EXCURSION ROUND THE STRAITS.
Cadiz, Oct. 24th.
In the land of the Hindoos, far away from the ocean, there is a
building called the _Pearl_ Mosque. The Spaniards call their Cadiz, the
City of Silver. But Cadiz is the daughter, not of the land but, of the
sea, and is the pearl of cities.
The impression of brightness I have received in Cadiz does not,
however, arise from the lustre of these silvery turrets, but from a
swarm of women covering the floor of the cathedral with a mass of
silk blonde tresses, and eyes, shining, fluttering, gleaming--and all
is black. I had passed from the Ommiades to the Abassides. In that
monumental uniformity there are a fascination and a grandeur, which
scatter to the wind our freaks of fashion. How contemptible the devices
of our continual change, when contrasted with the things discovered,
used, and preserved by a whole people!
If I venture on this track so often beaten, and re-attempt the
description of things so often described, yet never conveyed, my excuse
is, that I have adjusted my eye and observation to a more distant
point, and have looked to making what I saw, intelligible to a future
time. To this I have been led by the fact that changes are in progress.
The day may come when, having exhausted variety without finding
contentment, this people may try to go back, and endeavour with pain to
regain what now, in heedlessness, they are casting away: then will it
be interesting to know what, while Spain still retained manners of her
own, struck the passing stranger.
The milliners of Paris, it is a common saying, have accomplished[79]
what the arms of Napoleon were unable to achieve,--as if female vanity
had broken down national character and taste, which masculine sense
struggled to uphold. Alas! for the dignity of manhood;--it is the
tailors, not the milliners of Paris, who have triumphed where German
insolence, Bourbon fraud, and imperial victories alike had failed.
Spain lives only in the peasantry, and in that sex which an Eastern
sage has said is “the first to hope and the last to despair.” The men
we see walking about the streets are the ordinary persons inhabiting
European towns. You are reminded that you are in a country which is
itself only when you see the women.
The crown of this costume is the _mantilla_. It belongs to the class of
vestures intended to screen, not to parade: it nevertheless enhances
and sets off beyond every device and contrivance of mere display. The
ancient form, the _manta_, was within the century known in sequestered
places. It is in common use in the transatlantic possessions or
offshoots of Spain: it lingers still on the verge of the Peninsula at
Tarifa, where I have mentioned it.
The manta[80] is a stripe of black taffeta or serge, two yards long by
one broad. Three cords are run through it lengthways at one edge; by
these it is bound and puckered round the waist: it is then turned up
like a petticoat over the head and shoulders, and is gathered in the
hand upon the breast. In front there is a lappet of about six inches’
width, lined with crimson silk, which comes round the face. Encasing
the person from the waist upwards, it is an admirable protection
against wind, rain, and sun. One eye only--generally the left one--is
exposed. Thus Solomon sings:
“With thy one eye thou hast bewitched me.”
Backed by such authority, I may venture to say that it is not
without its ostensible beauties as well as its revelations of grace
and attractions of concealment. The Turkish _yashmac_ conceals the
face; the _farigee_ shrouds the person: the manta serves at once
for both purposes. The _faldett_ of the women of Malta is of the
same description. The petticoat being also black, the dress appears
all of one piece, as originally it was. The name of the costume is
_saya-manta_.
The _mantilla_ is the manta narrowed, loosened from the waist and
fastened on the head. There are two kinds.[81] The _mantilla de tiro_
is that worn by the peasantry: it is of black serge trimmed with
velvet. It is worn high on the head, and round upon the face. The
second, the costume of the city, is the _mantilla de blonda_: it is of
silk, rich and stiff; plain or flowered, and differs from the other
by having blonde to the depth of twelve inches all round. The blonde
is deeper in front, so as to serve as a veil. The edge of the silk is
fastened to the comb at the crown of the head; the silk falls behind,
the lace before, unless gathered up. It is secured in windy weather
against the cheek by the tip of the fan. The mantilla, when dropped on
the shoulders, degenerates into a veil joined to an unmeaning scarf or
a tippet; yet this is now become the fashion. The whole is sometimes of
lace--when it is only a bagged hood.
The mantilla is not spoken of as a piece of dress that fits well or
ill. Such a lady, they say, wears her mantilla well, just as if they
were speaking of a ship carrying her colours. The port of a Spanish
lady is, indeed, like the bearing of a ship. The mantillas, reversing
the effect of our costume--which is to impress the wearer with the
feelings of a block--gives at once freedom and dexterity. The mantilla,
fan, castanet, guitar and dance--which last is not here the business of
the legs alone--keep the arms always busy. The head is disencumbered of
bonnet, cap, ribands and curls; hence that grace of the Spanish women,
which all recognize and none can describe, for mere form or feature
does not explain it.
I need not say that beneath a mantilla there are no curls; nor need
I add, that where neither bonnets nor caps are worn, and the head is
always exposed, the hair is well kept. A Spanish lady remarked to me,
that what struck her principally when she travelled in other countries,
was the want of cleanliness in the women’s hair. It is always exposed,
as hair was intended to be, to the air and wind, and it is every day in
water, for they wet it before using the comb.
The hair is dressed in two styles. One is called _sarrano_. The
only explanation I could get for this name was, that _sierra_ means
mountain, and that the mountaineers dress in this way. But neither does
it seem to be the style of the Sierra, nor does the word sarrano mean
mountain: there is, indeed, no such word in Spanish.[82]
_Sar_ and _sarrano_ were Phœnician forms of Tyre[83] and Tyrian. The
Tyrian, not the Greek or Roman, pronunciation would prevail in Spain
and Africa. Columella, a Spaniard, says, “_Sarranam violam_;” Silvius
Italicus has “_Sarranum muricem_;” Ennius, “_Sarranum ostrum_;”
consequently, “Sarrano head-dress” means neither more nor less than
“Tyrian head-dress.”[84] Such an etymology is in no ways far-fetched.
It is quite natural to look for a Tyrian mode of dressing the hair,
under a covering of the head, described by Solomon, in a city built by
the Tyrians, and from which you can perceive another city, which to
this day bears the name of Sidon.
Saint Augustine quotes it as an instance of the retentive memory of the
people of his age, that the rustics in the neighbourhood of Carthage,
when asked who and what they were, answered, “We are from Canaan;”
whence they had come one thousand and ninety years before, and after
the name of Canaan had long been obliterated. Here is a head-dress with
the name of Tyre,[85] more than double that interval of years.
In the “Tyrian” (Sarrano) style, the hair is divided over the forehead,
turned back with an ample fold, the ends fastened behind: the back
hair is divided and plaited, and hangs down the back; and no doubt
formerly, as in the East and in Barbary, silk of the colour of the hair
was plaited in and hung down to the heels in tassels. There appears to
be a reason why this style was called “Tyrian.” The Jewesses wear their
hair bound upon the head in a very elaborate manner, with feathers,
a cushion, and handkerchief, the Tyrian being all open and exposed.
I find that I am concurrently using the past and present tenses,
referring at one moment to the spot where I am; at the next to the
times of Hiram and Solomon; but, in fact, they are so intermingled that
it is impossible to dissever the Scriptural descriptions and the things
themselves.
The other style is _moño_;--and has also a foreign association not,
however, with Jerusalem, but with Paris, for it has been recently
imitated there. The front hair, parted, is plaited on each side into
one plait, then rolled as a wheel upon the temple, and fastened by a
hair-pin. The back hair is gathered light, and secured behind by a
riband. It is then divided into two parts and plaited; these are turned
up like a bow, and secured by the same riband. The bow (I mean of the
hair) is then twisted, so as to spread on both sides, resting on the
nape of the neck. It derives its name from _moño_, which is a large
rose of variously-coloured riband, which is sometimes used to set it
off. It is placed on the crown of the head: from it hang two tassels of
gold or silver, lace or embroidery.
There is no gown of a piece; the costume is in separate parts: the
sleeves and body may be of any colour. They are, out of doors, covered
by the mantilla; like it, the petticoat is black: formerly it was not
above two yards in width, and fell to the _mi-jambe_ with weights
round to keep it down. In a discussion on these subjects with Spanish
ladies, an English gentleman maintained, on the authority of Murray’s
new “Guide-Book,” which had just come out, and which had been looked
forward to with as much expectation as it produced disappointment,
that only recently the ladies of Cadiz had taken to show their feet:
that, “formerly, they wore their petticoats so long that you could not
tell if they had any feet at all.” This produced an exclamation of
astonishment and anger. A Gaditana mentioned that, having returned in
1823 from Paris to Madrid in the wake of the French army, bringing her
mantilla with her, she sent for a milliner to order the other parts
of the Spanish dress. The milliner told her that her Paris dresses
would do, for that nothing else was worn; on which she apostrophised
the _artiste_ thus:--“Go out into the streets with mantilla and long
petticoats!” Her astonishment equalled her indignation at seeing this
hideous petticoat imposed on Spaniards, who, as she said, did not
require it, not having “feet an ell long.”
The petticoat of the peasants in Andalusia is yellow, of a homely but
excellent woollen stuff, and bordered with red, the two colours which
the Spanish women most affect--the colours of their gorgeous standard,
those of gold and blood.
A Spanish woman is no less attentive to her foot and shoe[86] than
to her hair: from below the saga comes forth the plump leg in its
creaseless stocking. The impression that remained on me of Spain,
having been there as a child, was a black lace-bedizened female figure,
with a bunch of flowers on the head and on the foot, and a white satin
shoe, cheapening cod in the fish-market at six in the morning. If the
wise man was bewitched by the sight of the “one eye,” so was the paynim
Holofernes “ravished” by the sight of Judith’s sandal. But the sandal
must not be taken for that thing which Abigails call by that name:
it was not the service of riband that held the sole on, but the sole
itself. Spain is still the country of the sandal: you may see it every
day, and there is nothing that more recalls antiquity than the bands
(stone-blue) by which it is secured round the ankle and foot.[87]
The old Spanish shoe is very low, and scarcely held at all at the
heel: like the slipper of the Easterns, it required the action of the
toes to hold it on. The calf of the leg accordingly was full, because
its muscles were called into play. So important is this to the grace
and ease of the figure, that at Rome the models, male and female, lose
their pension if they wear a shoe with a thick sole.
There still wants something to complete the Spanish costume, or,
perhaps, I might say the Spanish woman--and that is THE FAN. Yet, how
supply this want? at least, without herself--how convey her and it
on paper? You might as well attempt to teach on paper how to roll a
turban, make coffee, or hit the bull’s-eye.
The petticoat has two names, _basqueña_ and _saga_. The latter recalls
the sagum of the Greeks and Romans, which is derived from _sagi_ or
_sogi_ of the Touaregs: sagum designated a web or mantle. How it has
come to be a petticoat I shall presently explain.
The sleeves, _mangas_, are tight to the arm, and buttoned up the
fore-arm, not by button-holes in the stuff, but in the Eastern manner,
with loops. The buttons are gold filigree, which we call Maltese: they
are used in large numbers for ornamenting the _maja_ dress. The body is
low round the shoulders, as the present evening dress of Europe; but
they do not sin against mechanics and modesty by bringing the edge of
the dress to the angle of the shoulder. A scarf is fastened above the
dress, which comes up behind, is secured upon the shoulders by clasps,
and then brought down in front. There is something approaching to this
worn by the women in Morocco. The buckles and clasps on the shoulders
are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament.
The parts of the dress in which colour is allowed are the body and the
sleeves, which, when out of doors, are shrouded by the mantilla. The
dress for the streets is black, and invariably black; while the men
display the most gaudy and variegated colours.
The _avanico_ is used ceremoniously and socially:--in the first place,
it is stiffly and demurely restricted to its legitimate end. When it
enters common life, held firmly, yet freely between the fingers and
the ball of the hand, it serves as an extension of it, feathered to
flout the air. The ordinary fan practice is to throw the hand outwards
while letting go one side of the fan; then turning the hand inwards to
recover it by a jerk. If we had no fans in Europe there would be less
difficulty in describing, because our imagination would be free and at
work. Having fans, and using them to disturb the air, we have settled
notions of them; and when we hear what a Spanish fan can accomplish,
we conclude that there is a code of signals--some sort of constructive
slang imparted to the initiated. The Spanish fan is no more the arm of
a telegraph than the leaf of a winnowing machine. A fan is to a Spanish
woman what feathers are to a bird. Is she content and happy?--there
is its gentle fluttering--in its vivacious and rapid catch--in its
long-drawn motion--in its short pulse. There is all that is conveyed to
us by the brow when it lowers the eye; when it flushes the cheek--when
it glows. She wants not the frown to dismiss, nor the smile to invite:
it is an additional and mute voice:--I might compare it to the rod of
a magician, or to the passes of a mesmerist. Once seen, you feel that
it is what was required to complete--woman. The ideal was always in the
mind, guessed only before, but recognised the moment it is seen.[88]
An English lady plays on the harp or the pianoforte. A French lady
touches the one and pinches the other. The guitar belongs to the
Spaniard--as constant as her mantilla; as familiar as her fan--it is
ready to please a guest; to solace a leisure hour. It is no matter of
ostentation; it is no performance. Her proficiency is not the result of
study; there are no hours,--no years consumed in practising; it is an
unceasing amusement, an inseparable companion.
That which would strike the stranger as most extraordinary, is our
having one costume in the morning and one in the evening; one dress
which lives only in daylight, another which never sees the sun. This
is a peculiarity for which no age and no race afford a parallel.
Take Cherokee or ancient Egyptian, Hindoo, Athenian, Hottentot, or
Kamschatdale, you will not find one who has dressed his body according
to the motions of the sun and earth; or held a checked waistcoat, or
a close-bodied gown as appropriate at one hour and inappropriate at
another. When dress was associated with respect, change either by the
hour or month was impossible: the man was then more than the food and
the body--than the raiment;--change could only become habitual where
such feelings were dead; and then dress, escaping from the guidance of
taste, became the trappings of vanity. This evening-dress of Europe is
the common in-door dress, slightly disfigured, of the Spanish lady.
The veil and fan, the chief adornment of the female costume, are
from Spain; so also is that richest and most distinguishing of its
materials, _lace_.
Barbara of Brabant has received the credit of the discovery; but her
share can extend no further than to the mode of working in flax. The
texture in silk and cotton must have been carried thither by the
Spaniards. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the word _blonda_
is found in a Castilian law,[89] it is referred to as a manufacture
in general use, and consequently long established. It was not known in
Europe for at least a century later.[90]
Lace is to be seen in every hut, on every domestic
article:--pillow-case, napkins, sheets--it is a national type, and
must be of ancient date; in all likelihood, from that common source of
Spanish things, Judæa. In this conclusion, I was confirmed by finding
in Barbary the term _Guipoör_. It is used by the Jews for the festival
of atonement, when they wear white mantles in the synagogue, with the
fringes in open embroidery. The name of the country was given to the
texture. The texture, then, comes from the Jews.[91]
The word _dentelle_[92] is explained as meaning the teethlike points of
the serrated border lace, as distinguished from the Guipoör, Mechlin,
Brussels, and English point, &c. But there was an ancient festival
in Spain on the occasion of the child cutting its teeth, which was
known to the Christians under the name of Dentilia.[93] Such would be
a fitting time for the display of this finery. Whoever has seen the
festival of _Corpus Christi_ in Spain, or Portugal, will understand
how natural it was to give the name; for on it all the procession, or
at least all the public functionaries to this day, wear scarfs of lace
over their uniforms.
The blonde is made on the frame. The common lace, which is used as
seams and edging, is made with the _crochet_, which is as familiar
in the hands of every Moor, as formerly the _cronag_ in those of the
Highland shepherd. The Barbary caps were originally so made, and
indeed are so still. In the same way, may yet be seen Highland hose,
and formerly the _trews_. The Shetland shawl still bears testimony
to the recorded beauty of the manufactures of the Hebrides, in early
times; and in Barbary--although I know not that the art is still
preserved--magnificent pieces of Guypoör come from time to time to
light. One was brought me at Tetuan three yards and a half in length,
and above a yard in width.
The supposed invention, therefore, of lace-making in the Low Countries,
must be understood merely as that of a new process, viz., the bobbins,
pins, and cushion, by which a new variety was obtained, and which has
its beauty and its facility; but which can stand no comparison with the
original, which it has caused to fall into disuse; and now that the
taste for it is revived, the art is lost.
While the Spanish female costume is unquestionably the most beautiful
in Europe, it would thus appear to be at the same time a valuable
historical monument. Nor is its antiquarian interest limited to the
Peninsula: it carries us back to the land and the people, which, of
all others, possess claims on the affections, and merit the study of
Christendom.
It is curious that there should be but two countries in the world that
have adopted and restricted themselves to a single colour,--that these
countries should lie opposite each other--that in the one it should be
black, and in the other white; that the one should be the derivative of
which the other is the original; that the wearers of black should be
the offspring of the people of white, and that the white country should
have the title of Mauritania!
It is not to be supposed that the black was assumed after the expulsion
of the Moors. General usages are not of these days. We have besides
proof that black was the colour of Spain twelve hundred years before
the invasion of the Saracens: they wear “black sayas,” says the Greek
geographer. But the people of Mauritania were not called black, because
of their complexion,--they were a fair people: Scylax applies to them
the epithet of ξάνθοι.[94] They were μανζοφόζοι, or clad in black, and
hence, no doubt, their name. The two Mauritanias equally wore black,
and no doubt the adoption of white by the Mussulmans of the West was
the result of the establishment there of the dynasty of the Ommiades.
But beyond the zone of white, there is another zone of black, or of
mixed black and white. A portion of the Tuarisks, who occupy the vast
tract of Africa between the equator and the habitable portions upon the
coast, wear the black sulam with black cowl,[95] a black turban rolled
round, not the head only, but the face, the neck, and body, so as to
leave exposed alone their black, small, sparkling eyes.
The mantilla is generally considered a relic of Mussulman usages, but
the women in Morocco do not now wear the veil. There, men and women
have one and the same dress: they wear it in the same manner over the
head, the only difference being, that the women keep it closer drawn.
The first clothing must have been the single garment, such as we see it
in Africa still. Noble as it is simple, it conforms itself to every use
in the adaptation, and displays every grace in the adjustment of its
folds. It was subsequently divided and cut up into distinct parts or
coverings; and dress became a set of integuments for casing the limbs,
rather than for clothing the body. The veil cannot, therefore, be known
where the original vesture remains in use.
The haïk, as worn by the Jewesses, is the saya manta. It is of enormous
dimensions; from one and a half to two yards wide, and from six to
eight long.[96] It comes four times round the body, one of the turns
being measured by the outstretched arms to form the hood. The Jewesses
double two yards and a half, one part longer than the other, so as to
serve, when wrapped round the waist, for a petticoat; folds to give
play to the limbs are added at one side, and secured by a large pin;
a turn is then taken with the whole haïk round the waist, and the
remainder is brought from behind over the head and shoulders. They of
course wore it so in Spain.[97]
For the source of peculiarities in Spain it is natural that we should
look to Morocco; not so for the origin of a costume apparently as
different in form as remote in situation--the Highland garb; yet
that it does come from the same stock is indubitable. It is no
accidental coincidence here and there: the whole build and purpose are
identical--every variation can be traced and accounted for. There is
nothing that militates against this conclusion, which there is so much
directly and collaterally to establish.
If the costume were an original one in its present form, we should
have primitive names for kilt and plaid, its distinguishing features.
_Kilt_ is not a Gaelic word: there is _no word in Gaelic_ for kilt.
It is called “The short plaits” (fillibeg), as distinguished from the
“long plaits” (fillimore),[98] now fallen into disuse. _Plaid_ is not
a Gaelic word, and for plaid there is in Gaelic no other name than
brechan, or “colours.” Plaid and kilt are equally of the brechan, and
it is admitted by the best authorities that formerly they were one: the
belted plaid still shows it. With “long plaits” the plaid would reach
to the dimensions of the present Moorish haïk. In putting on the plaid
you bring the corner over the breast, take one turn round the body, and
throw the end over the left shoulder: it is precisely the way a Moor
accustomed to the haïk would put it on. The kilt and plaid alone are in
tartan, being alike composed of the “flag mantle:”[99] the jacket, like
the tunic of the Moor, or the body and sleeves of the Spanish lady,
was of any colour. To the saya manta and the haïk the peculiarity of
colour is in like manner reserved: _brechan feil_ is the name of the
Highland garb, and identical with saya manta. Thus, in the haïk still
lives the common parent of the costume of the Highland clansmen and the
Spanish lady: in the one case the name has descended on the covering
of the shoulders (_brechan_,[100] Gaelic), in the other (saya) in that
of the legs. It is curious that the old name is given in Spain to the
petticoat of the women; in England to the breeches of the men.
In the mountains between Baeza and Guadix, which were the last refuge
of the Moors, I have seen the manta worn by the men, corresponding in
texture exactly with the haïk worn by the Arab women in the tents,
which are sometimes striped in colours: the colours in like manner
being pure, and of course rich and brilliant, are dyed at home.
Sometimes the stripes are crossed, which is not the practice in
Barbary. The first I saw was so like a Scotch plaid, that, until I
examined it, I took it for a piece of English manufacture.
The manta or plaid of the shepherd is doubled, and stitched at one end
to serve as a hood, just as our Highlanders do, to put the feet in at
night, or to use as a hood or as a bag. In this part of Spain the men
wear large white drawers, which leave the knee bare, and appear like
a white kilt. The _medias_, like the Scotch hose, are bound below the
knee, and are sometimes of leather like those the Moors use for riding.
To the plaid and tartan, to the _fac-simile_ of the kilt and hose, they
add the strathspey tune, and the reel step, and “set,” to each other.
Seeing them footing it toe and heel, smacking fingers, clapping hands,
shouting and wheeling, I was carried at once to the glens and straths
of the North. While this merriment was in progress, several carts
stopped. These carts had two wheels and two horses, the pole resting on
their necks. It was the ancient chariot. In the dialect of the country
they are called _Elheudi_, pure Arabic for _the Jewish_.
Festivals or solemnities, meetings beyond the commonplaces of ordinary
intercourse, are required from time to time to quicken the spirit
of a people, and to refresh and preserve its costume. When, in the
Highlands, you inquire the date of the disuse of tartan kilt and
arms, they will reckon back to the time when they were last worn, “at
church.” Yet our clergy have never cultured the Celtic spirit, and have
held the trappings of our race but as pagan emblems, disloyal badges,
or mundane toys.
Amongst European countries, Spain is distinguished for the splendour
of her church, and alone retains the Roman festivities of the
bull-fight; and, no doubt, she is partly indebted to these for what
she has retained of her ancient character. The men, when they enter
the circus, the women when they pass the porch, drop the millinery and
tailoring of Paris. What the bull-ring is for the one, the church is
for the other; from the one, is inseparable the majo dress, from the
other, the saya manta.
The wearing the mantilla at church, I have heard attributed to the
despotic power of the priests over the women:--the chulos of the
bull-ring, there exercise equal despotism over the men. Blanco White
narrates that during the plague at Seville, and when religious fervour
was, in consequence, at its height, a priest at Alcala “claimed and
exercised a right to exclude from church such females as by a showy
dress were apt to disturb the abstracted yet susceptible minds of the
clergy. It should be observed, by the way, that as the walking dress of
the Spanish females absolutely precludes immodesty, the conduct of this
religious madman admits of no excuse or palliation. Yet this is so far
from being a singular instance, that what sumptuary laws would never
be able to accomplish, the rude and insolent zeal of a few priests has
fully obtained in every part of Spain. Our females, especially those of
the better classes, never venture to church in any dress but such as
habit has made familiar to the eyes of the zealots.”
I was present at the festival of the patron saints of the place, and,
throughout the whole population, saw not one coloured dress or one
bonnet. The mantilla was worn in deference to the priests, who are
to-day as powerful as they ever have been, and as despotic as they
could ever wish to be.
A more perfect contrast there cannot be than between the cathedral
and a fashionable tertulia. In the former nothing is to be seen but
the black and glittering silk and the rich blonde: at the other no
trace of Spain--not even in the music or the dances--no mantilla, no
bolero, no fandango, no guitar, no castanet--nothing but the unmeaning
quadrille, the shuffling heedless step, the Paris millinery, the false
tints and kaleidoscope patterns:--everything commonplace and vulgar, or
rather the bad imitation of vulgarity and commonplace. The conversation
wanted even the compensation you meet with in Europe--stored memories,
clever flippancy, and gladiatorial faculties. Thus a people who,
had they remained themselves,[101] would have been, in their forms
as in their character, an object of study and of admiration, are
converted (the higher orders, I mean) into something which must inflict
disappointment, if not inspire contempt.
What would a nation be without a flag? What is a nation without
a costume? A flag is an emblem, a costume is a property. A flag
designates and defies, a costume ennobles and preserves. A flag has
come by accident, costume is the produce of a people’s taste. The Medes
had a dress; the Persians, the Romans, the Egyptians had each a dress.
To say, then, a dress, is to say a people. A costume is to a people
like its mountains, its floods, and its lakes. The costume of its land
and its fathers has been to every noble people like their tongue, their
fame, their precepts, and their laws; in independence, giving dignity;
in chains, none. The tyrant and the patriot alike know its worth. The
wandering Israelite for two thousand years, has worn, concealed on his
person, the proscribed garb of Judæa--a mystic shred, the emblem and
promise of restoration. So late as the middle of the last century, the
Parliament of England did not conceive its dominion secure until it had
put down the Highland dress.
The last in Europe to retain one, the Spaniard has yet a costume. He
is in the act of surrendering it, yet no foreign hordes cover the
Peninsula and hunt down its inhabitants. Itself, with unnatural hands,
tears it off and casts it away, and adopts in lieu of it a foreign
garb--which, indeed, is no garb--for it belongs to no people, furnished
forth not by a combination of the tastes of all the people of Europe,
but by a concentration of their vulgarism. Have they changed with a
purpose Ask them: they can give you no reason for what it means. “_It
is the fashion._”
I have a curious illustration before me, where I am correcting these
pages. On the side of Benledi there is a vale, now, with the exception
of a few fields, uncultivated below, and bare of trees above. In the
wilderness, a burial-ground may be traced, the record of an _extinct
clan_, the last having left the country forty years ago. Immediately
above, a hollow in the rock is called, “The Deer’s Repose.” The
antlered tribe has also disappeared--forests, deer, culture, and men
are all gone. There are six families: the patriarch (still living) in
his youthful days remembered twelve. None of the younger generation are
married--at least, in their native valley.
While seeking into the causes of this decay, I found that they were
_changing their diet_[102]--the last thing a nation changes. They had
loaf-bread from Callender. I asked, “Do you like it better?” “No.” “Is
it cheaper?” “No.” “Is it more healthy? Have you no time to knead your
cakes? Do you not know how to spend your money?” “No! no!” At last out
came--“_It is the fashion._”
If the Stuarts of Glenfinlass had said, “It is the custom,” instead of
“It is the fashion,” the families would not have fallen from twelve to
six within one generation; the sheep would not have eaten up the deer
and the forest.
A people with a phrase, “It is the custom,” can never be destroyed. A
people with the phrase, “It is the fashion,” cannot be said to exist,
for it has nothing of all it possesses that it can call its own. A
people that can articulate such a phrase on the lips, has encouraged a
power which, tyrannizing over heart and brain, rots the one and steals
away the other.
But has a people with the antiquity and the history of the Celts, and
amongst the Celts of the Highlanders, no equivalent for Adet-dur? Yes,
they have or had. “It was nature,” or “It was natural,” or “It was
family,” the word signifying all these. With that word they would have
kept their numbers, their customs, their kilts, and their swords. They
would have still their songs and songsters. There was in that sentence
a knot of life--a knot that no hands but their own could untie.
The Spaniards, too, have a sentence of their own, _Cosas de España_.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] A lady, writing from the north of Scotland, thus speaks of the
double invasion there of bonnets and poor:--“Bonnets have been the
destruction of the Caithness servants: what they spend on these, and
flowers and ribands (instead of the linsey-wolsey petticoat, cotton
jacket, and snood), would keep their parents in meal for months; but,
of course, now that there is a ‘legal assessment,’ what need they
care or “scrimp” themselves, only to spare the parish.”--“She (an old
woman of ninety-two) told me, that formerly there was more love among
neighbours than now among brothers.”
[80] The name of the cloak worn by the gentlemen, and of the plaid used
by the peasants.
[81] I have heard of another mantilla--de _Cacherula_--longer than the
others, and like a scarf.
[82] The word _Sarra_ is given in Aldevete: he renders it _princess_;
also _Sarria_, Valencian for _net_. He derives both from the Hebrew.
[83] “Quod nunc Tyrus dicitur olim Sarra vocabatur.”--_Scholiast on
Virgil_.
“Pœnos Sarra oriundos.”--ENNIUS.
[84] “Mantilla de _Tiro_” may be from the same word.
[85] The dance _Sarrabanda_, the saraband of our old writers, is, of
course, nothing else but “Tyrian bounding.”
[86] “In doors they wear _mules_, or shoes very low, the rest of the
leg being naked; out of doors, and particularly in Andalusia, they wear
drawers, long and very neatly folded, to exhibit a fine leg, for their
garments only come down to half the leg. They are very particular about
their feet, and they have shoes of thin Morocco, very soft, embroidered
in silk of different colours. They have for bracelets large manacles
of gold and silver, so weighty that those of gold are worth a hundred
ducats. They have similar ones above the ankle, which are round, and
thicker than the wrist.”--MARMOL’S _Africa_, vol. ii. p. 192.
[87] The _alpargata_ is not strictly the sandal, for the sole is of
untanned leather, or a thick texture of hemp. The sandal proper has
been seen on Jews from the Atlas: it is still in use in Arabia and
Ethiopia.
[88] An _artiste_ thus advertises in the _Times_:--“THE FAN.--The most
graceful mode of using this elegant companion, so indispensable to the
distinguished, will be imparted by a lady who is well skilled in an
exercise so charming and fascinating in the brilliant society of the
continent, particularly of the Court of Spain. A fortnight’s practice
would remove that impression of inaptitude and want of grace, hitherto
so apparent in its use in the most fashionable circles in this country.
The lady will be at home from 12 to 4 on Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday of each week, commencing the 10th of January. _The lessons are
for the select few_, at five guineas the course. For cards of address
apply to Mde. Ramazzoti, French Room, Soho Bazaar.”
[89] “Furthermore, I ordain and command that no Jewesses of our
kingdoms shall wear mantillas with lace or trimmings.”--_Ord. John
II._, Cifuentes, July, 1412.
[90] The _Magasin des Demoiselles_, (October, 1847,) which ought on
such a subject to be a good authority, says that coarse lace was first
used by the priests and women in the time of Francis I., soon after
two varieties appeared called _Visette_, and _Gueuse_: next appeared,
from the manufacturers of Brussels, &c., _Mignonette_, _La Compour_,
and lastly _La Guypure_, sometimes embellished with silk and gold and
silver thread. The original patterns of the guypure resemble those
of the lace which at present is known by that name. These, strongly
meshed, run and entwine, capriciously imitating the forms of the
architecture of the “_rénaissance_,” which evidently suggested it. The
guypures in narrow strips are called “_tête de more_.”
[91] At Jerusalem the fringes _Tzetzes_ were sometimes so long that
carpets were carried about to bear them on.
[92] Nicod, Monnet, Henri, Etienne, dictionaries of the eighteenth
century, do not contain the word Dentelle. In the Encyclopedie
Méthodique is mentioned a work published in 1587, being a translation
and a third edition of Frederick de Vinciolo Venilæri, of which the
title is “Le Réseau premier et la point coupé et locis de plusieurs
beaux et dìfferens pour traicts de reseaux de point de côté avec le
nombre de mailles, chose non encore vue ni inventée.” The engravings
seem to represent two kinds of lace, figures forming a _toilé_ without
field, _i. e._ guypure; the other figures on a square thick-set ground
or net work as in Valenciennes appliquées.
Of the same period, a set of engravings representing the avocations of
men (by Dubruyn and A. V. Londerseel) shows a girl at work on lace with
the cushion now in common use on her knee. Colbert protected it in 1629.
[93] “They (the Moors) have Festival days instituted of old by the
Christians, whereupon they use certain ceremonies which themselves
understand not.... When their children’s teeth begin to grow, they
make another feast called, according to the Latins, _Dentilia_.”--LEO
AFRICANUS, Book iii. _Description of Fez._
[94] “The Tuaregs are divided into two bodies, the black and the white.
These denominations do not correspond, as might be supposed, with a
difference of colour, but only of costume. The white are clothed like
the Arabs, the black have a costume of their own. A large blouse falls
to the feet: the sleeves are not less than two _metres_ in width.
It is called _Tob_ or _Sayi_, and is in cotton from the country of
the blacks. When they travel, a piece of cloth, deep blue, fifteen
centimetres wide, called _tynala_, is wrapped round the whole body,
from the middle upwards, enveloping the neck, mouth, and nose, and
covering the head; and through the small interval that is left between
the folds of this mask, they can see by throwing back their head.”
_Exploration de l’Algerie_, vol. ii. p. 164.
[95] May not this be the mantle introduced by Caracalla into Rome, and
from which he derived the soubriquet by which posterity has known him,
Cara Cowl, or black hood?
[96] As known to the Greeks, it was of the same dimensions. The
exquisite beauty of that of Alcisthenis the Sybarite has preserved its
description. It was fifteen cubits long, and was sold for one hundred
and twenty talents, or nearly £30,000. The dye is Tyrian, the border of
animals; the gods are in the centre, and Alcisthenis himself is at each
end, and all this wrought in the loom.--_Arist. de Mirab._ xvi. 199;
_Athen._ xii. 58.
[97] “That all Jewesses and Moriscos of our kingdoms and dominions,
shall, within ten days of this date, wear long mantles reaching
to their feet, and cover their heads with the same. Those who act
contrary, for so doing are to forfeit all the clothes they have on, to
their under-garment.”--Don John II. Valladolid, January, 1412.
[98] One of the oldest Celtic figures in stone, is at Carn _Serai_ in
Argyleshire; it exhibits the fillimore, as the Jewish women wear the
haïk; one selvage is a few inches lower than the other, as the haïk is
not folded exactly in the middle. The name of the place is curious.
[99] This monstrous solecism of the jacket, in tartan, may be observed
in Wilkie’s picture of George IV., at Holyrood House.
[100] Tartan is the English for Brechan. It is generally supposed to be
Gaelic, but it is not so: it seems originally to have signified _shot
colours_, which always appear in the tartan from the crossings of the
colours. It has by some been derived from _Tyre tint_. The Brechan or
Tartan is the set of each clan. The English confound Tartan and plaid,
and speak barbarously of a “plaid waistcoat,” when they mean a tartan
waistcoat. The plaid is in Gaelic a shepherd’s mantle, but is never
used for the Brechan mantle, or “battle colours.” It may be derived
from διπλοιδιον (Pollux vii. 49), a name given by the Greeks to a
mantle which was supposed to be worn double.
[101] Addison, commenting in his time on the vulgarising influence of
the capital, says, “If you want to know a man who has seen the world,
you will know him by his deficiency in those characters which seem to
belong to good society.”
[102] They were resigning their diet of milk and honey, and taking to
sloe-leaves and toast. The reason brought back on me Spain, Greece,
and all the changelings. Ask a Turk why he does anything? he answers
_Adet-dur_--“It is the custom.”