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SOUTHERN SPAIN
PAINTED BY TREVOR
HADDON DESCRIBED
BY A. F. CALVERT PUBLISHED
BY A. & C. BLACK
LONDON MCMVIII
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[Illustration: frontispiece]
PREFACE
Few travellers have leisure enough to traverse the wide realm of tawny
Spain in its every part. Those who must confine their attention to a
single province naturally select Andalusia, where all the Northerner's
preconceptions of the South find realization. The wild scenery of
Southern Spain, the gay open-air life of the people, the monuments
attesting the splendour of the extinct civilization of the Moor, the
spell of romance which still holds its cities, makes this land one of
the most interesting and fascinating in Europe to the artist, the
archæologist, and the dreamer.
The present volume, mainly the embodiment of personal impressions and
observations, is intended partly to supply the place of a guide-book to
this part of the Peninsula, and with that object I have brought together
as much of history, art, and topography as the traveller is likely to
assimilate. Into the descriptive matter I have introduced a little
gossip, which will, I hope, be not found altogether irrelevant, and may
serve to beguile the tedium of a bare recital of facts.
While I have endeavoured to make the book as useful to travellers as
within the prescribed limits was possible, I have essayed to give it, by
means of the illustrations, a more permanent value. It is on the brush
rather than on the pen that I have relied to convey an idea of the
gorgeous panorama of Southern Spain, and to recall to the returned
traveller his impressions of the land.
As a _vade-mecum_, then, for the tourist, and as an album and souvenir
of the fairest portion of the realm of the Catholic King, I hope that
the present volume will be of use to the public, despite the
shortcomings it doubtless contains. For rendering these as few as
possible, I have to thank several friends who have looked through the
proofs. To one in particular, Mr. E. B. d'Auvergne, I am indebted for
various scraps of original and entertaining information.
A. F. CALVERT.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
CADIZ 1
CHAPTER II
SEVILLE--THE PEARL OF ANDALUSIA 12
CHAPTER III
CORDOVA 86
CHAPTER IV
GRANADA 107
CHAPTER V
MALAGA 163
CHAPTER VI
THE WAY SOUTH 169
CHAPTER VII
THE KINGDOM OF MURCIA 174
CHAPTER VIII
IN THE OLD KINGDOM OF VALENCIA 186
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Cordova--Fountain in the Patio de los Naranjos _Frontispiece_
PAGE
2. Ayamonte (The Gateway of Andalusia) 8
3. Seville--A Street 12
4. Seville--The Aceite Gate 20
5. Seville--A Courtyard 24
6. Seville--The Torre del Oro and the Cathedral 28
7. Seville--The Giralda 30
8. Seville--Gardens of the Alcazar 34
9. Seville--Gardens of the Alcazar 40
10. Seville--Patio de las Banderas 44
11. Seville--Gardens of the Alcazar 50
12. Seville--Interior of the Cathedral 56
13. Seville--Patio de los Naranjos 60
14. Seville--Plaza de San Fernando 64
15. Seville--Casa de Pilatos 68
16. Seville--Casa de Pilatos 72
17. Seville--Garden of the Casa de Pilatos 78
18. Seville--The Market Place 80
19. Cordova--A Courtyard 84
20. Cordova--Entrance to the City 86
21. Cordova--Calle Cardinal Herrera 88
22. Cordova--Moorish Mill 90
23. Cordova--Mezquita 92
24. Cordova--Patio de los Naranjos 94
25. Cordova--Outer Wall of the Mosque 96
26. Cordova--A Street Scene 98
27. Cordova--A Street 100
28. Cordova--The Bridge 102
29. Cordova--Courtyard of an Inn 104
30. Cordova--Old Houses near the River 106
31. Granada--From the Generalife 108
32. Granada--Sierra Nevada from the Alhambra Gardens 110
33. Granada--Exterior of the Alhambra 112
34. Granada--A Street in the Albaicin 114
35. Granada--In the Market 116
36. Granada--The Alhambra: The Aqueduct 118
37. Granada--The Court of the Cypresses 120
38. Granada--Villa on the Darro 122
39. Granada--The Alhambra from San Miguel 124
40. Granada--Towers of the Infantas, Alhambra 126
41. Granada--Near the Alhambra 128
42. Granada--Puerta del Vino, Alhambra 130
43. Granada--The Alhambra: Tower of Comares 132
44. Granada--The Court of the Lions: Moonlight 136
45. Granada--The Generalife: Patio de la Acequia 138
46. Granada--The Generalife: Court of the Cypresses 140
47. Granada--Tocador de la Reina 142
48. Granada--Torre de las Damas 144
49. Granada--The Generalife: Court of the Cypresses 146
50. Granada--Casa del Carbon 148
51. Granada--Street in the Albaicin 150
52. Granada--Interior of a Posada 152
53. Granada--Old Houses, Cuesta del Pescado 154
54. Granada--Old Ayuntamiento 156
55. Granada--Street in the Old Quarter 158
56. Granada--The Generalife: Patio de la Acequia 160
57. Granada--A Corner in the Old Quarter 162
58. Malaga--The Harbour 164
59. Malaga--The Guadalmedina 166
60. Malaga--A Market 168
61. Malaga--Packing Lemons 170
62. Ronda--The Tajo 172
63. Ronda--Roman Bridges 174
64. Ronda--At the Fountain 176
65. Ronda--A Moorish Gateway 180
66. Ronda--A Street Scene 182
67. Ronda--The Market 184
68. Orihuela on the River Segura 186
69. Elche--A Street 188
70. A Fisher Girl (Coast of Malaga) 190
71. A Water Carrier 192
72. Malaga--A Picador 196
73. Valencia--Santa Catalina 198
74. An Andalusian Dance 200
75. Courting 204
_Map at end of Volume_
_The Illustrations in this Volume have been engraved and printed in
England by_ THE MENPES PRESS, _London and Watford_
SOUTHERN SPAIN
CHAPTER I
CADIZ
Cadiz was the prettiest of all the towns of Spain, thought Byron. I
would rather say that she was the most beautiful. She rises out of the
sea--the boundless salt ocean that stretches from pole to pole--and the
crests of the waves which lick her feet are not whiter than her walls.
And these by day are bathed in liquid gold, for the sun seems to linger
here ere he says good-night to Europe. By night the city gleams like
washed silver, and her sheen is more magical than that of the dark yet
phosphorescent water. Of sun and sea, light and air, is Cadiz
compounded. She is the Gateway of the West, not sultry and southern, but
salt and windy and dazzling white. It is thus she appears to you,
especially when you come to her over the sea--that sea which hereabouts
has so often been splashed with British blood. How often the pale yellow
cliffs of Spain to the southward, and those of the lovely shore of
Algarve to the north, have reverberated with the booming of the cannon;
how often the strand has been littered with dead men, whose gaping
wounds the kindly ocean had washed clean! Browning's lines recur to the
memory:
"Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away,
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay."
For you can see the lighthouse on Cape Trafalgar, and the Bay of Cadiz
itself has been the scene of some of England's most glorious and
desperate feats of arms. There is little stirring now in the wide
harbour, where the ships ride lazily at anchor, and their crews crowd to
the bulwarks and exchange pleasantries with your boatman as he pulls you
towards the quay. And so you step on shore, and enter the fair city.
It looks so fresh and fragrant that you would not think it ancient. But
Cadiz is the first-born city of Spain, probably the first foothold of
civilization on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It marks a new and
tremendously important step forward in the world's progress. After
Heaven knows how many attempts and false starts, the Phœnicians dared
what no people of the ancient world had dared before. The Pillars of
Hercules were regarded as the western boundary of the world: beyond was
nothingness. And one day, with the east wind filling his sails and fear
in the hearts of his crew, some forgotten Columbus of Sidon or of Tyre
passed through the strait, and turning northward, beached his little
galley on the peninsula where we stand. Civilization--arts and letters,
commerce and social life, and all that makes life dear to modern
men--had burst the narrow limits of the Middle Sea, and first hoisted
its flag o'er Cadiz.
The thought is not uninspiring. It is not unreasonable to suppose that
the first keel that ever ploughed the Atlantic grazed this strand. It is
likely enough that the fleets of lost Atlantis, if that mystical isle
possessed a ship, resorted hither, for the copper and precious metals of
Tarshish. What voyages have begun from this port, from the little
Phœnician craft setting forth in quest of the Tin Islands of the far
north, to brave Cervera leading out his squadron to its preordained
doom!
"It may be that the gulfs shall wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the happy isles."
And careless of fate, all these dauntless sailors have adventured forth
into the deep.
In after years, the Phœnicians and Carthaginians had settlements
here, and built great ugly palaces overlooking the sea and the
estuaries. With their curling black beards I seem to see them, robed in
the real Tyrian purple, reclining on their terraces even as their
forefathers are shown in that strange picture in our National Gallery,
"The Eve of the Deluge."
Their deluge was the Roman Invasion, when, in a good hour for humanity,
Latin superseded Semitic civilization, and the cruel gods of Sidon bowed
before the young and beautiful gods of Rome. Gades or Gaddir--I give it
its two oldest names--did not suffer by its change of masters. Its mart
was crowded, its merchants known from Britain to the Fortunate Isles,
from Lusitania to Arabia. Much wealth engendered luxury. Life in Gades
was feverish and distempered. The people had not forgotten the worship
of Astarte, and the Gaditane dancing-girls proved themselves worthy
daughters of the goddess. When the gods were dethroned the sensual city
pined; and under the austere yoke of Islam it languished and all but
faded away. It is interesting to note that its Moslem inhabitants were
drawn from the old race of Philistines, some of whose gods had probably
been worshipped here in the Punic days.
When Seville fell, the port continued subject to the Almohade Emir of
Fez. Alfonso the Learned subdued it without difficulty in 1262, and
filled it with colonists from the north coast of Spain, from such places
as Santander and Laredo. But the Philistine taint in two senses was
never eradicated; Cadiz remained ever financial and commercial, and
cared nothing for art. Her brightest and blackest days followed the
discovery of America, when she soon eclipsed Seville as the mart for the
produce of the New Indies. Her wealth, not once but many times, wellnigh
proved her downfall. Threatened again and again by the Barbary corsairs,
she saw a far more terrible foe before her walls in 1587, in the person
of Sir Francis Drake, who inflicted incalculable injury on her shipping.
Worse was to come nine years later, when the English, under the command
of the Earl of Essex, scaled the walls, sacked the city from end to
end, slaughtered the inhabitants, profaned the churches and burnt the
public buildings, and sailed away with enormous booty. Yet so quickly
did Cadiz recover from this terrific catastrophe, that she again tempted
the cupidity of our countrymen in 1625. But this time the Dons were well
prepared and gave our fleet so warm a reception that we were compelled
to retire with heavy loss.
The city attained its zenith of opulence in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century, when it had become almost the exclusive entrepôt for
the traffic between Southern Europe and the Americas. Numerous royal
privileges and concessions secured it almost a monopoly of the trade.
But no one organ can hope to escape an infection attacking the whole
system. Spain in the eighteenth century was dying from that commonest of
national diseases--dry-rot. Yet as late as 1770 Adam Smith did not
hesitate to say that the merchants of London had not yet the wealth to
compete with those of Cadiz, and a few years later the value of the
bullion landed at its quays was estimated at 125 millions sterling.
Yet it was this bloated, purse-proud city, strangely enough, that proved
the ark of refuge for Spain when the innumerable hosts of Napoleon
swarmed over the land. Here were preserved the insignia of national
independence, and here, amid the thunder of guns and in the lap of the
ocean, was born the New and Free Spain. Cadiz proved a second
Covadonga. The focus of the constitutional movement, she was savagely
assailed by the Absolutists and their French allies. The defence of
Trocadero, on the other side of the bay, against the forces of the Duc
d'Angoulême popularized the name of the place throughout Europe. The
pages of Balzac abound in allusions to that mischievous and futile
attempt of the Government of the Restoration to rivet on Spaniards
fetters that no Frenchman would wear. Then came a French invasion of
another sort, of the Romanticists--of De Musset and Gautier, and the
long-haired followers of Byron.
It has often seemed to me that every city belongs to one particular age.
This being a fancy contrary to fact, I will put it this way--that in
every city there is always some one period of human history more readily
recoverable than any other. This may not be the period which has left
its mark most conspicuously on the physiognomy of the place; more
probably it will be determined by your own preconceptions, derived from
study or chance reading. John Addington Symonds observed that an island
near Venice, the name of which I have forgotten, immediately recalled to
him not the great days of the Republic with which it had an historical
connection, but the later and decadent days of bag-wig and hair powder.
At Cadiz I could have wished to think of the Phœnicians, thus hardily
adventuring into the wide ocean; or of Drake and his gentlemen
adventurers, "bound wrist to bar, all for red iniquity"; but instead I
fancied myself back in the 'thirties of last century, and thought of De
Musset and his "Andalouse" and his lovely Spanish girls. Is it possible
that Andalusia in those days of our grandfathers _was_ the Andalusia of
the Romanticists? At Cadiz, I beguiled myself into believing so--why, I
cannot explain. Perhaps it was due to the unexpected appearance of a
native--a distinctively Andalusian--costume in the streets. Nowhere else
in Spain is the mantilla more conspicuous or more gorgeous. A French
writer gives a selection of toilettes worn at a _Corrida de toros_,
which, as I never assisted at one of these functions in Cadiz, I repeat:
"All pink, coral necklace, white lace mantilla, big bunches of
carnations in the hair and corsage; a blond head seen beneath a
transparent mantilla, like a frail spider's web, red corsage and white
gown; coral ear-rings, with bunches of roses; all black, with a white
mantilla; all white, with a black mantilla; pale green gown with a blue
bolero and white roses; shawl draped, brocaded, with a wealth of
carnations in the hair; black dress and mantilla, violets in the hair;
gold coloured shawl, embroidered with red roses, comb like a tiara set
with bright-hued flowers," etc., etc. With confections such as these
dazzling the eyes, it is no wonder that I began to see visions of
gentlemen in black silk tights, dark green frock coats, and snowy white
cravats, stammering Castilian with a Parisian accent.
It would be hard, too, to keep the mind fixed on remoter and more heroic
ages, for Cadiz is singularly destitute of antiquities. The descendants
of the Philistines could not be expected to respect ancient monuments!
But what they spared our freebooter ancestors burned. The old Cathedral,
built in the thirteenth century, was almost totally consumed by the
flames. When I say that the new building dates from 1720, I fear that
your interest in it will expire. But it is at least imposing; and the
choir stalls are very fine. Then there is the Capuchin Convent, where
Murillo met his death by falling from a scaffolding while painting the
picture of the Espousals of St. Catherine. Another picture by the same
master may be seen in this church--St. Francis receiving the Stigmata.
The little Academia de Bellas Artes contains some admirable specimens of
the work of Zurbaran, brought from the Charterhouse of Jerez.
These are the only sights in the tourists' agent's acceptation of the
word, and it is likely enough that you will think three hours devoted to
the city amply sufficient. Yet its situation at the end of a narrow spit
like that at the entrance to the Suez Canal--in mid-sea as it were--its
associations, and its brightness and cleanliness, make it for some the
most charming of Spanish towns. Crenellated walls enclose it on all
sides, the space between them and the water's edge being devoted to
quays, promenades, and gardens. There are forts at the extremity of the
peninsula--the Isla de Leon, as it is called. The streets are all
very straight, very narrow, and very clean. Through the _rejas_ across
the doorways you obtain glimpses of trim little patios, bedecked with
flowering plants. Occasionally you come out into a little square,
prettily laid out with gardens, like the Plaza de Mina, where the
loungers asleep on the seats irresistibly recall dear old busy London.
[Illustration: AYAMONTE (THE GATEWAY OF ANDALUSIA)]
The charming Parque Genovés, bordering the sea, reminds us of the great
merchant race of Italy who had their warehouses here. It is exquisite to
walk by night along the sea wall, which at some points rises sheer
upwards from the water, and to inhale the breezes blown straight across,
one would like to think, from the West Indies. You will crave for that
cool wind afterwards, in the parched interior of Andalusia.
From Cadiz you may go to Seville by steamer up the Guadalquivir, but it
is far from being an interesting trip. The river is about as
picturesque, and in the same way, as the Dutch Rhine. However, in these
days of distorted æsthetics--when all that we thought beautiful we are
now told is ugly, and _vice versa_--it is quite possible that some
rapturous travellers will extol the mystical loveliness of the plains of
the Guadalquivir, rating their charms far above the vulgar, blatant
scenery of Switzerland and the Riviera, which is at the disadvantage of
being at once realized by the mere ordinary person. _En passant_ I
cannot refrain from expressing my wonder why superior people of this
sort go abroad. If Rhenish and Italian panoramas are suggestive to them
only of oleographs and Christmas numbers, have we not our Abanas and
Pharpars in England--the Essex marshes, the treeless downs of Sussex,
the odoriferous banks of the Mersey, for instance?
But I digress--and I counsel you against doing so, but recommend you to
proceed to Seville, if that be your destination, by rail direct. The
journey occupies eight and a half hours, and is not among the most
agreeable experiences of a lifetime. The railway runs right round the
bay of Cadiz, touching several towns of importance. That any of them are
worth a break of journey I doubt. Puerto Santa Maria is said to be much
resorted to by toreros and their admirers. I have never heard what
attracts them there, but indeed my interest in bull-killing was never
more than languid. The country round the bay is marshy. It is traversed
by the river Guadalete, beside which, it seems, Don Roderic was not
slain, and the battle never took place. You must look for the scene of
that epoch-making encounter farther towards the strait near the Rio
Barbate.
Between Cadiz and Seville you stop at the buffet of Jerez to drink a
glass of sherry in its native place. As most people know, all the good
wine comes to England; but at Jerez I think, in all reason, the price of
the wine might be a little lower and its quality a good deal higher. The
city, of which I only caught a glimpse, looks like an inland Cadiz,
very clean, white, sunny, and bright.
And so we creep onwards over dreary country--like the South African
veld--to Lebrija, an old Moorish town with a great church on a height,
apparently the only building of note in the place. Further on is Utrera,
renowned for bulls and for possessing one of the thirty deniers for
which Judas sold his Master. It should be an interesting town, with its
Moorish castle and walls still extant. But the same individuality is not
to be expected of the smaller Spanish as of the lesser Italian cities;
for the history of the one country has been a record of steady
centralization; of the other, obstinate decentralization. In Utrera, and
Moron, and Lebrija--even in Cadiz and Granada--there were no independent
princes or ambitious municipalities to foster and to reward native art.
The genius and talent of Spain flocked to great centres like Seville,
Toledo, Valladolid, and Zaragoza, and became ultimately concentrated in
Madrid. We read the same story in our own country; and in fact it is
impossible to resist the dangerous and obvious conclusion that
centralization and unity are good things for nations but bad things for
art.