THE following winter, my friend, George Cayley, was ordered to the south
for his health. He went to Seville. I joined him there; and we took
lodgings and remained till the spring. As Cayley published an amusing
account of our travels, ‘Las Aforjas, or the Bridle Roads of Spain,’ as
this is more than fifty years ago—before the days of railways and
tourists—and as I kept no journal of my own, I will make free use of his.
A few words will show the terms we were on.
I had landed at Cadiz, and had gone up the Guadalquivir in a steamer,
whose advent at Seville my friend was on the look-out for. He describes
his impatience for her arrival. By some mistake he is misinformed as to
the time; he is a quarter of an hour late.
‘A remnant of passengers yet bustled around the luggage, arguing,
struggling and bargaining with a contentious company of porters. Alas!
H. was not to be seen among them. There was still a chance; he might be
one of the passengers who had got ashore before my coming down, and I was
preparing to rush back to the city to ransack the hotels. Just then an
internal convulsion shook the swarm around the luggage pile; out burst a
little Gallego staggering under a huge British portmanteau, and followed
by its much desired, and now almost despaired of, proprietor.
‘I saw him come bowling up the slope with his familiar gait, evidently
unconscious of my presence, and wearing that sturdy and almost hostile
demeanour with which a true Briton marches into a strange city through
the army of officious importunates who never fail to welcome the true
Briton’s arrival. As he passed the barrier he came close to me in the
crowd, still without recognising me, for though straight before his nose
I was dressed in the costume of the people. I touched his elbow and he
turned upon me with a look of impatient defiance, thinking me one
persecutor more.
‘How quickly the expression changed, etc., etc. We rushed into each
other’s arms, as much as the many great coats slung over his shoulders,
and the deep folds of cloak in which I was enveloped, would mutually
permit. Then, saying more than a thousand things in a breath, or rather
in no breath at all, we set off in great glee for my lodgings, forgetting
in the excitement the poor little porter who was following at full trot,
panting and puffing under the heavy portmanteau. We got home, but were
no calmer. We dined, but could not eat. We talked, but the news could
not be persuaded to come out quick enough.’
Who has not known what is here described? Who does not envy the
freshness, the enthusiasm, of such bubbling of warm young hearts? Oh,
the pity of it! if these generous emotions should prove as transient as
youth itself. And then, when one of those young hearts is turned to
dust, and one is left to think of it—why then, ’tis not much comfort to
reflect that—nothing in the world is commoner.
We got a Spanish master and worked industriously, also picked up all the
Andalusian we could, which is as much like pure Castilian as
wold-Yorkshire is to English. I also took lessons on the guitar. Thus
prepared, I imitated my friend and adopted the ordinary costume of the
Andalusian peasant: breeches, ornamented with rows of silvered buttons,
gaiters, a short jacket with a red flower-pot and blue lily on the back,
and elbows with green and scarlet patterns, a red _faja_ or sash, and the
sombrero which I believe is worn nowhere except in the bull-ring. The
whole of this picturesque dress is now, I think, given up. I have spent
the last two winters in the south of Spain, but have not once seen it.
It must not be supposed that we chose this ‘get-up’ to gratify any
æsthetic taste of our own or other people’s; it was long before the days
of the ‘Too-toos,’ whom Mr. Gilbert brought to a timely end. We had
settled to ride through Spain from Gibraltar to Bayonne, choosing always
the bridle-roads so as to avoid anything approaching a beaten track. We
were to visit the principal cities and keep more or less a northerly
course, staying on the way at such places as Malaga, Cordova, Toledo,
Madrid, Valladolid, and Burgos. The rest was to be left to chance. We
were to take no map; and when in doubt as to diverging roads, the toss of
a coin was to settle it. This programme was conscientiously adhered to.
The object of the dress then was obscurity. For safety (brigands
abounded) and for economy, it was desirable to pass unnoticed. We never
knew in what dirty _posada_ or road-side _venta_ we should spend the
night. For the most part it was at the resting-place of the muleteers,
which would be nothing but a roughly paved dark chamber, one end occupied
by mules and the other by their drivers. We made our own omelets and
salad and chocolate; with the exception of the never failing _bacallao_,
or salt fish, we rarely had anything else; and rolling ourselves into our
cloaks, with saddles for pillows, slept amongst the muleteers on the
stone flags. We had bought a couple of ponies in the Seville market for
7_l._ and 8_l._ Our _alforjas_ or saddlebags contained all we needed.
Our portmanteaus were sent on from town to town, wherever we had arranged
to stop. Rough as the life was, we saw the people of Spain as no
ordinary travellers could hope to see them. The carriers, the shepherds,
the publicans, the travelling merchants, the priests, the barbers, the
_molineras_ of Antequera, the Maritornes’, the Sancho Panzas—all just as
they were seen by the immortal knight.
From the _mozos de la cuadra_ (ostlers) and _arrieros_, upwards and
downwards, nowhere have I met, in the same class, with such natural
politeness. This is much changed for the worse now; but before the
invasion of tourists one never passed a man on the road who did not
salute one with a ‘Vaya usted con Dios.’ Nor would the most indigent
vagabond touch the filthy _bacallao_ which he drew from his wallet till
he had courteously addressed the stranger with the formula ‘Quiere usted
comer?’ (‘Will your Lordship please to eat?’) The contrast between the
people and the nobles in this respect was very marked. We saw something
of the latter in the club at Seville, where one met men whose
high-sounding names and titles have come down to us from the greatest
epochs of Spanish history. Their ignorance was surprising. Not one of
them had been farther than Madrid. Not one of them knew a word of any
language but his own, nor was he acquainted with the rudiments even of
his country’s history. Their conversation was restricted to the
bull-ring and the cockpit, to cards and women. Their chief aim seemed to
be to stagger us with the number of quarterings they bore upon their
escutcheons; and they appraised others by a like estimate.
Cayley, tickled with the humour of their childish vanity, painted an
elaborate coat of arms, which he stuck in the crown of his hat, and by
means of which he explained to them that he too was by rights a Spanish
nobleman. With the utmost gravity he delivered some such medley as this:
His Iberian origin dated back to the time of Hannibal, who, after his
defeat of the Papal forces and capture of Rome, had, as they well knew,
married Princess Peri Banou, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.
The issue of the marriage was the famous Cardinal Chicot, from whom
he—George Cayley—was of direct male descent. When Chicot was slain by
Oliver Cromwell at the battle of Hastings, his descendants, foiled in
their attempt to capture England with the Spanish Armada, settled in the
principality of Yorkshire, adopted the noble name of Cayley, and still
governed that province as members of the British Parliament.
From that day we were treated with every mark of distinction.
Here is another of my friend’s pranks. I will let Cayley speak; for
though I kept no journal, we had agreed to write a joint account of our
trip, and our notebooks were common property.
After leaving Malaga we met some beggars on the road, to one of whom, ‘an
old hag with one eye and a grizzly beard,’ I threw the immense sum of a
couple of 2-cuarto pieces. An old man riding behind us on an ass with
empty panniers, seeing fortunes being scattered about the road with such
reckless and unbounded profusion, came up alongside, and entered into a
piteous detail of his poverty. When he wound up with plain begging, the
originality and boldness of the idea of a mounted beggar struck us in so
humorous a light that we could not help laughing. As we rode along
talking his case over, Cayley said, ‘Suppose we rob him. He has sold his
market produce in Malaga, and depend upon it, has a pocketful of money.’
We waited for him to come up. When he got fairly between us, Cayley
pulled out his revolver (we both carried pistols) and thus addressed him:
‘Impudent old scoundrel! stand still. If thou stirr’st hand or foot, or
openest thy mouth, I will slay thee like a dog. Thou greedy miscreant,
who art evidently a man of property and hast an ass to ride upon, art not
satisfied without trying to rob the truly poor of the alms we give them.
Therefore hand over at once the two dollars for which thou hast sold thy
cabbages for double what they were worth.’
The old culprit fell on his knees, and trembling violently, prayed Cayley
for the love of the Virgin to spare him.
‘One moment, _caballeros_,’ he cried, ‘I will give you all I possess.
But I am poor, very poor, and I have a sick wife at the disposition of
your worships.’
‘Wherefore art thou fumbling at thy foot? Thou carriest not thy wife in
thy shoe?’
‘I cannot untie the string—my hand trembles; will your worships permit me
to take out my knife?’
He did so, and cutting the carefully knotted thong of a leather bag which
had been concealed in the leg of his stocking, poured out a handful of
small coin and began to weep piteously.
Said Cayley, ‘Come, come, none of that, or we shall feel it our duty to
shoot thy donkey that thou may’st have something to whimper for.’
The genuine tears of the poor old fellow at last touched the heart of the
jester.
‘We know now that thou art poor,’ said he, ‘for we have taken all thou
hadst. And as it is the religion of the Ingleses, founded on the
practice of their celebrated saint, Robino Hoodo, to levy funds from the
rich for the benefit of the needy, hold out thy sombero, and we will
bestow a trifle upon thee.’
So saying he poured back the plunder; to which was added, to the
astonishment of the receiver, some supplementary pieces that nearly
equalled the original sum.