I
"THE LAZY SPANIARD"
"There is a difference between Peter and Peter."--CERVANTES:
_Don Quixote_.
"Spain is a contradiction," was the parting word of the Rev. William
H. Gulick, the honored American missionary whose unwearied kindness
looked after us, during the break in official representation, more
effectively than a whole diplomatic corps. "Spanish blood is a strange
_mezcla_, whose elements, Gothic, African, Oriental, are at war among
themselves. You will find Spaniards tender and cruel, boastful and
humble, frank and secretive, and all at once. It will be a journey of
surprises."
We were saying good-by, on February 4, 1899, to sunshiny Biarritz,
whither Mrs. Gulick's school for Spanish girls had been spirited over
the border at the outbreak of the war. Here we had found Spanish and
American flags draped together, Spanish and American friendships
holding fast, and a gallant little band of American teachers spending
youth and strength in their patient campaign for conquering the
Peninsula by a purer idea of truth. Rough Riders may be more
pictorial, but hardly more heroic.
We were barely through the custom house, in itself the simplest and
swiftest of operations, before the prophesied train of surprises
began. One of our preconceived ideas went to wreck at the very outset
on the industry of the Basque provinces. "The lazy Spaniard" has
passed into a proverb. The round world knows his portrait--that broad
_sombrero_, romantic cloak, and tilted cigarette. But the laborious
Spaniard can no longer be ignored. Even at Biarritz we had to reckon
with him, for the working population there is scarcely less Spanish
than French. Everybody understands both languages as spoken, and it is
a common thing to overhear animated dialogue where the talk is all
Spanish on the one side and all French on the other. The war set
streams of Spanish laborers flowing over the mountain bar into French
territory. Young men fled from conscription, and fathers of families
came under pressure of hard times. Skilled artisans, as masons and
carpenters, could make in Biarritz a daily wage of five francs, the
normal equivalent of five _pesetas_, or a dollar, while only the half
of this was to be earned on their native side of the Pyrenees. Such,
too, was the magic of exchange that these five francs, sent home,
might transform themselves into ten, eight, or seven and a half
_pesetas_. Even when we entered Spain, after the Paris Commission had
risen, the rate of exchange was anything but stable, varying not
merely from day to day, but from hour to hour, a difference of two or
three per cent often occurring between morning and evening. The
conditions that bore so heavily on the crafts were crushing the field
laborers almost to starvation. In point of excessive toil, those
peasants of northern Spain seemed to us worse off than Mr. Markham's
"Man with the Hoe," for the rude mattock, centuries out of date, with
which they break up the ground, involves the utmost bodily exertion.
And by all that sweat of the brow, they were gaining, on an average,
ten or twelve cents a day.
No wonder that discontent clouded the land. We met this first at
Pasajes, on one of the excursions arranged for our pleasure by the
overflow goodness of that missionary garrison. The busiest of teachers
had brought us--a young compatriot from a Paris studio and myself--so
far as San Sebastian, where she lingered long enough to make us
acquainted with a circle of friends, and, incidentally, with Pasajes.
This Basque fishing hamlet is perched between hill and sea, with a
single rough-paved street running the length of the village from the
Church of St. Peter to the Church of St. John. Nature has not been
chary of beauty here. The mountain-folded Bay of Pasajes appears at
first view like an Alpine lake, but the presence of stately Dutch and
Spanish merchantmen in these sapphire waters makes it evident that
there must be an outlet to the ocean. Such a rift, in fact, was
disclosed as the strong-armed old ferry woman rowed us across, a deep
but narrow passage (hence the name) between sheer walls of rock, whose
clefts and crannies thrill the most respectable tourist with longings
to turn smuggler. The village clings with difficulty to its stony
strip between steep and wave. On one side of that single street, the
peering stone houses, some still showing faded coats of arms, are half
embedded in the mountain, and on the other the tide beats perilously
against the old foundation piles.
Above the uneven roofs, on the precipitous hillside, sleep the dead,
watched over by Santa Ana from her neglected hermitage. Only once a
year, on her own feast day, is her gorgeous altar cloth brought forth
and her tall candles lighted, while the rats, who have been nibbling
her gilded shoes and comparing the taste of the blues and crimsons in
her painted robes, skurry into their holes at the unaccustomed sound
of crowding feet. Pasajes boasts, too, a touch of historical dignity.
From here Lafayette, gallant young Frenchman that he was, sailed for
America, and probably then, as now, little Basque girls ran at the
stranger's side with small hands full of wild flowers, and roguish
Basque boys hid behind boulders and tried to frighten him by playing
brigand, with a prodigious waving of thorn-branch guns and booming of
vocal artillery.
But not the joy of beauty nor the pride of ancient memory takes the
place of bread. We approached a factory and asked of the workman at
the entrance, "What do you manufacture here?" "What they manufacture
in all Spain, nowadays," he answered, "misery." This particular
misery, however, had the form of tableware, the long rows of simple
cups and plates and pitchers, in various stages of completion, being
diversified by jaunty little images of the Basque ball players, whose
game is famous throughout the Peninsula. We finally succeeded in
purchasing one of these for fifteen cents, although the village was
hard put to it to make change for a dollar, and was obliged, with
grave apologies, to load us down with forty or so big Spanish coppers.
"The lazy Spaniard!" Look at the very children as they romp about San
Sebastian. This is the most aristocratic summer resort in Spain, the
Queen Regent having a chalet on that artistic bay called the _Concha_
or Shell. It is a crescent of shimmering color, so dainty and so
perfect, with guardian mountains of jasper and a fringe of diamond
surf, that it is hard to believe it anything but a bit of magical
jewel-work. It might be a city of fairyland, did not the clamor of
childish voices continually break all dreamy spells. What energy and
tireless activity! Up and down the streets, the cleanest streets in
Spain, twinkle hundreds of little _alpargatas_, brightly embroidered
canvas shoes with soles of plaited hemp. Spanish families are large,
although from the ignorance of the mothers and the unsanitary
condition of the homes, the mortality among the children is extreme.
Here is a household, for example, where out of seventeen black-eyed
babies but three have fought their way to maturity. Spanish parents
are notably affectionate, but, in the poorer classes, at least,
impatient in their discipline. It is the morning impulse of the busy
mother, working at disadvantage in her small and crowded rooms, to
clear them of the juvenile uproar by turning her noisy brood out of
doors for the day. Surprisingly neat in their dress but often with
nothing save cabbage in their young stomachs, forth they storm into
the streets. Here the stranger may stand and watch them by the hour as
they bow and circle, toss and tumble, dance and race through an
enchanting variety of games. The most violent seem to please them
best. Now and then a laughing girl stoops to whisk away the beads of
perspiration from a little brother's shining face, but in general they
are too rapt with the excitement of their sports to be aware of
weariness. Such flashing of eyes and streaming of hair and jubilee of
songs!
One of their favorite games, for instance, is this: An especially
active child, by preference a boy, takes the name of _milano_, or
kite, and throws himself down in some convenient doorway, as if
asleep. The others form in Indian file, the _madre_, or mother, at the
head, and the smallest girl, Mariquilla, last in line. The file
proceeds to sing:--
"We are going to the garden,
Although its wicked warden,
Hungry early and late,
Is crouching before the gate."