CHAPTER X.

MADRID TO GRANADA.

Procession of the Corpus Christi at Madrid--Aranjuez--A

Patio--Ocaña and its Environs--Tembleque and its Garters--A

Night at Manzanares--Santa Cruz Knives--The Puerto de los

Perros--Colony of Carolina--Baylen--Jaen, its Cathedral and its

Majos--Granada--The Alameda--The Alhambra--The Generalife--The

Albaycin--Life at Granada--The Gitanos--The Carthusian

Convent--Santo Domingo--Ascent of the Mulhacen.

We were obliged to pass through Madrid again, in order to take the

diligence to Granada: we could, it is true, have gone and waited

for it at Aranjuez, but we should have then run the risk of finding

it full; we therefore determined to return to Madrid.

Our guide had taken care, the evening before, to send forward a

mule, which was to wait for us halfway along the road, in order

to take the place of the one we set out with; for it is doubtful

whether, without this precaution, we should have been able to

perform the journey from Toledo to Madrid in a single day, owing to

the excessive heat we were exposed to along the dusty road, which

affords you nowhere the slightest shade, but runs through tracts of

open and interminable corn-fields.

We reached Illescas at about one o'clock, with no other incident

to talk of than that of being half-baked, if not quite so. We were

impatient to get away from a region which possessed nothing new for

us, unless passing through it in a contrary direction can be said

to add any novelty to the scene.

When we had alighted, my companion preferred to go to sleep; while

I, who was already pretty well accustomed to Spanish cookery, began

contesting the possession of my dinner with innumerable swarms of

flies. The landlady's daughter--a pretty little girl of twelve

or thirteen, with Arabian eyes--stood beside me, with a fan in

one hand and a little broom in the other, trying to keep off the

importunate insects, which returned to the charge more furiously

and more noisily than ever as soon as she flagged in the use of

either fan or broom. With this assistance I succeeded, however,

in getting into my mouth a few pieces somewhat free from flies;

and when my hunger was a little appeased I opened a conversation

with my pretty fly-flapper, which conversation was, however, kept

within very limited bounds by my ignorance of the Spanish language.

Yet, with the aid of my diamond dictionary, I succeeded in keeping

up the conversation tolerably well for a foreigner. She told me

that she could write and read all sorts of print, including even

Latin; and that, moreover, she played the _pandero_ pretty well:

I immediately requested her to give me a sample of her last-named

talent, which she did with a very good grace, though much to the

discomfort of my friend, whom the rattling of the brass rings and

the hollow sound produced by the little musician's thumb on the

ass's skin at length awoke.

The fresh mule was now harnessed, as it was necessary to continue

our journey. In a heat of thirty degrees, it requires great moral

courage to leave a _posada_ where we see before us several rows of

jars, pots, and _alcarrazas_, covered with beads of moisture. Spain

is the only place where a draught of water ever appeared to me real

voluptuousness: it is true that the water there is pure, limpid,

and of an exquisite taste. The interdiction of wine to Mahometans

is a law more easily obeyed than any other in such climates.

Thanks to the eloquent appeals our _calesero_ never ceased making

to his mule, and to the pebbles which he continually threw with

great dexterity at her ears, we got on pretty well. Under trying

circumstances, he called her _vieja_, _revieja_ (old, twice old),

to which injurious terms all mules appear, in general, particularly

sensitive, either because the said terms are always accompanied

by a blow on the back with the handle of the whip, or because

they really are in themselves very offensive. By the aid of these

epithets, aptly applied several times, we arrived at the gates of

Madrid at about five in the evening.

We were already acquainted with Madrid, and saw nothing new in it,

with the exception of the procession of the Corpus Christi: this

ceremony has, however, lost much of its former splendour, by the

suppression of the convents and religious fraternities; though

it still retains an appearance of great solemnity. The streets

through which the procession passes are strewed with fine sand,

while canvass _tendidos_, which reach from house to house, afford

protection from the sun and keep the air cool: the balconies are

decorated with flags and crowded with pretty women in full dress;

so that, altogether, the sight is one of the most charming that

can well be imagined. The perpetual motion of the fans, which

open and shut, tremble and flutter, like the wings of a butterfly

about to settle down somewhere; the movements of the elbows of

the women, wrapping themselves in their mantles and smoothing

an ungraceful wrinkle in their dress; the glances sent from one

window to acquaintances at another; the pretty inclination of

the head, and the graceful gesture that accompany the _agur_ by

which the _señoras_ reply to the salutations of the cavaliers;

the picturesque crowd, interspersed with _Gallegos_, _Pasiegas_,

Valencians, _Manolas_, and water-sellers, form a spectacle of the

greatest animation and the most charming gaiety. The _Niños de la

Cuna_ (foundlings), dressed in their blue uniform, walk at the head

of the procession. There were but very few out of this long file

of children who were endowed with pretty faces; and Hymen himself,

with all his conjugal carelessness, would have been troubled to

produce offspring uglier than were these children of Love. Then

follow the parochial banners, the clergy, silver shrines, and,

under a canopy of gold cloth, the Corpus Dei, in a sun of diamonds

of the most dazzling brilliancy.

The proverbial devoutness of the Spaniards appeared to me greatly

abated; for, with respect to it, one might well have fancied

himself in Paris at the time when it was considered fashionable

opposition not to kneel to the Host. The men hardly touched the

brim of their hats at the approach of the canopy. Catholic Spain

no longer exists. The Peninsula is now under the influence of

Voltairean and liberal ideas with respect to _feudalism_, the

_Inquisition_, and _fanaticism_. To demolish convents appears to

her, at present, the height of civilization.

One evening, as I was passing near the post-office at the corner

of the Calle de Carretas, I saw the crowd separate precipitately;

and then I perceived a brilliant galaxy of light coming up the

_Calle-Mayor_. It was the Host hastening in its carriage to the

bedside of some dying person; for the representatives of religion

do not yet go about on foot at Madrid. The people had fled, in

order to avoid the necessity of kneeling to the host as it passed.

As we are speaking of religious ceremonies, we must not forget

to mention that in Spain the cross on palls is not white, as in

France, but of the colour of brimstone. The Spaniards do not use

hearses, but carry their dead to the grave on biers.

Madrid was insupportable to us, and the two days that we were

obliged to stay there appeared, at least, two centuries. We

could think of nothing but orange-trees, lemon-trees, cachuchas,

castanets, and picturesque costumes, for every one related wonders

to us about Andalusia with that boastful magniloquence which the

Spaniards will never lose any more than the Gascons of France. At

length the long desired day arrived, for everything arrives at

last, even the day we are waiting for; and we left Madrid in a very

comfortable diligence, drawn by a troop of sturdy, close-cropped

mules, with shiny coats, and which trotted along at a dashing

pace. The diligence was lined with nankeen, and furnished with

both roller and green wooden blinds. It appeared to us the _ne

plus ultra_ of elegance, after the abominable galleys, _sillas

volantes_, and coaches, in which we had been jolted up to that

time; and it would have really proved a very agreeable conveyance,

had it not been for the furnace-like heat which calcined us, in

spite of the lightness of our dress and the continual movement of

our fans. The consequence was, that our rolling stove resounded

with a perpetual litany of "Oh, dear! _que calor!_ I am stifled!

I am melting!" with numerous other well-assorted exclamations.

We bore our sufferings patiently, however, and, with a little

grumbling, tranquilly allowed the perspiration to run, like a

cascade, down our noses and temples; for, at the end of our

fatigues, we had in perspective Granada and the Alhambra, the

dream of every poet--Granada, whose name alone makes the heaviest

and dullest man in all the world break out into exclamations of

admiration, and dance on one leg for delight.

The environs of Madrid are dull, bare, and scorched up, though less

stony on this side than on the side leading to Guadarrama. The

country, which is rather uneven than hilly, presents, everywhere,

the same uniform appearance, only broken by a few villages, all

dust and chalk, scattered here and there throughout the general

aridity, and which would not be remarked, were it not for the

square tower of their churches. Spires are rarely met with in

Spain, the square tower being the usual form of steeple. Where

two roads meet, suspicious-looking crosses stretch forth their

sinister arms; from time to time, carts drawn by oxen pass by,

with the carter asleep under his cloak; and peasants on horseback,

with a fierce expression of countenance, and their carbines at the

saddle-bows. In the middle of the day the sky is of the colour of

melting lead, and the ground of a dusty grey, interspersed with

mica, to which the greatest distance hardly imparts a bluish tint.

Not a single cluster of trees, not a shrub, not a drop of water

in the bed of dried-up torrents is to be seen; nothing, in fact,

is there to relieve the eye, or to gratify the imagination. In

order to find a little shelter from the burning rays of the sun,

you must follow the narrow line of scanty blue shade afforded by

the walls. We were, it is true, in the middle of July, which is

not exactly the time of year for cool travelling in Spain; but it

is our opinion that countries ought to be visited in their most

characteristic seasons. Spain in summer, and Russia in winter.

We met with nothing worthy of any particular notice, until we

came to the royal residence (_sitio real_) of Aranjuez. Aranjuez

is a brick mansion with stone facings, presenting a white and red

appearance, and has high slate roofs, pavilions, and weathercocks,

which call to mind the style of architecture employed under Henri

IV. and Louis XIII.; the palace of Fontainebleau, or the houses

in the Place Royale at Paris. The Tagus, which is crossed by a

suspension-bridge, keeps vegetation fresh there, much to the

admiration of the Spaniards, and allows the trees of the north

to grow to full maturity. At Aranjuez are seen elms, ash-trees,

birch-trees, and aspens, which are as great curiosities there as

Indian fig-trees, aloes, and palms would appear in France. They

pointed out to us a gallery built on purpose to enable Godoy, the

famous Prince of Peace, to pass from his house to the castle. On

leaving the village, we observed to our left the Plaza de Toros,

which is of a decided monumental appearance.

While the mules were being changed, we ran to the market to lay in

a stock of oranges and to take ices, or rather lemon snow batter,

at one of those refreshment shops which are met with in the open

air, and which are as common in Spain as wine-shops are in France.

Instead of drinking pots of bad wine and _goes_ of brandy, the

peasants and market-women take a _bebida helada_, which does not

cost more, and which does not, at all events, get into their heads

to besot their intellects. The absence of drunkenness renders the

people of the lower class much superior to the corresponding class

in those countries of ours, which we fancy to be civilized.

The name of Aranjuez, which is composed of two words, _ara_ and

_Jovis_, tells us pretty plainly that this edifice is built on the

site of an ancient temple of Jupiter. We had not time to visit the

interior of it, but this we do not regret, for all palaces are

alike. Such, too, is the case with courtiers; originality is to be

met with but among the people, and the rabble only appear to have

preserved the privilege of being poetical.

The scenery from Aranjuez to Ocaña is picturesque, without,

however, being very remarkable. Hills of graceful form, well

developed by the light, rise on each side of the route, and when

the eddies of dust in which the diligence is running, like a god

wrapped up in his cloud, are cleared away by a favourable breath

of air, they present you with a very pleasant sight. The roads,

though badly kept, are in pretty good order, thanks to this

wonderful climate, where it hardly ever rains, and to the scarcity

of vehicles, nearly all the carrying being done by beasts of burden

only.

We were to sup and sleep at Ocaña, in order to wait for the _correo

real_, so that by joining ourselves to it we might profit by its

escort, for we were about to enter La Mancha, infested at that time

by the bands of Palillos, Polichinelle, and other honest people

with whom a meeting would prove far from agreeable. We stopped at

an hotel of decent appearance, before which was a _patio_ with

columns, and, over this _patio_, a superb _tendido_, of which the

cloth, now double, now single, formed designs and symmetrical

figures by its different shades of transparency. The name of the

maker, with his address at Barcelona, was written on it by this

means very legibly. Myrtles, pomegranates, and jasmines, planted in

red clay pots, enlivened and perfumed this sort of inner court, in

which reigned a clear, subdued kind of twilight full of mystery.

The _patio_ is a delightful invention; it affords greater coolness

and more space than a room; you can walk about there, read, be

alone or mix with others. It is a neuter ground where people meet,

and where, without undergoing the tediousness of formal visits and

introductions, they end by becoming known to one another and by

forming acquaintance; and when, as at Granada or at Seville, the

_patio_ possesses a jet of water or a fountain, nothing can be more

delightful, especially in a country where the thermometer always

indicates a Senegambian heat.

While waiting for our repast, we went to take a siesta: this is a

habit which you are compelled to follow in Spain, for the heat from

two to five o'clock is such as no Parisian can form an idea of.

The pavement burns, the iron knockers on the doors grow red-hot, a

shower of fire seems to be falling from the sky; the corn bursts

from its spikes, the ground cracks like over-heated porcelain, the

grass-hoppers make their corselets grate with more vivacity than

ever, and the little air which fans your face seems to be blown

forth by the brazen mouth of a large furnace; the shops are closed,

and all the gold in the world would not induce a tradesman to sell

you the slightest article. In the streets are to be seen dogs and

Frenchmen only, according to the popular saying, which is far

from flattering for us. The guides refuse to take you to the most

insignificant monument, even though you offer them Havannah cigars

or a ticket for a bull-fight, two most seductive things for a

Spanish _cicerone_. The only thing you can do is to sleep like the

rest, and you very soon make up your mind to do so; for what else

can you do in the midst of a nation fast asleep!

Our rooms, which were whitewashed, were scrupulously clean. The

insects of which we had heard such awful descriptions did not

yet make their appearance, and our sleep was troubled by no

thousand-footed nightmare.

At five o'clock, we rose to go and take a turn while waiting for

supper. Ocaña is not rich in monumental buildings, and its best

title to celebrity is the desperate attack made by Spanish troops

on a French redout during the war of invasion. The redout was

taken, but nearly the whole of the Spanish battalion was killed.

Each hero was interred on the spot where he fell. The ranks were

so well kept, in spite of a deluge of grape, that they can still

be traced by the regularity of the graves. Diamante has written a

piece called "The Hercules of Ocaña," produced, no doubt, for some

athletic champion of prodigious strength, like the Goliath of the

Olympic Circus. Our presence at Ocaña called this circumstance to

our memory.

The last of the harvest was being got in at an epoch when the

corn scarcely begins to assume its yellow tint in France, and the

sheaves were carried to large areas of beaten earth, where horses

and mules tread out the grain beneath their unshod hoofs. Both

mules and horses are harnessed to a sort of sledge, on which the

man superintending the operations stands upright in a posture of

proud and graceful ease. Much self-command and skill are required

to keep on this frail machine, as it is whisked along by three or

four horses which are ever being lashed most lustily. A painter of

the school of Leopold Robert would not fail to turn these scenes of

Biblical and primitive simplicity to great account. Fine swarthy

faces, sparkling eyes, Madonna-like features, costumes full of

character, brilliant light, azure and sun would not fail him here

any more than in Italy.

That evening the sky was of a milky blue colour, dashed with rose;

the fields appeared, as far as the eye could reach, like an immense

sheet of pale gold, where, here and there, you perceived a cart,

looking like a small island in an ocean of light, and drawn by oxen

which were almost hidden beneath the sheaves with which the cart

was loaded. The wild notion of a picture without shade, which is so

inherent to the Chinese, was realized here. All was sun and light;

and the deepest tint that appeared upon the scene was of pearl grey.

At length we were summoned to a pretty good supper, or which, at

least, our appetites made us think so; it was served in a low room,

decorated with little paintings on glass, of somewhat curious

Venetian taste. After supper, as my companion, Eugène, and myself,

were but mediocre smokers, and as we could take but a very small

part in the conversation, on account of the necessity we were under

of saying everything we had to say in the two or three hundred

words with which we were acquainted, we withdrew to our rooms,

greatly discouraged at the different stories about robbers which

we had heard related at table, and which, as they were only half

understood, appeared all the more terrible to us.

We were forced to wait till two in the afternoon for the arrival

of the _correo real_, for it would not have been prudent to set

out without it. We had besides a special escort of four horsemen,

armed with blunderbusses, pistols, and large sabres. They were men

of commanding stature, with pointed hats, large red sashes, velvet

breeches, leather gaiters and characteristic features, encircled by

enormous black whiskers, all which made them look more like robbers

than guards and whom it was a cunning contrivance to take with you,

in order to avoid meeting them on the road.

Twenty soldiers huddled together in a galley, followed the _correo

real_. A galley is a two or four wheeled cart, without springs,

and having its bottom formed of an esparto network, instead of

boards. This short description will suffice to give an idea of the

position of these poor wretches, who were forced to stand, and

who could only keep themselves from falling by catching hold of

the sides of the cart. Add to this the rapidity at which we were

going--four leagues an hour--a stifling heat, with the sun darting

down his rays perpendicularly, and you will agree with me that it

required a very great stock of heroic goodhumour to think such a

situation funny. And yet these poor soldiers, scarcely covered by

their ragged uniforms, with their stomachs empty, with nothing to

drink but the heated water in their leathern bottles, and tossed

about like mice in a trap, did nothing but laugh and sing all along

the road. The sobriety and patience of the Spaniards in supporting

fatigue are something wonderful. In this respect they have remained

Arabs. It would be impossible to show more disregard for material

life than they do. But these soldiers, who were without bread and

shoes, had a guitar.

All that part of the kingdom of Toledo which we passed through is

frightfully arid, and announces the approach of La Mancha, the

country of Don Quixote, and the most desolate and sterile province

of Spain.

We soon passed La Guardia, a little insignificant market-town, of

the most miserable appearance. At Tembleque we bought a few dozen

garters for the use of some pretty legs at Paris; these garters,

of all colours, cerise, orange, and sky-blue, were ornamented

with gold or silver thread, and marked with various-lettered

devices, that would put to the blush the most gallant ones on the

trumpets bought at the _fête_ of St. Cloud. Tembleque has the same

reputation for its garters as Châtellerault, in France, has for its

pen-knives.

While we were bargaining for our garters, we heard by our side a

hoarse, discordant, menacing growl, like that of a mad dog. We

turned round quickly, but not without a certain amount of fear, for

we did not know how to speak to Spanish dogs, and then we perceived

that this growl came not from an animal, but from a man.

Never did nightmare, placing its knee on the chest of a delirious

patient, produce a more frightful monster. Quasimodo is a very

Phœbus by the side of it. A square forehead, two sunken eyes,

glaring with a savage fire, a nose so flat that its place was

distinguished only by the nostrils, with the lower jaw advancing

full two inches beyond the upper one--such, in a few words, is

the portrait of this scarecrow, the profile of which formed a

concave line, like those crescents on which the face of the moon is

represented in the almanack of Liege. The calling of this wretch

consisted in being without a nose, and in imitating dogs, a calling

which he exercised wonderfully well, for he was more noseless than

death himself, and made alone more uproar than all the inmates put

together of the Barrière du Combat at feeding-time.

Puerto Lapiche consists of a few tumbling-down huts, huddled

together on the declivity of a hill which is itself full of

cracks and chasms, and become so dry and rotten by the heat that

it is continually giving way and being torn asunder by the most

curiously-shaped rents. It represents aridity and desolation

in its highest degree. Everything is of the colour of cork and

pumice-stone. The fire of heaven seems to have passed over it; and

the whole scene is smothered by grey dust, as fine as powdered

sandstone. This wretchedness is so much the more heartrending as

the lustre of an implacable sky makes the whole poverty of the

place most prominently apparent. The cloudy melancholy of the

north is nothing in comparison with the luminous sadness of warm

countries.

On beholding such wretched hovels, you feel yourself full of

pity for the robbers who are obliged to live by marauding in a

country where you might make a round of ten leagues and not find

wherewithal to cook an egg. The resources offered by the diligences

and galleys are really insufficient, and the poor brigands who

vegetate in La Mancha are often obliged to be contented with a

supper composed of a handful of those sweet acorns which were the

delight of Sancho Panza. What is it possible to take from people

who have neither money nor pockets, who live in houses of which

the whole furniture is composed of four bare walls, and whose only

utensils are a saucepan and an earthenware pitcher? To pillage such

villages appears to me one of the most lugubrious fancies which can

well enter the head of a robber out of work.

A little beyond Puerto Lapiche you enter La Mancha, where we

perceived to our right two or three windmills, which lay claim to

having victoriously sustained the shock of Don Quixote's lance,

and which, for the moment, were listlessly turning their fans with

the aid of an asthmatic breeze. The _venta_ at which we stopped

to imbibe two or three jars of fresh water, also boasts of having

entertained the immortal hero of Cervantes.

We will not fatigue our readers with a description of our

monotonous route through a stony, flat, and dusty country, only

enlivened, at long intervals, with a few olive-trees, whose foliage

is diseased and of a bluish green; where nothing is seen but tawny,

haggard, mummified peasants, with scorched, rusty hats, short

breeches, and coarse gaiters of darkish cloth, carrying a tattered

jacket on their shoulders, and driving before them a mangy ass

whose coat is white with age, whose ears are enervated, and whose

back is pitiful to behold; and where you see at the entrance of the

villages nothing but half-naked children, as dark as mulattoes, and

who view you with wild and astonished looks as you pass by.

Dying of hunger, we arrived at Manzanares in the middle of the

night. The courier who preceded us, profiting by his right as

first comer and his acquaintance with the people of the hotel, had

exhausted all the provisions, which consisted, it is true, but of

three or four eggs and a piece of ham. We uttered the most piercing

and heart-rending cries, and declared that we would set fire to the

house and roast the landlady herself, if there were no other dish

forthcoming. This display of energy procured us, at about two in

the morning, some supper, to prepare which they had been obliged

to wake up half the town. We had a quarter of kid, eggs with

tomato-sauce, ham and goat's-milk cheese, with some pretty good

white table-wine. We all supped together in the yard by the light

of three or four brass lamps, very much like the funereal lamps of

antiquity. The flame of each lamp producing, through the caprices

of the wind, fantastic shades and lights, gave us the appearance

of so many lamiæ and ghouls tearing asunder pieces of disinterred

children: and that the repast might have a perfect appearance of

magic, a tall blind girl, guided by the noise, approached the

table, and began singing couplets to a plaintive and monotonous

air, like a vague sibylline incantation. On learning that we were

French, she improvised, in honour of us, some eulogical stanzas,

which we rewarded with a few reals.

Before getting into our conveyance, we went to take a turn in the

village; we were obliged to grope our way, it is true, but that

was better than remaining in the yard of the inn. We reached the

Market-place, not, however, without having stumbled over some one

sleeping in the open air. In the summer, the people generally

sleep in the street, some under their cloaks, and some beneath

mule-cloths, while others have a sack filled with chopped straw

(these are sybarites); and then again there are some who lie on the

bare bosom of their mother Cybele, with a stone for a pillow. The

peasants who had arrived in the night were asleep, pell-mell, in

the midst of curious vegetables and wild productions, or between

the legs of their mules and donkeys, where they were waiting for

daylight, which was soon to appear.

By the moon's faint light, we indistinctly perceived in the

obscurity a sort of embattled antique edifice, where, by the

whiteness of the plaster, we recognised the defences made during

the last civil war, and which time had not yet succeeded in

harmonizing with the main building. As a conscientious traveller,

this is all we can say of Manzanares.

We got into our conveyance again; sleep crept over us, and when we

again opened our eyes we were in the environs of Val-de-Peñas, a

town celebrated for its wine: the ground and hills, studded with

constellated stones, were of a red hue and singularly crude, and we

began to distinguish on the horizon ranges of mountains serrated

like saws, and whose outline was very plainly marked, in spite of

their great distance.

Val-de-Peñas possesses nothing above the common, and owes all its

reputation to its vineyards. Its name--the Valley of Stones--is

perfectly justified. We stopped here to breakfast, and, by an

inspiration from Heaven, I first of all took my own chocolate, and

then that intended for my companion, who had not yet risen; and,

foreseeing future famines, I crammed into my cup as many _bunuelos_

(a kind of small fritter) as it would hold, so as to make a sort

of pretty substantial porridge; for I had not yet learned the

abstemiousness of the camel, which, I did some time afterwards

by dint of practising abstinence worthy of an anchorite of the

primitive times. I was not then used to the climate, and I had

brought from France a most unnatural appetite, which inspired the

natives of the country with respectful astonishment.

In a few minutes we set off all in a hurry, for we were obliged

to keep close to the _correo real_, in order not to lose the

advantage of its protection. On leaning out of the vehicle to take

a last survey of Val-de-Peñas, I let my cap fall into the road: a

_muchacho_ of twelve or fifteen years of age perceived this, and,

in order to get a few _cuartos_, picked it up, and began running

after the diligence, which was now at some distance from him; he

overtook it, however, though he was barefooted and running on a

road paved with sharp-pointed stones. I threw him a handful of

sous, which certainly made him the most opulent urchin in the

whole place. I mention this insignificant circumstance merely

because it is characteristic of the swiftness of the Spaniards,

who are the best walkers in the world, and the most active runners

to be met with. We have already had occasion to speak of those

foot-postilions called _zagales_, who follow carriages, going at

full speed, for leagues together, without appearing to be in the

least fatigued, or without even perspiring.

At Santa Cruz we were offered for sale all sorts of small knives

and _navajas_: Santa Cruz and Albacete are renowned for this fancy

cutlery. These _navajas_, of Arabian and very characteristic

barbarous taste, have brass handles, which are cut through, and in

the perforations of which are seen red, green, and blue spangles.

Coarse enamel work, but cleanly executed, decorates the blades,

which are made in the form of a fish, and are always very sharp;

most of them bear some such motto as the following: _Soy de uno

solo_, "I belong to one only;" or _Cuando esta vivora pica, no

hay remedio en la botica_, "When this serpent stings, there is

no remedy in medicine." Sometimes the blade has three parallel

lines cut down it, the hollows of which are painted red, and then

it presents a truly formidable appearance. The length of these

_navajas_ varies from three inches to three feet; a few _majos_

(smart peasants) have some which, when open, are as long as a

sabre; the blade is kept open in its place by a jointed spring, or

a sliding ring. The _navaja_ is the favourite arm of the Spaniards,

especially of the people of the lower class; they handle it with

wonderful dexterity, and form moreover a shield by rolling their

cape round their left arm. This is an art which, like fencing, has

its laws, and _navaja_-masters are as numerous in Andalusia as

fencing-masters are at Paris. Every one who uses the _navaja_ has

his secret thrusts, and his particular ways of striking: adepts,

they say, can, on viewing a wound, recognise the _artiste_ who has

inflicted it, as we recognise a painter by his touch.

The undulations of the ground now began to be more marked and

more frequent--in fact, we did nothing but ascend and descend. We

were approaching the Sierra Morena, which forms the limits of

Andalusia. Behind that line of violet-coloured mountains lay hidden

the paradise of our dreams. The stones already began to change

into rocks, and the hills into towering mountains: thistles, six

or seven feet high, rose up on the sides of the road, like the

halberds of invisible soldiers. Though I have no pretensions to

being an ass, I am very fond of thistles (a taste which is common

both to myself and butterflies), and those I saw here surprised me.

The thistle is a superb plant, which can be most advantageously

studied for the production of ornamental designs. No piece of

Gothic architecture possesses cleaner or more delicately-cut

arabesques or foliage. From time to time we perceived in the

neighbouring fields large yellow-looking patches, as if sacks of

chopped straw had been emptied there; but this straw rose up in a

cloud when we approached, and noisily flew away. What we mistook

for straw was shoals of locusts, and there must have been millions

of them: this reminded one strongly of Egypt.

It was somewhere near this place that, for the first time in my

life, I really suffered from hunger. Ugolino in his tower could not

have felt more famished than I did, and I had not, like him, four

sons to devour. The reader, who has seen me swallow two cups of

chocolate at Val-de-Peñas, is perhaps astonished at this premature

hunger; but Spanish cups are not larger than a thimble, and do not

hold more than two or three spoonfuls. My melancholy was greatly

augmented at the _venta_, where we left our escort, on seeing a

magnificent omelet, intended for the soldiers' dinner, assume a

golden hue beneath a sunbeam that came down the chimney. I prowled

about it like a ravenous wolf, but it was too well guarded for me

to carry off. Luckily, however, a lady from Granada, who was in the

diligence with us, took pity on my martyrdom, and gave me a slice

of La Mancha ham cured in sugar, with a piece of bread which she

kept in reserve in one of the pockets of the vehicle. May this ham

be returned to her an hundredfold!

Not far from this _venta_, on the right hand side of the road,

stood some pillars, on which were seen three or four malefactors'

heads--a spectacle always adapted to tranquillize your mind, and

which proves that you are in a civilized country. The road kept

rising, and assuming various zigzag forms. We were about to pass

by the _Puerto de los Perros_: this is a narrow defile--a breach,

in fact, made in the mountain by a torrent, which leaves just

room enough for the road by its side. The _Puerto de los Perros_

(passage of dogs) is thus named, because through it the vanquished

Moors went out of Andalusia, taking with them the happiness and

civilization of Spain. Spain, which stands in the same relation to

Africa as Greece did to Asia, is not fitted for European manners.

The genius of the East is apparent there in all its forms, and it

is perhaps to be regretted that Spain is not still Moorish and

Mahometan.

It would be impossible to imagine anything more picturesque or

grand than this entrance to Andalusia. The defile is cut through

immense rocks of red marble, the gigantic layers of which rise one

above the other with a sort of architectural regularity. These

enormous blocks, with their large transversal fissures--those

veins of mountain marble, a sort of terrestrial subject, deprived

of skin, on which to study the anatomy of the globe--are of such

proportions, that they make the largest granite of Egypt appear

microscopical by their side. In the interstices are palm oaks and

enormous cork-trees, which do not appear larger there than do tufts

of herb on an ordinary-sized wall. On reaching the bottom of the

defile, you perceive that the vegetation increases in richness, and

forms an impenetrable thicket, through which you see, sparkling in

different places, the bright water of the torrent. The edge is so

rugged on the side of the road, that it has been judged prudent to

place a parapet along it, without which the diligence, which is

always going very fast, and which it is very difficult to drive, on

account of the frequent bends, might easily turn a somersault of

some five or six hundred feet.

It was in the Sierra Morena that the knight of the rueful

countenance accomplished, in imitation of Amadis on the rock, that

famous act of penance which consisted in tumbling about in his

shirt on the sharpest rocks, and that Sancho Panza, the positive

man, the representative of vulgar reason by the side of noble

madness, found Cardenio's portmanteau so well filled with ducats

and fine shirts. You cannot make a step in Spain without meeting

with something to remind you of Don Quixote; so truly national is

the work of Cervantes, and so true is it that these two personages

sum up in themselves the whole Spanish character--chivalrous

exaltation of mind, and an adventurous spirit joined to great good

practical sense, and a sort of goodnature full of _finesse_ and

causticity.

At Venta de Cardona where we changed mules, I saw a pretty little

child with a complexion of the most dazzling whiteness, lying

in his cradle, and resembling a wax Jesus in his manger. The

Spaniards, when they are not burnt by the sun, are in general

exceedingly fair.

As soon as the Sierra Morena is passed, the aspect of the country

undergoes a total change; it is like going all at once from Europe

to Africa; vipers, crawling to their nests, leave their oblique

marks on the fine gravel of the roads; and the aloe begins to

brandish its large thorny sabres at the sides of the ditches.

These large fans of thick, brawny, bluish-grey leaves immediately

throw a different appearance over the whole landscape. You feel

that you are in a new country; you understand that you have

really quitted Paris; but the difference in the climate, in the

architecture, and in the costumes, does not astonish you so much

as the presence of the large vegetables belonging to the torrid

regions, and which we are only accustomed to behold in hothouses,

in France. The laurels, the holm oaks, the cork, and the fig-trees,

with their varnished and metallic-looking foliage, have about them

something free, robust, and wild, which indicates a climate in

which nature is more powerful than man, and in which she can do

without him.

Before us extended the fine country of Andalusia, unfolding itself

to our view, like an immense panorama. The scene possessed the

grandeur and appearance of the sea: chains of mountains, which

distance confounded with the sky itself, succeeded one another,

with the gentlest undulations, like long rows of billows of azure.

Large clouds of white vapour filled up the intervals; and here and

there the rays of the sun streaked with gold some of the nearer

mountain-tops, and made them sparkle with a thousand colours like

a pigeon's breast. Other ridges, curiously irregular, resembled

those draperies in ancient pictures which were yellow on one side

and blue on the other. The whole was inundated with a most dazzling

and splendid light, similar to that which must have illuminated the

terrestrial paradise. It streamed through this ocean of mountains

like liquid gold and silver, dashing a phosphorescent foam of

spangles on every obstacle it met with. The scene before us was

much more vast than the grandest perspectives of Martin, and

infinitely more beautiful. The infinite in things filled with light

is sublime and stupendous in a far different manner to the infinite

in things smothered in darkness.

While gazing on this wonderful picture, which varied in appearance

and presented us with fresh splendours at each turn of our wheels,

we saw appear on the horizon the pointed roofs of Carolina's

symmetrical pavilions, a sort of model village, or agricultural

phalansterium, formerly founded by the Count of Florida Blanca, and

peopled by him, at a great expense, with Germans and Swiss. This

village, built all of a sudden, and raised at the will of one man,

possesses that tedious regularity which is unknown in places which

rise gradually, and in obedience to the caprice of chance and time.

Everything has been done by line and rule: from the middle of the

place you can see the whole town; here is the market of the Plaza

de Toros; here is the church, and here is the house of the alcade.

All this is certainly very nice, but I prefer the most wretched

village which has taken its form at random. The colony has not,

however, succeeded; the Swiss became affected with nostalgia and

died off like flies, on merely hearing the bells sound; the ringing

of them was therefore obliged to be discontinued. They did not all

die, however, and the population of Carolina still preserves traces

of its German origin. We had a solid dinner at Carolina served up

with some excellent wine, and I was not obliged to take double

portions: we now no longer travelled with the courier, as the roads

are perfectly safe in these parts.

Aloe-trees, more and more African in size and shape, continued

to rise along the sides of the road, and towards the left a long

garland of flowers of the deepest rose-colour, glittering in a

foliage of emeralds, marked out all the sinuosities of the bed of

a dried up rivulet. Profiting by a halt made to change mules, my

companion ran and gathered an enormous bouquet of these flowers;

they were rose-bays of the greatest beauty and freshness. We might

put to this rivulet, with the name of which I am not acquainted,

and which perhaps has none, the same question that Monsieur Casimir

Delavigne puts to the Greek river--

"Eurotas, Eurotas, que font tes lauriers-roses?"

To the rose-bays succeeded, like a melancholy reflection after

a silvery burst of laughter, tall olive-trees whose pale leaves

remind you of the white foliage of the willows of the North, and

which harmonize admirably well with the ashy colour of the ground.

These leaves, which are of a grave, austere, and gentle tint, were

most judiciously chosen by the ancients, those skilful estimators

of natural evidence, as the symbol of peace and wisdom.

It was about four o'clock when we arrived at Baylen, famous for the

disastrous capitulation which is known by this name. We were to

pass the night there, and while waiting for supper we went to take

a stroll through the town and about the environs with the lady from

Granada, and a very pretty young girl who was going with her father

and mother to take sea-baths at Malaga; for the general reserve of

the Spaniards quickly gives way to polite and cordial familiarity,

as soon as they are certain that you are neither a commercial

traveller, nor a tight-rope dancer, nor a hawker of pomatum.

The church of Baylen, the construction of which does not date much

further back than the sixteenth century, astonished me by its

strange colour. Its stone and marble baked by the sun of Spain,

instead of turning black as such things do in our damp climate, had

assumed red hues of the most extraordinary vividness, and which

even inclined to saffron and purple, resembling in their tints

vine-leaves at the end of autumn. At the side of the church, a

palm-tree, the first I had ever seen in the open air, rose above

a little wall gilt by the reflection of the sun's burning rays,

and abruptly spread out its branches in the dark azure of the

heavens. This palm-tree--a sudden revelation from the East--thus

met unexpectedly at the corner of a street, produced a singular

effect on me. I expected, every instant, to see the profile of the

camel's ostrich-like neck appear in the glimmering light thrown out

by the setting sun, and the white bournous of the Arab float along

the ranks of the caravan.

Some rather picturesque ruins of ancient fortifications presented

to our view a tower, in a sufficiently good state of preservation

to allow us to ascend it by the aid of our hands and feet and the

jutting out of the stones. We were rewarded for our trouble by one

of the most magnificent sights it is possible to behold. The city

of Baylen, with its tiled roofs, its red church, and its white

houses huddled round the foot of the tower like a flock of goats,

formed a charming foreground: further on were immense corn-fields,

undulating like waves of gold, and right at the back, above several

ranges of mountains, the ridge of the Sierra Nevada glittered in

the distance like a chain of silver. Veins of snow, played on by

the light, brightly sparkled and sent forth prismatic flashes;

while the sun, similar to a large golden wheel, of which its disc

was the nave, spread out its flaming rays, like spokes, in a sky

tinged with all the hues of the agate and the advanturine.

The inn at which we were to pass the night was a large building

consisting but of one immense room, with a fireplace at each end, a

roof of timberwork, shiny and black with smoke, racks on each side

for horses, mules, and donkeys; and having, for the accommodation

of travellers, a few small lateral chambers, containing each a bed

formed of three planks placed on two trestles, and covered with

those pellicles of canvass, in which floated a few lumps of wool,

and which hotel-keepers, with the usual effrontery and _sang froid_

which characterize them, call mattresses; but this, however, did

not hinder us from snoring like Epimenides and the Seven Sleepers

all together.

We set off very early in the morning to avoid the heat, and we

again saw the beautiful rose-bays, as resplendent as glory and

as blooming as love, which had enchanted us the evening before.

The Guadalquiver, with its troubled and yellowish waters, soon

appeared to bar our passage; we crossed it in a ferry-boat, and

took the road to Jaen. To our left was pointed out to us the tower

of Torrequebradilla, on which a sunbeam was playing, and we soon

perceived the strange outline of the city of Jaen, the capital

of the province of that name. An enormous mountain, of the colour

of ochre, as tawny as a lion's skin, variegated with stripes of

red and brown, and enveloped in clouds of light, rises abruptly in

the middle of the city; massive towers, and long, zigzag lines of

fortification streak its barren sides and give them a fantastic

and picturesque appearance. The Cathedral, an immense mass of

architecture, which seems, from a distance, to be larger than the

town itself, rears its head haughtily, like an artificial mountain

by the side of the natural one. This cathedral, which is of the

Renaissance style of architecture, and which boasts of possessing

the true handkerchief in which Saint Veronica took the impression

of our Saviour's face, was built by the duke of Medina Coeli. It

is certainly a handsome building, but we had imagined it, at a

distance, to be both more antique and more curious.

On our way from the _Parador_ to the cathedral, I took care to

inspect the play-bills, and found that, the evening before,

_Mérope_ had been played, and that that evening would be given

"El Campanero de San Pablo," _por el illustrissimo señor don Jose

Bouchardy_; or, in other words, "Le Sonneur de Saint Paul," by my

friend Bouchardy. To have your pieces played at Jaen, a barbarous

town, where the inhabitants never go out without a poniard

in their belt and a carabine on their shoulder, is certainly

very flattering, and very few of our contemporary geniuses are

able to boast of a like success. If we formerly borrowed a few

_chefs-d'œuvre_ of the Spanish stage, we fully repay, at present,

in vaudevilles and in melodramas, the value of all we have taken.

On leaving the cathedral we returned, with the other travellers,

to the _Parador_, the appearance of which seemed to promise

an excellent repast; a _café_ was attached to it, and it had

quite the look of a European and civilized establishment. Some

one discovered, however, on taking his place, that the bread

was as hard as a mill-stone, and asked for some other. But the

hotel-keeper obstinately refused to change it. During the quarrel,

another person perceived that the dishes had been warmed up, and

must have already appeared on the table some time back. Hereupon,

every person present began to utter the most plaintive cries

and to insist on having a perfectly fresh dinner that had never

appeared before. And now for the secret of this: the diligence

which preceded us had been stopped by the brigands of La Mancha,

and the travellers, whom they had carried off into the mountains,

had not been able to partake of the repast prepared for them by the

hotel-keeper at Jaen. The latter, in order not to be out of pocket,

had kept the dishes, and served them up again for us; but he was

deceived in his expectations, for we all left his house, and went

elsewhere to satisfy our hunger. The unlucky dinner was, no doubt,

presented, for a third time, to the next travellers.

We repaired to an obscure _posada_, where, after waiting a long

while, we obtained some cutlets, some eggs, and a salad, all served

up in chipped plates, accompanied by odd knives and forks, and

glasses, each of which belonged to a different set. The banquet

was very mediocre, but it was seasoned with so much laughter, and

so many jokes about the comic fury of the hotel-keeper when he saw

his company leave in procession, as well as about the fate of the

poor victims to whom he would not fail to re-present his emaciated

chickens, warmed up for the third time, as perfectly fresh, that

we were fully compensated, and even more than compensated, for the

poorness of our fare. As soon as the icy reserve of the Spaniards

once begins to wear away, they immediately indulge in an infantine

and _naïve_ gaiety, full of charming sweetness. The least thing

makes them laugh till the tears run down their faces.

It was at Jaen that I saw more national and picturesque costumes

than anywhere else. The men were attired, for the most part, in

blue velvet breeches, adorned with silver filigrane buttons, and

Ronda gaiters embellished with aiglets and stitching, and worked

with arabesques on leather of a darker colour. It is considered the

height of elegance to button but the first two or three buttons, at

the top and bottom, so as to let the calf be seen. Wide sashes of

red or yellow silk, jackets of brown cloth variously trimmed, blue

or maroon cloaks, pointed hats with slouched brims, ornamented with

bands of velvet and silk tassels, complete the costume, which is

very similar to the ancient dress of Italian brigands: others wore

what is called a _vestido de cazador_ (hunter's dress), which is

made entirely of buckskin of a tawny colour, and of green velvet.

Some women of the lower class had red cloaks and hoods, which

seemed to make the darker part of the crowd sparkle brightly, and

to bespangle it with scarlet. The fantastic style of dress, the

swarthy complexion, the energy depicted in the features, the fiery

eyes, with the calm and impassible attitude of these _majos_, more

numerous here than anywhere else, impart to the population of Jaen

an aspect more African than European: an illusion which is kept

up still more by the intense heat of the climate, the dazzling

whiteness of the houses, which are all whitewashed in the Arabian

fashion, the tawny colour of the ground, and the unchanging azure

of the sky. The following proverb on Jaen is in current use in

Spain: "Ugly town, bad people;" but no painter would ever admit it

to be true. But then, there as here, a handsome town in the eyes

of most people is a town laid out by rule and line, and furnished

with a certain number of lamps and tradesmen.

On leaving Jaen, you enter a valley which stretches as far as the

Vega de Granada. The beginning of it is arid; barren mountains

continually crumbling away through dryness scorch you, like burning

mirrors, with their canescent reverberation; the only sign of

vegetation is to be found in a few sickly-looking tufts of fennel.

But soon the valley becomes narrower and deeper; streams begin

to flow, and vegetation reappears, bringing with it shade and

coolness. The _Rio_ of Jaen occupies the bottom of the valley,

where it rushes rapidly along between the stones and rocks which

torment it and stop its course at every instant. By it runs the

road, which follows it in all its sinuosities; for, in mountainous

countries, the torrents are as yet the most skilful engineers in

tracing out routes, and the wisest thing to do is to follow their

directions.

[Illustration: VEGA DE GRANADA.]

A peasant's cottage at which we stopped to drink was surrounded

by two or three little gutters of running water, which emptied

themselves, at a short distance further on, into a cluster of

pomegranate-trees, myrtles, pistachio-trees, and others of every

kind, in a most extraordinarily flourishing condition. It was so

long since we had seen anything really green, that this wild and

almost entirely uncultivated garden appeared a little terrestrial

paradise to us.

The young girl who brought us our beverage in one of those

delightful porous clay pots which keep the water so cool, was

extremely pretty; her eyes were long, reaching to beneath the

temples, and her mouth, which was as blooming and as red as a

beautiful pink, contrasted admirably with her tawny complexion. She

wore a flannel petticoat and velvet shoes, of which she appeared

very proud and careful. This style of beauty, which is frequently

met with in Granada, is evidently Moorish.

At one point, the valley becomes extremely narrow, and the rocks

project to such an extent, that they but just leave room enough

for the Rio. Formerly, vehicles were obliged to enter and proceed

along the very bed of the torrent, which it was somewhat perilous

for them to do, on account of the holes and stones at the bottom of

the river, and of the rising of the water, which, in winter, must

be considerable. In order to remedy this inconvenience, a viaduct,

similar to a railway tunnel, has been made right through one of the

rocks. This subterraneous passage, which is on a rather extensive

scale, was constructed only a few years back.

The valley soon widens again, however, and the road ceases to be

obstructed. Here my recollection fails me for several leagues.

Overcome by the heat, which the weather, inclining to storm,

rendered suffocating, I fell asleep; and when I awoke, night, which

comes on so suddenly in southern climates, enveloped everything,

and an awful wind was sweeping before it clouds of inflamed dust:

this wind must have been a very near relation of the African

sirocco, and I don't know how we escaped being stifled. The form of

every object disappeared in the fog of dust; and the sky, generally

so splendid during the summer night, resembled the vault of an

oven: it was impossible to see two paces before you. We entered

Granada at about two in the morning, and alighted at the _Fonda del

Comercio_, a _soi-disant_ French hotel, where there were no sheets

on the beds, and where we slept on the tables in our clothes: but

these trifling tribulations produced little effect on us; for we

were at Granada, and, in a few hours, we should see the Alhambra

and the Generalife.

Our first care was to request a cicerone to take us to a _casa de

pupilos_,--that is, a private house in which boarders are received,

for, as it was our intention to remain some time at Granada, the

mediocre hospitality of the _Fonda del Comercio_ was far from

calculated to promote our comfort during a long sojourn. This

_cicerone_, of the name of Louis, was a Frenchman, and came from

Farmoutiers in Brie. He had deserted during the French invasion

under Bonaparte, and had lived at Granada for twenty years. He

was the most comical figure imaginable: his height--he was five

feet eight--contrasted most singularly with his little head, which

was as wrinkled as a shrivelled apple and about as large as your

fist. Being deprived of all communication with France, he had

preserved his Brie jargon in all its native purity, spoke like an

Opéra Comique Jeannot, and seemed to be perpetually reciting the

words of Monsieur Etienne. In spite of so long a sojourn, his thick

head had refused to stock itself with a single new idiom: he was

hardly acquainted with the most indispensable phrases. The only

things Spanish he had about him were the _alpargatas_, and the

little Andalusian hat with its turned-up brim. The fact, however,

of being Spanish even to this extent sorely vexed him, and he

revenged himself by showering on every Spaniard he met all sorts

of injurious epithets--in his Brie jargon, be it understood, for

Master Louis had a particular dread of hard blows, and took as much

care of his skin as if it had been worth something.

He took us to a very respectable house, in the _Calle de Parragas_,

near the _Plazuela de San Antonio_, and at a stone's throw from

the _Carrera del Darro_. The mistress of this boarding-house

had lived for a long time at Marseilles and spoke French, which

circumstance immediately induced us to take up our abode there, as

our vocabulary was still very limited.

They put us into a room on the ground floor: this room was

whitewashed, and its entire furniture consisted of a rose of

different colours in the middle of the ceiling, but then it had

the advantage of opening into a _patio_, surrounded by white

marble columns with Moorish capitals, procured, no doubt, at the

demolition of some ancient Arabian palace. A little basin, with a

jet of water in it, dug in the middle of the court, kept the whole

place cool; an immense piece of esparto matting, which formed the

_tendido_, let in a subdued light, and made the ground, paved and

marked out into compartments with pebbles, glitter here and there,

as if studded with shining stars.

It was in the _patio_ that we took our meals, read, and lived. We

used our room for hardly anything but to dress and sleep in. Were

it not for the _patio_, an architectural arrangement which reminds

you of the ancient Roman _cavædium_, the houses in Andalusia would

not be inhabitable. The sort of hall which precedes it is generally

paved with small pebble-stones of various colours, forming designs

in rough mosaic-work, now representing vases of flowers, now

soldiers and caltrops, or simply stating the time when the _patio_

was constructed.

From the top of our abode, which was surmounted by a kind of

_mirador_, we could perceive, above the summit of a hill standing

out boldly on the blue sky, and through groups of trees, the

massive towers of the Alhambra, clothed by the sun in deep red,

fire-like tints. The view was rendered complete by two large

cypresses placed in juxtaposition, and the dark points of which

rose into the sky above the walls of red. These cypresses are never

lost sight of: whether you are climbing the snow-streaked sides of

the Mulhacen, or wandering about the Vega or the Sierra de Elvira,

they are always to be perceived, dark and motionless in the mist

of the blue or golden vapour with which the roofs of the houses

appear, at a distance, to be enveloped.

Granada is built on three hills, at the end of the plain of the

Vega: the Vermilion Towers--thus named on account of their colour

(_Torres Bermejas_), and which are asserted to be of Roman or even

Phœnician origin--occupy the first and the least elevated of these

eminences; the Alhambra, which is in itself an entire city, covers

the second and highest hill with its square towers, connected

with one another by lofty walls and immense substructures, which

form an enclosure containing gardens, woods, houses, and squares;

the Albaycin is situated on the third hillock, which is separated

from the others by a deep ravine choked with vegetation and full

of cactuses, coloquintidas, pistachio-trees, pomegranate-trees,

rose-bays, and tufts of flowers, and at the bottom of which flows

the Darro, with the rapidity of an Alpine torrent. The Darro, which

has gold in its stream, traverses the city now beneath the open

sky, now under bridges so long that they rather merit the name of

vaults, and joins itself in the Vega, at a little distance from the

parade, to the Xenil which is contented with containing silver.

The course of the torrent through the city is called _Carrera del

Darro_, and a magnificent view is obtained from the balconies of

those houses which border it. The Darro wears away its shores

very much, and causes frequent slips of earth; there exists, in

consequence, an old couplet, sung by children, which alludes to

this mania for carrying everything away, and accounts for it in a

peculiar manner. The following are the lines in question:--

"Darro tiene prometido

El casarse con Xenil

Y le ha de llevar en dote

Plaza Nueva y Zacatin,"

The gardens called _Carmenes del Darro_, and of which such charming

descriptions are to be found in Spanish and Moorish poetry, are

situated on the banks of the _Carrera_, on the same side as the

fountain of _los Avellanos_.

The city is thus divided into four quarters: the Antequerula,

which occupies the brow of the hill, or rather of the mountain,

on which the Alhambra is situated; the Alhambra and its appendix

the Generalife; the Albaycin, formerly a vast fortress, but now

a ruined and depopulated quarter; and Granada proper, which

extends into the plain round the cathedral, and the place of the

_Vivarambla_, which forms a separate quarter.

Such is the topographical aspect of Granada, traversed in its

entire width by the Darro, bordered by the Xenil, which washes the

alameda (parade), and sheltered by the Sierra Neveda, which you

perceive from the corner of every street, and which seems so near,

in consequence of the transparency of the air, that you fancy you

can touch it with your hand from the balcony or the _mirador_ of

your house.

The general aspect of Granada greatly deceives the ideas you

may have formed. In spite of yourself--in spite of the numerous

deceptions you have already experienced--you cannot bring your

mind to believe that three or four hundred years, and streams

of matter-of-fact citizens have passed over the theatre of so

many romantic and chivalrous actions. You picture to yourself a

half-Moorish, half-Gothic city, where open-worked towers are mixed

with minarets, and where gables alternate with terraced roofs;

you expect to see houses sculptured and ornamented with coats of

arms and heroic devices, grotesque buildings, with their stories

overlapping one another, projecting joists, windows adorned with

Persian carpets and blue and white vases--in short, the reality

of an opera scene, representing some wonderful perspective of the

Middle Ages.

The people you meet dressed in modern costumes, wearing

broad-brimmed hats and long frock-coats, involuntarily produce on

you a disagreeable effect, and appear more ridiculous than they

really are; for, after all, they cannot be expected to walk about,

for the sake of the local colouring, in the Moorish _albornoz_ of

the time of Boabdil, or in the iron armour of the time of Ferdinand

and Isabella the Catholic. Like nearly all the citizens of every

town in Spain, they think it necessary for their honour to show

that they are not at all picturesque, and to prove, by the means

of trousers and straps, their progress in civilization. Such is

the prevailing idea which occupies their minds; they are afraid

of appearing barbarous or backward; and when you admire the wild

beauty of their country, they humbly beg you to excuse them for

having no railways yet, and for being without steam-engines in

their manufactories. One of these honest citizens, to whom I was

extolling the charms of Granada, replied, "It is the best lighted

city in Andalusia. Just look at the number of its lamps; but what a

pity it is that they are not gas ones!"

Granada is gay, smiling, animated, although much fallen from its

former splendour. The inhabitants are everywhere, and well merit

the name of a numerous population; the carriages are handsomer and

more plentiful than at Madrid. The sprightliness of the Andalusians

fills the streets with bustle and life--things unknown to the grave

Castilian, who, as he goes along, makes no more noise than his

shadow: this remark particularly applies to the Carrera del Darro,

the Zacatin, the Plaza Nueva, the Calle de los Gomeles, which leads

to the Alhambra, to the square before the theatre, to the entrances

to the parade, and to all the leading thoroughfares. The rest of

the city is intersected in all directions by inextricable lanes of

three or four feet in width, through which no vehicles can pass,

and which remind you of the Moorish streets of Algiers. The only

sound heard there is the noise made by the hoof of a donkey or a

mule, which strikes a light every now and then on the glittering

flints which pave the road, or the monotonous tinkling of a guitar

which some one is playing at the bottom of a yard.

The balconies, furnished with blinds and ornamented with shrubs

and vases of flowers, the vine-runners creeping from one window

to another, the rose-bays raising their blooming flowers above

the garden walls, the curious effect of the sun and shade, whose

fantastic frolics remind you of Decamps's pictures representing

Turkish villages, the women seated before the doors, the half-naked

children playing and rolling about at their sides, the donkeys

going backwards and forwards loaded with feathers and woollen

tufts, give these lanes, which are nearly always up-hill and

sometimes intersected with steps, a peculiar appearance which

has a certain charm about it, and which compensates--nay, more

than compensates for their want of regularity, by the novel and

unlooked-for things you see.

Victor Hugo, in his charming "Orientale," says of Granada,--

"Elle peint ses maisons de plus riches couleurs."

This is perfectly true. The houses of persons at all well off are

painted outside in the most fantastic manner with imitations of

architectural embellishments, sham cameos on grey grounds, and

false bas-reliefs. You have before you a medley of mouldings,

modillions, piers, urn-like vessels, volutes, medallions ornamented

with rose-coloured tufts, ovoloes, bits of embroidery, pot-bellied

cupids supporting all sorts of allegorical figures, on apple-green,

bright flesh-colour, or fawn-tinted backgrounds, all which, high

art tells us, argues bad taste carried to its utmost limits. At

first, you have some difficulty to bring yourself to look upon

these illuminated façades as real dwelling-houses. You fancy you

are walking among the scenery of a theatre. We had already seen

houses illuminated in this manner at Toledo, but they are very much

behind those of Granada in the extravagance of their decorations

and the strangeness of their colours. As for myself, I do not

dislike this fashion, which pleases the sight and forms a happy

contrast with the chalky colour of the whitewashed walls.

We just now mentioned the adoption by the upper classes of the

French style of dress; but the man of the people does not, luckily,

study Parisian fashions. He has still kept the pointed hat with

a velvet brim, adorned with silk tassels, or the one of stunted

form with a wide flap, like a turban, the jacket ornamented at the

elbows, the cuffs, and the collar, with embroidery, and pieces

of cloth of all colours, and which vaguely reminds you of the

Turkish jackets, the red or yellow sash, the breeches furnished

with filigrane buttons, or with small coins soldered to a shank,

with the leather gaiters open up the side to let the leg be seen;

the whole being more striking, more gorgeous, more flowered, more

dazzling, more loaded with tinsel and gewgaws, than the costume

of any other province. You see also many other costumes known by

the name of _vestido de cazador_ (hunter's dress), made of Cordova

leather and blue or green velvet, and ornamented with aiglets. It

is considered highly fashionable to carry a cane (vara) or white

stick, four feet long, slit up at the end, and on which the person

carrying it leans negligently when he stops to speak to any one.

No _majo_ possessing the least respect for himself would ever dare

appear in public without a _vara_. Two handkerchiefs, with their

ends hanging out of the jacket pockets, a long _navaja_ stuck in

the sash, not in front, but in the middle of the back, constitute

the height of elegance for these coxcombs of the people.

This costume so pleased my fancy, that my first care was to order

one. They took me to Don Juan Zafata, a person who had a great

reputation for national costumes, and who had as great a hatred

for black dress-coats and frock-coats as I have. Seeing that my

antipathy coincided with his own, he gave free course to his

sorrow, and poured into my breast his elegies on the decline of

art. With grief that found an echo in myself did he remind me of

the happy time when foreigners dressed in the French fashion would

have been hooted through the streets and pelted with orange-peel;

when the _toreadores_ wore jackets embroidered with gold and

silver, which were worth more than five hundred _piécettes_; and

when the young men of good family had trimmings and aiglets of an

enormous price. "Alas! sir, the English are the only persons who

buy Spanish clothes now," said he, as he finished taking my measure.

This Señor Zapata was, with respect to his clothes, something

like Cardillac with respect to his jewels. He was always sorely

grieved at having to give them up to his customers. When he

came to try on my suit, he was so delighted with the splendid

appearance of the flower-pot he had embroidered in the middle

of the back on the brown cloth ground, that he broke out into

exclamations of the most frantic joy, and began to commit all sorts

of extravagances. But all at once the thought that he should have

to leave this chef-d'œuvre in my hands put a stop to his hilarity,

and his features suddenly became overcast. Under the pretext of

making I know not what alteration, he wrapped the garment up in

a handkerchief, gave it to his apprentice, for a Spanish tailor

would think himself dishonoured if he carried his own parcels,

and casting at me a fierce, ironical look, hurried away as if a

thousand demons were pursuing him. The next day he came back alone,

and, taking from a leathern purse the money I had paid him, he told

me that it grieved him so much to part with his jacket, that he

preferred to return me my duros. It was only after I had observed

that this costume would give the Parisians a great idea of his

talent, and create him a reputation in Paris, that he consented to

let me have it.

The women have had the good taste not to discard the mantilla,

the most delicious style of head-dress for the display of Spanish

features; gracefully enveloped in their black lace, they go about

the streets and public walks, with nothing on their heads but the

mantilla, and a red pink at each temple, and glide along the walls,

while skilfully using their fans, with the most incomparable grace

and agility. A bonnet is a rare thing in Granada. The women of

fashion have, it is true, some jonquil, or poppy-coloured thing,

carefully put away in a bonnet-box, to be kept for grand occasions;

but such occasions, thank Heaven, are very rare, and the horrible

bonnets only see the light on the saint's day of the Queen, or at

the solemn sittings of the Lyceum. May our fashions never invade

the city of the caliphs, and may we never see realized the terrible

menace contained in the two words, "Modista Francesa," painted

in black at the entrance of a public square! Persons of a grave

character will, doubtless, think us very futile, and ridicule our

grief about the extinction of the picturesque, but then we are of

opinion, that patent leather boots and mackintoshes contribute very

little to civilization, and we even look upon civilization itself

as a thing far from desirable. It is a melancholy spectacle for a

poet, an artist, and a philosopher, to see both form and colour

disappear from the world, lines become confused, tints confounded,

and the most disheartening uniformity invade everything, under the

pretext of I know not what progress. When all things are alike,

there will be no further need for travelling, but, by a happy

coincidence, that will be the very time when railways will be in

full activity. What will be the good of making a long journey at

the rate of ten leagues an hour, to go and look at a number of

streets lighted, like the Rue de la Paix, with gas, and full of

well-to-do citizens? We do not think that it was for this that

Nature modelled each country in a different shape, supplied it

with plants peculiar to itself, and peopled the world with races

dissimilar to each other in conformation, colour, and language.

It is giving a bad interpretation to the meaning for which the

world was created, to wish it to force the same livery on men

of every climate; and yet this is one of the errors of European

civilization: a coat with long narrow tails makes a man look

much uglier than any other costume would, and keeps him quite as

barbarous. The poor Turks of Sultan Mahmoud have certainly cut a

fine figure since the reform made in their old Asiatic costume, and

the progress of knowledge among them has been prodigious indeed!

In order to reach the parade, you must go along the Carrera del

Darro and cross the Plaza del Teatro, where there is a funereal

column raised to the memory of Joaquin Maïquez by Julian Romea,

Matilda Diez, and other dramatic _artistes_: the façade of the

Arsenal, a structure of bad taste, besmeared with yellow and

decorated with statues of grenadiers painted mouse-grey, looks on

the square.

The Alameda of Granada is certainly one of the most agreeable

places in the world; it is called the _Saloon_, a singular name

for a parade; fancy a long walk furnished with several rows of

trees of a verdancy unique in Spain, and terminating at each end

by a monumental fountain, the top basins of which support on

their shoulders aquatic gods, curious by their deformity, and

delightfully barbarous. These fountains, contrary to the custom of

such constructions, throw out the water in large sheets, which,

evaporating in the form of fine rain and mist, spreads around

a most delicious coolness. In the side walks run streams of

crystalline transparency, encased in beds of different coloured

pebbles. A large parterre, ornamented with jets of water and

crowded with shrubs and flowers, myrtles, roses, jasmines, with all

the riches, in fact, of the Granadian Flora, occupies the space

between the Saloon and the Xenil, and stretches as far as the

bridge constructed by General Sebastiani at the time of the French

invasion. The Xenil runs from the Sierra Neveda in its marble bed,

through woods of laurel of the most incomparable beauty. Glass and

crystal form comparisons too opaque and too thick to give a true

idea of the purity of the water which, but the evening before,

was still flowing in sheets of silver on the white shoulders of

the Sierra Neveda. It is like a torrent of diamonds in a state of

fusion.

The fashionable world of Granada assemble on the Saloon, between

seven and eight in the evening; the carriages follow along the

road, but they are for the most part empty, as the Spaniards are

very fond of walking, and in spite of their pride, deign to use

their own legs. Nothing can be more charming than to see the young

women and young girls pass to and fro in little groups, dressed

in their mantillas, with their arms bare, real flowers in their

hair, satin shoes on their feet, and a fan in their hand, followed

at some distance by their friends and sweethearts, for, as we

have already said, when speaking of the Prado at Madrid, it is

not customary in Spain for the women to take the arms of the men.

This habit of walking alone gives them a bold, elegant, and free

deportment unknown to our women, who are always hanging to some arm

or other. As artists say, they carry themselves beautifully. This

perpetual separation of the men from the women, at least in public,

already smacks of the East.

A sight of which the people of the North can have no idea, is

the Alameda of Granada at sunset. The Sierra Neveda, whose

denticulated ridges face the city on this side, assumes the most

unimaginable hues. Its whole steep and rugged flank and all its

peaks, struck by the light, become of a rose-colour, dazzling

to behold; ideal, fabulous, shot with silver, and streaked with

iris and opal-like reflections, which would make the freshest

tints on the artist's palette appear thick and dirty: the hues

of mother-of-pearl, the transparency of the ruby, and veins of

agate and advanturine that would defy all the fairy jewellery of

the "Thousand-and-one Nights," are to be seen there. The hollows,

crevices, anfractuosities, and all the places which the rays of the

setting sun cannot reach are of a blue colour which vies with the

azure of the sky and sea, with the lapis-lazuli and the sapphire;

this contrast of hue between light and shade produces a wonderful

effect: the mountain seems to have put on an immense robe of shot

silk spangled and bordered with silver; little by little, the

bright colours disappear and turn to violet mezzotintos, darkness

invades the lower ridges, the light withdraws towards the summit,

and all the plain has long since been in obscurity, while the

silver diadem of the Sierra still shines out in the serenity of the

sky, beneath the parting kiss sent it by the sun.

The company take a turn or two more and then disperse, some going

to take sherbet or _agraz_ at the _café_ of Don Pedro Hurtado,

where you get the best ice in Granada, and others to the _tertulia_

at their friends' and acquaintances' houses.

This is the gayest and most lively part of the day at Granada. The

shops of the _aguadores_ and sellers of ices in the open street are

illuminated by a multitude of lamps and lanterns; the street lamps

and the lights placed before the images of the madonnas vie in

splendour and number with the stars, and this is saying something:

if it happens to be moonlight, you can easily see to read the most

microscopical print. The light is blue instead of being yellow, and

that is all.

Thanks to the lady who had saved me from dying of hunger in the

diligence, and who introduced us to several of her friends, we were

soon well known in Granada. We led a delicious life there. It would

be impossible to receive a more cordial, frank, and amiable welcome

than we did; at the end of five or six days we were on the most

intimate terms with every one, and according to the Spanish custom,

we were always called by our Christian names; at Granada I was Don

Teofilo, my friend gloried in the appellation of Don Eugenio, and

we were both at liberty to designate the ladies and young girls

of the houses in which we were received, by the familiar names of

Carmen, Teresa, Gala, &c.; this familiarity clashes in no way with

the most polished manners and the most respectful attention.

We went to _tertulia_ every evening from eight o'clock till twelve;

to-day at one house, to-morrow at another. The _tertulia_ is held

in the _patio_, surrounded by alabaster columns and ornamented by a

jet of water, the basin of which is encircled with pots of flowers

and boxes of shrubs, down whose leaves the water falls in large

beads. Five or six lamps are hung up along the walls: sofas, and

straw or cane-bottomed chairs furnish the galleries, with here and

there a guitar. The piano occupies one corner, and in another stand

card-tables. Every one, on entering, goes to pay his compliments

to the mistress and master of the house, who never fail to offer

you a cup of chocolate, that good taste tells you to refuse, and

a cigarette, which is sometimes accepted. When this duty is over,

you retire to a corner of the _patio_, and join the group which

has most attraction for you. The parents and old people play at

_trecillo_, the young men talk with the young girls, recite the

octaves and the decastichs they have composed during the day,

and are scolded and forced to do penance for the crimes they may

have committed the evening before; such, for instance, as having

danced too often with a pretty cousin, or cast too ardent a glance

towards a proscribed balcony, with numerous other peccadilloes.

If, on the contrary, they have been very good, they are rewarded

for the rose they have brought with the pink in the young girls'

breast or hair, and their squeeze of the hand is replied to by a

gentle look and a slight pressure of the fingers, when all go up

into the balcony to listen to the Retreat beaten by the troops.

Love seems to be the sole business of Granada. You have only to

speak two or three times to a young girl, and the entire city

immediately declare you to be _novio_ and _novia_,--that is,

affianced, and make a thousand innocent jokes about the passion

they have invented for you; which jokes, innocent though they be,

do not fail, however, to make you somewhat uneasy, by bringing

visions of conjugal life before your eyes. All this gallantry is,

however, more apparent than real; in spite of languishing glances,

burning looks, tender or impassioned conversations, pretty little

shortenings of your name, and the _querido_ (beloved) with which

it is preceded, you must not conceive any too flattering ideas. A

Frenchman to whom a woman of the world were to say the quarter of

what a young Granadian girl says to one of her numerous novios,

without the least importance being attached to it, would think

himself already in Paradise; but he would soon find his mistake,

for if he became too bold, he would be instantly called to order,

and summoned to state his matrimonial intentions before the nearest

relatives. This honest liberty of language, so far removed from

the forced and artificial manners of the nations of the north, is

preferable to hypocrisy of speech, which always hides, at bottom,

some coarse thought or other. At Granada, to pay attentions to a

married woman seems quite extraordinary; while nothing appears more

natural there than to pay court to a young girl. It is the contrary

in France: no one ever addresses, there, a word to young, unmarried

ladies, and this is what so often renders marriages unhappy. In

Spain, a _novio_ sees his _novia_ two or three times a day, speaks

to her without witnesses, accompanies her in her walks, and comes

to talk with her in the evening through the bars of the balcony,

or the window of the ground-floor. He thus has time to become

acquainted with her, to study her character, and does not buy, as

the saying is, a pig in a poke.

When the conversation flags, one of the gentlemen takes down a

guitar, and, scratching the cords with his nails and keeping

time with the palm of his hand on the centre of the instrument,

begins to sing some gay Andalusian song or some comic couplet,

interspersed with _Ay!_ and _Ola!_ curiously modulated and

productive of a very singular effect. Then a lady sits down to

the piano, and plays a _morceau_ from Bellini, who appears to

be the favourite maestro of the Spaniards, or sings a romance

of Breton de los Herreros, the great versifier of Madrid. The

evening is terminated by a little extempore ball, at which, alas!

they dance neither jota, nor fandango, nor bolero, these dances

being abandoned to peasants, servants, and gipsies; but they dance

quadrilles, rigadoons, and sometimes they waltz. At our request,

however, two young ladies of the house volunteered to execute the

bolero one evening; but, before they commenced, they took care to

close the door and windows of the _patio_, which are generally left

open, so afraid were they of being accused of bad taste and local

colouring. In general, the Spaniards grow angry on being spoken

to of cachuchas, castanets, majos, manolas, monks, smugglers, and

bull-fights, though they have, in reality, a great liking for

all these things, so truly national and characteristic. They ask

you, with an air of apparent vexation, if you do not think that

they are as far advanced in civilization as yourself? To such an

extent has the deplorable mania of imitating everything, French or

English, penetrated everywhere! At present, Spain represents the

Voltaire-Touquet system and the _Constitutionnel_ of 1825; that is,

it is hostile to all colouring and to all poetry. Be it remembered,

however, that we are only speaking of the self-styled enlightened

class inhabiting the cities.