"Into the porch of Bethlehem
Have crept the gypsies wild,
And they have stolen the swaddling clothes
Of the new-born Holy Child.
"Oh, those swarthy gypsies!
What won't the rascals dare?
They have not left the Christ Child
A single shred to wear."
There are wealthy gypsies, whose wives and daughters go arrayed with
the utmost elegance of fashion, in several Spanish cities. Seville has
her gypsy lawyer, but her gypsy bull-fighter, who died two years ago,
was held to reflect even greater credit on the parent stock.
By law the gypsies are now established as Spaniards, with full claim
to Spanish rights and privileges--_Nuevos Castellanos_, as they have
been called since the day when Spain bethought her of these Ishmaels
as "food for powder" and subjected them to the regular military
draft. Even in Granada, where the gypsy community still lives in
semi-barbarism, there are hopeful signs. The _gitanos_ drive a sharp
trade in donkeys, but their forge fires, gleaming far up the Albaicin
in the evening, testify to their industry. The recent opening by the
municipality of schools for the gypsy children has already wrought a
marked change for the better. Some half-dozen dirty little palms,
outstretched for _cinco centimos_, pester the stranger to-day where
scores used to torment him, and the mothers take pride in the literary
accomplishments of their tawny broods. On one occasion, when, having,
as the Spanish say, "clean pockets," I firmly declined to see a small
gypsy girl dance or hear her sing, the mother assured me, as a last
greedy expedient, that "the child could pray."
On the Alhambra hill the gypsies, who scent tourists from afar and
troop thither, on the track of newly arrived parties, like wolves to
their banquet, are picturesque figures enough, the men in peaked hats,
spangled jackets, and sashes of red silk, the women with bright
handkerchiefs bound over their raven hair, large silver earrings, gay
bodices, and short, flounced petticoats.
There is one old _gitano_, in resplendent attire, who haunts the
Alhambra doors and introduces himself to visitors, with bows queerly
compounded of condescension and supplication, as the King of the
Gypsies, modestly offering his photograph for a _peseta_. If you turn
to your attendant Spaniard and ask, _sotto voce_, "But is this truly
the Gypsy King?" you will receive a prompt affirmative, while the
quick-witted old masquerader strikes a royal attitude, rolls his eyes
prodigiously, and twirls his three-cornered hat at arm's length above
his head, until its tinsel ornaments sparkle like crown jewels. But no
sooner is his Majesty well out of hearing than your guide hastens to
eat his own words. "No, no, no! He is not the King of the Gypsies, but
he is a gypsy, yes, and it is better not to have his ill will."
Whether this hardened pretender could cast the evil eye or not, we
never knew, for having bought two of his pictures at the first onset,
we suffered ever afterward the sunshine of his favor. In fact we often
made a wide detour rather than pass him on the hill, for he would
spring to his feet at our remotest approach and stand bowing like an
image of perpetual motion, his hat brandished high in air, until our
utmost in the way of answering nods and smiles seemed by contrast
sheer democratic incivility.
The swarthy faces and glittering eyes of the gypsies meet one
everywhere in the Granada streets, but to see them in their own
precinct it is necessary to take off your watch, empty your pockets of
all but small silver and coppers, and go to the Albaicin. This hill,
parted from the Alhambra by the deep ravine of the gold-bearing Darro,
was in Moorish times the chosen residence of the aristocracy. Still
Arabian arches span the gorge, and many of the toppling old houses
that lean over the swift, mountain-born current, shabby as they look
to the passer-by, are beautiful within with arabesque and fretwork,
carven niches, delicate columns and open patios, where fountains still
gush and orange blossoms still shed fragrance. Such degenerate palaces
are often occupied by the better class of gypsies, those who traffic
in horses, as well as in donkeys, while their women, grouped in the
courts and doorways, embroider with rainbow wools, in all fantastic
patterns, the stout mantles of the Andalusian mountaineers.
As we climbed the Albaicin, fronting as it does the hill of the
Alhambra, the exceeding beauty of the view at first claimed all our
power of seeing. Below was the gray sweep of the city and beyond the
fruitful plain of Granada, its vivid green shading into a far-off
dimness like the sea. Just opposite us rose the fortress of the
Alhambra, a proud though broken girdle of walls and towers, while in
the background soared the dazzling snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada,
glistening with unbearable splendor under the intense blue of the
Andalusian sky.
In the midst of our rhapsodies I became aware of a shrill voice at my
feet, a persistent tug at my skirts, and reluctantly dropped my eyes
on a comely little gypsy lass lying along a sunny ledge and
imperiously demanding _cinco centimos_.
"Now what would you do with _cinco centimos_ if you had them?"
With the universal beggar gesture she pointed to her mouth. "Buy a
rusk. I am starving. I am already dead of hunger."
Crossing her hands upon her breast, she closed her eyes in token of
her mortal extremity, but instantly flashed them open again to note
the effect.
"Your cheeks are not the cheeks of famine."
At a breath the young sorceress sucked them in and succeeded, plump
little person though she was, in looking so haggard and so woe-begone
that our political economy broke down in laughter, and we gave her the
coveted cent in return for her transformation act.
Off she darted, with her wild locks flying in the wind, and was back
in a twinkling, a circlet of bread suspended from her arm. She tripped
along beside us for the rest of the afternoon, using the rusk
sometimes as a hoop, sometimes as a crown, sometimes as a peephole.
She tossed it, sang through it, dandled it, stroked it, and
occasionally, while the bread approximated more and more in hue to her
own gypsy complexion, took an artistic nibble, dotting the surface
with a symmetrical curve of bites. It was not mere food to her; it was
luxury, it was mirth--like a Lord Mayor's feast or a Delmonico
breakfast.
Following the _Camino del Sacro Monte_, marked by many crosses, our
attention was more and more withdrawn from the majestic views spread
out before us to the gypsies, whose cave dwellings lined the way.
Burrowing into the earth, from the midst of thickets of prickly pear,
are these strange abodes, whose chimneys rise abruptly out of the
green surface of the hillside. Dens as they are, the best of them
possess some decencies. Flaps of cloth serve them for doors, their
peering fronts are whitewashed, they are furnished with a stool or
two, a box of tools or clothing, a few water-jars, a guitar, and, in
the farther end of the lair, a family bedstead, or more often a heap
of dirty sheepskins. Cooking tins, bottles, saddles, and coils of rope
hang on the rough walls; there may be a shelf of amulets and toys for
sale, and the indispensable pot of _puchero_ simmers over a handful of
fire.
Out from these savage homes swarmed a whining, coaxing, importunate
horde of sly-eyed women and an impish rabble of children. Young and
old clutched at us with unclean hands, clung to us with sinewy brown
arms, begged, flattered, demanded, and dragged us bodily into their
hill. We felt as if we had gone back to German fairy tales and had
fallen into the evil grip of the gnomes. Hardly could escort,
carriage, and a reckless rain of coppers break the spell. We were
forced to taste their repulsive messes, to cross witch palms with
silver, to buy even the roadside weeds the urchins gathered before our
eyes. We were birds for the plucking, sheep for the shearing. Only
when we had turned our pockets inside out to show that we had not a
"little dog" left, were we suffered to go free, followed, doubtless,
by the curses of Egypt, because we had yielded such poor picking.
In Seville, too, the gypsies have their own quarter, but in proportion
as Seville is a gentler city than Granada, so are the looks and
manners of her gypsy population more attractive. Crossing the yellow
Guadalquivir by the bridge of Isabel Segunda, we come immediately on
the picturesque, dark-visaged figures, with their uneffaced suggestion
of wildness, of freedom, of traditions apart from the common humdrum
of humanity. The boy, clad in one fluttering garment, who is
perilously balancing his slender brown body on the iron rail; the
bright-kerchiefed young mother, thrusting her tiny black bantling into
our faces; the silent, swarthy men who lean along the bridge side,
lithe even in their lounging;--all have a latent fierceness in their
look. Their eyes are keen as knives--strange eyes, whose glitter masks
the depth. But as we go on into the potter's suburb of Triana, into
the thick of the gypsy life, we are not more seriously molested than
by the continual begging, nor is this the rough, imperious begging of
Granada; a flavor of Sevillian grace and fun has passed upon it. Offer
this bush-headed lad, pleading starvation, the orange he has just
tossed away, and he will double up over the joke and take to his
little bare heels. Give to the fawning sibyl who insists on telling
your fortune a red rose for her hair, and the chances are that she
will rest content. But the time to see the gypsies in their glory is
during the three days and nights of the _Feria_.
On the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of April Seville annually
keeps, on the _Prado de San Sebastian_, where the Inquisition used to
light its fires, the blithest of spring festivals. The _Feria_ is a
fair, but much more than a fair. There are droves upon droves of
horses, donkeys, cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs. There are rows upon
rows of booths with toys, booths with nuts and candies, booths with
the gay-handled Albacete knives and daggers. There are baskets upon
baskets of rainbow fans, mimic fighting cocks, oranges, and other
cheap Sevillian specialties. Cooling drinks are on sale at every turn,
but there is no drunkenness. There are thousands and tens of thousands
of people in motion, but there is no bustling, no elbowing, no
rudeness of pressure. Dainty little children wander alone in that
tremendous throng. The order and tranquillity that prevail by day and
night in this multitude of merrymakers render it possible for the
_Feria_ to be what it is. For during these enchanted April hours even
the noblest families of Seville come forth from the proud seclusion of
their patios and live in _casetas_, little rustic houses that are
scarcely more than open tents, exposed to the gaze of every passer-by.
A lofty bridge, crossed by two broad flights of stairs and tapering to
a tower, stands at the intersection of the three chief _Feria_
avenues. The bridge is brilliantly illuminated by night, and
close-set globes of gas, looped on running tubes along both sides of
these three festal streets, pour floods of light into the _casetas_.
Chinese lanterns in red and yellow abound, and lines of banner-staffs
flaunt the Spanish colors. The _casetas_ are usually constructed of
white canvas on a framework of light-brown fretwood, though the
materials are sometimes more durable.
Clubhouses are large and elaborate, and individual taste varies the
aspect of the private tents. The more important families of Seville
own their _casetas_, but in general these airy abodes are rented from
year to year, the price for the three days of the _Feria_ ranging from
twenty-five dollars on the central avenue to five dollars for the more
remote houselets on the two streets that branch off at right angles.
The numerous byways are occupied by cafes, booths, penny shows, and
the like, the gypsies having one side of a lane to themselves. The
other side is given over to circus-rings, merry-go-rounds,
cradle-swings marked "For Havana," "For Manila," "For Madrid," dancing
dwarfs, braying bands, caged bulls, and tents provided with peepholes
through which one may see "The Glorious Victory of the Spanish Troops
at Santiago," and other surprising panoramas of the recent war. These
are in high favor with soldiers and small boys, whose black heads bump
together at every aperture.
Such attractions are especially potent over the country folk, who come
jogging into Seville during fair time, mounted two or three together
on jaded horses, sorry mules, and even on indignant little donkeys.
Their peasant costumes add richly to the charm of the spectacle, and
their simplicity makes them an easy spoil for the canny folk of Egypt.
You see them especially in the cool of the early morning, when trade
in cattle is at its liveliest. Ten to one they have been fleeced
already by the _gitanos_, who, out in the great meadow where the
live-stock is exposed for sale, have their own corner for "dead
donkeys," as the Sevillians term the decrepit old beasts that have
been magically spruced up for the occasion. Cervantes has his jest at
"a gypsy's ass, with quicksilver in its ears."
Then comes the turn of the _gitanas_, looking their prettiest, with
roses in hair, and over the shoulders those captivating black silk
shawls embroidered in many-colored patterns of birds and flowers. The
younger enchantresses keep watch, each in front of her family tent,
before whose parted curtains the more ill-favored women of the
household are busy frying the crisp brown _bunuelos_, a species of
doughnut dear to the Spanish tooth.
As you loiter down the lane, be you wide-eyed shepherd from the
provinces, or elegant grandee from Madrid, or haughty foreigner from
London or Vienna, the sturdy sirens rush upon you, seize you by arm or
neck, and by main force tug you into their tented prisons, from which
you must gnaw your way out through a heap of hot _bunuelos_. Or you
may compromise on a cup of Spanish chocolate, flavored with cinnamon
and thick as flannel, or perhaps win your liberty by gulping down a
cupful of warm goat's milk. The prices shock the portliest purses, but
at your first faint sign of protest a gathering mob of gypsies presses
close with jeers and hisses, and even the frying-pan sputters
contempt.
The _Feria_ presents its most quiet aspect during the afternoon. Some
twenty or thirty thousand of the promenaders have been drawn off by
the superior attraction of the bull-fight, and others have retired for
their siestas. Yet there are thousands left. This is a grand time for
the children, who disport themselves in the avenues with whistles,
swords, balls, kites, and other trophies from the toy booths. These
little people are exquisitely dressed, often in the old Andalusian
costumes, and tiny lad and tiny lass, of aristocratic look and
bearing, may be seen tripping together through one of the graceful
national dances in the midst of a sidewalk throng. The toddlers, too,
are out, under charge of happy nursemaids.
Even the babies have been brought to the fair, and lie, contentedly
sucking their rosy thumbs, in the doorways of the _casetas_. The lords
of these doll-houses are enjoying peaceful smokes together in the
background of the open parlors, which are furnished with as many
chairs as possible, a piano, and a central stand of flowers; while
semicircles of silent ladies, languidly waving the most exquisite of
fans, sit nearer the front, watching the ceaseless stream of
pedestrians, and beyond these the double procession of carriages,
which keep close rank as they advance on one side of the avenue and
return on the other. It is bad form not to go to the _Feria_ once at
least in a carriage. Large families of limited means hire spacious
vehicles resembling omnibuses, and, squeezed together in two opposite
rows, drive up and down the three chief streets for hours.
There are crested landaus, with handsome horses, gay donkey-carts,
decked out with wreaths and tassels, shabby cabs, sporting red and
yellow ribbons on their whips, tooting coaches--every sort and kind of
contrivance for relieving humanity of its own weight. There are
mounted cavaliers in plenty, and occasionally, under due masculine
escort, a fair-haired English girl rides by, or a group of Spanish
senoras, who have come into Seville on horseback from their country
homes. But all this movement is slow and dreamy, the play of the
children being as gentle as the waving of the fans.
Even Gypsy Lane shares in the tranquillity of the drowsy afternoon. We
were captured there almost without violence, and, while we trifled
with the slightest refreshment we could find, a juvenile entertainment
beguiled us of our coppers with pleasurable ease. A coquettish midget
of four summers innocently danced for us the dances that are not
innocent, and a wee goblin of seven, who could not be induced to
perform without a cap, that he might pull it down over his bashful
eyes, stamped and kicked, made stealthy approaches and fierce starts
of attack through the savage hunting jigs inherited from the ancient
life of the wilderness. The women swung their arms and shrilled wild
tunes to urge the children on, but a second youngster who attempted
one of these barbaric dances for us broke down in mid career, and,
amid a chorus of screaming laughter, buried his blushes in his
mother's lap. The tent had become crowded with stalwart, black
_gitanos_, but they were in a domestic mood, smiled on the children's
antics, and eyed us with grim amusement as the women caught up from
rough cradles and thrust into our arms those elfish babies of theirs.
Even the infant of five days winked at us with trickery in its jet
beads of vision. But so inert was gypsy enterprise that we were
suffered to depart with a few _pesetas_ yet in our possession.
In the evening, from eight till one, the _Feria_ is perfect Fairyland.
Under the light of those clustered gas globes and butterfly-colored
lanterns pass and repass the loveliest women of the world. Beautifully
clad as the senoritas have been during morning and afternoon, their
evening toilets excel and crown the rest. White-robed, white-sandalled,
their brown, bewitching faces peeping out from the lace folds of white
mantillas, with white shawls, embroidered in glowing hues, folded over
the arm, and delicate white fans in hand, they look the very poetry of
maidenhood. Months of saving, weeks of stitching, these costumes may
have cost, but the _Feria_ is, above all, a marriage mart, and the
Andalusian girl, usually so strictly guarded, so jealously secluded,
never allowed to walk or shop alone, is now on exhibition. As these
radiant forms glide along the avenues, the men who meet them coolly
bend and look full into their faces, scanning line and feature with
the critical air of connoisseurs. But well these cavaliers illustrate
the Andalusian catch:--
"Because I look thee in the face,
Set not for this thy hopes too high,
For many go to the market-place
To see and not to buy."
The girl's opportunity is in her dancing. Every Andalusian woman, high
or low, knows the _Sevillana_. Some have been trained in it by
accredited teachers of the art, but the most learn the dance in
childhood, as naturally as they learn to speak and sing. They are
never weary of dancing it, morning, noon, and night, two girls
together, or a girl and a lad, but such dancing is confined to the
Moorish privacy of the Spanish home--except in Fair time. Then the
whole world may stand before the _casetas_ and see the choicest
daughters of Seville dancing the dance that is very coquetry in
motion. Rows of girls awaiting their turn, and of matrons who are
chaperoning the spectacle, sit about the three sides of the mimic
drawing-room. A dense crowd of men, crying "_Ole! Ole!_" and
commenting as freely on the figures and postures of the dancers as if
they were ballet artistes in a cafe chantant, is gathered close in
front. For their view these rhythmic maidens dance on, hour after
hour, until their great, dusky eyes are dim with sleep. The tassels of
curly ribbon, tinted to match the dainty touches of color in their
costumes, seem to droop in exhaustion from the tossing castanets. What
matter? For a Spanish girl to reach her twenty-fifth birthday without
a _novio_ is a tragedy of failure, and these tired dancers are well
aware that _caballeros_ are making the rounds from _caseta_ to
_caseta_, on purpose to select a wife.
In Gypsy Lane there is no sugar coating. The Flamenco dances are
directly seductive. The life of the forest animal seems reproduced in
the fierceness, the fitfulness, the abandon, of each strange series of
abrupt gesticulations. Yet these gypsy women, boldly as they play on
the passions of the spectators, care only for Gentile money, and fling
off with fiery scorn the addresses that their songs and dances court.
Many a flouted gallant could tell the tale of one who
"Like a right gypsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss."
Husbands and lovers look on at the dancers' most extreme poses, even
caresses, in nonchalant security. While one _gitana_ after another
takes the stage, a crescent of men and women, seated behind, cheer her
on with cries and clappings, strummings of the guitar, and frenzied
beatings of the floor with staff and stool. Yet their excitement, even
at its apparent height, never sweeps them out of their crafty selves.
Beyond the dancer they see the audience. Disdain and dislike are in
the atmosphere, and never more than when the rain of silver is at its
richest. Still they follow the gypsy law, "To cheat and rob the
stranger always and ever, and be true only to our own blood."
[Illustration: THE PASSING OF THE PAGEANTS]