CADIZ.
Oct. 22nd.
A Moorish house is a square, with blind walls outside, and a court
within. A corridor, sustained by pillars, runs round, and affords an
opening and light to the rooms: the court is paved with marble, or is
in mosaics, the place of meeting of the family. From this type the
domestic architecture of Cadiz is derived. The soil upon which the
city stands is occupied with those square blocks fitted one against
the other, leaving no patch vacant. There is nothing that is not house
or street. The houses, however, have windows on that side which faces
the street. The roofs are flat, terraced, parapeted, and surmounted
by square towers, sometimes three stories high. These roofs are the
_basse cour_. There the poultry is kept, the washing, and all dirty
work done, and the linen hung out to dry.[70] Here the inmates ascend,
in the summer evenings, to enjoy the breeze, and in the winter days to
bask in the sun. Above the sounds and bustle of the city, amid airy
terraces, which, but for the want of water, might rival the hanging
gardens of Babylon, looking out on the bright sea, and down and around
on the shining city, the Gaditanas walk, converse, and observe their
neighbours similarly employed on the neighbouring battlements. As the
houses adjoin, they are cut off from each other by parapets. Otherwise,
the means of communication above would be nearly as complete as in the
deep cuts of the streets that divide the masses. But to see Cadiz, you
must ascend one of her towers,[71] in the still night, and under the
moon.
The aspect from below is scarcely less striking. The streets are very
narrow: to exclude the sun, the houses are constructed to keep out the
heat. From every window projects an iron cage (rejà) or balcony--many
of these glazed round, and resembling an oriel window. These verandas
are filled with flowers, or shrouded in a mantle of ivy. The building
is relieved by the gayest colours--bright sea-green, red, and yellow.
The iron work is green. The houses are separated, as also the floors,
by lines of red: a narrow border of yellow runs round the base of each
balcony, and of the houses. There is no more charming, urban sight,
than that presented in looking down the narrow streets. The verandas
approach from the opposite sides, with their lively colours, their
shrubs, and flowers. Everything is fresh, and clean, and bright, as
if just from the workman’s hands. Within, white reigns alone, above,
and around. As you pass by, you have a succession of glimpses into the
columned _patios_, neat, bright, and shiny, embellished with plants,
flowers, and fountains.[72]
The doorways are grand and beautiful, and resemble the portals of
cathedrals, rather than the entrances to dwelling-houses. In the larger
houses the doors are made of slabs of shining mahogany, studded with
knobs of brass. The lintels and architraves are ornamented and carved
with an elaboration and a variety that afford constant occupation
to the stranger in his walks. The Gate belongs, of course, to the
land of the Caravan. It is the place of welcome, and its grandeur is
the sign of hospitality. The threshold passed, you are in the midst
of the dwelling; for the patio is the hall--the hall, as of ancient
days--not the mere passage to the dining-room, and the receptacle of
hats and walking-canes. We cannot imagine comfort in a court open to
the heavens, or elegance in a room with no windows in the walls. New
experience awaits us here: when marble is exchanged for brick, and the
sun takes the place of fog, shade is comfort, and damp luxury.
The Spanish portal acquired a dignity rather Chinese than Moorish, from
the escutcheon. At Valez Malaga I was shown the built-up door in the
mansion of a noble, who, being ordered to take down his arms from his
door, built up the entrance, leaving the arms, and struck out a hole in
the wall beside it.
The cathedral is a graceful and original modern building. There is a
great falling off in the parts recently completed. From its top there
is a splendid view of the sea-girt city, the bay, and the surrounding
lands. It is all marble, and the roof shelves off from the cupola to
the edge without parapet, so that you look out on the sea. In winter
the spray passes over the building, so that it well merits its arms,--a
cross standing on the water.
In the sacristy there were five large marble reservoirs, with the
syphon of a fountain over them, for the priests to wash at. My
gratification in recognising this relic will be intelligible only to
those among Eastern travellers, who have conformed to the manners
of the country, and known the secret of washing with running water;
and the disgust and aversion that are inspired by our dabbling in a
basin full of dirty water. Yet the practice can only have disappeared
within two generations.[73] The Russians still wash in this way. This
usage, however interesting as a relic, is not fruitful as a practice.
The Spaniards are not a cleanly people: in their struggle of seven
centuries with their washing and bathing foes, they placed their
patriotism on the side of filth.
From the top of the cathedral I had observed some old ruins, and a
circular tower, that looked Roman. It was the Moorish castle, and
afforded me the opportunity of verifying a point which previously had
been to me doubtful. These ruins are so built on, and so covered up,
that it is difficult to trace them; but I made out Moorish walls, with
square stones joined with lime. It has been a small castle standing by
itself, opposite the water-gate of the town, and not part of a circuit
of walls. One round tower still stands, about forty feet high. There
is a portion of wall exposed, of between thirty and forty feet in
thickness, in stone and lime. The chamber in the principal tower is,
like all those in Moorish towers, neatly arched and ornamented. The
staircase is in the substance of the wall, not in the centre of the
tower.
At Porta St. Maria, opposite Cadiz, I found a similar Moorish ruin.
This is the point of embarkation of Xeres, or the Port of Sherry. It
is the place for tasting wines,--the Pacharete, Montillado, and most
noble Mansanilla. The cellars are worth seeing--if spacious and lofty
edifices can be so called.
The people of Cadiz neither put their bodies in graves nor their wines
in cellars: the dead are built up in walls, resembling bins of a
wine-cellar; their wines are deposited in structures like cathedrals.
The niches are like the dwellings of the living, some for ever and
a day, others for a term of years; after which the fragments of the
former tenant are ejected, and the place swept clean for another.
I observed, on a placard, the two following signs of progress and
civilization, in titles of new works: “The defender of the fair sex,”
and “The Ass, a beastly periodical.” The words were, “Il Burro,
periodico bestial.”
You may see a long row of boys, very small at one end and full grown at
the other, dressed out in the sprucest and gayest uniforms--blue coat,
single breasted, with standing collar and large flaps; gold buttons
and lace; white trousers most mathematically cut, and strapped down on
very camp-like boots; and, on inquiring what military institution this
belongs to, you are answered, “It is a boarding-school!”
They have, in connection with schools, a practice which might suit
“Modern Athens”--I mean the hyperborean one. A person from each school
goes the round of the town, calling for the boys in the morning,
and dropping them in the evening; just as sheep, goats, or cows are
collected by a common herd.
The “Hospicio” is at once a Poor-house, a house of Industry, a School,
a Foundling Hospital, a Hospital, and a Mad-house;--that is, it
supplies the places of all these Institutions. It is imposing in its
form, embellished in its interior, and as unlike, in all its attributes
and effects, as anything can be, to the edifices consecrated to the
remedying of human misery, by our own charity and wisdom.
The church of St. Philippo Negri deserves a visit. It is a lofty oval
hall. The altar is in a deep recess, and two narrow galleries run round
it at a considerable height. In this church, in a back street of an
out-post almost cut off from Spain, some unknown and self-designated
politicians wove, in 1812, out of the threads of the philosophy of
France, a tissue which was to clothe the nakedness of Spain, and to
regenerate her. At that moment she was engaged in a desperate war with
France. By those very doctrines her despot trampled on the liberties of
France, and then converted her into the slavish instrument of his evil
passions and lawless purposes against Spain. Up to the time when this
constitution was proclaimed, faction, which had divided and distracted,
for a century and a half, the other countries of Europe, had still in
Spain been unknown.
St. Philippo is thus a spot associated with greatness--but greatness of
an easy kind. It is easier to kill a camel than--sometimes--to catch a
flea.
Cadiz, Oct. 26th.
I made an excursion yesterday, in a Calesa, to the mainland, or rather,
to the Isla St. Leon, which adjoins it. After travelling about four
miles along the narrow ridge of sand that joins Cadiz to the main, you
turn to the left, round the bottom of the bay, and enter on the salt
pans, which extend throughout the Isla. There were ditches, tanks, and
reservoirs, cut out in all shapes and dimensions. Heaps of salt were
scattered about like pyramids; some, twenty feet high. I expected to
obtain data respecting the evaporation of the Mediterranean, but was
disappointed: neither is the water allowed to deposit in one place,
nor are there successive fillings of water into the same basin before
the salt is made. In either case, the rate of evaporation would have
been furnished exactly; but the water passes through successive pans,
becoming more and more charged as it advances to the inner tanks,
where the crystallization is ultimately effected,--a process even then
attended with difficulty.[74] There are, in the Isla, twelve government
and seventy-two private works; the produce of the first is 12,000,
of the other, 40,000 lasts. The cost is six quarts the Fanega; it is
sold at fifty-two reals. The salt made at the private works is for
exportation, and is taken off by the English, Americans, and French.
These and the other salt-works of Galicia, the Asturias, &c., are
farmed for 12,000,000 reals, by a singular adventurer of the court and
the exchange,--M. Salamanca.
The observatory at St. Fernando is, of course, like all observatories;
and, being built to look at the heavens, affords a good view of the
earth. From the top of it I inspected this labyrinth. There was, in
front, Cadiz, hanging by its narrow isthmus. The Isla de Leon is a
low marsh, which forms the bottom of the bay. In the island is St.
Fernando, situated on broken ground. I could trace the salt river from
its source, or mouth, in the sea, to its other source, or mouth, in the
bay. At the sea-entrance, I could distinguish the small island or knoll
of St. Petri. Here stood the ALTARS OF HERCULES. It was to visit this
spot that I had started from Cadiz; and finding it impracticable, from
the time of day and the roughness of the weather, I had, with great
reluctance, given up the project. It was some compensation to see, at
least, the spot. An antique bridge joins the Isla to the mainland: it
stands about half-way between the bay and the sea. It was rather a
causeway, with arches, than a bridge, and was said to be Phœnician.
At Cadiz, one is in the midst of a town, and the very type and essence
of towns. The eye has no scope, and the mind no sight, for anything but
itself. It is impossible to think of it as Gades, or to recall Circe’s
smile, or Cerberus’ growl; but here I recovered myself, and yielded
to the intoxication which, on certain spots, the mists of past things
produce. Cadiz did again become Gades. Behind appeared, on the side
of a hill, or rather, close to its summit, Medina Sidonia, recalling,
in one name, the Phœnician and the Moor. The salt marshes could be
transmuted to the ancient groves and gardens, by the aid of some
palm-trees scattered over the broken ground.
But that islet, now shrouded by the spray from an easterly storm, with
its temple, where Hannibal offered sacrifice before departing to live
on Italy for fourteen years--where Cæsar was fired with the love of the
purple, by the sight of the statue of the victor of Darius--was the
magnet of the scene. Who built this temple? What was it? The temple
of Phœnicians,--of idolaters? yet idols were excluded. There was a
sacrifice, but not to idols; there was an altar, but no groves or high
places. Wines were forbidden, which were not forbidden in Phœnicia or
Egypt. Women were excluded from the sacrifices; the sacred flame was
kept burning; the priests served barefoot. When they entered, their
faces were veiled, and their heads covered with white linen. This,
then, was a temple of the Hebrews, and not of idolaters.[75] Amongst
the dwellers in Canaan, there were those who had preserved primeval
light, and are called in scripture “worshippers of the true God.”
Balaam was a prophet, and the book of the Arab Job is one of the books
of Scripture.
From St. Fernando I could command the field where Tarik triumphed, and
where Roderick fell. The sudden extinction of the Gothic empire has led
to the inference that it was rotten: the valour with which that field
was contested forbids that conclusion. The factions, and the contests
for the crown amongst the Goths, differed little from those amongst
the Saracens; the _people_ were not divided, and had lost nothing of
their valour and their warlike spirit.[76] The Arabs triumphed in
Spain in like manner as Islamism did in Africa. The Goths were not the
only inhabitants; the original population was still in existence, and
identified with that of Hispania Transfretana. To these the Saracens
were deliverers, not invaders. They were invited over by the Jews, a
numerous, and then a warlike people, preserving many ties with the
Arab population of both countries, and forming the link between them
and the old Iberians. It is not extraordinary that there should have
been native Spaniards in the armies of the Goths, without the fact
being recorded. So uncertain are all our data, that it is disputed
whether Count Julian was a Mussulman or a Christian; whether Tarik was
a Breber, a Persian, or an Arab. In periods nearer to our own, when
European literature flourished, omissions and mistakes of a similar
kind are not uncommon. For instance, at the battle of Angora the
contest, as it is supposed, was between the Turks and the Tartars; but
the body of the troops of Bajazet were neither Turks nor Mussulmans,
but Servians.
The association of the people of Spain with those of Mauritania, while
both were Christians, is further established by the use of Arabic in
the old Spanish church. It is recorded with wonder that their works
on theology were in that tongue, and that a large proportion of its
priesthood knew no other. This Arabic literature dates from a time
_anterior to the Arab conquest_. It was from Africa that Spain received
Christianity. But modern Spanish writers would be careful to conceal or
disguise the early association of Spain with the people and the system
against which raged their fanaticism. It is the suppression of all this
that has made the conquest of the Arabs appear like a fable.
Cardonne estimates, at the battle of the Guadalete, the Goths at
100,000, and the Arabs at 12,000. Gibbon makes the Arabs less. Another
writer says:--“It was no longer the terrible Goths, whose valour had
overthrown the Roman empire, that had penetrated from the shores of
the Euxine to those of the Atlantic. The youth, enervated with peace
and luxury, had abandoned the exercise of arms. The chiefs, impelled
by jealousy, revenge, or ambition, betrayed their monarch to those who
sought his ruin.” And presently we have,--“The two armies fought long
and with equal ardour. The uncertain victory was decided in favour of
the Mussulmans by a horrible treason. Opas, Archbishop of Seville,
collecting his vassals, joined the ranks of the Mussulmans and attacked
the Christians. The Spaniards were immediately broken,” &c.
How could there be a struggle in an open country by 12,000 against
100,000, where arms and courage were equal--where both were warlike?
The Goths were engaged in continual warfare between themselves; they
were making incursions into France; they were at the very time masters,
by recent triumphs, of the sea, and possessors until that very year, of
strong places in Africa, whence they were carrying on aggressive war
against the Moors! We have therefore to look for some other cause than
the effeminacy of the one, and the valour of the other. Count Julian
could put the Moors in possession of Ceuta, and in joining them draw
all his adherents with him,--the Archbishop of Seville could quit the
camp with all his followers, a fact which has no parallel, and join
the invading Mussulman:--there existed, then, links between the two
people not to be found in the romances of the Spanish writers, or in
the phrases of Gibbon. Thus, the enterprise ceases to be a fable, and
regains its just station as one of the most hardy and successful of
human achievements.
In speaking of the burning, by Cortes, of his vessels on the coast
of Mexico, Robertson remarks:--“Thus, by an act of magnanimity to
which history offers nothing to be compared, did 500 men consent to
shut themselves up in a hostile land, covered with nations numerous
and unknown, and after destroying their means of retreat, remained
with no other resource than their valour and their perseverance.” He
forgot horses, gunpowder, and artillery. But the Spaniards in the
New World only repeated the lesson they had learnt from the Moors in
the Old, and the Moors only repeated what the Sicilian Agathocles had
already performed in his wonderful home-thrust against Carthage. The
Moorish chief, at the head of 7,000, or--as Gibbon makes them--5000
men, sent, Scipio-like, to invade the powerful and warlike peninsula
(that was itself invading Africa), adopted the same expedient, and
induced his more numerous followers, in face of a far greater danger,
to submit to the same alternative. They burnt their vessels in the port
of Gibraltar. They thus cut off their retreat, in case of a repulse,
as effectually as if the whole Atlantic spread between them and their
native land. The address of Tarik to his followers was,--“The enemy is
before you, the sea is behind,--follow me.”
After the victory, the Moors, instead of advancing, as in a hostile
country, dispersed, as after the defeat of a usurper, to take
possession. One body marched upon Ecija, a strongly-fortified place;
the whole population perished in the defence, or after the capture:
another upon Corduba; it was surrendered by the inhabitants; the
governor of the garrison, however, preferred death to submission.
Another body took possession of Granada; Tarik himself marched on
the capital, Toledo. All these places made separate capitulations,
and preserved the exercise of their religion: they were to pay only
such taxes as were paid to their kings; they were to preserve their
laws, and their magistrates. The churches were generally divided
between the Mussulman and the Christian. The same conditions,
excepting double tribute, were granted to the cities that made the
most desperate resistance. It was on a system that they acted, and
not upon emergency--by a rule, and not according to circumstances or
expediency.[77]
The valour of the Goths was desperate and self-devoted. The division of
the churches between the two religions shows the rapidity with which
conversion accompanied, or rather had prepared, their triumph. The
Goths were originally but an army that entered Spain, to protect its
inhabitants. When Spain afterwards recovered herself from the Saracens,
she was altogether Gothic, with no trace of the old population, except
in the Basque provinces, where neither the Goths had penetrated before,
nor did the Saracens after. The remainder of the original--that is, the
Iberian--population had, therefore, become Mussulmans.
Here was exposed the imbecility of the supposition that Islamism was
propagated by the sword. It was Islamism that aided the conquests
of the Saracens. Its force lay in applying the dictates of religion
directly as a restraint upon the conduct of government, rendering the
king, as well as his humblest vassal, equally subjects of the law.
Within a few months from the battle of Guadalete, the Moorish troops
had passed beyond the Pyrenees, and were encamped at Carcassone. There
the tide of victory was arrested, not by the hammer of Martel, but
by orders from Damascus. It was the project of the Saracen chief to
conquer France, and thence to march to the attack of the Greek empire
in the rear. When the Saracens did invade France, it was after the
generation of conquerors had passed away--when France was recovering
from the lethargy of her Merovingian race, and when a schism had been
established between Spain and the Caliphate.
The empire established by this victory is the most remarkable instance
of prosperity that the world has ever seen. The town of Corduba
contained 200,000 houses; in its public library there were 600,000
volumes. It had 900 public baths. On the banks of the Guadalquivir
there were 12,000 villages; and such were the fruits they drew from
the soil, such the profits of their industry, which furnished to the
East luxuries and arms, that the public revenue of Spain in the tenth
century was equal to the collective revenues of all the other kings of
Europe. Twelve millions of dinars--a sum of gold which, calculating
the dinar at 10s., and multiplying by ten, to give the difference of
the value of gold, is equal to £60,000,000 of our present money.
Five centuries and a half later, this plain was again the theatre of
great events: the Christian principalities had again regained strength,
the Mussulmans expending themselves in internal wars in Spain, and
between the Peninsula and Morocco. The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
had taken place. St. Ferdinand had entered their capital and taken
Seville, when the elevation of his son Alfonso the Sage--but in his
early years designated _the Brave_--to the crown of Castile, gave
promise of a speedy emancipation of the Peninsula, aided as he was by
the valiant James of Aragon, who had successfully contested against
them no less than thirty fields.
Alfonso retook from the Mussulmans, Xeres and all the surrounding
towns; but, very soon absorbed in the vain expectation of becoming
Emperor of Germany, and less successful than his successor, Charles
V., or England’s candidate for the Spanish crown, Charles VI., he
squandered the means of his subjects in a project that was hateful to
them; lost the time and the occasion of following up his successes, and
brought upon Spain new dangers from Africa. This was the first time
that Spain appeared influencing the relations of Europe, and mingling
in its councils. Squandering her treasures to sway the elections
of Frankfort, and moving Africa by his intrigues in Germany, the
successful competitor was Rudolph, the founder of the imperial house
of Austria.
Xeres was soon retaken by the Moors; and on that occasion, a Spanish
commander distinguished himself by a trait of heroism not less signal
than that, the memory of which is preserved at Tarifa. The soldiers
on the wall having all fallen, the governor, Don Garcia di Gomez,
maintained the place alone, and refused to surrender, though himself
covered with wounds: the Moors, struck with admiration, determined to
preserve his life in spite of himself; lifted him off the wall with
hooks, and then cured him of his wounds.
I found the astronomer at the observatory, M. de Sercera, a person no
less interesting in his general conversation than distinguished for his
scientific acquirements; and I received from him and from others some
most unexpected information respecting a recent event which has had
most important consequences for Europe. I refer to the revolt of the
Isla de Leon, and the proclamation there of the Constitution of 1812,
on the 1st January, 1820. It appears that the plot was undisguisedly
conducted by Russia; that the Bailiff de Tatischeff,[78]--then the
representative of Russia at Madrid,--came down himself to watch over
the conspiracy, and openly used his predominating influence at court
to sacrifice those superior officers who endeavoured to enlighten the
government regarding what was there in progress. It was this revolution
which matured and brought forth those dissensions which have since
distracted the Peninsula; and afforded the occasion which was taken by
Russia at the Congress of Verona, to constrain, or rather cheat, France
into the invasion of 1823, the parent of subsequent reactions and
endless troubles.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] It is hung up wet for two reasons;--not to strain it by wringing,
and to bleach it better.
[71] Such were the outlooks, or Distegia, which were placed on the
terraces of the Greeks; from such a one (μελάθρων ἐς διῆρες ἔσχατον)
Antigone, in that beautiful episode which has been imitated in
“Ivanhoe,” viewed the Pelasgian host, drawn up near the fountain of
Dirce. These were, and are, distinguished from the terraces roofed with
tiles. The _Tuilleries_ of Athens were not for the common roofs, but
for the Distegia, or double roofs, and for the temples. In Morocco also
the mosques are tiled, and with gable roofs, while the houses are flat.
[72] Prescott, speaking of Cordova, says--“The streets are represented
to have been narrow; many of the houses lofty, with turrets of
curiously-wrought larch or marble, and with cornices of shining metal
that glittered like stars through the dark foliage of the orange
groves, and the whole is compared to an enamelled vase sparkling with
hyacinths and emeralds.”
[73] In a picture by Holbein, a girl is represented washing her hands:
an attendant pours the water as in the East.
[74] In England a bit of butter is used.
[75] Herodotus (ii. 46. 145) mentions one tribe of the Pelasgi who
had no images, and worshipped one supreme God, whose name they never
pronounced.
[76] Muza when questioned by the Kalif as to the character of the
different people of the West, says of the Goths, “They are champions
who do not turn the back on the foe.”
[77] “Thing incomprehensible! History shows us the Arabs as the
least exacting, the least cruel of all conquerors. They have shown
the example of those peaceful conquests, which we recommend to the
governments of the nineteenth century. By the capitulations which
the earliest Arab chiefs granted to the Christians of Spain, these
last retained the free exercise of their religion. This toleration,
scrupulously respected, facilitated and rendered more prompt the
reconciliation of the two people. Ocba, Gehrarben-Muhamad, Youzef, have
left, in the Spanish chronicles, written even by the Christians, the
most touching instances of tolerance, justice, and magnanimity.”--_La
France en Afrique_, p. 17.
[78] This diplomatist was subsequently removed, on the application of
Ferdinand to the Emperor Alexander, through Capo D’Istrias. The king
wrote these words: “I, who appear to be King of Spain, am only the
servant (_criado_) of the Bailé de Tatischeff.” Capo D’Istrias, to whom
the scrap of paper was brought, and who was then passing through Italy,
promised that, fifteen days after his arrival at St. Petersburg, the
obnoxious ambassador should be removed. He kept his word. Russia lost
nothing. The work had been accomplished, and Ugarte was left behind.
The Bailé having proved himself so successful with a king, was then
sent to try his hand on an emperor.
This fact I have had from the agent employed by Ferdinand. It is
curious that Spain should have got rid of a Russian ambassador, and
kicked out an English one. It is curious that it should have been
for the same cause. In the first case, however, the evil was already
done. What service might not Spain render to Europe, if, moved by the
tortures she has undergone, and by the happy consequences which she has
experienced from having one intriguer the less at Madrid, she should
withdraw her own from foreign courts, and thus be herself relieved from
the others!