I know you will expect to hear something of the Ladies of Spain; but I
must confess I had very little acquaintance among them: when they appear
abroad in their coaches, they are dressed in the modern French fashion,
but not in the extreme; when they walk out, their head and shape is
always covered with a black or white veil, richly laced; and however
fine their gowns are, they must be covered with a very large black silk
petticoat; and thus holding the fan in one hand, and hanging their
_chapelets_ over the wrist of the other, they walk out, preceded by one
or two shabby-looking servants, called pages, who wear swords, and
always walk bare-headed.
I have already told you, that the most beautiful, indeed the only
beautiful woman, I saw at _Barcelona_, was the Intendant's daughter;
and I assure you, her, black petticoat and white veil could not conceal
it; nor, indeed, is the dress an unbecoming one. Among the peasants, and
common females, you never see any thing like beauty, and, in general,
rather deformity of feature. No wonder then, where beauty is scarce, and
to be found only among women of condition, that those women are much
admired, and that they gain prodigious influence over the men.--In no
part of the world, therefore, are women more caressed and attended to,
than in Spain. Their deportment in public is grave and modest; yet they
are very much addicted to pleasure; nor is there scarce one among them
that cannot, nay, that will not dance the _Fandango_ in private, either
in the decent or indecent manner. I have seen it danced both ways, by a
pretty woman, than which nothing can be more _immodestly agreeable_; and
I was shewn a young Lady at _Barcelona_, who in the midst of this dance
ran out of the room, telling her partner, she could _stand it_ no
longer;--he ran after her, to be sure, and must be answerable for the
consequences. I find in the music of the _Fandango_, written under one
bar, _Salida_, which signifies _going out_; it is where the woman is to
part a little from her partner, and to move slowly by herself; and I
suppose it was at _that bar_ the lady was so overcome, as to determine
not to return. The words _Perra Salida_ should therefore be placed at
that bar, when the ladies dance it in the high _gout_.
The men dress as they do in France and England, except only their long
cloak, which they do not care to give up. It is said that Frenchmen are
wiser than, from the levity of their behaviour, they seem to be; and I
fancy the Spaniards look wiser from their gravity of countenance, than
they really are; they are extremely reserved; and make no professions of
friendship till they feel it, and know the man, and then they are
friendly in the highest degree.
I met with a German merchant at _Barcelona_, who told me he had dealt
for goods to the value of five thousand pounds a year with a Spaniard in
that town; and though he had been often at _Barcelona_ before, that he
had never invited him to dine or eat with him, till that day.
The farrier who comes to shoe your horse has sometimes a sword by his
side; and the barber who shaves you crosses himself before he _crosses
your chin_.
There is a particular part of the town where the ladies of easy virtue
live; and if a friend calls at the apartment of one of those females,
who happens to _be engaged_, one of her neighbours tells you, she is
_amancebados y casarse a mediacarta_; _i.e._ that she is
half-married.--If you meet a Spanish woman of any fashion, walking
alone without the town, you may join her, and enter into whatever _sort
of conversation_ you chuse, without offence; and if you pass one without
doing so, she will call you _ajacaos_, and contemn you: this is a custom
so established at Madrid, that if a footman meets a lady of quality
alone, he will enter into some indecent conversation with her; for which
reason, the ladies seldom walk but with their husbands, or a male friend
by their side, and a foot-boy before, and then no man durst speak, or
even look towards them, but with respect and awe:--a blow in Spain can
never be forgiven; the striker must die, either _privately_ or publicly.
No people on earth are less given to excess in eating or drinking, than
the Spaniards; the _Olio_, or _Olla_, a kind of soup and _Bouilli_, is
all that is to be found at the table of some great men: the table of a
_Bourgeois_ of Paris is better served than many _grandees_ of Spain;
their chocolate, lemonade, iced water, fruits, &c. are their chief
luxuries; and the chocolate is, in some houses, a prodigious annual
expense, as it is offered to every body who comes in, and some of the
first houses in Madrid expend twenty thousand _livres_ a year in
chocolate, iced waters, &c. The grandees of Spain think it beneath their
dignity to look into accounts, and therefore leave the management of
their household expenses to servants, who often plunder and defraud them
of great sums of money.
Unlike the French, the Spaniards (like the English) very properly look
upon able physicians and surgeons in a very respectable light:--Is it
not strange, that the French nation should trust their health and lives
in the hands of men, they are apt to think unworthy of their intimacy or
friendship?--Men, who must have had a liberal education, and who ought
not to be trusted in sickness, if their society was not to be coveted in
health. Perhaps the Spanish physicians, who of all others have the
least pretensions, are the most caressed. In fevers they encourage their
patients to eat, thinking it necessary, where the air is so subtile, to
put something into the body for the distemper to feed upon; they bleed
often, and in both arms, that the blood may be drawn forth _equally_;
the surgeons do not bleed, but a set of men called _sangerros_ perform
that office, and no other; the surgeons consider it dishonourable to
perform that operation. They seldom trepan; a surgeon who attempted to
perform it, would himself be perhaps in want of it. To all flesh wounds
they apply a powder called _coloradilla_, which certainly effects the
cure; it is made of myrrh, mastic, dragon's blood, bol ammoniac,
&c.--When persons of fashion are bled, their friends send them, as soon
as it is known, little presents to amuse them all that day; for which
reason, the women of easy virtue are often bled, that their lovers may
shew their attention, and be _bled too_.--The French disease is so
ignorantly treated, or so little regarded, that it is very general; they
consider a _gonorrhoea_ as health to the reins; and except a tertian
ague, all disorders are called the _calentura_, and treated alike, and I
fear very injudiciously; for there is not, I am told, in the whole
kingdom, any public academy for the instruction of young men, in physic,
surgery, or anatomy, except at Madrid.
Notwithstanding the sobriety, temperance, and fine climate of Spain, the
Spaniards do not, in general, live to any great age; they put a
prodigious quantity of spice into every thing they eat; and though
sobriety and temperance are very commendable, there are countries where
eating and drinking are carried to a great excess, by men much more
virtuous than those, where temperance, perhaps, is their principal
virtue.