one curtain falls in a heap on either side of the altar, whence

they are drawn into the sacristy by the Seises.

At 3.30 on Tuesday in Holy Week we have what is known as the Display of

the Banner, another ceremony foreign to the ritual of Rome. Two priests

kneel on the altar steps, while a third waves over them a voluminous

banner of the same soft gauzy _tafetán_ as the White Veil. The banner

is of a dark green, so dark as to appear black in the dim Cathedral,

where all the painted windows are shrouded with black curtains during

this season of penitence. Formerly the two priests used to prostrate

themselves; now they only kneel. No one can explain the ceremony, which

takes place four times in all, from the eve of Passion Sunday to Holy

Tuesday, but it is supposed to have some connection with the Mozarabic

_Virgen de la Antigua_, a twelfth-century fresco in the chapel of that

name, whose history is worth relating.

When the Almohade Moors took Seville and appropriated the old Gothic

Cathedral for their new mosque, this mural painting of Our Lady was

left in its place. Alfonso X. in his _Cántigas de la Virgen Maria_

(Hymns of the Virgin) says that more than once the fanatic Almohades

wished to destroy the image, but such a glory shone from it as to dazzle

their eyes and they retreated, afraid to touch it. The truth probably

was that the Almohade ruler, who was dependent on Sevillian artists

for his alterations and additions to his mosque and his Alcazar,[9]

did not venture to risk a revolt among his Mozarab subjects, for the

Christian community was always more numerous here than anywhere else in

Moslem Spain. Therefore, although he appropriated or perhaps bought the

old Cathedral, as Abderrahman I. had done with that of St. Vincent in

Cordova, he left this venerated image and its chapel to the Christians,

who made an entrance to it from the street and closed the former door,

which otherwise would communicate with the mosque.

It is related in the same _Cántigas_ that when San Fernando was besieging

Seville, he was miraculously admitted one night through the Jerez

gate—the nearest to the Cathedral—into the Chapel of N’ra Señora de

la Antigua (Our Lady of the Old Time), and being discovered there by

the Moors he hardly escaped with his life. Tradition suggests that Our

Lady of the Old Time was walled up after this by the Moslems, probably

from indignation at what must have seemed to them treachery on the part

of the Mozarabs within the walls, for they alone could have admitted

the Christian king into their own chapel. The city surrendered not

many weeks later, and there is at present nothing to show when the

picture was uncovered. But reference is made to it from the thirteenth

century onwards, and my own impression is that the chapel was reopened

immediately, for there had certainly not been time to forget its

situation, as happened elsewhere in the case of images buried to save

them from desecration.

In the sixteenth century the fresco was removed from the wall on which it

was painted to the altar of the present chapel, which had been built to

receive it. It was at that time unfortunately “restored,” “renovated,”

and “beautified” as well as removed, as a contemporary account tells us,

and much of its mediæval character was thus lost. But the Child still

has the characteristic round bullet head with stiff black curls, which

is seen in all the Mozarab work in this region, and is in every case

so curiously inferior in technique to that of the Mother that one can

only accept it as a type, venerated and copied from one generation to

another from primitive times. The Virgin, on the other hand, as in all

the work of the twelfth century, is beautiful in technique as well as

in feature, and her strange drapery with its stiff diagonal folds is

singularly reminiscent of the drapery of some of the Egypto-Tartessian

figures found in the Cerro de los Santos several years ago, and now in

the Archæological Museum at Madrid.

Long and bitter have been the quarrels of local art critics over the

period and origin of this fresco, but once the history of the Christians

of Seville under Islam has been made clear, all combines to show that

Our Lady of the Old Time was here when San Fernando came, and that the

image was worshipped by the Mozarabs throughout the Almohade occupation.

And in the light of present knowledge it seems highly probable that

the Display of the Banner is a reminiscence of some act of humiliation

imposed on the faithful priests who, even after their last Bishop fled in

1239, still lived in the Cloister of San Miguel and continued to exercise

the rites of their religion. The Moors may perhaps have made the ceremony

a condition of the retention by the Christians of their chapel within the

precincts of the mosque; and it is by no means impossible that something

conclusive on the subject may come to light one day, when the mass of

unexamined documents in the Cathedral archives are at length sorted and

read.

Though so little is known about it as yet, the interest of this curious

Display of the Banner is seen to be great when one realises that it is

a direct link with the Moslem dominion in Seville, taking us back six

centuries to the time when the splendid ritual which now delights the

eyes and ears of thousands was represented in this ancient basilica by a

few poor priests who said Mass in the Chapel of _La Antigua_, perhaps at

the risk of their lives.

Most of the remaining ceremonies of Holy Week are the same as in Rome

and elsewhere, save in minor details which need not be described here.

But the processions in the streets date from the thirteenth century, and

we can hardly doubt that they too have survived from the early Christian

Church.

San Fernando himself gave a banner with his portrait embroidered on it to

the Brotherhood of the _Menestrales_ (Mechanics: the Guild was of working

tailors); and that too must have existed before the reconquest, for the

King died only four years later, and we are not told that he founded the

Brotherhood in the interval. Indeed, if he had done so it would have been

very carefully recorded in their annals, as was his gift of the banner.

They, as the oldest of the Brotherhoods and favoured by the King, were

given the privilege of watching beside his coffin when he died, and they

maintained their right to this place of honour on the anniversary of his

death until their Guild dissolved for lack of funds not many years since.

Another and richer Guild tried to oust them two or three centuries ago,

but the _Menestrales_ went to law and won their case. The banner given

by San Fernando now hangs in a glass case in the church of St. Isidore.

Very little is left of the portrait, and what little there is was hidden

in the sixteenth century by an embroidered head of Charles V. which was

sewn over it. This was removed for examination a few years ago, and

the thirteenth-century portrait was found beneath. Although, like the

banner of San Fernando in the Town Hall, it has been so much repaired and

restored that very little of the original remains, enough can be seen to

convince any expert in embroidery that it is Mozarabic work of the period

in question.

The strongest evidence of the early origin of the Brotherhoods lies in

the fact that the Roman eagles and a standard with S.P.Q.R. are borne

in advance of every _paso_, while “Roman soldiers” ride after some few

of them. These cannot have been “put on the stage” in the thirteenth

century, for illuminated MSS. of that period, including the exceedingly

valuable contemporary works of Alfonso X., all depict sacred characters

in the costumes of the day. Nor were they introduced in the fourteenth

century, for there is a missal of that date in which the Roman soldiers

at the Crucifixion wear the dress of the fighting-men of Alfonso XI.,

and one of the men casting lots for the coat of Our Lord is dressed in

parti-coloured hose with cap and bells, like a court jester.

The consecration of the Holy Oils, the great procession with the Host to

the “Monument” erected at the west end of the Cathedral (over the tomb

of the Columbus family), the washing of the feet of twelve poor men by

the Cardinal-Archbishop in the Cathedral, the dinner given to them in

the Archbishop’s palace, the Miserere on the night of Holy Thursday,

the Adoration of the Cross, when the clergy and the Dean and Chapter

walk barefoot round the nave, the consecration of the Paschal candle,

which weighs about 70 lb., and the Rending of the Black Veil, when the

Host is returned to the high altar—all these things are described in

the programmes hawked about the streets, and only one of them calls for

notice here.

This is the ceremony of Holy Thursday, when the Host is taken to the

“Monument,” symbolising the burial of Our Lord. In silence the pyx

is removed, its shrine is left open, and the cloth is dishevelled in

careless folds across the altar, to show that the sacred elements are

gone from it. The procession, all clad in funeral vestments, moves slowly

and silently down the nave to the west end, where the sixteenth-century

“Monument” towers almost to the roof, its white and gold columns

supporting life-sized saints and angels, while beneath its tall dome

gleams the great silver _Custodia_ in which the Host is to lie until the

day of Resurrection. This shrine, which is ten feet high, is one of the

master-pieces of that master of Spanish silversmiths, Juan de Arphe, and

the idea of its representing the tomb of Christ is one more among many

anomalies. The golden pyx is placed in the _Custodia_, the doors are

closed and locked with a golden key, and the key is handed to the Civil

Governor, who hangs it on a gold chain round his neck. It will remain in

his keeping until Easter Eve, because, so we are told, the body of Christ

was laid in unconsecrated ground after the Crucifixion; and therefore,

while the Host is within the tomb, the Chapter transfers the care of it

to the lay authority.

During Holy Thursday and Good Friday the lights on the “Monument” are

kept burning day and night. Then on the Saturday morning the gold key is

returned to the priests, the _Custodia_ is opened, and the Host is taken

out and carried in procession back to the altar. And the moment the pyx

is replaced in the shrine the organ peals out, all the bells are rung,

and guns are fired.

It will be noticed that the Church in Seville anticipates both the

Crucifixion and the Resurrection by a day, celebrating the former on

Thursday and the latter on Saturday. The Sevillian divines profess to

explain this, but I am bound to say I could never understand their

explanation, which connects it in some way with the mystery of the

Eucharist. The people have their own account of the matter. They say that

“in old times” the fast was kept from Wednesday until Easter morning,

during which days no wheeled traffic was permitted in the streets, the

shops were closed, and all business was suspended. After a time the four

days’ fast was found so inconvenient that it was reduced to three, and

in order to make this possible it was arranged that the Resurrection

should be celebrated on Easter Eve instead of on Easter Day! Many people

implicitly believe this, and the explanation was given to me in such good

faith that I actually accepted it at first, although it seemed a strange

way out of the difficulty. Wheeled traffic is still forbidden in the

streets on Holy Thursday and Good Friday even in “modern” Seville, and

in other places in Andalucia not so much as a donkey can be hired at any

price on Good Friday.

“I should be _mal mirado_” (sent to Coventry), said a village _arriero_

to me one Good Friday, “if I took money for my beast on the day Our Lord

died. On that day rich and poor alike must walk in penitence, no matter

how tired they may become.”

In Seville people do not trouble so much about being _mal mirado_ on

ecclesiastical grounds, and strenuous efforts were made one year by the

Radical party to induce the authorities to withdraw the prohibition of

driving, even at the cost of altering the route of the processions.

But such an outcry was raised by the public at the proposal that it

had to be dropped; for Seville business people know very well that any

interference with the processions would injure trade by diminishing the

influx of tourists, who flock here every year for Holy Week, far more

than is done by closing the central streets to cabs and tram-cars during

the two days.

Indeed, the slightest change in the time-honoured regulations stirs up

sentiments which are anything but pious, as I have already shown in

regard to the Corpus Christi festival.

For years past there has been a latent enmity between a wealthy

Brotherhood, whose name it is kinder to suppress, and a very poor one.

The hours of their respective appearance at the “Stations” (as the route

taken is called, because in former days the progress of the processions

represented the Stations of the Cross) are fixed by the Dean and Chapter,

for if two processions meet at any “Station,” hopeless confusion results;

and the two Brotherhoods in question have long been liable to meet if

the first is unpunctual. Two years ago the rich Brotherhood arrived an

hour late at one of the “Stations,” and were met by the poor one from the

other side of the town. The poor Brothers were in the right of it, for

this was the hour at which their _paso_ was due to cross that street, but

the others were determined to take precedence, as they would naturally

have done had they started at the proper time. These particular Brothers

are largely of the aristocracy, and expect to be obeyed without question

by their inferiors in worldly position. Their leader autocratically

commanded the poor men to stand back and make room for him and his

followers to pass. But the poor men refused, as they had every right to

do in the circumstances, whereupon the aristocrat, regardless of his

gorgeous velvet mantle and satin hood, forgot all the penitence and

humility he was supposed to be feeling, and attacked the other man with

his fists.

What might have happened had the leader of the poor procession hit back,

no one can say; but the belligerent “noble” was quickly brought to his

bearings, for the “Elder Brother” of the poor Guild with presence of

mind laid their great processional cross on the ground before the feet

of the would-be fighters. No Sevillian, however angry, would dream of

desecrating the cross, so the irate aristocrat had to retire, while the

other procession passed on. Pride, I fear, swelled the hearts of the

Brothers under the homely calico habits, bought out of their poor wages

at the cost of long thrift and self-denial, which thus for once took

precedence of their wealthy rivals.

Personally I find the poor Brotherhoods far more interesting than the

rich, for they all have history behind them, and sometimes modest _pasos_

whose Brothers are dressed in cheap calico, are draped with ancient

damask and brocade more valuable and far more beautiful than the stiff

new gold-embroidered mantles with which the modern Brotherhoods deck

their “Virgins,” regardless of cost. Some day I shall write a book about

the stories of the _pasos_, grave and gay, but I must not begin upon them

here, for I have already dwelt too long perhaps on these aspects of Holy

Week in Seville.

[Illustration: DRESSED FOR THE FAIR.]

CHAPTER XIX

The April Fair—From the harem to the _caseta_—The Prado of

San Sebastian—The Inquisition—Conscripts and the Flag—Spanish

football clubs—Buying votes—The cattle at the Fair—Harnessed

_à la_ Jerez—The Sevillian _élégante_: fourteen dresses for

three days—The afternoon drive—Dancing at night—The marriage

market—Mantillas, _velos_, and Paris hats—Midnight in the

Fair—The curtained _casetas_ of the clubs—Manila shawls—The

Queen and the mantilla—“John-a-Dreams” and the national

dress—Three engagements and a marriage—The year ends in

Paradise.

The true history of the April Fair at Seville, like so much else in

Spain, is lost in the mists of ages; but old prints and pictures combine

with tradition to show that it was at first merely a cattle fair, where

dealers coming from a distance set up tents in which to sleep and

transact business, attended by the itinerant gipsies who flock to fairs

of every kind in every country. Gradually the tents of the dealers became

a meeting-place for their families and their friends from the town, and

then refreshments had to be provided, and amusements such as music,

dancing, and singing soon followed. Now the Seville Fair on the Prado de

San Sebastian almost suggests, in some respects, a show at Earl’s Court

or Olympia, with the important difference that it is a living reality,

not a scenic representation for which one takes a ticket at the gate.

The most curious feature about this three days’ riot of festivity is

its extraordinary contrast to the daily life of Spain. I have already

referred to the seclusion of women, the extreme privacy of domestic life,

typified by the lace curtains which shroud every window on the street

and are never drawn aside, the darkness of the rooms thus guarded from

the intrusion alike of the sun and of the stranger’s eye, the strict

surveillance exercised over young girls not only in the street but in

their own homes—in short, the persistence of the Oriental tradition that

the women belong to their men, not to themselves, and that no stranger

has a right to look at and admire them.

This is the mode of life imposed on the women throughout the whole year.

But when April comes and the Fair begins, all these restrictions are

thrown to the winds, the mothers escort their daughters to the Prado,

and there, seated in the “reception-room” of a _caseta_ or booth, with

its wooden floor raised three feet above the ground to give a better

view, they look on while their girls dance in full view of the public,

hour after hour and night after night, for all the world as if they

were professionals at a theatre. The whole thing is an anomaly without

explanation, unless indeed one takes it as an unconscious protest of the

Sevillian women against their lifelong imprisonment in a home which in

respect of its seclusion is not very different from a harem.

The visible result, however, is quite charming. There are whole streets

of canvas booths, large and small, luxurious and the reverse, simple,

artistic, and fantastic; handsome buildings of brick and iron set up by

the fashionable clubs; ephemeral representations of favourite _corrales_

and _ventas_, beloved of artists, who paint their typical _casetas_ with

their own hands; there are acres of canvas covering hundreds of toy

and sweetmeat stalls, drinking stalls, Aunt Sallies or their Spanish

equivalents, and, above all, stalls for the sale of the ever-popular

_buñolitos_ described in an earlier chapter. The _casetas_—a name given

without distinction to every erection in the Fair—make in all directions

boundary-lines between the carriage ways and the ground occupied by the

cattle, of which there are thousands upon thousands, crowded together

over the great plain, herd by herd, without any sort of partition between

them, donkeys cheek by jowl with pigs, sheep rubbing shoulders with

mules, all peacefully lying or standing in their appointed places.

Here San Fernando encamped for a time when he was besieging Seville,

and here later on stood the _Quemadero_, the burning-place of the

Inquisition. Now, except during the great fair in April and the lesser

one at Michaelmas, the Prado is the exercise-ground for the troops of

the garrison. Here the annual batches of new recruits are drilled, and

here takes place the interesting ceremony of the _Jura de la Bandera_,

when thousands of conscripts, all kneeling together, swear fealty to

their God, their Flag, and their King. Here, too, the football clubs,

of which there are several, play on Sundays all the year round, even in

the heat of summer. I don’t think many Englishmen would care to watch,

far less to play, football with the thermometer at 100 in the shade;

yet the “_Sevilla Balompié_” plays right through the summer, beginning

their matches at 6 a.m. when the afternoons get too hot for running.

And the more praise is due to these energetic lads because they get

no support either in money or approval from those in a higher social

position. What their financial difficulties are I learnt last summer from

an English clerk who umpires for one of the clubs. He told me that now

the weather was getting so hot they wanted to start cricket instead of

football, but they had no money to buy the cricket things and knew no one

who would help them to raise funds! And yet at election times, whether

parliamentary or municipal, there is always plenty of money to buy votes,

and one of these same footballers told me that he had been offered up to

fifteen pesetas during a hotly contested election to go and personate

a voter who was safe in his decent grave! It has never yet occurred to

candidates that a subscription to football clubs and the like would be a

more respectable form of bribery than offering money to a half-back.

But during the Fair nobody pays any attention to football, politics, or

anything else of a serious nature. We are out to enjoy ourselves, and we

do it.

A drive through the actual cattle fair surprises those who think that

Spaniards are cruel to animals. Sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, mules,

horses, cattle, are all herded together, quite tame and happy, most of

them loose and kept from wandering only by the voice of the herdsman and

the bark of his dog; troops of young horses and young mules are enclosed

only by an impromptu rail consisting of a rope tied to iron stakes driven

into the ground; great long-horned oxen and bulls lie on the ground

without any sort of tether or fence. The only animals really shut in are

the well-bred riding and carriage horses, which occupy wooden stables

on the farther side of the _Reál de la Feria_. This is the street where

are the fashionable _casetas_, where the fireworks are let off at night,

and where horsemen and women display their skill in a game which may be

called threading the maze, among the countless motors and carriages of

all sorts and kinds, private and hired, most of which contain daughters

in white mantillas and mothers in black, all intent on seeing and being

seen by the crowd.

Many of the horses in this medley of conveyances are harnessed _à la

Jerezana_—a heavy collar and saddle, and rope traces covered with leather

where they touch the horses, with many tinkling bells and innumerable

balls and tassels of gay-coloured wool tied on wherever possible, and

especially to the headpiece. I do not know why this harness is called

“Jerez fashion,” for I have seen far more animals thus decorated in the

Sierra than I ever saw at Jerez. But even the most persistent seeker

after information is fain to put aside his notebook here, and merely

enjoy the picturesqueness and old-world air of these family coaches with

their Goya-like occupants, and the life, colour, and animation of the

whole scene. For in spite of the exhilaration produced by the pure fresh

April air with its brilliant sunshine, and the universal atmosphere of

enjoyment, one never quite loses the feeling that it is a play, even

though oneself be one of the players, and that all too soon the curtain

will ring down on one of the prettiest scenes to be found in Spain if not

in Europe.

I have been told that the really smart young lady has fourteen new

dresses every year for the Fair. How she contrives to wear them all I

don’t know, unless she puts one on over the other, for she can only

change her frock three times a day, because all the rest of the day and

night she is _en evidence_. In the morning she puts on the latest hat

from Paris to drive round and look at the cattle, hiding her almond eyes

and her pretty arched eyebrows with some horrible “creation” utterly

unsuited to her style. Few Spanish women can put on a hat—very likely

from want of practice, for it is only in the last twenty years or so that

the mantilla or _velo_ has ceased to be the universal wear.

When our _élégante_ shows herself in the afternoon in her second new

dress, with her hair done very high, a mass of carnations resting

against it and the immense comb of pierced tortoiseshell which she has

inherited from her great-grandmother, and with the soft folds of a white

silk mantilla floating about her face as she drives (or motors—dreadful

anachronism!) up and down the Reál, we hardly know her for the same girl

who looked so dull and heavy under that Paris monstrosity this morning.

Her eyes flash, her white teeth gleam, and one begins to understand what

poets mean when they talk about the sparkling brilliance of an Andalucian

beauty.

By this time the _casetas_ are full of dancers, mostly schoolgirls and

children as yet, for coquettes of sixteen and upwards are well aware

that they will show to more advantage after nightfall, in the brilliant

artificial light. The older girls, unless they own carriages or have the

entrée to the fashionable clubs, stroll up and down with their friends

of both sexes, criticising the “carriage folk” and thinking no doubt

how much better they themselves would grace those expensively appointed

vehicles. At six o’clock, when the bull-fight ends and the spectators

come to the Prado, the already crowded drive, nearly a mile long with

carriages four deep, becomes so congested that nothing can move beyond

a foot’s pace, and nervous pedestrians can only cross the Reál and the

intersecting roads at the entrance to the Fair by a sort of diminutive

Eiffel Tower erection which was built some fifteen years ago for this

particular purpose.

At night the Eiffel Tower, or _Pasadera_, as it is called, is illuminated

from top to bottom, the whole of the Reál is arched over with garlands of

coloured electric bulbs, and every _caseta_ vies with its neighbours in

the lighting of the reception-rooms in which the girls, in their third

new frocks, are to dance. For the display of youth and beauty is the main

object of the social side of the Fair, which is in point of fact the

marriage market of Seville. It is said that more young people come to an

understanding during these three days than in all the rest of the year,

and it is easy to believe it, for we know that all the world over spring

is the prettiest ring-time, and the young man’s fancy in particular

lightly turns to thoughts of love at that season here in Seville.

Dancing goes on from nine o’clock till two or three in the morning.

Whether it be good or bad, the sight of waving arms and bending heads

in _seguidillas_ and _peteneras_ never fails to attract the passers-by.

Often as many as a couple of hundred people will collect in front of a

fashionable _caseta_ where half a dozen Señoritas are dancing together,

although only the first row of the crowd, pressed against the steps

leading up from the footpath, can see anything beyond faces draped in

white lace or black _madroños_, and white hands waving be-ribboned

castanets.

The greater the crowd in front, the better the dancers are pleased;

indeed, I remember some girls telling me one year that they had had a

tremendous success over-night, “for there were so many people watching

them that some of the invited guests had tried to get through to the

_caseta_ no less than three times in vain.” And these are the girls who

would lose their reputations if they were seen in the street alone in the

daytime, or even two sisters together, without a chaperone! Mysterious

indeed are the social customs of Spain!

I have already written of fireworks. If these are good even in villages,

it may be supposed that they are considerably better in wealthy Seville.

The only wonder is that the whole street of the Reál is not set alight

every night of the Fair, for the fireworks always end with the dangerous

_traca_, a chain of crackers laid from tree to tree the whole length

of the canvas street, and the crackers seem to explode actually into

the _casetas_. And alongside of the footpath is a double or treble row

of carriages, whose horses seem to be merely bored with the squibs and

other noisy and fiery arrangements which explode under their noses.

It is sheer good luck that no terrible accident has yet occurred. But

no one protests, although every year people mildly remark that it is

horribly dangerous and very disagreeable to have sparks falling all over

the footpaths. In the matter of fireworks Andalucian _laissez faire_ is

peculiarly apparent.

At midnight the fun of the Fair is in full swing. Merry-go-rounds

are numerous and highly popular, and each one has its steam organ or

mechanical piano grinding out popular airs long since done to death in

the streets. There is one in particular, called “Serafina,” which for

years has had a vogue equal to that of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” in England

when we were young, and it is just as fatuous a tune with even more

fatuous words, if that be possible. This nightmare pursues us all along

the street of the gipsies, and that of the toy stalls, and that of the

bourgeois _casetas_ to the right of the Reál. The only place where it

is not heard is at the top of the Reál, where are the _casetas_ of two

of the principal clubs. Here all the curtains are carefully closed lest

any profane eye should see the glories within, and military bands play

valses and _rigodones_—a quite peculiarly dull form of quadrille—for the

amusement of the _alta aristocracia_.

Why these clubs should go to the trouble of receiving guests behind drawn

curtains in the Prado instead of in their handsome club-houses in the

town does not appear. There certainly is nothing in these entertainments

of the traditional spirit of the Fair, the essence of which is that all

the amusement should go on in full view of the public. One of their

morning receptions is, however, quite delightful. This is the children’s

ball, which begins at 10 a.m. and ends before lunch. It is attended by

a crowd of fascinating babies in fancy dress, all Spanish—the boys as

_toreros_, _majos_ (the Andalucian “nut” of a bygone day), bandits, and

what not, the girls in miniature mantillas, Manila shawls, or gipsy

dress, and their innocent vanity makes the Reál charming when they drive

up and down after the party in their mothers’ carriages, pretending to be

quite grown up.

A Manila shawl is the gala dress of every working woman who can manage to

buy or hire one for the Fair. In some cases they are heirlooms, handed

down from mother to daughter. Just as the mantilla is the survival of

the Moslem veil among the well-to-do, so this shawl, like the black one

worn every day, is the survival of the veil among the poor. As late

as the seventeenth century, Spanish women still covered their faces;

indeed, in the Provinces of Cadiz, Malaga, and Granada there are even

now villages where the women leave only one eye exposed when they go

out, especially to Mass. Decrees were issued by more than one king,

forbidding this “pagan” veiling of the female face, on the ground that it

tended to immorality by rendering the charms thus concealed irresistible

to the opposite sex. The ladies retaliated by refusing to come out of

their houses at all if they were compelled to expose themselves in that

“indecent” fashion (I quote from contemporary writers); but at last a

compromise was arrived at. They still covered their faces when they

appeared in the street, but it was with transparent embroidery and lace,

thus observing the letter of the law but most effectually violating the

spirit. We owe a certain debt of gratitude to those ladies, whose strong

sense of propriety gave birth to the mantilla, the prettiest head-dress

ever invented by woman.

When we first came to Spain in 1902 fashionable ladies were doing their

best to suppress the mantilla, on the ground that it was ridiculous to

keep up a “national costume” in Spain when all civilised countries had

adopted Paris fashions; and at one time it really seemed as if it would

soon cease to be worn by any woman who had money enough to buy a hat.

Fortunately, however, these women were in a minority, for here hats

are only bought by the rich, and are very expensive. The simpler form

of lace head-dress known as the _velo_, which is worn for the Mass,

and by middle-aged women out of doors, had happily not begun to fall

into disuse outside of Madrid and Barcelona, even among the well-to-do,

notwithstanding the crusade against the more conspicuous mantilla. And

then at the psychological moment came the young English Queen, with all

a foreigner’s admiration of the beautiful head-dress. The first portrait

of her that was sold at a price within the means of the masses showed her

beauty enhanced by the typical drapery of exquisite lace, and “She puts

it on as if she were a Spaniard,” said the people, for the arrangement

of the mantilla is subject to strict rules, and no foreigner can hope

to penetrate those mysteries unaided. This saved the mantilla. It soon

became apparent that Her Majesty intended to wear it on every suitable

occasion, and naturally all fashionable female Spain followed suit, to

the delight of everybody except the milliners.

In the last Seville Fair there were more mantillas than hats, and if it

was a shock to artistic sensibilities to see them in motors, it was at

any rate a great deal better than not seeing them at all, as was almost

the case six or seven years ago. One year about that time we had a

_caseta_, to which came a good number of English and American visitors.

All these ladies wore mantillas, and were delighted to have the chance

(for the mantilla, it should be said, is only worn _en grande tenue_),

and our Spanish friends agreed to stand aloof from the then prevailing

fashion and leave their hats at home when they came to dance in the

_caseta de los ingleses_. If there was a little self-consciousness

among the Englishwomen—one or two of them said the first day that they

felt rather like being at a fancy ball—it disappeared when we read the

local papers next morning. For there in large type was an article on

the decline of the mantilla and a poetical paragraph thanking, in almost

pathetic terms, the foreign ladies for wearing “with peculiar grace” the

lovely head-dress which Andalucians now seemed to despise.

We never found out who the writer was; he called himself “John-a-dreams”

and begged us not to try to pierce his incognito when we wrote to

invite him to the _caseta_ he had been good enough to praise. But we

were pleased to find that our adoption of the mantilla was regarded

as a compliment to Spain, and now we and our friends follow the

Queen’s example and wear it as often as we can. Apart from all other

considerations, the festival mantilla and its humbler relative the

_velo_, for common wear, are not only universally becoming, but are also

very economical, for although a good piece of lace costs as much money

as a Paris hat to begin with, it lasts for years and never goes out of

fashion.

Our _caseta_ that year fulfilled its duty well. We had the light

carefully arranged to fall becomingly on the girls’ faces, and we had

a platform raised extra high for them to dance on. We said that if the

object of the _caseta_ was to show off the Señoritas we might as well

set the stage with special regard to its purpose. And no less than three

engagements were the outcome, one of which at least has led to what seems

to be a very happy marriage.

As for me, I have come back to the point from which I started. The

summer, autumn, and winter are past, and the April Fair has come and

gone. My Spanish year is over and the bride’s new year has begun,

with the scent of roses, jessamine, and orange blossom, the murmur of

fountains, and the warble of the nightingales among the elms up the

hillside at Granada. For that is where girls who wear mantillas go for

their honeymoon, and where good tourists go when they die.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Count of the White Whiskers. There are many such titles among the

Spanish nobility, dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

when royalty often bestowed titles referring to personal peculiarities.

[2] The wife in Spain, from the Queen downwards, merges her identity in

that of her husband when they are spoken of together, and we have _los

Reyes_, the Kings, instead of the King and Queen; _los Duques_, the

Dukes, instead of the Duke and Duchess; and so on down the whole gamut

of society. The practical convenience of this abbreviation is so obvious

that I make no apology for adopting it.

[3] As the use of their surnames by Spanish wives is confusing to a

foreigner, it may be well to explain that both men and women use the

family name of the father and the mother. Thus Antonio Lopez marries

Maria Garcia, and his children’s family name is Lopez y Garcia. One of

his sons marries Luisa Ramirez, and _his_ children are called Lopez y

Ramirez, and so on. A married woman keeps her maiden name. Thus if Maria

Garcia y Perez marries Antonio Lopez y Rodriguez, she will be described

in formal documents—a will, for instance—or in an announcement of death,

as Maria Garcia y Perez, esposa de Antonio Lopez y Rodriguez, although

her acquaintances speak of her as La Señora de Lopez, or more shortly,

La de Lopez. Until they get well on into middle life, women, married or

single, are always addressed by their Christian name without any prefix,

even by men on a first introduction.

[4] To Spaniards “America” means Spanish America: the inhabitants of the

U.S. are always _Norteamericanos_ or _Yanquis_.

[5] These garments, which are commonly worn by the peasants, are merely a

kind of divided apron of leather, covering the front of the body from the

waist to the feet.

[6] Arabic name for a bakery, always used here.

[7] Underground reservoirs for rain-water.

[8]

“The Virgin of the Pillar says

That she does not like Moors,

That she will be the captain

Of the Aragonese soldiers.”

[9] Seville under Islam was always noted for its fine buildings.

_Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, Edinburgh_

End of Project Gutenberg's My Spanish Year, by Mrs. Bernhard Whishaw