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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by 
+L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Spanish Life in Town and Country
+
+Author: L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
+Editor: William Harbutt Dawson
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18053]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Pilar Somoza and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Spelling mistakes have been left in the text to
+match the original, except for a few obvious typos.]
+
+
+
+
+    OUR EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+    _French Life_
+          _German Life_
+                _Russian Life_
+                      _Dutch Life_
+                           _Swiss Life_
+                                 _Spanish Life_
+
+    _Italian Life_
+          _Danish Life_
+                _Austro-Hungarian Life_
+                      _Turkish Life_
+                            _Belgian Life_
+                                  _Swedish Life_
+
+
+
+
+                OUR EUROPEAN
+                 NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+                  EDITED BY
+            WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
+
+
+           SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND
+                   COUNTRY
+
+
+[Illustration: "IN CHURCH." SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO]
+
+
+
+
+                 SPANISH LIFE
+                 IN TOWN AND
+                   COUNTRY
+
+
+                 BY L. HIGGIN
+
+
+               WITH CHAPTERS ON
+
+         PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND
+         COUNTRY, BY EUGÈNE E. STREET
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                  ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+              G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+              NEW YORK AND LONDON
+            The Knickerbocker Press
+                     1904
+
+
+
+
+                COPYRIGHT, 1902
+                      BY
+              G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+
+             Published, May, 1902
+           Reprinted, February, 1903
+           May, 1904; September, 1904
+
+
+       The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+
+NOTE BY THE EDITOR
+
+
+It has been thought well to include Portugal in this volume, so as to
+embrace the entire Iberian Peninsula. Though geographically contiguous,
+and so closely associated in the popular mind, the Spanish and
+Portuguese nations offer in fact the most striking divergences alike in
+character and institutions, and separate treatment was essential in
+justice to each country. The preferential attention given to Spain is
+only in keeping with the more prominent part she has played, and may yet
+play, in the history of civilisation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am indebted for the chapters on Portugal to Mr. Eugène E. Street,
+whose long and intimate acquaintance with the land and its people
+renders him peculiarly fitted to draw their picture.
+
+                                                       L. HIGGIN.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_SPANISH LIFE_
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+CHAPTER I
+LAND AND PEOPLE                                                        1
+
+CHAPTER II
+TYPES AND TRAITS                                                      24
+
+CHAPTER III
+NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS                                              38
+
+CHAPTER IV
+SPANISH SOCIETY                                                       55
+
+CHAPTER V
+MODERN MADRID                                                         77
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE COURT                                                             97
+
+CHAPTER VII
+POPULAR AMUSEMENTS                                                   111
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE PRESS AND ITS LEADERS                                            129
+
+CHAPTER IX
+POLITICAL GOVERNMENT                                                 142
+
+CHAPTER X
+COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE                                             156
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE ARMY AND NAVY                                                    183
+
+CHAPTER XII
+RELIGIOUS LIFE                                                       198
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD                                         213
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+PHILANTHROPY--POSITION OF WOMEN--MARRIAGE CUSTOMS                    226
+
+CHAPTER XV
+MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA                                            236
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+MODERN LITERATURE                                                    246
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+THE FUTURE OF SPAIN                                                  260
+
+
+_PORTUGUESE LIFE_
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+LAND AND PEOPLE                                                      277
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+PORTUGUESE INSTITUTIONS                                              298
+
+
+INDEX                                                                315
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+"IN CHURCH." SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO                _Frontispiece_
+
+PEASANTS                                                               2
+
+A CORNER IN OLD MADRID                                                 8
+
+SEVILLE CIGARRERA                                                     20
+
+PEASANTS                                                              20
+
+VALENCIANOS                                                           26
+
+THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN COSTUMES            34
+
+PAST WORK                                                             50
+
+KNIFE-GRINDER                                                         50
+
+OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID                                    78
+
+BUEYES RESTING                                                        94
+
+IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA                                            104
+
+PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL                           120
+
+PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION                                       124
+
+DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL                                           126
+
+THE ESCURIAL                                                         140
+
+A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA                                       170
+
+A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA                                           292
+
+
+
+
+SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LAND AND PEOPLE
+
+
+Only in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to
+the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist,
+and somewhat of a check arose after the outbreak of the war with
+America. To the other wonderful legends which gather round this romantic
+country, and are spread abroad, unabashed and uncontradicted, was added
+one more, to the effect that so strong a feeling existed on the part of
+the populace against Americans, that it was unsafe for English-speaking
+visitors to travel there. Nothing is farther from the truth; there is no
+hatred of American or English, and, if there had been, they little know
+the innate courtesy of the Spanish people, who fear insult that is not
+due to the overbearing manners of the tourist himself.
+
+To-day, however, everyone is going to Spain, and as the number of
+travellers increases, so, perhaps, does the real ignorance of the
+country and of her people become more apparent, for, after a few days,
+or at most weeks, spent there, those who seem to imagine that they have
+discovered Spain, as Columbus discovered America, deliver their judgment
+upon her with all the audacity of ignorance, or, at best, with very
+imperfect information and capacity for forming an opinion.
+
+For many years, the foreign element in Spain was so small that all who
+made their home in the country were known and easily counted, while
+those who travelled were, for the most part, cultivated people--artists,
+or lovers of art, or persons interested in some way in the commercial or
+industrial progress of the nation. Even in those days, however, too many
+tourists spent their time amongst the dead cities, remnants of Spain's
+great past, and came back to add their quota to the sentimental notions
+current about the romantic land sung by Byron. Wrapped in a glamour for
+which their own enthusiasm was mainly responsible, they beheld all
+things coloured with the rich glow of a resplendent sunset; their
+descriptions of people and places raised expectations too often cruelly
+dispelled by facts, as presented to those of less exuberant
+imaginations.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+On the other hand, the mere British traveller, knowing nothing of art,
+almost nothing of history, and very little of anything beyond his own
+provincial parish, finds all that is not the commonplace of his own
+country, barbarous and utterly beneath contempt. His own manners, not
+generally of the best, set all that is proud and dignified in the lowest
+Spaniard in revolt; he imagines that he meets with discourtesy where, in
+fact, he has gone out to seek it, and his own ignorance is chiefly to
+blame for his failure to understand a people wholly unlike his own class
+associates at home. He, too, returns, shaking the dust off his feet, to
+draw a picture of the land he has left, as false and misleading as that
+of the dreamer who has overloaded his picture with colour that does not
+exist for the ordinary tourist. Thus it too often comes to pass that
+visitors to Spain experience keen disappointment during their short stay
+in the country. Whether they always acknowledge it or not, is another
+question. To hit the happy medium, and to draw from a tour in Spain, or
+from a more prolonged sojourn there, all the pleasure that may be
+derived from it, and to feel with those who, knowing the country and its
+people intimately, love it dearly, a remembrance of its past history and
+of its strange agglomeration of nationalities is absolutely necessary;
+nor can any true idea be formed of the country from a mere acquaintance
+with any one of its widely differing provinces. Galicia is, even to-day,
+more nearly allied to Portugal than to Spain, and it was only in 1668
+that the independence of the former was acknowledged, and it became a
+separate kingdom.
+
+With all rights now equalised, the inhabitants of the remaining
+provinces of Spain differ as widely from one another as they do from the
+sister kingdom, while the folklore of Asturias and of the Basque
+Provinces is very closely allied with that of Portugal. To judge the
+Biscayan by the same standard as the Andaluz, is as sensible as it would
+be to compare the Irish squatter with Cornish fisher-folk, or the
+peasants of Wilts and Surrey with the Celtic races of the West Highlands
+of Scotland, or even with the people of Lancashire or Yorkshire.
+
+Nor is it possible to speak of Spain as a whole, and of what she is
+likely to make of the present impulse towards national growth and
+industrial prosperity, without remembering that her population counts,
+among its rapidly increasing numbers, the far-seeing and business-like,
+if somewhat selfish, Catalan, with a language of his own; the dreamy,
+pleasure-loving Andaluz; the vigorous Basque, whose distinctive language
+is not to be learned or understood by the people of any other part of
+Spain; the half-Moorish Valencian and the self-respecting Aragonese, who
+have always made their mark in the history of their country, and were
+looked upon as a foreign element in the days when their kingdom and that
+of Leon were united, under one crown, with Castile. It was only after
+Alfonso XII. had stamped out the last Carlist war that the ancient
+_fueros_, or special rights, of the Basque Provinces became a thing of
+the past, and their people liable to conscription, on a par with all the
+other parts of Spain.
+
+Every student of history knows that the era of Spain's greatness was
+that of _Los Reyes Católicos_, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of
+Aragon, when the wonderful discovery and opening up of a new world made
+her people dizzy with excitement, and seemed to promise steadily
+increasing power and influence. Everyone knows that these dreams were
+never realised; that, so far from remaining the greatest nation of the
+Western World, Spain has gradually sunk back into a condition that
+leaves her to-day outside of international politics; and that, with the
+loss of her last colonies overseas, she appears to the superficial
+observer to be a dead or dying nation, no longer of any account among
+the peoples of Europe.
+
+But this is no fact; it is rather the baseless fancy of incompetent
+observers, to some extent acquiesced in, or at least not contradicted,
+by the proud Castilian, who cares not at all about the opinions of other
+nationalities, and who never takes the trouble to enlighten ignorance of
+the kind. True, there was an exhibition of something like popular
+indignation when the people fancied they discovered a reference to Spain
+in the utterances of two leading English statesmen, during the war with
+America, and the feeling of soreness against England still to some
+extent exists; in fact, strange as it may appear, there is far less
+anger against America, which deprived Spain of her colonies, than
+against England, which looked on complacently, and with obvious sympathy
+for the aggressor. But all this is past, or passing. The Spaniards are a
+generous people, and no one forgets or forgives more easily or more
+entirely. Those who knew Madrid in the days of Isabel II., would not have
+imagined it possible that the Queen, who had been banished with so much
+general rejoicing, could, under any circumstances, have received in the
+capital a warm greeting; in fact, it was for long thought inexpedient to
+allow her to risk a popular demonstration of quite another character.
+But when she came to visit her son, after the restoration of Alfonso
+XII., her sins, which were many, were forgiven her. It was, perhaps,
+remembered that in her youth she had been more sinned against than
+sinning; that she was _muy Española_, kind-hearted and gracious in
+manner, pitiful and courteous to all. Hence, so long as she did not
+remain, and did not in any way interfere in the government, the people
+were ready to receive her with acclamation, and were probably really
+glad to see her again without her _camarilla_, and with no power to
+injure the new order of things.
+
+No nation in the world is more innately democratic than Spain--none,
+perhaps, so attached to monarchy; but one lesson has been learned,
+probably alike by King and people--that absolutism is dead and buried
+beyond recall. The ruler of Spain, to-day and in the future, must
+represent the wishes of the people; and if at any time the two should
+once more come into sharp collision, it is not the united people of this
+once-divided country that would give way. For the rest, so long as the
+monarch reigns constitutionally, and respects the rights and the desires
+of his people, there is absolutely nothing to fear from pretender or
+republican. At a recent political meeting in Madrid, for the first time,
+were seen democrats, republicans, and monarchists united; amidst a
+goodly quantity of somewhat "tall" talk, two notable remarks were
+received with acclamation by all parties: one was that Italy had found
+freedom, and had made herself into a united nationality, under a
+constitutional monarch; and the other, that between the Government of
+England and a republic there was no difference except in name--that in
+all Europe there was no country so democratic or so absolutely free as
+England under her King, nor one in which the people so entirely governed
+themselves.
+
+Among the many mistaken ideas which obtain currency in England with
+regard to Spain, perhaps none is more common or more baseless than the
+fiction about Don Carlos and his chances of success. A certain small
+class of journalists from time to time write ridiculous articles in
+English papers and magazines about what they are pleased to call the
+"legitimatist" cause, and announce its coming triumph in the Peninsula.
+No Spaniard takes the trouble to notice these remarkable productions of
+the fertile journalistic brain of a foreigner. There are still, of
+course, people calling themselves Carlists--notably the Duke of Madrid
+and Don Jaime, but the cult, such as there is of it in Spain, is of the
+"Platonic" order only,--to use the Spanish description of it, "a little
+talk but no fight,"--and it may be classed with the vagaries of the
+amiable people in England who amuse themselves by wearing a white rose,
+and also call themselves "legitimatists," praying for the restoration of
+the Stuarts.
+
+The truth about the Carlist pretension is so little known in England
+that it may be well to state it. Spain has never been a land of the
+Salic Law; the story of her reigning queens--chief of all, Isabel la
+Católica, shows this. It was not until the time of Philip V., the first
+of the Bourbons, that this absolute monarch limited the succession to
+heirs male by "pragmatic sanction"; that is to say, by his own
+unsupported order. The Act in itself was irregular; it was never put
+before the Cortes, and the Council of Castile protested against it at
+the time.
+
+[Illustration: A CORNER IN OLD MADRID]
+
+This Act, such as it was, was revoked by Charles IV.; but the revocation
+was never published, the birth of sons making it immaterial. When,
+however, his son Ferdinand VII. was near his end, leaving only two
+daughters, he published his father's revocation of the Act of Philip V.,
+and appointed his wife, Cristina, Regent during the minority of Isabel
+II., then only three years of age.
+
+At no time, then, in its history, has the Salic Law been in use in
+Spain: the irregular act of a despotic King was repudiated both by his
+grandson and his great-grandson. Nothing, therefore, can be more
+ridiculous than the pretension of legitimacy on the part of a pretender
+whose party simply attempts to make an illegal innovation, in defiance
+of the legitimate kings and of the Council of Castile, a fundamental law
+of the monarchy. Carlism, the party of the Church against the nation,
+came into existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency,
+Mendizábal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First
+Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious
+orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the
+nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared
+himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme
+clerical party. _Hinc illæ lachrymæ_, and two Carlist wars!
+
+The position of the Church, or rather what was called the "Apostolic
+party," is intelligible enough, and it is easy also to understand why
+Carlism has been preached as a crusade to English Roman Catholics, who
+have been induced in both Carlist wars to provide the main part of the
+funds which made them possible; but to call Don Carlos "the legitimate
+King" is an absurd misnomer.
+
+For the rest, as regards Spain herself and the wishes of her people, it
+is perhaps enough to remark that if, after the expulsion of the Bourbons
+in 1868, at the time of the Revolution known as "La Gloriosa," when Prim
+had refused to think of a republic and declared himself once and always
+in favour of a monarchy, and the Crown of proud Spain went a-begging
+among the Courts of Europe,--if, at that time of her national need, Don
+Carlos was unable to come forward in his celebrated character of
+"legitimate Sovereign of the Spanish people," or to raise even two or
+three voices in his favour, what chance is he likely to have with a
+settled constitutional Government and the really legitimate Monarch on
+the throne? The strongest chance he ever had of success was when the
+Basque Provinces were at one time disposed, it is said almost to a man,
+to take his side; but, in fact, the men of the mountain were fighting
+much more for the retention of their own _fueros_--for their immunity
+from conscription, among others--than for any love of Don Carlos
+himself. They would have liked a king and a little kingdom all of their
+own, and, above all, to have held their beloved rights against all the
+rest of Spain.
+
+All that, however, is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as
+have those of the North by the settled advance of the country. Bilbao,
+once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil
+wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool in
+the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more
+populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete,
+it is the most flourishing of Spanish ports, and is able to compare with
+any in Europe for its commerce and its rapid growth. Viscaya and
+Asturias want no more civil war, and the Apostolic party may look in
+vain for any more Carlist risings. More to be feared now are labour
+troubles, or the contamination of foreign anarchist doctrines; but in
+this case, the Church and the nation would be on the same side--that of
+order and progress.
+
+In attempting to understand the extremely complex character of the
+Spaniard as we know him,--that is to say, the Castilian, or rather the
+Madrileño,--one has to take into account not only the divers races which
+go to make up the nationality as it is to-day, but something of the past
+history of this strangely interesting people. To go back to the days
+when Spain was a Roman province in a high state of civilisation: some of
+the greatest Romans known to fame were Spaniards--Quintilian, Martial,
+Lucan, and the two Senecas. Trajan was the first Spaniard named Emperor,
+and the only one whose ashes were allowed to rest within the city walls;
+but the Spanish freedman of Augustus, Gaius Julius Hyginus, had been
+made the chief keeper of the Palatine Library, and Ballus, another
+Spaniard, had reached the consulship, and had been accorded the honour
+of a public triumph. Hadrian, again, was a Spaniard, and Marcus Aurelius
+a son of Córdoba. No wonder that Spain is proud to remember that, of the
+"eighty perfect golden years" which Gibbon declares to have been the
+happiest epoch in mankind's history, no less than sixty were passed
+beneath the sceptre of her Cæsars.
+
+The conquered had become conquerors; the intermarriage of Roman soldiers
+and settlers with Spanish women modified the original race; the Iberians
+invaded the politics and the literature of their conquerors. St.
+Augustine mourned the _odiosa cantio_ of Spanish children learning
+Latin, but the language of Rome itself was altered by its Iberian
+emperors and literati; the races, in fact, amalgamated, and the Spaniard
+of to-day, to those who know him well, bears a strange resemblance to
+the Roman citizens with whom the letters of the Younger Pliny so
+charmingly make us familiar. The dismemberment of the Roman Empire left
+Spain exposed to the inroads of the Northern barbarians, and led
+indirectly to the subsequent Moorish inrush; for the Jews, harassed by a
+severe penal code, hailed the Arabs as a kindred race; and with their
+slaves made common cause with the conquering hordes.
+
+The Goths seem to have been little more than armed settlers in the
+country. Marriage between them and the Iberians was forbidden by their
+laws, and the traces of their occupation are singularly few: not a
+single inscription or book of Gothic origin remains, and it seems
+doubtful if any trace of the language can be found in Castilian or any
+of its dialects. It is strange, if this be true, that there should be so
+strong a belief in the influence of Gothic blood in the race.
+
+In all these wars and rumours of war the men of the hardy North remained
+practically unconquered. The last to submit to the Roman, the first to
+throw off the yoke of the Moor, the Basques and Asturians appear to be
+the representatives of the old inhabitants of Spain, who never settled
+down under the sway of the invader or acquiesced in foreign rule. Cicero
+mentions a Spanish tongue which was unintelligible to the Romans; was
+this Basque, which is equally so now to the rest of Spain, and which, if
+you believe the modern Castilian, the devil himself has never been able
+to master?
+
+The history of Spain is one to make the heart ache. Some evil influence,
+some malign destiny, seems ever to have brought disaster where her
+people looked for progress or happiness. Her golden age was just in the
+short epoch when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon reigned and
+ruled over the united kingdoms: both were patriotic, both clever, and
+absolutely at one in their policy. It is almost impossible to us who can
+look back on the long records, almost always sad and disastrous, not to
+doubt whether in giving a new world "to Castile and Aragon," Cristobal
+Colon did not impose a burden on the country of his adoption which she
+was unable to bear, and which became, in the hands of the successors of
+her _muy Españoles y muy Católicos_ kings, a curse instead of a
+blessing. Certain it is that Spain was not sufficiently advanced in
+political economy to understand or cope with the enormous changes which
+this opening up of a new world brought about. The sudden increase of
+wealth without labour, of reward for mere adventure, slew in its infancy
+any impulse there might have been to carry on the splendid manufactures
+and enlightened agriculture of the Moors; trade became a disgrace, and
+the fallacious idea that bringing gold and silver into a country could
+make it rich and prosperous ate like a canker into the industrial heart
+of the people, and with absolute certainty threw them backward in the
+race of civilisation.
+
+Charles V. was the first evil genius of Spain; thinking far more of his
+German and Italian possessions than of the country of his mother, poor
+mad Juana, he exhausted the resources of Spain in his endless wars
+outside the country, and inaugurated her actual decline at a moment
+when, to the unthinking, she was at the height of her glory. The
+influence of the powerful nobility of the country had been completely
+broken by Isabella and Ferdinand, and the device of adopting the
+Burgundian fashion of keeping at the Court an immense crowd of nobles in
+so-called "waiting" on the Monarch flattered the national vanity, while
+it ensured the absolute inefficacy of the class when it might have been
+useful in stemming the baneful absolutism of such lunatics as Felipe II.
+and the following Austrian monarchs, each becoming more and more effete
+and more and more mad. The very doubtful "glory" of the reign of the
+Catholic Kings in having driven out the Moors after eight centuries of
+conflict and effort, proved, in fact, no advantage to the country; but
+twenty thousand Christian captives were freed, and every reader of
+history must, for the moment, sympathise with the people who effected
+this freeing of their country from a foreign yoke.
+
+Looking at the marvellous tracery of the church of San Juan de los Reyes
+at Toledo, picked out by the actual chains broken off the miserable
+Christian captives, and hanging there unrusted in the fine air and
+sunshine of the country for over four hundred years, one's heart beats
+in sympathy with the pride of the Spaniards in their Catholic Kings. But
+Toledo, alas! is dead; the centre of light and learning is mouldering in
+the very slough of ignorance, and Christianity compares badly enough
+with the rule of Arab and Jew.
+
+Nevertheless, it must be said that, had matters been left as Isabella
+and Ferdinand left them, Spain might have benefited by the example of
+her conquerors, as other countries have done, and as she herself did
+during the Roman occupation. Philip II. was too wise to expel the
+richest and most industrious of his subjects so long as they paid his
+taxes and, at least, professed to be Christians. It was not until the
+reign of Philip III. and his disgraceful favourite Lerma, himself the
+most bigoted of Valencian "Christians," that, by the advice of Ribera,
+the Archbishop of Valencia, these industrious, thrifty, and harmless
+people were ruthlessly driven out. They had turned Valencia into a
+prolific garden,--even to-day it is called the _huerta_,--their silk
+manufactures were known and valued throughout the world; their industry
+and frugality were, in fact, their worst crimes; they were able to draw
+wealth from the sterile lands which "Christians" found wholly
+unproductive. "Since it is impossible to kill them all," said Ribera,
+the representative of Christ, he again and again urged on the King their
+expulsion.
+
+The nobles and landowners protested in vain. September 22, 1609, is one
+of the blackest--perhaps, in fact, the blackest--of all days in the
+disastrous annals of Spain. The Marqués de Caracena, Viceroy of
+Valencia, issued the terrible edict of expulsion. Six of the oldest and
+"most Christian" Moriscos in each community of a hundred souls were to
+remain to teach their modes of cultivation and their industries, and
+only three days were allowed for the carrying out of this most wicked
+and suicidal law. In the following six months one hundred and fifty
+thousand Moors were hounded out of the land which their ancestors had
+possessed and enriched for centuries. Murcia, Andalucia, Aragon,
+Cataluña, Castile, La Mancha, and Estremadura were next taken in hand.
+In these latter provinces the cruel blunder was all the worse, since the
+Moors had intermarried with the Iberian inhabitants, and had really
+embraced the Christian religion, so called.
+
+Half a million souls, according to Father Bleda, in his _Defensio
+Fidei_, were thrust out, with every aggravation of cruelty and robbery.
+No nation can commit crimes like this without suffering more than its
+victims. Spain has never to this day recovered from the blow to her own
+prosperity, to her commerce, her manufactures, and her civilisation
+dealt by the narrow-minded and ignorant King, led by a despicable
+favourite, and the fanatical bigot, Ribera. With the Moors went almost
+all their arts and industries; immense tracts of country became arid
+wastes: Castile and La Mancha barely raise crops every second year where
+the Moriscos reaped their teeming harvest, and Estremadura from a
+smiling garden became a waste where wandering flocks of sheep and pigs
+now find a bare subsistence. Nor was this all. Science and learning were
+also driven out with the Arab and Jew; Córdoba, like Toledo, vanished,
+as the centre of intellectual life. In place of enlightened agriculture,
+irrigation of the dry land, and the planting of trees, the peasant was
+taught to take for his example San Isidro, the patron saint of the
+labourer, who spent his days in prayer, and left his fields to plough
+and sow themselves; the forests were cut down for fuel, until the
+shadeless wastes became less and less productive, and the whole land on
+the elevated plains, which the Moors had irrigated and planted, became
+little better than a desert.
+
+It was not only in the mother country that frightful acts of bigotry and
+lust for wealth were enacted. In Peru the Spaniards found a splendid
+civilisation among the strange races of the Incas, a condition of order
+which many modern states might envy, a religion absolutely free from
+fetish worship, and a standard of morality which has never been
+surpassed. But they ruthlessly destroyed it all, desecrated the temples
+where the sun was worshipped only as a visible representative of a God
+"of whom nothing could be known save by His works," as their tenet ran,
+and substituted the religion which they represented as having been
+taught by Jesus of Nazareth; a religion which looked for its chief power
+to the horrible Inquisition and its orgies called _Autos da fé!_
+
+As regards the mysterious race of the Incas, who in comparison with the
+native Indians were almost white, and who possessed a high cultivation,
+it is curious to note that during the late troubles in China records
+came to light in the Palace of Pekin showing that Chinese missionaries
+landed on the coast subsequently known as Peru, in ages long antecedent
+to the discovery of the country by the Spaniards, and established
+temples and schools there. No one who reads the minute accounts of the
+Incas from Garcilaso de la Vega--himself of the royal race on his
+mother's side, his father having been one of the Spanish
+adventurers--can avoid the conclusion that the religion of the Incas,
+thus utterly destroyed by the Spaniards, was much more nearly that of
+Christ than the debased worship introduced in its place. The whole story
+of these "Children of the Sun," told by one of themselves afterwards in
+Córdoba, where he is always careful to keep on the right side of the
+Inquisition by pretending to be a "Christian after the manner of his
+father," is fascinatingly interesting as well as instructive.
+
+It is almost impossible to speak of the Spanish Inquisition and its
+baneful influence on the people without seeming to be carried away by
+prejudice or even bigotry, but it is equally impossible for the ordinary
+student of history to read, even in the pages of the "orthodox," the
+terrible repression of its iron hand on all that was advancing in the
+nation; its writers, its singers, its men of science, wherever they
+dared to raise their voices in ever so faint a cry, ground down to one
+dead level of unthinking acquiescence, or driven forth from their native
+land, without ceasing to wonder at all at Spain's decadence from the
+moment she had handed herself over, bound hand and foot, to the Church.
+Wondering, rather, at her enormous inherent vitality, which at last,
+after so many centuries of spasmodic effort, has shaken off the incubus
+and regained liberty, or for the first time established it in the realms
+of religion, science, and general instruction.
+
+It matters little or nothing whether the Inquisition, with its secret
+spies, its closed doors, its mockery of justice, and its terrible
+background of smouldering _Quemadero_, was the instrument of the Church
+or of the King for the moment. Whether a religious or a political
+tyranny, it was at all times opposed to the very essence of freedom, and
+it was deliberately used, and would be again to-day if it were possible
+to restore it, to keep the people in a gross state of ignorance and
+superstition. That it was admirable as an organisation only shows it in
+a more baneful light, since it was used to crush out all progress. Its
+effect is well expressed in the old proverb: "Between the King and the
+Inquisition we must not open our lips."
+
+"I would rather think I had ascended from an ape," said Huxley, in his
+celebrated answer to the Bishop of Oxford, "than that I had descended
+from a man who used great gifts to darken reason." It has been the
+object of the Inquisition to darken reason wherever it had the power,
+and it left the mass of the Spanish people, great and generous as they
+are by nature, for long a mere mob of inert animals, ready to amuse
+themselves when their country was at its hour of greatest agony, debased
+by the sight of wholesale and cruel murders carried out by the priests
+of their religion in the name of Christ.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE CIGARRERA]
+
+Even to-day the Spaniard of the lower classes can scarcely understand
+that he can have any part or parcel in the government of his country.
+Long ages of misrule have made him hate all governments alike: he
+imagines that all the evils he finds in the world of his own experience
+are the work of whoever happens to be the ruler for the time being; that
+it is possible for him to have any say in the matter never enters his
+head, and he votes, if he votes at all, as he is ordered to vote. He has
+been taught for ages past to believe whatever he has been told. His
+reason has been "offered as a sacrifice to God," if indeed he is aware
+that he possesses any.
+
+The danger of the thorough awakening may be that which broke out so
+wildly during Castelar's short and disastrous attempt at a republic:
+that when once he breaks away from the binding power of his old
+religion, he may have nothing better than atheism and anarchism to fall
+back upon. The days of the absolute reign of ignorance and superstition
+are over; but the people are deeply religious. Will the Church of Spain
+adapt itself to the new state of things, or will it see its people drift
+away from its pale altogether, as other nations have done? This is the
+true clerical question which looms darkly before the Spain of to-day.
+
+To return, however. The Austrian kings of Spain had brought her only
+ruin. With the Bourbons it was hoped a better era had opened, but it was
+only exchanging one form of misrule for another. The kings existed for
+their own benefit and pleasure; the people existed to minister to them
+and find funds for their extravagance. Each succeeding monarch was ruled
+by some upstart favourite, until the climax was reached when Godoy, the
+disgraceful Minister of Charles IV., and the open lover of his Queen,
+sold the country to Napoleon. Then indeed awoke the great heart of the
+nation, and Spain has the everlasting glory of having risen as one man
+against the French despot, and, by the help of England, stopped his mad
+career. Even then, under the base and contemptible Ferdinand VII., she
+underwent the "Terror of 1824," the disastrous and unworthy regency of
+Cristina, and the still worse rule of her daughter, Isabel II., before
+she awoke politically as a nation, and, her innumerable parties forming
+as one, drove out the Queen, with her _camarilla_ of priests and
+bleeding nuns, and at last achieved her freedom.
+
+For, whatever may be said of the last hundred years of Spain's history,
+it has been an advance, a continuous struggle for life and liberty.
+There had been fluctuating periods of progress. Charles III., a truly
+wise and patriotic monarch, the first since Ferdinand and Isabella, made
+extraordinary changes during his too short life. The population of the
+country rose a million and a half in the twenty-seven years of his
+reign, and the public revenue in like proportions under his enlightened
+Minister, Florida Blanca. No phase of the public welfare was neglected:
+savings banks, hospitals, asylums, free schools, rose up on all sides;
+vagrancy and mendicancy were sternly repressed; while men of science and
+skilled craftsmen were brought from foreign countries, and it seemed as
+if Spain had fairly started on her upward course. But he died before his
+time in 1788, and was followed by a son and grandson, who, with their
+wives, ruled by base favourites, dragged the honour of Spain in the
+dust. Still, the impulse had been given; there had been a break in the
+long story of misrule and misery; Mendizábal and Espartero scarcely did
+more than lighten the black canopy of cloud overhanging the country for
+a time; but at last came freedom, halting somewhat, as must needs be,
+but no longer to be repressed or driven back by the baneful influence
+known as _palaciö_, intrigues arising in the immediate circle of the
+Court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TYPES AND TRAITS
+
+
+It is the fashion to-day to minimise the influence of the Goths on the
+national characteristics of the Spaniard. We are told by some modern
+writers that their very existence is little more than a myth, and that
+the name of their last King, Roderick, is all that is really known about
+them. The castle of Wamba, or at least the hill on which it stood, is
+still pointed out to the visitor in Toledo, perched high above the red
+torrent of the rushing Tagus; but little seems to be certainly known of
+this hardy Northern race which, for some three hundred years, occupied
+the country after the Romans had withdrawn their protecting legions. On
+the approach of the all-conquering Moor, many of the inhabitants of
+Spain took refuge in the inaccessible mountains of the north, and were
+the ancestors of that invincible people known in Spain as "los
+Montañeses," from whom almost all that is best in literature, as well as
+in business capacity, has sprung in later years.
+
+How much of the Celt-Iberian, or original inhabitant of the Peninsula,
+and how much of Gothic or of Teuton blood runs in the veins of the
+people of the mountains, it is more than difficult now to determine. It
+had been impossible, despite laws and penalties, to prevent the
+intermingling of the races: all that we certainly know is that the
+inhabitants of Galicia, Asturias, Viscaya, Navarro, and Aragon have
+always exhibited the characteristics of a hardy, fighting, pushing race,
+as distinguished from the Andaluces, the Valencianos, the Murcianos, and
+people of Granada, in whom the languid blood of a Southern people and
+the more marked trace of Arabic heritage are apparent.
+
+The Catalans would appear, again, to be descendants of the old
+Provençals, at one time settled on both sides of the Pyrenees, though
+forming, at that time, part of Spain. Their language is almost pure
+Provençal, and they differ, as history shows in a hundred ways, from the
+inhabitants of the rest of Spain. The Castilians, occupying the centre
+of the country, are what we know as "Spaniards," and may be taken to
+hold a middle place among these widely differing nationalities, modified
+by their contact with all. Their language is that of cultivated Spain.
+No one dreams of asking if you speak Spanish; it is always: _Habla v
+Castellano?_ And it is certainly a remnant of the old Roman, which, as
+we know, its emperors spoke "with a difference," albeit there are many
+traces of Arabic about it.
+
+Even at the present day, when Spain is rapidly becoming homogeneous, the
+people of the different provinces are almost as well known by their
+trades as by their special characteristics. A _Gallego_--really a native
+of Galicia--means, in the common parlance, a porter, a water-carrier,
+almost a beast of burden, and the Galicians are as well known for this
+purpose in Portugal as in Spain, great numbers finding ready employment
+in the former country, where manual labour is looked upon as impossible
+for a native. The men of the lowest class emigrate to more favoured
+provinces, since their own is too poor to support them; they work hard,
+and return with their savings to their native hills. Their
+fellow-countrymen consider them boorish in manners, uneducated, and of a
+low class; but they are good-natured and docile, hard-working,
+temperate, and honest. "In your life," wrote the Duke of Wellington,
+"you never saw anything so bad as the Galicians; and yet they are the
+finest body of men and the best movers I have ever seen." There is a
+greater similarity between Galicia and Portugal than between the former
+and any other province of Spain.
+
+Although they lie so close together, Asturias differs widely from its
+sister province both in the character of its people and its scenery. The
+Romans took two hundred years to subdue it, and the Moors never obtained
+a footing there. The Asturians are a hardy, independent race, proud of
+giving the title to the heir-apparent of the Spanish throne. The people
+of this province, like their neighbours the Basques, are handsome and
+robust in appearance; they are always to be recognised in Madrid by
+their fresh appearance and excellent physique. For the most part they
+are to be found engaged in the fish trade, while their women, gorgeously
+dressed in their native costume by their employers, are the nurses of
+the upper classes.
+
+[Illustration: VALENCIANOS]
+
+The ladies of Madrid do not think it "good style" to bring up their own
+children, and the Asturian wet nurse is as much a part of the ordinary
+household as the coachman or _mayordomo_. They are singularly handsome,
+well-grown women, and become great favourites in the houses of their
+employers; but, like their menkind, they go back to spend their savings
+among their beloved hills. Many of these young women come to Madrid on
+the chance of finding situations, leaving their own babies behind to be
+fed by hand, or Heaven knows how; they bring with them a young puppy to
+act as substitute until the nurse-child is found, and may be seen in the
+registry offices waiting to be hired, with their little canine
+foster-children. It is said that the Asturian women never part from the
+puppies that they have fed from their own breasts.
+
+The Basque Provinces are, perhaps, the best known to English travellers,
+since they generally enter Spain by that route, and those staying in the
+south of France are fond of running across to have at least a look at
+Spain, and to be able to say they have been there. The people pride
+themselves on being "the oldest race in Europe," and are, no doubt, the
+direct descendants of the original and unconquered inhabitants of the
+Iberian Peninsula. In Guipuzcoa, the Basque may still be seen living in
+his flat-roofed stone house, of which he is sure to be proprietor, using
+a mattock in place of plough, and leading his oxen--for _bueyes_ are
+never driven--attached to one of the heavy, solid-wheeled carts by an
+elaborately carved yoke, covered with a sheepskin. He clings tenaciously
+to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior
+to the whole human race.
+
+The _fueros_, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the
+Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might
+possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely
+thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender. They practically formed
+a republic within the monarchy; but in 1876, when the young Alfonso XII.
+finally conquered the provinces, all differences between them and the
+other parts of the kingdom were abolished, and they had to submit to the
+abhorred conscription. With all the burning indignation which still
+makes some of them say, "I am not a Spaniard; I am a Basque," the
+extraordinary advance made in this part of Spain seems to show that the
+hereditary energy and talent of the people are on the side of national
+progress.
+
+The distinctive dress of the Basques is now almost a thing of the past;
+the bright kerchiefs of the women and the dark-blue cap (_bóina_) of the
+men alone remain. The Viscayan _bóina_ has been lately introduced into
+the French army as the headgear of the Chasseurs and some other
+regiments.
+
+"Aragon is not ours; we ought to conquer it!" Isabel la Católica is said
+to have remarked to her husband; and, indeed, the history of this little
+province is wonderfully interesting and amusing. It alone seems to have
+had the good sense always to secure its rights before it would vote
+supplies for the Austrian kings; whereas the other provinces usually
+gave their money without any security, except the word of the King,
+which was usually broken. Among the provisions of the _fueros_ of the
+Aragonese was one that ran thus: _"Que siempre que el rey quebrantose
+sus fueros, pudiessen eligir otro rey encora que sea pagano"_ (If ever
+the King should infringe our _fueros_, we can elect another King, even
+though he might be a pagan), and the preamble of the election ran thus:
+"We, who are as good as you, and are more powerful than you (_podemos
+mas que vos_) elect you King in order that you may protect our rights
+and liberties, and also we elect one between us and you (_el justicia_),
+who has more power than you: _y si no, no!_" which may be taken to mean,
+"otherwise you are not our King."
+
+Somewhat of this spirit still abides in the Aragonese. The costume is
+one of the most picturesque in Spain. The men wear short black velvet
+breeches, open at the knees and slashed at the sides, adorned with rows
+of buttons, and showing white drawers underneath; _alpargatas_, or the
+plaited hempen sandals, which, with the stockings, are black; a black
+velvet jacket, with slashed and button-trimmed sleeves, and the
+gaily-coloured _faja_, or silk sash, worn over an elaborate shirt.
+
+In the old days, when one entered Spain by diligence from Bayonne to
+Pampeluna over the Pyrenees, one learned something of the beauty of the
+scenery and the healthy, hardy characteristics of the people, as one
+whirled along through the chestnut groves, over the leaping streams,
+always at full gallop, up hill and down dale, with a precipice on one
+side of the road and the overhanging mountains on the other. Below lay a
+fertile country with comfortable little homesteads and villages
+clustering round their church, and the like dotted the hillsides and the
+valleys wherever there seemed a foothold. As the diligence, with its
+team of ten or twelve mules, dashed through these villages or past the
+isolated farms, the people stood at their doors and shouted; it was
+evidently the event of the day. The mules were changed every hour, or
+rather more, according to the road, and as the ascent became steeper
+more were added to their number; sometimes six or eight starting from
+Bayonne where twelve or fourteen were needed for the top of the Pass. At
+least half the journey was always made at night, and if there were a
+moon the scenery became magically beautiful; but, in any case, the
+stars, in that clear atmosphere, made it almost as bright as day, while
+a ruddy light streamed from the lamp over the driver's seat, far above
+the coupé, along the string of hurrying mules, as they dashed round
+precipitous corners, dangerous enough in broad daylight. If one of the
+animals chanced to fall, it was dragged by its companions to the bottom
+of the gorge, where it would get up, shake itself, and prepare to tear
+up the next ascent as if nothing had happened.
+
+A good idea could be formed of these hardy mountaineers in passing
+through their village homes. They are tall and good-looking, and seem to
+be simply overflowing with animal spirits. If it chanced to be on a
+Sunday afternoon, the priest, with his _sotana_ tucked up round his
+waist, would be found playing the national game of _pelota_ with his
+flock, using the blank wall of the church as a court.
+
+One is apt to forget that Old Castile is one of the provinces having a
+northern seaboard. The inhabitants of this borderland are, to judge by
+appearance, superior to the people of the plains, who certainly strike
+the casual observer as being dirty and somewhat dull. The Castilian and
+Aragonese, however, may be said to constitute the heart of the nation.
+Leon and Estremadura form a part of the same raised plateau, but their
+people are very different. In speaking of the national characteristics,
+one must be taken to mean, not by any means the Madrileño, but the
+countrymen, whose homes are not to be judged by the _posadas_, or inns,
+which exist mainly for the muleteer and his animals, and are neither
+clean nor savoury.
+
+"All the forces of Europe would not be sufficient to subdue the
+Castiles--_with the people against it_," was Peterborough's remark, and
+our Iron Duke never despaired "while the country was with him." He bore
+with the generals and the _Juntas_ of the upper classes, in spite of his
+indignation against them, and, "cheered by the _people's support_," as
+Napier says, carried out his campaign of victory.
+
+The ancient qualities of which the Castilians are proud are _gravedad,
+lealtad, y amor de Dios_--"dignity, loyalty, and love of God." No wonder
+that when the nation arises, it carries a matter through.
+
+Estremadura, after the expulsion of the Moors, in whose days it was a
+fruitful garden, seems to have been forgotten by the rest of Spain; it
+became the pasturage for the wandering flocks of merino sheep, the
+direct descendants of the Bedouin herds, and of the pigs, which almost
+overrun it. Yet the remains of the Romans in Estremadura are the most
+interesting in Spain, and bear witness to the flourishing condition of
+the province in their day; moreover, Pizarro and Cortes owe their birth
+to this forgotten land. The inhabitants of the southern provinces of
+Spain differ wholly from those of Castile and the north--they have much
+more of the Eastern type; in fact, the Valenciano or the Murciano of the
+_huerta_, the well-watered soil which the Moors left in such a high
+state of cultivation, in manners and appearance are often little
+different from the Arab as we know him to-day.
+
+From the gay Andaluz we derive most of our ideas of the Spanish peasant;
+but he is a complete contrast to the dignified Castilian or the brusque
+Montañese. From this province, given over to song, dancing, and outdoor
+life, come--almost without exception--the bull-fighters, whose graceful
+carriage, full of power, and whose picturesque costume, make them
+remarkable wherever seen. Lively audacity is their special
+characteristic. _Sal_ (salt) is their ideal; we have no word which
+carries the same meaning. Smart repartee, grace, charm, all are
+expressed in the word _Salada_; and _Saléro_ (literally, salt-cellar) is
+an expression met with in every second song one hears.
+
+    Olé Saléro! Sin vanidad,
+    Soy muy bonita, Soy muy Sala!
+
+is the refrain of one of their most characteristic songs, _La moza é
+rumbo_, and may be taken as a sample:--
+
+    Listen, Saléro! without vanity,
+    I am lovely--I am Salada!
+
+During the _Feria_ at Seville, the upper classes camp out in tents or
+huts, and the girls pass their time in singing and dancing, like the
+peasantry.
+
+The Valencians are very different, being slow, quiet, almost stupid to
+the eye of the stranger, extremely industrious, and wrapped up in their
+agricultural pursuits. They fully understand and appreciate the system
+of irrigation left by the Moors, which has made their province the most
+densely populated and the most prosperous in appearance of all Spain.
+
+A curious survival exists in Valencia in the _Tribunal de las Aguas_,
+which is presided over by three of the oldest men in the city; it is a
+direct inheritance from the Moors, and from its verdict there is no
+appeal.
+
+Every Thursday the old men take their seats on a bench outside one of
+the doors of the cathedral, and to them come all those who have disputes
+about irrigation, marshalled by two beadles in strange, Old-World
+uniforms. When both sides have been heard, the old men put their heads
+together under a cloak or _manta_, and agree upon their judgment. The
+covering is then withdrawn, and the decision is announced. On one
+occasion they decreed that a certain man whom they considered in fault
+was to pay a fine. The unwary litigant, thinking that his case had not
+been properly heard, began to try to address the judges in mitigation of
+the sentence.
+
+"But, Señores--" he began.
+
+[Illustration: THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN
+COSTUMES]
+
+"Pay another peseta for speaking!" solemnly said the spokesman of the
+elders.
+
+"_Pero, Señores_--"
+
+"_Una peseta mas!_" solemnly returned the judge; and at last, finding
+that each time he opened his lips cost him one more peseta, he soon gave
+up and retired.
+
+The Valencian costume for men consists of wide white cotton drawers to
+the knees, looking almost like petticoats, sandals of hemp, with gaiters
+left open between the knee and the ankle, a red sash, or _faja_, a short
+velvet jacket, and a handkerchief twisted turban-fashion round the head.
+The _hidalgos_ wear the long cloak and wide sombrero common to all the
+country districts of Spain.
+
+In speaking of Spaniards and their characteristics, as I have already
+said, we have to take into account the presence of all these widely
+differing races under one crown, and to remember that to-day there is no
+hard-and-fast line among the cultivated classes: intermarriage has fused
+the conflicting elements, very much for the good of the country, and
+rapid intercommunication by rail and telegraph has brought all parts of
+the kingdom together, as they have never been before. Education is now
+placed within reach of all, and even long-forgotten Estremadura is
+brought to share in the impulse towards national life and commercial
+progress. Comte Paul Vasili, in his charming _Lettres inédites_ to a
+young diplomatist, first published in the pages of _La Nouvelle Revue_,
+gives such an exact picture of the Spanish people, of whom he had so
+wide an experience and such intimate knowledge, that I am tempted to
+quote it in full.
+
+"The famous phrase, _Á la disposition de V._, has no meaning in the
+upper ranks, is a fiction with the _bourgeoisie_, but is simple truth in
+the mouth of the people. The pure-blooded Spaniard is the most
+hospitable, the most ready giver in the world. He offers with his whole
+heart, and is hurt when one does not accept what he offers. He does not
+pretend to know anything beyond his own country ... he exaggerates the
+dignity of humanity in his own person.... Even in asking alms of you he
+says: _Hermanito, una limosna, por el amor de Dios._ He does not beg;
+no, he asks, demands; and, miserable and in rags as he may be, he treats
+you as a brother--he does you the honour of accepting you as his equal.
+The Spaniard who has a _novia_, a guitar, a _cigarillo_, and the
+knowledge that he has enough to pay for a seat at the bull-fight,
+possesses all that he can possibly need. He will eat a plateful of
+_gazpacho_ or _puchero_, a sardine, half a roll of bread, and drink
+clear water as often as wine. Food is always of secondary importance: he
+ranks it after his _novia_, after his _cigarillo_, after the bulls.
+Sleep? He can sleep anywhere, even on the ground. Dress? He has always
+his _capa_, and _la capa todo lo tapa_. The Spaniard is, above all
+things, _rumboso_; that is to say, he has a large, generous, and sound
+heart.... The masses in Spain are perfectly contented, believing
+themselves sincerely to be the most heroic of people. The Spaniard is
+naturally happy, because his wants are almost _nil_, and he has the
+fixed idea that kings--his own or those of other nations--are all, at
+least, his cousins."
+
+This is not the place to speak at large of the religion of the people;
+but one remark one cannot fail to make, and that is, the place which the
+Virgin holds in the life and affections of the masses. The name of the
+Deity is rarely heard, except as an exclamation, and the Christ is
+spoken of rather as a familiar friend than as the Second Person in the
+Trinity; but the deep-seated love for the Virgin, and absolute belief in
+her power to help in all the joys and sorrows of life is one of the
+strongest characteristics of this naturally religious people. The names
+given at baptism are almost all hers. Dolores, Amparo, Pilar, Trinidad,
+Carmen, Concepcion,--abbreviated into Concha,--are, in full, Maria de
+Dolores, del Pilar, and so forth, and are found among men almost as much
+as among women. The idea of the ever-constant sympathy of the divine
+Mother appeals perhaps even more strongly to the man, carrying with it
+his worship of perfect womanhood, and awakening the natural chivalry of
+his nature. Be this as it may, the influence of the Virgin, and the
+sincerity of her worship in every stage of life, in all its dangers and
+in all its woes, is a religion in itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
+
+
+Certain strong characteristics of the Spanish people, with which the
+history of the world makes us well acquainted, are as marked in this
+hurrying age of railway and telegraph as ever they were in the past. One
+of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking
+tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes." This is as
+true of some of the national traits of character as it is false in the
+sense in which the speaker means it. He has probably picked it out of
+some handbook.
+
+Chief among these traits is dignity. The most casual visitor is
+impressed by it, sometimes very much to his annoyance, whether he finds
+it among the unlettered muleteers of Castile, the labourers of Valencia,
+or the present proprietor of some little Old-World _pueblo_ off the
+ordinary route. The _mayoral_ of the diligence in the old times, the
+domestic servant of to-day, the señora who happens to sell you fish, or
+the señor who mends your boots, all strike the same note--an absolute
+incapacity for imagining that there can be any inequality between
+themselves and any other class, however far removed from them by the
+possession of wealth or education. Wealth, in fact, counts for nothing
+in the way of social rank; a poor _hidalgo_ is exactly as much respected
+as a rich one, and he treats his tenants, his servants, all with whom he
+comes in contact, as brothers of the same rank in the sight of God as
+himself.
+
+_Bajo el Rey ninguno_ is their proverb, and its signification, that
+"beneath the King all are equal," is one that is shown daily in a
+hundred ways. The formula with which you are expected to tell the
+beggars--with whom, unfortunately, Spain is once more overrun--that you
+have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the
+"aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my
+brother," or the simple _Perdone me usted_, using precisely the same
+address as you would to a duke. It is no uncommon thing to hear two
+little ragged urchins, whose heads would not reach to one's elbow,
+disputing vigorously in the street with a _Pero no, Señor, Pero si,
+Señor_, as they bandy their arguments.
+
+English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the señor who
+keeps a wayside _posada_, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the
+towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer
+who deigns to use the accommodation provided.
+
+This is one of the things in which Spain, to her honour, _is_
+unchanged. The courtesy of her people, high or low, is ingrained, and if
+foreign--perhaps especially English and American--travellers do not
+always find it so, the fault may oftenest be laid to their own ignorance
+of what is expected of them, and to what is looked upon as the absolute
+boorishness of their own manners.
+
+When a Spaniard goes into a shop where a woman is behind the counter, or
+even to a stall in the open market, he raises his hat in speaking to her
+as he would to the Duquesa de Tal y Fulano, and uses precisely the same
+form of address. The shopman lays himself at the feet of his lady
+customers--metaphorically only, fortunately, _Á los pies de V.,
+Señora!_--with a bow worthy of royalty. She hopes that "God may remain
+with his worship" as she bids him the ordinary _Adios_ on going away,
+and he, with equal politeness, expresses a hope that she may "go in
+God's keeping," while he once more lays himself at the señora's feet.
+All these amenities do not prevent a little bargaining, the one asking
+more than he means to take, apparently for the purpose of appearing to
+give way perforce to the overmastering charms of his customer, who does
+not disdain to use either her fan or her eyes in the encounter. The old
+woman will bargain just as much, but always with the same politeness.
+When foreigners walk in and abruptly ask for what they want with an air
+of immense superiority, as is the custom in our country, they are not
+unnaturally looked upon as _muy bruto_, and at the best it is accounted
+for by their being rude heretics from abroad, and knowing no better.
+
+In Madrid and some of the large towns it is possible that the people
+have become accustomed to our apparent discourtesy, just as in some
+places--Granada especially--spoiled by long intimacy with tourists, the
+beggars have become importunate, and to some extent impudent; but in
+places a little removed from such a condition of modern "civilisation,"
+the effect produced by many a well-meaning but ordinary Saxon priding
+himself on his superiority, and without any intention of being ill-bred
+or ill-mannered, is that of disgust and contemptuous annoyance.
+
+No Spaniard will put up with an overbearing or bullying manner, even
+though he may not understand the language in which it is expressed; it
+raises in him all the dormant pride and prejudice which sleep beneath
+his own innate courtesy, and he probably treats the offending traveller
+with the profound contempt he feels for him, if with nothing worse. A
+little smiling and good-natured chaff when things go wrong, as they so
+often do in travelling, or when the leisurely expenditure of time, which
+is as natural to the Spaniard as it is irritating to our notions of how
+things ought to move, will go infinitely farther to set things right
+than black looks and a scolding tongue, even in an unknown language.
+
+When English people come back from Spain complaining of discourtesy, or
+what they choose to call insult, I know very well on whose head to fit
+the accusing cap, and it is always those people whose super-excellent
+opinion of themselves, and of their infinite importance at home, makes
+them certain of meeting with some such experience among a people to whom
+the mere expression "a snob" is by no means to be understood.
+
+That railway travelling in Spain calls for a great exercise of patience
+from those accustomed to Flying Dutchmen and such-like expresses is
+quite true; though, by the way, many of the lines are in French hands,
+and served by French officials. It may safely be said, however, even at
+the present day, that those who are always in a hurry would do well to
+choose some other country for their holiday jaunt. A well-known English
+engineer, of French extraction, trying to get some business through in
+Madrid, once described himself as feeling "like a cat in hell, without
+claws." Perhaps the ignorance of the language, which constituted his
+clawless condition, was a fortunate circumstance for him. But that was a
+good while ago, and Madrid moves more quickly now.
+
+Another characteristic of the Spaniard which awakens the respect and
+admiration of those who know enough of his past and present history to
+be aware of it is his courage: not in the least resembling the
+excitement and rush of mere conflict, nor the theatrical display of what
+goes by the name of "glory" among some of his neighbours; but the cool
+courage, the invincible determination which holds honour as the ideal to
+be followed all the same whether or not any person beyond the actor will
+know of it, and an unquestioning obedience to discipline, which call
+forth the ungrudging admiration of Englishmen, proud as we are of such
+national stories as that of our own _Little Revenge, The Wreck of the
+"Birkenhead,"_ or of "plucky little Mafeking," amongst hundreds of
+others. Spaniards are rich in such inspiring memories, reaching from the
+earliest days of authentic history to the terrible episodes of the late
+war with America. The story of Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba is
+one to make the heart of any nation throb with pride in the midst of
+inevitable tears.
+
+Again and again in reading Spanish history do we come upon evidences of
+this nobility of courage and disinterested patriotism. It was the
+Spaniard Pescara who brushed the French army of observation from the
+line of the Adda, and marched his own forces and the German troops to
+the relief of Pavía. All were unpaid, unclothed, unfed; yet when an
+appeal was made to the Spaniards, Hume tells us that they abandoned
+their own pay and offered their very shirts and cloaks to satisfy the
+Germans, and "the French were beaten before the great battle was
+fought." They did precisely the same in the days of Mendizábal.
+
+Again, in the height of Barbarossa's power, when Charles V., hoisting
+the crucifix at his masthead, led his crusading Spaniards against
+Goletta, and it fell, after a month's desperate siege, without pause or
+rest the troops, half dead with heat and thirst, pressed on to Tunis to
+liberate twenty thousand Christian captives. It was a splendid
+achievement, for the campaign was fought in the fierce heat of an
+African summer. Every barrel of biscuit, every butt of water, had to be
+brought by sea from Sicily, and as there were no draught animals, the
+soldiers themselves dragged their guns and all their provisions. It is,
+as we well know, no light task to find six weeks' supply for thirty
+thousand men with all our modern advantages; but these Spaniards did it
+when already exhausted, half fed, burnt up by the fierce African sun,
+and in face of an enemy well supplied with artillery and ammunition.
+
+In the miserable time of Philip II., a garrison of two hundred men held
+out for months against a Turkish army of twenty thousand men at
+Mers-el-Keber; and the same heroic story is repeated at Malta, when the
+enemy, after firing sixteen thousand cannon shots in one month against
+the Christian forts, abandoned the siege in despair. Meanwhile the
+unspeakable bigot, Philip, was wasting his time in processions,
+rogations, and fasts, for the relief of the town, while he stirred no
+finger to help it in any effective manner.
+
+These are stories by no means few and far between; the whole history of
+the race is full of such. We read of one town and garrison of eight
+thousand souls, abandoned by their king, starved, and without clothes or
+ammunition. Reduced at last to two thousand naked men, they stood in the
+breach to be slain to a man by the conquering Turk. Conqueror only in
+name, after all; for he who conquers is he who lives in history for a
+great action, and whose undaunted courage fires other souls long after
+he is at rest.
+
+"But all this is very ancient history, of the days of Spain's greatness;
+now she is a decadent nation," says the superficial observer. The column
+of the _Dos de Mayo_ on the Prado of Madrid, with its yearly memorial
+mass, shows whether that spirit is dead, or in danger of dying. The
+second of May is well called the "Day of Independence"; it was, in fact,
+the inauguration of the War of Independence, in which Spain gained
+enough honour to satisfy the proudest of her sons. The French had
+entered Madrid under pretence of being Spain's allies against Portugal,
+and Murat, once settled there to his own perfect satisfaction, made no
+secret of his master's intention to annex the whole peninsula. The
+imbecile King, Charles IV., had abdicated; his son, Ferdinand VII., was
+practically a captive in France. The country had, in fact, been sold to
+Napoleon, neither more nor less, by the infamous Godoy, favourite of the
+late King.
+
+A riot broke out among the people on discovering that the French were
+about to carry off the Spanish _Infantes_. The blood of some
+comparatively innocent Frenchmen was shed, and the base governor and
+magistrates of Madrid allowed Murat to make his own terms, which were
+nothing less, in fact, than the dispersion of the troops, who were
+ordered to clear out of their barracks, and hand them over to the
+French. The two artillery officers, Daoiz and Valarde, with one infantry
+officer named Ruiz, and a few of the populace, refused, and, all
+unaided, attempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French
+army of invasion! The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards
+of the old type. Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by
+French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had
+stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was
+shot. On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots
+who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now
+sacred to their memory. Thus was the torch of the Peninsular War
+lighted. As one man the nation rose; the labourer armed himself with his
+agricultural implements, the workman with his tools; without leaders,
+nay, in defiance of those who should have led them, the people sprang to
+action, and, with England's help, the usurper was driven from the throne
+of France, and finally caged in St. Helena. But it is never forgotten
+that Spain--these two or three sons of hers preferring honour to
+life--has the glory of having been the first to oppose and check the
+man and the nation that aspired to tyrannise over Europe.
+
+It is not too much to say that the conduct of every individual in
+Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba showed that the Spaniard's
+magnificent courage, his absolute devotion to duty, and his disregard of
+death are no whit less to-day than when those two thousand naked men
+stood in the breach to be slain in the name of their country's honour.
+The _Oquendo_, already a wreck, coming quietly out of her safe moorings
+in obedience to the insane orders of the Government in Madrid, steering
+her way with absolute coolness so as to clear the sunken _Diamante_, to
+face certain and hideous death, is a picture which can never fade from
+memory. It was said at the time by their enemies that there was not a
+man in the Spanish fleet that did not deserve the Victoria Cross; and
+this was all the more true because there was not even a forlorn hope: it
+was obedience to orders in the absolute certainty of death, and, what
+was harder still, with full knowledge of the utter uselessness of the
+sacrifice.
+
+It is difficult to imagine that anyone can read the record of this
+heroic passage in the history of the Spain of to-day without a throb of
+admiration and pity. No wonder that the generous enemy went out of their
+way to do honour to the melancholy remnant of heroes as they mounted the
+sides of the American ironclads, prisoners of war.
+
+Cervantes gave to the world a new adjective when he wrote his romance
+of _The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha_--a world in which the
+filibusters are those of commerce, the pirates those of trade. When we
+English call an action "quixotic," we do not exactly mean disapproval,
+but neither, certainly, do we intend admiration; unless it be that of
+other-worldliness which it is well to affect, however far we may be from
+practising it ourselves. It is, at best, something quite unnecessary, if
+acknowledged to be admirable in the abstract. The quixotic are rarely
+successful, and success is the measure by which everything is judged
+to-day. Be that as it may, the more intimately one knows Spain, the more
+one becomes aware that what is with us an amiable quality of somewhat
+dubious value, is one of those which go to make up the Spaniard in every
+rank of life. His chivalry, his fine sense of honour, are nothing if not
+quixotic, as we understand the word; and just as in Scotland alone does
+one appreciate the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in Spain
+does one feel that, with due allowance for a spirit of kindly
+caricature, Don Quijote de la Mancha is not only possible, but it is a
+type of character as living to-day as it was when the genius of
+Cervantes distilled and preserved for all time that most quaint,
+lovable, inconsequent, and chivalrous combination of qualities which
+constitute a Spanish gentleman. Among her writers, her thinkers, her
+workers--nay, even now and then among her politicians--we come upon
+traits which remind us vividly of the ingenious gentleman and perfect
+knight of romance.
+
+But this estimate of the Spanish character differs a good deal from the
+pictures drawn of it by the casual tourist; and it is scarcely
+surprising that it should be so. It has been well said that "the
+contrast between the ideal of honour and the practice of pecuniary
+corruption has always been a peculiar feature of Spain and her
+settlements." If we hear one thing oftener than another said of Spain,
+it is fault-finding with her public men; the evils of bribery,
+corruption, and self-seeking amongst what should be her statesmen, and,
+above all, her Government employees, are pointed out, and by none more
+than by Spaniards themselves. There is a good deal of truth at the
+bottom of these charges; they are the melancholy legacy of the years of
+misrule and of the darkness through which the country has struggled on
+her difficult way. No one looks for the highest type of character in any
+country among its party politicians. The creed that good becomes evil if
+it is carried out under one _régime_, and evil good under another, is
+not calculated to raise the moral perception; and it is only when a
+politician has convictions and principles which are superior to any
+office-holding, and will break with his party a hundred times sooner
+than stultify his own conscience, that he earns the respect of
+onlookers. There are, and have been, many such men among the politicians
+of Spain whose names remain as watchwords with her people; but they
+have too often stood alone, and were not strong enough to leaven the
+mass and raise the whole standard of political integrity. Some of the
+highest and best men, moreover, have thrown down their tools and
+withdrawn from contact with a life which seemed to them tainted. But
+because Spain has done much in overthrowing her evil rulers and is
+struggling upwards towards the light, we expect wonders, and will not
+give time for what must always be a slow and difficult progress.
+
+In Spain, everyone is a politician. The schoolboy, who with us would be
+thinking of nothing more serious than football, aspires to sum up the
+situation and give his opinion of the public men as if he were an
+ex-prime minister at least. These orators of the _cafés_ and the street
+corners are delighted to find a foreigner on whom they can air their
+unfledged opinions, and the traveller who can speak or understand a few
+words of Spanish comes back with wonderful accounts of what "a Spaniard
+whom I met in the train told me." In any case, no one ever says as hard
+things of his countrymen as a Spaniard will say of those who do not
+belong to the particular little political clique which has the extreme
+honour of counting himself as one of its number. These cliques--for one
+cannot call them parties--are innumerable, called, for the most part,
+after one man, of whom no one has heard except his particular friends,
+_Un Señor muy conocido en su casa, sobre todo á la hora de comer_, as
+their saying is: "A gentleman very well known in his own house,
+especially at dinner-time."
+
+[Illustration: PAST WORK]
+
+[Illustration: KNIFE-GRINDER]
+
+Ford is answerable for many of the fixed ideas about Spain which it
+seems quite impossible to remove. Much that may have been true in the
+long ago, when he wrote his incomparable Guide Book, has now passed away
+with the all-conquering years; but still all that he ever said is
+repeated in each new book with unfailing certainty. Much as he really
+loved Spain, it must be confessed that he now and then wrote of her with
+a venom and bitterness quite at variance with his usual manner of
+judging things. It is in great part due to him that so much
+misunderstanding exists as to the Spanish custom of "offering" what is
+not intended to be accepted. If that peculiarity ever existed--for my
+part, I have never met with it at any time--it does so no longer. When a
+Spaniard speaks of his house as that of "your Grace" (_su casa de
+Usted_), it is simply a figure of speech, which has no more special
+meaning than our own "I am delighted to see you," addressed to some one
+whose existence you had forgotten, and will forget again; but nothing
+can exceed the generous hospitality often shown to perfect strangers in
+country districts where the accommodation for travellers is bad, when
+any real difficulty arises.
+
+It is customary, for instance, in travelling, when you open your
+luncheon-basket, to offer to share its contents with any strangers who
+may chance to be fellow-passengers. Naturally, it is merely a form of
+politeness, and, in an ordinary way, no one thinks of accepting
+it--everyone has his own provision, or is intending to lunch somewhere
+on the way; but it is by no means an empty form. If it should chance, by
+some accident, that you found yourself without--as has happened to me in
+a diligence journey which lasted twenty hours when it was intended only
+to occupy twelve--the Spanish fellow-travellers will certainly insist on
+your accepting their offer. Also, if they should be provided with fresh
+fruit--oranges, dates, or figs--and you are not, their offer to share is
+by no means made with the hope or expectation that you will say _Muchas
+gracias_, the equivalent of "No, thank you."
+
+What is really difficult and embarrassing sometimes is to avoid having
+pressed on your acceptance some article which you may have admired, in
+your ignorance of the custom, which makes it the merest commonplace of
+the Spaniard to "place it at your disposition," or to say: "It is
+already the property of your Grace." Continued refusal sometimes gives
+offence. The custom of never doing to-day what you can quite easily put
+off till to-morrow is, unfortunately, still a common trait of Spanish
+character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of
+business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the
+national characteristics. Time in old days seemed of very little value
+in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as
+unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first _Grandeza_;
+but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure,
+it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or
+dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or
+_orchaterias_, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has
+with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "_el_
+high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly.
+Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the Spanish woman of
+rank in such surroundings.
+
+For the rest, the Spanish woman, wherever you meet her, and in whatever
+rank of society, is devout, naturally kind-hearted and sympathetic,
+polite, and entirely unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter;
+hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all
+things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted,
+full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that
+kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled sex, with no taint
+of sordidness about it; and, before all things, absolutely free from
+affectation. Their own expression, _muy simpática_, gives better than
+any other the charm of the Spanish woman, whether young or old, gentle
+or simple.
+
+It was the possession of all these qualities in a high degree by Doña
+Isabel II. that covered the multitude of her sins, and made all who
+came within her influence speak gently of her, and think more of excuses
+than of blame. It is these qualities which give so much popularity to
+her daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who, like her mother, is above all
+things _muy Española_. That the Spanish woman is passionate, goes
+without saying; one only has to watch the quick flash of her
+eye--"throwing out sparks," as their own expression may be
+translated--to be aware of that. While the eyes of the men are for the
+most part languid, only occasionally flashing forth, those of the women
+are rarely quiet for a moment; they sparkle, they languish, they
+flame--a whole gamut of expression in one moment of time; and it must be
+confessed that they look upon man as their natural prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SPANISH SOCIETY
+
+
+There is something specially charming about Spanish society, its freedom
+from formality, the genuine pleasure and hospitality with which each
+guest is received, and the extreme simplicity of the entertainment. In
+speaking, however, of society in Madrid and other modern towns, it must
+be remembered that the old manners and customs are to a great extent
+being modified and assimilated with those of the other Continental
+cities. A great number of the Spanish nobility spend the season in Paris
+or in London as regularly as any of the fashionable people in France or
+England. There is no country life in Spain, as we understand the word;
+those of the upper ten thousand who have castles or great houses in the
+provinces rarely visit them, and still more rarely entertain there. A
+hunting or a shooting party at one of these is quite an event; so when
+the great people leave Madrid, it is generally to enter into London or
+Paris society, and, naturally, when they are at home they to a great
+extent retain cosmopolitan customs. At the foreign legations or
+ministries also, society loses much of its specially Spanish character.
+
+The word _tertulia_ simply means a circle or group in society; but it
+has come to signify a species of "At Home" much more informal than
+anything we have in the way of evening entertainment. The _tertulia_ of
+a particular lady means the group of friends who are in the habit of
+frequenting her drawing-room. The Salon del Prado is the general
+meeting-place of all who feel more inclined for _al fresco_
+entertainment than for close rooms, and the different groups of friends
+meeting there draw their chairs together in small circles, and thus hold
+their _tertulia_. The old Countess of Montijo was so much given to
+open-handed hospitality, and it was so easy for any English person to
+obtain an introduction to her _tertulia_, that her daughter, the Empress
+Eugénie, used to call it the _Prado cubierto_--"only the Prado with a
+roof on." It is not customary for anything but the very lightest of
+refreshments to be offered at the ordinary _tertulia_, and this is one
+of its great charms, for little or no expense is incurred, and those who
+are not rich can still welcome their friends as often as they like
+without any of the terrific preparations for the entertainment which
+make it a burden and a bore, and without a rueful glance at the weekly
+bill afterwards. Occasionally, chocolate is handed round, and any amount
+of tumblers of cold water. The chocolate is served in small coffee-cups,
+and is of the consistency of oatmeal porridge; but it is delicious all
+the same, very light and well frothed up. It is "eaten" by dipping
+little finger-rusks or sponge-chips into the mixture, and you are
+extremely glad of the glass of cold water after it. This is, however,
+rather an exception; lemonade, _azucarillas_ and water, or tea served in
+a separate room about twelve o'clock, is more usual. The _azucarilla_ is
+a confection not unlike "Edinburgh rock," but more porous and of the
+nature of a meringue. You stir the water with it, when it instantly
+dissolves, flavouring the water with vanilla, lemon, or orange, as well
+as sugar. Sometimes you are offered meringues, which you eat first, and
+then drink the water.
+
+I have a very perfect recollection of my first _tertulia_ in Madrid,
+when I was a very young girl. We had been asked to go quite early, as we
+were the strangers of the evening. Between seventy and eighty guests
+dropped in, the ladies chiefly in morning dress, as we understand the
+word. A Spanish lady never rises to receive a gentleman; but when any
+ladies entered the large drawing-room where we were all seated, every
+one rose and stood while the new arrivals made the circuit of the room,
+shaking hands with their friends or kissing them on both cheeks, and
+giving a somewhat undignified little nod to those whom they did not
+know. The first time every one rose I thought we were going to sing a
+hymn, or take part in some ceremony; but as it had to be repeated each
+time a lady entered the room, I began to wish they would all come at
+once. As soon as the dancing began, however, this ceremony was
+discontinued. When you are introduced to a partner, the first thing he
+does is to inquire your Christian name; from that time forth he
+addresses you by it, as if he had known you from infancy, and in
+speaking to him you are expected to use his surname alone. If there be
+more than one brother, you address the younger one as "Arturo," "Ramon,"
+or whatever his Christian name may be. The diminutives are, however,
+almost always used--Pacquita, Juanito, etc., in place of Francisca or
+Juan. Even the middle-aged and old ladies are always spoken to by their
+Christian names, and it is quite common to hear a child of six
+addressing a lady who is probably a grandmother as "Luisa" or
+"Mariquita."
+
+Between the dances the pauses were unusually long, but they were never
+spent by the ladies sitting in rows round the walls, while the men
+blocked up the doorways and looked bored. There were no "flirting
+corners," and sitting out on the stairs _à deux_ would have been a
+_compromiso_. The whole company broke up into little knots and circles,
+the chairs, which had been pushed into corners or an ante-room, were
+fetched out, and the men, without any sort of shyness, generally seated
+themselves in front of the ladies, and kept up a perfectly wild hubbub
+of conversation until the music for the next dance struck up. Dowagers
+and _dueñas_ were few; they sat in the same spot all the evening, and
+asked each other what rent they paid, how many _chimeneas_ (fireplaces)
+they had, whether they burned wood or coal, and lamented over the price
+of both. They reminded one irresistibly of the "two crumbly old women"
+in _Kavanagh_ "who talked about moths, and cheap furniture, and the best
+cure for rheumatism."
+
+The dances were the same as ours, with some small differences: the
+_rigodon_ is a variation of the quadrille, and the lancers are slightly
+curtailed. There was a decided fancy for the polka and a species of
+mazurka, which I remembered having learned from a dancing-master in the
+dawn of life, under some strange and forgotten name. Spaniards dance
+divinely--nothing less. They waltz as few other men do, a very poetry of
+motion, an abandonment of enjoyment, as if their soul were in it,
+especially if the music be somewhat languid. This is especially the case
+with the artillery officers, who are great favourites in society, and
+belong exclusively to the upper ranks.
+
+I have described this _tertulia_ at length because it was a typical one
+of many. The cotillon was a great favourite, and generally closed the
+evening. I always had an idea that one cause of its popularity was the
+extended opportunities it gave for a couple who found each other's
+company pleasant to enjoy it without much interference. It rather made
+up for the loss of the staircase and the window-seats, or balconies,
+dear to English dancers. The rooms are generally kept in a stifling
+state of heat, a thick curtain always hanging over the door, and never
+an open window or any kind of ventilation; this, however, does not
+inconvenience the Spaniard in the least. It is usual to smoke during the
+intervals of the dances--cigarettes as a rule; but I have often known a
+man to lay his cigar on the edge of a table, and give it a whiff between
+the rounds of a _valse_ to keep it going.
+
+This, however, is the Spanish _tertulia_. You are "offered the house"
+once and for always, and told the evenings on which your hostess
+"receives," generally once, sometimes many more times in the week; then
+you drop in, without further invitation, whenever you feel inclined;
+after the opera, or on the days when there is no opera, or on your way
+from the theatre, or at any hour. This sort of visiting puts an end to
+what we, by courtesy, call "morning calls." There is always conversation
+to any amount, generally cards, music, and, when there are sufficient
+young people, a dance.
+
+There is no exclusiveness and no caste about Spanish society; all the
+houses are open, and the guests are always welcome. There are, of
+course, the houses of the nobility, and there are many grades in this
+_Grandeza_, some being of very recent creation, others of the
+uncontaminated _sangre azul_; but there is no hard-and-fast line. The
+successful politician or the popular writer has the entrée anywhere,
+and there is no difficulty about going into the very best of the Court
+society, if one has friends in that _tertulia_. One guest asks
+permission to present his or her friend, the permission is courteously
+granted, and the thing is done. Poets and dramatists are in great
+request in Madrid society. It is the custom to ask them to recite their
+own compositions, and as almost every Spaniard is a poet, whatever else
+he may be, there is no lack of entertainment. All the popular
+authors--Campoamor, Nuñez de Arce, Pelayo, Valera, and many others--may
+thus be heard; but the paid performer (so common in London
+drawing-rooms) of music, light drama, or poetical recitation, is
+probably absolutely unknown in Madrid society.
+
+During the season balls are given occasionally at the Palace, and at the
+houses of the great nobility, the Fernan-Nuñez, the Romana, the
+Medinaceli, and others, whose names are as well known in Paris and
+London as in Madrid. Dinner-parties are also becoming much more common
+in private houses than they were before the Restoration, and as for
+public dinners, they are so frequent that they bid fair to become of the
+same importance as the like institution in England. Costume balls,
+dances, dinners, and evening entertainments among the _corps
+diplomatique_ abound. Everyone in Madrid has a box or stall at the
+Teatro Real, or opera-house, and many ladies make a practice of
+"receiving" in their _palcos_; and in the entrance-hall, after the
+performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for
+carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally
+making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same
+amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an
+_abono_ at one or other of the numerous theatres, sometimes at more than
+one; and if it be a box, the subscribers take friends with them, or
+receive visits there. It is a common thing, either in the opera-house or
+in the theatres, for a couple of friends to join in the _abono_; in this
+case it is arranged on which nights the whole box or the two or three
+stalls shall be the property of each in turn. Besides paying for the
+seats, there is always a separate charge each night made for the
+_entrada_--in the Teatro Real it is a peseta and a half, in the others
+one peseta. By this arrangement anyone can enter the theatre by paying
+the _entrada_, and take chance of finding friends there, frequently
+spending an hour or so going from one box to another. All this gives the
+theatre more the air of being an immense "At Home" than what we are
+accustomed to in England. The intervals between the acts are very long,
+and, as all the men smoke, somewhat trying.
+
+Spanish women are great dressers, and the costumes seen at the
+race-meetings at the Hippodrome, and in the Parque, are elaborately
+French, and sometimes startling. The upper middle class go to Santander,
+Biarritz, or one of the other fashionable watering-places, and it is
+said of the ladies that they only stop as many days as they can sport
+new costumes. If they go for a fortnight they must have fifteen
+absolutely new dresses, as they would never think of putting one on a
+second time. They take with them immense trunks, such as we generally
+associate with American travellers; these are called _mundos_
+(worlds)--a name which one feels certain was given by the suffering man
+who is expected to look after them.
+
+There are many little details in Spanish life, even of the upper
+classes, which strike one as odd. One, for instance, is the perfect
+_sangfroid_ with which they pick their teeth in public; but so little is
+this considered, as with us, a breach of good manners, that the
+dinner-tables are supplied with dainty little ornaments filled with
+tooth-picks, and these are handed round to the guests by the waiters
+towards the close of the meal. Nor is it an unknown thing for a Spanish
+lady to spit. I have seen it done out of a carriage window in the
+fashionable drive without any hesitation. At the same time, as one of
+the great charms of a Spanish woman is the total absence in her of
+anything savouring of affectation, one would far sooner overlook customs
+that are unknown in polite society with us than have them lose their own
+characteristics in an attempt to imitate the social peculiarities of
+other nations that have incorporated the ominous word "snob" in their
+vocabularies. It has no equivalent in the language of Castile, and it
+is to be hoped will never be borrowed. Nevertheless, a recent Spanish
+writer laments the fact that in the race for "_el_ high life" his
+fellow-countrywomen "are not ashamed to drink whisky!" We have yet to
+learn that whisky-drinking among women is an element of good style in
+any class of English society. The idea that Spanish ladies were in the
+habit of smoking in past times is a mistake. If they do so now it is an
+instance of the race for "_el_ high life," of which the writer quoted
+above complains.
+
+In imitation of foreign customs, many of the ladies in Madrid and the
+more modern cities have established their "day" for afternoon visitors.
+After all, this is but the Spanish _tertulia_ at a different hour, but
+if it should ever supersede the real evening _tertulia_ it will be a
+thousand pities; it would be far more sensible if we were to adopt the
+Spanish custom, rather than that they should follow ours. In the
+evening, the hour varying, of course, with the time of year, all Madrid
+goes to drive, ride, or walk in the Buen Retiro, now called the Parque
+de Madrid. It is beautifully laid out, with wide, well-kept roads and
+well-cared-for gardens; it has quite superseded the Paseo de la Fuente
+Castellano, which used to be the "Ladies' Mile" of Madrid.
+
+Madrid is a city of which one hears the most contradictory accounts. The
+mere traveller not uncommonly pronounces it "disappointing, uninteresting,
+less foreign than most Continental capitals,"--"everything to be seen at
+best second-rate France," etc., etc. The Museo, of course, must be
+admired,--even the most ignorant know that to contemn that is to write
+themselves down as Philistines;--but for the rest, they confess themselves
+glad to escape, after two or three days spent in La Corte, to what they
+fancy will prove more interesting towns, or, at any rate, to something
+which they hope will be more characteristic. But those who settle in
+Madrid, or know it well, winter and summer, and have friends among its
+hospitable people, come to love it, one might almost say, strangely,
+because it is not the love that springs from habit or mere familiarity,
+but something much warmer and more personal. One charm it has, which is
+felt while there and pleasantly remembered in absence--its much-maligned
+climate. The position of Madrid at the apex of a high table-land, two
+thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, with its
+wide expanse of plain on every hand but that on which the Guadarramas
+break the horizon with their rugged, often snow-capped, peaks, naturally
+exposes it to rapid changes of temperature; that is to say, that if the
+snow is still lying on the Sierra, and the wind should chance to blow from
+that direction on Madrid, which is steeped in sunshine winter and summer
+for far the greater part of the year, there is nothing to break its course,
+and naturally, a Madrileño, crossing from the sheltered corner, where
+he has been "taking the sun," to the shady side of the street and the
+full force of the chilly blast, will be very likely to "catch an air,"
+as the Spaniard expresses it. But that _tan sutil aire de Madrid_, which
+Ford seems to have discovered, and which every guide-book and slip-shod
+itinerary has ever since quoted, might very well now be allowed to find
+a place in the limbo of exploded myths; it has done far more than its
+duty in terrifying visitors quite needlessly. That _pulmonia fulminante_
+(acute pneumonia) is a very common disease among the men of Madrid,
+there is no doubt, and in the days when Ford wrote, they were no doubt
+immediately bled, and so hastened on their way out of this troublesome
+world by the doctors; but one has not very far to seek for the cause of
+this scourge when one notices the habits of the Madrileño. In the first
+place he hates nothing quite so much as fresh air, and the cafés, clubs,
+taverns, and places where he resorts are kept in such a state of heated
+stuffiness that it seems scarcely an exaggeration to say that the air
+could be cut out in junks, like pieces of cake. If he travel by train,
+all windows must be kept closely shut, while he smokes all the time.
+When, at last, it is necessary to brave the outer air in order to reach
+home, he, carefully and before leaving the vitiated atmosphere he has
+been breathing, envelops himself in his cloak, throwing the heavy cape,
+generally lined with velvet or plush, across his mouth and nose, barely
+leaving his eyes visible; he thus has three or four folds of cloth and
+velvet as a respirator. It often happens that at the corner of some
+street the long arm of the icy "Guadarrama" reaches him; a sudden gust
+of wind plucks off his respirator, and the mischief is done. But should
+he reach the safe closeness of his own house, he has certainly done his
+level best to charge his lungs with unwholesome and contaminated air.
+
+You have only to see the women on the coldest day in winter with nothing
+over their heads but a silk or lace mantilla, or a mere _velo_ of net,
+and the working-women with nothing but their magnificent hair, or, at
+most, a kerchief, to be certain that it is not the "air" that is to
+blame. I have seen the women going about Madrid in winter, both by day
+and night, when the men were muffled to the eyes, with thicker dresses,
+of course, and perhaps a fur cape, but no sort of wrap about their head
+or throat; and _pulmonia_ is comparatively unknown among women. To
+English people, accustomed to plenty of fresh air and water, Madrid has
+never been an unhealthy place, and it is extremely probable that one of
+these days our doctors will be sending their consumptive patients there
+for the winter. They might easily do worse.
+
+One of the coldest winters I remember in Madrid, a young Englishman came
+out with a letter of introduction from friends. He looked as if he had
+not many weeks to live, and in truth he was condemned by his doctors,
+and his hours were numbered. He was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had
+some years past developed seeds of consumption. He had been sent year
+after year to Madeira and other of the old resorts, having been told
+that a winter in England would certainly finish him. Finally, he made
+his doctors tell him the truth: it was that he had not many months,
+perhaps not many weeks, to live.
+
+"Very well, then," he replied, "there is no use worrying any more about
+my health. I shall do my best to enjoy the little time I may have left."
+He threw all his medicines and remedies out of the window, he looked out
+for the most unhealthy place he could find, where he would be most
+certain of never meeting another consumptive patient; and in the course
+of the search he came across the well-worn chestnut about the air of
+Madrid. "That is the place for me," he exclaimed; "only strong and
+healthy people can live there. At any rate, so long as I do live, I
+shall be amongst sound lungs, and shall see no more fellow-sufferers.
+The _aire tan sutil_ will kill me, and that will be the end of the
+matter." So far from killing him, the fine champagne-like air of Madrid
+went as near curing him as was possible for a man with only one lung. He
+took no precautions, never wrapped up, went out at night as well as by
+day, and when he died, fourteen years later, it was not of consumption.
+He used to come to Madrid for the winter to escape the damp of England,
+and revelled in the warmth and freshness of that sun-steeped air.
+
+The climate of Madrid has sensibly altered since I have known it, and
+will continue to do so as vegetation increases and trees spring up and
+grow to perfection within and around it. In the old times, before the
+splendid service of water of the Lozoya Canal was in common use, the air
+was so dry as to make one's skin uncomfortable, and one's hair to break
+off into pieces like tinder under the brush; there was also a constant
+thickening in the throat, causing slight discomfort, and a penetrating,
+impalpable dust which nothing ever laid, and which formed a veritable
+cloud reaching far above the heads of the promenaders in the Salon del
+Prado. A very short time changed all this. Twice a day the streets were
+watered with far-reaching hose, a constant stream ran about the stems of
+the trees in the Prado, gardens were planted and constantly watered, and
+while the hitherto barren, dust-laden places began to blossom as the
+rose, the air itself became softer, less trying, and, perhaps, there is
+rather more uncertainty about the weather, or at any rate a greater
+rainfall. At one time there were but two rainy seasons--spring and
+autumn--and never a cloud in between. For about three days clouds would
+be gathering gradually in the sky, beginning with one literally "no
+bigger than a man's hand." Whenever there was a cloud, you might be
+certain of rain, past or to come. Then one day, when there was no longer
+any blue to be seen, the heavens opened and the rain came down. There
+could be no mistake about it. When it rains or thunders in Madrid, it
+tries to get it all over as quickly as possible. There is nothing like
+doing a thing well when you are about it, and Madrid thoroughly
+understands this matter of rain. It never ceases, never tempts people to
+go out and then drowns them. No, if you go out, it is with a thorough
+understanding of what you are undertaking; and if you are disposed to be
+critical about anything in the municipal management of La Corte now, try
+to imagine what it was when the water from the roofs was carried out in
+wide pipes a few feet from the edge, and allowed to pour on the heads of
+the defenceless foot-passengers, or almost to break in the roof of
+carriage or cab which had to pass under them. This is the time to learn
+why the bridges over the Manzanares are so wide and so strong; not one
+whit too much of either, if they are to withstand the mighty on-rush. We
+used to go off to the Casa de Campo the moment the rain was over, for
+the sake of seeing Madrid as one never sees it at other times--its
+magnificent Palace crowning the steep bluff, round which a mighty river
+is rushing to the sea.
+
+The rain lasts a week, a fortnight, or even more, and then the sky takes
+at least three days to clear, during which it resembles our English
+white-flecked blue, or its hurrying grey masses, and the cloud-shadows
+fly over the wide landscape, now all suddenly changed to verdure, and
+lie on the distant _sierra_, giving an unwonted charm to the scene. The
+Casa de Campo, the Florida, and all green spots become carpeted with
+wild flowers; the trees seem to have put on new leafage, so fresh are
+they and free from the over-loading of dust. And then, gradually, the
+Manzanares repents him of his anger and haste; no more foam is dashing
+against the piers of the bridges, no more crested waves are hurrying
+before the wind; he sinks gently and slowly back to his accustomed
+lounging pace, "taking the sun" with lazy ease once more; and the
+washerwomen come down and resume their labours under the plane trees;
+and there is no more thought of rain for many a week, perhaps month, to
+come; and that strangely deep, impenetrable vault of a blue unknown
+elsewhere spreads its canopy over a clean, rain-washed city.
+
+The Parque de Madrid, which lies high above the Prado, affords a
+striking view of the country on all sides. An Englishman of wide
+Continental experience, describing this prospect, says he was "more than
+recompensed by the sudden apparition, through an opening between the
+houses, of the exquisite _campagna_ that surrounds Madrid.... Compared
+with that of Rome, it seemed to me clearer, and more extensive, while
+the hue of the atmosphere that overspread it was of a rich purple." I
+have quoted these remarks because it is so rare for English visitors,
+accustomed to the lush green of our own meadows and woods, to find
+anything to admire in what is too often called the "mangy," or at best
+the "arid," surroundings of the capital of Spain. This, however, was
+written in September, and there had been heavy rains; after the crops
+are gathered and before the autumn rains come on, the prospect is
+scarcely so much to be admired. That the view is extensive, no one can
+deny; there is unbroken horizon, except where the rugged peaks of the
+Guadarramas pierce the sky, and the atmospheric effects are often
+marvellously beautiful, especially when the swift shadows of clouds pass
+over the wide landscape, or lie upon the "everlasting hills."
+
+For myself, this vast expanse, with the sense of immensity which we
+generally are only able to associate with the sea, has always had an
+extraordinary charm. I have seen it at all times of the year, early in
+the morning, and at, or just before, sundown--nay, even once or twice by
+moonlight, or with the marvellous blue vault overhead, that seems so
+much higher and greater there than elsewhere, studded with planet and
+star, luminous beyond all that we know in our little island, where the
+blue is so pale by comparison, and the atmosphere laden with moisture
+when we think it most clear. I do not remember elsewhere in Spain, or in
+any other country, such a depth of sky or such brilliancy of moon and
+star light as in Madrid, where it is as easy to read by night as by day
+on some occasions.
+
+Given plenty of water, and Madrid is an ideal place for flowers. Such
+carnations as those which are grown in the nursery gardens there are
+never seen elsewhere--they are a revelation in horticulture; nor are the
+roses any less wonderful. The bouquet with which a Spaniard, whether
+_hidalgo_ or one of your servants, greets your birthday is generally a
+pyramid almost as tall as yourself. It needs to be placed in a large
+earthenware jar on the floor, and if you should be happy enough to have
+a good many friends, there is scarcely room for anything else in your
+_gabinete_. The flowers one can raise in a balcony in Madrid merely by
+using plenty of water, syringing the dust off the leaves, and shading
+them occasionally from the worst heat, are more than equal to anything a
+hothouse in England can produce. An idea may be formed of the really
+marvellous fertility of the soil and climate by the rapidity with which
+seeds develop. I remember one summer, when some of the new gardens were
+being laid out in the Buen Retiro, a grand concert and evening _fête_
+was to be given as the opening function. On the evening before this
+entertainment was to take place we happened to be near, and strolled in
+to see how the preparations were going on. The gravel walks were all
+there, the stands for the bands, the Chinese lanterns hanging from the
+trees, but where was the grass? Alas! wherever it ought to have been
+were to be seen brown, sad-looking patches of bare earth, not a blade
+springing anywhere; what was worse, an army of gardeners were, at that
+moment only, sowing the seed in some patches, while others were being
+rolled, and watered with hose. _Cosa de España!_ of course. It had been
+put off to _mañana_, until now there might be _fête_, but no gardens.
+The following evening, when in company with all Madrid we went to the
+concert, behold a transformation! Soft, green, velvety sward--not to be
+walked on, it is true, but lovely to behold--covered the patches so
+absolutely bald twenty-four hours ago. The seed we had seen sown had
+sprung up as thickly as finest cut velvet. _Cosa de España_, indeed! It
+is not always in Spain--the land of the unexpected--that _Mañana
+verémos_ is foolishness.
+
+Until after Christmas the winter in Madrid is charming, even if it be
+cold; the glorious sunshine from dawn to sunset, the fine exhilarating
+air, raise one's spirits unconsciously; but very often the old year is
+dead before any real cold comes on. I have sat out in the Buen Retiro
+many a day in December with book or work, and scarcely any more wrap
+than one wears in summer in England. After that there is generally a
+cold, and perhaps disagreeable, spell, when the wind comes howling
+across the plains straight from the snow and ice, and the Madrileño
+thinks it terrible; as a matter of fact, so long as the sky remains
+clear, there is always one side of the street where one can be warm.
+Sometimes, but not often, the cold weather or the bitter winds last
+pretty far into the spring, and it has certainly happened in the depth
+of the frost that one of the sentries on duty at the Palace, on the side
+facing the mountains, was found frozen to death when the relief came.
+After that the watch was made shorter, and the change of guard more
+frequent in winter. I have seen the Estanque Grande in the Retiro
+covered with ice several inches thick; but as all Madrid turned out to
+see the wonder and watch the foreigners skate, a thing that appeared
+never to have been seen before, it could not have been a very common
+occurrence.
+
+Riding early in the morning in winter outside Madrid, even with the sun
+shining brightly and a cloudless sky, the cold was often intense,
+especially in the dells and hollows. We have often had to put our hands
+under the saddle to keep them from freezing, so as to be able to feel
+the reins, and if I were riding with the sun on the off-side, my feet
+would become perfectly dead to feeling. But what an air it was!
+Something to be remembered, and long before we reached home we were in a
+delicious glow. The horses, English thoroughbreds, enjoyed it immensely,
+and went like the wind. I have been in Madrid in every part of the year,
+and never found it unbearably hot, though one does not generally wait
+for July or August; but here again the lightness and dryness of the air
+seem to make heat much easier to bear. Numbers of Madrid people think
+nothing of remaining there all the summer through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MODERN MADRID
+
+
+Madrid has grown out of all knowledge in the last thirty years. No one
+who had not seen it since the time of Isabel II. would recognise it now,
+and even then much had been done since Ferdinand VII. had come back from
+his fawning and despicable captivity in France--where he had gloried in
+calling himself a "French prince"--to act the despot in his own country.
+The Liberal Ministers who, for short periods, had some semblance of
+power during the regency of Cristina had done a little to restore the
+civilisation and light established by Charles III., and wholly quenched
+in the time of his unworthy and contemptible successors. But even in
+1865, the Alcalá Gate, standing where the Plaza de la Independencia is
+now, formed one boundary of Madrid, the Gate of Atocha was still
+standing at the end of the _paseo_ of that name, and the Gate of Sta.
+Barbara formed another of the limits of the city. The Museo was
+unfinished and only to be entered by a side door, encumbered with
+builders' rubbish and half-hewn blocks of stone. The Paseo of la Fuente
+Castellana ended the Prado, and not a house was to be seen beyond the
+Mint, or outside the Gate of Alcalá.
+
+All the town outside these barriers has arisen since; the magnificent
+viaduct across the Calle de Segovia, the Markets, the Parque de Madrid,
+the Hippodrome, the present Plaza de Toros, all are new. The old Bull
+Ring stood just outside the Alcalá Gate, and all beyond it was open
+country; no _casas palacias_ along the Fuente Castellana, no Barrio
+Salamanca. Madrid has, however, always been a cheerful, noisy, stirring
+city, full of life and the expression of animal spirits. In days not so
+very long past the streets were filled with picturesque costumes of the
+provinces, with gaily decorated mules and donkeys carrying immense loads
+of hay or straw, or huge nets filled with melons or pumpkins, almost
+hiding everything but the head and the feet of the animal; or a
+smart-looking "Jacket" man from the country districts would go whistling
+by, Asturians, Murcians, Gallegos, gypsies, _toreros_ in their brilliant
+_traje_ Andaluz--always to be recognised by their tiny pigtails of hair,
+and by their splendidly lithe and graceful carriage--all these jostling,
+singing, chaffing each other, while the jingling bells on innumerable
+horses, mules, donkeys, rang through the sunlit air, and made the Puerta
+de Sol and the streets branching from it a constant scene of life and
+gaiety. Now and then would come the deep clang of the huge bell of the
+draught oxen, drawing their Old-World carts, often with solid discs of
+wood for wheels, while the women of the lower class sported their
+brilliantly embroidered Manila shawls, chattered, and fluttered their
+gaily-coloured fans just like the other señoritas. Mantillas, even then,
+were only to be seen on old ladies; but the smart little _velo_
+coquettishly fastened with a natural flower adorned all the young
+girls--French millinery, which never suits a Spanish face, being kept
+for the evening _paseo_. It is a pity these national costumes have gone
+out of fashion. A Spanish girl with _velo_ and fan is something quite
+superior to the same fascinating young person dressed after the style of
+Paris--with a difference; for there is always a difference.
+
+[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID]
+
+Madrid, in fact, is becoming cosmopolitan, and is little to be
+distinguished from other capitals, except in the _barrios bajos_ on the
+national _fiestas_, and wherever the country people, as distinguished
+from the Madrid work-people, congregate. These last are rapidly losing
+all picturesqueness, dressing just as the workers in any other capital
+dress. They are, perhaps, still no less _gatos_ (cats), those of them at
+least who have had the honour of being born in La Corte, this being the
+name given them by their fellow country-people.
+
+If it be meant as a term of reproach, the Madrileño has an excellent
+answer in giving the history of its origin. In the reign of Alfonso VI.,
+during one of the many war-like operations of this King, he wished to
+take an important and difficult fortress, and had collected all his
+forces to attack it--the Madrileños alone were late; it was, in fact,
+only the day before the assault was to take place that they arrived upon
+the scene. The King was furious, and when their leader approached his
+Majesty to know where the troops were to bivouac for the night, he
+replied that there was no room in his camp for laggards; pointing to the
+enemy's fortress, he added: "_There_ will be found plenty of lodging for
+those who come too late for any other." Saluting his Majesty very
+courteously, the soldier withdrew, understanding thoroughly the indirect
+sneer at the valour of his troops; he went back to his regiment,
+summoned his officers and men, and repeated to them the King's word. One
+and all agreed that they would, in fact, seek their night's lodging just
+where the King had indicated. Impossible as the feat appeared, they
+instantly rushed to the attack of the formidable fortress with such
+irresistible dash that they succeeded in scaling the walls and entering
+it, pikes in rest. The King, who had run forward as soon as he heard of
+the attack, watched with delight his loyal Madrileños climbing up the
+face of the masonry with extraordinary skill, and not a little loss.
+
+"Look, look!" he cried to those near him. "See how they climb! They are
+cats!"
+
+The other forces at once came to their assistance, the fortress fell
+into the King's hands before nightfall, and those who had been in "no
+hurry" to join the army found their lodgings within it, as his Majesty
+had contemptuously recommended them to do. His anger was forgotten in
+admiration and praise; and, from that time, all those born in Madrid
+have the right to call themselves _gatos_.
+
+It is curious how the observation of those who know Spain intimately
+differs--one must suppose according to temperament. Thus Antonio
+Gallenga, the well-known correspondent of the _Times_, who really knew
+Spain well, has left it on record that the people are not musical, and
+that he never remembers to have heard any of them singing in the
+streets, or at their work. I do not know how this could have happened,
+unless our old friend did not recognise the singing he did hear as
+music, for which he might, perhaps, be forgiven. My own experience is
+that the people are always singing, more or less, if you agree to call
+it so. As the houses are almost all built in flats, many of the windows
+open into _patios_, or court-yards, large or small, as the case may be.
+You may reckon on always having two or three servants, male or female,
+at work in the _patio_, the women washing or scrubbing, the men probably
+cleaning their horses, carriages, or harness; but whatever else they may
+be doing, you may be quite certain they will all be singing, though it
+is equally certain that, by the greatest exercise of amiability, you
+could scarcely call the result a song; the words seem to be improvised
+as the performer goes on. There was a light-hearted groom in one of the
+_patios_ of our flat, in the Calle Lope de Vega, who would continue
+almost without a break the whole day. An old friend who used to amuse
+himself by listening to this remarkable performer declared that if he
+started his song in the early morning with a stick that was thick
+enough, he would go on till midnight telling the world in general all
+the people he had killed with it, and the other wonders of Hercules it
+had performed.
+
+The ditty always begins on a high note, and goes quavering irregularly
+downwards, with infinite twirls, shakes, and prolonged notes, these
+being sung to the exclamation "Ay!" Minor keys enter a good deal into
+this kind of performance, and the most remarkable part of it is that the
+singer, once having reached the bottom of the scale--for there is no
+end--is able to begin again on the same high note, and hit upon, more or
+less, the same variations a second time. If you have nothing better to
+do than to listen to some of these improvisatores, you will get a long,
+and more or less connected, history of some event; but it takes a long
+time--and, perhaps, is not often worth the expenditure. The songs which
+you hear to the accompaniment of the guitar are different from these,
+though the introduction of the "Ay!" and the frequent shakes and twirls
+are always there.
+
+The working Madrileño's ideal of happiness is to go a little way along
+one of the dusty _caminos reales_ (highways) to some little _venta_, or
+tavern, or to take refreshments out in baskets. They will sit quite
+contentedly in the dust by the side of the road, or in a field of
+stubble or burnt-up grass, to eat and drink, and then the guitar comes
+into play, and the dancing begins. It is always the _jota aragonesa_,
+which is not so much dancing as twirling about slowly, and, it would
+almost seem, sadly; but there is always a circle of admiring lookers-on,
+who beat time with stamping of feet and clapping of hands, and watch the
+performance as eagerly as if there were something quite fresh and new
+about it. Occasionally, these parties go out by omnibus or tram, as far
+as they can, and then start their picnic repast, to be followed by the
+inevitable dance and song, just wherever they happen to be.
+
+One of the most curious sights of Madrid is the great wash-tub of the
+Manzanares. As you descend the steep bluff on which the city stands,
+towards the river, you find the banks covered with laundresses, kneeling
+at short distances from one another, each scrubbing the clothes on one
+board, which slopes down into the water, while another board, fixed so
+as to stand out into the stream, or a little embankment made of sand,
+dams up the scanty supply of water she can obtain. As the Manzanares in
+summer is divided into a great number of small streams, this scene is
+repeated on the edge of each one, while the expanse of sand which
+occupies the centre of what ought to be the river-bed is one forest of
+clothes-props, with all the wash of Madrid hanging on the lines. On the
+banks the children, in the intervals of school, are playing bull-fights,
+or some of their innumerable dancing and singing games; the women are
+one and all performing the gradual descent of the gamut with variations
+called singing; and above all is the glorious sun, transfiguring all
+things, and throwing deep, purple shadows from the high plane-trees
+along the banks.
+
+The road which runs along the bank of the Manzanares, at the farther
+side from Madrid, is a revelation to those who only know the plains
+through which the railway from the north passes, and which for the
+greater part of the year, except when the crops are growing, are quite
+as arid as we are accustomed to suppose. On the left lies the Casa de
+Campo, an immense extent of park, containing, on the high ground, some
+splendid specimens of the Scotch fir, and, in more sheltered spots,
+groves of beech, avenues of plane, and masses of the dark-leaved ilex,
+which grows to great perfection in this climate. The "Florida," another
+of the royal properties, lies to the right, and a splendid road shaded
+by majestic trees, and with wide, grassy margins, stretches away to the
+village of El Pardillo, where Longfellow established his quarters, and
+which he describes in his _Outre Mer_, and from that on to the forest,
+or whatever you may call it, of El Pardo, where there is a royal
+residence now but seldom used, you may ride for many hours and still
+find yourself in this wild park, which many of the inhabitants of Madrid
+have never seen. Here one can realise a little how the city may have
+once been a hunting lodge of the Kings, as we are told. The Pardo may be
+reached through the Casa de Campo, a gate at the extreme end of the
+principal drive leading into the forest.
+
+Up on the high ground of the Casa de Campo there is a splendid view of
+Madrid, with the Palace crowning the steep bluff overhanging the
+Manzanares. It was in the "country house" itself, near the gate, that
+our "Baby Charles" is said to have climbed the high wall of the
+courtyard to get a glimpse of the Infanta whom he hoped to make his
+wife. When I knew the place intimately, on the very highest part of the
+Park was a large enclosure of the wild forest, railed in with high
+wooden palisading. Within this lived a flock of ostriches, belonging to
+the Crown. No one seemed to know anything about them, nor how long they
+had been there. What puzzled us much was how they were fed, or if they
+were left to cater for themselves. One thing I can answer for: they were
+very wild, and very ferocious; the moment they saw our horses coming up
+the hill they would run from all parts of the enclosure trying their
+best to get at us, striking with their feet and wings, and uttering
+gruesome shrieks. It was one of our amusements to race them, keeping
+outside their high fence while they strode over the ground, their necks
+stretched out, and their absurd wings flapping after the manner of a
+farmyard gander; but, with the best efforts, the horses were never able
+to keep up the pace for long; the birds invariably won, and we left them
+screeching and using language that did not appear to be parliamentary,
+when they found that the fence was the only thing that did not give in,
+as they craned their necks and stamped in their baffled rage. The
+horses, at first rather afraid of the birds, soon learned to enjoy the
+fun, and raced them for all they were worth. I do not know if this
+strange colony is still settled there.
+
+A curious feature of Spanish country life to us are the goatherds. Where
+the large flocks of goats about Madrid pasture, I know not; but I have
+often seen them coming home in the evening to be milked, or starting out
+in the morning. The goatherd, clad in his _manta_, and carrying a long
+wand of office over his shoulder, and I think also a horn, stalks
+majestically along with all the dignity of a royal marshal of
+processions, and the goats follow him, with a good deal of lagging
+behind for play, or nibbling, if they should chance to see anything
+green. Still, they scamper after their _generalissimo_ in the end, and
+meanwhile he is much too dignified to look back. Taking advantage of
+this, I have seen women come out of their cottages on the roadside and
+milk a goat or two as it passed; and from the way the animal made a full
+stop, and lent itself to the fraud--if such it were--it was evidently a
+daily occurrence.
+
+In times not long past, if indeed they do not still exist, the
+dust-heaps outside Madrid were the homes of packs of lean, hungry dogs,
+great brindled creatures of the breed to be seen in Velasquez pictures;
+these animals prowled about the streets of Madrid in the early morning,
+acting as scavengers. When they became too numerous, the civil guards
+laid poison about at night in the dust-heaps before the houses, and the
+very early riser might see four or five of these great creatures lying
+dead on the carts which collect the refuse of Madrid before the world in
+general is astir. These wild dogs were disagreeable customers to meet
+when riding outside the city, until we learned to avoid the localities
+where they spent their days, for they would give chase to the horses if
+they caught sight of them, and the only thing to be done was to remain
+perfectly quiet until they tired of barking and returned to the
+dust-hills to resume their search for food.
+
+The description of peasant life in Madrid would be incomplete if we left
+unmentioned the daily siesta in the sun of the Gallegos and lower-class
+working-men. On the benches in the Prado, on the pavement, in the full
+blaze of the sun, these men will stretch themselves and sleep for an
+hour or two after their midday meal. I have seen the Gallego porters
+make themselves a hammock with the rope they always carry with
+them--_mozos de cuerda_ they are called--literally slinging themselves
+to the _reja_ or iron bars of the window of some private house, and
+sleep soundly in a position that would surely kill any other human
+being. "Taking the sun" (_tomando el sol_) is, however, the custom of
+every Spaniard of whatever degree.
+
+The casual visitor to Madrid is always struck with the number of
+carriages to be seen in the _paseo_; but the fact is that everyone keeps
+a carriage, if it be at all possible, and it is no uncommon thing for
+two or three _pollos_ to join together in the expense of this luxury,
+and a sight almost unknown to us is common enough in Madrid--young men,
+the "curled darlings" of society, lazily lounging in a Victoria or
+Berlina in what is known as the "Ladies' Mile." The Madrid _pollo_ is
+not the most favourable specimen of a Spaniard; the word literally means
+a "chicken," but applied to a young man it is scarcely a complimentary
+expression, and has its counterpart with us in the slang terms which
+from time to time indicate the idle exquisite who thinks as much of his
+dress and his style as any woman does or more. The Madrid _pollo_ often
+is, or ought to be, a schoolboy, and the younger he is, naturally, the
+more conceited and impertinent he is. It is curious that with the
+feminine termination, this word (_polla_) loses all sense of banter or
+contempt; it simply means a young girl in the first charm of her
+spring-time.
+
+Riding in the Row has always been a favourite pastime in Madrid, but to
+English ideas the _pollo_ is more objectionable there than elsewhere,
+since his idea of riding is to show off the antics of a horse specially
+taught and made to prance about and curvet while he sits it, his legs
+sticking out in the position of the Colossus of Rhodes, his heels, armed
+with spurs, threatening catastrophe to the other riders. An old English
+master of foxhounds, who was a frequent visitor in Madrid, used to
+compare the Paseo of the Fuente Castellana at the fashionable hour to a
+"_chevaux de frise_ on horseback." These gentlemen must not, however, be
+supposed to represent Spanish horsemanship. Ladies ride a good deal in
+the Paseo, but one cannot call them good horsewomen. To get into the
+saddle from a chair, or a pair of stable steps, and let their steed walk
+up and down for an hour or so in the Row, is not exactly what we call
+riding. If you hire a carriage in Madrid you are so smart that your best
+friends would not recognise you. A grand barouche and pair dashes up to
+your door, probably with a ducal coronet on the panels. The coachman and
+footman wear cockades, and the moment you appear they both take off
+their hats and hold them in their hands until you are seated in the
+carriage. This ceremony is repeated every time you alight, the coachman
+reverently uncovering as you leave the carriage or return to it, as well
+as the footman who is opening the door for you.
+
+It is most comforting; royalty, I feel sure, is nothing to it! We will
+not look critically at the lining of the noble barouche, nor at the
+varnish on its panels, still less make disagreeable remarks about the
+liveries, which do not always fit their wearers--it is economical to
+have liveries made a good medium size, so that if the servants are
+changed the clothes are not;--one can always feel grateful for the
+polite and agreeable attendants. How oddly it must strike the Spaniards
+in England to notice the stolid indifference of "Jeames de la Plush,"
+and the curt tap of his first finger on the brim of his hat as his lady
+enters her carriage or gives her directions!
+
+All the mules, and most of the horses, ponies, or donkeys ridden by the
+"Jacket" men or country people are trained to pace instead of to trot;
+it is said to be less fatiguing on a long journey. The motion as you
+ride is, to our notions, very unpleasant, being a kind of roll, which at
+first, at any rate, gives one the feeling of sea-sickness. The animal
+uses the fore and hind feet together alternately, as he literally runs
+over the ground. It does not appear to be a natural pace, but is
+carefully taught, and, once acquired, it is very difficult to break the
+animal of it; his idea of trotting has become quite lost; nor is it a
+pretty action, nor one suited to show off good qualities--it has always
+something of a shuffle about it. If it has its advantages, except that
+stirrups may be dispensed with, they are not very apparent to those
+accustomed to the usual paces of an English horse. Personally, I
+disliked it particularly.
+
+There have been many efforts to introduce racing, with its contingent
+improvement in the breed of horses, perhaps the earliest during the
+regency of Espartero; but these ended, as most things did in the old
+days when Spain was only beginning her long struggle for freedom, in
+failure and loss to the enterprising gentlemen--of whom the then Duque
+de Osuna was one--who spent large sums of money in the effort. The old
+race-course of that time lay somewhere in the low ground outside Madrid
+on the course of the Manzanares; many a good gallop I have had on it,
+though it was abandoned and forgotten long ago by the Madrileños. At the
+present time horse-racing may be said to have become naturalised in
+Spain under the _Sociedad del Fomento de la Cria Caballar_ (Society for
+the Encouragement of Horse-breeding), and all that concerns horsemanship
+is naturally improved and improving.
+
+A good idea of Spanish horses may be gained by a visit to the Royal Mews
+in Madrid. There are the cream-coloured horses from the royal stud at
+Aranjuez, _jacuitas_ from Andalucia, as well as the mountain ponies of
+Galicia. Those who have never seen the Spanish mule have no idea what
+the animal is--powerful, active, graceful, and almost impossible to
+injure. They are used in the royal stables and in those of the nobility,
+for night work, since they are so hardy as not to be injured by long
+waiting in the cold or wet. They are the correct thing in the carriages
+of the Papal Nuncio and all ecclesiastics, and are generally preferred
+to horses for long or difficult journeys. They are a great feature in
+the army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only
+drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule
+carries a small gun on his back. A brigade of this arm would have been
+invaluable to the British in South Africa, having no doubt had its
+initiation in the guerilla warfare of Spain's frequent civil wars.
+
+The clipping of mules and donkeys, which are also very superior animals
+to anything we know by that name, is in the hands of the gypsies, who
+have a perfect genius for decorating their own animals and any others
+committed to their manipulation. Only the upper part is shaved, or
+clipped to the skin, the long winter coat being left on the legs and
+half-way up the body. Generally, on the shoulders and haunches a pattern
+is made by leaving some of the hair a little longer; the figure of the
+cross with rays is not uncommon, but it is wonderful how elaborate and
+beautiful some of these patterns are, looking as if embossed in velvet
+on the skin. One day, passing a _venta_ in a street in Madrid, we were
+attracted by a gaily-decked donkey standing outside. He had the words,
+_Viva mi Amo_ (Long live my Master!), finished with a beautiful and
+artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we
+stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us
+that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate
+decoration was a practical joke!
+
+The mules and donkeys which come in from the country are generally very
+picturesque, with a network of crimson silk tassels over their heads,
+and a bright-coloured _manta_ thrown across their sleek, glossy backs.
+These _mantas_ serve many purposes; they are made of two breadths of
+brightly striped and ornamented material of wool and silk, sewn up at
+one end, or sometimes for some distance at each end, like a purse;
+sometimes they are thrown across the mule to serve as saddle-bags,
+sometimes one end is used as a hood and is drawn over the master's head,
+while the remainder is thrown across his chest and mouth and over the
+left shoulder. The best of these _mantas_ are elaborately trimmed at
+both ends with a deep interlacing fringe, ending in a close row of
+balls, and have a thick ornamental cord sewn over the joining. These,
+which are intended for human wraps and not as saddle-bags, are only sewn
+up at one end, so as to form something very like the old monkish hood.
+All the horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen wear bells: the oxen have
+generally only one large bronze bell, which hangs under the head; the
+others have rows of small jingling silver or brass bells round their
+collars or bridles.
+
+These draught oxen are beautiful animals, mostly a deep cream in colour,
+with dark points, magnificent eyes, and a sphinx-like look of patience,
+as if biding their time for something much better to come. Their harness
+is not apparently irksome to them, and is not so heavy as one sees on
+the Portuguese oxen, for instance. They are coupled by a wooden bar
+across the head, and their driver, if such he can be called--rather,
+perhaps, the guide--walks in front with a long stick, possibly a wand of
+office, over his shoulder to show them the way. The dress of this
+functionary is picturesque: a wide-brimmed hat (_sombrero_), a shirt,
+short trousers to the knees, with gaiters of woven grass (_esparto_), a
+_faja_ round his waist, and _manta_ thrown over his shoulder if cold. He
+stalks majestically along, followed by his equally majestic _bueyes_,
+and one wonders of what all three are thinking as they trudge along the
+sun-smitten roads, regardless of dust or of anything else. The cars are
+rude enough, and the wheels sometimes solid discs of wood. Occasionally,
+a hood of bent pieces of wood covered with linen is fixed. Tame oxen, or
+_cabestros_, as they are called, play a very important part in the
+_ganaderos_ and the bull-rings. They appear to be held in some sort of
+superstitious reverence, or strange affection, by the poor beasts who
+only live to make sport for men. In driving the bulls from one pasture
+to another, or bringing them into the towns, the _cabestros_ are
+followed with unwavering faith by these otherwise dangerous animals;
+where the _cabestro_ goes, clanging his great bell, the bull follows,
+and while under the charge of his domesticated friend he is quite
+harmless.
+
+[Illustration: BUEYES RESTING]
+
+At one time, the bulls used to be driven to the bull-ring outside Madrid
+in specially made roads sunk some fifteen feet below the level of the
+fields, and paved. Along these the _pastor_, or shepherd, and
+_picadores_, armed with long lances, went with the _cabestros_ and the
+herd of bulls to be immolated. I have frequently met this procession
+when riding, either in the early morning or late evening, outside
+Madrid; but so long as the _cabestros_ are present, there is nothing to
+fear, for the bulls are perfectly quiet and harmless. Once, however,
+riding with a friend, I had a disagreeable and exciting adventure. We
+were quietly walking our horses along the Ronda de Alcalá, when we heard
+an immense amount of shouting, and suddenly became aware that we
+ourselves were the objects of the excitement, waving of hands,
+screaming, and gesticulating. Before we had time to do more than realise
+that we were being warned of some terrific danger in wait for us round
+the corner of the high wall, some little distance in advance, two
+_picadores_ on horseback, armed with their long pikes, galloped round
+the corner, also shouting wildly to us, and pointing across the fields
+as if telling us to fly, and almost at the same moment the whole drove
+of bulls, tearing along at a terrific rate, without _cabestros_,
+appeared, charging straight towards us. We did not need a second hint.
+At one side of the road was the old wall of Madrid, at the other a high
+bank with a wide ditch beyond it. Without a word, we put our horses at
+the bank,--they had realised the situation as quickly as we had,--jumped
+the ditch at a flying leap from the top of the bank, and were off across
+a field of young wheat. Once only I looked behind, and saw a magnificent
+black bull, with his tail in the air--a signal of attack--on the top of
+the bank over which I had just leaped, preparing to follow me. Long
+afterwards, as it seemed, when my horse slackened his pace, I found
+myself alone in a wide plain, neither bulls nor fellow-rider to be seen.
+His horse had bolted in another direction from mine, and we heard
+afterwards that the _picadores_ had galloped in between me and the
+sporting bull and turned him back. Eventually, the _cabestros_ appeared
+on the scene, and the poor misguided bulls were inveigled into the
+shambles for the _fiesta_ of the morrow. How they had ever managed to
+break away or gain the public road at all, we were never able to learn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE COURT
+
+
+During the reign of Don Alfonso XII., except during the interval when
+the melancholy death of his first beloved Queen, Mercédes, plunged King,
+Court, and people into mourning, Madrid was gayer than perhaps it has
+ever been. No one loved amusement better than the young King, who was
+only seventeen when the military _pronunciamiento_ of Martinez Campo
+called him to the throne from which his mother had been driven seven
+years previously. He had taken his people, and indeed all the world, by
+storm, for from the first moment he had shown all the qualities which
+make a ruler popular, and Spain has never had a young monarch of so much
+promise. He had the royal gift of memory, and an extraordinary facility
+in speaking foreign languages; it was said that the Russian and the
+Turkish envoys were the only ones with whom he was unable to converse as
+freely in their languages as in his own. He was an excellent speaker,
+always knew the right thing to say, the best thing to do to gain the
+hearts of his people, and to make himself agreeable to all parties and
+all nationalities alike. He was the first King of Spain to address his
+people _de usted_ in place of _de tu_, a mark of respect which they were
+not slow to appreciate; he was a modern, in that he would go out alone,
+either on foot or riding, allowed applause in his presence at the
+theatres, unknown before, and himself would salute those he knew from
+his box. He gave audience to all who asked, was an early riser, devoted
+to business when it had to be performed, was an enthusiast in all
+military matters, and, perhaps better than all in the eyes of his
+people, he was devoted to the bull-ring. Extremely active, resolute,
+firm, fond of all kinds of active sports, such as hunting and shooting,
+equally fond of society, picnics, dances, and all kinds of
+entertainments, he seemed destined to become the idol of his people, and
+to lead his beloved country back to its place in Europe. His death, when
+only twenty-seven, changed all this. Queen Maria Cristina has been a
+model wife, widow, mother, and Regent. She was devoted to her husband,
+and though it was said at first to be a political marriage, contracted
+to please the people, it was undoubtedly a happy one. The Queen has
+scarcely taken more part in public life during her sad widowhood than
+Queen Victoria did. She has devoted herself to her public duties as
+Regent and to the education and care of her children.
+
+Alfonso XIII., born a king after his father's death, has always been
+rather a delicate boy; his mother has determined that his health and his
+education shall be the first and chief care of her life, and nothing
+turns her from this purpose. If she has never been exactly popular, she
+has at least the unbounded respect and admiration of the people. She
+does not love the "bulls," and, therefore, she is not _Española_ enough
+to awaken enthusiasm; she keeps the boy King too much out of sight, so
+that his people scarcely know him, even in Madrid; but this is the very
+utmost that anyone has to say against her, while all shades of
+politicians, even to declared Republicans, speak of her with respect and
+with real admiration of her qualities of heart and mind.
+
+All Court gaieties are, however, at an end. Once a year or so a ball at
+the palace, a formal dinner, or reception, when it cannot be
+avoided--that is all, and for the rest the Queen is rarely seen except
+at religious ceremonies or state functions, and the King, never. He is
+supposed to take his amusements and exercise in the Casa de Campo, and
+rarely crosses Madrid.
+
+Numerous stories used to be told of his precocity as a child, and of his
+smart sayings; sometimes of his generosity and sympathy with the poor
+and suffering. Now one is told he is somewhat of a pickle, but fables
+about royalty may always be received with more than a grain of salt. One
+of the stories told of him, which ought to be true, since it has the
+ring of childhood about it, is well known. When a small boy, his
+Austrian governess, of whom he was very fond, reproved him for using his
+knife in place of a fork. "Gentlemen never do so," she said. "But I am a
+King," he replied. "Kings, still less, eat with their knives," said the
+governess. "_This_ King does," was the composed reply of the child.
+
+The etiquette of the Spanish Court, although it was much modified by
+Alfonso XII., is still very formal. A perfectly infinite number of
+_mayordomos, caballerizos, gentiles hombres de casa y boca, ujieres,
+alabarderos, monteros_, aides-de-camp, _Grandes de España de servicio_,
+ladies-in-waiting, lackeys, servants, and attendants of every possible
+description abound. A man going to an audience with royalty uncovers as
+he enters the Palace. First, he will find the _alabardero de servicio_
+placed at the entrance of the vestibule; farther on, more _alabarderos_.
+Whenever a Grande de España, a prelate, a grand cross, or a title of
+Castile passes, these guards strike the marble floor with their arms--a
+noise which may well cause the uninitiated to start. Three halls are
+used for grouping, according to their rank, those who are about to be
+presented: first, the _saleta_, where ordinary people--all the world, in
+fact--wait; next, the _cámara_, for those who have titles or wear the
+grand cross; third, the _antecámara_, reserved for the Grandes of Spain,
+and _gentiles hombres en ejercio_. The Grandes of Spain, chamberlains
+of the King, share between them the service of his Majesty. They are
+called in rotation, one day's notice being given before they are
+expected to attend in the Palace. In the ante-chamber of the King there
+is always the _Grande_ in waiting, the lady-in-waiting on the Queen, two
+aides-de-camp, and a _gentil hombre del interior_ (the last must not be
+confounded with the _gentiles hombres en ejercicio_, who have the right to
+enter the ante-chamber). There are, of course, equerries
+(_caballerizos_) who attend, as ours do, on horseback, when the King or
+Queen goes out; but the most essentially Spanish attendants are the
+Monteros de Espinosa, who have the exclusive right to watch while
+Royalty sleeps. These attendants must all be born in Espinosa; it is an
+hereditary honour, and the wives of the existing Monteros are careful to
+go to Espinosa when they expect an addition to their family, as no one
+not actually born there can hold the office. At the present time this
+guard is recruited from captains or lieutenants on the retired list.
+
+In the ante-chamber of each member of the Royal Family two of these take
+their place at eleven o'clock; they never speak, never sit down, but
+pass the whole night pacing the room, crossing each other as they go,
+until morning relieves them from what must be rather a trying watch. At
+eleven o'clock each evening there is a solemn procession of servants and
+officials in imposing uniforms down the grand staircase of the Palace;
+every door is closed and locked by a gentleman wearing an antique
+costume and a three-cornered hat, and having an enormous bunch of keys.
+From that time the Palace remains under the exclusive charge of the
+Monteros de Espinosa. Although this is the official programme, it is to
+be hoped the hour is not a fixed one. It would be a little cruel to put
+the Royal Family to bed so early, without regard to their feelings;
+especially as Madrid is essentially a city of late hours, and the
+various members of it would have to scamper away from opera, or in fact
+any entertainment, as if some malignant fairy were wanting to cast a
+spell at the witching hour of midnight. There are some curious
+superstitions, however, about being abroad when the clocks strike
+twelve, which we must suppose do not now affect the Madrileño.
+
+While the old church of Atocha was still standing, the Court, with a
+royal escort, or what is called _escadron de salut_, all the dignitaries
+of the Palace in attendance, guards, outriders, etc., in gorgeous array,
+drove in half state (_media gala_) across Madrid and the _paseos_ to
+hear the _salut "sa'nt"_ on Saturday. The Queen Regent and her
+daughters, but not often the King, now visit in turn some of the
+churches, but without the old state or regularity.
+
+Since the death of Alfonso XII., many of the purely Spanish customs of
+the Court have been modified or discontinued. Although the late King was
+credited with a desire to reduce the civil list, and to adopt more
+English customs, he was to some extent in the hands of the
+Conservatives, who had been the means of his restoration, and when he
+went forth to put an end to the Carlist insurrection and finish the
+civil war, which had laid desolate the Northern provinces and ruined
+commerce and industry for some seven years, it was at the head of a
+personal following of over five hundred people. Nor was the Court much,
+if any, less numerous when the Royal Family removed in the summer to the
+lovely Palace of St. Ildefonso at La Granja--that castle in the air,
+which has no equal in Europe, hanging, as it does, among gardens,
+forests, rivers, and lakes, three thousand eight hundred and forty feet
+above the level of the sea.
+
+The Queen is Austrian, and she has never gone out of her way to
+conciliate the people by making herself really Spanish. This she has
+left to the Infanta Isabel, the eldest sister of Alfonso XII. For many
+years before the birth of her brother, the Infanta Isabel was Princess
+of Asturias, as heiress apparent of the Crown. With the advent of a boy,
+she became, of course, only Infanta, losing the rank which she had held
+up to this time. Being but a child at the time, she perhaps knew or
+cared little for any difference it may have made in her surroundings.
+She shared in the flight of the Royal Family to France in 1868, and her
+education was completed in Paris. When the whirligig of Spanish politics
+called her brother Alfonso, who at the time was a military student at
+Sandhurst, to the throne from which his mother had been driven, Princess
+Isabel returned with him to Madrid, and was once more installed in the
+Palace, above the Manzanares, as Princess of Asturias. This rank
+remained hers during the short episode of her brother's marriage to his
+cousin Mercédes, and the melancholy death of the girl Queen at the
+moment when a direct heir to the throne was expected. Once more, when
+the daughter of Alfonso's second wife, the present Queen Regent, was
+born, the Infanta Isabel became her title, and she took again the lower
+rank.
+
+Nothing in history is more pathetic than this first marriage of Alfonso
+XII. and its unhappy termination. The children of Queen Isabel and those
+of her sister, the Duquesa de Montpensier, had been brought up together,
+and there was a boy-and-girl attachment between the Prince of Asturias
+and his cousin Mercédes. When Alfonso became King, almost as it seemed
+by accident, and it was thought necessary that he should marry, the boy
+gravely assured his Ministers that he was quite willing to do so, and in
+fact intended to marry his cousin. Nothing could be more inopportune,
+nothing more contrary to the welfare of the distracted country! From the
+time that the notorious "Spanish marriages" had become facts, the Duke
+of Montpensier had been an intriguer. The birth of heirs to the throne
+of Spain (it is useless to go back to those long-past scandals) had
+completely upset the machinations of Louis Philippe and his Ministers.
+So long as Don Francisco de Assis and the Spanish nation chose to
+acknowledge the children as legitimate, there was nothing to be done.
+The direct hope of seeing his sons Kings of Spain faded from the view of
+the French husband of the sister of Isabel II., but he never for one
+moment ceased to intrigue. Although loaded with benefits and kindness by
+the Queen, Montpensier took no small part in the revolution which drove
+her from the country. Topete, and Serrano--who had once been what the
+Spaniards called _Pollo Real_ himself--were bound in honour to uphold
+his candidature for the vacant throne; their promise had been given long
+before the _pronunciamiento_ at Cadiz had made successful revolution
+possible. Prim alone stood firm: "_Jamas, jamas!_" (Never, never!) he
+replied to every suggestion to bring Montpensier forward. In those words
+he signed his own death-warrant. His actual murderers were never brought
+to justice, ostensibly were never found; but there never was a Spaniard
+who doubted that the foul deed was the result of instigation.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA]
+
+To have Mercédes as Queen Consort, was to bring her father once more
+within the limits of practical interference with national politics. To
+all remonstrance, however, the young King had one answer: "I have
+promised," and the nation, recognising that as a perfectly valid
+argument, acquiesced, though with many forebodings. The marriage took
+place, and within a few months the girl Queen was carried with her
+unborn child to the melancholy Pantéon de los Principes at the Escorial.
+
+The marriage of the Infanta Isabel with Count Girgenti, a Neapolitan
+Bourbon, was an unhappy one, and she obtained a legal separation from
+him after a very short matrimonial life. Spaniards have a perfect genius
+for giving apt nicknames. Scarcely was the arrangement for the marriage
+made known when the Count's name was changed to that of _Indecente_. He
+fought, however, for Isabel II. at Alcoléa, which was at any rate acting
+more decently than did Montpensier, who had furnished large sums of
+money to promote the rising against his confiding sister-in-law, and, in
+fact, never ceased his machinations against every person and every thing
+that stood in his way, until death fortunately removed him from the
+arena of Spanish politics, his one overmastering ambition unfulfilled.
+He had neither managed to ascend the throne himself, nor see any of his
+children seated there, except for the few months that Mercédes, "beloved
+of the King and of the nation," shared the throne of Alfonso XII.
+
+The Infanta Isabel, except for the episode of her exile in France, has
+always lived in the Royal Palace of Madrid, having her own quarters, and
+her little court about her. At times she has been the butt of much
+popular criticism, and even dislike, but she has outlived it all, and is
+now the most popular woman in Spain. It must have required no common
+qualities to have lived without discord--as a separated wife--with her
+brother and her younger sisters; then with Queen Mercédes, her cousin as
+well as sister-in-law; again, during the time of the King's widowhood
+and her own elevation to the rank of Princess of Asturias, and, finally,
+since the second marriage of her brother, and his untimely death, with
+Maria Cristina and her young nephew and nieces.
+
+One thing is to be said in favour of Isabel II. Deprived of all ordinary
+education herself, as a part of the evil policy of her mother, she was
+careful that her own children should not have to complain of the same
+neglect. One and all have been thoroughly educated: the Infanta Paz, now
+married to a Bavarian Archduke, has shown considerable talent as a
+poetess; and the Infanta Isabel is universally acknowledged to be a
+clever and a cultivated woman, inheriting much of her mother's charm of
+manner, and noted for ready wit and quick repartee. Her popularity, as I
+have said, is great, for she is careful to keep up all the Spanish
+customs. She is constantly to be seen in public, and, above and beyond
+all things, she never fails in attendance at the bull-fight, wearing the
+white mantilla. This alone would cover a multitude of sins, supposing
+the Infanta to be credited with them; but there has never been a breath
+of scandal connected with her. She is very devout, and never fails in
+the correct religious duties and public appearances. At the fair, and on
+_Noche buena_, she fills her carriage with the cheap toys and sweetmeats
+which mean so much to Spanish children, and she must be a veritable
+fairy godmother to those who come within her circle. She takes a close
+personal interest in many sisterhoods and societies for the help of the
+poor. In a word, she is _muy simpática_ and _muy Española_. What could
+one say more?
+
+A gala procession in Madrid is something to be remembered, if it be only
+for the wealth of magnificent embroideries and fabrics displayed. The
+royal carriages are drawn by eight horses, having immense plumes of
+ostrich feathers, of the royal colours, yellow and red, on their heads,
+and gorgeous hangings of velvet, with massive gold embroideries reaching
+almost to the ground; the whole of the harness and trappings glitter
+with gold and silk. The grooms, leading each horse, are equally
+magnificently attired, their dresses being also one mass of needlework
+of gold on velvet. Equerries, outriders, and military guards precede and
+surround the royal carriages, and the cavalcade is lengthened by having
+a _coche de respecto_, caparisoned with equal splendour, following each
+one in which a royal person is being conveyed. Behind come the carriages
+of the Grandes, according to rank, all drawn by at least six horses,
+with trappings little, if at all, inferior to those of the Court, and
+each with its enormous plume of gaily-coloured ostrich feathers, showing
+the livery of its owner. In addition to all this grandeur, the balconies
+of the great houses lining the route of the processions display
+priceless heirlooms of embroideries, hanging before each window from
+basement to roof. If these ancient decorations could speak, what a
+strange story they might tell of the processions they have seen pass! In
+honour of the victories over the Moors; of the heroes of the New World;
+of the miserable murders of the _Autos-da-fé_; of the entry of the _Rey
+absoluto_, to inaugurate the "Terror," on to the contemptible "galas" of
+Isabel II., supposed to keep the people quiet; and, almost the last, the
+entry of Alfonso XII., after he had put an end to the Carlist war! On
+the day of rejoicing for "La Gloriosa" there was no such display,
+although all Madrid was _en fête_. It was the triumph of the people, and
+their heirlooms do not take the form of priceless embroideries.
+
+In former days the receptions at the Palace were known as _besamanos_
+(to kiss hand). On Holy Thursday the Royal Family and all the Court
+visit seven churches on foot--at least, that is the correct number,
+though sometimes not strictly adhered to. As no vehicular traffic is
+allowed on that day or on Good Friday, the streets where the royal
+procession pass are swept and laid with fresh sand. The ladies are in
+gala costume, and drag their trains behind them, all wearing the
+national mantilla. All Madrid also visits its seven or less number of
+churches, passing without obeisance before the high altars, on which
+there is no Host,--as the people will tell you _su Majestad_ is
+dead,--and after the _funcion_ is over there is a general parade in the
+Puerta del Sol and the Carrera de San Geronimo, to show off the smart
+costumes of the ladies, while the officers sit in chairs outside the
+Government offices and smoke, admiring the prospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+POPULAR AMUSEMENTS
+
+
+Nothing strikes one so much in studying the popular customs and
+pleasures of Spain as the antiquity of them all. Constantly one finds
+one's self back in prehistoric times, and to date only from the days
+when Spain was a Roman province is almost modernity. No one can travel
+through Spain, or spend any time there, without becoming aware that,
+however many other forms of recreation there may be, two are universal
+and all-absorbing in their hold on the widely differing
+provinces--dancing and the bull-ring. In the Basque Provinces, the
+national game of _pelota_, a species of tennis, played without rackets,
+is still kept up, and is jealously cultivated in the larger towns, such
+as Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bilbao. In Madrid at the present time it
+is played in large courts built on purpose, and attracts many strangers.
+To view it, however, as a national sport, one should see it in some of
+the mountain villages, where it is still the great recreation for
+Sundays and religious _fiestas_. The working-classes also play at
+throwing the hammer or crowbar. This is more especially the case in the
+Northern provinces, where the workmen are a sound, healthy, and sober
+race, enjoying simple and healthy amusements, and affording an excellent
+example to those of countries considering themselves much more highly
+civilised.
+
+Pigeon-shooting, which was a great favourite with the late King Alfonso
+XII., and was made fashionable among the aristocracy in Madrid by him,
+is a very old sport--if it deserves the name--among the Valencians. Near
+La Pechina, at Valencia, where the great _tiro de las palomas_ takes
+place, was found, in 1759, an inscription: _Sodalicium vernarum colentes
+Isid_. This, Ford tells us, was an ancient _cofradiá_ to Isis, which
+paid for her _culto_. Cock-fighting is still practised in most of the
+Spanish towns, as well as in Valencia, the regular cock-pits being
+constantly frequented in Madrid; but it is looked upon as suited only to
+_barrio's bajos_, and is not much, if at all, patronised even by the
+middle classes. It is said by those who have seen it to be particularly
+brutal; but it was never a very humanising amusement when practised by
+the English nobility not such a very long time back.
+
+Whatever amusements, however, may be popular in the towns, or in
+particular provinces, the guitar and the dance are universal. So much
+has been written about the Spanish national dances that an absurd idea
+prevails in England that they are all very shocking and indecent. It is
+necessary, however, to go very much out of one's way, and to pay a good
+round sum, to witness those gypsy dances which have come down unchanged
+from the remotest ages. As Ford truly says, "Their character is
+completely Oriental, and analogous to the _ghawarsee_ of the Egyptians
+and the Hindoo _nautch_." "The well-known statue at Naples of the Venere
+Callipige is the undoubted representation of a Cadiz dancing-girl,
+probably of Telethusa herself." These dances have nothing whatever in
+common with the national dances as now to be seen on the Spanish stage.
+They are never performed except by gypsies, in their own quarter of
+Seville, and are now generally gotten up as a show for money. Men
+passing through Seville go to these performances, as an exhibition of
+what delighted Martial and Horace, but they do not generally discuss
+them afterwards with their lady friends, and to describe one of these
+more than doubtful dances as being performed by guests in a Madrid
+drawing-room, as an English lady journalist did a short time ago in the
+pages of a respectable paper, is one of those libels on Spain which
+obtain currency here out of sheer ignorance of the country and the
+people.
+
+Wherever two or three men and women of the lower classes are to be seen
+together in Spain during their play-time, there is a guitar, with
+singing and dancing. The verses sung are innumerable short stanzas by
+unknown authors; many, perhaps, improvised at the moment. The _jota_,
+the _malaguena_, and the _seguidilla_ are combinations of music, song,
+and dance; the last two bear distinct indications of Oriental origin;
+each form is linked to a traditional air, with variations. The
+_malaguena_ is Andalusian, and the _jota_ is Aragonese; but both are
+popular in Castile. All are love-songs, most of them of great grace and
+beauty. Some writers complain that some of these dance-songs are coarse
+and more or less indecent; others aver that they never degenerate into
+coarseness. _Quien sabe?_ Perhaps it is a case of _Honi soit qui mal y
+pense_. In any case, throughout the length and breadth of Spain, outside
+the wayside _venta_, or the barber's shop, in the _patios_ of inns, or
+wherever holiday-makers congregate, there is the musician twanging his
+guitar, there are the dancers twirling about in obvious enjoyment to the
+accompaniment of the stamping, clapping, and encouraging cries of the
+onlookers, and the graceful little verse, with its probably weird and
+plaintive cadence:
+
+    Era tan dichoso antes
+    De encontrarte en mi camino!
+    Y, sin embargo, no siento
+    El haberte conocido.
+
+    I was so happy before
+    I had met you on my way!
+    And yet there is no regret
+    That I have learned to know you.
+
+The _malaguena_ and the _seguidilla_, which is more complicated, are
+generally seen on the stage only in Madrid, where they must charm all
+who can appreciate the poetry of motion. The dance of the peasant in
+Castile is always the _jota Aragonesa_. The part the tambourine and the
+castanets play in these dances must be seen and heard to be understood:
+they punctuate not only the music, but also the movement, the sentiment,
+and the refrain. The Andaluces excel in playing on the castanets. These
+are, according to Ford, the "Baetican _crusmata_ and _crotola_ of the
+ancients": and _crotola_ is still a Spanish term for the tambourine.
+Little children may be seen snapping their fingers or clicking two bits
+of slate together, in imitation of the castanet player; but the
+continuous roll, or succession of quick taps, is an art to be learned
+only by practice. The castanets are made of ebony, and are generally
+decorated with bunches of smart ribbons, which play a great part in the
+dance.
+
+The popular instrument in the Basque and Northern provinces is
+the bagpipe, and the dances are quite different from those of
+the other parts of Spain. The _zortico zorisco_, or "evolution
+of eight," is danced to sound of tambourines, fifes, and a kind of
+flageolet--_el silbato_, resembling the rude instruments of the
+Roman Pifferari--probably of the same origin.
+
+Theatrical representations have always been a very popular form of
+recreation among the inhabitants of the Iberian continent, from the days
+when the plays were acted by itinerant performers, "carrying all their
+properties in a sack, the stage consisting of four wooden benches,
+covered with rough boards, a blanket suspended at the back, to afford a
+green-room, in which some musician sang, without accompaniment, old
+ballads to enliven the proceedings." This is Cervantes's description of
+the national stage in the time of his immediate predecessor, Lope de
+Rueda.
+
+The Spanish _zarzuela_ appears to have been the forerunner and origin of
+all musical farce and "opera comique," only naturalised in our country
+during the present generation. The theatres in all the provinces are
+always full, always popular; the pieces only run for short periods, a
+perpetual variety being aimed at by the managers--a thing easily to be
+understood when one remembers that the same audience, at any rate in the
+boxes and stalls, frequent them week in, week out. In Madrid, with a
+population of five hundred thousand inhabitants, there are nineteen
+theatres. With the exception of the first-class theatres, the people pay
+two _reales_ (_5 d._) for each small act or piece, and the audience
+changes many times during the evening, a constant stream coming and
+going. Long habit and familiarity with good models have made the lower
+class of playgoers critical; their judgment of a piece, or of an actor,
+is always good and worth having.
+
+The religious _fiestas_ must also count among the amusements of the
+people in Spain. Whether it be the Holy Week in Seville or Toledo, the
+_Romería_ of Santiago, the _Veladas_, or vigils, of the great festivals,
+or the day of Corpus Christi, which takes place on the first Thursday
+after Trinity Sunday--at all these the people turn out in thousands,
+dressed in their smartest finery, and combine thorough enjoyment with
+the performance of what they believe to be a religious duty. There is
+little or no drunkenness at these open-air festivities, but much gaiety,
+laughter, fluttering of fans, "throwing of sparks" from mischievous or
+languishing eyes--and at the end always a bull-fight.
+
+Here we touch the very soul of Spain. Take away the bull-rings, make an
+end of the _toreros_, and Spain is no longer Spain--perhaps a country
+counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it
+will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not
+now seem to be the remotest possibility. All that can be said is that
+to-day there is a party, or there are individuals, in the country who
+profess to abhor the bull-fight, and wish to see it ended; it is
+doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an
+"outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the
+Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in
+Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the
+display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and
+dexterity--all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is
+undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to
+English _aficionados_, of whom there are many, and have caused the
+_fiestas de toros_ to live on in the affections of the whole Spanish
+people. In its earliest days, gentlemen, armed only with the _rejon_,
+the short spear of the original Iberian, about four feet long, fought in
+the arena with the bulls, and it was always a fair trial of skill and a
+display of good horsemanship.
+
+When the fatal race of the French Bourbons came to the throne, and the
+country was inundated with foreign favourites, the Court and the French
+hangers-on of the kings turned the fashion away from the national sport,
+and it gradually fell into the hands of the lower classes, professional
+bull-fighters taking the place of the courtly players of old, and these
+were drawn from the lowest and worst ranks of the masses; the sporting
+element, to a great extent, died out, and the whole spectacle became
+brutalised. _Pan y toros_ (bread and bulls) were all the people wanted,
+and, crushed out of all manliness by their rulers, and taught a thirst
+for cruelty and bloodshed by the example of their religious
+_autos-da-fé_, the bull-fight became the revolting spectacle which
+foreigners--especially the English--have been so ready to rail against
+as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, while they rarely let an
+opportunity escape them of assisting as interested spectators at what
+they condemned so loudly, and they quite forgot their own prize-ring,
+and other amusements equally brutal and disgraceful. If the _corrida de
+toros_ was ever as bad as it has been described by some, it has improved
+very much of late years, and most of its revolting features are
+eliminated. The pack of dogs, which used to be brought in when a bull
+was dangerous to the human fighters, has long been done away with. The
+_media luna_, which we are told was identical with the instrument
+mentioned in _Joshua_, is no longer tolerated to hamstring the
+unfortunate bull; and if a horse is gored in the fair fight, there are
+men especially in attendance to put him out of his misery at once. It is
+doubtful whether the animal suffers more than, or as much as, the
+unhappy favourites, that are sent alive, and in extremest torture, to
+Amsterdam and other foreign cities, to be manufactured into essence of
+meat and such-like dainties, after a life of cruelly hard work in our
+omnibuses and cabs has made them no longer of use as draught animals.
+
+The bull-fighter of to-day is by no means drawn from the dregs of the
+people; there is, at any rate, one instance of a man of good birth and
+education attaining celebrity as a professional _torero_. He risks his
+life at every point of the conflict, and it is his coolness, his
+courage, his dexterity in giving the _coup de grâce_ so as to cause no
+suffering, that raise the audience to such a pitch of frenzied
+excitement. I speak wholly from hearsay, for I have myself only
+witnessed a _corrida de novillos_--in which the bulls are never killed,
+and have cushions fixed on their horns--and a curious fight between a
+bull and an elephant, who might have been described as an "old
+campaigner," in which there was no bloodshed, and much amusement. My
+sympathies always went with the bull,--who, at least, was not consulted
+in the matter of the fight,--as I have seen the popular _espada_, with
+his own particular _chulo_, a mass of white satin and gold embroidery,
+driving out to the bull-ring on the afternoon of a _fiesta_, bowing with
+right royal grace and dignity to the plaudits of the people. I was even
+accused of having given the evil eye to one well-known favourite as he
+passed my balcony, when I wished, almost audibly, that the bull might
+have his turn for once in a way that afternoon. And he had; for the
+popular _espada_ was carried out of the ring apparently dead, the
+spectators came back looking white and sick, and I felt like a very
+murderess until I learned later that he was not dead. All Madrid, almost
+literally, called to inquire for him daily, filling books of signatures,
+as if he had been an emperor at least. Personally, I was more interested
+in his courage after the event and the devotion of his _chulo_, who
+never left his side, but held his hands while the injured leg was cut
+off, in three separate operations, without any anæsthetic. Eventually,
+he completely recovered, and was fitted with an admirable mechanical
+cork limb in place of the one removed in three detachments; and my sense
+of evil responsibility was quite removed when I heard that his young
+wife was delighted to think that he could never enter the bull-ring as a
+fighter again, and her anxieties were at an end.
+
+[Illustration: PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL]
+
+It is quite impossible to over-estimate the popularity of the _toreros_
+with the Spanish people. They are the friends and favourites of the
+aristocracy, the demi-gods of the populace. You never see one of them in
+the streets without an admiring circle of worshippers, who hang on every
+word and gesture of the great man; and this is no cult of the hour, it
+is unceasing. They are always known for their generosity, not only to
+injured comrades, but to any of the poor in need. Is there a disaster by
+which many are injured--flood, tempest, or railway accident? Immediately
+a bull-fight is arranged for the sufferers, and the whole _cuadrilla_
+will give their earnings to the cause. Not only so, but the private
+charities of these popular favourites are immense, and quite unheard of
+by the public. They adopt orphans, pay regular incomes to widows, as
+mere parts of every-day work. They are, one and all, religious men; the
+last thing they do, before entering the arena with their life in their
+hands, is to confess and receive absolution in the little chapel in the
+Bull-Ring, spending some time in silent prayer before the altar, while
+the wife at home is burning candles to the Virgin, and offering her
+prayers for his safety during the whole time that the _corrida_ lasts.
+Extreme unction is always in readiness, in case of serious accident to
+the _torero_, the priest (_mufti_) slipping into the chapel before the
+public arrive on the scene.
+
+Rafael Molina Lagartijo, one of the veterans of the bull-fighters, and
+an extreme favourite with the people for many years, died recently,
+after living for some time in comparative retirement in his native
+Córdoba. Some idea of the important place which these men occupy in
+Spanish society may be gathered from the numerous notices which appeared
+in the newspapers of all shades of political opinion after his death. I
+quote from the article which appeared in the charming little illustrated
+_Blanco y Negro_, of Madrid, on the favourite of the Spanish public. In
+what, to us, seems somewhat inflated language, but which is, however,
+quite simple and natural to the Spaniard, the writer began his notice
+thus:
+
+"He who has heard the magic oratory of Castelar, has listened to the
+singing of Gayarre, the declamation of Cabro, has read Zorilla, and
+witnessed the _torear_ of Lagartijo, may say, without any kind of
+reservation, that there is nothing left for him to admire!" Having thus
+placed the popular bull-fighter on a level with orators, authors, and
+musicians of the first rank, the writer goes on to describe the beauties
+of Lagartijo's play in words which are too purely technical of the ring
+to make translation possible, and adds: "He who has not seen the great
+_torero_ of Córdoba in the plenitude of his power will assuredly not
+comprehend why the name of Lagartijo for more than twenty years filled
+_plazas_ and playbills, nor why the _aficionados_ of to-day recall, in
+speaking of his death, times which can never be surpassed.... The
+_toreo_ (play) of Lagartijo was always distinguished by its classic
+grace, its dignity and consummate art, the absence of affectation, or
+struggle for effect. In every part of the fight the figure of Rafael
+fell naturally into the most graceful attitudes; and for this reason he
+has always worn the rich dress of the _torero_ with the best effect. He
+was the perfect and characteristic type of a _torero_, such as Spanish
+fancy has always imagined it. Lagartijo died with his eyes fixed on the
+image of the Virgen de los Dolores, to whom he had always confidently
+committed his life of peril, and with the dignity and resignation of a
+good man."
+
+The article was illustrated with numerous portraits of Don Rafael: in
+full _torero_ dress in 1886; his very last photograph; views of him in
+the courtyard of his home in Córdoba, and outside the Venta San Rafael,
+where he took his coffee in the evening, and others. The notice
+concludes by saying that his life was completely dedicated to his
+property, which he managed himself, and he was looked upon as the
+guardian angel of the labourers on his farm. _Probre Rafael!_ "The
+lovers of the bull-fight are lamenting the death of the _torero_, but
+the poor of Córdoba mourn the loss of their 'Señor Rafael.'"
+
+[Illustration: PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION]
+
+The wives of the _toreros_ are generally celebrated for their beauty,
+their wit, and their devotion to their husbands--indeed, the men have a
+large choice before them when choosing their helpmates for life. To
+their wives is due much of the making and all the keeping up of the
+elaborate and costly dress of the _torero_. They are, as someone has
+said, "ferociously virtuous," and share in the open-handed generosity of
+their husbands. The earnings of a successful _torero_ are very large. In
+some cases, they make as much as £4000 or £5000 a year of English money,
+during the height of their popularity, and retire to end their days in
+their native and beloved Andalucia.
+
+Whatever may be said by foreigners of the brutalising effect of the
+Spanish popular game, it certainly has no more effect on those who
+witness or practise it than fox-hunting has on Englishmen, and it is
+doubtful whether there is any more cruelty in one sport than in the
+other. The foxes are fostered and brought up for the sole purpose of
+being harried to death, without even a semblance of fair play being
+allowed to them, and if a fox-hunter risks his life it is only as a bad
+rider that he does so. There is no danger and certainly no dignity in
+the English sport, even if it indirectly keeps up the breed of horses.
+
+A curious incident is related by Count Vasili as having happened in the
+Bull-Ring in Madrid some years ago during a _corrida_ of Cúchares, the
+celebrated _espada_. It is usual during _fiestas_ of charity to enclose
+live sparrows in the _banderillas_ which it is part of the play to
+affix, at great risk to the _torero_, in the shoulders of the bull; the
+paper envelope bursts, and the birds are set at liberty. Crossing the
+arena, one of the men carelessly hit at a bird turning wildly about in
+its efforts to escape, and killed it. "In my life," says the Count, "I
+have never seen such a spectacle. Ten thousand spectators, standing up,
+wildly gesticulating, shouting for death on the 'cruel _torero_'; nay,
+some even threw themselves into the arena, ready to lynch the heartless
+creature!"
+
+Horse-racing may now be said to have been fairly established in Spain in
+most of the great centres, and the Hippodrome in Madrid is little behind
+one of England's popular race-courses in its crowds, the brilliant
+dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will
+ever supersede the really national _fiesta_ is to be doubted. The upper
+classes also affect polo, tennis, and croquet, and go in a good deal for
+gymnastics, fencing, and fives.
+
+Cycling does not appear to commend itself greatly to the Spanish idea of
+recreation. Bicycles are, of course, to be seen in the large and more
+modern towns, but they are never very numerous, and as far as ladies are
+concerned, may be said to have made no way.
+
+I have referred to a curious spectacle several times presented in
+Madrid, chiefly in _fiestas_ for charitable purposes, where an elephant
+was introduced into the Bull-Ring to fight, in place of the usual
+_cuadrilla_ of men. This was an old elephant named Pizarro, a great
+favourite of many years' standing with the Madrileños. He was an
+enormous animal, but one of his tusks had been broken off about a third
+from the tip, so that he had only one to use in warfare or as
+protection. He was tethered in the centre of the arena, by one of his
+hind legs, to a stump about twelve inches high. Then the bulls were let
+out one at a time. Meanwhile, Pizarro was amusing himself by eating
+oranges which were showered on him by his admirers on the benches. With
+the greatest coolness he continued his repast, picking up orange after
+orange with his trunk, all that he was careful to do being to keep his
+face to the bull, turning slowly as his enemy galloped round the ring
+trying to take him in flank. At last the bull prepared to charge;
+Pizarro packed away his trunk between his tusks, and quietly waited the
+onslaught. The bull rushed at him furiously; but the huge animal, quite
+good-naturedly and a little with the air of pitying contempt, simply
+turned aside the attack with his one complete horn, and as soon as the
+bull withdrew, a little nonplussed, went on picking up and eating his
+oranges as before. Bull after bull gave up the contest as impossible,
+and contentedly went out between the _cabestros_ sent in to fetch
+them. At last one more persistent or courageous than the others came
+bounding in. Pizarro realised at once that for the moment he must pause
+in eating his dessert; but he became aware at the same time that in
+turning round to face the successive bulls, he had gradually wound
+himself up close to the stump, and had no room to back so as to receive
+the attack. The most interesting incident in the whole affray was to
+watch the elephant find out, by swinging his tethered leg, first in one
+direction and then in another, how to free himself. This he did, first
+by swinging his leg round and round over the stump, then by walking
+slowly round and round, always facing the bull, and drawing his cord
+farther and farther until he was perfectly free: then he was careful
+only to turn as on a pivot, keeping the rope at a stretch. Finally the
+bull charged at him with great fury; stepping slightly aside, Pizarro
+caught him up sideways on his tusks, and held him up in the air,
+perfectly impotent and mad with rage. When he considered the puny
+creature had been sufficiently shown his inferiority, he gently put him
+down, and the astonished and humbled bull declined further contest. The
+fighting bulls of Spain are wonderfully small in comparison with English
+animals, it should be said.
+
+[Illustration: DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL]
+
+Every night, after his turn at the circus was over poor old Pizarro used
+to walk home alone under my balcony, open his stable door with his own
+latch-key, or at least his trunk, and put himself to bed like any
+Christian.
+
+One of the most fashionable amusements in Madrid is to attend on the
+morning of the bull-fight while the _espadas_ choose the particular
+bulls they wish to have as enemy, and affix their colours, the large
+rosette of ribbon which shows which of the _toreros_ the bull is to meet
+in deadly conflict. The bulls are then placed in their iron cages in the
+order in which they are to enter the arena. The fashionable ladies and
+other _aficionados_ of the sport then drive back to Madrid to luncheon
+and to prepare for the entertainment of the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PRESS AND ITS LEADERS
+
+
+Perhaps there are few countries where the influence of the Press is
+greater than in Spain, and this is largely due to the fact that while
+the journals are read by everyone, for a great number of the people they
+form the only literature. The free library is not yet universal in the
+country, though, doubtless, in the near future it may become general. In
+the meantime, every imaginable shade of political opinion has its organ;
+even the Bull-Ring has at least two excellently illustrated newspapers:
+and the extra sheets, printed hastily and sold immediately after the
+_corrida_ has terminated, have an enormous sale. Deserving of mention is
+the curious little paper known as the "Night-cap of Madrid," because it
+is supposed to be impossible for anyone to go to rest until he has read
+the late edition, which comes out not long before midnight. It is said
+to have no politics, and only pretends to give all the news of the
+world. There are many illustrated papers, both comic and serious. The
+charmingly artistic little _Blanco y Negro_, beautifully gotten up, is
+at the head of all the more dignified illustrated journals of the
+country. There are no kiosks; the papers are sold by children or by old
+women in the streets, and the Madrid night is rent by the appalling
+cries of these itinerant vendors of literature. For the Spanish
+newspaper is always literature, which is a good deal more than can be
+said for some of the English halfpenny Press. Whatever may be the
+politics of the particular journal, its _Castellano_ is perfect; perhaps
+a little stilted or pompous, but always dignified and well-written.
+
+The journalists of Madrid have a special facility for saying with an air
+of extreme innocence what they, for various reasons, do not care to
+express quite openly. Allegories, little romances, stories of fact full
+of clever words of "double sense" make known to the initiated, or those
+who know how to read between the lines, much that might otherwise awaken
+the disagreeable notice of the censor, when there is one. There is an
+air of good-natured raillery which takes off the edge of political
+rancour, and keeps up the amenities and the dignity of the Spanish
+Press. Only the other day one of the leading English journals pointed
+out what a dignified part the Press of Madrid, of every shade of
+politics, had played in the recent effort made by some foreign
+newspapers--of a class which so far does not exist in Spain--to make
+mischief and awaken national jealousy between England and Spain on the
+subject of the works now being carried out by the English Government at
+Gibraltar. The Spanish newspapers, of all shades of opinion, have made
+it abundantly evident that their country entertains no unworthy
+suspicion of England's good faith, and has not the smallest intention of
+being led into strained or otherwise than perfectly friendly relations
+with their old allies of the Peninsular War, to gratify the rabid enmity
+of a section of a Press foreign to both countries. This is, perhaps, the
+more remarkable because a certain amount of misunderstanding of England
+exists among some elements of the Spanish Press.
+
+The Liberal party in Spain is, in fact, the party of progress, and the
+nation has at last awakened from its condition of slavery under unworthy
+rulers, and is practically united in its determination to return to its
+place among the nations of Europe.
+
+There are many shades of Liberalism, and even Republicanism, but, as
+will be seen in another place, the real welfare of the people, and not
+the success of a mere political party, is the underlying motive of all,
+however wild and unpractical may be some of the dreams for the carrying
+out of these ideas of universal progress. It is impossible for a
+Spaniard to conceive of maligning or belittling his own country for
+merely party purposes; and, therefore, when he finds an English
+newspaper calling itself "Liberal" he imagines the word to have the same
+signification it has in his own country. So it has come to pass that
+many of the worst misrepresentations--to use a very mild term--of a
+portion of the English Press have been reproduced in Spanish newspapers,
+and believed by their readers.
+
+Among the principal newspapers, in a crowd of less important ones, _La
+Época_, Conservative and dynastic ranks first; this is the journal of
+the aristocrats, of the "upper ten thousand," or those who aspire to be
+so, and it ranks as the _doyen_ of the whole Press. Its circulation is
+not so large as that of some of the other papers, but its clientèle is
+supposed to be of the best. _El Nacional_ is also Conservative, but
+belonging to the party of Romero Robledo. What the exact politics of
+that variation of Conservatism might be, it is difficult, I might almost
+say impossible, for a stranger to say. If you were told nothing about
+it, and took it up accidentally to read of current events, you would
+certainly suppose it to be independent, with a decidedly Liberal
+tendency. Still it calls itself Conservative.
+
+_El Correo_ is Liberal, of the special type of Sagasta, the present
+Prime Minister. _El Español_, which also gives one the impression of
+independence, is Liberal after the manner of Gemaro. _El Heraldo_,
+calling itself _Diario Independente_, is credited with being the Liberal
+organ of Canalijas. _El Liberal_ and _El Pais_ are Republican, and _El
+Correo Español_ is Carlist, or clerical. This paper appears to be looked
+upon a good deal in the nature of a joke by its colleagues, and
+quotations from it are always accompanied by notes of exclamation.
+
+_La Correspondéncia de España_ is a paper all by itself, an invention of
+Spanish journalism, and its unprecedented success is due to many of its
+quite unique peculiarities. Its originator, now a millionaire, is proud
+of relating that he arrived in Madrid with two dollars in his pocket. He
+it was who conceived the brilliant idea of founding a journal which
+should be the special organ of all. "_Diario politico independiente, y
+de noticias: Eco imparcial de la opinion y de la prensa_," he calls it,
+and the fourth page, devoted to advertisements, would make the fortune
+of ten others. His boast was that it had no editor, paid no writers, and
+employed no correspondents. It simply possessed a certain number of
+"caterers" for news, who thrust themselves everywhere, picking up
+morsels of news--good, bad, and indifferent, for the most part scribbled
+in pencil and thrown into a receptacle from which they are drawn in any
+order, or none, and handed to the printer as "copy"; coming out in
+short, detached paragraphs of uneven length, ranging from three lines to
+twenty. Extracts from foreign newspapers, official news, provincial
+reports, money matters, religious announcements, accidents, everything
+comes out pell-mell--absolutely all "the voices of the flying day," in
+Madrid and everywhere else, in one jumble, without order or sequence,
+one paragraph frequently being a direct contradiction to another in the
+same sheet. There are three editions during the day, but the
+"Night-cap," which sums up them all, appears about ten o'clock or later,
+and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it is bought by almost
+every householder in the city.
+
+The nature of the _Correspondéncia_ has changed very little since its
+earliest days. It is a little more dignified, condescends even to short
+articles on current subjects of interest, but it is the same universal
+provider of news and gossip as ever. It goes with the times; so far as
+it has any leanings at all, it is with the Government of the hour; but
+it is for the most part quite impersonal, and it makes itself agreeable
+to all parties alike. Santa Ana, the clever initiator of this new and
+highly successful adventure in journalism, has two other very prosperous
+commercial enterprises in his hands--the manufacture of paper for
+printing and the supply of natural flowers. He himself is an enormous
+and indefatigable worker, personally looks after his various businesses,
+especially the _Correspondéncia_, and, mindful of his own early
+difficulties, he has created benefit societies for his workmen.
+
+He who, being a foreigner, would attempt to understand Spanish politics,
+deserves to be classed with the bravest leaders of forlorn hopes. In the
+first place, it is doubtful whether Spaniards understand them
+themselves, although they talk, for the most part, of nothing
+else--except bulls. Whenever and wherever two or three men or boys are
+gathered together, you may be quite certain as to the subject of their
+conversation--that is, if they show signs of excitement and interest in
+the matter under discussion. Each man you meet gives you the whole
+matter in a nut-shell: he has studied politics ever since he was able to
+talk; all the other innumerable parties besides his own are _nada_! he
+can tell you exactly what is wrong with his country, and, what is more,
+exactly how it may all be made right. The only thing which puzzles one
+is that all the nut-shells are different, and, as there are an unlimited
+number of them, all that one carefully learns to-day has to be as
+carefully unlearned to-morrow, and a fresh adjustment made of one's
+political spectacles. After all, however, this is very much what would
+happen in any country if we were in turn to sit at the feet of
+successive teachers, and try to bring their doctrines into any kind of
+accord. The peculiarity in Spain lies rather in the multiplicity of
+private political opinions and the energy with which they are expressed,
+and in the fact that they are all honest.
+
+Emerson has somewhere said that "inconsistency is the bugbear of little
+minds." The Spanish politician has evidently not a little mind, for he
+has no fear whatever of inconsistency, nor, in fact, of making a
+_volte-face_ whenever he sees any reason for doing so. There are
+Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, as in other
+countries, but there are, besides all these, an infinite number of
+shades and tones of each political belief, each represented, as we have
+seen, by a newspaper of its own, and, for the most part, bearing the
+name of one man. It would seem, then, that you have only to make
+yourself acquainted with the opinions, or rather with the political
+acts, of that one man, and there you are! Vain and fond fancy! He has
+been a rabid Republican, perhaps, or he has belonged, at least, to the
+party which put up in Madrid in conspicuous letters, "The bastard race
+of the Bourbons is for ever fallen. Fit punishment of their obstinacy!"
+but you will find him to-day lending all the force of his paper to the
+support of the Queen Regent, and at the same time allying himself with
+the various classes of Republicans, even to the followers of Zorilla,
+who have, at any rate till now, been consistent enemies and haters of
+the Bourbon.
+
+Señor Don Romero Robledo, one among the politicians of the day who
+possess the gift of perfect oratory, so common among his countrymen, is
+an example of this puzzling "open mind." He appeared first in the
+character of revolutionist in 1868; then he became the Minister of the
+Interior in Amadeo's short reign, held somewhat aloof from the wild
+experiment in a republic of Castelar, joined the party of Don Alfonso on
+the eve of its success, and supported Cánovas del Castillo in his
+somewhat retrograde policy in the restoration of the very Bourbon whom
+he had announced as "banished for ever," and, in fact, by his admirable
+genius for organising his party, enabled the Government of Cánovas to
+continue to exist. It is said of him that he "buys men as one would buy
+sheep," and that he will serve any cause so long as he has the
+management of it, or rather so long as he may pull the wires. Comte
+Vasili says of him: "In politics, especially Conservative politics, men
+like Romero Robledo are necessary, finding easily that 'the end
+justifies the means,' energetic, ambitious, always in the breach
+opposing their qualities to the invasions of the parties of extremes."
+This was written of him some fifteen years ago by one eminently
+qualified to judge. At the present moment we find Señor Romero Robledo
+refusing office, but consulted by the Queen Regent in every difficulty.
+In the late crisis, when the Conservative party under Silvela, called
+into office for the sake of carrying the extremely unpopular marriage of
+the Princess of Asturias with the Count of Caserta, had nearly managed
+to wreck the monarchy, or, at any rate, the regency, and to bring the
+always dangerous clerical question to an acute stage by suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole of Spain, it was Romero Robledo
+who told the Queen quite plainly that before anything else could be done
+the guarantees must be restored, that the liberties of the people could
+not be interfered with, and that, in short, the Liberal party must be
+called into office. Then we find him holding meetings in which
+Conservatives, Republicans, even Zorillistas, all combined,
+enthusiastically declaring that they are on the side of order and
+progress, agreeing to hold up England, under her constitutional monarch,
+as the most really democratic and free of all nations, since in no other
+country, republican or otherwise, is the government, as a matter of
+fact, so entirely in the hands of the people; swearing eternal enmity
+against the interference of the clergy in government or in education,
+but counselling "quiet determination without rancour or bigotry in
+dealing with those of the clergy who openly, or through the
+confessional, attempt to usurp authority which it is intended they shall
+never again acquire in Spain." In fact, to read Señor Romero Robledo's
+discourses on these occasions, and the excellent articles in the
+newspaper which represents his views, _El Nacional_, one would imagine
+the Golden Age to have dawned for Spain. Liberty, honour, real religion,
+progress in science, art, manufactures, trade, the purification of
+politics, the ideal of good government--these are only a few of the
+things to which this amalgamation of parties is solemnly pledged.
+
+One thing, at least, is promising among so much that might be put
+down as "words, words": a general agreement as to the wisdom of making
+the best of the present situation, opposing a firm resistance to any
+attempt at a return to absolutism on the part of the monarchy, or
+domination in temporal matters by the Church; but no change, no more
+_pronunciamientos_, no more civil wars. Whenever the political parties
+of a country merge their differences of opinion in one common cause, the
+end may be foreseen. This was what happened in 1868; and if the party of
+Romero Robledo is what it represents itself to be and holds together, we
+may hope to see the reign of the young Alfonso XIII. open with good
+auguries this year (1902), as it seems to be certain that he is to
+attain his majority two years in advance of the usual time.
+
+The life, political career, and retirement of Emilio Castelar is one of
+the most pathetic pictures in history, and one altogether Spanish in
+character. It was after Amadeo had thrown down his crown, exclaiming, "A
+son of Savoy does not wear a crown on sufferance!" that the small party
+of Republicans--which Prim had said did not exist, and which had in fact
+only become a party at all during the disastrous period of uncertainty
+between the expulsion of Isabel II. and the election of the Italian
+prince--edged its way to the front, and Castelar became the head of
+something much worse than a paper constitution--a republic of
+visionaries. Don Quijote de la Mancha himself could scarcely have made a
+more pure-intentioned yet more unpractical President. Castelar, with his
+honest, unsophisticated opinions and theories, his unexampled oratory,
+which is said to have carried away crowds of men who did not understand
+or hear a word that he said, with the rhythm of his language, the simple
+majesty and beauty of his delivery, launched the nation into a
+government that might have been suited to the angels in heaven, or to
+what the denizens of this earth may become in far distant æons of
+evolution--a republic of dreams, headed by a dreamer. The awakening was
+rude, but it was efficient. When Castelar found that in place of
+establishing a millennium of peace and universal prosperity, he had let
+loose over the land all the elements of disorder and of evil, he had the
+greatness to acknowledge himself mistaken: his own reputation never
+troubled him, and he admitted that the Cortes, from which he had hoped
+so much, worked evil, not good. It is said that he himself called on
+General Pavía, the Captain-General of Madrid, to clear them out. The
+deputies--Castelar had withdrawn--sat firm: "Death rather than
+surrender," they cried. Pavía, however, ordered his men to fire once
+down the empty lobbies, and the hint was enough: the Cortes dispersed,
+and Pavía, had he so minded it, might have been military dictator of
+Spain. But he had no such ambition, though there were not wanting those
+who ascribed it to him.
+
+[Illustration: THE ESCURIAL]
+
+As for Castelar, when angrily charged with inconsistency, he said:
+"Charge me with inconsistency, if you please. I will not defend myself.
+Have I the right to prefer my own reputation to the safety of my
+country? Let my name perish, let posterity pronounce its anathema
+against me, let my contemporaries send me into exile! Little care I! I
+have lived long enough! But let not the Republic perish through my
+weaknesses, and, above all, let no one say that Spain has perished in
+our hands!" Castelar went back to his chair of philosophy, which he had
+never resigned, poor as he left it, to the modest home and the devoted
+sister whom he loved so well--and no one laughed! Is there really any
+other country than Spain where such things can happen? His enthusiasm,
+his high-mindedness, his failures, his brave acknowledgment that he had
+failed, were accepted by the country in the exact spirit in which he had
+offered himself to her service, and the memory of Castelar stands as
+high to-day as ever it did in the respectful admiration of his
+fellow-countrymen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+POLITICAL GOVERNMENT
+
+
+The Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII.
+has been in reality what it was only in name before--a constitutional
+monarchy. During the first years of the young King's reign, Cánovas del
+Castillo being Prime Minister, there was a distinctly reactionary
+tendency from the Liberalism of Prim and the revolutionary party of
+1868. It was almost impossible that it should be otherwise, considering
+the wild tumult of the varying opinions and the experiments in
+government that the country had passed through; and some of the
+difficulties of the situation to-day are no doubt due to the concessions
+made to the ultra-Conservative party in the re-introduction of the
+religious orders, which had been suppressed during the regency of
+Cristina, and had never been tolerated even during the reign of the
+_piadosa_, Isabel II.
+
+Prim had, from the first moment that the success of the Revolution was
+assured and the Queen and her _camarilla_ had crossed the frontier to
+seek asylum in France, declared for a constitutional monarchy. "How can
+you have a monarchy without a king?" he was asked by Castelar. "How can
+you have a republic without republicans!" was his reply. He might have
+made himself king or military dictator, but he wanted to be neither; nor
+would he hear of Montpensier, to whom Topete and Serrano had pledged
+themselves.
+
+The House of Savoy was the next heir to the Spanish throne, had the
+Bourbons become extinct, and to it the first glances of the Spanish
+king-maker were directed, but difficulties arose from the dislike of the
+Duke of Aosta himself to the scheme. A prince of some Liberal country
+was what was wanted: there was even some talk of offering the crown to
+the English Duke of Edinburgh, while one party dreamed of an Iberian
+amalgamation, and suggested Dom Luis of Portugal or his father Dom
+Ferdinand, the former regent. The candidature of Prince Leopold of
+Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who was a Roman Catholic, was looked upon with
+a certain amount of favour, but at the eleventh hour Napoleon III. made
+this scheme a pretext for the quarrel with Prussia which led to the
+fateful war of 1870 and 1871. Eventually, almost two years after the
+outbreak of the Revolution, Amadeo of Savoy was chosen by the Cortes at
+Madrid by a majority of one hundred and five votes, only twenty-three
+being given for Montpensier and sixty-three for a republic.
+
+On the day that King Amadeo set foot on Spanish soil Prim was
+assassinated; it was perfectly well known at whose instigation, and the
+man whom the Spaniards themselves said was _demasiado honesto_ (too
+honourable) for the hotch-potch of political parties into which he was
+thrown without a friend or helper, began his vain effort to rule a
+foreign nation in a constitutional manner. After he had thrown up the
+thankless task in despair, the absurd Republic of Zorilla and Castelar
+made confusion worse confounded, and it was with a feeling of relief to
+all that the _pronunciamiento_ of Martinez Campos at Muviedro put an end
+to the Spanish Republic under Serrano, and proclaimed the son of Isabel
+II. as King.
+
+He was but a lad of seventeen, but he had been educated in England; he
+was known to be brave, dignified, and extremely liberal, so that he was
+acclaimed throughout Spain, and during his short life he fully justified
+the high opinion formed of him. But the Government of Cánovas was
+reactionary, and when the unexpected death of Alfonzo XII. left his
+young wife, the present Maria Cristina of Austria, a widow under
+exceptionally trying circumstances, Cánovas himself placed his
+resignation in her hands, knowing that the Liberals were the party of
+the nation, and promised to give his own best efforts to work with what
+had up to then been his Opposition, for the good of the country and of
+the expected child, who a few months later had the unusual experience
+of being "born a king."
+
+Whatever may be said about the present Regent,--though in truth little
+but good has been said or thought of her,--she has been most loyal to
+the constitution, holding herself absolutely aloof from all favouritism
+or even apparent predilection. She has devoted her life to the education
+of her son and to his physical well-being, for he was not a strong child
+in his early years, and she has done her best, possibly more than any
+but a woman could have done, to keep the ship of State not only afloat,
+but making headway during the minority of her son.
+
+Two things militate against good government in Spain, and will continue
+to do so until the whole system is changed: what is known in the country
+as _caciquismo_, and the pernicious custom of changing all the
+Government officials, down to the very porter at the doors, with every
+change of ministry. It is much, however, that the Government does go out
+in a constitutional manner instead of by a military _pronunciamiento_ on
+each occasion, as in the old days; also that a civilian and not a
+soldier is always at the head of it. In reality, there are two great
+parties in Madrid, and only two: the _Empleados_ and the _Cesantes_--in
+plain English, the "Ins" and the "Outs." Whatever ministry is in power
+has behind it an immense army of provincial governors, secretaries,
+clerks, down to the porters, and probably even the charwomen who clean
+out the Government offices. This state of things is repeated over the
+whole country, and there is naturally created and sustained an enormous
+amount of bribery and corruption, which is continually at work
+discrediting all governments and giving to Spanish affairs that "bad
+name" which, according to our old proverb, is as bad as hanging. The
+_Cesantes_ haunt certain _cafés_ and possess certain newspapers, and the
+_Empleados_ other _cafés_ and other papers. The "Outs" and the "Ins"
+meet at night to discuss their prospects, and wonderful are the stories
+invented at these reunions, some of which even find their way into
+English newspapers--if their correspondents are not up to the ways of
+Spain--for we read ludicrous accounts of things supposed to have been
+taking place, and are treated to solemn prophecies of events never
+likely to occur, even in first-class English journals. It is naturally
+the interest of these subordinate employees of a vicious system to
+hasten or retard the day that shall see their respective chiefs change
+position, and if a few plausible untruths can do it, be assured they
+will not be wanting. Both in the popular novels, _de costumbres_, and in
+actual life, it is the commonest thing to hear a man described as a
+_Cesante_, in the same way that we should speak of him as being an
+engineer or a doctor, as if being out of place were just as much an
+employment as any other.
+
+One thing that appears strange to a foreigner about these _Cesantes_ is
+that they never seem even to dream of seeking other employment; they
+simply sit down to wait until their particular patron is "in" again, and
+in the old days they were a constant force making for the
+_pronunciamiento_ which would sooner or later make a place for them. As
+they had no means of existence except when in receipt of Government pay,
+it is easy to understand that, according to their views, they had to
+prepare for the evil day which assuredly awaited them, by appropriating
+and exacting all the money that was possible during their short reign of
+power. Probably the only difference between the highest and the lowest
+official was in the actual amount he was able to acquire when he was
+"in."
+
+This system, subversive of all efficient service, and leading inevitably
+to the worst evils of misappropriation of the national funds, had
+perhaps its worst aspects in the colonies. A Government berth in Cuba
+was a recognised means of making a fortune, or of rehabilitating a man
+who had ruined himself by gambling at home. Appointments were made, not
+because the man was fitted for the post, but because he had
+influence--frequently that of some lady--with the person with whom the
+appointments lay, or because he was in need of an opportunity for making
+money easily. That there have always been statesmen and subordinate
+officials above all such self-seeking, men of punctilious honour and of
+absolutely clean hands, is known to all; but such men--as Espartero,
+for instance--too often threw up the sponge, and would have naught to do
+with governing nor with office of any description. Espartero, who is
+generally spoken of as the "Aristides of Spain," when living in his
+self-sought retirement at Logroño, even refused to be proclaimed as King
+during the days when the crown was going a-begging, though he would
+probably have been acclaimed as the saviour of his country by a large
+majority. Long years of foreign kings and their generally contemptible
+favourites and ministers, long years of tyranny and corruption in high
+places, leavened the whole mass of Spanish bureaucracy; but the heart of
+the nation remained sound, and those who would understand Spain must
+draw a distinct line between her professional place-hunters and her
+people.
+
+Caciqueism is a mere consequence or outcome from the state of affairs
+already described. While the deputies to the Cortes are supposed to be
+freely elected as representatives by the people, in reality they are
+simply nominees of the heads of the two political powers which have been
+see-sawing as ministers for the last sixteen years. Two men since the
+assassination of Cánovas have alternately occupied the post of First
+Minister of the Crown: Don Práxadis Mateo Sagasta, one of those mobile
+politicians who always fall on their feet whatever happens, and
+Francisco Silvela, who may be described as a Liberal-Conservative in
+contrast to Cánovas, who was a Tory of the old school, and aspired to be
+a despot. Toryism, though the word is unknown there, dies hard in Spain;
+but there are not wanting signs that the Conservatives of the new school
+have the progress and emancipation of the country quite as much at heart
+as any Liberal. It was the Conservative _Nacional_ that in a leading
+article of March 29th in 1901, under the head of "Vicious Customs,"
+called attention to the crowds of place-hunters who invade the public
+offices after a change of ministry, and to the barefaced impudence of
+some of their claims for preferment. "The remedy is in the hands of the
+advisers of the Crown," it continued. "Let them shut the doors of their
+offices against influence and intrigue, keep _Empleados_ of acknowledged
+competence permanently in their posts, and not appoint new ones without
+the conviction that they have capacity and aptitude for the work they
+will have to do. By this means, if the problem be not entirely solved,
+it will at least be in train for a solution satisfactory at once for a
+good administration and for the highest interests of the State."
+
+The way in which the wire-pulling is done from Madrid, in case of an
+election, is through the _cacique_, or chief person in each
+constituency; hence the name of the process. This person may be the
+Civil Governor, the _Alcalde_, or merely a rich landowner or large
+employer of labour in touch with the Government: the pressure brought
+to bear may be of two sorts, taking the form of bribery or threat. The
+voters who hang on to the skirts of the _cacique_ may hope for
+Government employment, or they may fear a sudden call to pay up arrears
+of rent or of taxes; the hint is given from headquarters, or a
+Government candidate is sent down. It matters little how the thing is
+done so long as the desired end is accomplished. Speaking of the general
+election which took place last June, and in which it was well known
+beforehand that the Liberals were to be returned in a large majority,
+one of the Madrid newspapers wrote: "The people will vote, but assuredly
+the deputies sent up to the Cortes will not be _their_ representatives,
+nor their choice."
+
+We, who have for so many years enjoyed a settled government, forget how
+different all this is in a country like Spain, which has oftener had to
+be reproached for enduring bad government than for a readiness to effect
+violent changes, or to try new experiments; but the progress actually
+made since the Revolution of 1868 has really been extraordinary, and it
+has gone steadily forward. Spain has always been celebrated for the
+making of _convenios_--a word which is scarcely correctly translated by
+"arrangement." During the Carlist wars, the Government, and even
+generals in command, made _convenios_ with the insurgents to allow
+convoys to pass without interference, money value sometimes being a
+factor in the case; but one of the strangest of these out-of-sight
+agreements, and one which English people never understand, is that
+which has existed almost ever since the Restoration between the
+political parties in the Congress, or, at least, between their leaders.
+It is an arrangement, loyally carried out, by which each party is
+allowed in turn to come into power. The Cortes is elected to suit the
+party whose turn it is to be in office, and there is little reality in
+the apparent differences. Silvela and Sagasta go backwards and forwards
+with the regularity of a pendulum, and the country goes on its way
+improving its position daily and hourly, with small thanks to its
+Government.
+
+Perhaps it is as well! It gives assurance, at least, that no
+particularly wild schemes or subversive changes shall be made. When one
+administration has almost wrecked the ship, as in the Caserta marriage,
+the other comes in peacefully, and sets the public mind at rest; both
+parties wish for peace and quietness, and no more revolutions, and the
+political seesaw keeps the helm fairly straight in ordinary weather. To
+what extent the insane and disastrous policy which led to the war with
+America by its shilly-shally treatment of Cuba, now promising autonomy,
+now putting down the grinding heel of tyranny, and to what extent the
+suicidal action of the oscillating parties--for both share the
+responsibility--in their instructions to their generals and admirals,
+and the astounding unpreparedness for war of any kind, still less with a
+country like America, may be traced to this system of "arrangements,"
+which allows one party to hand its responsibilities over to the other,
+one can only guess. It is to be hoped that when the two figureheads at
+present before the country go over to the majority, there may come to
+the front some earnest and truly patriotic ministers, who have been
+quietly training in the school of practical politics, and can take the
+helm with some hope of doing away with the crying evils of _empleomania_
+and _caciquismo_. Until then there will be no political greatness for
+Spain.
+
+The advance which Spain has made, "in spite of her Governments, and not
+by their assistance," has been remarkable in past years. Since the
+beginning of the last century she has gone through a series of political
+upheavals and disasters which might well have destroyed any country;
+and, in fact, her division into so many differing nationalities has,
+perhaps, been her greatest safeguard. Even after the Revolution of 1868
+the series of events through which she passed was enough to have
+paralysed her whole material prosperity; the actual loss in materials,
+and still more in the lives of her sons, during the fratricidal wars at
+home and in her colonies, is incalculable, and that she was not ruined,
+but, on the contrary, advanced steadily in industry and commerce during
+the whole time, shows her enormous inherent vitality. Since then she has
+undergone the lamentable war with America, has lost her chief colonies,
+and the Peninsula has been well-nigh swamped by the _repatriados_ from
+Cuba, returning to their native country penniless and, in many cases,
+worn out. And yet the state of Spain was never so promising, her steady
+progress never more assured. Looking back to the Revolution, it will be
+enough to name some of the measures secured for the benefit of the
+people. They include complete civil and religious liberty, with reforms
+in the administration of the laws and the condition of prisoners,
+liberty of education, and the spread of normal schools into every corner
+of the Peninsula, the establishment of savings banks for the poor,
+somewhat on the lines of England's Post Office Savings Bank; railways
+have received an enormous impulse; quays and breakwaters have been
+erected, so that every portion of the kingdom is now in immediate touch
+with Madrid; while the universities are sending forth daily young men
+thoroughly trained as engineers, electricians, doctors, and scientists
+of every variety to take the places which some years ago were almost
+necessarily filled by foreigners for want of trained native talent.
+
+Local government in the smaller towns of the Peninsula is generally said
+to be very good, and to work with great smoothness and efficiency
+hand-in-hand with centralised authority in Madrid. The fusion of the
+varying nationalities is gradually gaining ground, and the hard-and-fast
+line between the provinces is disappearing. There is more nationality
+now in matters of every-day life than there has ever been before. In old
+times it needed the touch of a foreign hand, the threat of foreign
+interference, to rouse the nation as one man. Commerce and industry and
+the national emulation between province and province are doing gradually
+what it once needed the avarice of a Napoleon to evoke.
+
+The paper constitutions of Spain have been many, beginning with that of
+1812, which the Liberals tried to force on Ferdinand VII., to that of
+1845, which the Conservatives look upon as the ideal, or that of 1869,
+embodying all that the Revolution had gained from absolutism, including
+manhood suffrage. In the first Cortes summoned after the Restoration,
+thanks to the good sense of Castelar, the Republican party, from being
+conspirators, became a parliamentary party in opposition. Zorilla alone,
+looking upon it as a sham, retired to France in disgust. By the new
+constitution of 1876, the power of making laws remained, as before,
+vested in the Cortes and the Crown: the Senate consists of three
+classes, Grandes, Bishops, and high officers of State sitting by right,
+with one hundred members nominated by the Crown, and one hundred and
+eighty elected by provincial Councils, universities, and other
+corporations. Half of the elected members go out every five years. The
+deputies to the Congress are elected by indirect vote on a residential
+manhood suffrage, and they number four hundred and thirty-one. A
+certain number of equal electoral districts of fifty thousand
+inhabitants elect one member each; and twenty-six large districts,
+having several representatives, send eighty-eight members to the Cortes.
+Every province has its provincial elective Council, managing its local
+affairs, and each commune its separate District Council, with control
+over local taxation. Yet, though ostensibly free, these local bodies are
+practically in the power of the political wire-puller, or _cacique_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE
+
+
+Commerce and industry had progressed by leaps and bounds even during the
+disastrous and troublous years between the expulsion of Isabel II. and
+the restoration of her son. The progress is now much more steady and
+more diffused over the whole country, but it is by no means less
+remarkable, especially taking into consideration the disaster of the war
+with America and the loss to Spain of her old colonies.
+
+Among her politicians in past times there were never wanting those who
+considered that the loss of Cuba would be a distinct gain to the mother
+country, and perhaps it may be safely said that since the colony had not
+only been for so many years the forcing-house of bureaucratic
+corruption, but had also drained the resources of Spain both of money
+and lives to the extreme limit of her possibility, she is more likely
+now to regain her old position among European nations, when left at
+peace to develop her enormous resources and set her house in order
+without the distraction of war, either at home or abroad. When one
+remembers that this happy condition has never obtained in the country
+since the death of Ferdinand VII. until the close of the
+Spanish-American War, and that the country is only now recovering from
+the disorganisation caused by the return of her troops and refugees from
+Cuba and Manila, it is not surprising to find that the activity
+manifested in her trade, her manufactures, and her industries is such as
+to give the greatest hopes for her future to her own people and to those
+who watch her from afar with friendly eyes.
+
+Whichever we may regard as cause or effect, the progress of the country
+has been very largely identified with the extension of her railway
+system. It must have been a great step towards liberal education when
+the country which, priding herself on her geographical position and her
+rich internal resources, had hitherto wrapped herself in her national
+_capa_, and considered that she was amply sufficient to herself,
+condescended to throw open her mountain barriers to immigrants. It was
+not until 1848 that the first Spanish railway was opened, and it was but
+seventeen miles in length; but in the next ten years five hundred miles
+had been constructed, and between 1858 and 1868 no fewer than two
+thousand eight hundred and five miles, the Pyrenees had been pierced,
+and direct communication with the rest of Europe accomplished.
+
+During the troublous years following the Revolution and the melancholy
+struggles of the second Carlist war, very little progress was made.
+Foreign capital, which had hitherto been invested in Spanish railways,
+was naturally frightened away, and the Northern Railway itself, the
+great artery to France, was constantly being torn up and damaged, and
+the lives of the passengers endangered, by the armed mobs which infested
+the country, and were supposed by some people to represent the cause of
+legitimacy, and which had, in fact, the sanction of the Church and of
+the Pope. It was not, in the majority of cases, that the people
+sympathised with Don Carlos, but it was easier and more amusing for the
+lazy and the ne'er-do-weels to receive pay and rations for carrying a
+gun, and taking pot-shots at any object that presented itself, human or
+other, than to work in the fields, the mines, or on the railways. Hence
+public enterprise was paralysed; again and again the workmen, with no
+desire of their own, were driven off by superior bands of these
+wandering shooters, who scarcely deserved even the name of guerillas,
+and public works were left deserted and decaying, while the commerce and
+industry of the province were wrecked, and apparently destroyed
+irrevocably.
+
+In the earlier stages of railway construction and management, French
+capital and French labour were employed. England held aloof, partly on
+account of the closing of the London Stock Exchange to Spanish
+enterprises, in consequence of the vexed question of the celebrated
+coupons, but also because the aid afforded by the State did not fall in
+with the ideas of English capitalists. They desired a guaranteed rate of
+interest, while the Spanish Government would have nothing but a
+subvention paid down in one lump sum, arguing that it would be
+impossible to tell when a line was making more than the guaranteed
+interest, "as the companies would so arrange their accounts as to show
+invariably an interest smaller than that guaranteed!" With this view of
+the honesty of their own officials, no one else could be expected to
+have a better opinion of them; and England allowed France and Belgium
+thenceforward to find all the capital and all the materials for Spanish
+railways.
+
+The total amount of subventions actually paid by Government up to
+December 31, 1882, was £24,529,148. "If," says the author of _Commercial
+and Industrial Spain_, "the money that we so candidly lent to the swarm
+of defaulting South American Republics had been properly invested in
+Spanish railways, a great deal of trouble might probably have been
+spared to the unfortunate investors."
+
+All that, however, is altered now: the State schools and universities
+are turning out daily well-equipped native engineers, both for railway
+and mining works, and Spaniards are finding their own capital for public
+works. The phrase "Spain for the Spaniards" is acquiring a new
+significance--perhaps the most hopeful of all the signs of progress the
+country is making. In 1899, there were working 12,916 kilómetros of
+railways, or 7.9 kilómetros for each 10,000 of the population. A
+kilómetro equals 1.609 English mile. There is no part of the country now
+isolated, either from the centre of government in Madrid, or from the
+coast, and communication with Portugal, and, through France, with the
+rest of Europe, is easy and constant. With this advance in means of
+transit, the trade of the country has received an immense impulse, and
+its raw and manufactured goods are now reaching all markets.
+
+The rich mineral wealth of the country and its wonderful climate only
+need enlightened enterprise to make Spain one of the richest and most
+important commercial factors in the world's trade. The list of minerals
+alone, raised from mines in working, amounts to twenty-two, ranging from
+gold and silver, copper, tin, zinc, quick-silver, salt, coal, etc., to
+cobalt and antimony; and 8,313,218 tons of minerals of all these
+twenty-two classes were raised in 1882 against 1,201,054 in 1862. The
+value of mines in 1880 was represented by one hundred and eleven
+millions of pesetas (francs), but in 1898 by three hundred and nineteen
+millions (pesetas). The value of imports in 1882 was 816,666,901
+pesetas, and of exports 765,376,087 pesetas. In 1899, imports were
+1,045,391,983, and exports 864,367,885. But this is taking exactly the
+period covered by the war with America; a fairer estimate of exports is
+that of 1897, which stood at 1,074,883,372. No statement has been
+published since 1899, but intermediate statistics show the trade of the
+country to be advancing rapidly.
+
+To return, however, to Spanish industries. In late years large
+smelting-works have been opened in Spain, with Spanish capital and
+management, while at Bilbao are large iron-works for the manufacture of
+steel rails. There are splendid deposits of iron in the country, and as
+the duty on foreign rails entering Spain is _£3 4s._ per ton, it is
+probable that the near future will see the country free from the
+necessity of importing manufactured iron, or, in fact, metal of any
+kind. A Catalan company has established important works for reducing the
+sulphur of the rich mines near Lorca, and confidently expects to produce
+some thirty thousand tons of sulphur per annum. The rich silver mines of
+the Sierra Almagrera are almost wholly in native hands, and have already
+yielded large fortunes to the owners. With the present improved
+transport and shipping facilities in every part of the country, it is
+probable that the valuable mines scattered all over the Peninsula will
+be thoroughly worked, to the advance of commercial and industrial
+interests over the entire country.
+
+While the seaboard provinces are rich in fisheries, as well as in mines,
+in the south the country is able to grow rice, sugar-cane, maize,
+raisins, as well as wheat, olives, oranges, grapes, dates, bananas,
+pine-apples, and almost all kinds of tropical fruits. The cultivation of
+all varieties of fruit and vegetables, and their careful gathering and
+packing have become the object of many large companies and private
+individuals. Dates, bananas, grapes, plums, tomatoes, melons, as well as
+asparagus and other early vegetables, are now being shipped to foreign
+markets as regular articles of trade, in a condition which insures a
+rapid and increasing sale. The exportation of fruit has doubled within
+the last few years. The production of cane sugar in 1899 was thirty-one
+thousand tons, or exactly three times the amount of that produced in
+1889. The exportation of wine, which in 1894 was two millions of
+milelitros, was in 1898 nearly five millions, and it is daily increasing
+(one gallon English measure equals about four and one half litros).
+
+Spain has always had excellent wines unknown to other countries, besides
+that which is manufactured into what we know as "sherry"; but many of
+them were so carelessly made as to be unfit for transit abroad. The
+attention of wine-growers has, however, been steadily turned to this
+subject during the last twenty years; greater care has been taken in the
+production; the best methods have been ascertained and followed, and it
+is possible now to obtain undoctored Spanish wines which perfectly bear
+the carriage in cask without injury; and, to meet a direct sale to the
+customer, small barrels containing about twelve gallons are shipped
+from Tarragona and other ports to England.
+
+One of the most hopeful signs of the economic awakening of the country
+is the establishment of the _Boletin de la Cámara de Comercio de España
+en la Gran Bretáña_, published each month in London.
+
+In this little commercial circular a review is given of the commerce and
+industry of all nations during the month; all fluctuations are noted,
+extracts from foreign statistics or money articles given, suggestions
+made for the opening up of Spanish commerce, and the introduction of her
+manufactures into this and other countries. Speaking on the question of
+the introduction of pure Spanish wines into England, a recent writer in
+the _Boletin_ remarks that English workmen are thirsty animals, that
+they like a big drink, but they are not really desirous of becoming
+intoxicated by it. In fact, they would most of them prefer to be able to
+drink more without bad effects. The writer goes on to say that if the
+English workman could obtain pure wine that would cost no more than his
+customary beer, and would not make him intoxicated, and if Spanish light
+wines--which he says could be sold in England for less than good
+beer--were offered in tempting-looking taverns and under pleasant
+conditions, he believes that a really enormous trade would be the
+result, to the benefit of both nations. The suggestion is, at least, an
+interesting one, and though the scheme would certainly not benefit the
+habitual drunkard, who becomes enamoured of his own debauchery, it
+might be very welcome to many of the working people, who, as "our
+neighbour" quaintly remarks, like a big drink, but do not necessarily
+wish to become intoxicated.
+
+In this connection, it may be interesting to know that the small
+twelve-gallon casks of red wine, resembling Burgundy rather than claret,
+but less heavy than the Australian wines, and forming a delicious drink
+with water, are delivered at one's own door carriage free for a price
+which works out, including duty, at _8-1/2d._ the ordinary bottle, or
+_1s. 2d._ the flagon, such as the Australian wine is sold in. This is,
+in fact, cheaper than good stout or ale.
+
+Spain has always been celebrated for two special manufactures--her silk
+and woollen goods; but for very many years these have been almost
+unknown beyond her own boundaries. In the time of the Moors her silken
+goods had a world-wide fame; and the silk-worm has been cultivated there
+probably from the earliest days, when it was surreptitiously introduced
+into Europe. Groves of mulberry trees were grown especially for
+sericulture in the irrigated provinces of the South, the care of the
+insect being undertaken by the women, while the men were employed on
+tasks more suitable to their strength. Native-grown spun and woven silk
+forms such an important part in the national costumes of the people that
+it has attained to great perfection without attracting much foreign
+notice. The silk petticoats of the women, the velvet jackets and trunk
+hose of the men, the beautiful silk and woollen _mantas_, with their
+deep fringes of silken or woollen balls; the _madroños_, or silk tufts
+and balls, used as decorations for the Andalusian or the gypsy hats, not
+to mention the beautifully soft and pure silks of Barcelona, or the silk
+laces made in such perfection in many parts of the country,--all these
+are objects of merchandise only needing to be known, to occasion a large
+demand, especially in these days when the French invention of weighted
+dyes floods the English market with something that has the outward
+appearance of silk, but which does not even wait for wear to disclose
+its real nature, but rots into holes on the drapers' shelves, and
+would-be smart young women of slender purses walk about in what has been
+well called "tin attire," in the manufacture of which the silk-worm has
+had only the slenderest interest.
+
+The blankets and rugs of Palencia have been known to some few English
+people for many years, owing to their extreme lightness, great warmth,
+and literally unending wear; but it is only within the last very few
+years that they can be said to have had any market at all in England,
+and now they are called "Pyrenean" rather than Spanish goods. One of the
+suggestions of the little commercial circular already referred to is
+that Spaniards should open depots or special agencies all over England
+for the sale of their woollen goods, after the manner of the Jaeger
+Company.
+
+The flocks of merino sheep to be seen on the wooded slopes of the
+Pyrenees, and all over Estremadura, following their shepherd after the
+manner with which Old Testament history makes us familiar, are said to
+be direct descendants of the old Arabian flocks, and certainly the
+appearance of one of these impassive-looking shepherds leading his flock
+to "green pastures, and beside the still waters," takes one back in the
+world's history in a way that few other things do. The flock know the
+voice of their shepherd, and follow him unquestioningly wheresoever he
+goes; there is no driving, no hurrying; and the same may be said of the
+pigs, which form such an important item in the social economy of a
+Spanish peasant's home.
+
+Staying once at Castellon de la Plana, in Valencia, my delight was to
+watch the pig-herd and his troop. Early in the morning, at a fixed hour,
+he issued from his house in one of the small alleys, staff in hand, and
+with a curious kind of horn or whistle. This he blew as he walked along,
+from time to time, without turning his head, in that strange trance of
+passivity which distinguishes the Valencian peasant. Out from dark
+corners, narrow passages, mud hovels on all sides, came tearing along
+little pigs, big pigs, dark, light, fat, thin pigs,--pigs of every
+description,--and joined the procession headed by this sombre-looking
+herdsman, with his long stick and his blue-and-white striped _manta_
+thrown over his shoulder. By the time he had reached the end of the
+village he had a large herd following him. Then the whole party slowly
+disappeared in the distance, under the groves of cork-trees or up the
+mountain paths. The evening performance was more amusing still. Just
+about sundown the stately herdsman again appeared with his motley
+following. He took no manner of notice of them. He stalked majestically
+towards his own particular hovel, and at each corner of a lane or group
+of cottages the pigs said "Good night" to each other by a kick-up of
+their heels and a whisk of their curly little tails, and scampered off
+home by themselves, until, at the end of the village, only one solitary
+pig was following his leader--probably they shared one home between
+them. It seemed a peaceful, if not an absolutely happy, life!
+
+One would expect a country with such a climate, or rather with so many
+climates, as Spain, to make a great feature of agriculture. It can at
+once produce wheat of the very finest quality, wine, oil, rice, sugar,
+and every kind of fruit and vegetable that is known; and it ought to be
+able to support a large agricultural population in comfort, and export
+largely. Taking into account, also, the rich mineral wealth, which
+should make her independent of imports of this nature, it is sad to see
+that in past years, even so late as 1882, wheat and flour, coal and
+coke, iron and tools figure amongst her imports--the first two in very
+large proportions. Although the vast plains of Estremadura and Castile
+produce the finest wheat known to commerce, the quantity, owing to the
+want of water, is so small in relation to the acreage under cultivation,
+that it does not suffice for home consumption, except in very favourable
+years; while the utilisation of the magnificent rivers, which now roll
+their waters uselessly to the sea, would make the land what it once was
+when the thrifty Moor held it--a thickly populated and flourishing
+grain-producing district. In place of the wandering flocks of sheep and
+pigs gaining a precarious existence on the herbage left alive by the
+blistering sun on an arid soil, there should be smiling homesteads and
+blooming gardens everywhere, trees and grateful shade where now the
+ground, between the rainy seasons, becomes all of one dusty, half-burnt
+colour, reminding one more of the "back of a mangy camel," as it has
+been described, than of a country that has once been fruitful and
+productive.
+
+The late General Concha, Marqués del Duero, was the originator of
+sugar-cane cultivation. He spent a large portion of his private fortune
+in establishing what bids fair to be one of the most productive
+industries of his country. But, like most pioneers of progress, he
+reaped no benefit himself. His fine estates near Malaga, with their
+productive cane-farms, passed into other hands before he had reaped the
+reward of his patriotic endeavours. For a long time the cheap,
+bounty-fed beet sugars of Germany, which never approach beyond being an
+imitation of real sugar--as every housewife can testify who has tried to
+make jam with them--were able to undersell the produce of the cane; but
+the latest statistics show that this industry is now making steady
+progress, the production of 1899 being thirty-one thousand tons, or
+exactly three times that of 1899. _À propos_ of the difference between
+cane and beet sugars for all domestic purposes, and the superior
+cheapness of the more costly article, it is satisfactory to note that in
+England the working classes, through their own co-operative societies,
+insist on being supplied with the former, knowing by experimental proof
+its immense superiority; and one may hope that their wisdom may spread
+into households where the servants pull the wires, and care nothing
+about economy.
+
+Looking at the ordinary map of Spain, it appears to be ridiculous to say
+that the greater part of the country is in want of water. Although it is
+intersected by three large ranges of mountains beyond the Pyrenees, and
+innumerable others of smaller dimensions, thus making a great proportion
+of the country impossible for agriculture, it is rich in magnificent
+rivers and in smaller ones, all of which are allowed to run to waste in
+many parts of the country, while even a small portion of their waters,
+artificially dammed and utilised for irrigation, if only of the lands
+lying on each side of them, would mean wealth and prosperity and an
+abounding population where now the "everlasting sun" pours its rays over
+barren wastes. Moreover, by the growth of the wood, which once covered
+the plains and has been cut down, little by little, until the whole
+surface of the land was changed, in process of time the climate would
+become less dry, and vegetation more rapid and easy.
+
+Ever since the expulsion of the Moors from Castile and Estremadura, the
+land has been allowed gradually to go almost out of cultivation for want
+of water, the wholesale devastation of forests, in combination with the
+lapse of all irrigation, acting as a constantly accelerating cause for
+the arid and unproductive condition of the once genial soil. Irrigation
+has been the crying want of Spain for generations past; but even now the
+Government scarcely seems to have awakened to its necessity. Perhaps,
+however, the Spaniard who goes on his way, never troubling to listen to
+the opinion or advice of his neighbour, has not, after all, been so
+wanting in common sense as some of the more energetic of his critics
+have thought. In spite of all the changes and disasters of successive
+Governments, a steady and rapid advance has been made in providing means
+of transport and shipping, by the construction of railways to every part
+of the country, the making and keeping in condition of admirable
+highways, and the building of breakwaters and quays in many of the
+seaports, so that now the output of the mines and produce of all kinds
+can find market within the country, or be shipped abroad freely.
+
+[Illustration: A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA]
+
+If the money no longer being expended in railways and docks were now
+devoted to irrigation wherever it is needed, a rapid change would become
+apparent over the whole face of the country, and the population would
+increase in proportion as the land would bear it. Irrigation works have
+been more than once undertaken by the aid of foreign money, and under
+the charge of foreign engineers; but the people themselves--the
+landowners and peasant proprietors--were not ripe for it, and, alas!
+some of the canals which would have turned whole valleys into gardens
+have been allowed to go to ruin, or to become actually obliterated,
+while the scanty crops are raised once in two or three years from the
+same soil, which will yield three crops in one year by the help of
+water. Difficulties arose about the sale of the water--a prolific cause
+of dispute even in the old irrigated districts--and the people said:
+"What do we want with water, except what comes from heaven? If the
+Virgin thinks we want water, she sends it." Fitting result of the
+teaching of the Church for so many years, with the example ever held up
+for admiration of the patron saint, Isidro, who knelt all day at his
+prayers, and left the tilling of his fields to the angels! It would seem
+that these ministers of grace are not good husbandmen, since the land
+became the arid waste it now is, while successive Isidros have been
+engaged in religious duties, which they were taught were all that was
+necessary.
+
+As an example of what irrigation means in the sunlit fields of Spain, an
+acre of irrigable land in Valencia or Murcia sells for prices varying
+from £150 to £400, according to its quality or its situation, while land
+not irrigable only fetches sums varying from £7 to £20. In Castile, land
+would not in any case fetch so high a price as that which has been under
+irrigated cultivation for centuries past; but in any district the value
+of dry land is never more than a twelfth of what it is when irrigable.
+In truth, however, there is more than irrigation needed to bring the
+lands of Castile and Estremadura into profitable cultivation, and it
+cannot be done without the expenditure of large sums of money at the
+outset in manures, and good implements in place of the obsolete old
+implements with which the ground is now scratched rather than ploughed.
+Given good capital and intelligent farming, as in the irrigated
+districts, and two, and even three, crops a year can be raised in
+unceasing succession; lucern gives from ten to twelve cuttings in one
+year, fifteen days being sufficient for the growth of a new crop.
+
+I have pointed out what one day's sun can do in raising grass seed in
+Madrid, which stands on the highest point of the elevated table-land
+occupying the centre of Spain. Seeing that the principal item of the
+revenue is derived from the land tax, and that it is calculated on the
+value of the land, it would appear to be the first interest of an
+enlightened government to foster irrigation in every possible way, and
+encourage agriculture and the planting of trees.
+
+Although the people of Spain have hated their more immediate neighbours
+with an exceeding bitter hatred,--as, indeed, they had good cause to do
+in the past,--her public men have had a strange fancy for importing or
+imitating French customs. One that militates more than anything else
+against agricultural prosperity is the law of inheritance, copied from
+the French. By this the State divides an estate amongst the heirs
+without any reference to the wishes of the proprietor at his death. Not
+only are all large estates broken up and practically dissipated, so that
+it is to no one's interest to improve his property or spend money on it,
+but the small farms of the peasant proprietor are broken into smaller
+fragments in the same way; and it is no uncommon thing to see a field of
+a few acres divided into six or eight furrows, none of them enough to
+support one man. While he has to go off seeking work where he can get
+it, his strip of land clings to him like a curse, for he must lose his
+work if he would try to cultivate it, and at his death it will again be
+subdivided, until at last there is nothing left to share. Meanwhile, the
+land, which is not enough to be of any value to anyone, has been allowed
+to go almost out of cultivation; or if it bear anything at all, it is
+weeds.
+
+Until some remedy be found for this enervating system, it would seem as
+if Spanish agriculture is doomed to remain in its present unsatisfactory
+condition over a great part of the kingdom. The improvement of
+agriculture is practically a question of private enterprise, and under
+the existing law of inheritance neither enterprise nor interest can be
+expected of the small proprietor; nor indeed of the large landowner, who
+knows that, whatever he may do to improve his estate, it is doomed to be
+cut to pieces and divided amongst his next of kin until it is eventually
+extinguished. Whether, in some future time, an enlightened scheme of
+co-operation could work the arid lands into cultivation again, if the
+Government would give the necessary aid in the form of irrigation,
+remains among the unanswered riddles of the future. Prophecy in Spain is
+never possible; it is always the unexpected which happens in that
+country of sharp contradictions. All one can do is to note past progress
+and the drift of the present current, which, whatever government is at
+the nominal head of affairs, seems to be towards widespread--in fact,
+quite general--advance both in knowledge and industrial activity.
+
+The greatest hope for the future lies in the fact that it is no longer
+foreign money or foreign labour that is working for the good of the
+country; the impulse is from within, and every penny of capital that is
+sunk in public works, manufactures, or industrial enterprise, is so much
+invested in a settled state of affairs. When the individual has
+everything to lose by revolutionary changes, when the commerce of the
+country is becoming too important to be allowed to be upset easily, and
+it is everybody's interest to support and increase it, the main body of
+the people are ranged on the side of peace and progress. They have had
+enough of civil war, enough of tyranny; they have achieved freedom, and
+want nothing so much as to taste of it in quietness.
+
+To revert for a moment to the special manufactures of the country, it
+appears to be the wise policy of the powers that be in Spain to-day to
+encourage, by every possible means, native industries and the
+development of the rich resources of the country. If it be only in the
+superior education required of the workmen, and the drawing out of their
+natural talents, the movement is an immense gain to the people, so long
+purposely kept in a condition of slothful ignorance.
+
+Besides the woollen manufactures of Palencia, Lorca, Jerez, Barcelona,
+Valencia, and other places, are many cloth factories in Cataluña, as
+well as others for the production of silk fabrics, lace, and very
+high-class embroideries, for which last Spain has long been famous, but
+which have hitherto been little known beyond her own frontiers. In
+artistic crafts may be named the pottery works of Pickman, Mesaque,
+Gomez, and others in Seville, where magnificent reproductions of Moorish
+and Hespaño-Moresque tiles and pottery are being turned out; there are
+also factories for this class of goods in Valencia, Barcelona, Segovia,
+Talevera, and many other places. Ornamental iron and damascene work
+holds the high reputation which Spain has never lost, but the output is
+very largely increased. Gold and silver inlaid on iron, iron inlaid on
+copper and silver, are some of the forms of this beautiful work. That
+executed in Madrid differs from that of Toledo, Eibar, and other centres
+of the craft. The iron gate-work executed in Madrid and Barcelona is
+very hard to beat, and the casting of bronzes is carried out with every
+modern improvement. The wood-carvers of Spain have always been famous,
+and the craft appears to be in no danger of falling behind its old
+reputation, much beautiful decorative work of this description being
+produced for modern needs. The _Circulo de Artes_ holds an exhibition in
+Madrid every other year, and in the intervening years the Government has
+one, in the large permanent buildings erected for the purpose at the end
+of the Fuente Castellana. The manufacture of artistic furniture and
+other connected industries are encouraged also by a bi-yearly exhibition
+in Madrid, where prizes and commendations are given. The chief centres
+of artistic furniture-making are Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and
+Zaragoza. Exhibitions of arts and crafts and of all kinds of industries
+and manufactures are also held, at intervals, in the principal towns all
+over the country. An interesting exhibition of Spanish and South
+American productions was held in 1901 in Bilbao with great success.
+
+Nor ought we to forget the industry for which Seville is famed. The
+manufacture of tobacco is almost wholly in the hands of women, and is a
+very important industry, thousands being employed in the large factories
+making up cigars, cigarettes, and preparing and packing the finer kinds
+of tobacco. The cigar-girl of Seville is a well-known type, almost as
+much dreaded by the authorities as admired by her own class. The women
+are mostly young, and often attractive, extremely pronounced both in
+dress and manners, and are quite a power to be reckoned with when they
+choose to assert themselves. On more than one occasion they have taken
+up some cause _en masse_, and have gathered in thousands, determined to
+have their way.
+
+When this happens, the powers that be are reduced to great straits.
+Neither the _Guardia Civile_ nor the military can be relied on to use
+force, and unless the army of irate women can be persuaded to retire
+from the contest it is probable that, relying with perfect confidence on
+the privileges of their sex, they will gain what they consider their
+rights--at all events their will.
+
+No country in the world is more suited for manufactures and exports than
+Spain. She has an unexampled seaboard, and many magnificent natural
+harbours, and now an easy approach through Portugal to the sea, even if
+her own ports should be insufficient. Common commercial interests are
+likely to bring that Iberian kingdom or commonwealth to pass which has
+been the dream of some of her politicians, and is still cherished in
+parts of both countries. The northern ports in the Atlantic are,
+perhaps, the most important; that of Bilbao, a most unpromising one by
+nature, has grown out of all recognition since the close of the Carlist
+war. The railway to the iron mines was already in course of construction
+when the war broke out; everything was stopped, the workmen carried off
+willy-nilly to join the marauding bands of the Pretender, the
+town--which boasts that it has never been taken, although twice almost
+demolished during the two insane civil wars--was wrecked and well-nigh
+ruined, its industries destroyed, its commerce at an end. With peace and
+quietness came one of the most extraordinary revivals of modern times:
+the population increased at a marvellous rate, the new town sprang into
+existence on the left bank of the Nerrion, the river was deepened, the
+bar, which used to block almost all entrance, practically removed,
+extensive dock-works carried out; so that in ten years the shipment of
+ore from the port sprang up from four hundred and twenty-five thousand
+tons to 3,737,176, and is increasing daily. Bilbao, with its five
+railway stations, its electric tramways, and its population of
+sixty-six thousand, has become the first and most important shipping
+outlet of Spain. Nor have the southern ports of Huelva and Seville been
+much behind it in their rapid progress; while on the Mediterranean coast
+are Malaga, Almería, Aguilas, Cartagena, Valencia, and Tarragona--all
+vying with the older, and once singular, centre of commercial and
+industrial activity, Barcelona. The northwest seaboard has been hitherto
+somewhat behind the movement, owing to a less complete railway
+communication with the rest of the country; now that this is no more a
+reproach, the fine natural harbours of Rivadeo, Vivero, Carril,
+Pontevedra, Vigo, and Coruña, are gradually following suit, some with
+more vigour than others. The little land-locked harbour of Pasages has
+for some years been rapidly rising to the rank of a first-class shipping
+port.
+
+It is satisfactory to note, from the latest statistics, that in 1899
+Spain possessed a total of one thousand and thirty-five merchant ships,
+that in the same year she bought from England alone sixty-seven, and
+that 17,419 ships, carrying 11,857,674 tons of exports, left Spanish
+ports for foreign markets. Although no official information has been
+published since that year, the increase since the close of the war has
+been in very much greater ratio. From the same records we find that
+during the year 1899 no fewer than sixty-nine large companies were
+formed, of which twenty-three were for shipping, eight were new sugar
+factories, seven banks, seven mining, six electric, and ten others
+related either to manufacture or commerce, the total capital of these
+new enterprises representing one hundred and twenty-eight millions of
+pesetas.
+
+In contrast to Portugal, the _caminos reales_, or high-roads, of Spain
+have long been very good. It is true that where these State roads do not
+exist, the unadulterated _arroyo_ serves as a country road, or a mere
+track across the fields made by carts and foot-passengers, and when an
+obstruction occurs in the form of too deep a hole to be got through, the
+track takes a turn outside it, and returns to the direct line as soon as
+circumstances permit. An _arroyo_ is given in the dictionary as "a
+rivulet"; it is, in fact, generally a rushing torrent during the rains,
+eating its way through the land, and laying down a smooth, deep layer of
+sand, or even soil, between high banks. Immediately after the rainy
+season this affords a firm, good road for a time, but eventually it
+becomes ploughed into impassable ruts by the wheels of the carts, unless
+trampled hard by the feet of passing flocks.
+
+Government undertakes the cost and the super-intendence of the _caminos
+reales_, and does it well. The corps of engineers is modelled on French
+lines, and is a department of the Ministry of Public Works. The course
+of study is extremely severe, and the examinations are strict and
+searching. When a candidate passes, he is appointed assistant-engineer
+by the Ministry, and he rises in his profession solely by seniority.
+Every province has its engineer-in-chief, with his staff of assistants;
+the superintendents of harbours, railways, and other public works are
+specially appointed from qualified engineers. In addition to the care of
+the construction and repair of all highways and Government works in his
+district, the engineer-in-chief has the overlooking of all works which,
+although they may be the result of private enterprise and private
+capital, are authorised or carried out under Government concession.
+These concessions are only granted after the project has been submitted
+to, and approved by, the Ministry of Public Works, and it passes under
+the supervision of the engineer of the provinces. In old days, if not
+now, there was a good deal of "the itching palm" about the officials,
+not excluding the Minister himself, through whose hands the granting of
+concessions passed, even the wives coming in for handsome presents and
+"considerations," without which events had a knack of not moving; and
+when the army of _Empleados_ became _Cesantes_, this work, of course,
+began all over again. The railway engineers form a separate body, the
+country being mapped out into arbitrary divisions, each under the charge
+of one engineer-in-chief, with a large body of assistants.
+
+The telegraph system of Spain has now for many years been in a good
+condition. The construction of the lines dates from about 1862, when
+only five miles were in operation. There is now probably not a village
+in the whole country that does not possess its telegraph office, and in
+all the important towns this is kept open all night. A peseta for twenty
+words, including the address, is the uniform charge, every additional
+word being ten centimos. The telegraphs were established by the
+Government, and are under its control. All railway lines of public
+service, and those which receive a subvention, must provide two wires
+for Government use. Telephones are now in use in all large centres, and
+electric lighting and traction are far more widely used than in England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE ARMY AND NAVY
+
+
+It is not necessary to say to anyone who has the smallest acquaintance
+with history that Spaniards are naturally brave and patriotic. The early
+history of the Peninsula is one of valour in battle, whether by land or
+sea. The standard of Castile has been borne by her sons triumphantly
+over the surface of the globe. Few of us now remember that Johnson wrote
+of the Spain of his day:
+
+    Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,
+    No pathless waste, no undiscovered shore,
+    No secret island on the trackless main,
+    No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?
+
+In the old days when Drake undertook to "singe the King of Spain's
+beard," and carried out his threat, our sailors and those of Philip II.,
+some time "King of England," as the Spaniards still insist on calling
+him, met often in mortal combat, and learned to recognise and honour in
+each other the same dogged fighting-power, the same discipline and quiet
+courage. The picture of the Spaniards standing bareheaded in token of
+reverence and admiration of a worthy foe, as some small English ships
+went down with all their crew rather than surrender, in those old days
+of strife, touches a chord which still vibrates in memory of battles
+fought and won together by Englishmen and Spaniards under the Iron Duke.
+True, some battered and torn English flags hang as trophies in the
+armoury of Madrid, but one likes to remember that in the only battle
+where our colours were lost, the Spanish troops were commanded by an
+Englishman, James Stuart, Duke of Berwick, the direct ancestor of the
+present Duque de Berwick y Alva, and the English by one of French birth.
+In every case where foreign foes have invaded Spain, sooner or later
+they have been driven out. _Santiago! y Cierra España!_ was the war-cry
+which roused every child of Spain to close his beloved country to alien
+domination.
+
+Unfortunately, the yoke of the foreigner came in more invidious guise.
+From the death of Ferdinand and Isabella to the year 1800, the sons of
+Spain were immolated to serve causes which were of no account to her, to
+protect the interests of sovereigns who had nothing in common with her
+provinces, to add to the power of the Austrian Hapsburgs and the French
+Bourbons. We have seen how the people whom Napoleon had believed to be
+sunk in fanaticism, dead to all national aspiration, the mere slaves of
+a despicable King, and the sport of his debauched Queen and her lover,
+sprang to arms and drove the invader from their land. So would it be
+to-day if the country were even threatened by foreign invasion. "The
+dogs of Spain," as Granville called them, know well how to protect their
+soil.
+
+Within comparatively recent years the campaign in Morocco, and the
+expeditionary force sent to Cochin-China, showed that the Spanish army
+was not to be despised. It has been the misfortune of Spain that her
+soldiers have too often had the melancholy task of fighting against
+their own people, or those of their colonies, both of whom have been
+excited and aided in insurrection for years by foreign contributions of
+arms and money. In these unhappy fratricidal struggles the fighting has
+never been more than half-hearted, and during the numerous military
+_pronunciamientos_ it has often been necessary to keep the troops from
+meeting, as they could never be trusted not to fraternise; and after the
+first abortive attempt by Prim to effect the revolution which later
+freed the country, the curious spectacle was afforded of Prim and his
+soldiers marching quietly out of one end of a village, while the troops
+of the Queen, sent in pursuit, were being purposely kept back from
+marching too quickly in at the other.
+
+The army of Spain would seem to suffer from a plethora of officers,
+especially those of the highest rank. In the time of Alfonso XII., there
+were ten marshals, fifty-five generals, sixty-six _mariscales de
+campo_, and one hundred and ninety-seven brigadiers; adding those on the
+retired list liable for service, there were in all five hundred and
+twenty generals, four hundred and seventy-two colonels, eight hundred
+and ninety-four lieutenant-colonels, 2113 commandants, 5041 captains,
+5880 lieutenants, and 4833 sous-lieutenants. With such an array of
+officers, it is scarcely to be wondered at that promotion in the
+ordinary way was looked on as impossible, and the juggle of military
+_pronunciamientos_ was regarded as almost the only means of rising in
+the army. It was no uncommon thing to promise a rise of one grade
+throughout a whole corps to compass one of these miniature revolutions.
+However, all that is happily past. General Weyler,--whose name indicates
+alien blood at some period of his family history,--the present Minister
+of War, has taken the thorough reform of the army in hand, though it is
+too soon to say if he will be as successful as is generally expected
+from his known energy and common sense, since the work is only now in
+progress.
+
+One of the most fertile sources of disturbance in the old days of Isabel
+II. was the presence of the _primo sargentos_. These petty officers,
+having risen from the ranks, and invested with an authority for which
+they were often quite unsuited, were always ready, for a consideration,
+to aid the cause of some aspiring politician, now on one side, now on
+another. They are now, fortunately, abolished.
+
+The Spanish artillery is a splendid body, and is officered from the
+best families in the country. In the only military insurrection in which
+the common soldiers shot some of the officers obnoxious to them--that of
+the Montaño Barracks, in 1866--the leader of the mutinists was a certain
+_hidalgo_. It was the promotion of this man that led indirectly to the
+abdication of Don Amadeo, who opposed the action. Indignant at the
+disgrace to the service, all of the artillery officers in Spain sent in
+their resignations. They were accepted, and the _primo sargentos_ raised
+to the rank of officers to fill their places. The result was unlimited
+mutiny among the rank and file and danger to the State. Some of the
+young officers who had retained their uniforms, though no longer
+attached to the corps, finding the troops in utter disorder and revolt,
+quietly donned their uniforms, went down to the barracks, and gave their
+orders. The men instantly fell into the ranks, and the situation was
+saved. The _primo sargentos_ were abolished, the officers reinstated.
+But Amadeo had had enough; he ceased to attempt to reign
+constitutionally in a country where the constitution meant only one more
+form of personal greed and excess. He was _demasiado honesto_ for the
+crew he had been called to command, and he left the country to tumble
+about in its so-called "republican" anarchy until another military
+_pronunciamiento_ set Alfonso XII. on the throne. And that has been,
+fortunately, the last performance of a kind once so common in Spain.
+
+All military men admire the effective corps of light mountain artillery.
+The small guns are carried on the backs of the splendid mules for which
+the Spanish army is famous, and can be taken up any mountain path which
+these singular animals can climb. Mules are also used to drag the
+heavier guns, and must be invaluable in a mountainous country. The
+animals are quite as large as ordinary horses, are lithe, active, and
+literally unhurtable. I have myself seen a mule, harnessed to a cart
+which was discharging stones over the edge of a deep pit, when levelling
+the ground at the end of the Fuente Castellana in Madrid, over-balanced
+by the weight behind him, fall over, turn a somersault in mid-air, cart
+and all, and, alighting thirty feet below, shake himself, ponder for a
+few seconds on the unexpected event in his day's labour, and then
+proceed to draw the cart, by this time satisfactorily emptied, out of
+the pit by the sloping track at the farther side, and continue his task
+absolutely unhurt and undisturbed.
+
+Until the final overthrow of the Carlists by Alfonso XII., the Basque
+Provinces, amongst their most cherished _fueros_, were exempted from the
+hated conscription; but the victorious King made short work of that and
+of all other special rights and privileges--which, in truth, had been
+abused--and now all the country is subject to conscription. Every man
+from nineteen to twenty years of age is liable to serve in the ranks,
+except those who are studying as officers. A payment of £60 frees them
+from service during peace; but if the country is at war there is no
+exemption. The conscripts are bound for twelve years--three with the
+colours, three in the first reserve, three in the second, and three in
+the third.
+
+Navy? Alas! Spain has none. Two battle-ships alone remain--_El Pelayo_
+and _Carlos V._ (the former about nine thousand five hundred tons, the
+latter not more than seven thousand)--and some destroyers and torpedoes.
+How a nation that once ruled the sea, and whose sailors traversed and
+conquered the New World, has allowed her navy to become practically
+extinct at the moment when nations which have almost no seaboard are
+trying to bring theirs up within measurable distance of England's, it is
+impossible to say. Even before the outbreak of the war with America
+there were but a few battle-ships, and these were wanting in guns and in
+almost all that could make them effective--save and except the men, who
+behaved like heroes. It seems to be a consolation to Spaniards to
+remember that it was in the pages of an English journal that an
+Englishman, who had seen the whole of the disastrous war, wrote: "If
+Spain were served by her statesmen as she has been served by her navy,
+she would be one of the greatest nations of the world to-day."
+
+The history of the part borne by the Spanish navy in the late war with
+America, as written by one of Admiral Cervera's captains,[1] with the
+publication of the actual telegrams which passed between the Government
+and the fleet, and the military commanders in the colonies, is one of
+the most heartrending examples of the sacrifice, not only of brave men,
+but of a country's honour to political intrigue or the desire to retain
+office. This, at least, is the opinion of the writer of this painful
+history, and his statements are fully borne out by the original
+telegrams, since published. It is impossible to imagine that any
+definite policy at all was followed by the advisers of the Queen Regent
+in this matter, unless it were the incredible one ascribed to it by
+Captain Concas Palan of deliberately allowing the fleet, such as it was,
+to be destroyed--in fact, in the case of Admiral Cervera's squadron,
+sending it out to certain and foreseen annihilation--so as to make the
+disaster an excuse for suing for peace, without raising such a storm at
+home as might have upset the Ministry. With both fleets sunk, and those
+of their men not slain, prisoners of war, there was no alternative
+policy but peace. Captain Concas Palan claims for his chief and the
+comrades who fell in this futile and disastrous affair "a right to the
+legitimate defence which our country expects from us, though it is
+against the interested silence which those who were the cause of our
+misfortunes would fain impose on us," and says that "some day, and that
+probably much sooner than seems probable at present," the judgment of
+Spain on this episode will be that of the English _Review_, which he
+quotes as the heading of his chapter. He goes on: "War was accepted by
+Spain when the island of Cuba was already lost to her, and when the
+dispatch of a single soldier more from the Peninsula was infinitely more
+likely to have caused an insurrection than that of which our Ministers
+were afraid--at the moment, also, when our troops were in want of the
+merest necessaries, the arrears of pay being the chief cause of their
+debilitated condition, and when a great part of the Spanish residents in
+Cuba, under the name of 'Reformers,' 'Autonomists,' etc., had made
+common cause with the insurgents, while they were enriching themselves
+to a fabulous extent by contracts for supplies and transports. In these
+circumstances it was folly to accept a struggle with an immensely rich
+country, possessing a population four times that of ours, and but a
+pistol shot from the seat of action." The Government of Spain was
+perfectly aware that the troops in Cuba were already quite insufficient
+even to cope with the insurgents, that the people at home were already
+murmuring bitterly at the cost of the war, and that it was impossible to
+send out a contingent of any practical value. Sickness of all kinds,
+enteric, anæmia, and all the evils of under-fed and badly found troops,
+were rapidly consuming the forces in Cuba, "and yet the Government took
+no thought of who was to man the guns whose gunners were drifting daily
+into the hospital and the cemetery.... The national debt was increasing
+in a fabulous manner, and recourse was had to the mediæval remedy of
+debasing the currency, while even at that moment the troops had more
+than a year's pay in arrear, and absolute penury was augmenting their
+other sufferings."
+
+    [1] _La Escuadra del Almirante Cervera_, por Victor M.
+    Concas Palan.
+
+This was the moment which the responsible Ministers of the Crown thought
+propitious to throw down the gauntlet to the overwhelming power of
+America rather than to face what the writer terms the "cabbage-headed
+riff-raff of the Plaza de la Cevada" of Madrid. Again and again was the
+absolute inefficiency of the fleet pointed out to them. Even the few
+ships there were, all of them vastly inferior to those of the United
+States' navy, were without their proper armament; they might have been
+of some service in defence of the coast of Spain, but in aggressive
+warfare they were useless. Allowing somewhat for the natural indignation
+of one of those who was sacrificed, who saw his beloved commander and
+his comrades-in-arms sent like sheep to the slaughter, and all for an
+idea,--and that a perfectly stupid and useless one,--there is no
+gainsaying the facts which Captain Concas Palan relates, and the
+original telegrams verify every word of his story. Admiral Cervera was
+sent out with sealed orders; but he had done all that was in his
+power--even asking to be relieved of his command--to prevent the folly
+of sending away from the coasts of the mother country the only ships
+which could have protected her, while they were absolutely useless
+against the American navy in the Antilles. Left with no alternative but
+obedience, he managed to gain the safe harbour of Santiago de Cuba with
+his squadron intact. Secure from attack, he landed his men to assist in
+the defence of the town from the land side. And then came the incredible
+orders that he was to take out his four ships to be destroyed by the
+American navy waiting outside! Never in the world's history was a more
+magnificent piece of heroism displayed than in the obedience to
+discipline which caused Admiral Cervera to re-embark his marines and
+lead them forth to certain death, well knowing what they were to face,
+for he hid nothing from them. He called on them as sons of Spain, and
+they answered heroically, as Spaniards have ever done in history: "For
+honour!"
+
+Spain has suffered deeply and sorely in her pride; but she has never
+worn her heart on her sleeve--she suffers in silence. A quotation from
+the _Época_ of July 5th, two days after the destruction of Cervera's
+fleet, shows the spirit in which the country bore that terrible blow. It
+is headed "Hours of Agony." "Our grief to-day has nothing in it which
+was unexpected. The laws of logic are invincible; our four ships could
+not by any possibility have escaped the formidable American squadron.
+The one thing that Spain expected of her sons was that they should
+perish heroically. They have perished! They have faced their destiny;
+they have realised the sole end which Spain looked for, in this
+desperate conflict into which she has been drawn by God knows what blind
+fatality; they have fallen with honour."
+
+That is true; but how about the leaders whose long misrule of the
+colonies had helped to bring on the disaster which their predecessors
+for many years had courted? How about the political corruption which,
+when large sums were being spent on the colonies, had allowed immense
+private fortunes to be made while Manila was left without defences, and
+the absolutely unassailable bay of Santiago de Cuba had on the fort
+which commanded its entrance only useless old guns of a past century,
+more likely to cause the death of those who attempted to serve them than
+to injure an enemy? How about the Government that deliberately entered
+on a war of which the end was perfectly foreseen, and, while seated
+safely in office at home, thought the "honour of Spain" sufficiently
+vindicated by offering up its navy, already made useless by neglect and
+niggardliness, as a sacrifice? Captain Concas Palan points out that even
+after it was fully recognised that the retention of Cuba was impossible,
+the worst catastrophes might have been avoided. "In place of treating
+for peace while the squadron was intact at Santiago, which, as well as
+Manila, could have been defended for some time, the Ministers waited to
+sue for peace until everything was lost, while it was perfectly well
+known beforehand that that result was inevitable." During the whole
+time, _mañana veremos_ was the rule of action--a to-morrow that never
+was to dawn for those whose lives it was intended to sacrifice. Heaven
+works no miracles for those who fling themselves against the impossible!
+
+So long ago as 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Monroe: "The
+addition of the island of Cuba to our Confederacy is exactly what is
+wanted to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost
+interest." John Quincy Adams went so far as to state that "Cuba
+gravitates to the United States as the apple yet hanging on its native
+trunk gravitates to the earth which sustains it"--a statement which has
+the more force when it is remembered that for over fifty years the Cuban
+insurgents had been liberally supplied with arms, ammunition, stores,
+and troops from the United States whenever they required them! And this,
+not because Cuba was mismanaged by Spain, but because America coveted
+her as "the most interesting addition that could be made to our system
+of States," to quote Jefferson once more.
+
+Nevertheless, the heroic sons of Spain were offered up as an expiation
+for the sins of her political jugglers for generations past. With the
+knowledge that America had at least for seventy years been seeking an
+excuse for "rounding her power as a nation" by the seizure of Cuba, no
+real effort was made to redress the grievances of her native population,
+nor to efficiently defend her coasts.
+
+The state of affairs in Manila was still worse. The culpable neglect of
+the Government had resulted in the so-called squadron not being
+possessed of one single ship of modern construction or armament; and
+when the unfortunate marines and their heroic commanders had been
+immolated by the overwhelming superiority in numbers and efficiency of
+the Americans, the noisy injustice and anger of a senseless crowd at
+home were allowed to compass the lasting disgrace of casting the blame
+for the foreseen disasters on Admiral Montojo, who was thrown as a
+victim to the jackals.
+
+To-day, we find Spain absolutely without a navy. Two second- or
+third-class ships--and they not even properly found or armed--are all
+she possesses. Men she has, however, with the traditions of a great
+past, while the officers of her navy are thoroughly alive to the class
+of ships and the armament which are needed to give their country the
+protection, and their foreign policy the dignity, which other countries
+of far less importance are able to sustain. No wonder that her writers
+are pointing out that instead of being satisfied with immense
+long-winded despatches and notes, couched in grandiloquent language,
+which Spanish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply sufficient, strong
+nations have a habit of sending an iron-clad, or two or three cruisers
+to back up their demands, and that no other European country but Spain
+thinks it safe or wise to leave her coasts and her commerce entirely
+without protection in case of a European war breaking out. Will the
+nation itself take the matter in hand, and in this, as in so many other
+matters, advance in spite of its Government? If it waits for the
+political seesaw by which both parties avoid responsibility, there will
+be small chance of a navy. The same ministry is in power to-day which
+landed the country in the Spanish-American War, and it would seem as if
+the nation considers it the best it can produce. _Mañana veremos?_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RELIGIOUS LIFE
+
+
+The natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious. Taking the nation as
+a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no
+portion of it has ever been reproached for insincerity in its religious
+beliefs. It has been often held up to reproach for bigotry and
+superstition; but the people have in past ages been penetrated by a
+sincere reverence for what they have believed to be religion, and
+perhaps no other nation has been more thoroughly imbued with an
+unwavering faith in the dogmas taught by its religious instructors.
+English Roman Catholics--especially those who have seceded from the
+Anglican Church--are fond of declaring that Spain is "a splendid
+Catholic country," "the home of true Catholicism," and so forth. To a
+certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and "dignity,
+loyalty, and the love of God" are still the ideals of the people at
+large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the
+practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the
+women of the family and to the peasantry. Young Spain, and the
+progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the
+domination of the Church, even in outward appearance. It will be well if
+the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into
+open revolt.
+
+The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a
+curious one. It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to
+the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained
+always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In the old time
+the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none
+too subservient to the Pope. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus
+were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at
+variance with the Vatican. Probably from their long struggles with the
+barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always
+speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which
+strikes strangely on one's ears.
+
+The evils which have been wrought in Spain by the terrible incubus of
+the Inquisition, and by the domination of the Jesuits and other orders,
+who obtained possession of the teaching of youth, have been little less
+than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages
+past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves
+of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the
+priesthood. Even well within the memory of living people it was thought
+a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and
+write,--safer to have them quite ignorant,--while the peasantry and the
+inferior classes believed anything they were told, and could be excited
+to any pitch of fanaticism by the preaching of their religious teachers.
+The Inquisition was often used as a political machine, and was sometimes
+only clothed with the semblance of religion; but by whomsoever it was
+directed, and for whatsoever purpose, it was a vile and soul-destroying
+institution. It deliberately ground down and destroyed every spark of
+intelligence, of liberty, of attempt at progress; it dominated the whole
+nation like the shadow of the upas tree, manufactured hypocrites, and
+led to the debasing of a naturally fine people of good instincts to an
+ignorant and fanatical mob, who, in the name of religion, were
+entertained with gigantic _autos-da-fé_, as the Roman populace were with
+the terrible spectacles of their gladiatorial shows and the immolation
+of Christian victims in the arena.
+
+It was the people themselves who rose against this hateful tyranny; it
+was their better instincts that put an end to the "Holy Office" and its
+enormous crimes. Shortly after the Revolution of 1868, when religious
+liberty had been established, and the people, for the first time in
+their long history of disaster, were breathing the air of freedom,
+certain improvements which were being made, in the shape of laying out
+new streets, pulling down old rookeries, and building better houses, led
+to a new road being cut through the raised ground outside the Santa
+Barbara Gate. The exact spot of the great _Quemadero_--the oven of the
+Inquisition--was not known, but it chanced that the workmen cut right
+through the very centre of it. A more ghastly sight, or an object-lesson
+of more potency, could scarcely be imagined. The Government of the day
+found it advisable to cover it up as quickly as possible; the excitement
+of the people was thought to be dangerous; and though those at the head
+of affairs were no friends to the priests or the Jesuits, there was no
+desire to reawaken the passions and let loose the vengeance which led
+the populace in 1834 to murder them wholesale.
+
+I happened to be returning from a ride with a companion when, quite
+accidentally, we came upon this excavation, and even passed down the new
+road before we realised where we were. The _Quemadero_ had evidently
+been in the shape of an immense basin. There in the banks at each side
+were the stratified layers of human ashes; between each _auto-da-fé_ it
+was evident that the remains had been covered with a thick layer of
+earth; finally, at the top of all these smaller bands of black, horrible
+ashes, came one huge deposit, which marked the awful scene of the last
+gigantic _auto_. This ghastly bonfire was sixty feet square, and seven
+feet high, as history records, when one hundred and five victims were
+slowly tortured to a frightful death in the name of Christ, while the
+King, Charles II., and his Court and the howling rabble of Madrid looked
+on with savage enjoyment. Nothing can ever obliterate the impression of
+that scene, nor make one forget the deadly clinging of those ghastly
+black ashes, which the wind scattered about, and which it was impossible
+to escape or to get rid of. The fell work of the "religious" authors of
+the holocaust had been well done--nothing was left but ashes; and the
+next day, by order of the Government, sand or soil had been thrown over
+all that could bear witness to this horrible episode in the history of
+the Church in Spain, while the people who inhabit the houses built over
+the spot probably know nothing of the records of human agony and brutal
+bigotry that still lie beneath their homes.
+
+We hear of these things and read of them in history, but one needs to
+have seen that awful memorial to realise what share the Inquisition has
+had in transforming a naturally heroic and kindly people into the inert
+masses which nothing, or almost nothing, would move so long as they had
+_pan y toros_ (bread and bulls). Thanks to the horrors of the
+Inquisition and the _Autos-da-fé_, the whole people have acquired a
+character which assuredly they do not deserve. The blind bigotry and
+cynical cruelty of Philip II. and his lunatic successors have been
+identified with the races over which, unfortunately for Spain, they
+ruled for so many years. When one remembers that this is the view taken
+of the Inquisition, and of the domination of the Church in effacing all
+kinds of culture, by the liberal and educated Spaniard of to-day, and
+that there is, even now, an extreme party which would fain see the "Holy
+Office" re-established, with all its old powers, it is easy to
+understand at what a critical point the clerical question has arrived in
+Spain; nor need one wonder at the feeling which in all parts of the
+kingdom has been aroused by the recrudescence of the religious orders,
+more especially of the determined struggle of the Jesuits to retain and
+even to reassert their power.
+
+The Madonna, who is always spoken of as "La Vírgen," never as "Santa
+María," is the great object of love and of reverence in Spain, while the
+words _Dios_ and _Jesus_ are used as common exclamations in a way that
+impresses English people rather unfavourably. It is a shock to hear all
+classes using the _Por Dios!_ which with us is a mark of the purest
+blackguardism, and the use as common names of that of Our Lord and of
+_Salvador_, or Saviour, always strikes a disagreeable note. There is in
+Madrid a "Calle Jesus," and the sacred name, used as a common expletive,
+is heard on all sides. One of the most charming of Yradier's Andalusian
+songs, addressed by a _contrabandista_ to his _novia_, runs thus:
+
+    Pero tengo unas patillas.
+    Que patillas puñála!
+    Es lo mejor que se ha jecho
+    En de Jesu Cristo acá![2]
+
+    [2] "But I have such a stunning pair of whiskers!
+        The best that have ever been seen since those of Jesus Christ!"
+
+And no one is offended; in fact, no irreverence is probably meant.
+
+But the innumerable "Vírgenes" which abound throughout the country, and
+all seem different, have the heartfelt devotion of all classes. To one
+or other of them the bull-fighter goes for protection and aid before he
+enters the arena; the mother whose child lies sick vows her magnificent
+hair to the Virgin of the Atocha, or of the Pillar, or some of the many
+others scattered about the country, if only she will grant what she
+asks; and you may see these marvellous locks, tied with coloured
+ribbons, hanging amongst the motley assemblage of votive offerings by
+the side of her altar, when the prayer has been answered. It is
+difficult for us, with the best intentions, not to let prejudice colour
+our judgment, and to understand what we are told--that these are really
+all the same "Mother of God"; for, if so, one would imagine that she
+would hear the devout prayers of her worshippers, to whichever of the
+wooden images--most of them said to have been carved by St. Luke, and
+black by age, if not by nature--they are addressed. But no, the Virgen
+del Cármen is only efficacious in certain circumstances; and in the time
+of Isabel II. she used to be taken down from her altar and placed in the
+Queen's bedroom whenever an addition to the Royal Family was imminent.
+Those in the other parts of Spain have each their specialty, and
+pilgrimages are necessary to their shrines before the prayers addressed
+to them can be listened to by the original.
+
+The various saints in their way are wooed with candles burnt before
+their images, or little altars set up to them at home; but they are
+sometimes treated with scant courtesy if they do not answer the
+expectations of their worshippers. On one occasion in Madrid, I
+remember, San Isidro, who is the patron of the labouring classes, had
+the bad taste, as his votaries considered, to send rain on his own
+_fiesta_--a thing unknown before. Lest he should err in this way again,
+the mob went to his church, at that time the principal one in Madrid,
+smashed the windows, and did all the damage they could compass before
+the Civil Guards came to the rescue. A servant-girl I knew, had for a
+long time been praying to San Antonio to send her a _novio_
+(sweetheart), expending money in tapers, and otherwise trying to
+propitiate the saint. At last, finding him deaf to all entreaties, she
+took the little wooden image she had bought, tied a string round his
+neck, and hung him in the well, saying: "You shall stop there till you
+send me what I want." Some little time after, she actually found a
+_novio_, and hastened gratefully to take San Antonio out of his damp
+quarters, set him up on his altar again, and burn tapers for his
+edification. I had thought this an example of special ignorance and
+superstition; but the other day, in reading some of the papers of the
+_Spanish Folklore Library_, I found there is a widespread belief that if
+San Antonio, and probably some other saints, do not answer the prayers
+of their votaries who burn candles before them, it is a good thing to
+hang them in a well till they come to their senses! It is difficult for
+any unbiassed person to understand that this is not fetish worship, as
+it would certainly seem to be, but we are told that it is something
+quite different.
+
+The religious _fiestas_, as I have said, may be classed among the
+amusements of the people. During the warm season they invariably end
+with a bull-fight. In winter there are no bulls. Whether it be the
+_Romería_ of Santiago de Compostelo, the _Santa Semana_ in Toledo or
+Seville, _Noche-Buena_ and the _Day of the Nativity_ in Madrid or
+Barcelona, gaiety and enjoyment seem to be the order of the day. Even
+Lent is not so bad, for just before it comes the Carnival and the
+grotesque "Burial of the Sardine" by the _gente bajo_, and of the three
+great masked balls, one is given in mid-Lent, to prevent the Lenten
+ordeal being too trying, and Holy Thursday is always a _fiesta_ and day
+of enjoyment. On this day, in Madrid, takes place the washing of the
+feet of the poor in the Royal Palace--a function that savours a good
+deal of the ridiculous, but which was never omitted by the _piadosa_
+Isabel II., and was revived by her son. For forty-eight hours the bells
+of all the churches remain silent, no vehicles are allowed in the
+streets, which are gravelled along the routes Royalty will take to visit
+on foot seven of the churches, where the Holy Sepulchres are displayed;
+and in the afternoon all Madrid resorts to the Plaza del Sol and the
+Carrera San Geronimo, to show off their gayest costumes in a regular
+gala promenade. Finally, on Saturday morning--why forty-eight hours only
+is allowed for the supposed entombment does not quite appear--the bells
+clang forth, noise and gaiety pervade the whole city, and the day ends
+with a cock-fight and the reopening of the theatres, and the first grand
+bull-fight of the season is held on Easter Sunday. Verily, the Church is
+mindful of the weakness of its vassals, and shows as much indulgence as
+is thought needful to keep the people amused and careless of all else. I
+remember, when I first noticed this wearing of the most gaudy colours on
+Maundy Thursday, a day one would naturally expect to be one of special
+mourning, I was told it was allowed by the Church because on that day
+Pilate put the purple robe on Our Lord!
+
+The processions and functions of Holy Week and other _fiestas_ have been
+so often and so fully described that there is no need to refer to them;
+but there are several curious survivals and religious customs in
+out-of-the-way places which seem to have escaped notice. I have not been
+able to find in any book on Spain a description of the strange dance
+which takes place in the cathedral of Seville on, I think, three days in
+the year, of which two are certainly the day of the Virgin and that of
+Corpus Christi. The origin of the dance seems to be lost, nor is its
+special connection with Seville known. All that one can hear of it is
+that one of the archbishops of Toledo objected to the dance as being
+irreverent and unusual, and ordered it to be stopped. The indignant
+people referred the matter to the Pope, but even the date of this appeal
+seems to be dubious, if not unknown. His Holiness replied that he could
+not judge of the matter unless he himself saw the dance. Accordingly,
+the boys who figure in this strange performance were taken to Rome, and
+they solemnly danced before the Pope. His verdict was that there was
+nothing irreverent about the dance, but he thought, as it was known only
+to Seville, it would be better eventually to discontinue it; but so long
+as the dress worn on the occasions when it is practised, lasted, the
+dance might continue. The dresses have lasted to the present day, and
+will always continue to last, say the Sevillanos, for as one part wears
+out it is renewed, but never a whole garment made. The dress is
+peculiar: it consists of short trousers to the knees, and a jacket which
+hangs from one shoulder, stockings and shoes with large buckles or
+bows, and a soft hat, somewhat of the shape of a Tam-o'-shanter, with
+one feather--that of an eagle, I think. The dress is red and white for
+the day of Corpus, and blue and white for the day of the Virgin, covered
+with the richest gold embroidery, for which Spain has always been
+famous. The boys, holding castanets in each hand, advance, dancing with
+much grace and dignity, until they reach the front of the High Altar;
+there they remain, striking their castanets and performing slow and very
+graceful evolutions for some time, gradually retiring again as they came
+in, dancing, down the nave. The boys are regularly instructed in the
+dance by the priests, and the number is kept up, so that neither dancers
+nor garments ever fail. The Pope's order is obeyed, while the Sevillanos
+retain their strange religious function. The fact of the performance
+taking place in the evening perhaps accounts for its being so little
+known, but it would seem also as if the authorities of the cathedral do
+not care to have attention drawn to it. The dance is called _los
+seises_, and even the origin of the name is unknown.
+
+In Holy Week and at Christmas are performed passion plays at some of the
+theatres, strangely realistic, and sometimes rousing the audience to
+wild indignation, especially against Judas Iscariot, who is hissed and
+hooted, and is often the recipient of missiles from the spectators,
+while interspersed with this genuine feeling one hears shouts of
+laughter when anything occurs to provoke it. On one occasion one of the
+Roman soldiers (always unpopular in the religious processions) appeared
+on the stage, dragging, by a cord round the neck, a miserable-looking
+man carrying a huge cross, so heavy that it caused him continually to
+fall. As the soldier kicked him up again, and continued to drag him
+along by the neck, the audience became ungovernable in their rage.
+"_Déjale! Déjale! Bruto! Bruto!_" they yelled; and, finally threatening
+to storm the stage and immolate the offending soldier, the play had to
+be stopped and the curtain rung down.
+
+In villages too poor to possess _pasos_--the beautifully modelled
+life-size figures which form the _tableaux_ in the rich churches and
+processions--human actors take their place. In Castellon de la Plana,
+where there is a yearly procession in honour of Santa María Magdalena,
+somewhat curious scenes take place. The Magdalen, in the days of her
+sin, is acted by a girl chosen for her beauty, but not for her
+character. She is gorgeously attired, and is allowed to retain her dress
+and ornaments after the performance. She is installed in state in a cart
+decorated with palms and flowers, and is surrounded by all the men of
+the village on foot, for it is part of the performance that they are
+allowed to say what they please to her. She acts the part to perfection
+apparently, and enjoys it, to boot. In another car comes the penitent
+Magdalen, dressed in pure white, and decorated with flowers. This part
+may be taken only by a young girl of unblemished character. It is
+thought the greatest honour that can be paid to her, and you are told by
+the people that she is always married within the year. This procession
+winds its way up the mountain to a small shrine of Santa María
+Magdalena, where it is said that her church once stood; but finding the
+climb up the hill was inconvenient to the lame and the aged, she very
+considerately, one night, moved the whole edifice down intact to
+Castellon de la Plana, where it now stands.
+
+Going by rail once, many years ago, to Toledo, to see the processions on
+Good Friday, the train was accidentally delayed for some time a little
+distance from one of the stations, and there, in a small garden by the
+roadside, was being enacted the scene of the Crucifixion by human
+actors. A full-size cross was erected, and on it, apparently, hung a man
+crowned with thorns, and with head bowed upon his breast. In reality he
+was kneeling on two ledges placed for the purpose at a convenient
+distance from the cross-bars. It was cold, and the actor was covered by
+an old brown tattered cloak, such as the peasants wear now, and which we
+see in Velasquez's pictures. His feet stuck out behind the cross, but
+his arms were tied in a position which must soon have become painful.
+Around lay a cock tied by his legs, a ladder, a sponge tied on a stick,
+a sword, a lantern, and all the usual emblems of the Passion. The holy
+women and the Roman soldiers with their spears were just coming out of
+the cottage near by to take up their positions in this strange and
+pathetic _tableau_. The face of that peasant in the tattered brown
+cloak, not less than the spectacle of the people kneeling around in
+evident sorrow and worship, haunted me for many a day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD
+
+
+Education, especially that of the masses, has made great strides since
+the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of
+instruction was established, and in this particular the somewhat
+retrograde movement at the Restoration, in allowing the return of the
+religious orders banished in the early years of the century, has only
+resulted in a greater number of private schools being established by the
+Jesuits and other teaching orders. With the public instruction they have
+never been allowed to interfere.
+
+Every town and village has now its municipal and free schools, kept up
+by the _Diputacion provincial_. In all the chief towns there are
+technical and arts and crafts schools, also free, the expenses being
+borne by the Ministry of Fomento. Besides these are many private
+schools, taught by Jesuits and other teaching orders. The Ministry of
+Fomento is at present trying to bring in a law making education
+compulsory, and bringing all schools under State control. There are
+numerous girls' schools, managed by committees of ladies, as well as
+the convent schools and other private establishments. There are also
+normal schools, maintained by the Ministry of Fomento, where women and
+girls, as well as men, can take degrees and gain certificates for
+teaching purposes. In every capital of Spain one of these schools is
+established. There are ten universities, of which the principal is that
+of Madrid. In some of these only medicine and law are studied, but
+others are open for every class of learning. In all these numerous
+schools and colleges great advance has been made in late years; in the
+department of science, electricity has taken a very noticeable step
+forward, and in applied electricity Spain probably compares favourably
+with any of the European nations. Even the small towns and some villages
+are lighted by electricity, having gone straight from petroleum to
+electric light. Most of the large towns have, besides the light,
+electric tramways, telephones, etc., the engineers and artisans employed
+in these works being of a very high class. Electrical engineers are not
+under Government control, as the civil and mechanical engineers are, and
+have therefore better chances of coming to the front and making a career
+for themselves. The Government engineers, however, are kept up to the
+mark of other countries, and an attempt has been made by the present
+Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are
+compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.
+
+Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve
+years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical
+arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with
+the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de
+Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London,
+and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all
+scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An
+excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain--which
+only a few years ago was so far behind the age--is the fact that the
+International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the
+first time, in 1902.
+
+Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have
+made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of
+the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the
+intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State
+examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Institution of
+San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the
+examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high
+rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a
+field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse
+was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher
+education among the daughters of Spain, they will certainly be able to
+carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to
+lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in
+Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little
+condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of
+savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has
+any right to do so.
+
+The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The
+religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the
+Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as
+much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the
+English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy,
+however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In
+most of the large towns there are English chapels and schools, and a
+certain number among the lower classes of Spaniards have joined these
+communities. A private diary of a visit to Madrid so long ago as 1877
+describes the English service there. The congregation numbered "quite
+five hundred." "They were of the poorer classes of both sexes, with a
+sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their
+devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a
+similar class in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an
+impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name
+of God, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so
+common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the
+congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine
+Protestantism in Spain."
+
+As this is the opinion of a perfectly unbiassed onlooker, and has
+nothing of the professional element about it, it may be taken as
+absolutely reliable. In the towns, such as Bilbao, where there is a
+large English colony, there are various churches and chapels, and
+considerable numbers of communicants and Sunday scholars. Looking back,
+as I am able to do, to the days when there was no toleration for an
+alien faith; when even Christian burial for the "heretic" was quite a
+new thing, and living people could tell of the indignities heaped on the
+corpse of any unlucky English man or woman who died in "Catholic" Spain;
+when to have omitted, or even hesitated about, any of the religious
+actions imposed by the Church would have exposed one to gross insult,
+and perhaps injury; the progress towards enlightened toleration of the
+opinions of others seems to have been remarkable. It is, perhaps, more
+significant that the members of the new congregations should be
+generally of the lower classes, because it is precisely these people who
+have always been mere unthinking puppets in the hands of their priests.
+
+Although there is at the present moment such a deep and widespread
+revolt against the Jesuits and some of the other orders, especially
+among the students and the better class of artisans and workmen, there
+is not, so far as a stranger may judge, a revolt against the Church
+itself, nor even against the parochial clergy. It would seem rather that
+there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their
+business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to
+interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to
+dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be
+filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery. The state of the Roman
+Catholic religion and its priesthood in England is constantly being held
+up as the ideal of what the Church in Spain should be.
+
+Almost all the modern novelists of Spain show us characters of priests
+with whom every reader must feel sympathy. Valera, Galdós, Pardo Bazan,
+and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward,
+pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the
+helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at
+all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented
+amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of
+distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a
+Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day,
+by one who signed himself "A priest of the Spanish Catholic Church."
+Lamenting over the sentimentalism of modern religion, and the distance
+it had travelled from its old models, he says: "Instead of the Vírgen
+being held up to admiration as the Mother of Our Lord, and as an example
+of all feminine perfection, the ideal woman and mother, the people are
+called on to worship the idea of the Immaculate Conception, an abstract
+dogma of recent invention, and in place of showing us the perfect man in
+the Son of God, they are asked to worship a 'bleeding heart,' abstracted
+from the body, and held up as an object of reverence, apart from the
+living body of Jesus Christ." It is the reform of the national religion
+still ardently loved in spite of all the crimes that have been committed
+in her name, that the liberal-minded Spaniard wants, not the
+substitution of a foreign church; although no doubt the opportunity, now
+for the first time possible, of learning that there are people every
+whit as good and earnest as themselves, who yet hold religious opinions
+other than theirs, is bound to have a widening and softening effect on
+the narrowness of a creed which has hitherto been regarded as the only
+one.
+
+The extraordinary outbreak against the Jesuits and the religious orders
+of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething,
+and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in
+the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence,
+accidental or otherwise, of the production of Galdós's play of
+_Electra_. The marriage was a love match; the two young sons of the
+Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her
+husband's side, had been constantly at the Palace in Madrid, companions
+of the boy King. An attachment sprang up between Don Carlos, the elder
+of the two, and the King's elder sister, the Princess of Asturias. In
+every way the projected marriage was obnoxious to the people. The Count
+of Caserta himself had been chief of the staff to the Pretender, Don
+Carlos, and though he and his sons had taken the oath of allegiance to
+the young King, Spaniards have learned to place little reliance on such
+oaths. Had not Montpensier sworn allegiance to his sister-in-law Isabel
+II.? and of how much was it worth when the time came that he thought he
+could successfully conspire against her? To allow the heiress to the
+Crown to marry a Carlist seemed the surest way to reopen civil war, and
+upset the dynasty once more. Moreover, the Jesuits were supposed to be
+behind it all. The Apostolic party was apparently scotched and Carlism
+dead, but was not this one more move of the hated Jesuits to resuscitate
+both? The Liberal Government refused to allow the marriage; the Queen
+Regent, actuated, it is said, solely by the desire to secure what she
+considered the happiness of her daughter, who refused to give up her
+lover, was obstinate; and rather than give in, Sagasta and his Ministers
+resigned. A Conservative Ministry was formed--the methods of
+manipulating elections must be borne in mind--and the marriage was
+carried out. Even before the wedding-day the storm broke, and things
+looked ugly enough. Riots and disturbances occurred all over the
+country, as well as in Madrid itself; attacks were made on the houses of
+the Jesuits, who were credited with being the authors of the situation;
+and then followed the Government's suicidal step of suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole country. Absolutism had once
+more raised its head! The Conservative Ministers, or many of them, were
+accused of being mere tools in the hands of the Jesuits, and it was
+complained that the confessor of the young King was one of the hated
+order.
+
+For a time Spain seemed to be on the verge of one of her old
+convulsions. It appeared doubtful if the Queen Regent had not sacrificed
+the crown of one child to gratify the obstinacy of another. Fortunately,
+a catastrophe was averted. After vain efforts to retain the Conservative
+party in power, or to form a coalition, which all the best public men
+refused to join, Sagasta was once more recalled to power, the
+constitutional guarantees were restored, and the sharp crisis passed.
+But the attention of the nation had been attracted to what it considered
+the machinations of the Jesuits; order was indeed restored in Madrid and
+the provinces, but the "clerical question" had come to the front, and
+there was no possibility of allowing it to slumber again. It was
+discovered that not only had many of the religious orders, whose return
+had been allowed by convention after the Restoration, under certain
+limitations, largely increased their numbers beyond the limits allowed
+them, but that others had established themselves without any
+authorisation from the Government; also that considerable properties
+were being acquired in the country by the orders, though, of course,
+held under other names. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid
+petitioned the Government to order an inquiry into the affairs of these
+religious bodies, pointing out that they were establishing manufactories
+of shoes, chocolate, fancy post-cards, and other objects of commerce,
+interfering with the ordinary trades, and underselling them, because,
+under the plea of being charitable institutions, they evaded duty. The
+heads of colleges and the Society of Public Teachers also asked for
+Government interference and the reassertion of the laws of 1881 and
+1895, guaranteeing perfect liberty of instruction, because they affirmed
+that the Fathers, Jesuit and others, undermined the teaching of science
+in the schools by means of tracts distributed to the pupils, and also by
+using the power they obtained in the confessional to set aside the
+lessons in science given in the colleges.
+
+The action of the Government was prompt and judicious. Strict inquiries
+were at once made into the question of the manufacturing orders, and
+those not paying the duty were reminded of the immediate necessity of
+doing so, and of furnishing to the Ministry of Fomento full particulars
+of the trades carried on by them. Houses that were permitted by
+convention were warned to reduce their numbers to those allowed by law,
+and all unauthorised orders were warned at once to leave the country.
+The Press took a dignified and moderate position in the matter. It
+pointed out that perfect religious liberty existed, and that all that
+was needful was to see that the religious orders obeyed the law of the
+country as other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of
+persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad
+example set by the Church itself in former years.
+
+Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that
+public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would
+be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After
+all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional
+and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands
+of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.
+
+So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and
+law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by
+the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light
+of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary
+excitement caused by Galdós's play. To a stranger reading it, it is
+obvious that the public mind must have been in a strange condition of
+alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a
+drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace
+and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan
+girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional,
+though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emancipated young woman
+about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect
+genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard
+with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who,
+though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the
+interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by
+fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her _fiancé_, and
+immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last
+resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of
+insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has
+been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun
+who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made
+known, and the girl is rescued.
+
+"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.
+
+"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last
+words of the play.
+
+This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen
+thousand copies of the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still
+running in the provinces. Some of the bishops and the superior clergy
+have had the folly to denounce the play and to forbid their
+congregations to witness or to read it. There is not an objectionable
+word or idea in it from first to last, except such as may be
+disagreeable to the Church--as that women should be educated so as to be
+the intellectual companions of their husbands, and should not be
+entrapped into convents by foul means and against their will. The action
+taken by the clergy in this matter has not only largely advertised the
+play, but has led to angry demonstrations against them, and has
+strengthened the temper of the people to resist all clerical domination
+in temporal matters.
+
+There have not been wanting from time to time signs, especially in the
+large manufacturing towns, of a spirit of revolt against all religion.
+Socialism, atheism, and even anarchism are all in the air, and if these
+are to be counteracted by religious teaching at all, it will certainly
+not be by the narrow dogmatism of the old school. There is a deep fund
+of religious feeling in the Spanish character which it would take a
+great deal to uproot, but it must be a wide-spirited and enlightened
+faith which will retain its hold over the people, who are everywhere
+breaking their old bonds and thinking for themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+PHILANTHROPY--POSITION OF WOMEN--MARRIAGE CUSTOMS
+
+
+Travellers complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and
+the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars
+also abound, and the long-unaccustomed sight of the various religious
+habits naturally brings with it the hordes of miserable objects who
+afford opportunities for the faithful to exercise what they are taught
+to believe is charity--loved of God. This, however, is more especially
+the case in Granada, or those favoured spots affected by the rich
+tourist, who has not always the same opinion about indiscriminate
+charity as the native Spaniard. In old days, the wise policy of Charles
+III. had reduced very greatly the swarm of beggars. A certain number of
+terrible-looking objects--the fortunate possessors of withered limbs,
+sightless eyeballs, or other disqualifications for honest work--still
+ostentatiously displayed their badges of professional mendicancy, and
+lived, apparently quite comfortably, on the alms of the passers-by. But
+the enormous competition which has since sprung up in this "career"
+must interfere a good deal with its lucrativeness.
+
+There is no poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary
+effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over
+the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be
+superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a
+board of _Beneficéncias_, the Government holding a fund which these
+boards administer. The Queen is the President of the whole. Each board
+has its president and vice-president--generally ladies of the
+aristocracy--a treasurer, vice-treasurer, secretary, and vice-secretary,
+and a body of visitors; accounts are rendered monthly to the governing
+board, whose vice-president presides in the name of the Queen. There are
+also the confraternities of St. Vincent and St. Paul, the members of
+which are gentlemen and ladies who work independently of each other.
+These, however, have no established funds, but depend on voluntary
+subscriptions and gifts. Both these associations visit the poor in their
+own homes. The Pardo and the San Bernadino are societies and homes for
+benefiting men, women, and children; they have been founded by ladies.
+For boys there is the School of the Sacred Heart, and the Christian
+Brothers. The School of San Ildefonso belongs to the _Ayuntamiento_, and
+has secular masters. There is a small asylum, with chaplaincy attached,
+for architects. Santa Rita is a reformatory for boys in Carabanchel,
+under a religious brotherhood. For girls there is the Horfino, the
+Mercédes Asylum--founded in memory of and kept up by the rents of Queen
+Mercédes--Santa Isabel and San Ildefonso, the French St. Vincent de
+Paul, San Blas, on the same lines as the Mercédes, Santa Cruz, the
+Inclusa, and the Spanish Vincent de Paul. For fallen girls there are the
+Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ladies of the Holy Trinity, and
+the Oblates of the Holy Redeemer.
+
+In all parts of the country branches of these or similar institutions
+abound. None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities
+than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget
+the class from which they sprang, and are most generous in their
+donations. When occasion demands an extra effort, a _fiesta_ is given at
+the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for
+which it has been held. No doubt these schemes have their faults in
+operation, and Galdós in some of his popular novels does not fail to
+hold up--not exactly for admiration--the fashionable ladies who think
+it "smart," as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and
+talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of
+their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their
+own doors, or trying to send into "Homes" those who have no desire or
+need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by
+their neighbours. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of organised
+philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and
+efficient kind. One should not forget to mention also the workshops for
+the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the
+attention of the Government has been called by late events.
+
+The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public
+life cannot be described as of an advanced order. As a rule, they take no
+leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable
+works, such as those already named. There is, as we have seen, a general
+movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action
+amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range
+themselves on the side of so-called "emancipation," who attend
+socialistic and other "meetings"--a word which has now been formally
+admitted into the Spanish language--and who aspire to be the comrades of
+men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings. But this
+movement is scarcely more than in its infancy. It must be remembered
+that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls
+were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or
+unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the
+room with a man was to lose her reputation. Already these things seem to
+be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however a
+fact, that there were fathers of the upper classes in the first half of
+the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to
+read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read
+letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them. The
+natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed,
+of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing
+correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means
+of a complaisant _doncella_ with an open palm, or the pastime known as
+_pelando el pavo_ (literally plucking the turkey), which consisted of
+serenades of love-songs, amorous dialogues, or the passage of notes
+through the _reja_--the iron gratings which protect the lower windows of
+Spanish houses from the prowling human wolf--or from the balconies. Many
+a time have I seen these interesting little missives being let down past
+my balcony--how trustful the innocents were!--to the waiting gallant
+below, and his drawn up. Only once I saw a neighbour, in the balcony
+below, intercept the post, and I believe substitute some other letter.
+Cruel sport!
+
+Perhaps born of this necessity of making acquaintance by fair means or
+foul comes the custom, which appears to savour of such grossly bad
+manners to us, of a man making audible remarks on the appearance of a
+girl he has never seen before as she passes him in the street. _Ay! que
+buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! Que gracia tienes!_ and the like. Far
+from giving offence, the fair one goes on her way, perhaps vouchsafing
+one glance from those lovely eyes of hers, with only a sense that her
+charms have received their due tribute--not much elated, perhaps, but
+certainly by no means offended; nor, indeed, was offence intended. The
+fixed stare, which to us would mean mere ill-bred ignorance, is only
+another ordinary tribute to the passing fair one from the other sex.
+
+Marriage customs have changed much in the last few decades, and even
+civil marriages are now not wholly unknown. In old days, if the ceremony
+was performed in church, the bride and all the ladies must be attired in
+black, for which reason the fashionable world established marriages in
+the house, where more brilliant costumes might be displayed. These
+generally take place in the evening, and the newly married couple do not
+leave the house, unless the new home happens to be close by. In any
+case, honeymoon tours are, or were, unusual. The _velada_ is the
+ceremony in church, which must take place before the first child is
+born, to legalise the marriage, but it does not necessarily immediately
+follow the other ceremony. At it the ring is given. When the two
+ceremonies take place at the same time it must be in the morning,
+because the bride and bridegroom partake of the Holy Sacrament fasting.
+From the description of a _boda_ in Galicia, in one of Pardo Bazan's
+novels, it would seem that the bride there wears white, even at the
+church. The wedding is a portentous affair, lasting all day from early
+morning, and the bride and bridegroom remain in the house. Fernan
+Caballero devotes some pages in _Clemencia_ to showing how preferable is
+the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly
+married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of
+postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining
+ground, even in conservative Spain.
+
+Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in
+France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or
+law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl
+desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection
+from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her
+father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than
+that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents
+disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a
+magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive
+her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is
+entitled. I do not know if these things are altered now,--one does not
+hear so much of them,--but I know of several cases where daughters have
+been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their
+parents. In one case, the first intimation a father received of his
+daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that
+she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her
+mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man
+without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these
+cases, the contracting parties were of the upper classes.
+
+While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous
+manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English
+fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely
+followed amongst the upper classes. When the King was still an infant a
+great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in
+the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones
+playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in
+London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois class, the
+old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the
+death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the
+poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its
+limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coarse
+yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up
+that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end
+against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother was busy. There is a
+superstition, too, about never washing a child's head from the day it
+is born. The result is really indescribable. When it is about two years
+old, a scab, which covers the whole head, comes off of its own accord,
+and after that the head may be cleansed without fear of evil
+consequences. Some English servants who have married in Spain set the
+example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from
+the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children,
+a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of
+courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the
+sacred superstitions of ages--and the mother-in-law!
+
+One wonders, not that Spanish men grow bald so early, and not bald only,
+but absolutely hairless, but that they ever have any hair at all; for
+after all the troubles of their infancy their heads are regularly
+shaved, or the hair cut off close to the skin all the summer. On the
+principle of cutting off the heads of dandelions as soon as they appear,
+as a way of exterminating them, the surprising thing is that the hair
+does not become too much discouraged even to try to sprout again. Funny
+little objects they look, with only a dark mark on the skin where the
+hair ought to grow in summer, and at most a growth about as long as
+velvet in the winter, until they are quite big boys! The girls generally
+wear their hair so tightly plaited, as soon as it is long enough to
+allow of plaiting at all, that they can scarcely close their eyes.
+Young Spanish women, however, have magnificent hair; though they, too,
+grow bald when they are old, in a way that is never seen in England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA
+
+
+One is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The
+country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political
+disturbance that few foreigners took up their abode there, except such
+as had business interests, and for the rest the mere traveller never
+became acquainted with the real life of the people, or entered into
+their intellectual amusements. It is quite a common thing to find the
+tourist entering in his valuable notes on a country which he has not the
+knowledge of the world to understand: "The Spaniards are not a musical
+people," and remaining quite satisfied with his own dictum. Yet Albert
+Soubies, in his _Histoire de la Musique_, says, in the volume devoted to
+Spain: "Spain is the country where, in modern times, musical art has
+been cultivated with the greatest distinction and originality. In
+particular, the school of religious music in Spain, thanks to Morales,
+Guerrero, and Victoria, will bear comparison with all that has been
+produced elsewhere of the highest and most cultivated description. The
+national genius has also shown itself in another direction, in works
+which, like the ancient _eglogas_--the contemporary _zarzuelas_ of Lope
+de Vega and Calderon--and the _torradillas_ of the last century shine
+brilliantly by the verve, the gaiety, the strength, and delicacy of
+their comic sentiment.... The works of this class are happily inspired
+by popular art, which in this country abounds in characteristic
+elements. One notes how much the rhythm and melody display native
+colour, charm, and energy. In many cases, along with vestiges of Basque
+or of Celtic origin, they show something of an Oriental character, due
+to the long sojourn of the Moors in this country."
+
+As regards this pre-eminence, it is enough to remember that Spain was
+anciently one of the regions most thoroughly penetrated by Roman
+civilisation. It is not too much to say that this art has never sunk
+into decadence in Spain. During the sixteenth century the archives of
+the Pontifical chapel show the important place occupied by Spanish
+composers in the musical history of the Vatican, and among the artists
+who gained celebrity away from their own country were Escoledo, Morales,
+Galvey, Tapia, and many others. To the end of the seventeenth century a
+galaxy of brilliant names carried on the national history of Spanish
+music, both on religious and secular lines; and though in the eighteenth
+and part of the nineteenth centuries there was a passing invasion of
+French and Italian fashion, the true and characteristic native music
+has never died out, and at the present time there is a notable musical
+renaissance in touch with the spirit and natural genius of the people.
+
+A Royal Academy of Music has, within recent times, been added to the
+other institutions of a like kind, and native talent is being developed
+on native lines, not in imitations from countries wholly differing from
+them in national characteristics. Spaniards are exacting critics, and
+the best musicians of other countries are as well known and appreciated
+as their own composers and executants. Wagner is now a household word
+among them, where once Rossini was the object of fashionable admiration.
+The national and characteristic songs of Spain have been already
+referred to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation.
+There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with
+a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those
+which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry
+away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood.
+The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the
+Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia,
+which lends itself to the music, and is liquid as the notes of a bird.
+The songs of Galicia are, in fact, the songs of Portugal; just as the
+Galician language is Portuguese, or a dialect of that language, which
+has less impress of the ancient Celt-Iberian and more of French than
+its sister, Castilian, both being descendants of Latin, enriched with
+words borrowed from the different nations which have at one time or
+another inhabited or conquered their country.
+
+The guitar is, of course, the national instrument, and the songs never
+have the same charm with any other accompaniment; but the Spanish women
+of to-day are prouder of being able to play the piano or violin than of
+excelling in the instrument which suits them so much better. The
+Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other
+European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that
+to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the
+question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the
+lower end of the scale.
+
+The records of Spain in art, as in literature, are so grand, so
+European, in fact, that it is much if the artists of to-day come within
+measurable distance of those who have made the glory of their country.
+Nevertheless, the modern painters and sculptors of Spain hold their own
+with those of any country. After the temporary eclipse which followed
+the death of Velasquez, Ribera, and Murillo--the eighteenth century
+produced no great Spanish painter, if we except Goya, who left no
+pupils--Don José Madrazo, who studied at the same time as Ingres in the
+studio of David, began the modern renaissance. He became Court painter,
+and left many fine portraits; but, perhaps, as Comte Vasili says, "La
+meilleure oeuvre de Don José fut son fils, Federico; de même que la
+meilleure de celui-ci est son fils Raimundo."
+
+Raimundo Madrazo and Fortuny the elder, who married Cecilia Madrazo,
+Raimundo's sister, have always painted in Paris, and have become known
+to Europe almost as French artists. Fortuny, by his _mariage Espagnol_,
+became the head of the Spanish renaissance. Unfortunately, he has been
+widely imitated by artists of all nations, who have not a tithe of his
+genius, if any. Pradilla, F. Domingo, Gallegos, the three Beulluire
+brothers, Bilbao, Gimenez, Aranda, Carbonero, are only a few of the
+artists whose names are known to all art collectors, and who work in
+Spain. Villegas has settled in Rome. The exhibition of modern Spanish
+paintings in the London Guildhall last year (1901) was a revelation to
+many English people, even to artists, of the work that is being done at
+the present day by Spanish painters, both at home and in Paris and Rome.
+In sculpture, also, Spain can boast many artists of the highest class.
+
+The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The
+traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de
+Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for
+these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the
+theatre is the beloved entertainment of all classes, and perhaps
+especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting
+dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are
+sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an
+alien stage. It would be impossible and useless to give a mere list of
+the names of modern dramatists, but that of Ayala is perhaps best known
+abroad, and his work most nearly approaches to that of his great
+forerunners. His _Consuelo_, _El tejado de Vidrio_, and _Tanto por ciento_
+show great power and extraordinary observation. His style, too, is
+perfect. Señor Tamago, who persistently hides his name under the
+pseudonym of "Joaquin Estebanez," may also be ranked amongst the leaders
+of the modern Spanish drama, and his _Drama Nuevo_ is a masterpiece.
+Echegaray belongs to the school of the old drama, whose characteristic
+is that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished. His plays are very
+popular because they touch an audience even to tears, and he has several
+followers or imitators. The comedies of manners and satirical plays are
+generally the work of Eusebio Blasco, Ramos Carrion, Echegaray the
+younger, Estremada, Alverez, though there are others whose names are
+legion. Echegaray is really a man of genius. A clever engineer and
+professor of mathematics, he was Minister of Finance during the early
+days of the Revolution. His first play took the world of Madrid by
+surprise and even by storm. _La Esposa del Vengador_ had an
+unprecedented success, and at least thirty subsequent dramas, in prose
+and in verse, have made this mathematician, engineer, and financier one
+of the most famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely
+Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez
+Galdós's _Electra_ within the last few months. It must, however, be
+ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any
+superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be
+said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so
+dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured
+by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of
+the popular temper, however, and the coincidence of the political events
+already referred to must be ascribed the fact that a piece like
+_Electra_ should cause the fall of a Government, and bring within
+dangerous distance the collapse of the monarchy itself. The excitement
+which it still produces, wherever played, is now in a great part due to
+the foolish action of some of the bishops and the fact that individual
+clerics use their pulpits to condemn it, and attempt to forbid its being
+read or seen.
+
+Spain is not particularly rich in great actors, although she has always
+a goodly number who come up to a fair standard of excellence. The great
+actors of the day in Madrid are María Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de
+Mendoza. They obtained a perfect ovation during the last season in the
+play, _El loco Dios_, of Echegaray--a work which gives every opportunity
+for the display of first-class talent in both actors, and which led to a
+fury of enthusiasm for the popular dramatist, which must have recalled
+to him the early days of his great successes.
+
+Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Spain has had three great
+Academies, which, even in the troublous times of her history, have done
+good work in the domains of history, language, and the fine arts; but it
+is since the Revolution that they have become of real importance in the
+intellectual development of the nation, and other societies have been
+added for the encouragement of scientific research and music. The
+earliest of her academies was that of language, known as the Royal
+Spanish Academy. It is exactly on the lines of the Académie Française.
+Founded in 1713, its statutes were somewhat modified in 1847, and again
+in 1859. There are only thirty-six members, about eighty corresponding
+members in different provinces of Spain, and an unlimited, or at least
+undetermined, number of foreign and honorary correspondents. Besides the
+Central Society in Madrid, the Royal Spanish Academy has many
+corresponding branches in South America, such as the Columbian, the
+Equatorial, the Mexican, and those of Venezuela and San Salvador. The
+existence of academies of language in the South American States does not
+appear to effect much in the way of maintaining the purity of Castilian
+among them, for South American Spanish, as spoken at least, is not much
+more like the original language than the South American Spaniard is like
+the inhabitant of the mother country. The dictionary of the Royal
+Academy of Spain, like that of France, is not yet completed.
+
+Philip V. founded the Royal Academy of History in 1738. Under its
+auspices, especially of late years, much valuable work has been done in
+publishing the original records of the country, to be found at Simancas
+and other places; but the authentic history of Spain is still
+incomplete. Up to the time of his assassination, Don Antonio Cánovas del
+Castillo was its director, and Don Pedro de Madrazo its permanent
+secretary. The society, now known as the Real Academia de San Fernando,
+founded in 1752, under the title of Real Academia de las tres nobles
+Artes, has now had a fourth added to it--that of music. The functions of
+its separate sections are much the same as those of the English Academy
+of Painting and the sister arts. A permanent gallery of the works of its
+members exists in Madrid, and certificates, diplomas, honourable
+mention, etc., are distributed by the directors to successful
+competitors.
+
+Later societies are the Academies of Exact Science, Physical and
+Natural, of Moral and Political Science, of Jurisprudence and
+Legislation, and last, but by no means least, the Royal Academy of
+Medicine, under whose auspices medical science has of late years made
+immense strides, and is probably now in line with that of the most
+advanced of other countries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MODERN LITERATURE
+
+
+The name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his
+own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and
+critic. Although now a man of very advanced age, he is one of the most
+distinguished of modern Orientalists, and his _History of the Arabs in
+Spain_, _Vocabulary of the Arabic Words in Spanish_, and his _Catalogue
+of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum_ are known wherever the language
+is known or studied. He has published in Spanish an edition of Ticknor's
+great work on Spanish literature, and has edited several valuable works
+in the Spanish Old Text Society besides innumerable other historical and
+philological books and papers, which have given him a European
+reputation. His immense store of knowledge, his modesty, and his genuine
+kindness to all who seek his aid endear him as much for his personal
+qualities as for his learning.
+
+Next to Gayangos in the same class of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo
+may perhaps be mentioned. His _History of Æsthetic Ideas in Spain_ has
+been left unfinished so far, owing to the demands made on his time by
+his position in the political world as one of the Conservative leaders.
+Don Modesto Lafuente, though scarcely possessing the qualities of a
+great historian, is accurate and painstaking to a great degree; but in
+the field of history many workers are searching the archives and
+documents in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on
+particular periods. Cánovas del Castillo, in spite of his great
+political duties, was one of the most valuable of these; and the eminent
+jurist, Don Francisco de Cardenas, and the learned Jesuit, Fidel Fita,
+and other members of the Academy of History are constantly working in
+the rich mine at Simancas. New papers and books are continually being
+brought out under the auspices of this society, throwing light on the
+past history of the country.
+
+Fernan Caballero, a German by race, but married successively to three
+Spanish husbands, may be said to have inaugurated the modern Spanish
+novel _de costumbres_, and her books are perhaps better known in England
+than those of some of the later novelists. By far the greater writer of
+the day in Spain, however, in light literature, is Juan Valera, at once
+poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His _Pepita Jimenez_ is a
+remarkable novel, full of delicate characterisation and exquisite style,
+second to none produced in any country--a novel full of fire, and yet
+irreproachable in taste, handling a difficult subject with the mastery
+of genius. It has been translated into English; but however well it may
+have been done, it must lose immensely in the transition, because the
+Spanish of Valera is the perfection of a perfectly beautiful language.
+In this novel we have the character of a priest, who, while we know him
+only through the letters addressed to him by the young student of
+theology, the extremely sympathetic hero of the story, lives in one's
+memory, showing us the best side of the Spanish priest. Other novels of
+Valera's, _Doña Luis_ and _El Comendador Mendoza_, a number of essays on
+all sorts of subjects, critical and other, and poems which show great
+grace and correctness of style, have given this writer a high place in
+the literature of the age.
+
+Perez Galdós is a writer of a wholly different class, although he enjoys
+a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read.
+His _Episodes Nacionales_, some fifty-six in number, attract by their
+close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most
+diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of
+different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces,
+among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real
+actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendizábal, Espartero,
+Serrano, Narvaez, the Queen of Ferdinand VII., Cristina, and many other
+persons appear in the books, giving one the impression that history is
+alive, and not the record of long-dead actors we are accustomed to find
+it. Galdós appears to despise any kind of plot; the events run on, as
+they did in fact run on, only there are one or two people who take part
+in them whom we may suppose to be creations of the author's brain.
+Certainly, one learns more contemporary history by reading these
+_Episodes_ of Perez Galdós, and realises all the scenes of it much more
+vividly than one would ever do by the reading of ordinary records of
+events. As the tendency and the sympathy of the writer is always
+Liberal, one fancies that Galdós has written with the determined
+intention to tempt a class of readers to become acquainted with the
+recent history of their country who would never do so under any less
+attractive form than that of the novel. His works must do good, since
+they are very widely read, and are extremely accurate as history. His
+play, _Electra_, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of
+the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom
+that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have
+always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediæval times, and has nothing in
+common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves.
+Galdós, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if
+not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great
+pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so
+many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.
+
+Pedro Alarcón is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic
+afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most
+widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His _Sombrero de Tres
+Picos_ is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet
+grace, while _El Escándalo_ and _La Pródiga_ are of the sensational
+order. He writes, like Galdós, in series, such as _Historietas
+Nacionales_, _Narraciones Inverosímiles_, and _Viajes por España_.
+Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen.
+_Sotilezas_, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life
+among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town.
+Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible
+for foreign readers.
+
+The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be
+said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the
+sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is
+imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes
+the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its
+scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not
+hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in
+Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard
+by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a
+frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company
+subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the
+same circumstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel,
+are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of
+offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand,
+if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on
+intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a
+breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation.
+She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her
+country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She
+holds up an ideal of a higher type--a woman who shall be man's
+intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by
+no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is
+the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her
+writings are somewhat difficult for anyone not conversant with
+Portuguese, or, rather, with the Galician variety of the Spanish
+language, for the number of words not to be found in the Spanish
+dictionary interfere with the pleasure experienced by a foreigner, and
+even some Castilians, in reading her novels. Pardo Bazan was an
+enthusiastic friend and admirer of Castelar, and belongs to his
+political party. A united Iberian republic, with Gibraltar restored to
+Spain, is, or was, its programme.
+
+_Hermana San Sulpicio_, by Armando Palacio Valdés, is one of the
+charming, purely Spanish novels which has made a name for its author
+beyond the confines of his own country; but since that was produced he
+has gone for his inspiration to the French naturalistic school, and,
+like some English writers, he thinks that repulsive and indecent
+incidents, powerfully drawn, add to the artistic value of his work.
+Padre Luis Coloma, a Jesuit, obtained a good deal of attention at one
+time by his _Pequeñeces_, studies, written in gall, of Madrid society.
+His stories are too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue,
+and his views of life too much coloured by his ultramontane tendencies
+to be even true. Nuñez de Arce is, like so many Spaniards of the last
+few decades, at once a poet and a politician. He played a stirring part
+from the time of the Revolution to the Restoration, always on the side
+of liberty, but never believing in the idea of a republic. His _Gritos
+del Combate_ were the agonised expression of a fighter in his country's
+battle for freedom and for light. Since the more settled state of
+affairs, Nuñez de Arce has written many charming idyls and short poems.
+In the _Idilio_ is a wonderful picture of the, to some of us, barren
+scenery of Castile, in which the eye of the artist sees, and makes his
+readers see, a beauty all the more striking because it is hidden from
+the ordinary gaze.
+
+Of José Zorilla as a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen
+read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value.
+Campoamor describes his _Dorloras_ as "poetic compositions combining
+lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His
+earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the
+star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work,
+the _Universal Drama_, is "after Dante and Milton." He is a great
+favourite with his fellow-countrymen, both as poet and companion. He is
+a member of the Academy and a Senator.
+
+It is impossible, however, to do more than indicate a few of the writers
+who are leaders in the literature of Spain to-day. There has, in fact,
+been an immense impulse in the production of books of all classes within
+the last twenty or thirty years. In fiction, Spain once more aspires to
+have a characteristic literature of her own, in place of relying on
+translations from the French, as was the case for a brief time before
+her political renaissance began.
+
+A notable departure has been the foundation of the Folklore Society, and
+the publication up to the present time of eleven volumes under the name
+of _Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Españolas_, under the
+direction of Señor Don Antonio Machado y Alvarez. In the introduction to
+the first volume, the Director tells us that, with the help of the
+editor of _El Folklore Andaluz_ and his friends, D. Alejandro Guichot y
+Sierra and D. Luis Montolo y Raustentrauch, he has undertaken this great
+work, which arose out of the _Bases del Folklore Español_, published in
+1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz
+and Folklore Extremeño. These societies have for object the gathering
+together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs,
+songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superstitions of all parts of
+the Peninsula, including Portugal, as indispensable materials for the
+knowledge and scientific reconstruction of Spanish culture. In this
+patriotic and historical work many writers have joined, each bringing
+his quota of garnered treasure-trove, presenting thus, in a series of
+handy little volumes, a most interesting collection of the ancient
+customs, beliefs, and, in fact, the folklore of a country exceptionally
+rich in widely differing nationalities.
+
+Many of the tales, which it would seem even at the present time,
+especially in Portugal and Galicia, are told in the evening, and have
+rarely found their way into print, have the strong stamp of the
+legitimate Eastern fable, and bear a great family resemblance to those
+of the _Arabian Nights_. As, in fact, the _Thousand and One Nights_ was
+very early published in Spanish, it is probable that its marvellous
+histories were known verbally to the people of the Iberian continent for
+many centuries, and have coloured much of its folklore. _The Ingenious
+Student_ is certainly one of these. Barbers also play an important part
+in many of these tales. It is quite common for the Court barber to marry
+the King's daughter, and to succeed him as ruler; but the barber was,
+of course, surgeon or blood-letter as well as the principal
+news-agent--the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The
+transmutation of human beings into mules, and _vice versa_, is a common
+fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superstition that
+unbaptised people can penetrate into the domains of the enchanted Moors,
+and that these have no power to injure them. The story of the Black
+Slave, who eventually married the King's daughter and had a white mule
+for his Prime Minister, is very Eastern in character. "From so wise a
+King and so good a Queen the people derived great benefit; disputes
+never went beyond the ears of the Chief Minister, and, in the words of
+the immortal barber and poet of the city, 'the kingdom flourished under
+the guidance of a mule: which proves that there are qualities in the
+irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do well to
+imitate.'" _The Watchful Servant_ is, however, purely Spanish in
+character, and it closes with the proverb that "a jealous man on
+horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning." _King Robin_, the
+story of how the beasts and birds revenged themselves on Sigli and his
+father, the chief of a band of robbers, recalls "Uncle Remus" and his
+animal tales; for the monkeys, at the suggestion of the fox, and with
+the delighted consent of the birds and the bees, made a figure wholly of
+birdlime to represent a sleeping beggar, being quite certain that Sigli
+would kick it the moment that he saw the intruder from the windows of
+his father's castle. In effect both father and son became fast to the
+birdlime figure, when they were stung to death by ten thousand bees.
+Then King Robin ordered the wolves to dig the grave, into which the
+monkeys rolled the man and the boy and the birdlime figure, and, after
+covering it up, all the beasts and birds and insects took possession of
+the robbers' castle, and lived there under the beneficent rule of King
+Robin.
+
+_Silver Bells_ is, again, a story of a wholly different type, and
+charmingly pretty it is, with its new development of the wicked
+step-mother--in this case a mother who had married again and hated her
+little girl by the first husband. _Elvira, the Sainted Princess_ tells
+how the daughter of King Wamba, who had become a Christian unknown to
+her father, by her prayers and tears caused his staff to blossom in one
+night, after he had determined that unless this miracle were worked by
+the God of the Christians she and her lover should be burned.
+
+One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told
+by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the
+Old-World fables of a primitive race. Hits at the Jesuits, the
+Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the
+glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore. The story of the _Black Hand_
+seems to have many varieties. It is somewhat like our stories of Jack
+and the Bean Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the
+Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the
+part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a
+second term of a hundred years' enchantment, so as to free the wife whom
+he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous
+other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of
+the prince. The _White Dove_ is another curious and pretty fable which
+has many variations in different provinces--a story in which the King's
+promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who
+has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her
+place. Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl
+again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has
+stuck into her head, and the usurper is "burnt" as punishment--an ending
+which savours of the _Quemadero_.
+
+The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country
+where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty. One is constantly reminded
+of the Spanish proverb, _De poetas y de locos, todos tenémos un poco_
+(We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool). No
+one can tell whence the rhymed _jeux d'esprit_ come; they seem to spring
+spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people. Children are
+constantly heard singing _coplas_ which are evidently of recent
+production, since they speak of recent events, and yet which have the
+air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.
+
+    Rey inocente--a weak king,
+    Reina traidora--treacherous queen,
+    Pueblo cobarde--a coward people,
+    Grandes sin honra--nobles without honour,
+
+sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday's shameful
+bargain with Napoleon.
+
+    En el Puente de Alcoléa
+      La batalla ganó Prim,
+    Y por eso la cantámos
+      En las calles de Madrid.
+
+    At the bridge of Alcoléa
+      A great battle gained Prim,
+    And for this we go a-singing
+      In the streets of Madrid.
+
+Señor Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this _copla_ (_Folklore
+de Madrid_), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore,
+since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcoléa.
+Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the
+battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been
+sung in the streets of the capital. There is seldom, if ever, any
+grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people--never indecency or
+double meaning. No sooner has an event happened than it finds its
+history recorded in some of these popular _coplas_, and sung by the
+children at their play.
+
+The Folklore Society has some interesting information to give about the
+innumerable rhymed games which Spanish children, like our own, are so
+fond of playing, many of them having an origin lost in prehistoric
+times. One finds, also, from some of the old stories, that the devils
+are much hurt in their feelings by having tails and horns ascribed to
+them. As a matter of fact, they have neither, and cannot understand
+where mortals picked up the idea! The question is an interesting one.
+Where did we obtain this notion?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE FUTURE OF SPAIN
+
+
+An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close
+connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most
+valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:
+
+"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points
+strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the
+Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and
+leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the
+nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers
+of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy
+independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation
+that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of
+her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the
+Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is,
+indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.
+
+"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our
+intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of
+deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of
+mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong
+attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the
+strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know
+the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful
+friends than those they have amongst her people."
+
+Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of
+labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of
+judging, this writer says:
+
+"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not
+much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are
+exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great
+facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest--perfect gentlemen in
+their manners, and the lowest labourer has an _aplomb_ and ease of
+manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might
+envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it
+is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real
+bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to
+meet with--not free from defects--what race is?--but possessed of
+excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be
+appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and
+politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and
+debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is,
+unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]
+
+    [3] _Commercial and Industrial Spain_, by George Higgin,
+    Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.
+
+In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution
+of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called,
+and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time;
+because, after the battle of Alcoléa, when the cry raised in the Puerta
+del Sol, _Viva Prim!_ was answered by the troops shut up in the
+Government offices, and the people, swarming up the _rejas_ and the
+balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been
+intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot
+them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and
+of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance,
+the Queen and her _camarilla_ had fled across the frontier, the
+Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet
+not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and
+quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street
+formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their
+positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and
+institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people
+were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went
+on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was
+touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the
+sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns,
+after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo,
+were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of
+interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as
+puppets.
+
+With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in
+the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the
+demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the
+Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in
+industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving
+the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this,
+or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is
+penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely
+to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing.
+The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country
+heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was
+begun--in fact, within the last few months--is bringing the northern and
+western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important
+industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing
+trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as
+Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh
+fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are
+coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost
+everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as
+the algaroba bean--said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist
+might have thriven--for it is the most fattening food for horses and
+cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat.
+This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to
+the mules and horses at all the little wayside _ventas_, and is now used
+in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of
+the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two
+kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. _Glucea
+dextrina_ paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products
+of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of
+preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture
+of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many
+other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a
+most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it
+has all the qualities of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent.
+less in cost.
+
+A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the
+peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this
+unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention
+of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898,
+and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in
+circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold
+must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between
+fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in
+circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of
+the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two
+thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two
+thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in
+fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas.
+So states the _Boletin de la Cámara de Comercio de España en la Gran
+Bretáña_ of April 15, 1901.
+
+The _Boletin_, after giving an account of the English custom of using
+cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper
+currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the
+English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any
+paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were
+not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited
+currency within.
+
+Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days
+before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other
+towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its
+general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is
+no longer the case. Although the capital of Cataluña has made enormous
+strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it
+before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it
+in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it
+very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its
+climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its
+wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly
+different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the
+dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.
+
+It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to
+finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of
+the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already
+remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it
+is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician,
+still less Basque, is a dialect--they are all more or less languages in
+themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the
+_pueblo bajo_ of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal
+peculiarities are the omission of the _d_--_prado_ becomes _praö_--in
+any case the pronunciation of _d_, except as an initial, is very soft,
+similar to our _th_ in _thee_, but less accentuated. The final _d_ is
+also omitted by illiterate speakers; _Usted_ is pronounced _Uste_, and
+even _de_ becomes _e_. _B_ and _v_ are interchangeable. One used to see,
+on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion
+of Madrid, _Serbicio de omnibus_ quite as often as _Servicio_. Over the
+_venta_ of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcalá--now an outskirt of
+Madrid--was written, _Aqui se veve bino y aguaardieñte_--meaning, _Aqui
+se bebe vino_, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).
+
+The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the
+educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of
+transposing them in writing. The sound of _b_ is much more liquid than
+in English, and to pronounce _Barcelona_ as a Castilian pronounces it,
+we should spell it _Varcelona_; the same with _Córdoba_, which to our
+ears sounds as if written _Córdova_, and so, in fact, we English spell
+it.
+
+Spaniards, as a rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all
+the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England,
+Scotland, and Ireland, into account.
+
+Our _th_, which is unpronounceable to French, Italians, and Germans,
+however long they may have lived in England, comes naturally to the
+Spaniard, because in his own _d_, soft _c_, and _z_ he has the sounds of
+our _th_ in "_th_ee" and "_th_in." His _ch_ is identical with ours, and
+his _j_ and _x_ are the same as the Irish and Scotch pronunciation of
+_ch_ and _gh_.
+
+The Spanish language is not difficult to learn--at any rate to read and
+understand--because there are absolutely no unnecessary letters, if we
+except the initial _h_, which is, or appears to us, silent--and the
+pronunciation is invariable. What a mine of literary treasure is opened
+to the reader by a knowledge of Spanish, no one who is ignorant of that
+majestic and poetic language can imagine. With the single exception of
+Longfellow's beautiful rendering of the _Coplas de Manrique_, which is
+absolutely literal, while preserving all the grace and dignity of the
+original, I know of no translation from the Spanish which gives the
+reader any real idea of the beauty of Spanish literature in the past
+ages, nor even of such works of to-day as those of Juan Valera and some
+others.
+
+Picturesque and poetic ideas seem common to the Spaniard to-day, as
+ever. Only the other day, in discussing the monument to be erected to
+Alfonso XII. in Madrid, one of the newspapers reported the
+suggestion--finally adopted, I think--that it should be an equestrian
+statue of the young King, "with the look on his face with which he
+entered Madrid after ending the Carlist war." What a picture it summons
+to the imagination of the boy King--for he was no more--in the pride of
+his conquest of the elements of disorder and of civil war, which had so
+long distracted his beloved country--a successful soldier and a worthy
+King!
+
+Spain is a country of surprises and of contradictions; even her own
+people seem unable to predict what may happen on the morrow. Those who
+knew her best had come to despair of her emancipation at the very moment
+when Prim and Topete actually carried the Revolution to a successful
+issue. Again, after the miserable fiasco of the attempt at a republic,
+the world, even in Spain itself, was taken by surprise by the peaceful
+restoration of Alfonso XII.
+
+I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of
+Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most
+interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of
+her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of
+Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales
+Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his
+preface to his _Decadencia de España_, published in Madrid in 1850: "It
+is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain.
+The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by,
+and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in
+which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing
+not to presume to dispute this former glory, Señor Ferrer del Rio goes
+on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's
+subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the
+summit of her greatness--that of the Reyes Católicos, Don Fernando V.
+and Doña Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of
+Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system
+disappeared--it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the
+kingdom--the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the
+administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice
+began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people
+was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the
+conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been
+struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new
+world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that
+hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although
+for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real
+misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the _Comuneros_, and the
+execution of Padilla and his companions, champions of the people's
+rights, he goes on to show that while the aristocracy had received a
+mortal blow in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cause of
+consolidating the kingdom and of internal order, they had retained
+sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they
+were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of
+the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually
+lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained
+the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal
+whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and
+Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all
+government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the
+Spanish people being led to wage war against heresy everywhere, and the
+nation--exhausted by its foreign troubles, oppressed internally under
+the tyranny of the Inquisition, which, usurping the name of 'Holy,' had
+become the right hand of the policy of Charles V., and the supreme power
+in the Government of his grandson, Philip II.--lost all the precious
+gifts of enlightenment in a blind and frantic fanaticism. The people
+only awoke from lethargy, and showed any animation, to rush in crowds to
+the _Autos da fé_ in which the ministers of the altar turned Christian
+charity into a bleeding corpse, and reproduced the terrible scenes of
+the Roman amphitheatre. Where the patricians had cried 'Christians to
+the lions!' superstition shouted 'Heretics to the stake!' Humanity was
+not less outraged than in the spectacle of Golgotha. Spanish monarchs
+even authorised by their presence those sanguinary spectacles, while the
+nobles and great personages in the kingdom thought themselves honoured
+when they were made _alguiciles_, or familiars of the holy office.
+Theocratic power preponderated, and intellectual movement became
+paralysed, civilisation stagnated."
+
+This has ever been the result of priestly rule. One can understand the
+feeling of the liberal-minded Spaniard of to-day that, without wishing
+to interfere with the charitable works inaugurated by the clergy, nor
+desiring in any way to show disrespect to the Church, or the religion
+which is dear to the hearts of the people, a serious danger lies, as the
+Press is daily pointing out, in the religious orders, more especially
+the Jesuits, obtaining a pernicious influence over the young,
+undermining by a system of secret inquisition the teachings of science,
+gaining power over the minds of the officers in the army, and
+establishing a press agency which shall become a danger to the
+constitution.
+
+Spain's outlook seems brighter to-day than it has ever been since her
+Golden Age of Isabella and Ferdinand; and it is the people who have
+awakened, a people who have shown what power lies in them to raise their
+beloved country to the position which is her right among the nations of
+the world. But prophecy is vain in a country of which it has been said
+"that two and two never make four." This year, if all go well meantime,
+Alfonso XIII. will take the reins in his own hands--a mere boy, even
+younger than his father was when called to the throne; than whom,
+however, Spain has never had a more worthy ruler. But Alfonso XII. had
+been schooled by adversity--he had to some extent roughed it amongst
+Austrian and English boys. He came fresh from Sandhurst and from the
+study of countries other than his own. To a naturally clever mind he had
+added the invaluable lesson of a knowledge of the world as seen by one
+of the crowd, not from the close precincts of a court and the elevation
+of a throne.
+
+For his son it may be said that he has been born and carefully educated
+in a country where absolutism is dead, and by a mother who, as Regent,
+has scrupulously observed the laws of the constitution. He will come, as
+King, to a country which has known the precious boon of liberty too long
+to part with it lightly; to a kingdom now, for the first time in
+history, united as one people; where commerce and mutual interests have
+taken the place of internecine distrust and hatred. It is only at the
+present moment that this happy condition of things is spreading over the
+country; each month, each week, giving fresh evidence of new industries
+arising, of fresh capital invested in the development of the country. It
+is in the sums so invested by the mass of the people that those who
+believe in a bright future for Spain place their hopes; but we may all
+of us wish the young monarch for whom his country is longing,
+"God-speed."
+
+
+
+
+PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+LAND AND PEOPLE
+
+
+It has been said, and it is often repeated, that if you strip a Spaniard
+of his virtues, the residuum will be a Portuguese. This cruel statement
+is rather the result of prejudice than arising from any foundation in
+fact. It has a superficial cleverness which attracts some people, and
+especially those who have but an imperfect knowledge of the true life
+and character of the people thus stigmatised.
+
+Lord Londonderry, in Chapter VI. of his _Narrative of the Peninsular
+War_, writes thus of the difference of character between the two
+nations: "Having halted at Elvas during the night, we marched next
+morning soon after dawn; and, passing through a plain of considerable
+extent, crossed the Guadiana at Badajoz, the capital of Estremadura.
+This movement introduced us at once into Spain; and the contrast, both
+in personal appearance and in manners, between the people of the two
+nations, which was instantly presented to us, I shall not readily
+forget. Generally speaking, the natives of frontier districts partake
+almost as much of the character of one nation as of another.... It is
+not so on the borders of Spain and Portugal. The peasant who cultivates
+his little field, or tends his flock on the right bank of the Guadiana,
+is, in all his habits and notions, a different being from the peasant
+who pursues similar occupations on its left bank; the first is a genuine
+Portuguese, the last is a genuine Spaniard.... They cordially detest one
+another; insomuch that their common wrongs and their common enmity to
+the French were not sufficient, even at this time, to eradicate the
+feeling.
+
+"It was not, however, by the striking diversity of private character
+alone which subsisted between them, that we were made sensible, as soon
+as we had passed the Guadiana, that a new nation was before us. The
+Spaniards received us with a degree of indifference to which we had not
+hitherto been accustomed. They were certainly not uncivil.... Whatever
+we required they gave us, in return for our money; but as to enthusiasm
+or a desire to anticipate our wants, there was not the shadow of an
+appearance of anything of the kind about them. How different all this
+from the poor Portuguese, who never failed to rend the air with their
+_vivats_, and were at all times full of promises and protestations, no
+matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or
+authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud,
+independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities,
+but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate
+them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of
+the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a
+people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally
+helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, and render them
+useful; but it is impossible highly to respect them. In the Spanish
+character, on the contrary, there is mixed up a great deal of
+haughtiness, a sort of manly independence of spirit, which you cannot
+but admire, even though aware that it will render them by many degrees
+less amenable to your wishes than their neighbours."
+
+With due allowance for time and circumstances, much in this passage
+might have been written to-day instead of nearly ninety years ago, and
+one cause of the difference in feeling is no doubt explained truly
+enough. Perhaps some shallow persons are affected by the fact that in
+good looks the Portuguese are as a race inferior to the Spaniards. But
+there is no such real difference in character as to justify an impartial
+observer in using a phrase so essentially galling to England's allies,
+of whom Napier said: "The bulk of the people were, however, staunch in
+their country's cause ... ready at the call of honour, and susceptible
+of discipline, without any loss of energy."
+
+Throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula the main axiom of life appears to
+be the same: "Never do to-day what you can put off to to-morrow." On the
+left bank of the Guadiana it is summarised by the word _mañana_; on the
+right bank the word used is _amanhã_. There is only a phonetic
+distinction between the Spanish and the Portuguese idea. It is necessary
+for the traveller in these countries to keep this axiom well in mind,
+for it affords a clue to character and conduct the value of which cannot
+be over-estimated, and not only to the character and conduct of
+individuals, but to the whole national life of the inhabitants. In
+Portugal it permeates all public and municipal life, and appears to
+affect most especially that portion of the population who do not earn
+their living by manual labour. The higher one goes up the scale, the
+greater becomes the evidence of the ingrained habits of dilatoriness and
+procrastination, and so any hard work on the part of the lower class of
+toilers cannot be properly directed, and the commerce and industry of
+the country either dwindle away together, or fall into the hands of more
+energetic and active foreigners, who naturally carry off the profits
+which should be properly applied to the welfare and prosperity of the
+Lusitanians.
+
+The mineral wealth and natural resources of the country are enormous,
+and it is really sad to contemplate the little use that is made of the
+one or of the other unless developed by alien energy and worked by alien
+capital. As regards this latter important factor, the administrative
+corruption and the unsound state of the national finances render it
+difficult to find foreign capitalists who are able and willing to embark
+in the industrial enterprises, the successful issue of which affords the
+only chance for this most interesting nation to recover something of its
+ancient prosperity and to once more take a position in the world worthy
+of the land of the hardy sailors and valiant captains who have left so
+imperishable a record over the earth's surface.
+
+The intellectual life of Portugal seems to have ceased with Camoens. It
+is rather pathetic the way in which the ordinary educated Portuguese
+refers back to the great poet and to the heroic period which he
+commemorated. No conversation of any length can be carried on without a
+reference to Camoens and to Vasco da Gama. All history and all progress
+appear to have culminated and stopped then. Apparently nothing worthy of
+note has happened since. Camoens returned to Lisbon in 1569, and his
+great epic poem saw the light in 1572. He died in a public hospital in
+Lisbon in 1579 or 1580. In the latter year began the "sixty years'
+captivity," when Portugal became merely a Spanish province; yet there
+is no recollection of this--except the ingrained hatred of Spaniards and
+of everything Spanish--or of the shaking off the yoke in 1640, and of
+the battle of Amexial in 1663, where the English contingent bore the
+brunt of the battle, and the "Portugueses," as they are called by the
+author of _An Account of the Court of Portugal_, published in 1700,
+claimed the principal part of the honour. The traces of the Peninsular
+War have faded away, and on the lines of Torres Vedras there is scarcely
+any tradition of the cause of their existence. In Lisbon, indeed, there
+is one incident of later date than Camoens, which is considered worthy
+of remembrance,--the great earthquake of 1755,--but this can scarcely be
+looked upon as a national achievement, or a matter of intellectual
+development.
+
+That Camoens is a fitting object for a nation's veneration cannot for a
+moment be doubted. The high encomium passed upon "the Student, the
+Soldier, the Traveller, the Patriot, the Poet, the mighty Man of Genius"
+by Burton, appears to be in no way exaggerated. The healthful influence
+of his life and writings has done and is still doing good in his beloved
+country. But though the man who in his lifetime was neglected, and who
+was allowed to die in the depths of poverty and misery, is now the most
+honoured of his countrymen, and his rank as one of the world's great
+poets is universally acknowledged, his labours have been to a certain
+extent in vain.
+
+Not only industry, but culture, literature, and art appear to be
+infested with the mildew of decay. There is a good university at
+Coimbra, where alone, it is said, the language is spoken correctly.
+There is an excellent system of elementary and secondary schools, but in
+practice it is incomplete and subject to many abuses, like most public
+institutions in the country. The irregularities of the language, without
+authoritative spelling or pronunciation, and the best dictionary of
+which is Brazilian, have a bad effect upon the literature of the
+country.
+
+The language, more purely Latin in its base than either of the other
+Latin tongues, with an admixture of Moorish, and strengthened by the
+admission of many words of foreign origin, introduced during the period
+of great commercial prosperity, possesses ample means for the expression
+of ideas and of shades of thought, and though it loses somewhat of the
+musical quality of the other languages in consequence of a rather large
+percentage of the nasal tones which are peculiar to it, yet it will hold
+its own well with the remaining members of the group.
+
+Whatever the cause, however, there is hardly any general literature;
+almost the only books (not professional or technical) which are
+published, appear to be translations of French novels--not of the
+highest class. Perhaps in the study of archæology and folklore is to be
+found the most cultured phase of Portuguese intelligence. The
+Archæological Society of Lisbon strives to do good work, and has a
+museum with interesting relics in the old church of the Carmo, itself
+one of the most interesting and graceful ruins left out of the havoc
+caused by the great earthquake.
+
+As might be expected under such circumstances, the newspapers are, with
+few exceptions, of the "rag" variety. Conducted for the most part by
+clever young fellows fresh from Coimbra, they are violent in their views
+and incorrect in their news, especially with regard to foreign
+intelligence. They have some influence, no doubt, but not so much as the
+same type of newspaper in France. The habitual want of veracity of the
+Portuguese character is naturally emphasised in the newspapers, and no
+one in his senses would believe any statement made in them.
+
+A sure sign of the decadence of intellectual life, as well as of
+commercial activity, is to be found in the postal service, with its
+antiquated methods and imperfect arrangements. It is administered in a
+happy-go-lucky manner, which amuses at the same time that it annoys.
+Truly, with the post-office, it is well constantly to repeat to one's
+self the phrase: "Patience! all will be well to-morrow!" Probably it
+won't be well; but none but a foolish Englishman or Frenchman or German
+will bother about such a little matter.
+
+A kindly, brave, docile, dishonest, patient, and courteous people, who,
+to quote Napier "retain a sense of injury or insult with incredible
+tenacity;" and a due observance of their customs and proper politeness
+are so readily met, and friendly advances are so freely proffered, that
+a sojourn amongst them is pleasant enough. I have wondered that the
+tourist has not found his way more into this smiling land, though, no
+doubt, his absence is a matter of congratulation to the traveller in
+these regions. The country has many beauties, the people and their
+costumes are picturesque, and the cost of living--even allowing for a
+considerable percentage of cheating--is not excessive. There is, I
+suppose, a want of the ordinary attractions for the pure tourist or
+globe-trotter. There are churches, monuments, and objects of interest in
+goodly numbers, and there is beautiful scenery in great variety; but the
+true attraction to a thoughtful visitor lies in the contemplation of the
+people themselves.
+
+The Portuguese, taken as a whole, are not a good-looking race. The
+women, who, as a rule, are very pretty as little girls, lose their good
+looks as they grow up, and are disappointing when compared with the
+Spaniards. Sometimes one comes across fish- or market-women of
+considerable comeliness, which, when conjoined to the graceful figure
+and poise induced by the habitual carriage of heavy weights on the head
+and the absence of shoes, makes a striking picture. The costume is
+attractive, and the wealth of golden ear-rings, charms, chains, and such
+like, in which these women invest their savings, does not somehow seem
+anomalous or incongruous, though shown on a background of dirty and
+ragged clothing.
+
+One unfortunate peculiarity that cannot help being noticed is the number
+of persons whose eyes are not on the same level. When this does not
+amount to an actual disfigurement, it is still a blemish which prevents
+many a young girl from being classed as a beauty. This and the peculiar
+notched or cleft teeth seem to point to an hereditary taint. Also
+unmistakable signs of a greater or lesser admixture of black blood are
+numerous. As a rule, the Portuguese are dark-complexioned, with large
+dark eyes and black hair; but, of course, one meets many exceptions. The
+men of the working class are fond of wearing enormous bushy whiskers,
+and women of all classes are accustomed to wear _moustachios_. The thin
+line of softest down which accentuates the ripe lips of the _senhorina_
+of some seventeen summers becomes an unattractive incident in the broad
+countenance of the stout lady of advancing years; and when, as sometimes
+happens, the hirsute appendages take the form of a thin, straggling
+beard, with a tooth-brush moustache, it can only be described as an
+unmitigated horror.
+
+Society in Portugal is very mixed. There are the old _fidalgos_, haughty
+and unapproachable, and often very poor, the descendants of the nobles
+whose duplicity, ability in intrigue, and want of patriotism are so
+often alluded to in the pages of Napier. Then there are the new
+nobility, the "titled Brasileros," as Galenga calls them, who have come
+back from Brazil to their native land with large fortunes acquired
+somehow, and who practically buy titles, as well as lands and houses.
+Wealthy tradesmen, also, hold a special position in the mixed middle
+class. There is, too, a curious blending of old-fashioned courtesy with
+democratic sentiments. The tradesman welcomes his customers with
+effusive politeness--shakes hands as he invites them to sit down, and
+chats with these perhaps titled ladies without any affectation or
+assumption. After a while the parties turn to business. A sort of
+Oriental bargaining takes place, the seller asking twice as much as the
+object is worth and he intends to take. The purchaser meets this with an
+offer of about half what she intends to give. With the utmost politeness
+and civility the negotiations are conducted on either side. Each gives
+way little by little, and in the end a bargain is struck. The amounts
+involved appear to be enormous, as the _reis_ are computed by thousands
+and hundreds; but, then, the _real_ is only worth about the thousandth
+part of three shillings and twopence at the present rate of exchange,
+and the long and exciting transaction, in all its various phases, has
+resulted in one or other of the parties having scored or missed a small
+victory. Verily, even to the loser, the pleasure is cheap at the price.
+
+The Brazilian element is most conspicuous in Lisbon, and partly in
+consequence that city is only a little modern capital, somewhat feebly
+imitating Paris in certain ways, and, consequently, lacking the
+individuality and interest of Oporto. Yet Lisbon has a charm of its own;
+and the beauties of the Aveneida, the Roscio (known to the English as
+the "Rolling Motion Square," from its curious pattern of black and white
+pavement), the Black Horse Square, the broad and beautiful Tagus, the
+hills whereon the city is built, and the lovely gardens with their
+sub-tropical vegetation, will repay a stay of some weeks' duration.
+
+Outside the mercantile element, there is considerable difficulty for a
+stranger to formulate the boundaries of other social strata. It would
+appear that the professions are in an indifferent position. Lawyers, of
+course, as in most other countries, are looked upon as rogues. How far
+this is the effect of the general prejudice, or whether it has any
+special foundation in fact, it would be hard to say. No doubt there are
+upright men amongst them, as in every other walk of life. There is a
+general idea that the medical training is lax, and the doctors, as a
+rule, are not highly considered. It is admitted, however, that they are
+as devoted, and as ready to risk their own lives, as those of other
+countries, a fact which was fully proved by several of the doctors at
+Oporto and Lisbon on the occasion of the outbreak of the plague in 1899.
+
+The system of fees in general use tends to damage the position of both
+lawyers and doctors. In reply to the question as to his indebtedness,
+the client or the patient is told: "What you please." This sounds
+courteous, but is, in effect, embarrassing, as it is hard to estimate
+what is a fair fee under the circumstances, and generally one or the
+other of the parties is dissatisfied, and a sore feeling is left behind.
+
+There are several orders of knighthood, which are showered about on
+occasion. The reasons for giving them are various. For instance, a Court
+tradesman may receive a decoration in lieu of immediate payment of a
+long-standing bill. The ribbons and buttons are not worn so freely as
+elsewhere on the Continent. The polite style in addressing a stranger is
+in the third person, and such titles as Your Excellency, Your Lordship,
+and Your Worship, sometimes enlarged with the adjective _illustrissimo_
+(most illustrious), are common enough. When an Englishman is first
+addressed as _Vossa Illustrissima Excellencia_ (Your Most Illustrious
+Excellency), he begins to feel as if he were playing a part in one of
+Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas. He soon gets used to it, however,
+and accepts the superlatives without turning a hair.
+
+Of all classes it may be said that their manners are, on the whole,
+good, and their morals generally lax. Cleanliness has no special place
+assigned to it amongst the virtues. If it comes next to godliness, then
+the latter must be very low down the scale. It seems incredible, but
+verminous heads are to be found in the ranks of well-to-do tradespeople.
+Fleas and bugs abound, and happy is he whose skin is too tough, or whose
+flesh is too sour, to attract these ferocious insects. There is not much
+luxury and there is a fair amount of thrift, while frugality of living
+is common, especially among the populace.
+
+One great characteristic is the intense love of children which is
+exhibited by all classes, and there is no surer way to the good will of
+a native than a kindness, however slight, to a child in whom he or she
+is interested. As is natural under such circumstances, the children are
+shockingly indulged and spoilt, with all the resultant unpleasant and
+evil consequences. Cats, also, are great favourites with the Portuguese,
+and the thousands of shabby animals of Lisbon and Oporto show no sign of
+fear if a stranger stops to stroke them. They are accustomed to kind
+treatment, and look upon all human beings as friends.
+
+As a rule, a rather large number of servants are employed. They are
+poorly paid, and in many households indifferently fed and housed. Often
+they are dirty, lazy, dishonest sluts. They chatter shrilly with the
+master or mistress, answer and argue when told of any shortcoming, and
+are always ready to go off at a moment's notice. But they are often
+capable of devoted service, and of a sincere desire to be obliging, and
+may always be counted on to exhibit the utmost kindness to the children
+of the house. Their written references, as a rule, are frauds. If you
+ask for the _boas referencias_ (good references), so often mentioned in
+the advertisements of _criadas_ (female servants), you will probably
+find that, even if genuine, they are antiquated, and that they leave
+many gaps between the various periods of service which can only be
+filled up by conjecture. _Criadas_ are not, as a rule, of immaculate
+virtue, and give some trouble by their desire to go to _festas_ and to
+servants' balls. The male servants are, as a rule, better than the
+_criadas_. Servants are somewhat roughly treated, and are ordered about
+as if they were dogs. It is always said that they do not understand or
+appreciate milder or more civil treatment, and are inclined to despise a
+master or mistress who uses the Portuguese equivalent to "please," or
+who acknowledges a service with thanks. I am inclined to doubt this,
+both from my personal observation and from a casual remark made to me by
+the landlady of a hotel at Cintra, that her waiters and servants much
+preferred English to native visitors, because of the greater politeness
+and consideration shown to them by the former. Of course, as in all
+other countries, servants are described as one of the greatest plagues
+in life; but this must be taken for what it is worth. And what would the
+ladies do without such a subject to grumble about?
+
+Portugal is a poor country, despite its natural resources. The wealthy
+people are few, and consist mainly of returned Brazilians. It cannot be
+said, either, that the classes in the enjoyment of a competence
+constitute a fair average of the community. But the poor are very
+abundant. Wages are terribly low, even a foreman in an engineering shop
+getting only a milrei a day, averaging _3s. 2d._ in English money. On
+the other hand, it must be remembered that in such a climate the "living
+wage" is necessarily lower than in England. Many necessities in England
+are superfluities or even inconveniences under sunnier skies. The
+people, too, are very frugal, and even in towns, though rents be high,
+all other necessaries are moderate in price. The standard of life is not
+high, and the people are contented with a style of living which would be
+indignantly rejected by English labourers.
+
+The artisans are not good workmen, but plod on fairly well, and, with
+the exception of _festas_, require few holidays. They prefer to work on
+Sundays, and grumble at their English employers, who generally split the
+difference, by closing their shops for half a day. They look upon this
+as a grievance, however much they may be assured that it makes no
+difference in their wages.
+
+[Illustration: A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA]
+
+A very hard-working class of men are the Gallegos, the natives of
+Galicia, who are nearly as numerous in Lisbon as they were when Napier
+wrote, and where, then as now, they act as porters, messengers,
+scavengers, and water-carriers, and are found in all sorts of lowly
+and laborious occupations. As porters and messengers, they have an
+excellent reputation for honesty, and for being most civil and obliging.
+Gallenga, a fairly shrewd observer, considers that the employment of
+these Spaniards has deplorable effects on the character of the
+Portuguese nation. I cannot go all the way with him in the gloomy view
+he takes of it, but it must be conceded that the existence of such a
+body of aliens (estimated at twelve thousand in Lisbon alone) working
+hard and well at occupations which the Portuguese will not do at all,
+or, if they attempt them, will do indifferently; herding together some
+ten or twelve in a small room, living on maize bread and a clove of
+garlic washed down with water; accepting thankfully a very attenuated
+hire, and yet contriving to send substantial savings back to
+Galicia,--must considerably affect the labour market and tend to keep
+wages low. They also close certain forms of labour to the native worker,
+and cause these industries to be looked on with contempt.
+
+In towns like Lisbon and Oporto a great number of persons are employed
+in the fish trade. The fish-girls, with their distinctive costumes,
+their bare feet, and the graceful poise of the heavy basket of fish on
+their heads, are a very characteristic feature of both towns. The
+costumes differ in the two cities, mainly in the head-gear, but they are
+both picturesque and dirty, and emit the same "ancient and fish-like
+smell." The men, too, with their bare legs and feet, balancing a long
+pole on the shoulder, with a basket of fish at each end, will cover a
+marvellous amount of ground in a day at the curious trotting pace which
+they affect. Miles inland these men will carry their finny wares,
+stopping at the public water-supplies to moisten the cloth which
+protects the fish from the sun and dust. These may or may not be fresh
+when the day's work is nearly done, but housewives purchasing a supply
+in the afternoon had better keep a very sharp look-out.
+
+Fish plays an important part in the domestic economy of dwellers within
+a reasonable distance of the sea, and forms a considerable item in the
+food-stuffs of the working classes. It is fairly cheap, and is cooked so
+as to get the full value of it. More important than the fresh fish is
+the salted cod (_bacalhao_). This, which Napier described as "the
+ordinary food of the Portuguese," is the backbone of the worker's
+_menu_. It is not fragrant, nor is it inviting in aspect in its raw
+state, but it is said to be highly nutritive, and it can certainly be
+cooked in ways which make it appetising. The midday meal, which the wife
+brings to her husband at his work, and shares with him as they sit in
+the shade, is often composed of a _caldo_ (soup) made of _bacalhao_, or
+of all sorts of oddments, thickened with beans and flavoured with
+garlic, accompanied by a bit of rye-bread or of _broa_, the bread made
+from maize. These soups and breads, accompanied by salads, onions,
+tomatoes, and other vegetables, washed down with draughts of a light red
+table-wine of little alcoholic strength, form the not unwholesome
+average diet of the worker with his hands. If he wants to get drunk, he
+can do so, with some difficulty, by imbibing sufficient wine, but the
+easiest method is to drink the fearful crude spirit _aguardente_. If he
+survives, he gets horribly, brutally drunk, and possibly does some
+mischief before he recovers. But it is only fair to say that he but
+rarely gets drunk, and that when he is thirsty he quenches his thirst
+with water, with a harmless decoction of herbs or lemonade, or with the
+almost innocuous wine. This sobriety is not the result of any temperance
+legislation or restrictions. No license is required for opening a shop
+for the sale of liquor. Only revenue dues and _octroi_ duties have to be
+paid, and, of course, there is a liability to police supervision, which
+provides the police with a means of increasing their very inadequate pay
+by bribes or blackmail.
+
+The amusements of the workman in the town are few enough, and mostly of
+a domestic character. He sits on his doorstep, or on a bench in the
+nearest gardens. He smokes the eternal cigarette, gossips with his
+neighbours, plays with his children, and pets the cat. His only real
+playtimes are the _festas_, when for some hours he indulges in
+revelry--if, indeed, it be worthy of such a title. He reads the
+newspaper but little,--if he can read at all,--which is, perhaps, a
+good thing for him, and he is generally a Republican. This Republicanism
+is mostly academic, but the "red" type is not wanting, and a fiery
+spirit might be roused at any time, with consequences that cannot be
+foreseen. Of course, the younger men tinkle the guitar, and make love
+more or less openly to the girls. When age overtakes a man or misfortune
+overpowers him, there is no poor law to take him in charge, but there
+are extensive and well-organised charities in every centre which are
+eager and willing to assist those who are temporarily afflicted, and to
+afford sustenance--a bare sustenance, perhaps--to those who are
+permanently disabled.
+
+The amusements of the town--the theatre, the concert, and the opera--do
+not affect the workman much; his budget does not allow of such
+indulgence, except on the occasion of a free performance. Though they
+are fairly musical and love the theatre, the Portuguese have no really
+æsthetic side to their character. There is a queer song and dance,
+topical and rather broad, the _chula_, the somewhat monotonous refrain
+of which is to be heard everywhere and at all hours, and from all
+manners of lips. The washerwomen kneeling by the brook bang the
+unfortunate clothes on the flat stones in rhythm with the tune, and
+beguile the time with the interminable song. It arises in unexpected
+places, and is a fairly sure item in the gathering of the younger folk,
+both in towns and villages, in the cool of the evening. Concerts and
+theatres are fairly patronised by the more moneyed classes, but the
+performances are not, as a rule, of a very high calibre. There is a
+subsidised theatre at Lisbon, but it does little to elevate the dramatic
+art elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+PORTUGUESE INSTITUTIONS
+
+
+The Portuguese army is raised by conscription, each parish, according to
+size, having to contribute an annual quota of young men between twenty
+and twenty-one years of age. These have to serve three consecutive years
+with the colours, and then pass into the reserve for another ten years.
+During the latter period no conscript can leave the country without a
+passport. In time of peace the army is supposed to number about thirty
+thousand men, and on the war footing should consist of about one hundred
+and twenty thousand men and two hundred and sixty-four guns. The men,
+who in summer wear brown holland clothes, look hardy enough, and,
+according to ordinary report, are worthy of the plucky _caçadores_ of
+the Peninsular War, who, according to Napier, made most excellent
+soldiers when properly led. It is still said of the Portuguese soldier
+that with three beans in his pocket he can march and fight for a week
+without making any further demands upon the commissariat department.
+This military service does not affect the nation much, either morally
+or physically, and the only economical effect is probably that it
+provides a fruitful source of plunder to corrupt officials. As any man
+can free himself of the three years' service with the colours by paying
+a sum of about £24, it may be imagined what an opening this affords for
+special peculation.
+
+The navy consists of about five thousand men, and of a few modern
+war-ships, and of some old boats whose seaworthiness is questionable.
+The best ship at present on the list is the cruiser _Dom Carlos_, which
+was sent to take part in the naval pageant which formed the first
+portion of the funeral of Queen Victoria. The sailors, who are much to
+be seen in Lisbon, where the great naval barracks are situated, look
+smart enough, and as the Portuguese have always been good sailors, it
+may safely be predicted that, in case of necessity, they will make the
+most of the limited means at their disposal, or of such of them as have
+not been utterly ruined by official indifference or worse.
+
+In the towns one meets men in various employments, such as the police,
+who have served in the army, and still retain some sort of soldierly
+appearance, but once get into the country, and it is vain to look for
+any evidence of military service amongst the rural population.
+
+The country-folk are a patient lot; most of them ruminants, like their
+own oxen. Sleepy always, and slow in their movements, they are often
+devoted to the farm, or _quinta_, on which they work, and are, perhaps,
+slightly more honest than their fellows in the towns. They are frugal
+enough, and enjoy their huge junks of dark bread, washed down with
+water, at their midday meal, and a sound sleep under the shade of an
+orange tree or a eucalyptus, or a bit of a wall, until it is necessary
+to begin work again. The peasant costumes are not inviting; they are
+simply squalid. Costumes in the towns are much better. Still, on festal
+days the village women deck themselves out with bright-hued shawls, and
+the men wind brighter scarfs round their waists to keep up their
+patchwork trousers, and thus relieve what would otherwise be the
+intolerable dinginess of the whole scene. The farmer himself, mounted on
+his mule, with high-peaked saddle and enormous wooden stirrups decorated
+with brass, his cloak, with the bright scarlet or blue lining folded
+outwards, strapped on in front, with his short jacket and broad-brimmed
+hat, offers a smart and typical figure.
+
+In town or country, the beautiful oxen are worthy of admiration. They
+are the most satisfactory of all the rural animals. Horses, shabby and
+attenuated, little sheep of a colour from black to dirty grey, showing
+affinity to goats, and having neither the grace of the latter nor the
+sleepy comeliness of our own sheep, black and white cows whose points
+would not be much thought of by judges at an agricultural show, goats of
+all sorts of breeds, and finally pigs of a most lanky and uninviting
+appearance, form the stock of the farms. Heaps of chickens of all sorts
+run about everywhere, and enjoy fine dust-baths by the side of the road.
+
+The aspect of the country varies much between north and south. In the
+former, one sees real grass and hedges, and the bright flowers that are
+common everywhere look all the better for their green background. The
+commonest hedge in the south, and occasionally in the north, is made of
+a few layers of stones loosely laid together with a row of aloe plants
+on the top. These grow formidable in time, with huge sharp-pointed
+leaves, and they present a curious appearance when at intervals in such
+a row plants send up their huge flowering stems from nine to twelve feet
+high, looking at a little distance like telegraph poles.
+
+Despite the squalid clothes of the peasants, there are many picturesque
+aspects of rural life. The driving of large herds of cattle by mounted
+men, armed with long goads, is an interesting as well as an artistic
+sight, and the same may be said of the primitive agricultural
+occupations. The crops are harvested with a sickle, and you may wake up
+some morning to see the field opposite your house invaded by some twenty
+to thirty reapers, men and women, boys and girls, patiently sawing their
+way through the wheat or barley, or whatever it is. The corn is threshed
+out with the flail, or trodden out by the oxen--all operations fair to
+look upon. Forms of cultivation interesting to watch are the very
+primitive ploughing, the hoeing of the maize, and all those connected
+with the culture of the vines and the orange and other fruit trees, and
+especially the irrigation, which is so important to these latter. In
+fact, one of the most charming of rural sights is the old water-wheel,
+groaning and creaking as it is turned by the patient ox or mule or pony,
+splashing the cool water from the well out of its earthen pots--each
+with a hole in the bottom--and discharging it into the trough leading to
+the irrigation channels or to the reservoir from which the water may
+afterwards be let off in the required direction.
+
+But agriculture is not always so backward and primitive. There are great
+landowners and large farmers who use the newest and best agricultural
+implements. The Government does what it can to encourage the use of
+artificial manures, and there are societies which render important
+services to agriculturists and to fruit-growers. Amid such labours live
+the quiet country-folk. They have no thought of anything; they have no
+special amusements beyond an occasional _festa_ and a dance. They sit
+round the village well in the evening, and when not talking scandal,
+tell stories about--"Once upon a time there was a poor widow with one or
+more daughters," or "There was once a king's son"--often a Moorish
+king. The old well-known tales reappear, modified to the Portuguese
+character and morality.
+
+The following is a story taken from Braga's excellent book: "There was,
+once upon a time, a poor widow that had only one daughter. This girl,
+going out to bathe in the river with her companions on St. John's eve,
+at the advice of one of her friends, placed her ear-rings on the top of
+a stone, lest she should lose them in the water. While she was playing
+about in the river an old man passed along, who, seeing the ear-rings,
+took them and placed them in a leather bag he was carrying. The poor
+child was much grieved at this, and ran after the old man, who consented
+to restore her belongings if she would search for them inside his sack.
+This the girl did, and forthwith the artful old man closed the mouth of
+the bag and carried her off therein. He subsequently told her that she
+must help him to gain a living, and that whenever he recited--
+
+    'Sing, sack,
+    Else thou wilt be beaten with a stick!'
+
+she was to sing lustily. Wherever they came he placed his sack on the
+ground, and addressed the above formula to it, when the poor girl sang
+as loud as she could:
+
+    'I am placed in this sack,
+    Where my life I shall lose,
+    For love of my ear-rings,
+    Which I left in the stream.'
+
+The old man obtained much money from the audiences attracted by his
+singing leather bag. The authorities of one town, however, became
+suspicious, and, examining the sack while its owner was asleep, found
+and released the child. They filled up the bag with all the filth they
+could pick up, and left it where they had found it. The little girl was
+sent back to her mother. When the old man woke next morning, and took
+out the sack to earn his breakfast, the usual incantation had no effect,
+and when he applied the threatened stick the bag burst, and all the
+filth came out, which he was compelled to lick up by the enraged
+populace." At the close of the story the cigarettes glow, the white
+teeth gleam, the bushy whiskers wag, the old women chuckle, the girls
+giggle, and the youths snigger, and as the short twilight is now over,
+the group breaks up, and each vanishes into his or her own
+vermin-pasture to sleep until _amanhã_ has actually become to-day, and
+the sun shines on another exact repetition of yesterday.
+
+The Portuguese are superstitious, and are devout up to a certain point,
+and the clerics are exceedingly intolerant. In the morning one sees, as
+in all Roman Catholic countries, devout worshippers kneeling about in
+the churches before their favourite shrines, but, unlike the practice of
+most Roman Catholic countries, the churches are closed at or about noon
+for the most part, and are only open for special masses after that time.
+The procession of the Host is greeted with most extreme reverence, and
+whether it be in the fashionable Chiado at Lisbon or along a country
+lane, all uncover and make the sign of the cross, and many, even
+fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen, kneel down and bow themselves
+humbly as the sacred wafer passes by, borne by the gorgeously vested
+priest; at least, in the cities the vestments are gorgeous, and a long
+train of acolytes and attendants makes the procession imposing, but in
+the country the vestments are often mildewed and decayed, and the one or
+two rustic attendants are not dignified in appearance. Still, the sacred
+symbol is the same, and the reverence and the devotion are the same.
+
+There is an excessive hierarchy for the size of the country, there being
+in Portugal proper three ecclesiastical provinces, ruled respectively by
+the Patriarch of Lisbon and by the Archbishops of Braga and Evora.
+Besides these, there is the colonial province which is ruled by the
+Archbishop of Goa, Archpriests and other dignitaries abound, so that a
+priest has something to look forward to in the way of promotion; and
+yet, as a rule, the priests perform their duties without zeal and in a
+slovenly manner. One often hears it said that their behaviour and their
+morality leave much to be desired. There are among them gentlemen of
+blameless life and even of ascetic practices, but it is commonly
+reported that, as a whole, they are of inferior birth and education. It
+is not easy for a stranger to form any opinion on these points, but it
+must be conceded that their appearance is generally suggestive of the
+truth of the statement, and it may be admitted that there is an undue
+proportion of ignoble and sensuous faces amongst them.
+
+Funerals are occasions of great pomp, and are often picturesque enough,
+while the masses for the dead at intervals after and on the anniversary
+are, no doubt, profitable to the Church. By attending these one has a
+good opportunity of testifying to the esteem in which the deceased was
+held, or to one's good will towards the family or representatives. These
+masses are generally advertised in the papers, with thanks to those
+friends who have attended funeral masses. As there is scarcely any
+intellectual activity in Portugal, there is practically no religious
+thought. A dull acquiescence in the dictates of the Church may be
+crossed by an occasional gleam of rebellion against sacerdotalism,
+roused by some temporary stirring up of the hatred felt against the
+Jesuits. But it in no way alters the habitual attitude of the people
+towards religion and its outward manifestations. One thing is certain,
+and that is that in town or country a man or a woman must be in the
+lowest depths of poverty and distress to refuse to throw a few _reis_
+into the bags of the licensed mendicants who, bareheaded, and clad in
+scarlet or white gowns, go round soliciting alms for the support of the
+churches on whose behalf they are sent out.
+
+As is customary in most countries, the women are more amenable to
+religious influences than the men, and are more under the dominion of
+the priest. This is not likely to be altered yet awhile, for, under the
+present system of education and bringing up, the female portion of the
+community is not only not intellectual, but may even be described as
+being unintelligent. They are slovenly, and cannot be described as good
+housewives. They are pleasure-loving and garrulous, though this latter
+trait is not, I suppose, a specially national characteristic. They do
+much hard work, especially in the fields. In the classes above (if
+_above_ be the proper word) the hand-workers, the young girls are still
+kept very strictly, and are not allowed to go out alone. Their knowledge
+of life is limited to the view from the windows of their homes, where
+they may be seen looking out on the street scenes below whenever the
+shade allows them to stand at the window or on the balcony. No "new
+woman" movement of any importance has yet taken place, and though there
+are modifications in woman's position in the national life, it is
+probable that it will take one if not more generations before women in
+Portugal achieve the emancipation which their sisters have attained in
+more progressive countries.
+
+In one circumstance, however, woman does take her place by the side of
+man, and that is in the bull-ring--not, indeed, in the arena, but in
+every part of the amphitheatre, from the worst seats on the sunny side
+to the costly boxes in the shade. She takes as great an interest in the
+bull-fight as the man, and if she does not shout and swear, or fling her
+hat into the ring in her enthusiasm, she delights probably more than the
+man in the beauty of the spectacle, and appreciates almost as fully the
+feats of skill and daring which give such special attraction to the
+national pastime. This is a right royal sport, and as in Portugal the
+horrid cruelty which defaces it in Spain is absent, there is no
+overwhelming reason why the women should not sit and applaud the
+picturesque scene and the exhibitions of pluck and agility shown by the
+performers.
+
+The scene is really magnificent, and the enthusiasm of the audience must
+be witnessed in order to understand the underlying potentialities of the
+Portuguese character. The vile abuse of a bull who will not show fight
+is comical to listen to. Probably, in such a case, the bull has been
+through it all before, and he does not care to make wild rushes at
+cloaks which have nothing substantial behind them. So he paws up the
+sand and looks theatrical, but refuses to budge. Then a nimble
+_bandarilhero_ faces him, and fixes a pair of _bandarilhas_ in his
+neck--one on each side if he can manage it. This is unpleasant, no
+doubt, but the bull's former experience tells him that it is not
+serious, and not even very painful. It was irritating the first time,
+but no well-bred bull should condescend to be upset by such a trifle.
+Another pair of _bandarilhas_, and yet another, are fixed into his
+shoulders by their barbed points--or the attempt is made to fix them.
+Then the bull begins to play the game in a condescending sort of way.
+Then the great man, the _espada_ himself, comes on the scene, and
+arranges and waves his scarlet flag, and walks up to the obstinate
+animal, perhaps flicks him in the nostrils with his pocket-handkerchief
+and calls him _vacca_ (cow)! At last, seemingly out of good nature, the
+bull rushes at the red flag, has the highly decorated dart stuck between
+his shoulders, by the daring _espada_ who may perform some other feat,
+listens to the applause, and laughs to himself when he hears the
+bugle-call and sees the trained oxen rush in with their long bells and
+their attendant herdsmen, and with more or less of a frolicsome air he
+trots out of the arena in their company and, having had his sore
+shoulders attended to, and having had a good feed, chews the cud with a
+pleasant reminiscence of the afternoon's work. It is a mistake not to
+kill the bull, which is not cruel in itself, but which would prevent
+some rather tiresome interludes when a knowing old bull refuses to be
+coaxed into playing his part of the game.
+
+Far different, however, is the scene when a really spirited bull comes
+in with a rush and charges wildly at the brightly attired performers,
+and makes them skip over the barrier, often leaving their cloaks behind
+them. Sometimes the bull skips over too, and then there is a most
+amusing scene, as performers, attendants, and all vault back over the
+barrier into the ring itself. When the _espada_ finally performs his
+courageous feat under such conditions, he obtains such an ovation as his
+skill deserves. Hats of all sorts and shapes are cast to him in the
+arena, which he has to pick up and throw or hand back to the admirers
+who testify their satisfaction in this curious manner. Cigars, also, are
+thrown at the successful bull-fighter's feet, and these he keeps. The
+most famous _espadas_ are all Spaniards, and they all wear the
+traditional dress of their calling. If, on the one hand, there is not
+the thrill of the actual killing of the bull, on the other there are no
+miserable old horses to be ripped up, and no smell of blood. Next to the
+actual bull-fights come the selections of the young bulls from the
+herds, when the members of the Tauromachian Societies exhibit their
+skill, and where many a gay young fellow gets much knocked about in
+exhibiting his agility or the want of it.
+
+Other sports cannot be said to have any marked existence. Dancing is a
+national amusement, and a few of the Anglicised Portuguese go in for
+cricket and lawn-tennis. Cycling, though not unknown, is far from
+common, the roads being, as a rule, much too bad for comfortable or even
+for safe riding.
+
+Local and provincial government leaves much to be desired in Portugal.
+The keeping up of the roads is inconceivably bad. A royal road (_estrada
+real_) is generally the worst of all, and, with such an example before
+them, it is not to be wondered at that local authorities neglect their
+duties in this matter.
+
+"No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want of
+good police regulations." This quotation from Napier might very well be
+written to-day, and extended to include all Portuguese towns. Perhaps it
+is fair to say that it is not so much the regulations that are at fault
+as the incompetence and indifference of each local authority, which
+irresistibly suggest that corruption alone can account for such a mass
+of evil. The administrative machine is elaborate, and ought to be more
+effective. First, there is the district, ruled by the Civil Governor, an
+officer somewhat resembling a French prefect, with its corporate body
+known as the District Commission. There are seventeen districts, which
+are subdivided into two hundred and sixty-two communes. The head of a
+commune is the Administrator, and the corporation is known as the
+Municipal Chamber. The last subdivision is that of the communes into
+parishes, of which there are three thousand seven hundred and
+thirty-five. Each of these has as its head an officer called a
+_regedor_, and occupies the attention of a _junta de parochia_, or
+parish council.
+
+The scavenging, sanitation, watering, paving, and all the other works
+which fall within the sphere of the municipality or local authority are
+defective and neglected. The one bright point, both in Oporto and
+Lisbon, is the care, skill, and attention with which the public gardens
+and squares are tended. The palms, tree-ferns, cacti, and other
+semi-tropical and sub-tropical plants are beautiful in themselves, and
+are arranged and intermingled with other trees and shrubs in a most
+artistic manner. The grass (upon which no one, of course, may walk) is
+kept green by constant watering, and affords a delightful contrast to
+the generally dry and dusty aspect of the city. Another organisation
+which is generally efficient and well conducted is that of the fire
+brigades. The municipal firemen--the _bombeiros_--are often stimulated
+by a healthy rivalry with the volunteer brigades, which are numerous,
+well found, and, as a rule, well managed. The latter are often centres
+of good charitable work outside their actual fire service, and they are
+valuable as offering a fair and worthy opportunity for the display of
+sound public spirit and good feeling.
+
+Though Portuguese laws are, as a rule, admirable in themselves, the
+administration thereof is bad in the extreme, and the judiciary have a
+reputation for turpitude remarkable even amongst the recognised
+corruption of all officials. In Portugal proper there are two judicial
+districts--that of Lisbon and that of Oporto. Each has a high court
+known as a _Relação_, and there are inferior courts of various styles
+and titles. Above all is the Supreme Tribunal of Justice at Lisbon,
+which is the final court of appeal, and the reputation of which is
+somewhat better than that of any other tribunal. The administration of
+criminal justice is naturally amongst the worst. According to common
+repute, the only consideration with the judges is how they are to get
+the costs paid--whether they are more likely to obtain them through an
+acquittal, which throws them on the prosecutor, or by a conviction.
+Also, it is generally said that the police themselves are recruited from
+amongst the very lowest classes.
+
+The prisons are described as being something awful, only to be equalled
+in Morocco and savage countries. In the market-place of beautiful Cintra
+stands the prison, against the barred windows of which crowd the
+prisoners, begging for money, cigarettes, and food, which are supplied
+to them through the prison bars by their friends and sympathisers, and
+by soft-hearted people. Those who are incarcerated in the upper story
+have baskets, which they lower by means of strings, so that they may be
+supplied in the same manner. This seems to have amused Miss Leck
+(_Iberian Sketches_, Chap. VI.), but it assumes a much more serious
+aspect when one considers that in those filthy dens all the prisoners
+are huddled together--old men and boys, the murderer and the petty
+thief, habitual criminals and unfortunate persons taken into custody on
+mere suspicion, or charged with an alleged breach of some police or
+even railway regulation; for it must be remembered that a station-master
+has nearly the same power as a policeman in taking a person into
+custody. "No one shall be put in prison," says the Portuguese code,
+"except under special circumstances"; but when the exceptions are
+considered, they are found to cover nearly every abuse of authority on
+the part of the pettiest official which can be conceived. Hence, all
+persons are obliged to submit to gross injustice and to a certain amount
+of blackmail if they wish to avoid the noisome experiences of a
+Portuguese gaol.
+
+The Portuguese must be undoubtedly "of a docile and orderly
+disposition," as Napier says, or the crying injustices to which they
+submit with such patience would lead them to revolt; and if this were to
+happen, who could attempt to predict what excesses would be left
+uncommitted by a violent southron mob whose passions had been roused to
+such a pitch of activity? Perhaps _paciencia_ and _amanhã_ have their
+utility, and enable the people to bear the ills they have. They can even
+joke and caricature themselves, and though the comic journals are
+neither brilliant nor artistic, they show, at least, that a sense of
+humour is still left in our Lusitanian friends.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+    Academies, 238, 243
+
+    Actors, 242
+
+    Agriculture, 167 _et seq._
+
+    Alfonso XII., 28, 104, 144, 268, 273
+
+    Alfonso XIII., 98, 272
+
+    Amadeo, King, 143
+
+    American War, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Amusements, 111 _et seq._
+
+    Andaluces, 33
+
+    Andalucia, 33
+
+    Apostolic party, 9
+
+    Aragon, 29
+
+    Army, 183 _et seq._
+
+    Art, 236 _et seq._
+
+    Artillery, 187
+
+    Artistic furniture, 176
+
+    Arts and crafts, 175, 176
+
+    Asturian nurses, 27
+
+    Asturias, 26
+
+    Asturias, Princess of, 103, 219
+
+    Austrian kings, 15, 21, 22
+
+    _Autos-da-fé_, 18, 200, 201
+
+
+    Bank of Spain, 265
+
+    Barcelona, 266
+
+    Basque Provinces, 26, 27, 188
+
+    Basques, 28
+
+    Beggars, 226
+
+    Berwick y Alva, Duke of, 184
+
+    Bilbao, 11, 161, 177, 178, 266
+
+    _Boletin de la Cámara de Comercio_, 163, 265
+
+    _Bueyes_, 28
+
+    Bull-fighters, 126 _et seq._
+
+    Bulls, 95 _et seq._
+
+    Bureaucracy, 148, 156
+
+
+    _Cabestros_, 95
+
+    Caciqueism, 145, 148 _et seq._
+
+    Cæsars, Spanish, 11, 12
+
+    _Camarilla_, 6
+
+    Campoamor, 61
+
+    Cánovas del Castillo, 136
+
+    Capital, 174, 175
+
+    Carlos, Don, 7, 9, 10
+
+    Carriages, 88-90
+
+    Casa de Campo, 84, 85
+
+    Castelar, 139 _et seq._
+
+    _Castellano_, 266
+
+    Castile, 31
+
+    Castilians, 11, 25, 32
+
+    Catalans, 25
+
+    Cataluña, 17, 175, 266
+
+    Cats, 79 _et seq._
+
+    Cervantes, 47, 48
+
+    Cervera, Admiral, 47, 190, 193
+
+    _Cesantes_, 145-147
+
+    Characteristics, 38 _et seq._, 260
+
+    Charitable institutions, 227
+
+    Charles III., 22
+
+    Charles V., 14
+
+    Children, 233
+
+    Church, the, 9, 199
+
+    Cigar industry, 177
+
+    Clerical question, 21, 221, 272
+
+    Climate of Madrid, 65 _et seq._
+
+    Climates of Spain, 167, 170
+
+    Cock-fighting, 112
+
+    Colonies, 147
+
+    Commerce, 156 _et seq._
+
+    Concas Palan, 190
+
+    Confessional, 218, 222, 223
+
+    Conscription, 188
+
+    Constitution, 154
+
+    Consumption, 67, 68
+
+    Costume, national, 78, 79
+
+    Courage, 42 _et seq._
+
+    Court, 97 _et seq._
+
+    Cristina, Queen, 9, 98
+
+    Cuba, 147, 195
+
+
+    Dance and song, 113 _et seq._
+
+    Dances, modern, 58, 59
+
+    Dances, national, 112 _et seq._
+
+    Dances, religious, 208
+
+    Daoiz y Valarde, 46
+
+    Democratic feeling, 6, 39
+
+    Dignity, 38
+
+    Donkeys, 90, 92
+
+    _Dos de Mayo_, 45
+
+    Drama, modern, 209, 240 _et seq._
+
+    Dramas, religious, 209-212
+
+    Dress of Spanish women, 62
+
+
+    Echegaray, 241
+
+    Education, 159, 213
+
+    Electra, 219, 242
+
+    Electrical science, 214
+
+    Elephant and bull, 126
+
+    Emperors, Roman, 12
+
+    _Empleomania_, 145, 146, 152
+
+    Engineers, 214
+
+    Espinosa, Monteros de, 102
+
+    Estremadura, 32
+
+    Etiquette of Spanish Court, 100 _et seq._
+
+    Exports, 177
+
+
+    Factories, 175, 176, 266
+
+    Ferdinand and Isabella, 5, 13, 15
+
+    Ferdinand VII., 8, 22
+
+    _Feria_ of Seville, 34
+
+    Fertility of soil, 73
+
+    _Fiestas_, 116, 206
+
+    Flowers, 73
+
+    Folklore, 253 _et seq._
+
+    Ford, 51
+
+    French influence, 173
+
+    Fuente Castellana, 78
+
+    _Fueros_, 10, 28, 188
+
+    _Fueros_ of Aragon, 29
+
+
+    Gala procession, 108, 109
+
+    Galdós, 219, 248
+
+    Galicia, 25, 26
+
+    Gallegos, 26, 87
+
+    Games, national, 111
+
+    Gayangos, 246
+
+    Geographical features, 178
+
+    Gloriosa, La, 10, 262
+
+    Goths, 12, 24
+
+    Government, 142 _et seq._
+
+    Government, local, 153
+
+    Grandes of Spain, 100
+
+    Guitar, 113, 238
+
+
+    Hippodrome, 62
+
+    Horse-racing, 125
+
+    Horses, 91 _et seq._
+
+
+    Iberian rejon, 118
+
+    Iberian unity, 251
+
+    Incas, 18
+
+    Independence, War of, 45
+
+    Industries, 161, 263 _et seq._
+
+    Infantas, 54, 103, 106
+
+    Influence of the Press, 129
+
+    Inquisition, 19, 199, 200, 271
+
+    Irrigated land, 172
+
+    Irrigation, 171 _et seq._
+
+    Isabel II., 6, 53, 107, 207
+
+    Isabel la Católica, 5, 8, 15, 29, 270
+
+
+    Jaime, Don, 8
+
+    _Jota Aragonesa_, 114
+
+    Jesuits, 199, 213, 217, 218, 220 _et seq._, 272
+
+    Journalists, 130
+
+
+    King Alfonso XIII., 272, 273
+
+    Kings, Austrian, 21, 22
+
+    Kings, Bourbon, 8, 22, 118
+
+
+    Labour, 174
+
+    Lace, 165
+
+    Lagartijo, 122 _et seq._
+
+    Land and people, 1
+
+    Land laws, 173
+
+    Landscape round Madrid, 71, 72
+
+    Land value, 172
+
+    Language, 266 _et seq._
+
+    Literature, modern, 246 _et seq._
+
+
+    Madrazo, 239, 244
+
+    Madrid, modern, 77
+
+    Madrid, old, 77
+
+    _Mañana_, 52, 74, 195, 197
+
+    Manners, 40
+
+    Mantilla, 79
+
+    Manufactures, 164, 165, 175 _et seq._
+
+    Manzanares, 83
+
+    Marriage customs, 229 _et seq._
+
+    Medical science, 215
+
+    Meetings, political, 138
+
+    Mendizábal, 9, 23
+
+    Metal work, 176
+
+    Military system, 183 _et seq._
+
+    Mineral wealth, 160 _et seq._
+
+    Montpensier, Duke of, 104 _et seq._
+
+    Moors, 17 _et seq._
+
+    Mules, 90, 188, 255
+
+    Music, 81, 236
+
+
+    Narvaez, 249
+
+    National feeling, 184, 185, 193
+
+    National games, 31
+
+    Navy, 47, 189 _et seq._
+
+    Newspapers, 132 _et seq._
+
+    Nicknames, 106
+
+    _Noche Buena_, 108
+
+
+    Orders, religious, 203, 213, 219, 221, 272
+
+    Ostriches, 85
+
+    Outlook, 260 _et seq._
+
+    Oxen, draught, 94
+
+
+    Pacing horses, 90
+
+    Painters, 239 _et seq._
+
+    Palace Royal, 61
+
+    _Palaciö_, 23
+
+    Pardo Bazan, 251
+
+    Pardo, el, 85
+
+    Parque de Madrid, 71
+
+    _Pasos_, 210
+
+    Passion plays, 209, 212
+
+    Pavía, 140
+
+    _Pavo, pelando el_, 230
+
+    Peasants, 24 _et seq._
+
+    Pelayo, 61
+
+    _Pelota_, 31, 111
+
+    People, 38 _et seq._
+
+    Philip II., 16, 202, 271
+
+    Pigs, 166, 167
+
+    Poetry, 114, 268
+
+    Politeness, national, 39, 40, 51, 52
+
+    Political parties, 7, 134 _et seq._
+
+    Politicians, 50, 135
+
+    _Pollos_ and _pollas_, 88, 89
+
+    Ports and harbours, 178
+
+    Pottery, 175, 176
+
+    Poverty, 226
+
+    Press, 129 _et seq._
+
+    Priesthood, 199, 218
+
+    Prim, 142-144
+
+    Procrastination, 52
+
+    Productive land, 172
+
+    _Pronunciamientos_, 144, 145, 147, 186
+
+    Protestants, 216
+
+    Pyrenees, 25, 30
+
+
+    Queen Cristina, 97, 98, 103
+
+    Queen Mercédes, 97, 106
+
+    _Quemadero_, 20, 201
+
+    Quijote, Don, 48
+
+    Quixotic characteristics, 48
+
+
+    Race, 24
+
+    Railways, 157 _et seq._
+
+    Regent, 9, 98, 145
+
+    Religion, 37, 109, 198 _et seq._
+
+    Republic, 139, 141
+
+    Restoration, 144
+
+    Revolution, 10, 262
+
+    Rice, 161
+
+    Riding, 89
+
+    Roads, 180
+
+    Roman Spain, 11, 12
+
+    Romero Robledo, 136, 137
+
+
+    Sagasta, 151
+
+    _Sala_, 33
+
+    Salic Law, 8, 9
+
+    Schools, 159, 160
+
+    _Seises, los_, 208, 209
+
+    Sericulture, 164
+
+    Serrano, 105
+
+    Sheep, merino, 32, 166
+
+    Shipping, 178
+
+    Silk manufactures, 16, 164
+
+    Silvela, 151
+
+    Smoking, 36, 60
+
+    Society, 55 _et seq._
+
+    Songs, 33, 81, 82, 114, 238
+
+    Songs and dancing, 114
+
+    Spanish-American War, I, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Sugar industry, 168
+
+    Superstitions popular, 102, 205, 233
+
+
+    Teatro Real, 62
+
+    Telegraphic system, 181
+
+    Terror of 1824, 22
+
+    _Tertulia_, 56 _et seq._
+
+    Theatres, 62, 116
+
+    Tobacco, 177
+
+    Toledo, 15
+
+    Toothpicks, 63
+
+    _Toreros_, 121
+
+    _Tribunal de las Aguas_, 34
+
+
+    Universities, 159
+
+    _Usted, de_, 98
+
+
+    Valencia, 34
+
+    Valera, Juan, 61
+
+    _Velo_, 79
+
+    Verse-making, 257
+
+    Virgin, 37, 203
+
+
+    War of Independence, 45 _et seq._
+
+    War, Spanish-American, 1, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Wars, Carlist, 9
+
+    Water, want of, 169
+
+    Wellington, Duke of, 26
+
+    Weyler, General, 186
+
+    Wines, 162 _et seq._
+
+    Women, 53, 62, 229 _et seq._, 249
+
+    Wood-carving, 176
+
+    Woollen manufactures, 164
+
+    Working men, 21, 83, 241, 261
+
+
+    _Zarzuela_, 116
+
+    Zorilla, 122, 252
+
+    _Zortico zorisco_, 115
+
+
+PORTUGUESE LIFE
+
+    Agriculture, 301, 302
+
+    Aloes, 301
+
+    _Amanhã_, 280
+
+    Amusements, 296, 302
+
+    Army, 298
+
+    Artisan class, 292
+
+
+    _Bacalhao_, 294
+
+    Bargaining, love of, 287
+
+    Brazilian elements, 287-291
+
+    Bull-fighting, 307 _et seq._
+
+
+    Camoens, 281
+
+    Characteristics, 278 _et seq._, 284, 285
+
+    Charities, 296
+
+    _Chula_, 296
+
+    Cleanliness, 289
+
+    Coimbra, 283
+
+    Costumes, 285, 300
+
+    Customs, 285
+
+
+    Dances, 296
+
+    Decorations and forms of address, 289
+
+
+    Fish, 294
+
+    Fish-girls, 293
+
+    Funerals, 306
+
+
+    Gallegos, 292
+
+    Gallenga, 293
+
+    Government, local, 310
+
+
+    Insects, 290
+
+    Institutions, 298
+
+    Intellectual life, 281
+
+
+    Land and people, 277
+
+    Language, 283
+
+    Laws, 312
+
+    Lisbon, 281
+
+    Londonderry, Lord, 277
+
+
+    Manners and morality, 289
+
+    Medical training, 288
+
+    Military system, 298
+
+    Mineral wealth, 281
+
+    _Moustachios_, ladies', 286
+
+
+    National fare, 294
+
+    Navy, 299
+
+    Newspapers, 284
+
+
+    _Octroi_ duties, 295
+
+    Oporto, 293
+
+    Oxen, 300
+
+
+    Peninsular War, 277
+
+    Police, 311
+
+    Postal service, 284
+
+    Prisons, 313
+
+
+    Religion, 304, 305 _et seq._
+
+
+    Scenery, 285
+
+    Servants, 290
+
+    Society, 286
+
+
+    University, 283
+
+
+    Wages, 292
+
+    Wealth, 292
+
+    Wealth, mineral, 281
+
+    Women, 285, 287, 307
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Our European Neighbours
+
+Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
+
+
+    12º. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20
+    By Mail.                     1.30
+
+
+=I.--FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By HANNAH LYNCH.
+
+"Miss Lynch's pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her
+style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback
+of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly
+between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page
+description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a
+capital piece of work.... Such well finished portraits are frequent in
+Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real
+excellence."--_The London Academy._
+
+"Miss Lynch's book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series
+describing the home and social life of various European peoples--a
+series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is
+frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book
+which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special
+excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her
+continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up
+her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.'
+"--_The Outlook_.
+
+
+=II.--GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By W. H. DAWSON, author of "Germany and the Germans," etc.
+
+"The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and
+well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend
+it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into
+German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and
+strongest in Europe."--_Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+
+=III.--RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince
+Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia).
+
+"We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those
+seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and
+conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more
+voluminous tomes.... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys
+practically all that well-informed people should know of 'Our European
+Neighbours.'"--_Mail and Express._
+
+
+=IV.--DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By P. M. HOUGH, B.A.
+
+"There is no other book which gives one so clear a picture of actual
+life in the Netherlands at the present date. For its accurate
+presentation of the Dutch situation in art, letters, learning, and
+politics as well as in the round of common life in town and city, this
+book deserves the heartiest praise."--_Evening Post._
+
+"Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work
+its charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people,
+their quaint characteristics, their conservative retention of old
+dress and customs, their quiet abstention from taking part in the
+great affairs of the world are clearly reflected in this faithful
+mirror. The illustrations are of a high grade of photographic
+reproductions."--_Washington Post._
+
+
+=V.--SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By ALFRED T. STORY, author of the "Building of the British Empire," etc.
+
+"We do not know a single compact book on the same subject in which Swiss
+character in all its variety finds so sympathetic and yet thorough
+treatment; the reason of this being that the author has enjoyed
+privileges of unusual intimacy with all classes, which prevented his
+lumping the people as a whole without distinction of racial and cantonal
+feeling."--_Nation._
+
+"There is no phase of the lives of these sturdy republicans, whether
+social or political, which Mr. Story does not touch upon; and an
+abundance of illustrations drawn from unhackneyed subjects adds to the
+value of the book."--_Chicago Dial._
+
+
+=VI.-SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By L. HIGGIN.
+
+"Illuminating in all of its chapters. She writes in thorough sympathy,
+born of long and intimate acquaintance with Spanish people of
+to-day."--_St. Paul Press._
+
+"The author knows her subject thoroughly and has written a most
+admirable volume. She writes with genuine love for the Spaniards, and
+with a sympathetic knowledge of their character and their method of
+life."--_Canada Methodist Review._
+
+
+=VII.--ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By LUIGI VILLARI.
+
+"A most interesting and instructive volume, which presents an intimate
+view of the social habits and manner of thought of the people of which
+it treats."--_Buffalo Express._
+
+"A book full of information, comprehensive and accurate. Its numerous
+attractive illustrations add to its interest and value. We are glad to
+welcome such an addition to an excellent series."--_Syracuse Herald._
+
+
+=VIII.--DANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By JESSIE H. BROCHNER.
+
+"Miss Brochner has written an interesting book on a fascinating subject,
+a book which should arouse an interest in Denmark in those who have not
+been there, and which can make those who know and are attracted by the
+country very homesick to return."--_Commercial Advertiser._
+
+"She has sketched with loving art the simple, yet pure and elevated
+lives of her countrymen, and given the reader an excellent idea of the
+Danes from every point of view."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+
+=IX.--AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, author of "Russian Life in Town and Country,"
+etc.
+
+"No volume in this interesting series seems to us so notable or valuable
+as this on Austro-Hungarian life. Mr. Palmer's long residence in Europe
+and his intimate association with men of mark, especially in their home
+life, has given to him a richness of experience evident on every page of
+the book."--_The Outlook._
+
+"This book cannot be too warmly recommended to those who have not the
+leisure or the spirit to read voluminous tomes of this subject, yet we
+wish a clear general understanding of Austro-Hungarian life."--_Hartford
+Times._
+
+
+=X.--TURKISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By L. M. J. GARNETT.
+
+Miss Garnett, while not altogether ignoring the dark side of life in the
+Empire, portrays more particularly the peaceable life of the people--the
+domestic, industrial, social, and religious life and customs, the
+occupations and recreations, of the numerous and various races within
+the Empire presided over by the Sultan.
+
+"The general tone of the book is that of a careful study, the style is
+flowing, and the matter is presented in a bright, taking way."--_St.
+Paul Press._
+
+"To the average mind the Turk is a little better than a blood-thirsty
+individual with a plurality of wives and a paucity of virtues. To read
+this book is to be pleasantly disillusioned."--_Public Opinion._
+
+
+=XI.--BELGIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER.
+
+"Mr. Boulger has given a plain, straight-forward account of the several
+phases of Belgian Life, the government, the court, the manufacturing
+centers and enterprises, the literature and science, the army, education
+and religion, set forth informingly."--_The Detroit Free Press._
+
+"The book is one of real value conscientiously written, and well
+illustrated by good photographs."--_The Outlook._
+
+
+=XII.--SWEDISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By G. VON HEIDENSTAM.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by 
+L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by L. Higgin.</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by 
+L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Spanish Life in Town and Country
+
+Author: L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
+Editor: William Harbutt Dawson
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18053]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Pilar Somoza and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<p class="noind">Transcriber's note: Spelling mistakes have been left in the text to
+match the original, except for obvious typos, marked <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'llike this'">like this</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/front_b.jpg" width="82" height="400" alt="Spine" title="Spine" />
+<img src="images/front_a.jpg" width="258" height="400" alt="Book Cover" title="Book Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<img src="images/add_f.jpg" width="350" height="402" alt="Our European Neighbours" title="Our European Neighbours" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<h3>OUR EUROPEAN<br/>
+NEIGHBOURS</h3>
+
+
+<h4>EDITED BY</h4>
+
+<h3>WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON</h3>
+
+
+<h3 class="biggap">SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND<br/>
+COUNTRY</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 367px;">
+<a name="Page_f" id="Page_f"><img src="images/front.jpg" width="367" height="550" alt="&quot;IN CHURCH.&quot; SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO" title="&quot;IN CHURCH.&quot; SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO" /></a>
+<span class="caption">&quot;IN CHURCH.&quot; SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<h1>SPANISH LIFE<br/>
+IN TOWN AND<br/>
+COUNTRY</h1>
+
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">By L. HIGGIN</span></h2>
+
+
+<h5>WITH CHAPTERS ON</h5>
+
+<h3>PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND<br/>
+COUNTRY, BY EUG&Egrave;NE E. STREET</h3>
+
+
+<h4 class="biggap">ILLUSTRATED</h4>
+
+
+<h4 class="biggap">G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br/>
+NEW YORK AND LONDON<br/>
+The Knickerbocker Press<br/>
+1904</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p class="center noind"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1902<br/>
+by<br/>
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS</p>
+
+
+<p class="center noind">Published, May, 1902<br/>
+Reprinted, February, 1903<br/>
+May, 1904; September, 1904</p>
+
+
+<p class="biggap center noind">The Knickerbocker Press, New York</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">{v}</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>NOTE BY THE EDITOR</h2>
+
+
+<p>It has been thought well to include Portugal in this volume, so as to
+embrace the entire Iberian Peninsula. Though geographically contiguous,
+and so closely associated in the popular mind, the Spanish and
+Portuguese nations offer in fact the most striking divergences alike in
+character and institutions, and separate treatment was essential in
+justice to each country. The preferential attention given to Spain is
+only in keeping with the more prominent part she has played, and may yet
+play, in the history of civilisation.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 10%;" />
+
+<p>I am indebted for the chapters on Portugal to Mr. Eug&egrave;ne E. Street,
+whose long and intimate acquaintance with the land and its people
+renders him peculiarly fitted to draw their picture.</p>
+
+<p class="sign">L. HIGGIN.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">{vii}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ill_vii.jpg" width="450" height="102" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<h4><i>SPANISH LIFE</i></h4>
+
+<p><span class="fright lowercase">PAGE</span>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER I</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></span><span class="smcap">Land and People</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER II</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></span><span class="smcap">Types and Traits</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER III</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></span><span class="smcap">National Characteristics</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER IV</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></span><span class="smcap">Spanish Society</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER V</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></span><span class="smcap">Modern Madrid</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER VI</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></span><span class="smcap">The Court</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER VII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></span><span class="smcap">Popular Amusements</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER VIII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></span><span class="smcap">The Press and its Leaders</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER IX</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></span><span class="smcap">Political Government</span></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">{viii}</a></span></p>
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER X</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></span><span class="smcap">Commerce and Agriculture</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XI</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></span><span class="smcap">The Army and Navy</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></span><span class="smcap">Religious Life</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XIII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></span><span class="smcap">Education and the Priesthood</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XIV</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></span><span class="smcap">Philanthropy&mdash;Position of Women&mdash;Marriage Customs</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XV</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></span><span class="smcap">Music, Art, and the Drama</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XVI</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></span><span class="smcap">Modern Literature</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XVII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></span><span class="smcap">The Future of Spain</span></p>
+
+<h4><i>PORTUGUESE LIFE</i></h4>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XVIII</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></span><span class="smcap">Land and People</span></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">CHAPTER XIX</p>
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></span><span class="smcap">Portuguese Institutions</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></span><span class="smcap">Index</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">{ix}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/ill_ix.jpg" width="450" height="102" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright lowercase">PAGE</span>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_f"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></span><span class="smcap">"In Church." Showing the Mantilla and Velo</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_2">2</a></span><span class="smcap">Peasants</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></span><span class="smcap">A Corner in Old Madrid</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><span class="smcap">Seville Cigarrera</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><span class="smcap">Peasants</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></span><span class="smcap">Valencianos</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></span><span class="smcap">The Water Tribunal in Valencia. Showing Valencian Costumes</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></span><span class="smcap">Past Work</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></span><span class="smcap">Knife-Grinder</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_79">78</a></span><span class="smcap">Outside the Plaza de Toros, Madrid</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_95">94</a></span><span class="smcap">Bueyes Resting</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_105">104</a></span><span class="smcap">In the Woods at La Granja</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_121">120</a></span><span class="smcap">Plaza de Toros. Picador Caught by the Bull</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></span><span class="smcap">Plaza de Toros. The Procession</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">{x}</a></span><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_127">126</a></span><span class="smcap">Dragging out the Dead Bull</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></span><span class="smcap">The Escurial</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_171">170</a></span><span class="smcap">A Wedding Party in Estremadura</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fright"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></span><span class="smcap">A Country Cabin in Galicia</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/ill_x.jpg" width="280" height="139" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">{1}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="450" height="98" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</h2>
+
+
+<h2 class="biggap">CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>LAND AND PEOPLE</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">O</span><span class="smcap">nly</span> in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to
+the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist,
+and somewhat of a check arose after the outbreak of the war with
+America. To the other wonderful legends which gather round this romantic
+country, and are spread abroad, unabashed and uncontradicted, was added
+one more, to the effect that so strong a feeling existed on the part of
+the populace against Americans, that it was unsafe for English-speaking
+visitors to travel there. Nothing is farther from the truth; there is no
+hatred of American or English, and, if there had been, they little know
+the innate courtesy of the Spanish people, who fear <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">{2}</a></span>insult that is not
+due to the overbearing manners of the tourist himself.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, however, everyone is going to Spain, and as the number of
+travellers increases, so, perhaps, does the real ignorance of the
+country and of her people become more apparent, for, after a few days,
+or at most weeks, spent there, those who seem to imagine that they have
+discovered Spain, as Columbus discovered America, deliver their judgment
+upon her with all the audacity of ignorance, or, at best, with very
+imperfect information and capacity for forming an opinion.</p>
+
+<p>For many years, the foreign element in Spain was so small that all who
+made their home in the country were known and easily counted, while
+those who travelled were, for the most part, cultivated people&mdash;artists,
+or lovers of art, or persons interested in some way in the commercial or
+industrial progress of the nation. Even in those days, however, too many
+tourists spent their time amongst the dead cities, remnants of Spain's
+great past, and came back to add their quota to the sentimental notions
+current about the romantic land sung by Byron. Wrapped in a glamour for
+which their own enthusiasm was mainly responsible, they beheld all
+things coloured with the rich glow of a resplendent sunset; their
+descriptions of people and places raised expectations too often cruelly
+dispelled by facts, as presented to those of less exuberant
+imaginations.</p>
+
+
+<table class="center" summary="double image">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 264px;">
+<img src="images/f002a.jpg" width="264" height="400" alt="PEASANTS" title="PEASANTS" />
+<span class="caption">PEASANTS</span></div>
+</td><td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 280px;">
+<img src="images/f002b.jpg" width="280" height="400" alt="PEASANTS" title="PEASANTS" />
+<span class="caption">PEASANTS</span></div></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>On the other hand, the mere British traveller, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">{3}</a></span>knowing nothing of art,
+almost nothing of history, and very little of anything beyond his own
+provincial parish, finds all that is not the commonplace of his own
+country, barbarous and utterly beneath contempt. His own manners, not
+generally of the best, set all that is proud and dignified in the lowest
+Spaniard in revolt; he imagines that he meets with discourtesy where, in
+fact, he has gone out to seek it, and his own ignorance is chiefly to
+blame for his failure to understand a people wholly unlike his own class
+associates at home. He, too, returns, shaking the dust off his feet, to
+draw a picture of the land he has left, as false and misleading as that
+of the dreamer who has overloaded his picture with colour that does not
+exist for the ordinary tourist. Thus it too often comes to pass that
+visitors to Spain experience keen disappointment during their short stay
+in the country. Whether they always acknowledge it or not, is another
+question. To hit the happy medium, and to draw from a tour in Spain, or
+from a more prolonged sojourn there, all the pleasure that may be
+derived from it, and to feel with those who, knowing the country and its
+people intimately, love it dearly, a remembrance of its past history and
+of its strange agglomeration of nationalities is absolutely necessary;
+nor can any true idea be formed of the country from a mere acquaintance
+with any one of its widely differing provinces. Galicia is, even to-day,
+more nearly allied to Portugal <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">{4}</a></span>than to Spain, and it was only in 1668
+that the independence of the former was acknowledged, and it became a
+separate kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>With all rights now equalised, the inhabitants of the remaining
+provinces of Spain differ as widely from one another as they do from the
+sister kingdom, while the folklore of Asturias and of the Basque
+Provinces is very closely allied with that of Portugal. To judge the
+Biscayan by the same standard as the Andaluz, is as sensible as it would
+be to compare the Irish squatter with Cornish fisher-folk, or the
+peasants of Wilts and Surrey with the Celtic races of the West Highlands
+of Scotland, or even with the people of Lancashire or Yorkshire.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it possible to speak of Spain as a whole, and of what she is
+likely to make of the present impulse towards national growth and
+industrial prosperity, without remembering that her population counts,
+among its rapidly increasing numbers, the far-seeing and business-like,
+if somewhat selfish, Catalan, with a language of his own; the dreamy,
+pleasure-loving Andaluz; the vigorous Basque, whose distinctive language
+is not to be learned or understood by the people of any other part of
+Spain; the half-Moorish Valencian and the self-respecting Aragonese, who
+have always made their mark in the history of their country, and were
+looked upon as a foreign element in the days when their kingdom and that
+of Leon were united, under one crown, with Castile.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">{5}</a></span> It was only after
+Alfonso XII. had stamped out the last Carlist war that the ancient
+<i>fueros</i>, or special rights, of the Basque Provinces became a thing of
+the past, and their people liable to conscription, on a par with all the
+other parts of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Every student of history knows that the era of Spain's greatness was
+that of <i>Los Reyes Cat&oacute;licos</i>, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of
+Aragon, when the wonderful discovery and opening up of a new world made
+her people dizzy with excitement, and seemed to promise steadily
+increasing power and influence. Everyone knows that these dreams were
+never realised; that, so far from remaining the greatest nation of the
+Western World, Spain has gradually sunk back into a condition that
+leaves her to-day outside of international politics; and that, with the
+loss of her last colonies overseas, she appears to the superficial
+observer to be a dead or dying nation, no longer of any account among
+the peoples of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>But this is no fact; it is rather the baseless fancy of incompetent
+observers, to some extent acquiesced in, or at least not contradicted,
+by the proud Castilian, who cares not at all about the opinions of other
+nationalities, and who never takes the trouble to enlighten ignorance of
+the kind. True, there was an exhibition of something like popular
+indignation when the people fancied they discovered a reference to Spain
+in the utterances of two leading English statesmen, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">{6}</a></span>during the war with
+America, and the feeling of soreness against England still to some
+extent exists; in fact, strange as it may appear, there is far less
+anger against America, which deprived Spain of her colonies, than
+against England, which looked on complacently, and with obvious sympathy
+for the aggressor. But all this is past, or passing. The Spaniards are a
+generous people, and no one forgets or forgives more easily or more
+entirely. Those who knew Madrid in the days of Isabel II., would not have
+imagined it possible that the Queen, who had been banished with so much
+general rejoicing, could, under any circumstances, have received in the
+capital a warm greeting; in fact, it was for long thought inexpedient to
+allow her to risk a popular demonstration of quite another character.
+But when she came to visit her son, after the restoration of Alfonso
+XII., her sins, which were many, were forgiven her. It was, perhaps,
+remembered that in her youth she had been more sinned against than
+sinning; that she was <i>muy Espa&ntilde;ola</i>, kind-hearted and gracious in
+manner, pitiful and courteous to all. Hence, so long as she did not
+remain, and did not in any way interfere in the government, the people
+were ready to receive her with acclamation, and were probably really
+glad to see her again without her <i>camarilla</i>, and with no power to
+injure the new order of things.</p>
+
+<p>No nation in the world is more innately democratic than Spain&mdash;none,
+perhaps, so attached to <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span>monarchy; but one lesson has been learned,
+probably alike by King and people&mdash;that absolutism is dead and buried
+beyond recall. The ruler of Spain, to-day and in the future, must
+represent the wishes of the people; and if at any time the two should
+once more come into sharp collision, it is not the united people of this
+once-divided country that would give way. For the rest, so long as the
+monarch reigns constitutionally, and respects the rights and the desires
+of his people, there is absolutely nothing to fear from pretender or
+republican. At a recent political meeting in Madrid, for the first time,
+were seen democrats, republicans, and monarchists united; amidst a
+goodly quantity of somewhat "tall" talk, two notable remarks were
+received with acclamation by all parties: one was that Italy had found
+freedom, and had made herself into a united nationality, under a
+constitutional monarch; and the other, that between the Government of
+England and a republic there was no difference except in name&mdash;that in
+all Europe there was no country so democratic or so absolutely free as
+England under her King, nor one in which the people so entirely governed
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many mistaken ideas which obtain currency in England with
+regard to Spain, perhaps none is more common or more baseless than the
+fiction about Don Carlos and his chances of success. A certain small
+class of journalists from time to time write ridiculous articles in
+English <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span>papers and magazines about what they are pleased to call the
+"legitimatist" cause, and announce its coming triumph in the Peninsula.
+No Spaniard takes the trouble to notice these remarkable productions of
+the fertile journalistic brain of a foreigner. There are still, of
+course, people calling themselves Carlists&mdash;notably the Duke of Madrid
+and Don Jaime, but the cult, such as there is of it in Spain, is of the
+"Platonic" order only,&mdash;to use the Spanish description of it, "a little
+talk but no fight,"&mdash;and it may be classed with the vagaries of the
+amiable people in England who amuse themselves by wearing a white rose,
+and also call themselves "legitimatists," praying for the restoration of
+the Stuarts.</p>
+
+<p>The truth about the Carlist pretension is so little known in England
+that it may be well to state it. Spain has never been a land of the
+Salic Law; the story of her reigning queens&mdash;chief of all, Isabel la
+Cat&oacute;lica, shows this. It was not until the time of Philip V., the first
+of the Bourbons, that this absolute monarch limited the succession to
+heirs male by "pragmatic sanction"; that is to say, by his own
+unsupported order. The Act in itself was irregular; it was never put
+before the Cortes, and the Council of Castile protested against it at
+the time.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/f008.jpg" width="500" height="342" alt="A CORNER IN OLD MADRID" title="A CORNER IN OLD MADRID" />
+<span class="caption">A CORNER IN OLD MADRID</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This Act, such as it was, was revoked by Charles IV.; but the revocation
+was never published, the birth of sons making it immaterial. When,
+however, his son Ferdinand VII. was <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span>near his end, leaving only two
+daughters, he published his father's revocation of the Act of Philip V.,
+and appointed his wife, Cristina, Regent during the minority of Isabel
+II., then only three years of age.</p>
+
+<p>At no time, then, in its history, has the Salic Law been in use in
+Spain: the irregular act of a despotic King was repudiated both by his
+grandson and his great-grandson. Nothing, therefore, can be more
+ridiculous than the pretension of legitimacy on the part of a pretender
+whose party simply attempts to make an illegal innovation, in defiance
+of the legitimate kings and of the Council of Castile, a fundamental law
+of the monarchy. Carlism, the party of the Church against the nation,
+came into existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency,
+Mendiz&aacute;bal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First
+Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious
+orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the
+nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared
+himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme
+clerical party. <i>Hinc ill&aelig; lachrym&aelig;</i>, and two Carlist wars!</p>
+
+<p>The position of the Church, or rather what was called the "Apostolic
+party," is intelligible enough, and it is easy also to understand why
+Carlism has been preached as a crusade to English Roman Catholics, who
+have been induced in both Carlist wars to provide the main part of the
+funds <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span>which made them possible; but to call Don Carlos "the legitimate
+King" is an absurd misnomer.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, as regards Spain herself and the wishes of her people, it
+is perhaps enough to remark that if, after the expulsion of the Bourbons
+in 1868, at the time of the Revolution known as "La Gloriosa," when Prim
+had refused to think of a republic and declared himself once and always
+in favour of a monarchy, and the Crown of proud Spain went a-begging
+among the Courts of Europe,&mdash;if, at that time of her national need, Don
+Carlos was unable to come forward in his celebrated character of
+"legitimate Sovereign of the Spanish people," or to raise even two or
+three voices in his favour, what chance is he likely to have with a
+settled constitutional Government and the really legitimate Monarch on
+the throne? The strongest chance he ever had of success was when the
+Basque Provinces were at one time disposed, it is said almost to a man,
+to take his side; but, in fact, the men of the mountain were fighting
+much more for the retention of their own <i>fueros</i>&mdash;for their immunity
+from conscription, among others&mdash;than for any love of Don Carlos
+himself. They would have liked a king and a little kingdom all of their
+own, and, above all, to have held their beloved rights against all the
+rest of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>All that, however, is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as
+have those of the North by the settled advance of the country.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span> Bilbao,
+once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil
+wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool in
+the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more
+populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete,
+it is the most flourishing of Spanish ports, and is able to compare with
+any in Europe for its commerce and its rapid growth. Viscaya and
+Asturias want no more civil war, and the Apostolic party may look in
+vain for any more Carlist risings. More to be feared now are labour
+troubles, or the contamination of foreign anarchist doctrines; but in
+this case, the Church and the nation would be on the same side&mdash;that of
+order and progress.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting to understand the extremely complex character of the
+Spaniard as we know him,&mdash;that is to say, the Castilian, or rather the
+Madrile&ntilde;o,&mdash;one has to take into account not only the divers races which
+go to make up the nationality as it is to-day, but something of the past
+history of this strangely interesting people. To go back to the days
+when Spain was a Roman province in a high state of civilisation: some of
+the greatest Romans known to fame were Spaniards&mdash;Quintilian, Martial,
+Lucan, and the two Senecas. Trajan was the first Spaniard named Emperor,
+and the only one whose ashes were allowed to rest within the city walls;
+but the Spanish freedman of Augustus, Gaius Julius Hyginus, had been
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span>made the chief keeper of the Palatine Library, and Ballus, another
+Spaniard, had reached the consulship, and had been accorded the honour
+of a public triumph. Hadrian, again, was a Spaniard, and Marcus Aurelius
+a son of C&oacute;rdoba. No wonder that Spain is proud to remember that, of the
+"eighty perfect golden years" which Gibbon declares to have been the
+happiest epoch in mankind's history, no less than sixty were passed
+beneath the sceptre of her C&aelig;sars.</p>
+
+<p>The conquered had become conquerors; the intermarriage of Roman soldiers
+and settlers with Spanish women modified the original race; the Iberians
+invaded the politics and the literature of their conquerors. St.
+Augustine mourned the <i>odiosa cantio</i> of Spanish children learning
+Latin, but the language of Rome itself was altered by its Iberian
+emperors and literati; the races, in fact, amalgamated, and the Spaniard
+of to-day, to those who know him well, bears a strange resemblance to
+the Roman citizens with whom the letters of the Younger Pliny so
+charmingly make us familiar. The dismemberment of the Roman Empire left
+Spain exposed to the inroads of the Northern barbarians, and led
+indirectly to the subsequent Moorish inrush; for the Jews, harassed by a
+severe penal code, hailed the Arabs as a kindred race; and with their
+slaves made common cause with the conquering hordes.</p>
+
+<p>The Goths seem to have been little more than armed settlers in the
+country. Marriage between <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span>them and the Iberians was forbidden by their
+laws, and the traces of their occupation are singularly few: not a
+single inscription or book of Gothic origin remains, and it seems
+doubtful if any trace of the language can be found in Castilian or any
+of its dialects. It is strange, if this be true, that there should be so
+strong a belief in the influence of Gothic blood in the race.</p>
+
+<p>In all these wars and rumours of war the men of the hardy North remained
+practically unconquered. The last to submit to the Roman, the first to
+throw off the yoke of the Moor, the Basques and Asturians appear to be
+the representatives of the old inhabitants of Spain, who never settled
+down under the sway of the invader or acquiesced in foreign rule. Cicero
+mentions a Spanish tongue which was unintelligible to the Romans; was
+this Basque, which is equally so now to the rest of Spain, and which, if
+you believe the modern Castilian, the devil himself has never been able
+to master?</p>
+
+<p>The history of Spain is one to make the heart ache. Some evil influence,
+some malign destiny, seems ever to have brought disaster where her
+people looked for progress or happiness. Her golden age was just in the
+short epoch when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon reigned and
+ruled over the united kingdoms: both were patriotic, both clever, and
+absolutely at one in their policy. It is almost impossible to us who can
+look back on the long records, almost always <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span>sad and disastrous, not to
+doubt whether in giving a new world "to Castile and Aragon," Cristobal
+Colon did not impose a burden on the country of his adoption which she
+was unable to bear, and which became, in the hands of the successors of
+her <i>muy Espa&ntilde;oles y muy Cat&oacute;licos</i> kings, a curse instead of a
+blessing. Certain it is that Spain was not sufficiently advanced in
+political economy to understand or cope with the enormous changes which
+this opening up of a new world brought about. The sudden increase of
+wealth without labour, of reward for mere adventure, slew in its infancy
+any impulse there might have been to carry on the splendid manufactures
+and enlightened agriculture of the Moors; trade became a disgrace, and
+the fallacious idea that bringing gold and silver into a country could
+make it rich and prosperous ate like a canker into the industrial heart
+of the people, and with absolute certainty threw them backward in the
+race of civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>Charles V. was the first evil genius of Spain; thinking far more of his
+German and Italian possessions than of the country of his mother, poor
+mad Juana, he exhausted the resources of Spain in his endless wars
+outside the country, and inaugurated her actual decline at a moment
+when, to the unthinking, she was at the height of her glory. The
+influence of the powerful nobility of the country had been completely
+broken by Isabella and Ferdinand, and the device of adopting <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span>the
+Burgundian fashion of keeping at the Court an immense crowd of nobles in
+so-called "waiting" on the Monarch flattered the national vanity, while
+it ensured the absolute inefficacy of the class when it might have been
+useful in stemming the baneful absolutism of such lunatics as Felipe II.
+and the following Austrian monarchs, each becoming more and more effete
+and more and more mad. The very doubtful "glory" of the reign of the
+Catholic Kings in having driven out the Moors after eight centuries of
+conflict and effort, proved, in fact, no advantage to the country; but
+twenty thousand Christian captives were freed, and every reader of
+history must, for the moment, sympathise with the people who effected
+this freeing of their country from a foreign yoke.</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the marvellous tracery of the church of San Juan de los Reyes
+at Toledo, picked out by the actual chains broken off the miserable
+Christian captives, and hanging there unrusted in the fine air and
+sunshine of the country for over four hundred years, one's heart beats
+in sympathy with the pride of the Spaniards in their Catholic Kings. But
+Toledo, alas! is dead; the centre of light and learning is mouldering in
+the very slough of ignorance, and Christianity compares badly enough
+with the rule of Arab and Jew.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it must be said that, had matters been left as Isabella
+and Ferdinand left them, Spain might have benefited by the example of
+her conquerors, as other countries have done, and as <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span>she herself did
+during the Roman occupation. Philip II. was too wise to expel the
+richest and most industrious of his subjects so long as they paid his
+taxes and, at least, professed to be Christians. It was not until the
+reign of Philip III. and his disgraceful favourite Lerma, himself the
+most bigoted of Valencian "Christians," that, by the advice of Ribera,
+the Archbishop of Valencia, these industrious, thrifty, and harmless
+people were ruthlessly driven out. They had turned Valencia into a
+prolific garden,&mdash;even to-day it is called the <i>huerta</i>,&mdash;their silk
+manufactures were known and valued throughout the world; their industry
+and frugality were, in fact, their worst crimes; they were able to draw
+wealth from the sterile lands which "Christians" found wholly
+unproductive. "Since it is impossible to kill them all," said Ribera,
+the representative of Christ, he again and again urged on the King their
+expulsion.</p>
+
+<p>The nobles and landowners protested in vain. September 22, 1609, is one
+of the blackest&mdash;perhaps, in fact, the blackest&mdash;of all days in the
+disastrous annals of Spain. The Marqu&eacute;s de Caracena, Viceroy of
+Valencia, issued the terrible edict of expulsion. Six of the oldest and
+"most Christian" Moriscos in each community of a hundred souls were to
+remain to teach their modes of cultivation and their industries, and
+only three days were allowed for the carrying out of this most wicked
+and suicidal law. In the following six <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span>months one hundred and fifty
+thousand Moors were hounded out of the land which their ancestors had
+possessed and enriched for centuries. Murcia, Andalucia, Aragon,
+Catalu&ntilde;a, Castile, La Mancha, and Estremadura were next taken in hand.
+In these latter provinces the cruel blunder was all the worse, since the
+Moors had intermarried with the Iberian inhabitants, and had really
+embraced the Christian religion, so called.</p>
+
+<p>Half a million souls, according to Father Bleda, in his <i>Defensio
+Fidei</i>, were thrust out, with every aggravation of cruelty and robbery.
+No nation can commit crimes like this without suffering more than its
+victims. Spain has never to this day recovered from the blow to her own
+prosperity, to her commerce, her manufactures, and her civilisation
+dealt by the narrow-minded and ignorant King, led by a despicable
+favourite, and the fanatical bigot, Ribera. With the Moors went almost
+all their arts and industries; immense tracts of country became arid
+wastes: Castile and La Mancha barely raise crops every second year where
+the Moriscos reaped their teeming harvest, and Estremadura from a
+smiling garden became a waste where wandering flocks of sheep and pigs
+now find a bare subsistence. Nor was this all. Science and learning were
+also driven out with the Arab and Jew; C&oacute;rdoba, like Toledo, vanished,
+as the centre of intellectual life. In place of enlightened agriculture,
+irrigation of the dry land, and the planting of trees, the peasant was
+taught <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span>to take for his example San Isidro, the patron saint of the
+labourer, who spent his days in prayer, and left his fields to plough
+and sow themselves; the forests were cut down for fuel, until the
+shadeless wastes became less and less productive, and the whole land on
+the elevated plains, which the Moors had irrigated and planted, became
+little better than a desert.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only in the mother country that frightful acts of bigotry and
+lust for wealth were enacted. In Peru the Spaniards found a splendid
+civilisation among the strange races of the Incas, a condition of order
+which many modern states might envy, a religion absolutely free from
+fetish worship, and a standard of morality which has never been
+surpassed. But they ruthlessly destroyed it all, desecrated the temples
+where the sun was worshipped only as a visible representative of a God
+"of whom nothing could be known save by His works," as their tenet ran,
+and substituted the religion which they represented as having been
+taught by Jesus of Nazareth; a religion which looked for its chief power
+to the horrible Inquisition and its orgies called <i>Autos da f&eacute;!</i></p>
+
+<p>As regards the mysterious race of the Incas, who in comparison with the
+native Indians were almost white, and who possessed a high cultivation,
+it is curious to note that during the late troubles in China records
+came to light in the Palace of Pekin showing that Chinese missionaries
+landed on the coast subsequently known as Peru, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span>in ages long antecedent
+to the discovery of the country by the Spaniards, and established
+temples and schools there. No one who reads the minute accounts of the
+Incas from Garcilaso de la Vega&mdash;himself of the royal race on his
+mother's side, his father having been one of the Spanish
+adventurers&mdash;can avoid the conclusion that the religion of the Incas,
+thus utterly destroyed by the Spaniards, was much more nearly that of
+Christ than the debased worship introduced in its place. The whole story
+of these "Children of the Sun," told by one of themselves afterwards in
+C&oacute;rdoba, where he is always careful to keep on the right side of the
+Inquisition by pretending to be a "Christian after the manner of his
+father," is fascinatingly interesting as well as instructive.</p>
+
+<p>It is almost impossible to speak of the Spanish Inquisition and its
+baneful influence on the people without seeming to be carried away by
+prejudice or even bigotry, but it is equally impossible for the ordinary
+student of history to read, even in the pages of the "orthodox," the
+terrible repression of its iron hand on all that was advancing in the
+nation; its writers, its singers, its men of science, wherever they
+dared to raise their voices in ever so faint a cry, ground down to one
+dead level of unthinking acquiescence, or driven forth from their native
+land, without ceasing to wonder at all at Spain's decadence from the
+moment she had handed herself over, bound hand and foot, to the Church.
+Wondering, rather, at her enormous <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span>inherent vitality, which at last,
+after so many centuries of spasmodic effort, has shaken off the incubus
+and regained liberty, or for the first time established it in the realms
+of religion, science, and general instruction.</p>
+
+<p>It matters little or nothing whether the Inquisition, with its secret
+spies, its closed doors, its mockery of justice, and its terrible
+background of smouldering <i>Quemadero</i>, was the instrument of the Church
+or of the King for the moment. Whether a religious or a political
+tyranny, it was at all times opposed to the very essence of freedom, and
+it was deliberately used, and would be again to-day if it were possible
+to restore it, to keep the people in a gross state of ignorance and
+superstition. That it was admirable as an organisation only shows it in
+a more baneful light, since it was used to crush out all progress. Its
+effect is well expressed in the old proverb: "Between the King and the
+Inquisition we must not open our lips."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather think I had ascended from an ape," said Huxley, in his
+celebrated answer to the Bishop of Oxford, "than that I had descended
+from a man who used great gifts to darken reason." It has been the
+object of the Inquisition to darken reason wherever it had the power,
+and it left the mass of the Spanish people, great and generous as they
+are by nature, for long a mere mob of inert animals, ready to amuse
+themselves when their country was at its hour of greatest agony, debased
+by the sight of wholesale <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span>and cruel murders carried out by the priests
+of their religion in the name of Christ.</p>
+
+<table class="center" summary="double image">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 255px;">
+<img src="images/f020a.jpg" width="255" height="400" alt="PEASANTS" title="PEASANTS" />
+<span class="caption">PEASANTS</span></div>
+</td><td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 227px;">
+<img src="images/f020b.jpg" width="227" height="400" alt="SEVILLE CIGARRERA" title="SEVILLE CIGARRERA" />
+<span class="caption">SEVILLE CIGARRERA</span></div>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Even to-day the Spaniard of the lower classes can scarcely understand
+that he can have any part or parcel in the government of his country.
+Long ages of misrule have made him hate all governments alike: he
+imagines that all the evils he finds in the world of his own experience
+are the work of whoever happens to be the ruler for the time being; that
+it is possible for him to have any say in the matter never enters his
+head, and he votes, if he votes at all, as he is ordered to vote. He has
+been taught for ages past to believe whatever he has been told. His
+reason has been "offered as a sacrifice to God," if indeed he is aware
+that he possesses any.</p>
+
+<p>The danger of the thorough awakening may be that which broke out so
+wildly during Castelar's short and disastrous attempt at a republic:
+that when once he breaks away from the binding power of his old
+religion, he may have nothing better than atheism and anarchism to fall
+back upon. The days of the absolute reign of ignorance and superstition
+are over; but the people are deeply religious. Will the Church of Spain
+adapt itself to the new state of things, or will it see its people drift
+away from its pale altogether, as other nations have done? This is the
+true clerical question which looms darkly before the Spain of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>To return, however. The Austrian kings of<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span> Spain had brought her only
+ruin. With the Bourbons it was hoped a better era had opened, but it was
+only exchanging one form of misrule for another. The kings existed for
+their own benefit and pleasure; the people existed to minister to them
+and find funds for their extravagance. Each succeeding monarch was ruled
+by some upstart favourite, until the climax was reached when Godoy, the
+disgraceful Minister of Charles IV., and the open lover of his Queen,
+sold the country to Napoleon. Then indeed awoke the great heart of the
+nation, and Spain has the everlasting glory of having risen as one man
+against the French despot, and, by the help of England, stopped his mad
+career. Even then, under the base and contemptible Ferdinand VII., she
+underwent the "Terror of 1824," the disastrous and unworthy regency of
+Cristina, and the still worse rule of her daughter, Isabel II., before
+she awoke politically as a nation, and, her innumerable parties forming
+as one, drove out the Queen, with her <i>camarilla</i> of priests and
+bleeding nuns, and at last achieved her freedom.</p>
+
+<p>For, whatever may be said of the last hundred years of Spain's history,
+it has been an advance, a continuous struggle for life and liberty.
+There had been fluctuating periods of progress. Charles III., a truly
+wise and patriotic monarch, the first since Ferdinand and Isabella, made
+extraordinary changes during his too short life. The population of the
+country rose a million and a half in the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span>twenty-seven years of his
+reign, and the public revenue in like proportions under his enlightened
+Minister, Florida Blanca. No phase of the public welfare was neglected:
+savings banks, hospitals, asylums, free schools, rose up on all sides;
+vagrancy and mendicancy were sternly repressed; while men of science and
+skilled craftsmen were brought from foreign countries, and it seemed as
+if Spain had fairly started on her upward course. But he died before his
+time in 1788, and was followed by a son and grandson, who, with their
+wives, ruled by base favourites, dragged the honour of Spain in the
+dust. Still, the impulse had been given; there had been a break in the
+long story of misrule and misery; Mendiz&aacute;bal and Espartero scarcely did
+more than lighten the black canopy of cloud overhanging the country for
+a time; but at last came freedom, halting somewhat, as must needs be,
+but no longer to be repressed or driven back by the baneful influence
+known as <i>palaci&ouml;</i>, intrigues arising in the immediate circle of the
+Court.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/023.jpg" width="250" height="117" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/024.jpg" width="450" height="102" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>TYPES AND TRAITS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">I</span><span class="smcap">t</span> is the fashion to-day to minimise the influence of the Goths on the
+national characteristics of the Spaniard. We are told by some modern
+writers that their very existence is little more than a myth, and that
+the name of their last King, Roderick, is all that is really known about
+them. The castle of Wamba, or at least the hill on which it stood, is
+still pointed out to the visitor in Toledo, perched high above the red
+torrent of the rushing Tagus; but little seems to be certainly known of
+this hardy Northern race which, for some three hundred years, occupied
+the country after the Romans had withdrawn their protecting legions. On
+the approach of the all-conquering Moor, many of the inhabitants of
+Spain took refuge in the inaccessible mountains of the north, and were
+the ancestors of that invincible people known in Spain as "los
+Monta&ntilde;eses," from whom almost all that is best in literature, as well as
+in business capacity, has sprung in later years.</p>
+
+<p>How much of the Celt-Iberian, or original inhabitant of the Peninsula,
+and how much of Gothic <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span>or of Teuton blood runs in the veins of the
+people of the mountains, it is more than difficult now to determine. It
+had been impossible, despite laws and penalties, to prevent the
+intermingling of the races: all that we certainly know is that the
+inhabitants of Galicia, Asturias, Viscaya, Navarro, and Aragon have
+always exhibited the characteristics of a hardy, fighting, pushing race,
+as distinguished from the Andaluces, the Valencianos, the Murcianos, and
+people of Granada, in whom the languid blood of a Southern people and
+the more marked trace of Arabic heritage are apparent.</p>
+
+<p>The Catalans would appear, again, to be descendants of the old
+Proven&ccedil;als, at one time settled on both sides of the Pyrenees, though
+forming, at that time, part of Spain. Their language is almost pure
+Proven&ccedil;al, and they differ, as history shows in a hundred ways, from the
+inhabitants of the rest of Spain. The Castilians, occupying the centre
+of the country, are what we know as "Spaniards," and may be taken to
+hold a middle place among these widely differing nationalities, modified
+by their contact with all. Their language is that of cultivated Spain.
+No one dreams of asking if you speak Spanish; it is always: <i>Habla v
+Castellano?</i> And it is certainly a remnant of the old Roman, which, as
+we know, its emperors spoke "with a difference," albeit there are many
+traces of Arabic about it.</p>
+
+<p>Even at the present day, when Spain is rapidly becoming homogeneous, the
+people of the different <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span>provinces are almost as well known by their
+trades as by their special characteristics. A <i>Gallego</i>&mdash;really a native
+of Galicia&mdash;means, in the common parlance, a porter, a water-carrier,
+almost a beast of burden, and the Galicians are as well known for this
+purpose in Portugal as in Spain, great numbers finding ready employment
+in the former country, where manual labour is looked upon as impossible
+for a native. The men of the lowest class emigrate to more favoured
+provinces, since their own is too poor to support them; they work hard,
+and return with their savings to their native hills. Their
+fellow-countrymen consider them boorish in manners, uneducated, and of a
+low class; but they are good-natured and docile, hard-working,
+temperate, and honest. "In your life," wrote the Duke of Wellington,
+"you never saw anything so bad as the Galicians; and yet they are the
+finest body of men and the best movers I have ever seen." There is a
+greater similarity between Galicia and Portugal than between the former
+and any other province of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Although they lie so close together, Asturias differs widely from its
+sister province both in the character of its people and its scenery. The
+Romans took two hundred years to subdue it, and the Moors never obtained
+a footing there. The Asturians are a hardy, independent race, proud of
+giving the title to the heir-apparent of the Spanish throne. The people
+of this province, like their neighbours the Basques, are handsome <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span>and
+robust in appearance; they are always to be recognised in Madrid by
+their fresh appearance and excellent physique. For the most part they
+are to be found engaged in the fish trade, while their women, gorgeously
+dressed in their native costume by their employers, are the nurses of
+the upper classes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 495px;">
+<img src="images/f026.jpg" width="495" height="450" alt="VALENCIANOS" title="VALENCIANOS" />
+<span class="caption">VALENCIANOS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The ladies of Madrid do not think it "good style" to bring up their own
+children, and the Asturian wet nurse is as much a part of the ordinary
+household as the coachman or <i>mayordomo</i>. They are singularly handsome,
+well-grown women, and become great favourites in the houses of their
+employers; but, like their menkind, they go back to spend their savings
+among their beloved hills. Many of these young women come to Madrid on
+the chance of finding situations, leaving their own babies behind to be
+fed by hand, or Heaven knows how; they bring with them a young puppy to
+act as substitute until the nurse-child is found, and may be seen in the
+registry offices waiting to be hired, with their little canine
+foster-children. It is said that the Asturian women never part from the
+puppies that they have fed from their own breasts.</p>
+
+<p>The Basque Provinces are, perhaps, the best known to English travellers,
+since they generally enter Spain by that route, and those staying in the
+south of France are fond of running across to have at least a look at
+Spain, and to be able to say they have been there. The people pride
+them<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span>selves on being "the oldest race in Europe," and are, no doubt, the
+direct descendants of the original and unconquered inhabitants of the
+Iberian Peninsula. In Guipuzcoa, the Basque may still be seen living in
+his flat-roofed stone house, of which he is sure to be proprietor, using
+a mattock in place of plough, and leading his oxen&mdash;for <i>bueyes</i> are
+never driven&mdash;attached to one of the heavy, solid-wheeled carts by an
+elaborately carved yoke, covered with a sheepskin. He clings tenaciously
+to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior
+to the whole human race.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>fueros</i>, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the
+Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might
+possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely
+thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender. They practically formed
+a republic within the monarchy; but in 1876, when the young Alfonso XII.
+finally conquered the provinces, all differences between them and the
+other parts of the kingdom were abolished, and they had to submit to the
+abhorred conscription. With all the burning indignation which still
+makes some of them say, "I am not a Spaniard; I am a Basque," the
+extraordinary advance made in this part of Spain seems to show that the
+hereditary energy and talent of the people are on the side of national
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>The distinctive dress of the Basques is now <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span>almost a thing of the past;
+the bright kerchiefs of the women and the dark-blue cap (<i>b&oacute;ina</i>) of the
+men alone remain. The Viscayan <i>b&oacute;ina</i> has been lately introduced into
+the French army as the headgear of the Chasseurs and some other
+regiments.</p>
+
+<p>"Aragon is not ours; we ought to conquer it!" Isabel la Cat&oacute;lica is said
+to have remarked to her husband; and, indeed, the history of this little
+province is wonderfully interesting and amusing. It alone seems to have
+had the good sense always to secure its rights before it would vote
+supplies for the Austrian kings; whereas the other provinces usually
+gave their money without any security, except the word of the King,
+which was usually broken. Among the provisions of the <i>fueros</i> of the
+Aragonese was one that ran thus: <i>"Que siempre que el rey quebrantose
+sus fueros, pudiessen eligir otro rey encora que sea pagano"</i> (If ever
+the King should infringe our <i>fueros</i>, we can elect another King, even
+though he might be a pagan), and the preamble of the election ran thus:
+"We, who are as good as you, and are more powerful than you (<i>podemos
+mas que vos</i>) elect you King in order that you may protect our rights
+and liberties, and also we elect one between us and you (<i>el justicia</i>),
+who has more power than you: <i>y si no, no!</i>" which may be taken to mean,
+"otherwise you are not our King."</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat of this spirit still abides in the Aragonese. The costume is
+one of the most pictur<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span>esque in Spain. The men wear short black velvet
+breeches, open at the knees and slashed at the sides, adorned with rows
+of buttons, and showing white drawers underneath; <i>alpargatas</i>, or the
+plaited hempen sandals, which, with the stockings, are black; a black
+velvet jacket, with slashed and button-trimmed sleeves, and the
+gaily-coloured <i>faja</i>, or silk sash, worn over an elaborate shirt.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days, when one entered Spain by diligence from Bayonne to
+Pampeluna over the Pyrenees, one learned something of the beauty of the
+scenery and the healthy, hardy characteristics of the people, as one
+whirled along through the chestnut groves, over the leaping streams,
+always at full gallop, up hill and down dale, with a precipice on one
+side of the road and the overhanging mountains on the other. Below lay a
+fertile country with comfortable little homesteads and villages
+clustering round their church, and the like dotted the hillsides and the
+valleys wherever there seemed a foothold. As the diligence, with its
+team of ten or twelve mules, dashed through these villages or past the
+isolated farms, the people stood at their doors and shouted; it was
+evidently the event of the day. The mules were changed every hour, or
+rather more, according to the road, and as the ascent became steeper
+more were added to their number; sometimes six or eight starting from
+Bayonne where twelve or fourteen were needed for the top of the Pass. At
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span>least half the journey was always made at night, and if there were a
+moon the scenery became magically beautiful; but, in any case, the
+stars, in that clear atmosphere, made it almost as bright as day, while
+a ruddy light streamed from the lamp over the driver's seat, far above
+the coup&eacute;, along the string of hurrying mules, as they dashed round
+precipitous corners, dangerous enough in broad daylight. If one of the
+animals chanced to fall, it was dragged by its companions to the bottom
+of the gorge, where it would get up, shake itself, and prepare to tear
+up the next ascent as if nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>A good idea could be formed of these hardy mountaineers in passing
+through their village homes. They are tall and good-looking, and seem to
+be simply overflowing with animal spirits. If it chanced to be on a
+Sunday afternoon, the priest, with his <i>sotana</i> tucked up round his
+waist, would be found playing the national game of <i>pelota</i> with his
+flock, using the blank wall of the church as a court.</p>
+
+<p>One is apt to forget that Old Castile is one of the provinces having a
+northern seaboard. The inhabitants of this borderland are, to judge by
+appearance, superior to the people of the plains, who certainly strike
+the casual observer as being dirty and somewhat dull. The Castilian and
+Aragonese, however, may be said to constitute the heart of the nation.
+Leon and Estremadura form a part of the same raised plateau, but their
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span>people are very different. In speaking of the national characteristics,
+one must be taken to mean, not by any means the Madrile&ntilde;o, but the
+countrymen, whose homes are not to be judged by the <i>posadas</i>, or inns,
+which exist mainly for the muleteer and his animals, and are neither
+clean nor savoury.</p>
+
+<p>"All the forces of Europe would not be sufficient to subdue the
+Castiles&mdash;<i>with the people against it</i>," was Peterborough's remark, and
+our Iron Duke never despaired "while the country was with him." He bore
+with the generals and the <i>Juntas</i> of the upper classes, in spite of his
+indignation against them, and, "cheered by the <i>people's support</i>," as
+Napier says, carried out his campaign of victory.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient qualities of which the Castilians are proud are <i>gravedad,
+lealtad, y amor de Dios</i>&mdash;"dignity, loyalty, and love of God." No wonder
+that when the nation arises, it carries a matter through.</p>
+
+<p>Estremadura, after the expulsion of the Moors, in whose days it was a
+fruitful garden, seems to have been forgotten by the rest of Spain; it
+became the pasturage for the wandering flocks of merino sheep, the
+direct descendants of the Bedouin herds, and of the pigs, which almost
+overrun it. Yet the remains of the Romans in Estremadura are the most
+interesting in Spain, and bear witness to the flourishing condition of
+the province in their day; moreover, Pizarro and<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span> Cortes owe their birth
+to this forgotten land. The inhabitants of the southern provinces of
+Spain differ wholly from those of Castile and the north&mdash;they have much
+more of the Eastern type; in fact, the Valenciano or the Murciano of the
+<i>huerta</i>, the well-watered soil which the Moors left in such a high
+state of cultivation, in manners and appearance are often little
+different from the Arab as we know him to-day.</p>
+
+<p>From the gay Andaluz we derive most of our ideas of the Spanish peasant;
+but he is a complete contrast to the dignified Castilian or the brusque
+Monta&ntilde;ese. From this province, given over to song, dancing, and outdoor
+life, come&mdash;almost without exception&mdash;the bull-fighters, whose graceful
+carriage, full of power, and whose picturesque costume, make them
+remarkable wherever seen. Lively audacity is their special
+characteristic. <i>Sal</i> (salt) is their ideal; we have no word which
+carries the same meaning. Smart repartee, grace, charm, all are
+expressed in the word <i>Salada</i>; and <i>Sal&eacute;ro</i> (literally, salt-cellar) is
+an expression met with in every second song one hears.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Ol&eacute; Sal&eacute;ro! Sin vanidad,</div>
+<div class="verse">Soy muy bonita, Soy muy Sala!</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noind">is the refrain of one of their most characteristic songs, <i>La moza &eacute;
+rumbo</i>, and may be taken as a sample:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Listen, Sal&eacute;ro! without vanity,</div>
+<div class="verse">I am lovely&mdash;I am Salada!</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span>During the <i>Feria</i> at Seville, the upper classes camp out in tents or
+huts, and the girls pass their time in singing and dancing, like the
+peasantry.</p>
+
+<p>The Valencians are very different, being slow, quiet, almost stupid to
+the eye of the stranger, extremely industrious, and wrapped up in their
+agricultural pursuits. They fully understand and appreciate the system
+of irrigation left by the Moors, which has made their province the most
+densely populated and the most prosperous in appearance of all Spain.</p>
+
+<p>A curious survival exists in Valencia in the <i>Tribunal de las Aguas</i>,
+which is presided over by three of the oldest men in the city; it is a
+direct inheritance from the Moors, and from its verdict there is no
+appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Every Thursday the old men take their seats on a bench outside one of
+the doors of the cathedral, and to them come all those who have disputes
+about irrigation, marshalled by two beadles in strange, Old-World
+uniforms. When both sides have been heard, the old men put their heads
+together under a cloak or <i>manta</i>, and agree upon their judgment. The
+covering is then withdrawn, and the decision is announced. On one
+occasion they decreed that a certain man whom they considered in fault
+was to pay a fine. The unwary litigant, thinking that his case had not
+been properly heard, began to try to address the judges in mitigation of
+the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Se&ntilde;ores&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f034.jpg" width="550" height="361" alt="THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN
+COSTUMES" title="THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN
+COSTUMES" />
+<span class="caption">THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN
+COSTUMES</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span>"Pay another peseta for speaking!" solemnly said the spokesman of the
+elders.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pero, Se&ntilde;ores</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Una peseta mas!</i>" solemnly returned the judge; and at last, finding
+that each time he opened his lips cost him one more peseta, he soon gave
+up and retired.</p>
+
+<p>The Valencian costume for men consists of wide white cotton drawers to
+the knees, looking almost like petticoats, sandals of hemp, with gaiters
+left open between the knee and the ankle, a red sash, or <i>faja</i>, a short
+velvet jacket, and a handkerchief twisted turban-fashion round the head.
+The <i>hidalgos</i> wear the long cloak and wide sombrero common to all the
+country districts of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of Spaniards and their characteristics, as I have already
+said, we have to take into account the presence of all these widely
+differing races under one crown, and to remember that to-day there is no
+hard-and-fast line among the cultivated classes: intermarriage has fused
+the conflicting elements, very much for the good of the country, and
+rapid intercommunication by rail and telegraph has brought all parts of
+the kingdom together, as they have never been before. Education is now
+placed within reach of all, and even long-forgotten Estremadura is
+brought to share in the impulse towards national life and commercial
+progress. Comte Paul Vasili, in his charming <i>Lettres in&eacute;dites</i> to a
+young diplomatist, first published in the pages of <i>La Nouvelle</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span> <i>Revue</i>,
+gives such an exact picture of the Spanish people, of whom he had so
+wide an experience and such intimate knowledge, that I am tempted to
+quote it in full.</p>
+
+<p>"The famous phrase, <i>&Aacute; la disposition de V.</i>, has no meaning in the
+upper ranks, is a fiction with the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, but is simple truth in
+the mouth of the people. The pure-blooded Spaniard is the most
+hospitable, the most ready giver in the world. He offers with his whole
+heart, and is hurt when one does not accept what he offers. He does not
+pretend to know anything beyond his own country ... he exaggerates the
+dignity of humanity in his own person.... Even in asking alms of you he
+says: <i>Hermanito, una limosna, por el amor de Dios.</i> He does not beg;
+no, he asks, demands; and, miserable and in rags as he may be, he treats
+you as a brother&mdash;he does you the honour of accepting you as his equal.
+The Spaniard who has a <i>novia</i>, a guitar, a <i>cigarillo</i>, and the
+knowledge that he has enough to pay for a seat at the bull-fight,
+possesses all that he can possibly need. He will eat a plateful of
+<i>gazpacho</i> or <i>puchero</i>, a sardine, half a roll of bread, and drink
+clear water as often as wine. Food is always of secondary importance: he
+ranks it after his <i>novia</i>, after his <i>cigarillo</i>, after the bulls.
+Sleep? He can sleep anywhere, even on the ground. Dress? He has always
+his <i>capa</i>, and <i>la capa todo lo tapa</i>. The Spaniard is, above all
+things, <i>rumboso</i>; that is to say, he has a large, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span>generous, and sound
+heart.... The masses in Spain are perfectly contented, believing
+themselves sincerely to be the most heroic of people. The Spaniard is
+naturally happy, because his wants are almost <i>nil</i>, and he has the
+fixed idea that kings&mdash;his own or those of other nations&mdash;are all, at
+least, his cousins."</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to speak at large of the religion of the people;
+but one remark one cannot fail to make, and that is, the place which the
+Virgin holds in the life and affections of the masses. The name of the
+Deity is rarely heard, except as an exclamation, and the Christ is
+spoken of rather as a familiar friend than as the Second Person in the
+Trinity; but the deep-seated love for the Virgin, and absolute belief in
+her power to help in all the joys and sorrows of life is one of the
+strongest characteristics of this naturally religious people. The names
+given at baptism are almost all hers. Dolores, Amparo, Pilar, Trinidad,
+Carmen, Concepcion,&mdash;abbreviated into Concha,&mdash;are, in full, Maria de
+Dolores, del Pilar, and so forth, and are found among men almost as much
+as among women. The idea of the ever-constant sympathy of the divine
+Mother appeals perhaps even more strongly to the man, carrying with it
+his worship of perfect womanhood, and awakening the natural chivalry of
+his nature. Be this as it may, the influence of the Virgin, and the
+sincerity of her worship in every stage of life, in all its dangers and
+in all its woes, is a religion in itself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/038.jpg" width="450" height="100" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">C</span><span class="smcap">ertain</span> strong characteristics of the Spanish people, with which the
+history of the world makes us well acquainted, are as marked in this
+hurrying age of railway and telegraph as ever they were in the past. One
+of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking
+tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes." This is as
+true of some of the national traits of character as it is false in the
+sense in which the speaker means it. He has probably picked it out of
+some handbook.</p>
+
+<p>Chief among these traits is dignity. The most casual visitor is
+impressed by it, sometimes very much to his annoyance, whether he finds
+it among the unlettered muleteers of Castile, the labourers of Valencia,
+or the present proprietor of some little Old-World <i>pueblo</i> off the
+ordinary route. The <i>mayoral</i> of the diligence in the old times, the
+domestic servant of to-day, the se&ntilde;ora who happens to sell you fish, or
+the se&ntilde;or who mends your boots, all strike the same note&mdash;an absolute
+incapacity for imagining that there can be any <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span>inequality between
+themselves and any other class, however far removed from them by the
+possession of wealth or education. Wealth, in fact, counts for nothing
+in the way of social rank; a poor <i>hidalgo</i> is exactly as much respected
+as a rich one, and he treats his tenants, his servants, all with whom he
+comes in contact, as brothers of the same rank in the sight of God as
+himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bajo el Rey ninguno</i> is their proverb, and its signification, that
+"beneath the King all are equal," is one that is shown daily in a
+hundred ways. The formula with which you are expected to tell the
+beggars&mdash;with whom, unfortunately, Spain is once more overrun&mdash;that you
+have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the
+"aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my
+brother," or the simple <i>Perdone me usted</i>, using precisely the same
+address as you would to a duke. It is no uncommon thing to hear two
+little ragged urchins, whose heads would not reach to one's elbow,
+disputing vigorously in the street with a <i>Pero no, Se&ntilde;or, Pero si,
+Se&ntilde;or</i>, as they bandy their arguments.</p>
+
+<p>English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the se&ntilde;or who
+keeps a wayside <i>posada</i>, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the
+towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer
+who deigns to use the accommodation provided.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the things in which Spain, to her <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span>honour, <i>is</i>
+unchanged. The courtesy of her people, high or low, is ingrained, and if
+foreign&mdash;perhaps especially English and American&mdash;travellers do not
+always find it so, the fault may oftenest be laid to their own ignorance
+of what is expected of them, and to what is looked upon as the absolute
+boorishness of their own manners.</p>
+
+<p>When a Spaniard goes into a shop where a woman is behind the counter, or
+even to a stall in the open market, he raises his hat in speaking to her
+as he would to the Duquesa de Tal y Fulano, and uses precisely the same
+form of address. The shopman lays himself at the feet of his lady
+customers&mdash;metaphorically only, fortunately, <i>&Aacute; los pies de V.,
+Se&ntilde;ora!</i>&mdash;with a bow worthy of royalty. She hopes that "God may remain
+with his worship" as she bids him the ordinary <i>Adios</i> on going away,
+and he, with equal politeness, expresses a hope that she may "go in
+God's keeping," while he once more lays himself at the se&ntilde;ora's feet.
+All these amenities do not prevent a little bargaining, the one asking
+more than he means to take, apparently for the purpose of appearing to
+give way perforce to the overmastering charms of his customer, who does
+not disdain to use either her fan or her eyes in the encounter. The old
+woman will bargain just as much, but always with the same politeness.
+When foreigners walk in and abruptly ask for what they want with an air
+of immense superiority, as is the custom in our country, they are not
+unnaturally looked <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span>upon as <i>muy bruto</i>, and at the best it is accounted
+for by their being rude heretics from abroad, and knowing no better.</p>
+
+<p>In Madrid and some of the large towns it is possible that the people
+have become accustomed to our apparent discourtesy, just as in some
+places&mdash;Granada especially&mdash;spoiled by long intimacy with tourists, the
+beggars have become importunate, and to some extent impudent; but in
+places a little removed from such a condition of modern "civilisation,"
+the effect produced by many a well-meaning but ordinary Saxon priding
+himself on his superiority, and without any intention of being ill-bred
+or ill-mannered, is that of disgust and contemptuous annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>No Spaniard will put up with an overbearing or bullying manner, even
+though he may not understand the language in which it is expressed; it
+raises in him all the dormant pride and prejudice which sleep beneath
+his own innate courtesy, and he probably treats the offending traveller
+with the profound contempt he feels for him, if with nothing worse. A
+little smiling and good-natured chaff when things go wrong, as they so
+often do in travelling, or when the leisurely expenditure of time, which
+is as natural to the Spaniard as it is irritating to our notions of how
+things ought to move, will go infinitely farther to set things right
+than black looks and a scolding tongue, even in an unknown language.</p>
+
+<p>When English people come back from Spain <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span>complaining of discourtesy, or
+what they choose to call insult, I know very well on whose head to fit
+the accusing cap, and it is always those people whose super-excellent
+opinion of themselves, and of their infinite importance at home, makes
+them certain of meeting with some such experience among a people to whom
+the mere expression "a snob" is by no means to be understood.</p>
+
+<p>That railway travelling in Spain calls for a great exercise of patience
+from those accustomed to Flying Dutchmen and such-like expresses is
+quite true; though, by the way, many of the lines are in French hands,
+and served by French officials. It may safely be said, however, even at
+the present day, that those who are always in a hurry would do well to
+choose some other country for their holiday jaunt. A well-known English
+engineer, of French extraction, trying to get some business through in
+Madrid, once described himself as feeling "like a cat in hell, without
+claws." Perhaps the ignorance of the language, which constituted his
+clawless condition, was a fortunate circumstance for him. But that was a
+good while ago, and Madrid moves more quickly now.</p>
+
+<p>Another characteristic of the Spaniard which awakens the respect and
+admiration of those who know enough of his past and present history to
+be aware of it is his courage: not in the least resembling the
+excitement and rush of mere conflict, nor the theatrical display of what
+goes by the name of "glory" among some of his neigh<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span>bours; but the cool
+courage, the invincible determination which holds honour as the ideal to
+be followed all the same whether or not any person beyond the actor will
+know of it, and an unquestioning obedience to discipline, which call
+forth the ungrudging admiration of Englishmen, proud as we are of such
+national stories as that of our own <i>Little Revenge, The Wreck of the
+"Birkenhead,"</i> or of "plucky little Mafeking," amongst hundreds of
+others. Spaniards are rich in such inspiring memories, reaching from the
+earliest days of authentic history to the terrible episodes of the late
+war with America. The story of Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba is
+one to make the heart of any nation throb with pride in the midst of
+inevitable tears.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again in reading Spanish history do we come upon evidences of
+this nobility of courage and disinterested patriotism. It was the
+Spaniard Pescara who brushed the French army of observation from the
+line of the Adda, and marched his own forces and the German troops to
+the relief of Pav&iacute;a. All were unpaid, unclothed, unfed; yet when an
+appeal was made to the Spaniards, Hume tells us that they abandoned
+their own pay and offered their very shirts and cloaks to satisfy the
+Germans, and "the French were beaten before the great battle was
+fought." They did precisely the same in the days of Mendiz&aacute;bal.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the height of Barbarossa's power, when Charles V., hoisting
+the crucifix at his masthead, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span>led his crusading Spaniards against
+Goletta, and it fell, after a month's desperate siege, without pause or
+rest the troops, half dead with heat and thirst, pressed on to Tunis to
+liberate twenty thousand Christian captives. It was a splendid
+achievement, for the campaign was fought in the fierce heat of an
+African summer. Every barrel of biscuit, every butt of water, had to be
+brought by sea from Sicily, and as there were no draught animals, the
+soldiers themselves dragged their guns and all their provisions. It is,
+as we well know, no light task to find six weeks' supply for thirty
+thousand men with all our modern advantages; but these Spaniards did it
+when already exhausted, half fed, burnt up by the fierce African sun,
+and in face of an enemy well supplied with artillery and ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>In the miserable time of Philip II., a garrison of two hundred men held
+out for months against a Turkish army of twenty thousand men at
+Mers-el-Keber; and the same heroic story is repeated at Malta, when the
+enemy, after firing sixteen thousand cannon shots in one month against
+the Christian forts, abandoned the siege in despair. Meanwhile the
+unspeakable bigot, Philip, was wasting his time in processions,
+rogations, and fasts, for the relief of the town, while he stirred no
+finger to help it in any effective manner.</p>
+
+<p>These are stories by no means few and far between; the whole history of
+the race is full of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span>such. We read of one town and garrison of eight
+thousand souls, abandoned by their king, starved, and without clothes or
+ammunition. Reduced at last to two thousand naked men, they stood in the
+breach to be slain to a man by the conquering Turk. Conqueror only in
+name, after all; for he who conquers is he who lives in history for a
+great action, and whose undaunted courage fires other souls long after
+he is at rest.</p>
+
+<p>"But all this is very ancient history, of the days of Spain's greatness;
+now she is a decadent nation," says the superficial observer. The column
+of the <i>Dos de Mayo</i> on the Prado of Madrid, with its yearly memorial
+mass, shows whether that spirit is dead, or in danger of dying. The
+second of May is well called the "Day of Independence"; it was, in fact,
+the inauguration of the War of Independence, in which Spain gained
+enough honour to satisfy the proudest of her sons. The French had
+entered Madrid under pretence of being Spain's allies against Portugal,
+and Murat, once settled there to his own perfect satisfaction, made no
+secret of his master's intention to annex the whole peninsula. The
+imbecile King, Charles IV., had abdicated; his son, Ferdinand VII., was
+practically a captive in France. The country had, in fact, been sold to
+Napoleon, neither more nor less, by the infamous Godoy, favourite of the
+late King.</p>
+
+<p>A riot broke out among the people on discovering that the French were
+about to carry off the<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span> Spanish <i>Infantes</i>. The blood of some
+comparatively innocent Frenchmen was shed, and the base governor and
+magistrates of Madrid allowed Murat to make his own terms, which were
+nothing less, in fact, than the dispersion of the troops, who were
+ordered to clear out of their barracks, and hand them over to the
+French. The two artillery officers, Daoiz and Valarde, with one infantry
+officer named Ruiz, and a few of the populace, refused, and, all
+unaided, attempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French
+army of invasion! The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards
+of the old type. Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by
+French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had
+stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was
+shot. On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots
+who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now
+sacred to their memory. Thus was the torch of the Peninsular War
+lighted. As one man the nation rose; the labourer armed himself with his
+agricultural implements, the workman with his tools; without leaders,
+nay, in defiance of those who should have led them, the people sprang to
+action, and, with England's help, the usurper was driven from the throne
+of France, and finally caged in St. Helena. But it is never forgotten
+that Spain&mdash;these two or three sons of hers preferring honour to
+life&mdash;has the glory of having <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span>been the first to oppose and check the
+man and the nation that aspired to tyrannise over Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It is not too much to say that the conduct of every individual in
+Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba showed that the Spaniard's
+magnificent courage, his absolute devotion to duty, and his disregard of
+death are no whit less to-day than when those two thousand naked men
+stood in the breach to be slain in the name of their country's honour.
+The <i>Oquendo</i>, already a wreck, coming quietly out of her safe moorings
+in obedience to the insane orders of the Government in Madrid, steering
+her way with absolute coolness so as to clear the sunken <i>Diamante</i>, to
+face certain and hideous death, is a picture which can never fade from
+memory. It was said at the time by their enemies that there was not a
+man in the Spanish fleet that did not deserve the Victoria Cross; and
+this was all the more true because there was not even a forlorn hope: it
+was obedience to orders in the absolute certainty of death, and, what
+was harder still, with full knowledge of the utter uselessness of the
+sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to imagine that anyone can read the record of this
+heroic passage in the history of the Spain of to-day without a throb of
+admiration and pity. No wonder that the generous enemy went out of their
+way to do honour to the melancholy remnant of heroes as they mounted the
+sides of the American ironclads, prisoners of war.</p>
+
+<p>Cervantes gave to the world a new adjective <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span>when he wrote his romance
+of <i>The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha</i>&mdash;a world in which the
+filibusters are those of commerce, the pirates those of trade. When we
+English call an action "quixotic," we do not exactly mean disapproval,
+but neither, certainly, do we intend admiration; unless it be that of
+other-worldliness which it is well to affect, however far we may be from
+practising it ourselves. It is, at best, something quite unnecessary, if
+acknowledged to be admirable in the abstract. The quixotic are rarely
+successful, and success is the measure by which everything is judged
+to-day. Be that as it may, the more intimately one knows Spain, the more
+one becomes aware that what is with us an amiable quality of somewhat
+dubious value, is one of those which go to make up the Spaniard in every
+rank of life. His chivalry, his fine sense of honour, are nothing if not
+quixotic, as we understand the word; and just as in Scotland alone does
+one appreciate the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in Spain
+does one feel that, with due allowance for a spirit of kindly
+caricature, Don Quijote de la Mancha is not only possible, but it is a
+type of character as living to-day as it was when the genius of
+Cervantes distilled and preserved for all time that most quaint,
+lovable, inconsequent, and chivalrous combination of qualities which
+constitute a Spanish gentleman. Among her writers, her thinkers, her
+workers&mdash;nay, even now and then among her politicians&mdash;we come upon
+traits which <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span>remind us vividly of the ingenious gentleman and perfect
+knight of romance.</p>
+
+<p>But this estimate of the Spanish character differs a good deal from the
+pictures drawn of it by the casual tourist; and it is scarcely
+surprising that it should be so. It has been well said that "the
+contrast between the ideal of honour and the practice of pecuniary
+corruption has always been a peculiar feature of Spain and her
+settlements." If we hear one thing oftener than another said of Spain,
+it is fault-finding with her public men; the evils of bribery,
+corruption, and self-seeking amongst what should be her statesmen, and,
+above all, her Government employees, are pointed out, and by none more
+than by Spaniards themselves. There is a good deal of truth at the
+bottom of these charges; they are the melancholy legacy of the years of
+misrule and of the darkness through which the country has struggled on
+her difficult way. No one looks for the highest type of character in any
+country among its party politicians. The creed that good becomes evil if
+it is carried out under one <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, and evil good under another, is
+not calculated to raise the moral perception; and it is only when a
+politician has convictions and principles which are superior to any
+office-holding, and will break with his party a hundred times sooner
+than stultify his own conscience, that he earns the respect of
+onlookers. There are, and have been, many such men among the politicians
+of Spain whose <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span>names remain as watchwords with her people; but they
+have too often stood alone, and were not strong enough to leaven the
+mass and raise the whole standard of political integrity. Some of the
+highest and best men, moreover, have thrown down their tools and
+withdrawn from contact with a life which seemed to them tainted. But
+because Spain has done much in overthrowing her evil rulers and is
+struggling upwards towards the light, we expect wonders, and will not
+give time for what must always be a slow and difficult progress.</p>
+
+<p>In Spain, everyone is a politician. The schoolboy, who with us would be
+thinking of nothing more serious than football, aspires to sum up the
+situation and give his opinion of the public men as if he were an
+ex-prime minister at least. These orators of the <i>caf&eacute;s</i> and the street
+corners are delighted to find a foreigner on whom they can air their
+unfledged opinions, and the traveller who can speak or understand a few
+words of Spanish comes back with wonderful accounts of what "a Spaniard
+whom I met in the train told me." In any case, no one ever says as hard
+things of his countrymen as a Spaniard will say of those who do not
+belong to the particular little political clique which has the extreme
+honour of counting himself as one of its number. These cliques&mdash;for one
+cannot call them parties&mdash;are innumerable, called, for the most part,
+after one man, of whom no one has heard except his particular friends,<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span>
+<i>Un Se&ntilde;or muy conocido en su casa, sobre todo &aacute; la hora de comer</i>, as
+their saying is: "A gentleman very well known in his own house,
+especially at dinner-time."</p>
+
+<table class="center" summary="double image">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 304px;">
+<img src="images/f050a.jpg" width="304" height="400" alt="PAST WORK" title="PAST WORK" />
+<span class="caption">PAST WORK</span></div>
+</td><td>
+<div class="center ill" style="width: 313px;">
+<img src="images/f050b.jpg" width="313" height="400" alt="KNIFE-GRINDER" title="KNIFE-GRINDER" />
+<span class="caption">KNIFE-GRINDER</span></div>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Ford is answerable for many of the fixed ideas about Spain which it
+seems quite impossible to remove. Much that may have been true in the
+long ago, when he wrote his incomparable Guide Book, has now passed away
+with the all-conquering years; but still all that he ever said is
+repeated in each new book with unfailing certainty. Much as he really
+loved Spain, it must be confessed that he now and then wrote of her with
+a venom and bitterness quite at variance with his usual manner of
+judging things. It is in great part due to him that so much
+misunderstanding exists as to the Spanish custom of "offering" what is
+not intended to be accepted. If that peculiarity ever existed&mdash;for my
+part, I have never met with it at any time&mdash;it does so no longer. When a
+Spaniard speaks of his house as that of "your Grace" (<i>su casa de
+Usted</i>), it is simply a figure of speech, which has no more special
+meaning than our own "I am delighted to see you," addressed to some one
+whose existence you had forgotten, and will forget again; but nothing
+can exceed the generous hospitality often shown to perfect strangers in
+country districts where the accommodation for travellers is bad, when
+any real difficulty arises.</p>
+
+<p>It is customary, for instance, in travelling, when you open your
+luncheon-basket, to offer to <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span>share its contents with any strangers who
+may chance to be fellow-passengers. Naturally, it is merely a form of
+politeness, and, in an ordinary way, no one thinks of accepting
+it&mdash;everyone has his own provision, or is intending to lunch somewhere
+on the way; but it is by no means an empty form. If it should chance, by
+some accident, that you found yourself without&mdash;as has happened to me in
+a diligence journey which lasted twenty hours when it was intended only
+to occupy twelve&mdash;the Spanish fellow-travellers will certainly insist on
+your accepting their offer. Also, if they should be provided with fresh
+fruit&mdash;oranges, dates, or figs&mdash;and you are not, their offer to share is
+by no means made with the hope or expectation that you will say <i>Muchas
+gracias</i>, the equivalent of "No, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>What is really difficult and embarrassing sometimes is to avoid having
+pressed on your acceptance some article which you may have admired, in
+your ignorance of the custom, which makes it the merest commonplace of
+the Spaniard to "place it at your disposition," or to say: "It is
+already the property of your Grace." Continued refusal sometimes gives
+offence. The custom of never doing to-day what you can quite easily put
+off till to-morrow is, unfortunately, still a common trait of Spanish
+character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of
+business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the
+national characteristics. Time in old days seemed <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span>of very little value
+in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as
+unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first <i>Grandeza</i>;
+but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure,
+it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or
+dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or
+<i>orchaterias</i>, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has
+with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "<i>el</i>
+high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly.
+Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the Spanish woman of
+rank in such surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, the Spanish woman, wherever you meet her, and in whatever
+rank of society, is devout, naturally kind-hearted and sympathetic,
+polite, and entirely unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter;
+hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all
+things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted,
+full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that
+kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled sex, with no taint
+of sordidness about it; and, before all things, absolutely free from
+affectation. Their own expression, <i>muy simp&aacute;tica</i>, gives better than
+any other the charm of the Spanish woman, whether young or old, gentle
+or simple.</p>
+
+<p>It was the possession of all these qualities in a high degree by Do&ntilde;a
+Isabel II. that covered the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span>multitude of her sins, and made all who
+came within her influence speak gently of her, and think more of excuses
+than of blame. It is these qualities which give so much popularity to
+her daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who, like her mother, is above all
+things <i>muy Espa&ntilde;ola</i>. That the Spanish woman is passionate, goes
+without saying; one only has to watch the quick flash of her
+eye&mdash;"throwing out sparks," as their own expression may be
+translated&mdash;to be aware of that. While the eyes of the men are for the
+most part languid, only occasionally flashing forth, those of the women
+are rarely quiet for a moment; they sparkle, they languish, they
+flame&mdash;a whole gamut of expression in one moment of time; and it must be
+confessed that they look upon man as their natural prey.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/054.jpg" width="280" height="163" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/055.jpg" width="450" height="98" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>SPANISH SOCIETY</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">here</span> is something specially charming about Spanish society, its freedom
+from formality, the genuine pleasure and hospitality with which each
+guest is received, and the extreme simplicity of the entertainment. In
+speaking, however, of society in Madrid and other modern towns, it must
+be remembered that the old manners and customs are to a great extent
+being modified and assimilated with those of the other Continental
+cities. A great number of the Spanish nobility spend the season in Paris
+or in London as regularly as any of the fashionable people in France or
+England. There is no country life in Spain, as we understand the word;
+those of the upper ten thousand who have castles or great houses in the
+provinces rarely visit them, and still more rarely entertain there. A
+hunting or a shooting party at one of these is quite an event; so when
+the great people leave Madrid, it is generally to enter into London or
+Paris society, and, naturally, when they are at home they to a great
+extent retain cosmopolitan customs. At the foreign legations or
+ministries <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span>also, society loses much of its specially Spanish character.</p>
+
+<p>The word <i>tertulia</i> simply means a circle or group in society; but it
+has come to signify a species of "At Home" much more informal than
+anything we have in the way of evening entertainment. The <i>tertulia</i> of
+a particular lady means the group of friends who are in the habit of
+frequenting her drawing-room. The Salon del Prado is the general
+meeting-place of all who feel more inclined for <i>al fresco</i>
+entertainment than for close rooms, and the different groups of friends
+meeting there draw their chairs together in small circles, and thus hold
+their <i>tertulia</i>. The old Countess of Montijo was so much given to
+open-handed hospitality, and it was so easy for any English person to
+obtain an introduction to her <i>tertulia</i>, that her daughter, the Empress
+Eug&eacute;nie, used to call it the <i>Prado cubierto</i>&mdash;"only the Prado with a
+roof on." It is not customary for anything but the very lightest of
+refreshments to be offered at the ordinary <i>tertulia</i>, and this is one
+of its great charms, for little or no expense is incurred, and those who
+are not rich can still welcome their friends as often as they like
+without any of the terrific preparations for the entertainment which
+make it a burden and a bore, and without a rueful glance at the weekly
+bill afterwards. Occasionally, chocolate is handed round, and any amount
+of tumblers of cold water. The chocolate is served in small coffee-cups,
+and is of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span>the consistency of oatmeal porridge; but it is delicious all
+the same, very light and well frothed up. It is "eaten" by dipping
+little finger-rusks or sponge-chips into the mixture, and you are
+extremely glad of the glass of cold water after it. This is, however,
+rather an exception; lemonade, <i>azucarillas</i> and water, or tea served in
+a separate room about twelve o'clock, is more usual. The <i>azucarilla</i> is
+a confection not unlike "Edinburgh rock," but more porous and of the
+nature of a meringue. You stir the water with it, when it instantly
+dissolves, flavouring the water with vanilla, lemon, or orange, as well
+as sugar. Sometimes you are offered meringues, which you eat first, and
+then drink the water.</p>
+
+<p>I have a very perfect recollection of my first <i>tertulia</i> in Madrid,
+when I was a very young girl. We had been asked to go quite early, as we
+were the strangers of the evening. Between seventy and eighty guests
+dropped in, the ladies chiefly in morning dress, as we understand the
+word. A Spanish lady never rises to receive a gentleman; but when any
+ladies entered the large drawing-room where we were all seated, every
+one rose and stood while the new arrivals made the circuit of the room,
+shaking hands with their friends or kissing them on both cheeks, and
+giving a somewhat undignified little nod to those whom they did not
+know. The first time every one rose I thought we were going to sing a
+hymn, or take part in some ceremony; but as it had to be <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span>repeated each
+time a lady entered the room, I began to wish they would all come at
+once. As soon as the dancing began, however, this ceremony was
+discontinued. When you are introduced to a partner, the first thing he
+does is to inquire your Christian name; from that time forth he
+addresses you by it, as if he had known you from infancy, and in
+speaking to him you are expected to use his surname alone. If there be
+more than one brother, you address the younger one as "Arturo," "Ramon,"
+or whatever his Christian name may be. The diminutives are, however,
+almost always used&mdash;Pacquita, Juanito, etc., in place of Francisca or
+Juan. Even the middle-aged and old ladies are always spoken to by their
+Christian names, and it is quite common to hear a child of six
+addressing a lady who is probably a grandmother as "Luisa" or
+"Mariquita."</p>
+
+<p>Between the dances the pauses were unusually long, but they were never
+spent by the ladies sitting in rows round the walls, while the men
+blocked up the doorways and looked bored. There were no "flirting
+corners," and sitting out on the stairs <i>&agrave; deux</i> would have been a
+<i>compromiso</i>. The whole company broke up into little knots and circles,
+the chairs, which had been pushed into corners or an ante-room, were
+fetched out, and the men, without any sort of shyness, generally seated
+themselves in front of the ladies, and kept up a perfectly wild hubbub
+of conversation until the music for the next dance struck up. Dowagers
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span>and <i>due&ntilde;as</i> were few; they sat in the same spot all the evening, and
+asked each other what rent they paid, how many <i>chimeneas</i> (fireplaces)
+they had, whether they burned wood or coal, and lamented over the price
+of both. They reminded one irresistibly of the "two crumbly old women"
+in <i>Kavanagh</i> "who talked about moths, and cheap furniture, and the best
+cure for rheumatism."</p>
+
+<p>The dances were the same as ours, with some small differences: the
+<i>rigodon</i> is a variation of the quadrille, and the lancers are slightly
+curtailed. There was a decided fancy for the polka and a species of
+mazurka, which I remembered having learned from a dancing-master in the
+dawn of life, under some strange and forgotten name. Spaniards dance
+divinely&mdash;nothing less. They waltz as few other men do, a very poetry of
+motion, an abandonment of enjoyment, as if their soul were in it,
+especially if the music be somewhat languid. This is especially the case
+with the artillery officers, who are great favourites in society, and
+belong exclusively to the upper ranks.</p>
+
+<p>I have described this <i>tertulia</i> at length because it was a typical one
+of many. The cotillon was a great favourite, and generally closed the
+evening. I always had an idea that one cause of its popularity was the
+extended opportunities it gave for a couple who found each other's
+company pleasant to enjoy it without much interference. It rather made
+up for the loss of the staircase and the window-seats, or balconies,
+dear to English <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span>dancers. The rooms are generally kept in a stifling
+state of heat, a thick curtain always hanging over the door, and never
+an open window or any kind of ventilation; this, however, does not
+inconvenience the Spaniard in the least. It is usual to smoke during the
+intervals of the dances&mdash;cigarettes as a rule; but I have often known a
+man to lay his cigar on the edge of a table, and give it a whiff between
+the rounds of a <i>valse</i> to keep it going.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, is the Spanish <i>tertulia</i>. You are "offered the house"
+once and for always, and told the evenings on which your hostess
+"receives," generally once, sometimes many more times in the week; then
+you drop in, without further invitation, whenever you feel inclined;
+after the opera, or on the days when there is no opera, or on your way
+from the theatre, or at any hour. This sort of visiting puts an end to
+what we, by courtesy, call "morning calls." There is always conversation
+to any amount, generally cards, music, and, when there are sufficient
+young people, a dance.</p>
+
+<p>There is no exclusiveness and no caste about Spanish society; all the
+houses are open, and the guests are always welcome. There are, of
+course, the houses of the nobility, and there are many grades in this
+<i>Grandeza</i>, some being of very recent creation, others of the
+uncontaminated <i>sangre azul</i>; but there is no hard-and-fast line. The
+successful politician or the popular writer has the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span>entr&eacute;e anywhere,
+and there is no difficulty about going into the very best of the Court
+society, if one has friends in that <i>tertulia</i>. One guest asks
+permission to present his or her friend, the permission is courteously
+granted, and the thing is done. Poets and dramatists are in great
+request in Madrid society. It is the custom to ask them to recite their
+own compositions, and as almost every Spaniard is a poet, whatever else
+he may be, there is no lack of entertainment. All the popular
+authors&mdash;Campoamor, Nu&ntilde;ez de Arce, Pelayo, Valera, and many others&mdash;may
+thus be heard; but the paid performer (so common in London
+drawing-rooms) of music, light drama, or poetical recitation, is
+probably absolutely unknown in Madrid society.</p>
+
+<p>During the season balls are given occasionally at the Palace, and at the
+houses of the great nobility, the Fernan-Nu&ntilde;ez, the Romana, the
+Medinaceli, and others, whose names are as well known in Paris and
+London as in Madrid. Dinner-parties are also becoming much more common
+in private houses than they were before the Restoration, and as for
+public dinners, they are so frequent that they bid fair to become of the
+same importance as the like institution in England. Costume balls,
+dances, dinners, and evening entertainments among the <i>corps
+diplomatique</i> abound. Everyone in Madrid has a box or stall at the
+Teatro Real, or opera-house, and many ladies make a practice of
+"receiving" in their <i>palcos</i>; and in the en<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span>trance-hall, after the
+performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for
+carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally
+making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same
+amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an
+<i>abono</i> at one or other of the numerous theatres, sometimes at more than
+one; and if it be a box, the subscribers take friends with them, or
+receive visits there. It is a common thing, either in the opera-house or
+in the theatres, for a couple of friends to join in the <i>abono</i>; in this
+case it is arranged on which nights the whole box or the two or three
+stalls shall be the property of each in turn. Besides paying for the
+seats, there is always a separate charge each night made for the
+<i>entrada</i>&mdash;in the Teatro Real it is a peseta and a half, in the others
+one peseta. By this arrangement anyone can enter the theatre by paying
+the <i>entrada</i>, and take chance of finding friends there, frequently
+spending an hour or so going from one box to another. All this gives the
+theatre more the air of being an immense "At Home" than what we are
+accustomed to in England. The intervals between the acts are very long,
+and, as all the men smoke, somewhat trying.</p>
+
+<p>Spanish women are great dressers, and the costumes seen at the
+race-meetings at the Hippodrome, and in the Parque, are elaborately
+French, and sometimes startling. The upper middle class go to Santander,
+Biarritz, or one of the other <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span>fashionable watering-places, and it is
+said of the ladies that they only stop as many days as they can sport
+new costumes. If they go for a fortnight they must have fifteen
+absolutely new dresses, as they would never think of putting one on a
+second time. They take with them immense trunks, such as we generally
+associate with American travellers; these are called <i>mundos</i>
+(worlds)&mdash;a name which one feels certain was given by the suffering man
+who is expected to look after them.</p>
+
+<p>There are many little details in Spanish life, even of the upper
+classes, which strike one as odd. One, for instance, is the perfect
+<i>sangfroid</i> with which they pick their teeth in public; but so little is
+this considered, as with us, a breach of good manners, that the
+dinner-tables are supplied with dainty little ornaments filled with
+tooth-picks, and these are handed round to the guests by the waiters
+towards the close of the meal. Nor is it an unknown thing for a Spanish
+lady to spit. I have seen it done out of a carriage window in the
+fashionable drive without any hesitation. At the same time, as one of
+the great charms of a Spanish woman is the total absence in her of
+anything savouring of affectation, one would far sooner overlook customs
+that are unknown in polite society with us than have them lose their own
+characteristics in an attempt to imitate the social peculiarities of
+other nations that have incorporated the ominous word "snob" in their
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span>vocabularies. It has no equivalent in the language of Castile, and it
+is to be hoped will never be borrowed. Nevertheless, a recent Spanish
+writer laments the fact that in the race for "<i>el</i> high life" his
+fellow-countrywomen "are not ashamed to drink whisky!" We have yet to
+learn that whisky-drinking among women is an element of good style in
+any class of English society. The idea that Spanish ladies were in the
+habit of smoking in past times is a mistake. If they do so now it is an
+instance of the race for "<i>el</i> high life," of which the writer quoted
+above complains.</p>
+
+<p>In imitation of foreign customs, many of the ladies in Madrid and the
+more modern cities have established their "day" for afternoon visitors.
+After all, this is but the Spanish <i>tertulia</i> at a different hour, but
+if it should ever supersede the real evening <i>tertulia</i> it will be a
+thousand pities; it would be far more sensible if we were to adopt the
+Spanish custom, rather than that they should follow ours. In the
+evening, the hour varying, of course, with the time of year, all Madrid
+goes to drive, ride, or walk in the Buen Retiro, now called the Parque
+de Madrid. It is beautifully laid out, with wide, well-kept roads and
+well-cared-for gardens; it has quite superseded the Paseo de la Fuente
+Castellano, which used to be the "Ladies' Mile" of Madrid.</p>
+
+<p>Madrid is a city of which one hears the most contradictory accounts. The
+mere traveller not <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span>uncommonly pronounces it "disappointing, uninteresting,
+less foreign than most Continental capitals,"&mdash;"everything to be seen at
+best second-rate France," etc., etc. The Museo, of course, must be
+admired,&mdash;even the most ignorant know that to contemn that is to write
+themselves down as Philistines;&mdash;but for the rest, they confess themselves
+glad to escape, after two or three days spent in La Corte, to what they
+fancy will prove more interesting towns, or, at any rate, to something
+which they hope will be more characteristic. But those who settle in
+Madrid, or know it well, winter and summer, and have friends among its
+hospitable people, come to love it, one might almost say, strangely,
+because it is not the love that springs from habit or mere familiarity,
+but something much warmer and more personal. One charm it has, which is
+felt while there and pleasantly remembered in absence&mdash;its much-maligned
+climate. The position of Madrid at the apex of a high table-land, two
+thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, with its
+wide expanse of plain on every hand but that on which the Guadarramas
+break the horizon with their rugged, often snow-capped, peaks, naturally
+exposes it to rapid changes of temperature; that is to say, that if the
+snow is still lying on the Sierra, and the wind should chance to blow from
+that direction on Madrid, which is steeped in sunshine winter and summer
+for far the greater part of the year, there is nothing to break its course,
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span>and naturally, a Madrile&ntilde;o, crossing from the sheltered corner, where
+he has been "taking the sun," to the shady side of the street and the
+full force of the chilly blast, will be very likely to "catch an air,"
+as the Spaniard expresses it. But that <i>tan sutil aire de Madrid</i>, which
+Ford seems to have discovered, and which every guide-book and slip-shod
+itinerary has ever since quoted, might very well now be allowed to find
+a place in the limbo of exploded myths; it has done far more than its
+duty in terrifying visitors quite needlessly. That <i>pulmonia fulminante</i>
+(acute pneumonia) is a very common disease among the men of Madrid,
+there is no doubt, and in the days when Ford wrote, they were no doubt
+immediately bled, and so hastened on their way out of this troublesome
+world by the doctors; but one has not very far to seek for the cause of
+this scourge when one notices the habits of the Madrile&ntilde;o. In the first
+place he hates nothing quite so much as fresh air, and the caf&eacute;s, clubs,
+taverns, and places where he resorts are kept in such a state of heated
+stuffiness that it seems scarcely an exaggeration to say that the air
+could be cut out in junks, like pieces of cake. If he travel by train,
+all windows must be kept closely shut, while he smokes all the time.
+When, at last, it is necessary to brave the outer air in order to reach
+home, he, carefully and before leaving the vitiated atmosphere he has
+been breathing, envelops himself in his cloak, throwing the heavy <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span>cape,
+generally lined with velvet or plush, across his mouth and nose, barely
+leaving his eyes visible; he thus has three or four folds of cloth and
+velvet as a respirator. It often happens that at the corner of some
+street the long arm of the icy "Guadarrama" reaches him; a sudden gust
+of wind plucks off his respirator, and the mischief is done. But should
+he reach the safe closeness of his own house, he has certainly done his
+level best to charge his lungs with unwholesome and contaminated air.</p>
+
+<p>You have only to see the women on the coldest day in winter with nothing
+over their heads but a silk or lace mantilla, or a mere <i>velo</i> of net,
+and the working-women with nothing but their magnificent hair, or, at
+most, a kerchief, to be certain that it is not the "air" that is to
+blame. I have seen the women going about Madrid in winter, both by day
+and night, when the men were muffled to the eyes, with thicker dresses,
+of course, and perhaps a fur cape, but no sort of wrap about their head
+or throat; and <i>pulmonia</i> is comparatively unknown among women. To
+English people, accustomed to plenty of fresh air and water, Madrid has
+never been an unhealthy place, and it is extremely probable that one of
+these days our doctors will be sending their consumptive patients there
+for the winter. They might easily do worse.</p>
+
+<p>One of the coldest winters I remember in Madrid, a young Englishman came
+out with a letter <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span>of introduction from friends. He looked as if he had
+not many weeks to live, and in truth he was condemned by his doctors,
+and his hours were numbered. He was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had
+some years past developed seeds of consumption. He had been sent year
+after year to Madeira and other of the old resorts, having been told
+that a winter in England would certainly finish him. Finally, he made
+his doctors tell him the truth: it was that he had not many months,
+perhaps not many weeks, to live.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then," he replied, "there is no use worrying any more about
+my health. I shall do my best to enjoy the little time I may have left."
+He threw all his medicines and remedies out of the window, he looked out
+for the most unhealthy place he could find, where he would be most
+certain of never meeting another consumptive patient; and in the course
+of the search he came across the well-worn chestnut about the air of
+Madrid. "That is the place for me," he exclaimed; "only strong and
+healthy people can live there. At any rate, so long as I do live, I
+shall be amongst sound lungs, and shall see no more fellow-sufferers.
+The <i>aire tan sutil</i> will kill me, and that will be the end of the
+matter." So far from killing him, the fine champagne-like air of Madrid
+went as near curing him as was possible for a man with only one lung. He
+took no precautions, never wrapped up, went out at night as well as by
+day, and when he died, fourteen years <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span>later, it was not of consumption.
+He used to come to Madrid for the winter to escape the damp of England,
+and revelled in the warmth and freshness of that sun-steeped air.</p>
+
+<p>The climate of Madrid has sensibly altered since I have known it, and
+will continue to do so as vegetation increases and trees spring up and
+grow to perfection within and around it. In the old times, before the
+splendid service of water of the Lozoya Canal was in common use, the air
+was so dry as to make one's skin uncomfortable, and one's hair to break
+off into pieces like tinder under the brush; there was also a constant
+thickening in the throat, causing slight discomfort, and a penetrating,
+impalpable dust which nothing ever laid, and which formed a veritable
+cloud reaching far above the heads of the promenaders in the Salon del
+Prado. A very short time changed all this. Twice a day the streets were
+watered with far-reaching hose, a constant stream ran about the stems of
+the trees in the Prado, gardens were planted and constantly watered, and
+while the hitherto barren, dust-laden places began to blossom as the
+rose, the air itself became softer, less trying, and, perhaps, there is
+rather more uncertainty about the weather, or at any rate a greater
+rainfall. At one time there were but two rainy seasons&mdash;spring and
+autumn&mdash;and never a cloud in between. For about three days clouds would
+be gathering gradually in the sky, beginning with one literally "no
+bigger than a man's hand."<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span> Whenever there was a cloud, you might be
+certain of rain, past or to come. Then one day, when there was no longer
+any blue to be seen, the heavens opened and the rain came down. There
+could be no mistake about it. When it rains or thunders in Madrid, it
+tries to get it all over as quickly as possible. There is nothing like
+doing a thing well when you are about it, and Madrid thoroughly
+understands this matter of rain. It never ceases, never tempts people to
+go out and then drowns them. No, if you go out, it is with a thorough
+understanding of what you are undertaking; and if you are disposed to be
+critical about anything in the municipal management of La Corte now, try
+to imagine what it was when the water from the roofs was carried out in
+wide pipes a few feet from the edge, and allowed to pour on the heads of
+the defenceless foot-passengers, or almost to break in the roof of
+carriage or cab which had to pass under them. This is the time to learn
+why the bridges over the Manzanares are so wide and so strong; not one
+whit too much of either, if they are to withstand the mighty on-rush. We
+used to go off to the Casa de Campo the moment the rain was over, for
+the sake of seeing Madrid as one never sees it at other times&mdash;its
+magnificent Palace crowning the steep bluff, round which a mighty river
+is rushing to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The rain lasts a week, a fortnight, or even more, and then the sky takes
+at least three days to clear, during which it resembles our English
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span>white-flecked blue, or its hurrying grey masses, and the cloud-shadows
+fly over the wide landscape, now all suddenly changed to verdure, and
+lie on the distant <i>sierra</i>, giving an unwonted charm to the scene. The
+Casa de Campo, the Florida, and all green spots become carpeted with
+wild flowers; the trees seem to have put on new leafage, so fresh are
+they and free from the over-loading of dust. And then, gradually, the
+Manzanares repents him of his anger and haste; no more foam is dashing
+against the piers of the bridges, no more crested waves are hurrying
+before the wind; he sinks gently and slowly back to his accustomed
+lounging pace, "taking the sun" with lazy ease once more; and the
+washerwomen come down and resume their labours under the plane trees;
+and there is no more thought of rain for many a week, perhaps month, to
+come; and that strangely deep, impenetrable vault of a blue unknown
+elsewhere spreads its canopy over a clean, rain-washed city.</p>
+
+<p>The Parque de Madrid, which lies high above the Prado, affords a
+striking view of the country on all sides. An Englishman of wide
+Continental experience, describing this prospect, says he was "more than
+recompensed by the sudden apparition, through an opening between the
+houses, of the exquisite <i>campagna</i> that surrounds Madrid.... Compared
+with that of Rome, it seemed to me clearer, and more extensive, while
+the hue of the atmosphere that overspread it was of a rich <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span>purple." I
+have quoted these remarks because it is so rare for English visitors,
+accustomed to the lush green of our own meadows and woods, to find
+anything to admire in what is too often called the "mangy," or at best
+the "arid," surroundings of the capital of Spain. This, however, was
+written in September, and there had been heavy rains; after the crops
+are gathered and before the autumn rains come on, the prospect is
+scarcely so much to be admired. That the view is extensive, no one can
+deny; there is unbroken horizon, except where the rugged peaks of the
+Guadarramas pierce the sky, and the atmospheric effects are often
+marvellously beautiful, especially when the swift shadows of clouds pass
+over the wide landscape, or lie upon the "everlasting hills."</p>
+
+<p>For myself, this vast expanse, with the sense of immensity which we
+generally are only able to associate with the sea, has always had an
+extraordinary charm. I have seen it at all times of the year, early in
+the morning, and at, or just before, sundown&mdash;nay, even once or twice by
+moonlight, or with the marvellous blue vault overhead, that seems so
+much higher and greater there than elsewhere, studded with planet and
+star, luminous beyond all that we know in our little island, where the
+blue is so pale by comparison, and the atmosphere laden with moisture
+when we think it most clear. I do not remember elsewhere in Spain, or in
+any other country, such a depth of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span>sky or such brilliancy of moon and
+star light as in Madrid, where it is as easy to read by night as by day
+on some occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Given plenty of water, and Madrid is an ideal place for flowers. Such
+carnations as those which are grown in the nursery gardens there are
+never seen elsewhere&mdash;they are a revelation in horticulture; nor are the
+roses any less wonderful. The bouquet with which a Spaniard, whether
+<i>hidalgo</i> or one of your servants, greets your birthday is generally a
+pyramid almost as tall as yourself. It needs to be placed in a large
+earthenware jar on the floor, and if you should be happy enough to have
+a good many friends, there is scarcely room for anything else in your
+<i>gabinete</i>. The flowers one can raise in a balcony in Madrid merely by
+using plenty of water, syringing the dust off the leaves, and shading
+them occasionally from the worst heat, are more than equal to anything a
+hothouse in England can produce. An idea may be formed of the really
+marvellous fertility of the soil and climate by the rapidity with which
+seeds develop. I remember one summer, when some of the new gardens were
+being laid out in the Buen Retiro, a grand concert and evening <i>f&ecirc;te</i>
+was to be given as the opening function. On the evening before this
+entertainment was to take place we happened to be near, and strolled in
+to see how the preparations were going on. The gravel walks were all
+there, the stands for the bands, the Chinese lanterns hanging from <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span>the
+trees, but where was the grass? Alas! wherever it ought to have been
+were to be seen brown, sad-looking patches of bare earth, not a blade
+springing anywhere; what was worse, an army of gardeners were, at that
+moment only, sowing the seed in some patches, while others were being
+rolled, and watered with hose. <i>Cosa de Espa&ntilde;a!</i> of course. It had been
+put off to <i>ma&ntilde;ana</i>, until now there might be <i>f&ecirc;te</i>, but no gardens.
+The following evening, when in company with all Madrid we went to the
+concert, behold a transformation! Soft, green, velvety sward&mdash;not to be
+walked on, it is true, but lovely to behold&mdash;covered the patches so
+absolutely bald twenty-four hours ago. The seed we had seen sown had
+sprung up as thickly as finest cut velvet. <i>Cosa de Espa&ntilde;a</i>, indeed! It
+is not always in Spain&mdash;the land of the unexpected&mdash;that <i>Ma&ntilde;ana
+ver&eacute;mos</i> is foolishness.</p>
+
+<p>Until after Christmas the winter in Madrid is charming, even if it be
+cold; the glorious sunshine from dawn to sunset, the fine exhilarating
+air, raise one's spirits unconsciously; but very often the old year is
+dead before any real cold comes on. I have sat out in the Buen Retiro
+many a day in December with book or work, and scarcely any more wrap
+than one wears in summer in England. After that there is generally a
+cold, and perhaps disagreeable, spell, when the wind comes howling
+across the plains straight from the snow and ice, and the Madrile&ntilde;o
+thinks <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span>it terrible; as a matter of fact, so long as the sky remains
+clear, there is always one side of the street where one can be warm.
+Sometimes, but not often, the cold weather or the bitter winds last
+pretty far into the spring, and it has certainly happened in the depth
+of the frost that one of the sentries on duty at the Palace, on the side
+facing the mountains, was found frozen to death when the relief came.
+After that the watch was made shorter, and the change of guard more
+frequent in winter. I have seen the Estanque Grande in the Retiro
+covered with ice several inches thick; but as all Madrid turned out to
+see the wonder and watch the foreigners skate, a thing that appeared
+never to have been seen before, it could not have been a very common
+occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>Riding early in the morning in winter outside Madrid, even with the sun
+shining brightly and a cloudless sky, the cold was often intense,
+especially in the dells and hollows. We have often had to put our hands
+under the saddle to keep them from freezing, so as to be able to feel
+the reins, and if I were riding with the sun on the off-side, my feet
+would become perfectly dead to feeling. But what an air it was!
+Something to be remembered, and long before we reached home we were in a
+delicious glow. The horses, English thoroughbreds, enjoyed it immensely,
+and went like the wind. I have been in Madrid in every part of the year,
+and never found it unbearably hot, though one does not generally wait
+for July or<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span> August; but here again the lightness and dryness of the air
+seem to make heat much easier to bear. Numbers of Madrid people think
+nothing of remaining there all the summer through.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/076.jpg" width="280" height="137" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/077.jpg" width="450" height="97" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>MODERN MADRID</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">M</span><span class="smcap">adrid</span> has grown out of all knowledge in the last thirty years. No one
+who had not seen it since the time of Isabel II. would recognise it now,
+and even then much had been done since Ferdinand VII. had come back from
+his fawning and despicable captivity in France&mdash;where he had gloried in
+calling himself a "French prince"&mdash;to act the despot in his own country.
+The Liberal Ministers who, for short periods, had some semblance of
+power during the regency of Cristina had done a little to restore the
+civilisation and light established by Charles III., and wholly quenched
+in the time of his unworthy and contemptible successors. But even in
+1865, the Alcal&aacute; Gate, standing where the Plaza de la Independencia is
+now, formed one boundary of Madrid, the Gate of Atocha was still
+standing at the end of the <i>paseo</i> of that name, and the Gate of Sta.
+Barbara formed another of the limits of the city. The Museo was
+unfinished and only to be entered by a side door, encumbered with
+builders' rubbish and half-hewn blocks of stone.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span> The Paseo of la Fuente
+Castellana ended the Prado, and not a house was to be seen beyond the
+Mint, or outside the Gate of Alcal&aacute;.</p>
+
+<p>All the town outside these barriers has arisen since; the magnificent
+viaduct across the Calle de Segovia, the Markets, the Parque de Madrid,
+the Hippodrome, the present Plaza de Toros, all are new. The old Bull
+Ring stood just outside the Alcal&aacute; Gate, and all beyond it was open
+country; no <i>casas palacias</i> along the Fuente Castellana, no Barrio
+Salamanca. Madrid has, however, always been a cheerful, noisy, stirring
+city, full of life and the expression of animal spirits. In days not so
+very long past the streets were filled with picturesque costumes of the
+provinces, with gaily decorated mules and donkeys carrying immense loads
+of hay or straw, or huge nets filled with melons or pumpkins, almost
+hiding everything but the head and the feet of the animal; or a
+smart-looking "Jacket" man from the country districts would go whistling
+by, Asturians, Murcians, Gallegos, gypsies, <i>toreros</i> in their brilliant
+<i>traje</i> Andaluz&mdash;always to be recognised by their tiny pigtails of hair,
+and by their splendidly lithe and graceful carriage&mdash;all these jostling,
+singing, chaffing each other, while the jingling bells on innumerable
+horses, mules, donkeys, rang through the sunlit air, and made the Puerta
+de Sol and the streets branching from it a constant scene of life and
+gaiety. Now and then would come the deep clang of the huge bell of the
+draught oxen, drawing <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span>their Old-World carts, often with solid discs of
+wood for wheels, while the women of the lower class sported their
+brilliantly embroidered Manila shawls, chattered, and fluttered their
+gaily-coloured fans just like the other se&ntilde;oritas. Mantillas, even then,
+were only to be seen on old ladies; but the smart little <i>velo</i>
+coquettishly fastened with a natural flower adorned all the young
+girls&mdash;French millinery, which never suits a Spanish face, being kept
+for the evening <i>paseo</i>. It is a pity these national costumes have gone
+out of fashion. A Spanish girl with <i>velo</i> and fan is something quite
+superior to the same fascinating young person dressed after the style of
+Paris&mdash;with a difference; for there is always a difference.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f078.jpg" width="550" height="398" alt="OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID" title="OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID" />
+<span class="caption">OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Madrid, in fact, is becoming cosmopolitan, and is little to be
+distinguished from other capitals, except in the <i>barrios bajos</i> on the
+national <i>fiestas</i>, and wherever the country people, as distinguished
+from the Madrid work-people, congregate. These last are rapidly losing
+all picturesqueness, dressing just as the workers in any other capital
+dress. They are, perhaps, still no less <i>gatos</i> (cats), those of them at
+least who have had the honour of being born in La Corte, this being the
+name given them by their fellow country-people.</p>
+
+<p>If it be meant as a term of reproach, the Madrile&ntilde;o has an excellent
+answer in giving the history of its origin. In the reign of Alfonso VI.,
+during one of the many war-like operations of this King, he wished to
+take an important and difficult <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span>fortress, and had collected all his
+forces to attack it&mdash;the Madrile&ntilde;os alone were late; it was, in fact,
+only the day before the assault was to take place that they arrived upon
+the scene. The King was furious, and when their leader approached his
+Majesty to know where the troops were to bivouac for the night, he
+replied that there was no room in his camp for laggards; pointing to the
+enemy's fortress, he added: "<i>There</i> will be found plenty of lodging for
+those who come too late for any other." Saluting his Majesty very
+courteously, the soldier withdrew, understanding thoroughly the indirect
+sneer at the valour of his troops; he went back to his regiment,
+summoned his officers and men, and repeated to them the King's word. One
+and all agreed that they would, in fact, seek their night's lodging just
+where the King had indicated. Impossible as the feat appeared, they
+instantly rushed to the attack of the formidable fortress with such
+irresistible dash that they succeeded in scaling the walls and entering
+it, pikes in rest. The King, who had run forward as soon as he heard of
+the attack, watched with delight his loyal Madrile&ntilde;os climbing up the
+face of the masonry with extraordinary skill, and not a little loss.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, look!" he cried to those near him. "See how they climb! They are
+cats!"</p>
+
+<p>The other forces at once came to their assistance, the fortress fell
+into the King's hands before <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span>nightfall, and those who had been in "no
+hurry" to join the army found their lodgings within it, as his Majesty
+had contemptuously recommended them to do. His anger was forgotten in
+admiration and praise; and, from that time, all those born in Madrid
+have the right to call themselves <i>gatos</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious how the observation of those who know Spain intimately
+differs&mdash;one must suppose according to temperament. Thus Antonio
+Gallenga, the well-known correspondent of the <i>Times</i>, who really knew
+Spain well, has left it on record that the people are not musical, and
+that he never remembers to have heard any of them singing in the
+streets, or at their work. I do not know how this could have happened,
+unless our old friend did not recognise the singing he did hear as
+music, for which he might, perhaps, be forgiven. My own experience is
+that the people are always singing, more or less, if you agree to call
+it so. As the houses are almost all built in flats, many of the windows
+open into <i>patios</i>, or court-yards, large or small, as the case may be.
+You may reckon on always having two or three servants, male or female,
+at work in the <i>patio</i>, the women washing or scrubbing, the men probably
+cleaning their horses, carriages, or harness; but whatever else they may
+be doing, you may be quite certain they will all be singing, though it
+is equally certain that, by the greatest exercise of amiability, you
+could scarcely call the result a song; the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span>words seem to be improvised
+as the performer goes on. There was a light-hearted groom in one of the
+<i>patios</i> of our flat, in the Calle Lope de Vega, who would continue
+almost without a break the whole day. An old friend who used to amuse
+himself by listening to this remarkable performer declared that if he
+started his song in the early morning with a stick that was thick
+enough, he would go on till midnight telling the world in general all
+the people he had killed with it, and the other wonders of Hercules it
+had performed.</p>
+
+<p>The ditty always begins on a high note, and goes quavering irregularly
+downwards, with infinite twirls, shakes, and prolonged notes, these
+being sung to the exclamation "Ay!" Minor keys enter a good deal into
+this kind of performance, and the most remarkable part of it is that the
+singer, once having reached the bottom of the scale&mdash;for there is no
+end&mdash;is able to begin again on the same high note, and hit upon, more or
+less, the same variations a second time. If you have nothing better to
+do than to listen to some of these improvisatores, you will get a long,
+and more or less connected, history of some event; but it takes a long
+time&mdash;and, perhaps, is not often worth the expenditure. The songs which
+you hear to the accompaniment of the guitar are different from these,
+though the introduction of the "Ay!" and the frequent shakes and twirls
+are always there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span>The working Madrile&ntilde;o's ideal of happiness is to go a little way along
+one of the dusty <i>caminos reales</i> (highways) to some little <i>venta</i>, or
+tavern, or to take refreshments out in baskets. They will sit quite
+contentedly in the dust by the side of the road, or in a field of
+stubble or burnt-up grass, to eat and drink, and then the guitar comes
+into play, and the dancing begins. It is always the <i>jota aragonesa</i>,
+which is not so much dancing as twirling about slowly, and, it would
+almost seem, sadly; but there is always a circle of admiring lookers-on,
+who beat time with stamping of feet and clapping of hands, and watch the
+performance as eagerly as if there were something quite fresh and new
+about it. Occasionally, these parties go out by omnibus or tram, as far
+as they can, and then start their picnic repast, to be followed by the
+inevitable dance and song, just wherever they happen to be.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most curious sights of Madrid is the great wash-tub of the
+Manzanares. As you descend the steep bluff on which the city stands,
+towards the river, you find the banks covered with laundresses, kneeling
+at short distances from one another, each scrubbing the clothes on one
+board, which slopes down into the water, while another board, fixed so
+as to stand out into the stream, or a little embankment made of sand,
+dams up the scanty supply of water she can obtain. As the Manzanares in
+summer is divided into a great number of small streams, this scene <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span>is
+repeated on the edge of each one, while the expanse of sand which
+occupies the centre of what ought to be the river-bed is one forest of
+clothes-props, with all the wash of Madrid hanging on the lines. On the
+banks the children, in the intervals of school, are playing bull-fights,
+or some of their innumerable dancing and singing games; the women are
+one and all performing the gradual descent of the gamut with variations
+called singing; and above all is the glorious sun, transfiguring all
+things, and throwing deep, purple shadows from the high plane-trees
+along the banks.</p>
+
+<p>The road which runs along the bank of the Manzanares, at the farther
+side from Madrid, is a revelation to those who only know the plains
+through which the railway from the north passes, and which for the
+greater part of the year, except when the crops are growing, are quite
+as arid as we are accustomed to suppose. On the left lies the Casa de
+Campo, an immense extent of park, containing, on the high ground, some
+splendid specimens of the Scotch fir, and, in more sheltered spots,
+groves of beech, avenues of plane, and masses of the dark-leaved ilex,
+which grows to great perfection in this climate. The "Florida," another
+of the royal properties, lies to the right, and a splendid road shaded
+by majestic trees, and with wide, grassy margins, stretches away to the
+village of El Pardillo, where Longfellow established his quarters, and
+which he describes in his<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span> <i>Outre Mer</i>, and from that on to the forest,
+or whatever you may call it, of El Pardo, where there is a royal
+residence now but seldom used, you may ride for many hours and still
+find yourself in this wild park, which many of the inhabitants of Madrid
+have never seen. Here one can realise a little how the city may have
+once been a hunting lodge of the Kings, as we are told. The Pardo may be
+reached through the Casa de Campo, a gate at the extreme end of the
+principal drive leading into the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Up on the high ground of the Casa de Campo there is a splendid view of
+Madrid, with the Palace crowning the steep bluff overhanging the
+Manzanares. It was in the "country house" itself, near the gate, that
+our "Baby Charles" is said to have climbed the high wall of the
+courtyard to get a glimpse of the Infanta whom he hoped to make his
+wife. When I knew the place intimately, on the very highest part of the
+Park was a large enclosure of the wild forest, railed in with high
+wooden palisading. Within this lived a flock of ostriches, belonging to
+the Crown. No one seemed to know anything about them, nor how long they
+had been there. What puzzled us much was how they were fed, or if they
+were left to cater for themselves. One thing I can answer for: they were
+very wild, and very ferocious; the moment they saw our horses coming up
+the hill they would run from all parts of the enclosure trying their
+best to get at us, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span>striking with their feet and wings, and uttering
+gruesome shrieks. It was one of our amusements to race them, keeping
+outside their high fence while they strode over the ground, their necks
+stretched out, and their absurd wings flapping after the manner of a
+farmyard gander; but, with the best efforts, the horses were never able
+to keep up the pace for long; the birds invariably won, and we left them
+screeching and using language that did not appear to be parliamentary,
+when they found that the fence was the only thing that did not give in,
+as they craned their necks and stamped in their baffled rage. The
+horses, at first rather afraid of the birds, soon learned to enjoy the
+fun, and raced them for all they were worth. I do not know if this
+strange colony is still settled there.</p>
+
+<p>A curious feature of Spanish country life to us are the goatherds. Where
+the large flocks of goats about Madrid pasture, I know not; but I have
+often seen them coming home in the evening to be milked, or starting out
+in the morning. The goatherd, clad in his <i>manta</i>, and carrying a long
+wand of office over his shoulder, and I think also a horn, stalks
+majestically along with all the dignity of a royal marshal of
+processions, and the goats follow him, with a good deal of lagging
+behind for play, or nibbling, if they should chance to see anything
+green. Still, they scamper after their <i>generalissimo</i> in the end, and
+meanwhile he is much too dignified to look back.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span> Taking advantage of
+this, I have seen women come out of their cottages on the roadside and
+milk a goat or two as it passed; and from the way the animal made a full
+stop, and lent itself to the fraud&mdash;if such it were&mdash;it was evidently a
+daily occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>In times not long past, if indeed they do not still exist, the
+dust-heaps outside Madrid were the homes of packs of lean, hungry dogs,
+great brindled creatures of the breed to be seen in Velasquez pictures;
+these animals prowled about the streets of Madrid in the early morning,
+acting as scavengers. When they became too numerous, the civil guards
+laid poison about at night in the dust-heaps before the houses, and the
+very early riser might see four or five of these great creatures lying
+dead on the carts which collect the refuse of Madrid before the world in
+general is astir. These wild dogs were disagreeable customers to meet
+when riding outside the city, until we learned to avoid the localities
+where they spent their days, for they would give chase to the horses if
+they caught sight of them, and the only thing to be done was to remain
+perfectly quiet until they tired of barking and returned to the
+dust-hills to resume their search for food.</p>
+
+<p>The description of peasant life in Madrid would be incomplete if we left
+unmentioned the daily siesta in the sun of the Gallegos and lower-class
+working-men. On the benches in the Prado, on the pavement, in the full
+blaze of the sun, these <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span>men will stretch themselves and sleep for an
+hour or two after their midday meal. I have seen the Gallego porters
+make themselves a hammock with the rope they always carry with
+them&mdash;<i>mozos de cuerda</i> they are called&mdash;literally slinging themselves
+to the <i>reja</i> or iron bars of the window of some private house, and
+sleep soundly in a position that would surely kill any other human
+being. "Taking the sun" (<i>tomando el sol</i>) is, however, the custom of
+every Spaniard of whatever degree.</p>
+
+<p>The casual visitor to Madrid is always struck with the number of
+carriages to be seen in the <i>paseo</i>; but the fact is that everyone keeps
+a carriage, if it be at all possible, and it is no uncommon thing for
+two or three <i>pollos</i> to join together in the expense of this luxury,
+and a sight almost unknown to us is common enough in Madrid&mdash;young men,
+the "curled darlings" of society, lazily lounging in a Victoria or
+Berlina in what is known as the "Ladies' Mile." The Madrid <i>pollo</i> is
+not the most favourable specimen of a Spaniard; the word literally means
+a "chicken," but applied to a young man it is scarcely a complimentary
+expression, and has its counterpart with us in the slang terms which
+from time to time indicate the idle exquisite who thinks as much of his
+dress and his style as any woman does or more. The Madrid <i>pollo</i> often
+is, or ought to be, a schoolboy, and the younger he is, naturally, the
+more conceited and impertinent <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span>he is. It is curious that with the
+feminine termination, this word (<i>polla</i>) loses all sense of banter or
+contempt; it simply means a young girl in the first charm of her
+spring-time.</p>
+
+<p>Riding in the Row has always been a favourite pastime in Madrid, but to
+English ideas the <i>pollo</i> is more objectionable there than elsewhere,
+since his idea of riding is to show off the antics of a horse specially
+taught and made to prance about and curvet while he sits it, his legs
+sticking out in the position of the Colossus of Rhodes, his heels, armed
+with spurs, threatening catastrophe to the other riders. An old English
+master of foxhounds, who was a frequent visitor in Madrid, used to
+compare the Paseo of the Fuente Castellana at the fashionable hour to a
+"<i>chevaux de frise</i> on horseback." These gentlemen must not, however, be
+supposed to represent Spanish horsemanship. Ladies ride a good deal in
+the Paseo, but one cannot call them good horsewomen. To get into the
+saddle from a chair, or a pair of stable steps, and let their steed walk
+up and down for an hour or so in the Row, is not exactly what we call
+riding. If you hire a carriage in Madrid you are so smart that your best
+friends would not recognise you. A grand barouche and pair dashes up to
+your door, probably with a ducal coronet on the panels. The coachman and
+footman wear cockades, and the moment you appear they both take off
+their hats and hold them in their hands until you are seated in the
+carriage. This cere<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span>mony is repeated every time you alight, the coachman
+reverently uncovering as you leave the carriage or return to it, as well
+as the footman who is opening the door for you.</p>
+
+<p>It is most comforting; royalty, I feel sure, is nothing to it! We will
+not look critically at the lining of the noble barouche, nor at the
+varnish on its panels, still less make disagreeable remarks about the
+liveries, which do not always fit their wearers&mdash;it is economical to
+have liveries made a good medium size, so that if the servants are
+changed the clothes are not;&mdash;one can always feel grateful for the
+polite and agreeable attendants. How oddly it must strike the Spaniards
+in England to notice the stolid indifference of "Jeames de la Plush,"
+and the curt tap of his first finger on the brim of his hat as his lady
+enters her carriage or gives her directions!</p>
+
+<p>All the mules, and most of the horses, ponies, or donkeys ridden by the
+"Jacket" men or country people are trained to pace instead of to trot;
+it is said to be less fatiguing on a long journey. The motion as you
+ride is, to our notions, very unpleasant, being a kind of roll, which at
+first, at any rate, gives one the feeling of sea-sickness. The animal
+uses the fore and hind feet together alternately, as he literally runs
+over the ground. It does not appear to be a natural pace, but is
+carefully taught, and, once acquired, it is very difficult to break the
+animal of it; his idea of trotting has become quite lost; nor is it a
+pretty <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span>action, nor one suited to show off good qualities&mdash;it has always
+something of a shuffle about it. If it has its advantages, except that
+stirrups may be dispensed with, they are not very apparent to those
+accustomed to the usual paces of an English horse. Personally, I
+disliked it particularly.</p>
+
+<p>There have been many efforts to introduce racing, with its contingent
+improvement in the breed of horses, perhaps the earliest during the
+regency of Espartero; but these ended, as most things did in the old
+days when Spain was only beginning her long struggle for freedom, in
+failure and loss to the enterprising gentlemen&mdash;of whom the then Duque
+de Osuna was one&mdash;who spent large sums of money in the effort. The old
+race-course of that time lay somewhere in the low ground outside Madrid
+on the course of the Manzanares; many a good gallop I have had on it,
+though it was abandoned and forgotten long ago by the Madrile&ntilde;os. At the
+present time horse-racing may be said to have become naturalised in
+Spain under the <i>Sociedad del Fomento de la Cria Caballar</i> (Society for
+the Encouragement of Horse-breeding), and all that concerns horsemanship
+is naturally improved and improving.</p>
+
+<p>A good idea of Spanish horses may be gained by a visit to the Royal Mews
+in Madrid. There are the cream-coloured horses from the royal stud at
+Aranjuez, <i>jacuitas</i> from Andalucia, as well as the mountain ponies of
+Galicia. Those <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span>who have never seen the Spanish mule have no idea what
+the animal is&mdash;powerful, active, graceful, and almost impossible to
+injure. They are used in the royal stables and in those of the nobility,
+for night work, since they are so hardy as not to be injured by long
+waiting in the cold or wet. They are the correct thing in the carriages
+of the Papal Nuncio and all ecclesiastics, and are generally preferred
+to horses for long or difficult journeys. They are a great feature in
+the army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only
+drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule
+carries a small gun on his back. A brigade of this arm would have been
+invaluable to the British in South Africa, having no doubt had its
+initiation in the guerilla warfare of Spain's frequent civil wars.</p>
+
+<p>The clipping of mules and donkeys, which are also very superior animals
+to anything we know by that name, is in the hands of the gypsies, who
+have a perfect genius for decorating their own animals and any others
+committed to their manipulation. Only the upper part is shaved, or
+clipped to the skin, the long winter coat being left on the legs and
+half-way up the body. Generally, on the shoulders and haunches a pattern
+is made by leaving some of the hair a little longer; the figure of the
+cross with rays is not uncommon, but it is wonderful how elaborate and
+beautiful some of these patterns are, looking as if embossed in velvet
+on the skin. One day, passing a <i>venta</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span> in a street in Madrid, we were
+attracted by a gaily-decked donkey standing outside. He had the words,
+<i>Viva mi Amo</i> (Long live my Master!), finished with a beautiful and
+artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we
+stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us
+that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate
+decoration was a practical joke!</p>
+
+<p>The mules and donkeys which come in from the country are generally very
+picturesque, with a network of crimson silk tassels over their heads,
+and a bright-coloured <i>manta</i> thrown across their sleek, glossy backs.
+These <i>mantas</i> serve many purposes; they are made of two breadths of
+brightly striped and ornamented material of wool and silk, sewn up at
+one end, or sometimes for some distance at each end, like a purse;
+sometimes they are thrown across the mule to serve as saddle-bags,
+sometimes one end is used as a hood and is drawn over the master's head,
+while the remainder is thrown across his chest and mouth and over the
+left shoulder. The best of these <i>mantas</i> are elaborately trimmed at
+both ends with a deep interlacing fringe, ending in a close row of
+balls, and have a thick ornamental cord sewn over the joining. These,
+which are intended for human wraps and not as saddle-bags, are only sewn
+up at one end, so as to form something very like the old monkish hood.
+All the horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen wear bells: the oxen have
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span>generally only one large bronze bell, which hangs under the head; the
+others have rows of small jingling silver or brass bells round their
+collars or bridles.</p>
+
+<p>These draught oxen are beautiful animals, mostly a deep cream in colour,
+with dark points, magnificent eyes, and a sphinx-like look of patience,
+as if biding their time for something much better to come. Their harness
+is not apparently irksome to them, and is not so heavy as one sees on
+the Portuguese oxen, for instance. They are coupled by a wooden bar
+across the head, and their driver, if such he can be called&mdash;rather,
+perhaps, the guide&mdash;walks in front with a long stick, possibly a wand of
+office, over his shoulder to show them the way. The dress of this
+functionary is picturesque: a wide-brimmed hat (<i>sombrero</i>), a shirt,
+short trousers to the knees, with gaiters of woven grass (<i>esparto</i>), a
+<i>faja</i> round his waist, and <i>manta</i> thrown over his shoulder if cold. He
+stalks majestically along, followed by his equally majestic <i>bueyes</i>,
+and one wonders of what all three are thinking as they trudge along the
+sun-smitten roads, regardless of dust or of anything else. The cars are
+rude enough, and the wheels sometimes solid discs of wood. Occasionally,
+a hood of bent pieces of wood covered with linen is fixed. Tame oxen, or
+<i>cabestros</i>, as they are called, play a very important part in the
+<i>ganaderos</i> and the bull-rings. They appear to be held in some sort of
+superstitious <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span>reverence, or strange affection, by the poor beasts who
+only live to make sport for men. In driving the bulls from one pasture
+to another, or bringing them into the towns, the <i>cabestros</i> are
+followed with unwavering faith by these otherwise dangerous animals;
+where the <i>cabestro</i> goes, clanging his great bell, the bull follows,
+and while under the charge of his domesticated friend he is quite
+harmless.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f094.jpg" width="550" height="391" alt="BUEYES RESTING" title="BUEYES RESTING" />
+<span class="caption">BUEYES RESTING</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>At one time, the bulls used to be driven to the bull-ring outside Madrid
+in specially made roads sunk some fifteen feet below the level of the
+fields, and paved. Along these the <i>pastor</i>, or shepherd, and
+<i>picadores</i>, armed with long lances, went with the <i>cabestros</i> and the
+herd of bulls to be immolated. I have frequently met this procession
+when riding, either in the early morning or late evening, outside
+Madrid; but so long as the <i>cabestros</i> are present, there is nothing to
+fear, for the bulls are perfectly quiet and harmless. Once, however,
+riding with a friend, I had a disagreeable and exciting adventure. We
+were quietly walking our horses along the Ronda de Alcal&aacute;, when we heard
+an immense amount of shouting, and suddenly became aware that we
+ourselves were the objects of the excitement, waving of hands,
+screaming, and gesticulating. Before we had time to do more than realise
+that we were being warned of some terrific danger in wait for us round
+the corner of the high wall, some little distance in advance, two
+<i>picadores</i> on horseback, armed with their long <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span>pikes, galloped round
+the corner, also shouting wildly to us, and pointing across the fields
+as if telling us to fly, and almost at the same moment the whole drove
+of bulls, tearing along at a terrific rate, without <i>cabestros</i>,
+appeared, charging straight towards us. We did not need a second hint.
+At one side of the road was the old wall of Madrid, at the other a high
+bank with a wide ditch beyond it. Without a word, we put our horses at
+the bank,&mdash;they had realised the situation as quickly as we had,&mdash;jumped
+the ditch at a flying leap from the top of the bank, and were off across
+a field of young wheat. Once only I looked behind, and saw a magnificent
+black bull, with his tail in the air&mdash;a signal of attack&mdash;on the top of
+the bank over which I had just leaped, preparing to follow me. Long
+afterwards, as it seemed, when my horse slackened his pace, I found
+myself alone in a wide plain, neither bulls nor fellow-rider to be seen.
+His horse had bolted in another direction from mine, and we heard
+afterwards that the <i>picadores</i> had galloped in between me and the
+sporting bull and turned him back. Eventually, the <i>cabestros</i> appeared
+on the scene, and the poor misguided bulls were inveigled into the
+shambles for the <i>fiesta</i> of the morrow. How they had ever managed to
+break away or gain the public road at all, we were never able to learn.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/097.jpg" width="450" height="98" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COURT</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">D</span><span class="smcap">uring</span> the reign of Don Alfonso XII., except during the interval when
+the melancholy death of his first beloved Queen, Merc&eacute;des, plunged King,
+Court, and people into mourning, Madrid was gayer than perhaps it has
+ever been. No one loved amusement better than the young King, who was
+only seventeen when the military <i>pronunciamiento</i> of Martinez Campo
+called him to the throne from which his mother had been driven seven
+years previously. He had taken his people, and indeed all the world, by
+storm, for from the first moment he had shown all the qualities which
+make a ruler popular, and Spain has never had a young monarch of so much
+promise. He had the royal gift of memory, and an extraordinary facility
+in speaking foreign languages; it was said that the Russian and the
+Turkish envoys were the only ones with whom he was unable to converse as
+freely in their languages as in his own. He was an excellent speaker,
+always knew the right thing to say, the best thing to do to gain the
+hearts of his people, and to make himself agreeable <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span>to all parties and
+all nationalities alike. He was the first King of Spain to address his
+people <i>de usted</i> in place of <i>de tu</i>, a mark of respect which they were
+not slow to appreciate; he was a modern, in that he would go out alone,
+either on foot or riding, allowed applause in his presence at the
+theatres, unknown before, and himself would salute those he knew from
+his box. He gave audience to all who asked, was an early riser, devoted
+to business when it had to be performed, was an enthusiast in all
+military matters, and, perhaps better than all in the eyes of his
+people, he was devoted to the bull-ring. Extremely active, resolute,
+firm, fond of all kinds of active sports, such as hunting and shooting,
+equally fond of society, picnics, dances, and all kinds of
+entertainments, he seemed destined to become the idol of his people, and
+to lead his beloved country back to its place in Europe. His death, when
+only twenty-seven, changed all this. Queen Maria Cristina has been a
+model wife, widow, mother, and Regent. She was devoted to her husband,
+and though it was said at first to be a political marriage, contracted
+to please the people, it was undoubtedly a happy one. The Queen has
+scarcely taken more part in public life during her sad widowhood than
+Queen Victoria did. She has devoted herself to her public duties as
+Regent and to the education and care of her children.</p>
+
+<p>Alfonso XIII., born a king after his father's <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span>death, has always been
+rather a delicate boy; his mother has determined that his health and his
+education shall be the first and chief care of her life, and nothing
+turns her from this purpose. If she has never been exactly popular, she
+has at least the unbounded respect and admiration of the people. She
+does not love the "bulls," and, therefore, she is not <i>Espa&ntilde;ola</i> enough
+to awaken enthusiasm; she keeps the boy King too much out of sight, so
+that his people scarcely know him, even in Madrid; but this is the very
+utmost that anyone has to say against her, while all shades of
+politicians, even to declared Republicans, speak of her with respect and
+with real admiration of her qualities of heart and mind.</p>
+
+<p>All Court gaieties are, however, at an end. Once a year or so a ball at
+the palace, a formal dinner, or reception, when it cannot be
+avoided&mdash;that is all, and for the rest the Queen is rarely seen except
+at religious ceremonies or state functions, and the King, never. He is
+supposed to take his amusements and exercise in the Casa de Campo, and
+rarely crosses Madrid.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous stories used to be told of his precocity as a child, and of his
+smart sayings; sometimes of his generosity and sympathy with the poor
+and suffering. Now one is told he is somewhat of a pickle, but fables
+about royalty may always be received with more than a grain of salt. One
+of the stories told of him, which ought to be true, since it has the
+ring of childhood about <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span>it, is well known. When a small boy, his
+Austrian governess, of whom he was very fond, reproved him for using his
+knife in place of a fork. "Gentlemen never do so," she said. "But I am a
+King," he replied. "Kings, still less, eat with their knives," said the
+governess. "<i>This</i> King does," was the composed reply of the child.</p>
+
+<p>The etiquette of the Spanish Court, although it was much modified by
+Alfonso XII., is still very formal. A perfectly infinite number of
+<i>mayordomos, caballerizos, gentiles hombres de casa y boca, ujieres,
+alabarderos, monteros</i>, aides-de-camp, <i>Grandes de Espa&ntilde;a de servicio</i>,
+ladies-in-waiting, lackeys, servants, and attendants of every possible
+description abound. A man going to an audience with royalty uncovers as
+he enters the Palace. First, he will find the <i>alabardero de servicio</i>
+placed at the entrance of the vestibule; farther on, more <i>alabarderos</i>.
+Whenever a Grande de Espa&ntilde;a, a prelate, a grand cross, or a title of
+Castile passes, these guards strike the marble floor with their arms&mdash;a
+noise which may well cause the uninitiated to start. Three halls are
+used for grouping, according to their rank, those who are about to be
+presented: first, the <i>saleta</i>, where ordinary people&mdash;all the world, in
+fact&mdash;wait; next, the <i>c&aacute;mara</i>, for those who have titles or wear the
+grand cross; third, the <i>antec&aacute;mara</i>, reserved for the Grandes of Spain,
+and <i>gentiles hombres en ejercio</i>. The Grandes of Spain, cham<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span>berlains
+of the King, share between them the service of his Majesty. They are
+called in rotation, one day's notice being given before they are
+expected to attend in the Palace. In the ante-chamber of the King there
+is always the <i>Grande</i> in waiting, the lady-in-waiting on the Queen, two
+aides-de-camp, and a <i>gentil hombre del</i> <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'interio'"><i>interior</i></ins> (the last must not be
+confounded with the <i>gentiles hombres en</i> <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'ejercio'"><i>ejercicio</i></ins>, who have the right to
+enter the ante-chamber). There are, of course, equerries
+(<i>caballerizos</i>) who attend, as ours do, on horseback, when the King or
+Queen goes out; but the most essentially Spanish attendants are the
+Monteros de Espinosa, who have the exclusive right to watch while
+Royalty sleeps. These attendants must all be born in Espinosa; it is an
+hereditary honour, and the wives of the existing Monteros are careful to
+go to Espinosa when they expect an addition to their family, as no one
+not actually born there can hold the office. At the present time this
+guard is recruited from captains or lieutenants on the retired list.</p>
+
+<p>In the ante-chamber of each member of the Royal Family two of these take
+their place at eleven o'clock; they never speak, never sit down, but
+pass the whole night pacing the room, crossing each other as they go,
+until morning relieves them from what must be rather a trying watch. At
+eleven o'clock each evening there is a solemn procession of servants and
+officials in imposing uniforms down the grand staircase of the Palace;
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span>every door is closed and locked by a gentleman wearing an antique
+costume and a three-cornered hat, and having an enormous bunch of keys.
+From that time the Palace remains under the exclusive charge of the
+Monteros de Espinosa. Although this is the official programme, it is to
+be hoped the hour is not a fixed one. It would be a little cruel to put
+the Royal Family to bed so early, without regard to their feelings;
+especially as Madrid is essentially a city of late hours, and the
+various members of it would have to scamper away from opera, or in fact
+any entertainment, as if some malignant fairy were wanting to cast a
+spell at the witching hour of midnight. There are some curious
+superstitions, however, about being abroad when the clocks strike
+twelve, which we must suppose do not now affect the Madrile&ntilde;o.</p>
+
+<p>While the old church of Atocha was still standing, the Court, with a
+royal escort, or what is called <i>escadron de salut</i>, all the dignitaries
+of the Palace in attendance, guards, outriders, etc., in gorgeous array,
+drove in half state (<i>media gala</i>) across Madrid and the <i>paseos</i> to
+hear the <i>salut "sa'nt"</i> on Saturday. The Queen Regent and her
+daughters, but not often the King, now visit in turn some of the
+churches, but without the old state or regularity.</p>
+
+<p>Since the death of Alfonso XII., many of the purely Spanish customs of
+the Court have been modified or discontinued. Although the late King was
+credited with a desire to reduce the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span>civil list, and to adopt more
+English customs, he was to some extent in the hands of the
+Conservatives, who had been the means of his restoration, and when he
+went forth to put an end to the Carlist insurrection and finish the
+civil war, which had laid desolate the Northern provinces and ruined
+commerce and industry for some seven years, it was at the head of a
+personal following of over five hundred people. Nor was the Court much,
+if any, less numerous when the Royal Family removed in the summer to the
+lovely Palace of St. Ildefonso at La Granja&mdash;that castle in the air,
+which has no equal in Europe, hanging, as it does, among gardens,
+forests, rivers, and lakes, three thousand eight hundred and forty feet
+above the level of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen is Austrian, and she has never gone out of her way to
+conciliate the people by making herself really Spanish. This she has
+left to the Infanta Isabel, the eldest sister of Alfonso XII. For many
+years before the birth of her brother, the Infanta Isabel was Princess
+of Asturias, as heiress apparent of the Crown. With the advent of a boy,
+she became, of course, only Infanta, losing the rank which she had held
+up to this time. Being but a child at the time, she perhaps knew or
+cared little for any difference it may have made in her surroundings.
+She shared in the flight of the Royal Family to France in 1868, and her
+education was completed in Paris. When the whirligig of Spanish politics
+called her <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span>brother Alfonso, who at the time was a military student at
+Sandhurst, to the throne from which his mother had been driven, Princess
+Isabel returned with him to Madrid, and was once more installed in the
+Palace, above the Manzanares, as Princess of Asturias. This rank
+remained hers during the short episode of her brother's marriage to his
+cousin Merc&eacute;des, and the melancholy death of the girl Queen at the
+moment when a direct heir to the throne was expected. Once more, when
+the daughter of Alfonso's second wife, the present Queen Regent, was
+born, the Infanta Isabel became her title, and she took again the lower
+rank.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing in history is more pathetic than this first marriage of Alfonso
+XII. and its unhappy termination. The children of Queen Isabel and those
+of her sister, the Duquesa de Montpensier, had been brought up together,
+and there was a boy-and-girl attachment between the Prince of Asturias
+and his cousin Merc&eacute;des. When Alfonso became King, almost as it seemed
+by accident, and it was thought necessary that he should marry, the boy
+gravely assured his Ministers that he was quite willing to do so, and in
+fact intended to marry his cousin. Nothing could be more inopportune,
+nothing more contrary to the welfare of the distracted country! From the
+time that the notorious "Spanish marriages" had become facts, the Duke
+of Montpensier had been an intriguer. The birth of heirs to the throne
+of Spain<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span> (it is useless to go back to those long-past scandals) had
+completely upset the machinations of Louis Philippe and his Ministers.
+So long as Don Francisco de Assis and the Spanish nation chose to
+acknowledge the children as legitimate, there was nothing to be done.
+The direct hope of seeing his sons Kings of Spain faded from the view of
+the French husband of the sister of Isabel II., but he never for one
+moment ceased to intrigue. Although loaded with benefits and kindness by
+the Queen, Montpensier took no small part in the revolution which drove
+her from the country. Topete, and Serrano&mdash;who had once been what the
+Spaniards called <i>Pollo Real</i> himself&mdash;were bound in honour to uphold
+his candidature for the vacant throne; their promise had been given long
+before the <i>pronunciamiento</i> at Cadiz had made successful revolution
+possible. Prim alone stood firm: "<i>Jamas, jamas!</i>" (Never, never!) he
+replied to every suggestion to bring Montpensier forward. In those words
+he signed his own death-warrant. His actual murderers were never brought
+to justice, ostensibly were never found; but there never was a Spaniard
+who doubted that the foul deed was the result of instigation.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f104.jpg" width="550" height="384" alt="IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA" title="IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA" />
+<span class="caption">IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>To have Merc&eacute;des as Queen Consort, was to bring her father once more
+within the limits of practical interference with national politics. To
+all remonstrance, however, the young King had one answer: "I have
+promised," and the nation, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span>recognising that as a perfectly valid
+argument, acquiesced, though with many forebodings. The marriage took
+place, and within a few months the girl Queen was carried with her
+unborn child to the melancholy Pant&eacute;on de los Principes at the Escorial.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage of the Infanta Isabel with Count Girgenti, a Neapolitan
+Bourbon, was an unhappy one, and she obtained a legal separation from
+him after a very short matrimonial life. Spaniards have a perfect genius
+for giving apt nicknames. Scarcely was the arrangement for the marriage
+made known when the Count's name was changed to that of <i>Indecente</i>. He
+fought, however, for Isabel II. at Alcol&eacute;a, which was at any rate acting
+more decently than did Montpensier, who had furnished large sums of
+money to promote the rising against his confiding sister-in-law, and, in
+fact, never ceased his machinations against every person and every thing
+that stood in his way, until death fortunately removed him from the
+arena of Spanish politics, his one overmastering ambition unfulfilled.
+He had neither managed to ascend the throne himself, nor see any of his
+children seated there, except for the few months that Merc&eacute;des, "beloved
+of the King and of the nation," shared the throne of Alfonso XII.</p>
+
+<p>The Infanta Isabel, except for the episode of her exile in France, has
+always lived in the Royal Palace of Madrid, having her own quarters, and
+her little court about her. At times she has <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span>been the butt of much
+popular criticism, and even dislike, but she has outlived it all, and is
+now the most popular woman in Spain. It must have required no common
+qualities to have lived without discord&mdash;as a separated wife&mdash;with her
+brother and her younger sisters; then with Queen Merc&eacute;des, her cousin as
+well as sister-in-law; again, during the time of the King's widowhood
+and her own elevation to the rank of Princess of Asturias, and, finally,
+since the second marriage of her brother, and his untimely death, with
+Maria Cristina and her young nephew and nieces.</p>
+
+<p>One thing is to be said in favour of Isabel II. Deprived of all ordinary
+education herself, as a part of the evil policy of her mother, she was
+careful that her own children should not have to complain of the same
+neglect. One and all have been thoroughly educated: the Infanta Paz, now
+married to a Bavarian Archduke, has shown considerable talent as a
+poetess; and the Infanta Isabel is universally acknowledged to be a
+clever and a cultivated woman, inheriting much of her mother's charm of
+manner, and noted for ready wit and quick repartee. Her popularity, as I
+have said, is great, for she is careful to keep up all the Spanish
+customs. She is constantly to be seen in public, and, above and beyond
+all things, she never fails in attendance at the bull-fight, wearing the
+white mantilla. This alone would cover a multitude of sins, supposing
+the Infanta to be credited with them; but there has never <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span>been a breath
+of scandal connected with her. She is very devout, and never fails in
+the correct religious duties and public appearances. At the fair, and on
+<i>Noche buena</i>, she fills her carriage with the cheap toys and sweetmeats
+which mean so much to Spanish children, and she must be a veritable
+fairy godmother to those who come within her circle. She takes a close
+personal interest in many sisterhoods and societies for the help of the
+poor. In a word, she is <i>muy simp&aacute;tica</i> and <i>muy Espa&ntilde;ola</i>. What could
+one say more?</p>
+
+<p>A gala procession in Madrid is something to be remembered, if it be only
+for the wealth of magnificent embroideries and fabrics displayed. The
+royal carriages are drawn by eight horses, having immense plumes of
+ostrich feathers, of the royal colours, yellow and red, on their heads,
+and gorgeous hangings of velvet, with massive gold embroideries reaching
+almost to the ground; the whole of the harness and trappings glitter
+with gold and silk. The grooms, leading each horse, are equally
+magnificently attired, their dresses being also one mass of needlework
+of gold on velvet. Equerries, outriders, and military guards precede and
+surround the royal carriages, and the cavalcade is lengthened by having
+a <i>coche de respecto</i>, caparisoned with equal splendour, following each
+one in which a royal person is being conveyed. Behind come the carriages
+of the Grandes, according to rank, all drawn by at least six horses,
+with trappings little, if at all, inferior <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span>to those of the Court, and
+each with its enormous plume of gaily-coloured ostrich feathers, showing
+the livery of its owner. In addition to all this grandeur, the balconies
+of the great houses lining the route of the processions display
+priceless heirlooms of embroideries, hanging before each window from
+basement to roof. If these ancient decorations could speak, what a
+strange story they might tell of the processions they have seen pass! In
+honour of the victories over the Moors; of the heroes of the New World;
+of the miserable murders of the <i>Autos-da-f&eacute;</i>; of the entry of the <i>Rey
+absoluto</i>, to inaugurate the "Terror," on to the contemptible "galas" of
+Isabel II., supposed to keep the people quiet; and, almost the last, the
+entry of Alfonso XII., after he had put an end to the Carlist war! On
+the day of rejoicing for "La Gloriosa" there was no such display,
+although all Madrid was <i>en f&ecirc;te</i>. It was the triumph of the people, and
+their heirlooms do not take the form of priceless embroideries.</p>
+
+<p>In former days the receptions at the Palace were known as <i>besamanos</i>
+(to kiss hand). On Holy Thursday the Royal Family and all the Court
+visit seven churches on foot&mdash;at least, that is the correct number,
+though sometimes not strictly adhered to. As no vehicular traffic is
+allowed on that day or on Good Friday, the streets where the royal
+procession pass are swept and laid with fresh sand. The ladies are in
+gala costume, and drag their trains behind them, all <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span>wearing the
+national mantilla. All Madrid also visits its seven or less number of
+churches, passing without obeisance before the high altars, on which
+there is no Host,&mdash;as the people will tell you <i>su Majestad</i> is
+dead,&mdash;and after the <i>funcion</i> is over there is a general parade in the
+Puerta del Sol and the Carrera de San Geronimo, to show off the smart
+costumes of the ladies, while the officers sit in chairs outside the
+Government offices and smoke, admiring the prospect.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/110.jpg" width="280" height="157" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/111.jpg" width="450" height="99" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>POPULAR AMUSEMENTS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">N</span><span class="smcap">othing</span> strikes one so much in studying the popular customs and
+pleasures of Spain as the antiquity of them all. Constantly one finds
+one's self back in prehistoric times, and to date only from the days
+when Spain was a Roman province is almost modernity. No one can travel
+through Spain, or spend any time there, without becoming aware that,
+however many other forms of recreation there may be, two are universal
+and all-absorbing in their hold on the widely differing
+provinces&mdash;dancing and the bull-ring. In the Basque Provinces, the
+national game of <i>pelota</i>, a species of tennis, played without rackets,
+is still kept up, and is jealously cultivated in the larger towns, such
+as Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bilbao. In Madrid at the present time it
+is played in large courts built on purpose, and attracts many strangers.
+To view it, however, as a national sport, one should see it in some of
+the mountain villages, where it is still the great recreation for
+Sundays and religious <i>fiestas</i>. The working-classes also play at
+throwing the hammer or <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span>crowbar. This is more especially the case in the
+Northern provinces, where the workmen are a sound, healthy, and sober
+race, enjoying simple and healthy amusements, and affording an excellent
+example to those of countries considering themselves much more highly
+civilised.</p>
+
+<p>Pigeon-shooting, which was a great favourite with the late King Alfonso
+XII., and was made fashionable among the aristocracy in Madrid by him,
+is a very old sport&mdash;if it deserves the name&mdash;among the Valencians. Near
+La Pechina, at Valencia, where the great <i>tiro de las palomas</i> takes
+place, was found, in 1759, an inscription: <i>Sodalicium vernarum colentes
+Isid</i>. This, Ford tells us, was an ancient <i>cofradi&aacute;</i> to Isis, which
+paid for her <i>culto</i>. Cock-fighting is still practised in most of the
+Spanish towns, as well as in Valencia, the regular cock-pits being
+constantly frequented in Madrid; but it is looked upon as suited only to
+<i>barrio's bajos</i>, and is not much, if at all, patronised even by the
+middle classes. It is said by those who have seen it to be particularly
+brutal; but it was never a very humanising amusement when practised by
+the English nobility not such a very long time back.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever amusements, however, may be popular in the towns, or in
+particular provinces, the guitar and the dance are universal. So much
+has been written about the Spanish national dances that an absurd idea
+prevails in England that they are all very shocking and indecent. It is
+necessary, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span>however, to go very much out of one's way, and to pay a good
+round sum, to witness those gypsy dances which have come down unchanged
+from the remotest ages. As Ford truly says, "Their character is
+completely Oriental, and analogous to the <i>ghawarsee</i> of the Egyptians
+and the Hindoo <i>nautch</i>." "The well-known statue at Naples of the Venere
+Callipige is the undoubted representation of a Cadiz dancing-girl,
+probably of Telethusa herself." These dances have nothing whatever in
+common with the national dances as now to be seen on the Spanish stage.
+They are never performed except by gypsies, in their own quarter of
+Seville, and are now generally gotten up as a show for money. Men
+passing through Seville go to these performances, as an exhibition of
+what delighted Martial and Horace, but they do not generally discuss
+them afterwards with their lady friends, and to describe one of these
+more than doubtful dances as being performed by guests in a Madrid
+drawing-room, as an English lady journalist did a short time ago in the
+pages of a respectable paper, is one of those libels on Spain which
+obtain currency here out of sheer ignorance of the country and the
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever two or three men and women of the lower classes are to be seen
+together in Spain during their play-time, there is a guitar, with
+singing and dancing. The verses sung are innumerable short stanzas by
+unknown authors; many, perhaps, improvised at the moment. The <i>jota</i>,
+the<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span> <i>malaguena</i>, and the <i>seguidilla</i> are combinations of music, song,
+and dance; the last two bear distinct indications of Oriental origin;
+each form is linked to a traditional air, with variations. The
+<i>malaguena</i> is Andalusian, and the <i>jota</i> is Aragonese; but both are
+popular in Castile. All are love-songs, most of them of great grace and
+beauty. Some writers complain that some of these dance-songs are coarse
+and more or less indecent; others aver that they never degenerate into
+coarseness. <i>Quien sabe?</i> Perhaps it is a case of <i>Honi soit qui mal y
+pense</i>. In any case, throughout the length and breadth of Spain, outside
+the wayside <i>venta</i>, or the barber's shop, in the <i>patios</i> of inns, or
+wherever holiday-makers congregate, there is the musician twanging his
+guitar, there are the dancers twirling about in obvious enjoyment to the
+accompaniment of the stamping, clapping, and encouraging cries of the
+onlookers, and the graceful little verse, with its probably weird and
+plaintive cadence:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Era tan dichoso <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'autes'">antes</ins></div>
+<div class="verse">De encontrarte en mi <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'canimo'">camino</ins>!</div>
+<div class="verse">Y, sin embargo, no siento</div>
+<div class="verse">El haberte conocido.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">I was so happy before</div>
+<div class="verse">I had met you on my way!</div>
+<div class="verse">And yet there is no regret</div>
+<div class="verse">That I have learned to know you.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The <i>malaguena</i> and the <i>seguidilla</i>, which is <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span>more complicated, are
+generally seen on the stage only in Madrid, where they must charm all
+who can appreciate the poetry of motion. The dance of the peasant in
+Castile is always the <i>jota Aragonesa</i>. The part the tambourine and the
+castanets play in these dances must be seen and heard to be understood:
+they punctuate not only the music, but also the movement, the sentiment,
+and the refrain. The Andaluces excel in playing on the castanets. These
+are, according to Ford, the "Baetican <i>crusmata</i> and <i>crotola</i> of the
+ancients": and <i>crotola</i> is still a Spanish term for the tambourine.
+Little children may be seen snapping their fingers or clicking two bits
+of slate together, in imitation of the castanet player; but the
+continuous roll, or succession of quick taps, is an art to be learned
+only by practice. The castanets are made of ebony, and are generally
+decorated with bunches of smart ribbons, which play a great part in the
+dance.</p>
+
+<p>The popular instrument in the Basque and Northern provinces is
+the bagpipe, and the dances are quite different from those of
+the other parts of Spain. The <i>zortico zorisco</i>, or "evolution
+of eight," is danced to sound of tambourines, fifes, and a kind of
+flageolet&mdash;<i>el silbato</i>, resembling the rude instruments of the
+Roman Pifferari&mdash;probably of the same origin.</p>
+
+<p>Theatrical representations have always been a very popular form of
+recreation among the inhabitants of the Iberian continent, from the days
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span>when the plays were acted by itinerant performers, "carrying all their
+properties in a sack, the stage consisting of four wooden benches,
+covered with rough boards, a blanket suspended at the back, to afford a
+green-room, in which some musician sang, without accompaniment, old
+ballads to enliven the proceedings." This is Cervantes's description of
+the national stage in the time of his immediate predecessor, Lope de
+Rueda.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish <i>zarzuela</i> appears to have been the forerunner and origin of
+all musical farce and "opera comique," only naturalised in our country
+during the present generation. The theatres in all the provinces are
+always full, always popular; the pieces only run for short periods, a
+perpetual variety being aimed at by the managers&mdash;a thing easily to be
+understood when one remembers that the same audience, at any rate in the
+boxes and stalls, frequent them week in, week out. In Madrid, with a
+population of five hundred thousand inhabitants, there are nineteen
+theatres. With the exception of the first-class theatres, the people pay
+two <i>reales</i> (5<i>d.</i>) for each small act or piece, and the audience
+changes many times during the evening, a constant stream coming and
+going. Long habit and familiarity with good models have made the lower
+class of playgoers critical; their judgment of a piece, or of an actor,
+is always good and worth having.</p>
+
+<p>The religious <i>fiestas</i> must also count among the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span>amusements of the
+people in Spain. Whether it be the Holy Week in Seville or Toledo, the
+<i>Romer&iacute;a</i> of Santiago, the <i>Veladas</i>, or vigils, of the great festivals,
+or the day of Corpus Christi, which takes place on the first Thursday
+after Trinity Sunday&mdash;at all these the people turn out in thousands,
+dressed in their smartest finery, and combine thorough enjoyment with
+the performance of what they believe to be a religious duty. There is
+little or no drunkenness at these open-air festivities, but much gaiety,
+laughter, fluttering of fans, "throwing of sparks" from mischievous or
+languishing eyes&mdash;and at the end always a bull-fight.</p>
+
+<p>Here we touch the very soul of Spain. Take away the bull-rings, make an
+end of the <i>toreros</i>, and Spain is no longer Spain&mdash;perhaps a country
+counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it
+will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not
+now seem to be the remotest possibility. All that can be said is that
+to-day there is a party, or there are individuals, in the country who
+profess to abhor the bull-fight, and wish to see it ended; it is
+doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an
+"outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the
+Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in
+Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the
+display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span>coolness, and
+dexterity&mdash;all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is
+undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to
+English <i>aficionados</i>, of whom there are many, and have caused the
+<i>fiestas de toros</i> to live on in the affections of the whole Spanish
+people. In its earliest days, gentlemen, armed only with the <i>rejon</i>,
+the short spear of the original Iberian, about four feet long, fought in
+the arena with the bulls, and it was always a fair trial of skill and a
+display of good horsemanship.</p>
+
+<p>When the fatal race of the French Bourbons came to the throne, and the
+country was inundated with foreign favourites, the Court and the French
+hangers-on of the kings turned the fashion away from the national sport,
+and it gradually fell into the hands of the lower classes, professional
+bull-fighters taking the place of the courtly players of old, and these
+were drawn from the lowest and worst ranks of the masses; the sporting
+element, to a great extent, died out, and the whole spectacle became
+brutalised. <i>Pan y toros</i> (bread and bulls) were all the people wanted,
+and, crushed out of all manliness by their rulers, and taught a thirst
+for cruelty and bloodshed by the example of their religious
+<i>autos-da-f&eacute;</i>, the bull-fight became the revolting spectacle which
+foreigners&mdash;especially the English&mdash;have been so ready to rail against
+as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, while they rarely let an
+opportunity escape them of assisting as interested spectators at what
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span>they condemned so loudly, and they quite forgot their own prize-ring,
+and other amusements equally brutal and disgraceful. If the <i>corrida de
+toros</i> was ever as bad as it has been described by some, it has improved
+very much of late years, and most of its revolting features are
+eliminated. The pack of dogs, which used to be brought in when a bull
+was dangerous to the human fighters, has long been done away with. The
+<i>media luna</i>, which we are told was identical with the instrument
+mentioned in <i>Joshua</i>, is no longer tolerated to hamstring the
+unfortunate bull; and if a horse is gored in the fair fight, there are
+men especially in attendance to put him out of his misery at once. It is
+doubtful whether the animal suffers more than, or as much as, the
+unhappy favourites, that are sent alive, and in extremest torture, to
+Amsterdam and other foreign cities, to be manufactured into essence of
+meat and such-like dainties, after a life of cruelly hard work in our
+omnibuses and cabs has made them no longer of use as draught animals.</p>
+
+<p>The bull-fighter of to-day is by no means drawn from the dregs of the
+people; there is, at any rate, one instance of a man of good birth and
+education attaining celebrity as a professional <i>torero</i>. He risks his
+life at every point of the conflict, and it is his coolness, his
+courage, his dexterity in giving the <i>coup de gr&acirc;ce</i> so as to cause no
+suffering, that raise the audience to such a pitch of frenzied
+excitement. I speak wholly <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span>from hearsay, for I have myself only
+witnessed a <i>corrida de novillos</i>&mdash;in which the bulls are never killed,
+and have cushions fixed on their horns&mdash;and a curious fight between a
+bull and an elephant, who might have been described as an "old
+campaigner," in which there was no bloodshed, and much amusement. My
+sympathies always went with the bull,&mdash;who, at least, was not consulted
+in the matter of the fight,&mdash;as I have seen the popular <i>espada</i>, with
+his own particular <i>chulo</i>, a mass of white satin and gold embroidery,
+driving out to the bull-ring on the afternoon of a <i>fiesta</i>, bowing with
+right royal grace and dignity to the plaudits of the people. I was even
+accused of having given the evil eye to one well-known favourite as he
+passed my balcony, when I wished, almost audibly, that the bull might
+have his turn for once in a way that afternoon. And he had; for the
+popular <i>espada</i> was carried out of the ring apparently dead, the
+spectators came back looking white and sick, and I felt like a very
+murderess until I learned later that he was not dead. All Madrid, almost
+literally, called to inquire for him daily, filling books of signatures,
+as if he had been an emperor at least. Personally, I was more interested
+in his courage after the event and the devotion of his <i>chulo</i>, who
+never left his side, but held his hands while the injured leg was cut
+off, in three separate operations, without any an&aelig;sthetic. Eventually,
+he completely recovered, and was fitted with an <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span>admirable mechanical
+cork limb in place of the one removed in three detachments; and my sense
+of evil responsibility was quite removed when I heard that his young
+wife was delighted to think that he could never enter the bull-ring as a
+fighter again, and her anxieties were at an end.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f120.jpg" width="550" height="285" alt="PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL" title="PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL" />
+<span class="caption">PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is quite impossible to over-estimate the popularity of the <i>toreros</i>
+with the Spanish people. They are the friends and favourites of the
+aristocracy, the demi-gods of the populace. You never see one of them in
+the streets without an admiring circle of worshippers, who hang on every
+word and gesture of the great man; and this is no cult of the hour, it
+is unceasing. They are always known for their generosity, not only to
+injured comrades, but to any of the poor in need. Is there a disaster by
+which many are injured&mdash;flood, tempest, or railway accident? Immediately
+a bull-fight is arranged for the sufferers, and the whole <i>cuadrilla</i>
+will give their earnings to the cause. Not only so, but the private
+charities of these popular favourites are immense, and quite unheard of
+by the public. They adopt orphans, pay regular incomes to widows, as
+mere parts of every-day work. They are, one and all, religious men; the
+last thing they do, before entering the arena with their life in their
+hands, is to confess and receive absolution in the little chapel in the
+Bull-Ring, spending some time in silent prayer before the altar, while
+the wife at home is burning candles to the Virgin, and offering her
+prayers <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span>for his safety during the whole time that the <i>corrida</i> lasts.
+Extreme unction is always in readiness, in case of serious accident to
+the <i>torero</i>, the priest (<i>mufti</i>) slipping into the chapel before the
+public arrive on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Rafael Molina Lagartijo, one of the veterans of the bull-fighters, and
+an extreme favourite with the people for many years, died recently,
+after living for some time in comparative retirement in his native
+C&oacute;rdoba. Some idea of the important place which these men occupy in
+Spanish society may be gathered from the numerous notices which appeared
+in the newspapers of all shades of political opinion after his death. I
+quote from the article which appeared in the charming little illustrated
+<i>Blanco y Negro</i>, of Madrid, on the favourite of the Spanish public. In
+what, to us, seems somewhat inflated language, but which is, however,
+quite simple and natural to the Spaniard, the writer began his notice
+thus:</p>
+
+<p>"He who has heard the magic oratory of Castelar, has listened to the
+singing of Gayarre, the declamation of Cabro, has read Zorilla, and
+witnessed the <i>torear</i> of Lagartijo, may say, without any kind of
+reservation, that there is nothing left for him to admire!" Having thus
+placed the popular bull-fighter on a level with orators, authors, and
+musicians of the first rank, the writer goes on to describe the beauties
+of Lagartijo's play in words which are too purely technical of the ring
+to make translation possible, and adds:<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span> "He who has not seen the great
+<i>torero</i> of C&oacute;rdoba in the plenitude of his power will assuredly not
+comprehend why the name of Lagartijo for more than twenty years filled
+<i>plazas</i> and playbills, nor why the <i>aficionados</i> of to-day recall, in
+speaking of his death, times which can never be surpassed.... The
+<i>toreo</i> (play) of Lagartijo was always distinguished by its classic
+grace, its dignity and consummate art, the absence of affectation, or
+struggle for effect. In every part of the fight the figure of Rafael
+fell naturally into the most graceful attitudes; and for this reason he
+has always worn the rich dress of the <i>torero</i> with the best effect. He
+was the perfect and characteristic type of a <i>torero</i>, such as Spanish
+fancy has always imagined it. Lagartijo died with his eyes fixed on the
+image of the Virgen de los Dolores, to whom he had always confidently
+committed his life of peril, and with the dignity and resignation of a
+good man."</p>
+
+<p>The article was illustrated with numerous portraits of Don Rafael: in
+full <i>torero</i> dress in 1886; his very last photograph; views of him in
+the courtyard of his home in C&oacute;rdoba, and outside the Venta San Rafael,
+where he took his coffee in the evening, and others. The notice
+concludes by saying that his life was completely dedicated to his
+property, which he managed himself, and he was looked upon as the
+guardian angel of the labourers on his farm. <i>Probre Rafael!</i> "The
+lovers of the bull-fight are lamenting the death <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span>of the <i>torero</i>, but
+the poor of C&oacute;rdoba mourn the loss of their 'Se&ntilde;or Rafael.'"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f124.jpg" width="550" height="311" alt="PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION" title="PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION" />
+<span class="caption">PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The wives of the <i>toreros</i> are generally celebrated for their beauty,
+their wit, and their devotion to their husbands&mdash;indeed, the men have a
+large choice before them when choosing their helpmates for life. To
+their wives is due much of the making and all the keeping up of the
+elaborate and costly dress of the <i>torero</i>. They are, as someone has
+said, "ferociously virtuous," and share in the open-handed generosity of
+their husbands. The earnings of a successful <i>torero</i> are very large. In
+some cases, they make as much as &pound;4000 or &pound;5000 a year of English money,
+during the height of their popularity, and retire to end their days in
+their native and beloved Andalucia.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said by foreigners of the brutalising effect of the
+Spanish popular game, it certainly has no more effect on those who
+witness or practise it than fox-hunting has on Englishmen, and it is
+doubtful whether there is any more cruelty in one sport than in the
+other. The foxes are fostered and brought up for the sole purpose of
+being harried to death, without even a semblance of fair play being
+allowed to them, and if a fox-hunter risks his life it is only as a bad
+rider that he does so. There is no danger and certainly no dignity in
+the English sport, even if it indirectly keeps up the breed of horses.</p>
+
+<p>A curious incident is related by Count Vasili as having happened in the
+Bull-Ring in Madrid <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span>some years ago during a <i>corrida</i> of C&uacute;chares, the
+celebrated <i>espada</i>. It is usual during <i>fiestas</i> of charity to enclose
+live sparrows in the <i>banderillas</i> which it is part of the play to
+affix, at great risk to the <i>torero</i>, in the shoulders of the bull; the
+paper envelope bursts, and the birds are set at liberty. Crossing the
+arena, one of the men carelessly hit at a bird turning wildly about in
+its efforts to escape, and killed it. "In my life," says the Count, "I
+have never seen such a spectacle. Ten thousand spectators, standing up,
+wildly gesticulating, shouting for death on the 'cruel <i>torero</i>'; nay,
+some even threw themselves into the arena, ready to lynch the heartless
+creature!"</p>
+
+<p>Horse-racing may now be said to have been fairly established in Spain in
+most of the great centres, and the Hippodrome in Madrid is little behind
+one of England's popular race-courses in its crowds, the brilliant
+dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will
+ever supersede the really national <i>fiesta</i> is to be doubted. The upper
+classes also affect polo, tennis, and croquet, and go in a good deal for
+gymnastics, fencing, and fives.</p>
+
+<p>Cycling does not appear to commend itself greatly to the Spanish idea of
+recreation. Bicycles are, of course, to be seen in the large and more
+modern towns, but they are never very numerous, and as far as ladies are
+concerned, may be said to have made no way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span>I have referred to a curious spectacle several times presented in
+Madrid, chiefly in <i>fiestas</i> for charitable purposes, where an elephant
+was introduced into the Bull-Ring to fight, in place of the usual
+<i>cuadrilla</i> of men. This was an old elephant named Pizarro, a great
+favourite of many years' standing with the Madrile&ntilde;os. He was an
+enormous animal, but one of his tusks had been broken off about a third
+from the tip, so that he had only one to use in warfare or as
+protection. He was tethered in the centre of the arena, by one of his
+hind legs, to a stump about twelve inches high. Then the bulls were let
+out one at a time. Meanwhile, Pizarro was amusing himself by eating
+oranges which were showered on him by his admirers on the benches. With
+the greatest coolness he continued his repast, picking up orange after
+orange with his trunk, all that he was careful to do being to keep his
+face to the bull, turning slowly as his enemy galloped round the ring
+trying to take him in flank. At last the bull prepared to charge;
+Pizarro packed away his trunk between his tusks, and quietly waited the
+onslaught. The bull rushed at him furiously; but the huge animal, quite
+good-naturedly and a little with the air of pitying contempt, simply
+turned aside the attack with his one complete horn, and as soon as the
+bull withdrew, a little nonplussed, went on picking up and eating his
+oranges as before. Bull after bull gave up the contest as impossible,
+and contentedly went out <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span>between the <i>cabestros</i> sent in to fetch
+them. At last one more persistent or courageous than the others came
+bounding in. Pizarro realised at once that for the moment he must pause
+in eating his dessert; but he became aware at the same time that in
+turning round to face the successive bulls, he had gradually wound
+himself up close to the stump, and had no room to back so as to receive
+the attack. The most interesting incident in the whole affray was to
+watch the elephant find out, by swinging his tethered leg, first in one
+direction and then in another, how to free himself. This he did, first
+by swinging his leg round and round over the stump, then by walking
+slowly round and round, always facing the bull, and drawing his cord
+farther and farther until he was perfectly free: then he was careful
+only to turn as on a pivot, keeping the rope at a stretch. Finally the
+bull charged at him with great fury; stepping slightly aside, Pizarro
+caught him up sideways on his tusks, and held him up in the air,
+perfectly impotent and mad with rage. When he considered the puny
+creature had been sufficiently shown his inferiority, he gently put him
+down, and the astonished and humbled bull declined further contest. The
+fighting bulls of Spain are wonderfully small in comparison with English
+animals, it should be said.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f126.jpg" width="550" height="380" alt="DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL" title="DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL" />
+<span class="caption">DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Every night, after his turn at the circus was over poor old Pizarro used
+to walk home alone under my balcony, open his stable door with his <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span>own
+latch-key, or at least his trunk, and put himself to bed like any
+Christian.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most fashionable amusements in Madrid is to attend on the
+morning of the bull-fight while the <i>espadas</i> choose the particular
+bulls they wish to have as enemy, and affix their colours, the large
+rosette of ribbon which shows which of the <i>toreros</i> the bull is to meet
+in deadly conflict. The bulls are then placed in their iron cages in the
+order in which they are to enter the arena. The fashionable ladies and
+other <i>aficionados</i> of the sport then drive back to Madrid to luncheon
+and to prepare for the entertainment of the afternoon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/128.jpg" width="280" height="137" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/129.jpg" width="450" height="98" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRESS AND ITS LEADERS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">P</span><span class="smcap">erhaps</span> there are few countries where the influence of the Press is
+greater than in Spain, and this is largely due to the fact that while
+the journals are read by everyone, for a great number of the people they
+form the only literature. The free library is not yet universal in the
+country, though, doubtless, in the near future it may become general. In
+the meantime, every imaginable shade of political opinion has its organ;
+even the Bull-Ring has at least two excellently illustrated newspapers:
+and the extra sheets, printed hastily and sold immediately after the
+<i>corrida</i> has terminated, have an enormous sale. Deserving of mention is
+the curious little paper known as the "Night-cap of Madrid," because it
+is supposed to be impossible for anyone to go to rest until he has read
+the late edition, which comes out not long before midnight. It is said
+to have no politics, and only pretends to give all the news of the
+world. There are many illustrated papers, both comic and serious. The
+charmingly artistic little <i>Blanco y Negro</i>, beauti<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span>fully gotten up, is
+at the head of all the more dignified illustrated journals of the
+country. There are no kiosks; the papers are sold by children or by old
+women in the streets, and the Madrid night is rent by the appalling
+cries of these itinerant vendors of literature. For the Spanish
+newspaper is always literature, which is a good deal more than can be
+said for some of the English halfpenny Press. Whatever may be the
+politics of the particular journal, its <i>Castellano</i> is perfect; perhaps
+a little stilted or pompous, but always dignified and well-written.</p>
+
+<p>The journalists of Madrid have a special facility for saying with an air
+of extreme innocence what they, for various reasons, do not care to
+express quite openly. Allegories, little romances, stories of fact full
+of clever words of "double sense" make known to the initiated, or those
+who know how to read between the lines, much that might otherwise awaken
+the disagreeable notice of the censor, when there is one. There is an
+air of good-natured raillery which takes off the edge of political
+rancour, and keeps up the amenities and the dignity of the Spanish
+Press. Only the other day one of the leading English journals pointed
+out what a dignified part the Press of Madrid, of every shade of
+politics, had played in the recent effort made by some foreign
+newspapers&mdash;of a class which so far does not exist in Spain&mdash;to make
+mischief and awaken national jealousy between England and Spain on the
+subject of the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span>works now being carried out by the English Government at
+Gibraltar. The Spanish newspapers, of all shades of opinion, have made
+it abundantly evident that their country entertains no unworthy
+suspicion of England's good faith, and has not the smallest intention of
+being led into strained or otherwise than perfectly friendly relations
+with their old allies of the Peninsular War, to gratify the rabid enmity
+of a section of a Press foreign to both countries. This is, perhaps, the
+more remarkable because a certain amount of misunderstanding of England
+exists among some elements of the Spanish Press.</p>
+
+<p>The Liberal party in Spain is, in fact, the party of progress, and the
+nation has at last awakened from its condition of slavery under unworthy
+rulers, and is practically united in its determination to return to its
+place among the nations of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>There are many shades of Liberalism, and even Republicanism, but, as
+will be seen in another place, the real welfare of the people, and not
+the success of a mere political party, is the underlying motive of all,
+however wild and unpractical may be some of the dreams for the carrying
+out of these ideas of universal progress. It is impossible for a
+Spaniard to conceive of maligning or belittling his own country for
+merely party purposes; and, therefore, when he finds an English
+newspaper calling itself "Liberal" he imagines the word to have the same
+signification it has in his <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span>own country. So it has come to pass that
+many of the worst misrepresentations&mdash;to use a very mild term&mdash;of a
+portion of the English Press have been reproduced in Spanish newspapers,
+and believed by their readers.</p>
+
+<p>Among the principal newspapers, in a crowd of less important ones, <i>La
+&Eacute;poca</i>, Conservative and dynastic ranks first; this is the journal of
+the aristocrats, of the "upper ten thousand," or those who aspire to be
+so, and it ranks as the <i>doyen</i> of the whole Press. Its circulation is
+not so large as that of some of the other papers, but its client&egrave;le is
+supposed to be of the best. <i>El Nacional</i> is also Conservative, but
+belonging to the party of Romero Robledo. What the exact politics of
+that variation of Conservatism might be, it is difficult, I might almost
+say impossible, for a stranger to say. If you were told nothing about
+it, and took it up accidentally to read of current events, you would
+certainly suppose it to be independent, with a decidedly Liberal
+tendency. Still it calls itself Conservative.</p>
+
+<p><i>El Correo</i> is Liberal, of the special type of Sagasta, the present
+Prime Minister. <i>El Espa&ntilde;ol</i>, which also gives one the impression of
+independence, is Liberal after the manner of Gemaro. <i>El Heraldo</i>,
+calling itself <i>Diario Independente</i>, is credited with being the Liberal
+organ of Canalijas. <i>El Liberal</i> and <i>El Pais</i> are Republican, and <i>El
+Correo Espa&ntilde;ol</i> is Carlist, or clerical. This paper appears to be looked
+upon a good deal in <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span>the nature of a joke by its colleagues, and
+quotations from it are always accompanied by notes of exclamation.</p>
+
+<p><i>La Correspond&eacute;ncia de Espa&ntilde;a</i> is a paper all by itself, an invention of
+Spanish journalism, and its unprecedented success is due to many of its
+quite unique peculiarities. Its originator, now a millionaire, is proud
+of relating that he arrived in Madrid with two dollars in his pocket. He
+it was who conceived the brilliant idea of founding a journal which
+should be the special organ of all. "<i>Diario politico independiente, y
+de noticias: Eco imparcial de la opinion y de la prensa</i>," he calls it,
+and the fourth page, devoted to advertisements, would make the fortune
+of ten others. His boast was that it had no editor, paid no writers, and
+employed no correspondents. It simply possessed a certain number of
+"caterers" for news, who thrust themselves everywhere, picking up
+morsels of news&mdash;good, bad, and indifferent, for the most part scribbled
+in pencil and thrown into a receptacle from which they are drawn in any
+order, or none, and handed to the printer as "copy"; coming out in
+short, detached paragraphs of uneven length, ranging from three lines to
+twenty. Extracts from foreign newspapers, official news, provincial
+reports, money matters, religious announcements, accidents, everything
+comes out pell-mell&mdash;absolutely all "the voices of the flying day," in
+Madrid and everywhere else, in one jumble, without order or sequence,
+one paragraph <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span>frequently being a direct contradiction to another in the
+same sheet. There are three editions during the day, but the
+"Night-cap," which sums up them all, appears about ten o'clock or later,
+and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it is bought by almost
+every householder in the city.</p>
+
+<p>The nature of the <i>Correspond&eacute;ncia</i> has changed very little since its
+earliest days. It is a little more dignified, condescends even to short
+articles on current subjects of interest, but it is the same universal
+provider of news and gossip as ever. It goes with the times; so far as
+it has any leanings at all, it is with the Government of the hour; but
+it is for the most part quite impersonal, and it makes itself agreeable
+to all parties alike. Santa Ana, the clever initiator of this new and
+highly successful adventure in journalism, has two other very prosperous
+commercial enterprises in his hands&mdash;the manufacture of paper for
+printing and the supply of natural flowers. He himself is an enormous
+and indefatigable worker, personally looks after his various businesses,
+especially the <i>Correspond&eacute;ncia</i>, and, mindful of his own early
+difficulties, he has created benefit societies for his workmen.</p>
+
+<p>He who, being a foreigner, would attempt to understand Spanish politics,
+deserves to be classed with the bravest leaders of forlorn hopes. In the
+first place, it is doubtful whether Spaniards understand them
+themselves, although they talk, for the most part, of nothing
+else&mdash;except bulls.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span> Whenever and wherever two or three men or boys are
+gathered together, you may be quite certain as to the subject of their
+conversation&mdash;that is, if they show signs of excitement and interest in
+the matter under discussion. Each man you meet gives you the whole
+matter in a nut-shell: he has studied politics ever since he was able to
+talk; all the other innumerable parties besides his own are <i>nada</i>! he
+can tell you exactly what is wrong with his country, and, what is more,
+exactly how it may all be made right. The only thing which puzzles one
+is that all the nut-shells are different, and, as there are an unlimited
+number of them, all that one carefully learns to-day has to be as
+carefully unlearned to-morrow, and a fresh adjustment made of one's
+political spectacles. After all, however, this is very much what would
+happen in any country if we were in turn to sit at the feet of
+successive teachers, and try to bring their doctrines into any kind of
+accord. The peculiarity in Spain lies rather in the multiplicity of
+private political opinions and the energy with which they are expressed,
+and in the fact that they are all honest.</p>
+
+<p>Emerson has somewhere said that "inconsistency is the bugbear of little
+minds." The Spanish politician has evidently not a little mind, for he
+has no fear whatever of inconsistency, nor, in fact, of making a
+<i>volte-face</i> whenever he sees any reason for doing so. There are
+Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, as in <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span>other
+countries, but there are, besides all these, an infinite number of
+shades and tones of each political belief, each represented, as we have
+seen, by a newspaper of its own, and, for the most part, bearing the
+name of one man. It would seem, then, that you have only to make
+yourself acquainted with the opinions, or rather with the political
+acts, of that one man, and there you are! Vain and fond fancy! He has
+been a rabid Republican, perhaps, or he has belonged, at least, to the
+party which put up in Madrid in conspicuous letters, "The bastard race
+of the Bourbons is for ever fallen. Fit punishment of their obstinacy!"
+but you will find him to-day lending all the force of his paper to the
+support of the Queen Regent, and at the same time allying himself with
+the various classes of Republicans, even to the followers of Zorilla,
+who have, at any rate till now, been consistent enemies and haters of
+the Bourbon.</p>
+
+<p>Se&ntilde;or Don Romero Robledo, one among the politicians of the day who
+possess the gift of perfect oratory, so common among his countrymen, is
+an example of this puzzling "open mind." He appeared first in the
+character of revolutionist in 1868; then he became the Minister of the
+Interior in Amadeo's short reign, held somewhat aloof from the wild
+experiment in a republic of Castelar, joined the party of Don Alfonso on
+the eve of its success, and supported C&aacute;novas del Castillo in his
+somewhat retrograde policy in the restoration <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span>of the very Bourbon whom
+he had announced as "banished for ever," and, in fact, by his admirable
+genius for organising his party, enabled the Government of C&aacute;novas to
+continue to exist. It is said of him that he "buys men as one would buy
+sheep," and that he will serve any cause so long as he has the
+management of it, or rather so long as he may pull the wires. Comte
+Vasili says of him: "In politics, especially Conservative politics, men
+like Romero Robledo are necessary, finding easily that 'the end
+justifies the means,' energetic, ambitious, always in the breach
+opposing their qualities to the invasions of the parties of extremes."
+This was written of him some fifteen years ago by one eminently
+qualified to judge. At the present moment we find Se&ntilde;or Romero Robledo
+refusing office, but consulted by the Queen Regent in every difficulty.
+In the late crisis, when the Conservative party under Silvela, called
+into office for the sake of carrying the extremely unpopular marriage of
+the Princess of Asturias with the Count of Caserta, had nearly managed
+to wreck the monarchy, or, at any rate, the regency, and to bring the
+always dangerous clerical question to an acute stage by suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole of Spain, it was Romero Robledo
+who told the Queen quite plainly that before anything else could be done
+the guarantees must be restored, that the liberties of the people could
+not be interfered with, and that, in short, the Liberal party must <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span>be
+called into office. Then we find him holding meetings in which
+Conservatives, Republicans, even Zorillistas, all combined,
+enthusiastically declaring that they are on the side of order and
+progress, agreeing to hold up England, under her constitutional monarch,
+as the most really democratic and free of all nations, since in no other
+country, republican or otherwise, is the government, as a matter of
+fact, so entirely in the hands of the people; swearing eternal enmity
+against the interference of the clergy in government or in education,
+but counselling "quiet determination without rancour or bigotry in
+dealing with those of the clergy who openly, or through the
+confessional, attempt to usurp authority which it is intended they shall
+never again acquire in Spain." In fact, to read Se&ntilde;or Romero Robledo's
+discourses on these occasions, and the excellent articles in the
+newspaper which represents his views, <i>El Nacional</i>, one would imagine
+the Golden Age to have dawned for Spain. Liberty, honour, real religion,
+progress in science, art, manufactures, trade, the purification of
+politics, the ideal of good government&mdash;these are only a few of the
+things to which this amalgamation of parties is solemnly pledged.</p>
+
+<p>One thing, at least, is promising among so much that might be put
+down as "words, words": a general agreement as to the wisdom of making
+the best of the present situation, opposing a firm resistance to any
+attempt at a return to absolut<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span>ism on the part of the monarchy, or
+domination in temporal matters by the Church; but no change, no more
+<i>pronunciamientos</i>, no more civil wars. Whenever the political parties
+of a country merge their differences of opinion in one common cause, the
+end may be foreseen. This was what happened in 1868; and if the party of
+Romero Robledo is what it represents itself to be and holds together, we
+may hope to see the reign of the young Alfonso XIII. open with good
+auguries this year (1902), as it seems to be certain that he is to
+attain his majority two years in advance of the usual time.</p>
+
+<p>The life, political career, and retirement of Emilio Castelar is one of
+the most pathetic pictures in history, and one altogether Spanish in
+character. It was after Amadeo had thrown down his crown, exclaiming, "A
+son of Savoy does not wear a crown on sufferance!" that the small party
+of Republicans&mdash;which Prim had said did not exist, and which had in fact
+only become a party at all during the disastrous period of uncertainty
+between the expulsion of Isabel II. and the election of the Italian
+prince&mdash;edged its way to the front, and Castelar became the head of
+something much worse than a paper constitution&mdash;a republic of
+visionaries. Don Quijote de la Mancha himself could scarcely have made a
+more pure-intentioned yet more unpractical President. Castelar, with his
+honest, unsophisticated opinions and theories, his unexampled oratory,
+which is <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span>said to have carried away crowds of men who did not understand
+or hear a word that he said, with the rhythm of his language, the simple
+majesty and beauty of his delivery, launched the nation into a
+government that might have been suited to the angels in heaven, or to
+what the denizens of this earth may become in far distant &aelig;ons of
+evolution&mdash;a republic of dreams, headed by a dreamer. The awakening was
+rude, but it was efficient. When Castelar found that in place of
+establishing a millennium of peace and universal prosperity, he had let
+loose over the land all the elements of disorder and of evil, he had the
+greatness to acknowledge himself mistaken: his own reputation never
+troubled him, and he admitted that the Cortes, from which he had hoped
+so much, worked evil, not good. It is said that he himself called on
+General Pav&iacute;a, the Captain-General of Madrid, to clear them out. The
+deputies&mdash;Castelar had withdrawn&mdash;sat firm: "Death rather than
+surrender," they cried. Pav&iacute;a, however, ordered his men to fire once
+down the empty lobbies, and the hint was enough: the Cortes dispersed,
+and Pav&iacute;a, had he so minded it, might have been military dictator of
+Spain. But he had no such ambition, though there were not wanting those
+who ascribed it to him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f140.jpg" width="550" height="358" alt="THE ESCURIAL" title="THE ESCURIAL" />
+<span class="caption">THE ESCURIAL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As for Castelar, when angrily charged with inconsistency, he said:
+"Charge me with inconsistency, if you please. I will not defend myself.
+Have I the right to prefer my own reputation to <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span>the safety of my
+country? Let my name perish, let posterity pronounce its anathema
+against me, let my contemporaries send me into exile! Little care I! I
+have lived long enough! But let not the Republic perish through my
+weaknesses, and, above all, let no one say that Spain has perished in
+our hands!" Castelar went back to his chair of philosophy, which he had
+never resigned, poor as he left it, to the modest home and the devoted
+sister whom he loved so well&mdash;and no one laughed! Is there really any
+other country than Spain where such things can happen? His enthusiasm,
+his high-mindedness, his failures, his brave acknowledgment that he had
+failed, were accepted by the country in the exact spirit in which he had
+offered himself to her service, and the memory of Castelar stands as
+high to-day as ever it did in the respectful admiration of his
+fellow-countrymen.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/141.jpg" width="250" height="157" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/142.jpg" width="450" height="103" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>POLITICAL GOVERNMENT</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII.
+has been in reality what it was only in name before&mdash;a constitutional
+monarchy. During the first years of the young King's reign, C&aacute;novas del
+Castillo being Prime Minister, there was a distinctly reactionary
+tendency from the Liberalism of Prim and the revolutionary party of
+1868. It was almost impossible that it should be otherwise, considering
+the wild tumult of the varying opinions and the experiments in
+government that the country had passed through; and some of the
+difficulties of the situation to-day are no doubt due to the concessions
+made to the ultra-Conservative party in the re-introduction of the
+religious orders, which had been suppressed during the regency of
+Cristina, and had never been tolerated even during the reign of the
+<i>piadosa</i>, Isabel II.</p>
+
+<p>Prim had, from the first moment that the success of the Revolution was
+assured and the Queen and her <i>camarilla</i> had crossed the frontier to
+seek asylum in France, declared for a constitutional <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span>monarchy. "How can
+you have a monarchy without a king?" he was asked by Castelar. "How can
+you have a republic without republicans!" was his reply. He might have
+made himself king or military dictator, but he wanted to be neither; nor
+would he hear of Montpensier, to whom Topete and Serrano had pledged
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The House of Savoy was the next heir to the Spanish throne, had the
+Bourbons become extinct, and to it the first glances of the Spanish
+king-maker were directed, but difficulties arose from the dislike of the
+Duke of Aosta himself to the scheme. A prince of some Liberal country
+was what was wanted: there was even some talk of offering the crown to
+the English Duke of Edinburgh, while one party dreamed of an Iberian
+amalgamation, and suggested Dom Luis of Portugal or his father Dom
+Ferdinand, the former regent. The candidature of Prince Leopold of
+Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who was a Roman Catholic, was looked upon with
+a certain amount of favour, but at the eleventh hour Napoleon III. made
+this scheme a pretext for the quarrel with Prussia which led to the
+fateful war of 1870 and 1871. Eventually, almost two years after the
+outbreak of the Revolution, Amadeo of Savoy was chosen by the Cortes at
+Madrid by a majority of one hundred and five votes, only twenty-three
+being given for Montpensier and sixty-three for a republic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span>On the day that King Amadeo set foot on Spanish soil Prim was
+assassinated; it was perfectly well known at whose instigation, and the
+man whom the Spaniards themselves said was <i>demasiado honesto</i> (too
+honourable) for the hotch-potch of political parties into which he was
+thrown without a friend or helper, began his vain effort to rule a
+foreign nation in a constitutional manner. After he had thrown up the
+thankless task in despair, the absurd Republic of Zorilla and Castelar
+made confusion worse confounded, and it was with a feeling of relief to
+all that the <i>pronunciamiento</i> of Martinez Campos at Muviedro put an end
+to the Spanish Republic under Serrano, and proclaimed the son of Isabel
+II. as King.</p>
+
+<p>He was but a lad of seventeen, but he had been educated in England; he
+was known to be brave, dignified, and extremely liberal, so that he was
+acclaimed throughout Spain, and during his short life he fully justified
+the high opinion formed of him. But the Government of C&aacute;novas was
+reactionary, and when the unexpected death of Alfonzo XII. left his
+young wife, the present Maria Cristina of Austria, a widow under
+exceptionally trying circumstances, C&aacute;novas himself placed his
+resignation in her hands, knowing that the Liberals were the party of
+the nation, and promised to give his own best efforts to work with what
+had up to then been his Opposition, for the good of the country and of
+the expected child, who a <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span>few months later had the unusual experience
+of being "born a king."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said about the present Regent,&mdash;though in truth little
+but good has been said or thought of her,&mdash;she has been most loyal to
+the constitution, holding herself absolutely aloof from all favouritism
+or even apparent predilection. She has devoted her life to the education
+of her son and to his physical well-being, for he was not a strong child
+in his early years, and she has done her best, possibly more than any
+but a woman could have done, to keep the ship of State not only afloat,
+but making headway during the minority of her son.</p>
+
+<p>Two things militate against good government in Spain, and will continue
+to do so until the whole system is changed: what is known in the country
+as <i>caciquismo</i>, and the pernicious custom of changing all the
+Government officials, down to the very porter at the doors, with every
+change of ministry. It is much, however, that the Government does go out
+in a constitutional manner instead of by a military <i>pronunciamiento</i> on
+each occasion, as in the old days; also that a civilian and not a
+soldier is always at the head of it. In reality, there are two great
+parties in Madrid, and only two: the <i>Empleados</i> and the <i>Cesantes</i>&mdash;in
+plain English, the "Ins" and the "Outs." Whatever ministry is in power
+has behind it an immense army of provincial governors, secretaries,
+clerks, down to the porters, and probably even the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">{146}</a></span>charwomen who clean
+out the Government offices. This state of things is repeated over the
+whole country, and there is naturally created and sustained an enormous
+amount of bribery and corruption, which is continually at work
+discrediting all governments and giving to Spanish affairs that "bad
+name" which, according to our old proverb, is as bad as hanging. The
+<i>Cesantes</i> haunt certain <i>caf&eacute;s</i> and possess certain newspapers, and the
+<i>Empleados</i> other <i>caf&eacute;s</i> and other papers. The "Outs" and the "Ins"
+meet at night to discuss their prospects, and wonderful are the stories
+invented at these reunions, some of which even find their way into
+English newspapers&mdash;if their correspondents are not up to the ways of
+Spain&mdash;for we read ludicrous accounts of things supposed to have been
+taking place, and are treated to solemn prophecies of events never
+likely to occur, even in first-class English journals. It is naturally
+the interest of these subordinate employees of a vicious system to
+hasten or retard the day that shall see their respective chiefs change
+position, and if a few plausible untruths can do it, be assured they
+will not be wanting. Both in the popular novels, <i>de costumbres</i>, and in
+actual life, it is the commonest thing to hear a man described as a
+<i>Cesante</i>, in the same way that we should speak of him as being an
+engineer or a doctor, as if being out of place were just as much an
+employment as any other.</p>
+
+<p>One thing that appears strange to a foreigner <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span>about these <i>Cesantes</i> is
+that they never seem even to dream of seeking other employment; they
+simply sit down to wait until their particular patron is "in" again, and
+in the old days they were a constant force making for the
+<i>pronunciamiento</i> which would sooner or later make a place for them. As
+they had no means of existence except when in receipt of Government pay,
+it is easy to understand that, according to their views, they had to
+prepare for the evil day which assuredly awaited them, by appropriating
+and exacting all the money that was possible during their short reign of
+power. Probably the only difference between the highest and the lowest
+official was in the actual amount he was able to acquire when he was
+"in."</p>
+
+<p>This system, subversive of all efficient service, and leading inevitably
+to the worst evils of misappropriation of the national funds, had
+perhaps its worst aspects in the colonies. A Government berth in Cuba
+was a recognised means of making a fortune, or of rehabilitating a man
+who had ruined himself by gambling at home. Appointments were made, not
+because the man was fitted for the post, but because he had
+influence&mdash;frequently that of some lady&mdash;with the person with whom the
+appointments lay, or because he was in need of an opportunity for making
+money easily. That there have always been statesmen and subordinate
+officials above all such self-seeking, men of punctilious honour and of
+absolutely clean <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">{148}</a></span>hands, is known to all; but such men&mdash;as Espartero,
+for instance&mdash;too often threw up the sponge, and would have naught to do
+with governing nor with office of any description. Espartero, who is
+generally spoken of as the "Aristides of Spain," when living in his
+self-sought retirement at Logro&ntilde;o, even refused to be proclaimed as King
+during the days when the crown was going a-begging, though he would
+probably have been acclaimed as the saviour of his country by a large
+majority. Long years of foreign kings and their generally contemptible
+favourites and ministers, long years of tyranny and corruption in high
+places, leavened the whole mass of Spanish bureaucracy; but the heart of
+the nation remained sound, and those who would understand Spain must
+draw a distinct line between her professional place-hunters and her
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Caciqueism is a mere consequence or outcome from the state of affairs
+already described. While the deputies to the Cortes are supposed to be
+freely elected as representatives by the people, in reality they are
+simply nominees of the heads of the two political powers which have been
+see-sawing as ministers for the last sixteen years. Two men since the
+assassination of C&aacute;novas have alternately occupied the post of First
+Minister of the Crown: Don Pr&aacute;xadis Mateo Sagasta, one of those mobile
+politicians who always fall on their feet whatever happens, and
+Francisco Silvela, who may be described as a Liberal-Conservative <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span>in
+contrast to C&aacute;novas, who was a Tory of the old school, and aspired to be
+a despot. Toryism, though the word is unknown there, dies hard in Spain;
+but there are not wanting signs that the Conservatives of the new school
+have the progress and emancipation of the country quite as much at heart
+as any Liberal. It was the Conservative <i>Nacional</i> that in a leading
+article of March 29th in 1901, under the head of "Vicious Customs,"
+called attention to the crowds of place-hunters who invade the public
+offices after a change of ministry, and to the barefaced impudence of
+some of their claims for preferment. "The remedy is in the hands of the
+advisers of the Crown," it continued. "Let them shut the doors of their
+offices against influence and intrigue, keep <i>Empleados</i> of acknowledged
+competence permanently in their posts, and not appoint new ones without
+the conviction that they have capacity and aptitude for the work they
+will have to do. By this means, if the problem be not entirely solved,
+it will at least be in train for a solution satisfactory at once for a
+good administration and for the highest interests of the State."</p>
+
+<p>The way in which the wire-pulling is done from Madrid, in case of an
+election, is through the <i>cacique</i>, or chief person in each
+constituency; hence the name of the process. This person may be the
+Civil Governor, the <i>Alcalde</i>, or merely a rich landowner or large
+employer of labour in touch with the Government: the pressure brought
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span>to bear may be of two sorts, taking the form of bribery or threat. The
+voters who hang on to the skirts of the <i>cacique</i> may hope for
+Government employment, or they may fear a sudden call to pay up arrears
+of rent or of taxes; the hint is given from headquarters, or a
+Government candidate is sent down. It matters little how the thing is
+done so long as the desired end is accomplished. Speaking of the general
+election which took place last June, and in which it was well known
+beforehand that the Liberals were to be returned in a large majority,
+one of the Madrid newspapers wrote: "The people will vote, but assuredly
+the deputies sent up to the Cortes will not be <i>their</i> representatives,
+nor their choice."</p>
+
+<p>We, who have for so many years enjoyed a settled government, forget how
+different all this is in a country like Spain, which has oftener had to
+be reproached for enduring bad government than for a readiness to effect
+violent changes, or to try new experiments; but the progress actually
+made since the Revolution of 1868 has really been extraordinary, and it
+has gone steadily forward. Spain has always been celebrated for the
+making of <i>convenios</i>&mdash;a word which is scarcely correctly translated by
+"arrangement." During the Carlist wars, the Government, and even
+generals in command, made <i>convenios</i> with the insurgents to allow
+convoys to pass without interference, money value sometimes being a
+factor in the case; but one of the strangest of these out-of-sight
+agree<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span>ments, and one which English people never understand, is that
+which has existed almost ever since the Restoration between the
+political parties in the Congress, or, at least, between their leaders.
+It is an arrangement, loyally carried out, by which each party is
+allowed in turn to come into power. The Cortes is elected to suit the
+party whose turn it is to be in office, and there is little reality in
+the apparent differences. Silvela and Sagasta go backwards and forwards
+with the regularity of a pendulum, and the country goes on its way
+improving its position daily and hourly, with small thanks to its
+Government.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is as well! It gives assurance, at least, that no
+particularly wild schemes or subversive changes shall be made. When one
+administration has almost wrecked the ship, as in the Caserta marriage,
+the other comes in peacefully, and sets the public mind at rest; both
+parties wish for peace and quietness, and no more revolutions, and the
+political seesaw keeps the helm fairly straight in ordinary weather. To
+what extent the insane and disastrous policy which led to the war with
+America by its shilly-shally treatment of Cuba, now promising autonomy,
+now putting down the grinding heel of tyranny, and to what extent the
+suicidal action of the oscillating parties&mdash;for both share the
+responsibility&mdash;in their instructions to their generals and admirals,
+and the astounding unpreparedness for war of any kind, still less with a
+country like America, may be <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">{152}</a></span>traced to this system of "arrangements,"
+which allows one party to hand its responsibilities over to the other,
+one can only guess. It is to be hoped that when the two figureheads at
+present before the country go over to the majority, there may come to
+the front some earnest and truly patriotic ministers, who have been
+quietly training in the school of practical politics, and can take the
+helm with some hope of doing away with the crying evils of <i>empleomania</i>
+and <i>caciquismo</i>. Until then there will be no political greatness for
+Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The advance which Spain has made, "in spite of her Governments, and not
+by their assistance," has been remarkable in past years. Since the
+beginning of the last century she has gone through a series of political
+upheavals and disasters which might well have destroyed any country;
+and, in fact, her division into so many differing nationalities has,
+perhaps, been her greatest safeguard. Even after the Revolution of 1868
+the series of events through which she passed was enough to have
+paralysed her whole material prosperity; the actual loss in materials,
+and still more in the lives of her sons, during the fratricidal wars at
+home and in her colonies, is incalculable, and that she was not ruined,
+but, on the contrary, advanced steadily in industry and commerce during
+the whole time, shows her enormous inherent vitality. Since then she has
+undergone the lamentable war with America, has lost her chief <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span>colonies,
+and the Peninsula has been well-nigh swamped by the <i>repatriados</i> from
+Cuba, returning to their native country penniless and, in many cases,
+worn out. And yet the state of Spain was never so promising, her steady
+progress never more assured. Looking back to the Revolution, it will be
+enough to name some of the measures secured for the benefit of the
+people. They include complete civil and religious liberty, with reforms
+in the administration of the laws and the condition of prisoners,
+liberty of education, and the spread of normal schools into every corner
+of the Peninsula, the establishment of savings banks for the poor,
+somewhat on the lines of England's Post Office Savings Bank; railways
+have received an enormous impulse; quays and breakwaters have been
+erected, so that every portion of the kingdom is now in immediate touch
+with Madrid; while the universities are sending forth daily young men
+thoroughly trained as engineers, electricians, doctors, and scientists
+of every variety to take the places which some years ago were almost
+necessarily filled by foreigners for want of trained native talent.</p>
+
+<p>Local government in the smaller towns of the Peninsula is generally said
+to be very good, and to work with great smoothness and efficiency
+hand-in-hand with centralised authority in Madrid. The fusion of the
+varying nationalities is gradually gaining ground, and the hard-and-fast
+line between the provinces is disappearing.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span> There is more nationality
+now in matters of every-day life than there has ever been before. In old
+times it needed the touch of a foreign hand, the threat of foreign
+interference, to rouse the nation as one man. Commerce and industry and
+the national emulation between province and province are doing gradually
+what it once needed the avarice of a Napoleon to evoke.</p>
+
+<p>The paper constitutions of Spain have been many, beginning with that of
+1812, which the Liberals tried to force on Ferdinand VII., to that of
+1845, which the Conservatives look upon as the ideal, or that of 1869,
+embodying all that the Revolution had gained from absolutism, including
+manhood suffrage. In the first Cortes summoned after the Restoration,
+thanks to the good sense of Castelar, the Republican party, from being
+conspirators, became a parliamentary party in opposition. Zorilla alone,
+looking upon it as a sham, retired to France in disgust. By the new
+constitution of 1876, the power of making laws remained, as before,
+vested in the Cortes and the Crown: the Senate consists of three
+classes, Grandes, Bishops, and high officers of State sitting by right,
+with one hundred members nominated by the Crown, and one hundred and
+eighty elected by provincial Councils, universities, and other
+corporations. Half of the elected members go out every five years. The
+deputies to the Congress are elected by indirect vote on a residential
+manhood suffrage, and they number four <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span>hundred and thirty-one. A
+certain number of equal electoral districts of fifty thousand
+inhabitants elect one member each; and twenty-six large districts,
+having several representatives, send eighty-eight members to the Cortes.
+Every province has its provincial elective Council, managing its local
+affairs, and each commune its separate District Council, with control
+over local taxation. Yet, though ostensibly free, these local bodies are
+practically in the power of the political wire-puller, or <i>cacique</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/155.jpg" width="280" height="170" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">{156}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/156.jpg" width="450" height="104" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">C</span><span class="smcap">ommerce</span> and industry had progressed by leaps and bounds even during the
+disastrous and troublous years between the expulsion of Isabel II. and
+the restoration of her son. The progress is now much more steady and
+more diffused over the whole country, but it is by no means less
+remarkable, especially taking into consideration the disaster of the war
+with America and the loss to Spain of her old colonies.</p>
+
+<p>Among her politicians in past times there were never wanting those who
+considered that the loss of Cuba would be a distinct gain to the mother
+country, and perhaps it may be safely said that since the colony had not
+only been for so many years the forcing-house of bureaucratic
+corruption, but had also drained the resources of Spain both of money
+and lives to the extreme limit of her possibility, she is more likely
+now to regain her old position among European nations, when left at
+peace to develop her enormous resources and set her house in order
+without the distraction of war, either at home or abroad.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span> When one
+remembers that this happy condition has never obtained in the country
+since the death of Ferdinand VII. until the close of the
+Spanish-American War, and that the country is only now recovering from
+the disorganisation caused by the return of her troops and refugees from
+Cuba and Manila, it is not surprising to find that the activity
+manifested in her trade, her manufactures, and her industries is such as
+to give the greatest hopes for her future to her own people and to those
+who watch her from afar with friendly eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Whichever we may regard as cause or effect, the progress of the country
+has been very largely identified with the extension of her railway
+system. It must have been a great step towards liberal education when
+the country which, priding herself on her geographical position and her
+rich internal resources, had hitherto wrapped herself in her national
+<i>capa</i>, and considered that she was amply sufficient to herself,
+condescended to throw open her mountain barriers to immigrants. It was
+not until 1848 that the first Spanish railway was opened, and it was but
+seventeen miles in length; but in the next ten years five hundred miles
+had been constructed, and between 1858 and 1868 no fewer than two
+thousand eight hundred and five miles, the Pyrenees had been pierced,
+and direct communication with the rest of Europe accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>During the troublous years following the Revolution and the melancholy
+struggles of the second<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span> Carlist war, very little progress was made.
+Foreign capital, which had hitherto been invested in Spanish railways,
+was naturally frightened away, and the Northern Railway itself, the
+great artery to France, was constantly being torn up and damaged, and
+the lives of the passengers endangered, by the armed mobs which infested
+the country, and were supposed by some people to represent the cause of
+legitimacy, and which had, in fact, the sanction of the Church and of
+the Pope. It was not, in the majority of cases, that the people
+sympathised with Don Carlos, but it was easier and more amusing for the
+lazy and the ne'er-do-weels to receive pay and rations for carrying a
+gun, and taking pot-shots at any object that presented itself, human or
+other, than to work in the fields, the mines, or on the railways. Hence
+public enterprise was paralysed; again and again the workmen, with no
+desire of their own, were driven off by superior bands of these
+wandering shooters, who scarcely deserved even the name of guerillas,
+and public works were left deserted and decaying, while the commerce and
+industry of the province were wrecked, and apparently destroyed
+irrevocably.</p>
+
+<p>In the earlier stages of railway construction and management, French
+capital and French labour were employed. England held aloof, partly on
+account of the closing of the London Stock Exchange to Spanish
+enterprises, in consequence of the vexed question of the celebrated
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span>coupons, but also because the aid afforded by the State did not fall in
+with the ideas of English capitalists. They desired a guaranteed rate of
+interest, while the Spanish Government would have nothing but a
+subvention paid down in one lump sum, arguing that it would be
+impossible to tell when a line was making more than the guaranteed
+interest, "as the companies would so arrange their accounts as to show
+invariably an interest smaller than that guaranteed!" With this view of
+the honesty of their own officials, no one else could be expected to
+have a better opinion of them; and England allowed France and Belgium
+thenceforward to find all the capital and all the materials for Spanish
+railways.</p>
+
+<p>The total amount of subventions actually paid by Government up to
+December 31, 1882, was &pound;24,529,148. "If," says the author of <i>Commercial
+and Industrial Spain</i>, "the money that we so candidly lent to the swarm
+of defaulting South American Republics had been properly invested in
+Spanish railways, a great deal of trouble might probably have been
+spared to the unfortunate investors."</p>
+
+<p>All that, however, is altered now: the State schools and universities
+are turning out daily well-equipped native engineers, both for railway
+and mining works, and Spaniards are finding their own capital for public
+works. The phrase "Spain for the Spaniards" is acquiring a new
+significance&mdash;perhaps the most hopeful of all the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">{160}</a></span>signs of progress the
+country is making. In 1899, there were working 12,916 kil&oacute;metros of
+railways, or 7.9 kil&oacute;metros for each 10,000 of the population. A
+kil&oacute;metro equals 1.609 English mile. There is no part of the country now
+isolated, either from the centre of government in Madrid, or from the
+coast, and communication with Portugal, and, through France, with the
+rest of Europe, is easy and constant. With this advance in means of
+transit, the trade of the country has received an immense impulse, and
+its raw and manufactured goods are now reaching all markets.</p>
+
+<p>The rich mineral wealth of the country and its wonderful climate only
+need enlightened enterprise to make Spain one of the richest and most
+important commercial factors in the world's trade. The list of minerals
+alone, raised from mines in working, amounts to twenty-two, ranging from
+gold and silver, copper, tin, zinc, quick-silver, salt, coal, etc., to
+cobalt and antimony; and 8,313,218 tons of minerals of all these
+twenty-two classes were raised in 1882 against 1,201,054 in 1862. The
+value of mines in 1880 was represented by one hundred and eleven
+millions of pesetas (francs), but in 1898 by three hundred and nineteen
+millions (pesetas). The value of imports in 1882 was 816,666,901
+pesetas, and of exports 765,376,087 pesetas. In 1899, imports were
+1,045,391,983, and exports 864,367,885. But this is taking exactly the
+period covered by the war with America; a fairer estimate of exports is
+that of<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">{161}</a></span> 1897, which stood at 1,074,883,372. No statement has been
+published since 1899, but intermediate statistics show the trade of the
+country to be advancing rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>To return, however, to Spanish industries. In late years large
+smelting-works have been opened in Spain, with Spanish capital and
+management, while at Bilbao are large iron-works for the manufacture of
+steel rails. There are splendid deposits of iron in the country, and as
+the duty on foreign rails entering Spain is &pound;3 4<i>s</i>. per ton, it is
+probable that the near future will see the country free from the
+necessity of importing manufactured iron, or, in fact, metal of any
+kind. A Catalan company has established important works for reducing the
+sulphur of the rich mines near Lorca, and confidently expects to produce
+some thirty thousand tons of sulphur per annum. The rich silver mines of
+the Sierra Almagrera are almost wholly in native hands, and have already
+yielded large fortunes to the owners. With the present improved
+transport and shipping facilities in every part of the country, it is
+probable that the valuable mines scattered all over the Peninsula will
+be thoroughly worked, to the advance of commercial and industrial
+interests over the entire country.</p>
+
+<p>While the seaboard provinces are rich in fisheries, as well as in mines,
+in the south the country is able to grow rice, sugar-cane, maize,
+raisins, as well as wheat, olives, oranges, grapes, dates, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">{162}</a></span>bananas,
+pine-apples, and almost all kinds of tropical fruits. The cultivation of
+all varieties of fruit and vegetables, and their careful gathering and
+packing have become the object of many large companies and private
+individuals. Dates, bananas, grapes, plums, tomatoes, melons, as well as
+asparagus and other early vegetables, are now being shipped to foreign
+markets as regular articles of trade, in a condition which insures a
+rapid and increasing sale. The exportation of fruit has doubled within
+the last few years. The production of cane sugar in 1899 was thirty-one
+thousand tons, or exactly three times the amount of that produced in
+1889. The exportation of wine, which in 1894 was two millions of
+milelitros, was in 1898 nearly five millions, and it is daily increasing
+(one gallon English measure equals about four and one half litros).</p>
+
+<p>Spain has always had excellent wines unknown to other countries, besides
+that which is manufactured into what we know as "sherry"; but many of
+them were so carelessly made as to be unfit for transit abroad. The
+attention of wine-growers has, however, been steadily turned to this
+subject during the last twenty years; greater care has been taken in the
+production; the best methods have been ascertained and followed, and it
+is possible now to obtain undoctored Spanish wines which perfectly bear
+the carriage in cask without injury; and, to meet a direct sale to the
+customer, small barrels containing about <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">{163}</a></span>twelve gallons are shipped
+from Tarragona and other ports to England.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most hopeful signs of the economic awakening of the country
+is the establishment of the <i>Boletin de la C&aacute;mara de Comercio de Espa&ntilde;a
+en la Gran Bret&aacute;&ntilde;a</i>, published each month in London.</p>
+
+<p>In this little commercial circular a review is given of the commerce and
+industry of all nations during the month; all fluctuations are noted,
+extracts from foreign statistics or money articles given, suggestions
+made for the opening up of Spanish commerce, and the introduction of her
+manufactures into this and other countries. Speaking on the question of
+the introduction of pure Spanish wines into England, a recent writer in
+the <i>Boletin</i> remarks that English workmen are thirsty animals, that
+they like a big drink, but they are not really desirous of becoming
+intoxicated by it. In fact, they would most of them prefer to be able to
+drink more without bad effects. The writer goes on to say that if the
+English workman could obtain pure wine that would cost no more than his
+customary beer, and would not make him intoxicated, and if Spanish light
+wines&mdash;which he says could be sold in England for less than good
+beer&mdash;were offered in tempting-looking taverns and under pleasant
+conditions, he believes that a really enormous trade would be the
+result, to the benefit of both nations. The suggestion is, at least, an
+interesting one, and though the scheme would certainly not benefit the
+habitual <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">{164}</a></span>drunkard, who becomes enamoured of his own debauchery, it
+might be very welcome to many of the working people, who, as "our
+neighbour" quaintly remarks, like a big drink, but do not necessarily
+wish to become intoxicated.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection, it may be interesting to know that the small
+twelve-gallon casks of red wine, resembling Burgundy rather than claret,
+but less heavy than the Australian wines, and forming a delicious drink
+with water, are delivered at one's own door carriage free for a price
+which works out, including duty, at 8&frac12;<i>d.</i> the ordinary bottle, or 1<i>s.</i>
+2<i>d.</i> the flagon, such as the Australian wine is sold in. This is, in
+fact, cheaper than good stout or ale.</p>
+
+<p>Spain has always been celebrated for two special manufactures&mdash;her silk
+and woollen goods; but for very many years these have been almost
+unknown beyond her own boundaries. In the time of the Moors her silken
+goods had a world-wide fame; and the silk-worm has been cultivated there
+probably from the earliest days, when it was surreptitiously introduced
+into Europe. Groves of mulberry trees were grown especially for
+sericulture in the irrigated provinces of the South, the care of the
+insect being undertaken by the women, while the men were employed on
+tasks more suitable to their strength. Native-grown spun and woven silk
+forms such an important part in the national costumes of the people that
+it has attained to great perfection without attracting <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">{165}</a></span>much foreign
+notice. The silk petticoats of the women, the velvet jackets and trunk
+hose of the men, the beautiful silk and woollen <i>mantas</i>, with their
+deep fringes of silken or woollen balls; the <i>madro&ntilde;os</i>, or silk tufts
+and balls, used as decorations for the Andalusian or the gypsy hats, not
+to mention the beautifully soft and pure silks of Barcelona, or the silk
+laces made in such perfection in many parts of the country,&mdash;all these
+are objects of merchandise only needing to be known, to occasion a large
+demand, especially in these days when the French invention of weighted
+dyes floods the English market with something that has the outward
+appearance of silk, but which does not even wait for wear to disclose
+its real nature, but rots into holes on the drapers' shelves, and
+would-be smart young women of slender purses walk about in what has been
+well called "tin attire," in the manufacture of which the silk-worm has
+had only the slenderest interest.</p>
+
+<p>The blankets and rugs of Palencia have been known to some few English
+people for many years, owing to their extreme lightness, great warmth,
+and literally unending wear; but it is only within the last very few
+years that they can be said to have had any market at all in England,
+and now they are called "Pyrenean" rather than Spanish goods. One of the
+suggestions of the little commercial circular already referred to is
+that Spaniards should open depots or special <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">{166}</a></span>agencies all over England
+for the sale of their woollen goods, after the manner of the Jaeger
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>The flocks of merino sheep to be seen on the wooded slopes of the
+Pyrenees, and all over Estremadura, following their shepherd after the
+manner with which Old Testament history makes us familiar, are said to
+be direct descendants of the old Arabian flocks, and certainly the
+appearance of one of these impassive-looking shepherds leading his flock
+to "green pastures, and beside the still waters," takes one back in the
+world's history in a way that few other things do. The flock know the
+voice of their shepherd, and follow him unquestioningly wheresoever he
+goes; there is no driving, no hurrying; and the same may be said of the
+pigs, which form such an important item in the social economy of a
+Spanish peasant's home.</p>
+
+<p>Staying once at Castellon de la Plana, in Valencia, my delight was to
+watch the pig-herd and his troop. Early in the morning, at a fixed hour,
+he issued from his house in one of the small alleys, staff in hand, and
+with a curious kind of horn or whistle. This he blew as he walked along,
+from time to time, without turning his head, in that strange trance of
+passivity which distinguishes the Valencian peasant. Out from dark
+corners, narrow passages, mud hovels on all sides, came tearing along
+little pigs, big pigs, dark, light, fat, thin pigs,&mdash;pigs of every
+description,&mdash;and joined <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">{167}</a></span>the procession headed by this sombre-looking
+herdsman, with his long stick and his blue-and-white striped <i>manta</i>
+thrown over his shoulder. By the time he had reached the end of the
+village he had a large herd following him. Then the whole party slowly
+disappeared in the distance, under the groves of cork-trees or up the
+mountain paths. The evening performance was more amusing still. Just
+about sundown the stately herdsman again appeared with his motley
+following. He took no manner of notice of them. He stalked majestically
+towards his own particular hovel, and at each corner of a lane or group
+of cottages the pigs said "Good night" to each other by a kick-up of
+their heels and a whisk of their curly little tails, and scampered off
+home by themselves, until, at the end of the village, only one solitary
+pig was following his leader&mdash;probably they shared one home between
+them. It seemed a peaceful, if not an absolutely happy, life!</p>
+
+<p>One would expect a country with such a climate, or rather with so many
+climates, as Spain, to make a great feature of agriculture. It can at
+once produce wheat of the very finest quality, wine, oil, rice, sugar,
+and every kind of fruit and vegetable that is known; and it ought to be
+able to support a large agricultural population in comfort, and export
+largely. Taking into account, also, the rich mineral wealth, which
+should make her independent of imports of this nature, it is sad to see
+that in past years, even so late as 1882, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">{168}</a></span>wheat and flour, coal and
+coke, iron and tools figure amongst her imports&mdash;the first two in very
+large proportions. Although the vast plains of Estremadura and Castile
+produce the finest wheat known to commerce, the quantity, owing to the
+want of water, is so small in relation to the acreage under cultivation,
+that it does not suffice for home consumption, except in very favourable
+years; while the utilisation of the magnificent rivers, which now roll
+their waters uselessly to the sea, would make the land what it once was
+when the thrifty Moor held it&mdash;a thickly populated and flourishing
+grain-producing district. In place of the wandering flocks of sheep and
+pigs gaining a precarious existence on the herbage left alive by the
+blistering sun on an arid soil, there should be smiling homesteads and
+blooming gardens everywhere, trees and grateful shade where now the
+ground, between the rainy seasons, becomes all of one dusty, half-burnt
+colour, reminding one more of the "back of a mangy camel," as it has
+been described, than of a country that has once been fruitful and
+productive.</p>
+
+<p>The late General Concha, Marqu&eacute;s del Duero, was the originator of
+sugar-cane cultivation. He spent a large portion of his private fortune
+in establishing what bids fair to be one of the most productive
+industries of his country. But, like most pioneers of progress, he
+reaped no benefit himself. His fine estates near Malaga, with their
+productive cane-farms, passed into other hands <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">{169}</a></span>before he had reaped the
+reward of his patriotic endeavours. For a long time the cheap,
+bounty-fed beet sugars of Germany, which never approach beyond being an
+imitation of real sugar&mdash;as every housewife can testify who has tried to
+make jam with them&mdash;were able to undersell the produce of the cane; but
+the latest statistics show that this industry is now making steady
+progress, the production of 1899 being thirty-one thousand tons, or
+exactly three times that of 1899. <i>&Agrave; propos</i> of the difference between
+cane and beet sugars for all domestic purposes, and the superior
+cheapness of the more costly article, it is satisfactory to note that in
+England the working classes, through their own co-operative societies,
+insist on being supplied with the former, knowing by experimental proof
+its immense superiority; and one may hope that their wisdom may spread
+into households where the servants pull the wires, and care nothing
+about economy.</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the ordinary map of Spain, it appears to be ridiculous to say
+that the greater part of the country is in want of water. Although it is
+intersected by three large ranges of mountains beyond the Pyrenees, and
+innumerable others of smaller dimensions, thus making a great proportion
+of the country impossible for agriculture, it is rich in magnificent
+rivers and in smaller ones, all of which are allowed to run to waste in
+many parts of the country, while even a small portion of their waters,
+artificially dammed and utilised <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">{170}</a></span>for irrigation, if only of the lands
+lying on each side of them, would mean wealth and prosperity and an
+abounding population where now the "everlasting sun" pours its rays over
+barren wastes. Moreover, by the growth of the wood, which once covered
+the plains and has been cut down, little by little, until the whole
+surface of the land was changed, in process of time the climate would
+become less dry, and vegetation more rapid and easy.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since the expulsion of the Moors from Castile and Estremadura, the
+land has been allowed gradually to go almost out of cultivation for want
+of water, the wholesale devastation of forests, in combination with the
+lapse of all irrigation, acting as a constantly accelerating cause for
+the arid and unproductive condition of the once genial soil. Irrigation
+has been the crying want of Spain for generations past; but even now the
+Government scarcely seems to have awakened to its necessity. Perhaps,
+however, the Spaniard who goes on his way, never troubling to listen to
+the opinion or advice of his neighbour, has not, after all, been so
+wanting in common sense as some of the more energetic of his critics
+have thought. In spite of all the changes and disasters of successive
+Governments, a steady and rapid advance has been made in providing means
+of transport and shipping, by the construction of railways to every part
+of the country, the making and keeping in condition of admirable
+highways, and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">{171}</a></span>the building of breakwaters and quays in many of the
+seaports, so that now the output of the mines and produce of all kinds
+can find market within the country, or be shipped abroad freely.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f170.jpg" width="550" height="335" alt="A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA" title="A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA" />
+<span class="caption">A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>If the money no longer being expended in railways and docks were now
+devoted to irrigation wherever it is needed, a rapid change would become
+apparent over the whole face of the country, and the population would
+increase in proportion as the land would bear it. Irrigation works have
+been more than once undertaken by the aid of foreign money, and under
+the charge of foreign engineers; but the people themselves&mdash;the
+landowners and peasant proprietors&mdash;were not ripe for it, and, alas!
+some of the canals which would have turned whole valleys into gardens
+have been allowed to go to ruin, or to become actually obliterated,
+while the scanty crops are raised once in two or three years from the
+same soil, which will yield three crops in one year by the help of
+water. Difficulties arose about the sale of the water&mdash;a prolific cause
+of dispute even in the old irrigated districts&mdash;and the people said:
+"What do we want with water, except what comes from heaven? If the
+Virgin thinks we want water, she sends it." Fitting result of the
+teaching of the Church for so many years, with the example ever held up
+for admiration of the patron saint, Isidro, who knelt all day at his
+prayers, and left the tilling of his fields to the angels! It would seem
+that these ministers of grace are not good <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">{172}</a></span>husbandmen, since the land
+became the arid waste it now is, while successive Isidros have been
+engaged in religious duties, which they were taught were all that was
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>As an example of what irrigation means in the sunlit fields of Spain, an
+acre of irrigable land in Valencia or Murcia sells for prices varying
+from &pound;150 to &pound;400, according to its quality or its situation, while land
+not irrigable only fetches sums varying from &pound;7 to &pound;20. In Castile, land
+would not in any case fetch so high a price as that which has been under
+irrigated cultivation for centuries past; but in any district the value
+of dry land is never more than a twelfth of what it is when irrigable.
+In truth, however, there is more than irrigation needed to bring the
+lands of Castile and Estremadura into profitable cultivation, and it
+cannot be done without the expenditure of large sums of money at the
+outset in manures, and good implements in place of the obsolete old
+implements with which the ground is now scratched rather than ploughed.
+Given good capital and intelligent farming, as in the irrigated
+districts, and two, and even three, crops a year can be raised in
+unceasing succession; lucern gives from ten to twelve cuttings in one
+year, fifteen days being sufficient for the growth of a new crop.</p>
+
+<p>I have pointed out what one day's sun can do in raising grass seed in
+Madrid, which stands on the highest point of the elevated table-land
+occupying the centre of Spain. Seeing that the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">{173}</a></span>principal item of the
+revenue is derived from the land tax, and that it is calculated on the
+value of the land, it would appear to be the first interest of an
+enlightened government to foster irrigation in every possible way, and
+encourage agriculture and the planting of trees.</p>
+
+<p>Although the people of Spain have hated their more immediate neighbours
+with an exceeding bitter hatred,&mdash;as, indeed, they had good cause to do
+in the past,&mdash;her public men have had a strange fancy for importing or
+imitating French customs. One that militates more than anything else
+against agricultural prosperity is the law of inheritance, copied from
+the French. By this the State divides an estate amongst the heirs
+without any reference to the wishes of the proprietor at his death. Not
+only are all large estates broken up and practically dissipated, so that
+it is to no one's interest to improve his property or spend money on it,
+but the small farms of the peasant proprietor are broken into smaller
+fragments in the same way; and it is no uncommon thing to see a field of
+a few acres divided into six or eight furrows, none of them enough to
+support one man. While he has to go off seeking work where he can get
+it, his strip of land clings to him like a curse, for he must lose his
+work if he would try to cultivate it, and at his death it will again be
+subdivided, until at last there is nothing left to share. Meanwhile, the
+land, which is not enough to be of any value to anyone, has been allowed
+to go almost out of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">{174}</a></span>cultivation; or if it bear anything at all, it is
+weeds.</p>
+
+<p>Until some remedy be found for this enervating system, it would seem as
+if Spanish agriculture is doomed to remain in its present unsatisfactory
+condition over a great part of the kingdom. The improvement of
+agriculture is practically a question of private enterprise, and under
+the existing law of inheritance neither enterprise nor interest can be
+expected of the small proprietor; nor indeed of the large landowner, who
+knows that, whatever he may do to improve his estate, it is doomed to be
+cut to pieces and divided amongst his next of kin until it is eventually
+extinguished. Whether, in some future time, an enlightened scheme of
+co-operation could work the arid lands into cultivation again, if the
+Government would give the necessary aid in the form of irrigation,
+remains among the unanswered riddles of the future. Prophecy in Spain is
+never possible; it is always the unexpected which happens in that
+country of sharp contradictions. All one can do is to note past progress
+and the drift of the present current, which, whatever government is at
+the nominal head of affairs, seems to be towards widespread&mdash;in fact,
+quite general&mdash;advance both in knowledge and industrial activity.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest hope for the future lies in the fact that it is no longer
+foreign money or foreign labour that is working for the good of the
+country; the impulse is from within, and every penny of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">{175}</a></span>capital that is
+sunk in public works, manufactures, or industrial enterprise, is so much
+invested in a settled state of affairs. When the individual has
+everything to lose by revolutionary changes, when the commerce of the
+country is becoming too important to be allowed to be upset easily, and
+it is everybody's interest to support and increase it, the main body of
+the people are ranged on the side of peace and progress. They have had
+enough of civil war, enough of tyranny; they have achieved freedom, and
+want nothing so much as to taste of it in quietness.</p>
+
+<p>To revert for a moment to the special manufactures of the country, it
+appears to be the wise policy of the powers that be in Spain to-day to
+encourage, by every possible means, native industries and the
+development of the rich resources of the country. If it be only in the
+superior education required of the workmen, and the drawing out of their
+natural talents, the movement is an immense gain to the people, so long
+purposely kept in a condition of slothful ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the woollen manufactures of Palencia, Lorca, Jerez, Barcelona,
+Valencia, and other places, are many cloth factories in Catalu&ntilde;a, as
+well as others for the production of silk fabrics, lace, and very
+high-class embroideries, for which last Spain has long been famous, but
+which have hitherto been little known beyond her own frontiers. In
+artistic crafts may be named the pottery <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">{176}</a></span>works of Pickman, Mesaque,
+Gomez, and others in Seville, where magnificent reproductions of Moorish
+and Hespa&ntilde;o-Moresque tiles and pottery are being turned out; there are
+also factories for this class of goods in Valencia, Barcelona, Segovia,
+Talevera, and many other places. Ornamental iron and damascene work
+holds the high reputation which Spain has never lost, but the output is
+very largely increased. Gold and silver inlaid on iron, iron inlaid on
+copper and silver, are some of the forms of this beautiful work. That
+executed in Madrid differs from that of Toledo, Eibar, and other centres
+of the craft. The iron gate-work executed in Madrid and Barcelona is
+very hard to beat, and the casting of bronzes is carried out with every
+modern improvement. The wood-carvers of Spain have always been famous,
+and the craft appears to be in no danger of falling behind its old
+reputation, much beautiful decorative work of this description being
+produced for modern needs. The <i>Circulo de Artes</i> holds an exhibition in
+Madrid every other year, and in the intervening years the Government has
+one, in the large permanent buildings erected for the purpose at the end
+of the Fuente Castellana. The manufacture of artistic furniture and
+other connected industries are encouraged also by a bi-yearly exhibition
+in Madrid, where prizes and commendations are given. The chief centres
+of artistic furniture-making are Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and
+Zaragoza. Exhibitions of arts and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">{177}</a></span>crafts and of all kinds of industries
+and manufactures are also held, at intervals, in the principal towns all
+over the country. An interesting exhibition of Spanish and South
+American productions was held in 1901 in Bilbao with great success.</p>
+
+<p>Nor ought we to forget the industry for which Seville is famed. The
+manufacture of tobacco is almost wholly in the hands of women, and is a
+very important industry, thousands being employed in the large factories
+making up cigars, cigarettes, and preparing and packing the finer kinds
+of tobacco. The cigar-girl of Seville is a well-known type, almost as
+much dreaded by the authorities as admired by her own class. The women
+are mostly young, and often attractive, extremely pronounced both in
+dress and manners, and are quite a power to be reckoned with when they
+choose to assert themselves. On more than one occasion they have taken
+up some cause <i>en masse</i>, and have gathered in thousands, determined to
+have their way.</p>
+
+<p>When this happens, the powers that be are reduced to great straits.
+Neither the <i>Guardia Civile</i> nor the military can be relied on to use
+force, and unless the army of irate women can be persuaded to retire
+from the contest it is probable that, relying with perfect confidence on
+the privileges of their sex, they will gain what they consider their
+rights&mdash;at all events their will.</p>
+
+<p>No country in the world is more suited for manufactures and exports than
+Spain. She has <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">{178}</a></span>an unexampled seaboard, and many magnificent natural
+harbours, and now an easy approach through Portugal to the sea, even if
+her own ports should be insufficient. Common commercial interests are
+likely to bring that Iberian kingdom or commonwealth to pass which has
+been the dream of some of her politicians, and is still cherished in
+parts of both countries. The northern ports in the Atlantic are,
+perhaps, the most important; that of Bilbao, a most unpromising one by
+nature, has grown out of all recognition since the close of the Carlist
+war. The railway to the iron mines was already in course of construction
+when the war broke out; everything was stopped, the workmen carried off
+willy-nilly to join the marauding bands of the Pretender, the
+town&mdash;which boasts that it has never been taken, although twice almost
+demolished during the two insane civil wars&mdash;was wrecked and well-nigh
+ruined, its industries destroyed, its commerce at an end. With peace and
+quietness came one of the most extraordinary revivals of modern times:
+the population increased at a marvellous rate, the new town sprang into
+existence on the left bank of the Nerrion, the river was deepened, the
+bar, which used to block almost all entrance, practically removed,
+extensive dock-works carried out; so that in ten years the shipment of
+ore from the port sprang up from four hundred and twenty-five thousand
+tons to 3,737,176, and is increasing daily. Bilbao, with its five
+railway stations, its <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">{179}</a></span>electric tramways, and its population of
+sixty-six thousand, has become the first and most important shipping
+outlet of Spain. Nor have the southern ports of Huelva and Seville been
+much behind it in their rapid progress; while on the Mediterranean coast
+are Malaga, Almer&iacute;a, Aguilas, Cartagena, Valencia, and Tarragona&mdash;all
+vying with the older, and once singular, centre of commercial and
+industrial activity, Barcelona. The northwest seaboard has been hitherto
+somewhat behind the movement, owing to a less complete railway
+communication with the rest of the country; now that this is no more a
+reproach, the fine natural harbours of Rivadeo, Vivero, Carril,
+Pontevedra, Vigo, and Coru&ntilde;a, are gradually following suit, some with
+more vigour than others. The little land-locked harbour of Pasages has
+for some years been rapidly rising to the rank of a first-class shipping
+port.</p>
+
+<p>It is satisfactory to note, from the latest statistics, that in 1899
+Spain possessed a total of one thousand and thirty-five merchant ships,
+that in the same year she bought from England alone sixty-seven, and
+that 17,419 ships, carrying 11,857,674 tons of exports, left Spanish
+ports for foreign markets. Although no official information has been
+published since that year, the increase since the close of the war has
+been in very much greater ratio. From the same records we find that
+during the year 1899 no fewer than sixty-nine large companies were
+formed, of which <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">{180}</a></span>twenty-three were for shipping, eight were new sugar
+factories, seven banks, seven mining, six electric, and ten others
+related either to manufacture or commerce, the total capital of these
+new enterprises representing one hundred and twenty-eight millions of
+pesetas.</p>
+
+<p>In contrast to Portugal, the <i>caminos reales</i>, or high-roads, of Spain
+have long been very good. It is true that where these State roads do not
+exist, the unadulterated <i>arroyo</i> serves as a country road, or a mere
+track across the fields made by carts and foot-passengers, and when an
+obstruction occurs in the form of too deep a hole to be got through, the
+track takes a turn outside it, and returns to the direct line as soon as
+circumstances permit. An <i>arroyo</i> is given in the dictionary as "a
+rivulet"; it is, in fact, generally a rushing torrent during the rains,
+eating its way through the land, and laying down a smooth, deep layer of
+sand, or even soil, between high banks. Immediately after the rainy
+season this affords a firm, good road for a time, but eventually it
+becomes ploughed into impassable ruts by the wheels of the carts, unless
+trampled hard by the feet of passing flocks.</p>
+
+<p>Government undertakes the cost and the super-intendence of the <i>caminos
+reales</i>, and does it well. The corps of engineers is modelled on French
+lines, and is a department of the Ministry of Public Works. The course
+of study is extremely severe, and the examinations are strict and
+search<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">{181}</a></span>ing. When a candidate passes, he is appointed assistant-engineer
+by the Ministry, and he rises in his profession solely by seniority.
+Every province has its engineer-in-chief, with his staff of assistants;
+the superintendents of harbours, railways, and other public works are
+specially appointed from qualified engineers. In addition to the care of
+the construction and repair of all highways and Government works in his
+district, the engineer-in-chief has the overlooking of all works which,
+although they may be the result of private enterprise and private
+capital, are authorised or carried out under Government concession.
+These concessions are only granted after the project has been submitted
+to, and approved by, the Ministry of Public Works, and it passes under
+the supervision of the engineer of the provinces. In old days, if not
+now, there was a good deal of "the itching palm" about the officials,
+not excluding the Minister himself, through whose hands the granting of
+concessions passed, even the wives coming in for handsome presents and
+"considerations," without which events had a knack of not moving; and
+when the army of <i>Empleados</i> became <i>Cesantes</i>, this work, of course,
+began all over again. The railway engineers form a separate body, the
+country being mapped out into arbitrary divisions, each under the charge
+of one engineer-in-chief, with a large body of assistants.</p>
+
+<p>The telegraph system of Spain has now for many years been in a good
+condition. The <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">{182}</a></span>construction of the lines dates from about 1862, when
+only five miles were in operation. There is now probably not a village
+in the whole country that does not possess its telegraph office, and in
+all the important towns this is kept open all night. A peseta for twenty
+words, including the address, is the uniform charge, every additional
+word being ten centimos. The telegraphs were established by the
+Government, and are under its control. All railway lines of public
+service, and those which receive a subvention, must provide two wires
+for Government use. Telephones are now in use in all large centres, and
+electric lighting and traction are far more widely used than in England.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/182.jpg" width="280" height="121" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">{183}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/183.jpg" width="450" height="101" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ARMY AND NAVY</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">I</span><span class="smcap">t</span> is not necessary to say to anyone who has the smallest acquaintance
+with history that Spaniards are naturally brave and patriotic. The early
+history of the Peninsula is one of valour in battle, whether by land or
+sea. The standard of Castile has been borne by her sons triumphantly
+over the surface of the globe. Few of us now remember that Johnson wrote
+of the Spain of his day:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,</div>
+<div class="verse">No pathless waste, no undiscovered shore,</div>
+<div class="verse">No secret island on the trackless main,</div>
+<div class="verse">No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the old days when Drake undertook to "singe the King of Spain's
+beard," and carried out his threat, our sailors and those of Philip II.,
+some time "King of England," as the Spaniards still insist on calling
+him, met often in mortal combat, and learned to recognise and honour in
+each other the same dogged fighting-power, the same discipline and quiet
+courage. The picture <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">{184}</a></span>of the Spaniards standing bareheaded in token of
+reverence and admiration of a worthy foe, as some small English ships
+went down with all their crew rather than surrender, in those old days
+of strife, touches a chord which still vibrates in memory of battles
+fought and won together by Englishmen and Spaniards under the Iron Duke.
+True, some battered and torn English flags hang as trophies in the
+armoury of Madrid, but one likes to remember that in the only battle
+where our colours were lost, the Spanish troops were commanded by an
+Englishman, James Stuart, Duke of Berwick, the direct ancestor of the
+present Duque de Berwick y Alva, and the English by one of French birth.
+In every case where foreign foes have invaded Spain, sooner or later
+they have been driven out. <i>Santiago! y Cierra Espa&ntilde;a!</i> was the war-cry
+which roused every child of Spain to close his beloved country to alien
+domination.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the yoke of the foreigner came in more invidious guise.
+From the death of Ferdinand and Isabella to the year 1800, the sons of
+Spain were immolated to serve causes which were of no account to her, to
+protect the interests of sovereigns who had nothing in common with her
+provinces, to add to the power of the Austrian Hapsburgs and the French
+Bourbons. We have seen how the people whom Napoleon had believed to be
+sunk in fanaticism, dead to all national aspiration, the mere slaves of
+a despicable King, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">{185}</a></span>and the sport of his debauched Queen and her lover,
+sprang to arms and drove the invader from their land. So would it be
+to-day if the country were even threatened by foreign invasion. "The
+dogs of Spain," as Granville called them, know well how to protect their
+soil.</p>
+
+<p>Within comparatively recent years the campaign in Morocco, and the
+expeditionary force sent to Cochin-China, showed that the Spanish army
+was not to be despised. It has been the misfortune of Spain that her
+soldiers have too often had the melancholy task of fighting against
+their own people, or those of their colonies, both of whom have been
+excited and aided in insurrection for years by foreign contributions of
+arms and money. In these unhappy fratricidal struggles the fighting has
+never been more than half-hearted, and during the numerous military
+<i>pronunciamientos</i> it has often been necessary to keep the troops from
+meeting, as they could never be trusted not to fraternise; and after the
+first abortive attempt by Prim to effect the revolution which later
+freed the country, the curious spectacle was afforded of Prim and his
+soldiers marching quietly out of one end of a village, while the troops
+of the Queen, sent in pursuit, were being purposely kept back from
+marching too quickly in at the other.</p>
+
+<p>The army of Spain would seem to suffer from a plethora of officers,
+especially those of the highest rank. In the time of Alfonso XII., there
+were <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">{186}</a></span>ten marshals, fifty-five generals, sixty-six <i>mariscales de
+campo</i>, and one hundred and ninety-seven brigadiers; adding those on the
+retired list liable for service, there were in all five hundred and
+twenty generals, four hundred and seventy-two colonels, eight hundred
+and ninety-four lieutenant-colonels, 2113 commandants, 5041 captains,
+5880 lieutenants, and 4833 sous-lieutenants. With such an array of
+officers, it is scarcely to be wondered at that promotion in the
+ordinary way was looked on as impossible, and the juggle of military
+<i>pronunciamientos</i> was regarded as almost the only means of rising in
+the army. It was no uncommon thing to promise a rise of one grade
+throughout a whole corps to compass one of these miniature revolutions.
+However, all that is happily past. General Weyler,&mdash;whose name indicates
+alien blood at some period of his family history,&mdash;the present Minister
+of War, has taken the thorough reform of the army in hand, though it is
+too soon to say if he will be as successful as is generally expected
+from his known energy and common sense, since the work is only now in
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most fertile sources of disturbance in the old days of Isabel
+II. was the presence of the <i>primo sargentos</i>. These petty officers,
+having risen from the ranks, and invested with an authority for which
+they were often quite unsuited, were always ready, for a consideration,
+to aid the cause of some aspiring politician, now on one side, now on
+another. They are now, fortunately, abolished.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">{187}</a></span>The Spanish artillery is a splendid body, and is officered from the
+best families in the country. In the only military insurrection in which
+the common soldiers shot some of the officers obnoxious to them&mdash;that of
+the Monta&ntilde;o Barracks, in 1866&mdash;the leader of the mutinists was a certain
+<i>hidalgo</i>. It was the promotion of this man that led indirectly to the
+abdication of Don Amadeo, who opposed the action. Indignant at the
+disgrace to the service, all of the artillery officers in Spain sent in
+their resignations. They were accepted, and the <i>primo sargentos</i> raised
+to the rank of officers to fill their places. The result was unlimited
+mutiny among the rank and file and danger to the State. Some of the
+young officers who had retained their uniforms, though no longer
+attached to the corps, finding the troops in utter disorder and revolt,
+quietly donned their uniforms, went down to the barracks, and gave their
+orders. The men instantly fell into the ranks, and the situation was
+saved. The <i>primo sargentos</i> were abolished, the officers reinstated.
+But Amadeo had had enough; he ceased to attempt to reign
+constitutionally in a country where the constitution meant only one more
+form of personal greed and excess. He was <i>demasiado honesto</i> for the
+crew he had been called to command, and he left the country to tumble
+about in its so-called "republican" anarchy until another military
+<i>pronunciamiento</i> set Alfonso XII. on the throne. And that has been,
+fortunately, the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">{188}</a></span>last performance of a kind once so common in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>All military men admire the effective corps of light mountain artillery.
+The small guns are carried on the backs of the splendid mules for which
+the Spanish army is famous, and can be taken up any mountain path which
+these singular animals can climb. Mules are also used to drag the
+heavier guns, and must be invaluable in a mountainous country. The
+animals are quite as large as ordinary horses, are lithe, active, and
+literally unhurtable. I have myself seen a mule, harnessed to a cart
+which was discharging stones over the edge of a deep pit, when levelling
+the ground at the end of the Fuente Castellana in Madrid, over-balanced
+by the weight behind him, fall over, turn a somersault in mid-air, cart
+and all, and, alighting thirty feet below, shake himself, ponder for a
+few seconds on the unexpected event in his day's labour, and then
+proceed to draw the cart, by this time satisfactorily emptied, out of
+the pit by the sloping track at the farther side, and continue his task
+absolutely unhurt and undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Until the final overthrow of the Carlists by Alfonso XII., the Basque
+Provinces, amongst their most cherished <i>fueros</i>, were exempted from the
+hated conscription; but the victorious King made short work of that and
+of all other special rights and privileges&mdash;which, in truth, had been
+abused&mdash;and now all the country is subject to conscrip<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">{189}</a></span>tion. Every man
+from nineteen to twenty years of age is liable to serve in the ranks,
+except those who are studying as officers. A payment of &pound;60 frees them
+from service during peace; but if the country is at war there is no
+exemption. The conscripts are bound for twelve years&mdash;three with the
+colours, three in the first reserve, three in the second, and three in
+the third.</p>
+
+<p>Navy? Alas! Spain has none. Two battle-ships alone remain&mdash;<i>El Pelayo</i>
+and <i>Carlos V.</i> (the former about nine thousand five hundred tons, the
+latter not more than seven thousand)&mdash;and some destroyers and torpedoes.
+How a nation that once ruled the sea, and whose sailors traversed and
+conquered the New World, has allowed her navy to become practically
+extinct at the moment when nations which have almost no seaboard are
+trying to bring theirs up within measurable distance of England's, it is
+impossible to say. Even before the outbreak of the war with America
+there were but a few battle-ships, and these were wanting in guns and in
+almost all that could make them effective&mdash;save and except the men, who
+behaved like heroes. It seems to be a consolation to Spaniards to
+remember that it was in the pages of an English journal that an
+Englishman, who had seen the whole of the disastrous war, wrote: "If
+Spain were served by her statesmen as she has been served by her navy,
+she would be one of the greatest nations of the world to-day."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">{190}</a></span>The history of the part borne by the Spanish navy in the late war with
+America, as written by one of Admiral Cervera's captains,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> with the
+publication of the actual telegrams which passed between the Government
+and the fleet, and the military commanders in the colonies, is one of
+the most heartrending examples of the sacrifice, not only of brave men,
+but of a country's honour to political intrigue or the desire to retain
+office. This, at least, is the opinion of the writer of this painful
+history, and his statements are fully borne out by the original
+telegrams, since published. It is impossible to imagine that any
+definite policy at all was followed by the advisers of the Queen Regent
+in this matter, unless it were the incredible one ascribed to it by
+Captain Concas Palan of deliberately allowing the fleet, such as it was,
+to be destroyed&mdash;in fact, in the case of Admiral Cervera's squadron,
+sending it out to certain and foreseen annihilation&mdash;so as to make the
+disaster an excuse for suing for peace, without raising such a storm at
+home as might have upset the Ministry. With both fleets sunk, and those
+of their men not slain, prisoners of war, there was no alternative
+policy but peace. Captain Concas Palan claims for his chief and the
+comrades who fell in this futile and disastrous affair "a right to the
+legitimate defence which our country expects from us, though it is
+against <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">{191}</a></span>the interested silence which those who were the cause of our
+misfortunes would fain impose on us," and says that "some day, and that
+probably much sooner than seems probable at present," the judgment of
+Spain on this episode will be that of the English <i>Review</i>, which he
+quotes as the heading of his chapter. He goes on: "War was accepted by
+Spain when the island of Cuba was already lost to her, and when the
+dispatch of a single soldier more from the Peninsula was infinitely more
+likely to have caused an insurrection than that of which our Ministers
+were afraid&mdash;at the moment, also, when our troops were in want of the
+merest necessaries, the arrears of pay being the chief cause of their
+debilitated condition, and when a great part of the Spanish residents in
+Cuba, under the name of 'Reformers,' 'Autonomists,' etc., had made
+common cause with the insurgents, while they were enriching themselves
+to a fabulous extent by contracts for supplies and transports. In these
+circumstances it was folly to accept a struggle with an immensely rich
+country, possessing a population four times that of ours, and but a
+pistol shot from the seat of action." The Government of Spain was
+perfectly aware that the troops in Cuba were already quite insufficient
+even to cope with the insurgents, that the people at home were already
+murmuring bitterly at the cost of the war, and that it was impossible to
+send out a contingent of any practical value. Sickness of all kinds,
+enteric, an&aelig;mia, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">{192}</a></span>and all the evils of under-fed and badly found troops,
+were rapidly consuming the forces in Cuba, "and yet the Government took
+no thought of who was to man the guns whose gunners were drifting daily
+into the hospital and the cemetery.... The national debt was increasing
+in a fabulous manner, and recourse was had to the medi&aelig;val remedy of
+debasing the currency, while even at that moment the troops had more
+than a year's pay in arrear, and absolute penury was augmenting their
+other sufferings."</p>
+
+<p>This was the moment which the responsible Ministers of the Crown thought
+propitious to throw down the gauntlet to the overwhelming power of
+America rather than to face what the writer terms the "cabbage-headed
+riff-raff of the Plaza de la Cevada" of Madrid. Again and again was the
+absolute inefficiency of the fleet pointed out to them. Even the few
+ships there were, all of them vastly inferior to those of the United
+States' navy, were without their proper armament; they might have been
+of some service in defence of the coast of Spain, but in aggressive
+warfare they were useless. Allowing somewhat for the natural indignation
+of one of those who was sacrificed, who saw his beloved commander and
+his comrades-in-arms sent like sheep to the slaughter, and all for an
+idea,&mdash;and that a perfectly stupid and useless one,&mdash;there is no
+gainsaying the facts which Captain Concas Palan relates, and the
+original telegrams verify every word of his story.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">{193}</a></span> Admiral Cervera was
+sent out with sealed orders; but he had done all that was in his
+power&mdash;even asking to be relieved of his command&mdash;to prevent the folly
+of sending away from the coasts of the mother country the only ships
+which could have protected her, while they were absolutely useless
+against the American navy in the Antilles. Left with no alternative but
+obedience, he managed to gain the safe harbour of Santiago de Cuba with
+his squadron intact. Secure from attack, he landed his men to assist in
+the defence of the town from the land side. And then came the incredible
+orders that he was to take out his four ships to be destroyed by the
+American navy waiting outside! Never in the world's history was a more
+magnificent piece of heroism displayed than in the obedience to
+discipline which caused Admiral Cervera to re-embark his marines and
+lead them forth to certain death, well knowing what they were to face,
+for he hid nothing from them. He called on them as sons of Spain, and
+they answered heroically, as Spaniards have ever done in history: "For
+honour!"</p>
+
+<p>Spain has suffered deeply and sorely in her pride; but she has never
+worn her heart on her sleeve&mdash;she suffers in silence. A quotation from
+the <i>&Eacute;poca</i> of July 5th, two days after the destruction of Cervera's
+fleet, shows the spirit in which the country bore that terrible blow. It
+is headed "Hours of Agony." "Our grief to-day has nothing in it which
+was unexpected. The <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">{194}</a></span>laws of logic are invincible; our four ships could
+not by any possibility have escaped the formidable American squadron.
+The one thing that Spain expected of her sons was that they should
+perish heroically. They have perished! They have faced their destiny;
+they have realised the sole end which Spain looked for, in this
+desperate conflict into which she has been drawn by God knows what blind
+fatality; they have fallen with honour."</p>
+
+<p>That is true; but how about the leaders whose long misrule of the
+colonies had helped to bring on the disaster which their predecessors
+for many years had courted? How about the political corruption which,
+when large sums were being spent on the colonies, had allowed immense
+private fortunes to be made while Manila was left without defences, and
+the absolutely unassailable bay of Santiago de Cuba had on the fort
+which commanded its entrance only useless old guns of a past century,
+more likely to cause the death of those who attempted to serve them than
+to injure an enemy? How about the Government that deliberately entered
+on a war of which the end was perfectly foreseen, and, while seated
+safely in office at home, thought the "honour of Spain" sufficiently
+vindicated by offering up its navy, already made useless by neglect and
+niggardliness, as a sacrifice? Captain Concas Palan points out that even
+after it was fully recognised that the retention of Cuba was impossible,
+the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">{195}</a></span>worst catastrophes might have been avoided. "In place of treating
+for peace while the squadron was intact at Santiago, which, as well as
+Manila, could have been defended for some time, the Ministers waited to
+sue for peace until everything was lost, while it was perfectly well
+known beforehand that that result was inevitable." During the whole
+time, <i>ma&ntilde;ana veremos</i> was the rule of action&mdash;a to-morrow that never
+was to dawn for those whose lives it was intended to sacrifice. Heaven
+works no miracles for those who fling themselves against the impossible!</p>
+
+<p>So long ago as 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Monroe: "The
+addition of the island of Cuba to our Confederacy is exactly what is
+wanted to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost
+interest." John Quincy Adams went so far as to state that "Cuba
+gravitates to the United States as the apple yet hanging on its native
+trunk gravitates to the earth which sustains it"&mdash;a statement which has
+the more force when it is remembered that for over fifty years the Cuban
+insurgents had been liberally supplied with arms, ammunition, stores,
+and troops from the United States whenever they required them! And this,
+not because Cuba was mismanaged by Spain, but because America coveted
+her as "the most interesting addition that could be made to our system
+of States," to quote Jefferson once more.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the heroic sons of Spain were <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">{196}</a></span>offered up as an expiation
+for the sins of her political jugglers for generations past. With the
+knowledge that America had at least for seventy years been seeking an
+excuse for "rounding her power as a nation" by the seizure of Cuba, no
+real effort was made to redress the grievances of her native population,
+nor to efficiently defend her coasts.</p>
+
+<p>The state of affairs in Manila was still worse. The culpable neglect of
+the Government had resulted in the so-called squadron not being
+possessed of one single ship of modern construction or armament; and
+when the unfortunate marines and their heroic commanders had been
+immolated by the overwhelming superiority in numbers and efficiency of
+the Americans, the noisy injustice and anger of a senseless crowd at
+home were allowed to compass the lasting disgrace of casting the blame
+for the foreseen disasters on Admiral Montojo, who was thrown as a
+victim to the jackals.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, we find Spain absolutely without a navy. Two second- or
+third-class ships&mdash;and they not even properly found or armed&mdash;are all
+she possesses. Men she has, however, with the traditions of a great
+past, while the officers of her navy are thoroughly alive to the class
+of ships and the armament which are needed to give their country the
+protection, and their foreign policy the dignity, which other countries
+of far less importance are able to sustain. No wonder that her writers
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">{197}</a></span>are pointing out that instead of being satisfied with immense
+long-winded despatches and notes, couched in grandiloquent language,
+which Spanish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply sufficient, strong
+nations have a habit of sending an iron-clad, or two or three cruisers
+to back up their demands, and that no other European country but Spain
+thinks it safe or wise to leave her coasts and her commerce entirely
+without protection in case of a European war breaking out. Will the
+nation itself take the matter in hand, and in this, as in so many other
+matters, advance in spite of its Government? If it waits for the
+political seesaw by which both parties avoid responsibility, there will
+be small chance of a navy. The same ministry is in power to-day which
+landed the country in the Spanish-American War, and it would seem as if
+the nation considers it the best it can produce. <i>Ma&ntilde;ana veremos?</i></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>La Escuadra del Almirante Cervera</i>, por Victor M.
+Concas Palan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/197.jpg" width="250" height="95" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">{198}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/198.jpg" width="450" height="101" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>RELIGIOUS LIFE</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious. Taking the nation as
+a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no
+portion of it has ever been reproached for insincerity in its religious
+beliefs. It has been often held up to reproach for bigotry and
+superstition; but the people have in past ages been penetrated by a
+sincere reverence for what they have believed to be religion, and
+perhaps no other nation has been more thoroughly imbued with an
+unwavering faith in the dogmas taught by its religious instructors.
+English Roman Catholics&mdash;especially those who have seceded from the
+Anglican Church&mdash;are fond of declaring that Spain is "a splendid
+Catholic country," "the home of true Catholicism," and so forth. To a
+certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and "dignity,
+loyalty, and the love of God" are still the ideals of the people at
+large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the
+practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the
+women of the family and to the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">{199}</a></span>peasantry. Young Spain, and the
+progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the
+domination of the Church, even in outward appearance. It will be well if
+the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into
+open revolt.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a
+curious one. It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to
+the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained
+always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In the old time
+the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none
+too subservient to the Pope. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus
+were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at
+variance with the Vatican. Probably from their long struggles with the
+barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always
+speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which
+strikes strangely on one's ears.</p>
+
+<p>The evils which have been wrought in Spain by the terrible incubus of
+the Inquisition, and by the domination of the Jesuits and other orders,
+who obtained possession of the teaching of youth, have been little less
+than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages
+past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves
+of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the
+priesthood. Even <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">{200}</a></span>well within the memory of living people it was thought
+a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and
+write,&mdash;safer to have them quite ignorant,&mdash;while the peasantry and the
+inferior classes believed anything they were told, and could be excited
+to any pitch of fanaticism by the preaching of their religious teachers.
+The Inquisition was often used as a political machine, and was sometimes
+only clothed with the semblance of religion; but by whomsoever it was
+directed, and for whatsoever purpose, it was a vile and soul-destroying
+institution. It deliberately ground down and destroyed every spark of
+intelligence, of liberty, of attempt at progress; it dominated the whole
+nation like the shadow of the upas tree, manufactured hypocrites, and
+led to the debasing of a naturally fine people of good instincts to an
+ignorant and fanatical mob, who, in the name of religion, were
+entertained with gigantic <i>autos-da-f&eacute;</i>, as the Roman populace were with
+the terrible spectacles of their gladiatorial shows and the immolation
+of Christian victims in the arena.</p>
+
+<p>It was the people themselves who rose against this hateful tyranny; it
+was their better instincts that put an end to the "Holy Office" and its
+enormous crimes. Shortly after the Revolution of 1868, when religious
+liberty had been established, and the people, for the first time in
+their long history of disaster, were breathing the air of freedom,
+certain improvements which were being <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">{201}</a></span>made, in the shape of laying out
+new streets, pulling down old rookeries, and building better houses, led
+to a new road being cut through the raised ground outside the Santa
+Barbara Gate. The exact spot of the great <i>Quemadero</i>&mdash;the oven of the
+Inquisition&mdash;was not known, but it chanced that the workmen cut right
+through the very centre of it. A more ghastly sight, or an object-lesson
+of more potency, could scarcely be imagined. The Government of the day
+found it advisable to cover it up as quickly as possible; the excitement
+of the people was thought to be dangerous; and though those at the head
+of affairs were no friends to the priests or the Jesuits, there was no
+desire to reawaken the passions and let loose the vengeance which led
+the populace in 1834 to murder them wholesale.</p>
+
+<p>I happened to be returning from a ride with a companion when, quite
+accidentally, we came upon this excavation, and even passed down the new
+road before we realised where we were. The <i>Quemadero</i> had evidently
+been in the shape of an immense basin. There in the banks at each side
+were the stratified layers of human ashes; between each <i>auto-da-f&eacute;</i> it
+was evident that the remains had been covered with a thick layer of
+earth; finally, at the top of all these smaller bands of black, horrible
+ashes, came one huge deposit, which marked the awful scene of the last
+gigantic <i>auto</i>. This ghastly bonfire <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">{202}</a></span>was sixty feet square, and seven
+feet high, as history records, when one hundred and five victims were
+slowly tortured to a frightful death in the name of Christ, while the
+King, Charles II., and his Court and the howling rabble of Madrid looked
+on with savage enjoyment. Nothing can ever obliterate the impression of
+that scene, nor make one forget the deadly clinging of those ghastly
+black ashes, which the wind scattered about, and which it was impossible
+to escape or to get rid of. The fell work of the "religious" authors of
+the holocaust had been well done&mdash;nothing was left but ashes; and the
+next day, by order of the Government, sand or soil had been thrown over
+all that could bear witness to this horrible episode in the history of
+the Church in Spain, while the people who inhabit the houses built over
+the spot probably know nothing of the records of human agony and brutal
+bigotry that still lie beneath their homes.</p>
+
+<p>We hear of these things and read of them in history, but one needs to
+have seen that awful memorial to realise what share the Inquisition has
+had in transforming a naturally heroic and kindly people into the inert
+masses which nothing, or almost nothing, would move so long as they had
+<i>pan y toros</i> (bread and bulls). Thanks to the horrors of the
+Inquisition and the <i>Autos-da-f&eacute;</i>, the whole people have acquired a
+character which assuredly they do not deserve. The blind bigotry and
+cynical cruelty of Philip II. and his lunatic <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">{203}</a></span>successors have been
+identified with the races over which, unfortunately for Spain, they
+ruled for so many years. When one remembers that this is the view taken
+of the Inquisition, and of the domination of the Church in effacing all
+kinds of culture, by the liberal and educated Spaniard of to-day, and
+that there is, even now, an extreme party which would fain see the "Holy
+Office" re-established, with all its old powers, it is easy to
+understand at what a critical point the clerical question has arrived in
+Spain; nor need one wonder at the feeling which in all parts of the
+kingdom has been aroused by the recrudescence of the religious orders,
+more especially of the determined struggle of the Jesuits to retain and
+even to reassert their power.</p>
+
+<p>The Madonna, who is always spoken of as "La V&iacute;rgen," never as "Santa
+Mar&iacute;a," is the great object of love and of reverence in Spain, while the
+words <i>Dios</i> and <i>Jesus</i> are used as common exclamations in a way that
+impresses English people rather unfavourably. It is a shock to hear all
+classes using the <i>Por Dios!</i> which with us is a mark of the purest
+blackguardism, and the use as common names of that of Our Lord and of
+<i>Salvador</i>, or Saviour, always strikes a disagreeable note. There is in
+Madrid a "Calle Jesus," and the sacred name, used as a common expletive,
+is heard on all sides. One of the most charming of Yradier's Andalusian
+songs, addressed by a <i>contrabandista</i> to his <i>novia</i>, runs thus:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">{204}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Pero tengo unas patillas.</div>
+<div class="verse">Que patillas pu&ntilde;&aacute;la!</div>
+<div class="verse">Es lo mejor que se ha jecho</div>
+<div class="verse">En de Jesu Cristo ac&aacute;!<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And no one is offended; in fact, no irreverence is probably meant.</p>
+
+<p>But the innumerable "V&iacute;rgenes" which abound throughout the country, and
+all seem different, have the heartfelt devotion of all classes. To one
+or other of them the bull-fighter goes for protection and aid before he
+enters the arena; the mother whose child lies sick vows her magnificent
+hair to the Virgin of the Atocha, or of the Pillar, or some of the many
+others scattered about the country, if only she will grant what she
+asks; and you may see these marvellous locks, tied with coloured
+ribbons, hanging amongst the motley assemblage of votive offerings by
+the side of her altar, when the prayer has been answered. It is
+difficult for us, with the best intentions, not to let prejudice colour
+our judgment, and to understand what we are told&mdash;that these are really
+all the same "Mother of God"; for, if so, one would imagine that she
+would hear the devout prayers of her worshippers, to whichever of the
+wooden images&mdash;most of them said to have been carved by St. Luke, and
+black by age, if not by nature&mdash;they are addressed. But no, the Vir<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">{205}</a></span>gen
+del C&aacute;rmen is only efficacious in certain circumstances; and in the time
+of Isabel II. she used to be taken down from her altar and placed in the
+Queen's bedroom whenever an addition to the Royal Family was imminent.
+Those in the other parts of Spain have each their specialty, and
+pilgrimages are necessary to their shrines before the prayers addressed
+to them can be listened to by the original.</p>
+
+<p>The various saints in their way are wooed with candles burnt before
+their images, or little altars set up to them at home; but they are
+sometimes treated with scant courtesy if they do not answer the
+expectations of their worshippers. On one occasion in Madrid, I
+remember, San Isidro, who is the patron of the labouring classes, had
+the bad taste, as his votaries considered, to send rain on his own
+<i>fiesta</i>&mdash;a thing unknown before. Lest he should err in this way again,
+the mob went to his church, at that time the principal one in Madrid,
+smashed the windows, and did all the damage they could compass before
+the Civil Guards came to the rescue. A servant-girl I knew, had for a
+long time been praying to San Antonio to send her a <i>novio</i>
+(sweetheart), expending money in tapers, and otherwise trying to
+propitiate the saint. At last, finding him deaf to all entreaties, she
+took the little wooden image she had bought, tied a string round his
+neck, and hung him in the well, saying: "You shall stop there till you
+send me what I want." Some little time after, she <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">{206}</a></span>actually found a
+<i>novio</i>, and hastened gratefully to take San Antonio out of his damp
+quarters, set him up on his altar again, and burn tapers for his
+edification. I had thought this an example of special ignorance and
+superstition; but the other day, in reading some of the papers of the
+<i>Spanish Folklore Library</i>, I found there is a widespread belief that if
+San Antonio, and probably some other saints, do not answer the prayers
+of their votaries who burn candles before them, it is a good thing to
+hang them in a well till they come to their senses! It is difficult for
+any unbiassed person to understand that this is not fetish worship, as
+it would certainly seem to be, but we are told that it is something
+quite different.</p>
+
+<p>The religious <i>fiestas</i>, as I have said, may be classed among the
+amusements of the people. During the warm season they invariably end
+with a bull-fight. In winter there are no bulls. Whether it be the
+<i>Romer&iacute;a</i> of Santiago de Compostelo, the <i>Santa Semana</i> in Toledo or
+Seville, <i>Noche-Buena</i> and the <i>Day of the Nativity</i> in Madrid or
+Barcelona, gaiety and enjoyment seem to be the order of the day. Even
+Lent is not so bad, for just before it comes the Carnival and the
+grotesque "Burial of the Sardine" by the <i>gente bajo</i>, and of the three
+great masked balls, one is given in mid-Lent, to prevent the Lenten
+ordeal being too trying, and Holy Thursday is always a <i>fiesta</i> and day
+of enjoyment. On this day, in Madrid, takes place the washing of the
+feet of the poor in <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">{207}</a></span>the Royal Palace&mdash;a function that savours a good
+deal of the ridiculous, but which was never omitted by the <i>piadosa</i>
+Isabel II., and was revived by her son. For forty-eight hours the bells
+of all the churches remain silent, no vehicles are allowed in the
+streets, which are gravelled along the routes Royalty will take to visit
+on foot seven of the churches, where the Holy Sepulchres are displayed;
+and in the afternoon all Madrid resorts to the Plaza del Sol and the
+Carrera San Geronimo, to show off their gayest costumes in a regular
+gala promenade. Finally, on Saturday morning&mdash;why forty-eight hours only
+is allowed for the supposed entombment does not quite appear&mdash;the bells
+clang forth, noise and gaiety pervade the whole city, and the day ends
+with a cock-fight and the reopening of the theatres, and the first grand
+bull-fight of the season is held on Easter Sunday. Verily, the Church is
+mindful of the weakness of its vassals, and shows as much indulgence as
+is thought needful to keep the people amused and careless of all else. I
+remember, when I first noticed this wearing of the most gaudy colours on
+Maundy Thursday, a day one would naturally expect to be one of special
+mourning, I was told it was allowed by the Church because on that day
+Pilate put the purple robe on Our Lord!</p>
+
+<p>The processions and functions of Holy Week and other <i>fiestas</i> have been
+so often and so fully described that there is no need to refer to them;
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">{208}</a></span>but there are several curious survivals and religious customs in
+out-of-the-way places which seem to have escaped notice. I have not been
+able to find in any book on Spain a description of the strange dance
+which takes place in the cathedral of Seville on, I think, three days in
+the year, of which two are certainly the day of the Virgin and that of
+Corpus Christi. The origin of the dance seems to be lost, nor is its
+special connection with Seville known. All that one can hear of it is
+that one of the archbishops of Toledo objected to the dance as being
+irreverent and unusual, and ordered it to be stopped. The indignant
+people referred the matter to the Pope, but even the date of this appeal
+seems to be dubious, if not unknown. His Holiness replied that he could
+not judge of the matter unless he himself saw the dance. Accordingly,
+the boys who figure in this strange performance were taken to Rome, and
+they solemnly danced before the Pope. His verdict was that there was
+nothing irreverent about the dance, but he thought, as it was known only
+to Seville, it would be better eventually to discontinue it; but so long
+as the dress worn on the occasions when it is practised, lasted, the
+dance might continue. The dresses have lasted to the present day, and
+will always continue to last, say the Sevillanos, for as one part wears
+out it is renewed, but never a whole garment made. The dress is
+peculiar: it consists of short trousers to the knees, and a jacket which
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">{209}</a></span>hangs from one shoulder, stockings and shoes with large buckles or
+bows, and a soft hat, somewhat of the shape of a Tam-o'-shanter, with
+one feather&mdash;that of an eagle, I think. The dress is red and white for
+the day of Corpus, and blue and white for the day of the Virgin, covered
+with the richest gold embroidery, for which Spain has always been
+famous. The boys, holding castanets in each hand, advance, dancing with
+much grace and dignity, until they reach the front of the High Altar;
+there they remain, striking their castanets and performing slow and very
+graceful evolutions for some time, gradually retiring again as they came
+in, dancing, down the nave. The boys are regularly instructed in the
+dance by the priests, and the number is kept up, so that neither dancers
+nor garments ever fail. The Pope's order is obeyed, while the Sevillanos
+retain their strange religious function. The fact of the performance
+taking place in the evening perhaps accounts for its being so little
+known, but it would seem also as if the authorities of the cathedral do
+not care to have attention drawn to it. The dance is called <i>los
+seises</i>, and even the origin of the name is unknown.</p>
+
+<p>In Holy Week and at Christmas are performed passion plays at some of the
+theatres, strangely realistic, and sometimes rousing the audience to
+wild indignation, especially against Judas Iscariot, who is hissed and
+hooted, and is often the recipient of missiles from the spectators,
+while interspersed <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">{210}</a></span>with this genuine feeling one hears shouts of
+laughter when anything occurs to provoke it. On one occasion one of the
+Roman soldiers (always unpopular in the religious processions) appeared
+on the stage, dragging, by a cord round the neck, a miserable-looking
+man carrying a huge cross, so heavy that it caused him continually to
+fall. As the soldier kicked him up again, and continued to drag him
+along by the neck, the audience became ungovernable in their rage.
+"<i>D&eacute;jale! D&eacute;jale! Bruto! Bruto!</i>" they yelled; and, finally threatening
+to storm the stage and immolate the offending soldier, the play had to
+be stopped and the curtain rung down.</p>
+
+<p>In villages too poor to possess <i>pasos</i>&mdash;the beautifully modelled
+life-size figures which form the <i>tableaux</i> in the rich churches and
+processions&mdash;human actors take their place. In Castellon de la Plana,
+where there is a yearly procession in honour of Santa Mar&iacute;a Magdalena,
+somewhat curious scenes take place. The Magdalen, in the days of her
+sin, is acted by a girl chosen for her beauty, but not for her
+character. She is gorgeously attired, and is allowed to retain her dress
+and ornaments after the performance. She is installed in state in a cart
+decorated with palms and flowers, and is surrounded by all the men of
+the village on foot, for it is part of the performance that they are
+allowed to say what they please to her. She acts the part to perfection
+apparently, and enjoys it, to boot. In another car comes the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">{211}</a></span>penitent
+Magdalen, dressed in pure white, and decorated with flowers. This part
+may be taken only by a young girl of unblemished character. It is
+thought the greatest honour that can be paid to her, and you are told by
+the people that she is always married within the year. This procession
+winds its way up the mountain to a small shrine of Santa Mar&iacute;a
+Magdalena, where it is said that her church once stood; but finding the
+climb up the hill was inconvenient to the lame and the aged, she very
+considerately, one night, moved the whole edifice down intact to
+Castellon de la Plana, where it now stands.</p>
+
+<p>Going by rail once, many years ago, to Toledo, to see the processions on
+Good Friday, the train was accidentally delayed for some time a little
+distance from one of the stations, and there, in a small garden by the
+roadside, was being enacted the scene of the Crucifixion by human
+actors. A full-size cross was erected, and on it, apparently, hung a man
+crowned with thorns, and with head bowed upon his breast. In reality he
+was kneeling on two ledges placed for the purpose at a convenient
+distance from the cross-bars. It was cold, and the actor was covered by
+an old brown tattered cloak, such as the peasants wear now, and which we
+see in Velasquez's pictures. His feet stuck out behind the cross, but
+his arms were tied in a position which must soon have become painful.
+Around lay a cock tied by his legs, a ladder, a sponge tied on a stick,
+a sword, a lantern, and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">{212}</a></span>all the usual emblems of the Passion. The holy
+women and the Roman soldiers with their spears were just coming out of
+the cottage near by to take up their positions in this strange and
+pathetic <i>tableau</i>. The face of that peasant in the tattered brown
+cloak, not less than the spectacle of the people kneeling around in
+evident sorrow and worship, haunted me for many a day.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">"But I have such a stunning pair of whiskers!</div>
+<div class="verse">The best that have ever been seen since those of Jesus Christ!"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/212.jpg" width="280" height="138" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">{213}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/213.jpg" width="450" height="102" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">E</span><span class="smcap">ducation</span>, especially that of the masses, has made great strides since
+the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of
+instruction was established, and in this particular the somewhat
+retrograde movement at the Restoration, in allowing the return of the
+religious orders banished in the early years of the century, has only
+resulted in a greater number of private schools being established by the
+Jesuits and other teaching orders. With the public instruction they have
+never been allowed to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>Every town and village has now its municipal and free schools, kept up
+by the <i>Diputacion provincial</i>. In all the chief towns there are
+technical and arts and crafts schools, also free, the expenses being
+borne by the Ministry of Fomento. Besides these are many private
+schools, taught by Jesuits and other teaching orders. The Ministry of
+Fomento is at present trying to bring in a law making education
+compulsory, and bringing all schools under State control. There are
+numerous girls' schools, managed by committees of ladies, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">{214}</a></span>as well as
+the convent schools and other private establishments. There are also
+normal schools, maintained by the Ministry of Fomento, where women and
+girls, as well as men, can take degrees and gain certificates for
+teaching purposes. In every capital of Spain one of these schools is
+established. There are ten universities, of which the principal is that
+of Madrid. In some of these only medicine and law are studied, but
+others are open for every class of learning. In all these numerous
+schools and colleges great advance has been made in late years; in the
+department of science, electricity has taken a very noticeable step
+forward, and in applied electricity Spain probably compares favourably
+with any of the European nations. Even the small towns and some villages
+are lighted by electricity, having gone straight from petroleum to
+electric light. Most of the large towns have, besides the light,
+electric tramways, telephones, etc., the engineers and artisans employed
+in these works being of a very high class. Electrical engineers are not
+under Government control, as the civil and mechanical engineers are, and
+have therefore better chances of coming to the front and making a career
+for themselves. The Government engineers, however, are kept up to the
+mark of other countries, and an attempt has been made by the present
+Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are
+compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">{215}</a></span>Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve
+years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical
+arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with
+the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de
+Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London,
+and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all
+scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An
+excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain&mdash;which
+only a few years ago was so far behind the age&mdash;is the fact that the
+International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the
+first time, in 1902.</p>
+
+<p>Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have
+made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of
+the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the
+intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State
+examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Institution of
+San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the
+examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high
+rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a
+field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse
+was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher
+education among the daughters of Spain, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">{216}</a></span>they will certainly be able to
+carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to
+lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in
+Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little
+condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of
+savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has
+any right to do so.</p>
+
+<p>The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The
+religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the
+Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as
+much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the
+English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy,
+however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In
+most of the large towns there are English chapels and schools, and a
+certain number among the lower classes of Spaniards have joined these
+communities. A private diary of a visit to Madrid so long ago as 1877
+describes the English service there. The congregation numbered "quite
+five hundred." "They were of the poorer classes of both sexes, with a
+sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their
+devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a
+similar class in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an
+impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">{217}</a></span>of God, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so
+common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the
+congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine
+Protestantism in Spain."</p>
+
+<p>As this is the opinion of a perfectly unbiassed onlooker, and has
+nothing of the professional element about it, it may be taken as
+absolutely reliable. In the towns, such as Bilbao, where there is a
+large English colony, there are various churches and chapels, and
+considerable numbers of communicants and Sunday scholars. Looking back,
+as I am able to do, to the days when there was no toleration for an
+alien faith; when even Christian burial for the "heretic" was quite a
+new thing, and living people could tell of the indignities heaped on the
+corpse of any unlucky English man or woman who died in "Catholic" Spain;
+when to have omitted, or even hesitated about, any of the religious
+actions imposed by the Church would have exposed one to gross insult,
+and perhaps injury; the progress towards enlightened toleration of the
+opinions of others seems to have been remarkable. It is, perhaps, more
+significant that the members of the new congregations should be
+generally of the lower classes, because it is precisely these people who
+have always been mere unthinking puppets in the hands of their priests.</p>
+
+<p>Although there is at the present moment such a deep and widespread
+revolt against the Jesuits <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">{218}</a></span>and some of the other orders, especially
+among the students and the better class of artisans and workmen, there
+is not, so far as a stranger may judge, a revolt against the Church
+itself, nor even against the parochial clergy. It would seem rather that
+there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their
+business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to
+interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to
+dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be
+filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery. The state of the Roman
+Catholic religion and its priesthood in England is constantly being held
+up as the ideal of what the Church in Spain should be.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all the modern novelists of Spain show us characters of priests
+with whom every reader must feel sympathy. Valera, Gald&oacute;s, Pardo Bazan,
+and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward,
+pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the
+helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at
+all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented
+amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of
+distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a
+Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day,
+by one who signed himself "A priest of the Spanish Catholic Church."
+Lamenting over the sentimentalism of modern religion, and the dis<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">{219}</a></span>tance
+it had travelled from its old models, he says: "Instead of the V&iacute;rgen
+being held up to admiration as the Mother of Our Lord, and as an example
+of all feminine perfection, the ideal woman and mother, the people are
+called on to worship the idea of the Immaculate Conception, an abstract
+dogma of recent invention, and in place of showing us the perfect man in
+the Son of God, they are asked to worship a 'bleeding heart,' abstracted
+from the body, and held up as an object of reverence, apart from the
+living body of Jesus Christ." It is the reform of the national religion
+still ardently loved in spite of all the crimes that have been committed
+in her name, that the liberal-minded Spaniard wants, not the
+substitution of a foreign church; although no doubt the opportunity, now
+for the first time possible, of learning that there are people every
+whit as good and earnest as themselves, who yet hold religious opinions
+other than theirs, is bound to have a widening and softening effect on
+the narrowness of a creed which has hitherto been regarded as the only
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary outbreak against the Jesuits and the religious orders
+of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething,
+and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in
+the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence,
+accidental or otherwise, of the production of Gald&oacute;s's play of
+<i>Electra</i>. The marriage was a love match; <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">{220}</a></span>the two young sons of the
+Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her
+husband's side, had been constantly at the Palace in Madrid, companions
+of the boy King. An attachment sprang up between Don Carlos, the elder
+of the two, and the King's elder sister, the Princess of Asturias. In
+every way the projected marriage was obnoxious to the people. The Count
+of Caserta himself had been chief of the staff to the Pretender, Don
+Carlos, and though he and his sons had taken the oath of allegiance to
+the young King, Spaniards have learned to place little reliance on such
+oaths. Had not Montpensier sworn allegiance to his sister-in-law Isabel
+II.? and of how much was it worth when the time came that he thought he
+could successfully conspire against her? To allow the heiress to the
+Crown to marry a Carlist seemed the surest way to reopen civil war, and
+upset the dynasty once more. Moreover, the Jesuits were supposed to be
+behind it all. The Apostolic party was apparently scotched and Carlism
+dead, but was not this one more move of the hated Jesuits to resuscitate
+both? The Liberal Government refused to allow the marriage; the Queen
+Regent, actuated, it is said, solely by the desire to secure what she
+considered the happiness of her daughter, who refused to give up her
+lover, was obstinate; and rather than give in, Sagasta and his Ministers
+resigned. A Conservative Ministry was formed&mdash;the methods of
+manipulating elections must be <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">{221}</a></span>borne in mind&mdash;and the marriage was
+carried out. Even before the wedding-day the storm broke, and things
+looked ugly enough. Riots and disturbances occurred all over the
+country, as well as in Madrid itself; attacks were made on the houses of
+the Jesuits, who were credited with being the authors of the situation;
+and then followed the Government's suicidal step of suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole country. Absolutism had once
+more raised its head! The Conservative Ministers, or many of them, were
+accused of being mere tools in the hands of the Jesuits, and it was
+complained that the confessor of the young King was one of the hated
+order.</p>
+
+<p>For a time Spain seemed to be on the verge of one of her old
+convulsions. It appeared doubtful if the Queen Regent had not sacrificed
+the crown of one child to gratify the obstinacy of another. Fortunately,
+a catastrophe was averted. After vain efforts to retain the Conservative
+party in power, or to form a coalition, which all the best public men
+refused to join, Sagasta was once more recalled to power, the
+constitutional guarantees were restored, and the sharp crisis passed.
+But the attention of the nation had been attracted to what it considered
+the machinations of the Jesuits; order was indeed restored in Madrid and
+the provinces, but the "clerical question" had come to the front, and
+there was no possibility of allowing it to slumber again. It was
+discovered that not only had many of the religious orders, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">{222}</a></span>whose return
+had been allowed by convention after the Restoration, under certain
+limitations, largely increased their numbers beyond the limits allowed
+them, but that others had established themselves without any
+authorisation from the Government; also that considerable properties
+were being acquired in the country by the orders, though, of course,
+held under other names. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid
+petitioned the Government to order an inquiry into the affairs of these
+religious bodies, pointing out that they were establishing manufactories
+of shoes, chocolate, fancy post-cards, and other objects of commerce,
+interfering with the ordinary trades, and underselling them, because,
+under the plea of being charitable institutions, they evaded duty. The
+heads of colleges and the Society of Public Teachers also asked for
+Government interference and the reassertion of the laws of 1881 and
+1895, guaranteeing perfect liberty of instruction, because they affirmed
+that the Fathers, Jesuit and others, undermined the teaching of science
+in the schools by means of tracts distributed to the pupils, and also by
+using the power they obtained in the confessional to set aside the
+lessons in science given in the colleges.</p>
+
+<p>The action of the Government was prompt and judicious. Strict inquiries
+were at once made into the question of the manufacturing orders, and
+those not paying the duty were reminded of the immediate necessity of
+doing so, and of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">{223}</a></span>furnishing to the Ministry of Fomento full particulars
+of the trades carried on by them. Houses that were permitted by
+convention were warned to reduce their numbers to those allowed by law,
+and all unauthorised orders were warned at once to leave the country.
+The Press took a dignified and moderate position in the matter. It
+pointed out that perfect religious liberty existed, and that all that
+was needful was to see that the religious orders obeyed the law of the
+country as other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of
+persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad
+example set by the Church itself in former years.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that
+public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would
+be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After
+all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional
+and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands
+of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.</p>
+
+<p>So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and
+law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by
+the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light
+of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary
+excitement caused by Gald&oacute;s's play. To a stranger reading it, it is
+obvious that the public mind must <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">{224}</a></span>have been in a strange condition of
+alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a
+drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace
+and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan
+girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional,
+though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emancipated young woman
+about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect
+genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard
+with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who,
+though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the
+interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by
+fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her <i>fianc&eacute;</i>, and
+immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last
+resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of
+insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has
+been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun
+who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made
+known, and the girl is rescued.</p>
+
+<p>"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last
+words of the play.</p>
+
+<p>This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen
+thousand copies of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">{225}</a></span>the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still
+running in the provinces. Some of the bishops and the superior clergy
+have had the folly to denounce the play and to forbid their
+congregations to witness or to read it. There is not an objectionable
+word or idea in it from first to last, except such as may be
+disagreeable to the Church&mdash;as that women should be educated so as to be
+the intellectual companions of their husbands, and should not be
+entrapped into convents by foul means and against their will. The action
+taken by the clergy in this matter has not only largely advertised the
+play, but has led to angry demonstrations against them, and has
+strengthened the temper of the people to resist all clerical domination
+in temporal matters.</p>
+
+<p>There have not been wanting from time to time signs, especially in the
+large manufacturing towns, of a spirit of revolt against all religion.
+Socialism, atheism, and even anarchism are all in the air, and if these
+are to be counteracted by religious teaching at all, it will certainly
+not be by the narrow dogmatism of the old school. There is a deep fund
+of religious feeling in the Spanish character which it would take a
+great deal to uproot, but it must be a wide-spirited and enlightened
+faith which will retain its hold over the people, who are everywhere
+breaking their old bonds and thinking for themselves.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">{226}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/226.jpg" width="450" height="101" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>PHILANTHROPY&mdash;POSITION OF WOMEN&mdash;MARRIAGE CUSTOMS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">ravellers</span> complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and
+the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars
+also abound, and the long-unaccustomed sight of the various religious
+habits naturally brings with it the hordes of miserable objects who
+afford opportunities for the faithful to exercise what they are taught
+to believe is charity&mdash;loved of God. This, however, is more especially
+the case in Granada, or those favoured spots affected by the rich
+tourist, who has not always the same opinion about indiscriminate
+charity as the native Spaniard. In old days, the wise policy of Charles
+III. had reduced very greatly the swarm of beggars. A certain number of
+terrible-looking objects&mdash;the fortunate possessors of withered limbs,
+sightless eyeballs, or other disqualifications for honest work&mdash;still
+ostentatiously displayed their badges of professional mendicancy, and
+lived, apparently quite comfortably, on the alms of the passers-by. But
+the enormous competition <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">{227}</a></span>which has since sprung up in this "career"
+must interfere a good deal with its lucrativeness.</p>
+
+<p>There is no poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary
+effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over
+the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be
+superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a
+board of <i>Benefic&eacute;ncias</i>, the Government holding a fund which these
+boards administer. The Queen is the President of the whole. Each board
+has its president and vice-president&mdash;generally ladies of the
+aristocracy&mdash;a treasurer, vice-treasurer, secretary, and vice-secretary,
+and a body of visitors; accounts are rendered monthly to the governing
+board, whose vice-president presides in the name of the Queen. There are
+also the confraternities of St. Vincent and St. Paul, the members of
+which are gentlemen and ladies who work independently of each other.
+These, however, have no established funds, but depend on voluntary
+subscriptions and gifts. Both these associations visit the poor in their
+own homes. The Pardo and the San Bernadino are societies and homes for
+benefiting men, women, and children; they have been founded by ladies.
+For boys there is the School of the Sacred Heart, and the Christian
+Brothers. The School of San Ildefonso belongs to the <i>Ayuntamiento</i>, and
+has secular masters. There is a small asylum, with chaplaincy attached,
+for architects. Santa Rita is a reformatory for boys in<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">{228}</a></span> Carabanchel,
+under a religious brotherhood. For girls there is the Horfino, the
+Merc&eacute;des Asylum&mdash;founded in memory of and kept up by the rents of Queen
+Merc&eacute;des&mdash;Santa Isabel and San Ildefonso, the French St. Vincent de
+Paul, San Blas, on the same lines as the Merc&eacute;des, Santa Cruz, the
+Inclusa, and the Spanish Vincent de Paul. For fallen girls there are the
+Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ladies of the Holy Trinity, and
+the Oblates of the Holy Redeemer.</p>
+
+<p>In all parts of the country branches of these or similar institutions
+abound. None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities
+than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget
+the class from which they sprang, and are most generous in their
+donations. When occasion demands an extra effort, a <i>fiesta</i> is given at
+the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for
+which it has been held. No doubt these schemes have their faults in
+operation, and Gald&oacute;s in some of his popular novels does not fail to
+hold up&mdash;not exactly for admiration&mdash;the fashionable ladies who think
+it "smart," as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and
+talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of
+their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their
+own doors, or trying to send into "Homes" those who have no desire or
+need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by
+their neighbours. Nevertheless, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">{229}</a></span>there is a large amount of organised
+philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and
+efficient kind. One should not forget to mention also the workshops for
+the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the
+attention of the Government has been called by late events.</p>
+
+<p>The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public
+life cannot be described as of an advanced order. As a rule, they take no
+leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable
+works, such as those already named. There is, as we have seen, a general
+movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action
+amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range
+themselves on the side of so-called "emancipation," who attend
+socialistic and other "meetings"&mdash;a word which has now been formally
+admitted into the Spanish language&mdash;and who aspire to be the comrades of
+men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings. But this
+movement is scarcely more than in its infancy. It must be remembered
+that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls
+were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or
+unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the
+room with a man was to lose her reputation. Already these things seem to
+be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">{230}</a></span>a
+fact, that there were fathers of the upper classes in the first half of
+the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to
+read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read
+letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them. The
+natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed,
+of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing
+correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means
+of a complaisant <i>doncella</i> with an open palm, or the pastime known as
+<i>pelando el pavo</i> (literally plucking the turkey), which consisted of
+serenades of love-songs, amorous dialogues, or the passage of notes
+through the <i>reja</i>&mdash;the iron gratings which protect the lower windows of
+Spanish houses from the prowling human wolf&mdash;or from the balconies. Many
+a time have I seen these interesting little missives being let down past
+my balcony&mdash;how trustful the innocents were!&mdash;to the waiting gallant
+below, and his drawn up. Only once I saw a neighbour, in the balcony
+below, intercept the post, and I believe substitute some other letter.
+Cruel sport!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps born of this necessity of making acquaintance by fair means or
+foul comes the custom, which appears to savour of such grossly bad
+manners to us, of a man making audible remarks on the appearance of a
+girl he has never seen before as she passes him in the street. <i>Ay! que
+buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! Que gracia tienes!</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">{231}</a></span> and the like. Far
+from giving offence, the fair one goes on her way, perhaps vouchsafing
+one glance from those lovely eyes of hers, with only a sense that her
+charms have received their due tribute&mdash;not much elated, perhaps, but
+certainly by no means offended; nor, indeed, was offence intended. The
+fixed stare, which to us would mean mere ill-bred ignorance, is only
+another ordinary tribute to the passing fair one from the other sex.</p>
+
+<p>Marriage customs have changed much in the last few decades, and even
+civil marriages are now not wholly unknown. In old days, if the ceremony
+was performed in church, the bride and all the ladies must be attired in
+black, for which reason the fashionable world established marriages in
+the house, where more brilliant costumes might be displayed. These
+generally take place in the evening, and the newly married couple do not
+leave the house, unless the new home happens to be close by. In any
+case, honeymoon tours are, or were, unusual. The <i>velada</i> is the
+ceremony in church, which must take place before the first child is
+born, to legalise the marriage, but it does not necessarily immediately
+follow the other ceremony. At it the ring is given. When the two
+ceremonies take place at the same time it must be in the morning,
+because the bride and bridegroom partake of the Holy Sacrament fasting.
+From the description of a <i>boda</i> in Galicia, in one of Pardo Bazan's
+novels, it would seem that the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">{232}</a></span>bride there wears white, even at the
+church. The wedding is a portentous affair, lasting all day from early
+morning, and the bride and bridegroom remain in the house. Fernan
+Caballero devotes some pages in <i>Clemencia</i> to showing how preferable is
+the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly
+married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of
+postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining
+ground, even in conservative Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in
+France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or
+law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl
+desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection
+from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her
+father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than
+that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents
+disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a
+magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive
+her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is
+entitled. I do not know if these things are altered now,&mdash;one does not
+hear so much of them,&mdash;but I know of several cases where daughters have
+been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their
+parents. In one case, the first intimation a father <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">{233}</a></span>received of his
+daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that
+she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her
+mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man
+without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these
+cases, the contracting parties were of the upper classes.</p>
+
+<p>While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous
+manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English
+fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely
+followed amongst the upper classes. When the King was still an infant a
+great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in
+the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones
+playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in
+London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois class, the
+old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the
+death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the
+poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its
+limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coarse
+yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up
+that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end
+against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother was busy. There is a
+superstition, too, about never washing <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">{234}</a></span>a child's head from the day it
+is born. The result is really indescribable. When it is about two years
+old, a scab, which covers the whole head, comes off of its own accord,
+and after that the head may be cleansed without fear of evil
+consequences. Some English servants who have married in Spain set the
+example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from
+the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children,
+a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of
+courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the
+sacred superstitions of ages&mdash;and the mother-in-law!</p>
+
+<p>One wonders, not that Spanish men grow bald so early, and not bald only,
+but absolutely hairless, but that they ever have any hair at all; for
+after all the troubles of their infancy their heads are regularly
+shaved, or the hair cut off close to the skin all the summer. On the
+principle of cutting off the heads of dandelions as soon as they appear,
+as a way of exterminating them, the surprising thing is that the hair
+does not become too much discouraged even to try to sprout again. Funny
+little objects they look, with only a dark mark on the skin where the
+hair ought to grow in summer, and at most a growth about as long as
+velvet in the winter, until they are quite big boys! The girls generally
+wear their hair so tightly plaited, as soon as it is long enough to
+allow of plaiting at all, that they can scarcely close <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">{235}</a></span>their eyes.
+Young Spanish women, however, have magnificent hair; though they, too,
+grow bald when they are old, in a way that is never seen in England.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/235.jpg" width="250" height="182" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">{236}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/236.jpg" width="450" height="98" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">O</span><span class="smcap">ne</span> is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The
+country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political
+disturbance that few foreigners took up their abode there, except such
+as had business interests, and for the rest the mere traveller never
+became acquainted with the real life of the people, or entered into
+their intellectual amusements. It is quite a common thing to find the
+tourist entering in his valuable notes on a country which he has not the
+knowledge of the world to understand: "The Spaniards are not a musical
+people," and remaining quite satisfied with his own dictum. Yet Albert
+Soubies, in his <i>Histoire de la Musique</i>, says, in the volume devoted to
+Spain: "Spain is the country where, in modern times, musical art has
+been cultivated with the greatest distinction and originality. In
+particular, the school of religious music in Spain, thanks to Morales,
+Guerrero, and Victoria, will bear comparison with all that has been
+produced elsewhere of the highest and most cultivated description. The
+national <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">{237}</a></span>genius has also shown itself in another direction, in works
+which, like the ancient <i>eglogas</i>&mdash;the contemporary <i>zarzuelas</i> of Lope
+de Vega and Calderon&mdash;and the <i>torradillas</i> of the last century shine
+brilliantly by the verve, the gaiety, the strength, and delicacy of
+their comic sentiment.... The works of this class are happily inspired
+by popular art, which in this country abounds in characteristic
+elements. One notes how much the rhythm and melody display native
+colour, charm, and energy. In many cases, along with vestiges of Basque
+or of Celtic origin, they show something of an Oriental character, due
+to the long sojourn of the Moors in this country."</p>
+
+<p>As regards this pre-eminence, it is enough to remember that Spain was
+anciently one of the regions most thoroughly penetrated by Roman
+civilisation. It is not too much to say that this art has never sunk
+into decadence in Spain. During the sixteenth century the archives of
+the Pontifical chapel show the important place occupied by Spanish
+composers in the musical history of the Vatican, and among the artists
+who gained celebrity away from their own country were Escoledo, Morales,
+Galvey, Tapia, and many others. To the end of the seventeenth century a
+galaxy of brilliant names carried on the national history of Spanish
+music, both on religious and secular lines; and though in the eighteenth
+and part of the nineteenth centuries there was a passing invasion of
+French and Italian fashion, the true and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">{238}</a></span>characteristic native music
+has never died out, and at the present time there is a notable musical
+renaissance in touch with the spirit and natural genius of the people.</p>
+
+<p>A Royal Academy of Music has, within recent times, been added to the
+other institutions of a like kind, and native talent is being developed
+on native lines, not in imitations from countries wholly differing from
+them in national characteristics. Spaniards are exacting critics, and
+the best musicians of other countries are as well known and appreciated
+as their own composers and executants. Wagner is now a household word
+among them, where once Rossini was the object of fashionable admiration.
+The national and characteristic songs of Spain have been already
+referred to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation.
+There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with
+a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those
+which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry
+away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood.
+The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the
+Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia,
+which lends itself to the music, and is liquid as the notes of a bird.
+The songs of Galicia are, in fact, the songs of Portugal; just as the
+Galician language is Portuguese, or a dialect of that language, which
+has less <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">{239}</a></span>impress of the ancient Celt-Iberian and more of French than
+its sister, Castilian, both being descendants of Latin, enriched with
+words borrowed from the different nations which have at one time or
+another inhabited or conquered their country.</p>
+
+<p>The guitar is, of course, the national instrument, and the songs never
+have the same charm with any other accompaniment; but the Spanish women
+of to-day are prouder of being able to play the piano or violin than of
+excelling in the instrument which suits them so much better. The
+Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other
+European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that
+to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the
+question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the
+lower end of the scale.</p>
+
+<p>The records of Spain in art, as in literature, are so grand, so
+European, in fact, that it is much if the artists of to-day come within
+measurable distance of those who have made the glory of their country.
+Nevertheless, the modern painters and sculptors of Spain hold their own
+with those of any country. After the temporary eclipse which followed
+the death of Velasquez, Ribera, and Murillo&mdash;the eighteenth century
+produced no great Spanish painter, if we except Goya, who left no
+pupils&mdash;Don Jos&eacute; Madrazo, who studied at the same time as Ingres in the
+studio of David, began the modern renaissance. He became Court <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">{240}</a></span>painter,
+and left many fine portraits; but, perhaps, as Comte Vasili says, "La
+meilleure oeuvre de Don Jos&eacute; fut son fils, Federico; de m&ecirc;me que la
+meilleure de celui-ci est son fils Raimundo."</p>
+
+<p>Raimundo Madrazo and Fortuny the elder, who married Cecilia Madrazo,
+Raimundo's sister, have always painted in Paris, and have become known
+to Europe almost as French artists. Fortuny, by his <i>mariage Espagnol</i>,
+became the head of the Spanish renaissance. Unfortunately, he has been
+widely imitated by artists of all nations, who have not a tithe of his
+genius, if any. Pradilla, F. Domingo, Gallegos, the three Beulluire
+brothers, Bilbao, Gimenez, Aranda, Carbonero, are only a few of the
+artists whose names are known to all art collectors, and who work in
+Spain. Villegas has settled in Rome. The exhibition of modern Spanish
+paintings in the London Guildhall last year (1901) was a revelation to
+many English people, even to artists, of the work that is being done at
+the present day by Spanish painters, both at home and in Paris and Rome.
+In sculpture, also, Spain can boast many artists of the highest class.</p>
+
+<p>The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The
+traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de
+Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for
+these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the
+theatre is the beloved entertainment of all classes, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">{241}</a></span>and perhaps
+especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting
+dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are
+sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an
+alien stage. It would be impossible and useless to give a mere list of
+the names of modern dramatists, but that of Ayala is perhaps best known
+abroad, and his work most nearly approaches to that of his great
+forerunners. His <i>Consuelo</i>, <i>El tejado de Vidrio</i>, and <i>Tanto por ciento</i>
+show great power and extraordinary observation. His style, too, is
+perfect. Se&ntilde;or Tamago, who persistently hides his name under the
+pseudonym of "Joaquin Estebanez," may also be ranked amongst the leaders
+of the modern Spanish drama, and his <i>Drama Nuevo</i> is a masterpiece.
+Echegaray belongs to the school of the old drama, whose characteristic
+is that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished. His plays are very
+popular because they touch an audience even to tears, and he has several
+followers or imitators. The comedies of manners and satirical plays are
+generally the work of Eusebio Blasco, Ramos Carrion, Echegaray the
+younger, Estremada, Alverez, though there are others whose names are
+legion. Echegaray is really a man of genius. A clever engineer and
+professor of mathematics, he was Minister of Finance during the early
+days of the Revolution. His first play took the world of Madrid by
+surprise and even by storm. <i>La</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">{242}</a></span> <i>Esposa del Vengador</i> had an
+unprecedented success, and at least thirty subsequent dramas, in prose
+and in verse, have made this mathematician, engineer, and financier one
+of the most famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely
+Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez
+Gald&oacute;s's <i>Electra</i> within the last few months. It must, however, be
+ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any
+superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be
+said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so
+dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured
+by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of
+the popular temper, however, and the coincidence of the political events
+already referred to must be ascribed the fact that a piece like
+<i>Electra</i> should cause the fall of a Government, and bring within
+dangerous distance the collapse of the monarchy itself. The excitement
+which it still produces, wherever played, is now in a great part due to
+the foolish action of some of the bishops and the fact that individual
+clerics use their pulpits to condemn it, and attempt to forbid its being
+read or seen.</p>
+
+<p>Spain is not particularly rich in great actors, although she has always
+a goodly number who come up to a fair standard of excellence. The great
+actors of the day in Madrid are Mar&iacute;a Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de
+Mendoza. They obtained <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">{243}</a></span>a perfect ovation during the last season in the
+play, <i>El loco Dios</i>, of Echegaray&mdash;a work which gives every opportunity
+for the display of first-class talent in both actors, and which led to a
+fury of enthusiasm for the popular dramatist, which must have recalled
+to him the early days of his great successes.</p>
+
+<p>Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Spain has had three great
+Academies, which, even in the troublous times of her history, have done
+good work in the domains of history, language, and the fine arts; but it
+is since the Revolution that they have become of real importance in the
+intellectual development of the nation, and other societies have been
+added for the encouragement of scientific research and music. The
+earliest of her academies was that of language, known as the Royal
+Spanish Academy. It is exactly on the lines of the Acad&eacute;mie Fran&ccedil;aise.
+Founded in 1713, its statutes were somewhat modified in 1847, and again
+in 1859. There are only thirty-six members, about eighty corresponding
+members in different provinces of Spain, and an unlimited, or at least
+undetermined, number of foreign and honorary correspondents. Besides the
+Central Society in Madrid, the Royal Spanish Academy has many
+corresponding branches in South America, such as the Columbian, the
+Equatorial, the Mexican, and those of Venezuela and San Salvador. The
+existence of academies of language in the South American States does not
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">{244}</a></span>appear to effect much in the way of maintaining the purity of Castilian
+among them, for South American Spanish, as spoken at least, is not much
+more like the original language than the South American Spaniard is like
+the inhabitant of the mother country. The dictionary of the Royal
+Academy of Spain, like that of France, is not yet completed.</p>
+
+<p>Philip V. founded the Royal Academy of History in 1738. Under its
+auspices, especially of late years, much valuable work has been done in
+publishing the original records of the country, to be found at Simancas
+and other places; but the authentic history of Spain is still
+incomplete. Up to the time of his assassination, Don Antonio C&aacute;novas del
+Castillo was its director, and Don Pedro de Madrazo its permanent
+secretary. The society, now known as the Real Academia de San Fernando,
+founded in 1752, under the title of Real Academia de las tres nobles
+Artes, has now had a fourth added to it&mdash;that of music. The functions of
+its separate sections are much the same as those of the English Academy
+of Painting and the sister arts. A permanent gallery of the works of its
+members exists in Madrid, and certificates, diplomas, honourable
+mention, etc., are distributed by the directors to successful
+competitors.</p>
+
+<p>Later societies are the Academies of Exact Science, Physical and
+Natural, of Moral and Political Science, of Jurisprudence and
+Legislation, and last, but by no means least, the Royal Acad<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">{245}</a></span>emy of
+Medicine, under whose auspices medical science has of late years made
+immense strides, and is probably now in line with that of the most
+advanced of other countries.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/245.jpg" width="250" height="151" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">{246}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/246.jpg" width="450" height="99" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>MODERN LITERATURE</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his
+own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and
+critic. Although now a man of very advanced age, he is one of the most
+distinguished of modern Orientalists, and his <i>History of the Arabs in
+Spain</i>, <i>Vocabulary of the Arabic Words in Spanish</i>, and his <i>Catalogue
+of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum</i> are known wherever the language
+is known or studied. He has published in Spanish an edition of Ticknor's
+great work on Spanish literature, and has edited several valuable works
+in the Spanish Old Text Society besides innumerable other historical and
+philological books and papers, which have given him a European
+reputation. His immense store of knowledge, his modesty, and his genuine
+kindness to all who seek his aid endear him as much for his personal
+qualities as for his learning.</p>
+
+<p>Next to Gayangos in the same class of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo
+may perhaps be mentioned. His <i>History of &AElig;sthetic Ideas in</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">{247}</a></span> <i>Spain</i> has
+been left unfinished so far, owing to the demands made on his time by
+his position in the political world as one of the Conservative leaders.
+Don Modesto Lafuente, though scarcely possessing the qualities of a
+great historian, is accurate and painstaking to a great degree; but in
+the field of history many workers are searching the archives and
+documents in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on
+particular periods. C&aacute;novas del Castillo, in spite of his great
+political duties, was one of the most valuable of these; and the eminent
+jurist, Don Francisco de Cardenas, and the learned Jesuit, Fidel Fita,
+and other members of the Academy of History are constantly working in
+the rich mine at Simancas. New papers and books are continually being
+brought out under the auspices of this society, throwing light on the
+past history of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Fernan Caballero, a German by race, but married successively to three
+Spanish husbands, may be said to have inaugurated the modern Spanish
+novel <i>de costumbres</i>, and her books are perhaps better known in England
+than those of some of the later novelists. By far the greater writer of
+the day in Spain, however, in light literature, is Juan Valera, at once
+poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His <i>Pepita Jimenez</i> is a
+remarkable novel, full of delicate characterisation and exquisite style,
+second to none produced in any country&mdash;a novel full of fire, and yet
+irreproachable in taste, handling a difficult subject with the mastery
+of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">{248}</a></span>genius. It has been translated into English; but however well it may
+have been done, it must lose immensely in the transition, because the
+Spanish of Valera is the perfection of a perfectly beautiful language.
+In this novel we have the character of a priest, who, while we know him
+only through the letters addressed to him by the young student of
+theology, the extremely sympathetic hero of the story, lives in one's
+memory, showing us the best side of the Spanish priest. Other novels of
+Valera's, <i>Do&ntilde;a Luis</i> and <i>El Comendador Mendoza</i>, a number of essays on
+all sorts of subjects, critical and other, and poems which show great
+grace and correctness of style, have given this writer a high place in
+the literature of the age.</p>
+
+<p>Perez Gald&oacute;s is a writer of a wholly different class, although he enjoys
+a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read.
+His <i>Episodes Nacionales</i>, some fifty-six in number, attract by their
+close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most
+diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of
+different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces,
+among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real
+actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendiz&aacute;bal, Espartero,
+Serrano, Narvaez, the Queen of Ferdinand VII., Cristina, and many other
+persons appear in the books, giving one the impression that history is
+alive, and not the record of long-dead actors we are accustomed to find
+it.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">{249}</a></span> Gald&oacute;s appears to despise any kind of plot; the events run on, as
+they did in fact run on, only there are one or two people who take part
+in them whom we may suppose to be creations of the author's brain.
+Certainly, one learns more contemporary history by reading these
+<i>Episodes</i> of Perez Gald&oacute;s, and realises all the scenes of it much more
+vividly than one would ever do by the reading of ordinary records of
+events. As the tendency and the sympathy of the writer is always
+Liberal, one fancies that Gald&oacute;s has written with the determined
+intention to tempt a class of readers to become acquainted with the
+recent history of their country who would never do so under any less
+attractive form than that of the novel. His works must do good, since
+they are very widely read, and are extremely accurate as history. His
+play, <i>Electra</i>, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of
+the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom
+that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have
+always enjoyed, or, at least, since medi&aelig;val times, and has nothing in
+common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves.
+Gald&oacute;s, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if
+not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great
+pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so
+many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">{250}</a></span>Pedro Alarc&oacute;n is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic
+afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most
+widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His <i>Sombrero de Tres
+Picos</i> is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet
+grace, while <i>El Esc&aacute;ndalo</i> and <i>La Pr&oacute;diga</i> are of the sensational
+order. He writes, like Gald&oacute;s, in series, such as <i>Historietas
+Nacionales</i>, <i>Narraciones Inveros&iacute;miles</i>, and <i>Viajes por Espa&ntilde;a</i>.
+Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen.
+<i>Sotilezas</i>, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life
+among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town.
+Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible
+for foreign readers.</p>
+
+<p>The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be
+said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the
+sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is
+imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes
+the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its
+scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not
+hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in
+Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard
+by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a
+frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company
+subjects which it would not be <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">{251}</a></span>thought good taste to mention under the
+same circumstances with us. <i>Una Cristiana</i> and <i>La Prueba</i>, its sequel,
+are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of
+offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand,
+if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on
+intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a
+breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation.
+She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her
+country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She
+holds up an ideal of a higher type&mdash;a woman who shall be man's
+intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by
+no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is
+the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her
+writings are somewhat difficult for anyone not conversant with
+Portuguese, or, rather, with the Galician variety of the Spanish
+language, for the number of words not to be found in the Spanish
+dictionary interfere with the pleasure experienced by a foreigner, and
+even some Castilians, in reading her novels. Pardo Bazan was an
+enthusiastic friend and admirer of Castelar, and belongs to his
+political party. A united Iberian republic, with Gibraltar restored to
+Spain, is, or was, its programme.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hermana San Sulpicio</i>, by Armando Palacio Vald&eacute;s, is one of the
+charming, purely Spanish <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">{252}</a></span>novels which has made a name for its author
+beyond the confines of his own country; but since that was produced he
+has gone for his inspiration to the French naturalistic school, and,
+like some English writers, he thinks that repulsive and indecent
+incidents, powerfully drawn, add to the artistic value of his work.
+Padre Luis Coloma, a Jesuit, obtained a good deal of attention at one
+time by his <i>Peque&ntilde;eces</i>, studies, written in gall, of Madrid society.
+His stories are too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue,
+and his views of life too much coloured by his ultramontane tendencies
+to be even true. Nu&ntilde;ez de Arce is, like so many Spaniards of the last
+few decades, at once a poet and a politician. He played a stirring part
+from the time of the Revolution to the Restoration, always on the side
+of liberty, but never believing in the idea of a republic. His <i>Gritos
+del Combate</i> were the agonised expression of a fighter in his country's
+battle for freedom and for light. Since the more settled state of
+affairs, Nu&ntilde;ez de Arce has written many charming idyls and short poems.
+In the <i>Idilio</i> is a wonderful picture of the, to some of us, barren
+scenery of Castile, in which the eye of the artist sees, and makes his
+readers see, a beauty all the more striking because it is hidden from
+the ordinary gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Of Jos&eacute; Zorilla as a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen
+read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value.
+Cam<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">{253}</a></span>poamor describes his <i>Dorloras</i> as "poetic compositions combining
+lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His
+earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the
+star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work,
+the <i>Universal Drama</i>, is "after Dante and Milton." He is a great
+favourite with his fellow-countrymen, both as poet and companion. He is
+a member of the Academy and a Senator.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible, however, to do more than indicate a few of the writers
+who are leaders in the literature of Spain to-day. There has, in fact,
+been an immense impulse in the production of books of all classes within
+the last twenty or thirty years. In fiction, Spain once more aspires to
+have a characteristic literature of her own, in place of relying on
+translations from the French, as was the case for a brief time before
+her political renaissance began.</p>
+
+<p>A notable departure has been the foundation of the Folklore Society, and
+the publication up to the present time of eleven volumes under the name
+of <i>Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Espa&ntilde;olas</i>, under the
+direction of Se&ntilde;or Don Antonio Machado y Alvarez. In the introduction to
+the first volume, the Director tells us that, with the help of the
+editor of <i>El Folklore Andaluz</i> and his friends, D. Alejandro Guichot y
+Sierra and D. Luis Montolo y Raustentrauch, he has undertaken this great
+work, which arose out of the<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">{254}</a></span> <i>Bases del Folklore Espa&ntilde;ol</i>, published in
+1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz
+and Folklore Extreme&ntilde;o. These societies have for object the gathering
+together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs,
+songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superstitions of all parts of
+the Peninsula, including Portugal, as indispensable materials for the
+knowledge and scientific reconstruction of Spanish culture. In this
+patriotic and historical work many writers have joined, each bringing
+his quota of garnered treasure-trove, presenting thus, in a series of
+handy little volumes, a most interesting collection of the ancient
+customs, beliefs, and, in fact, the folklore of a country exceptionally
+rich in widely differing nationalities.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the tales, which it would seem even at the present time,
+especially in Portugal and Galicia, are told in the evening, and have
+rarely found their way into print, have the strong stamp of the
+legitimate Eastern fable, and bear a great family resemblance to those
+of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>. As, in fact, the <i>Thousand and One Nights</i> was
+very early published in Spanish, it is probable that its marvellous
+histories were known verbally to the people of the Iberian continent for
+many centuries, and have coloured much of its folklore. <i>The Ingenious
+Student</i> is certainly one of these. Barbers also play an important part
+in many of these tales. It is quite common for the Court barber to marry
+the King's daughter, and to <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">{255}</a></span>succeed him as ruler; but the barber was,
+of course, surgeon or blood-letter as well as the principal
+news-agent&mdash;the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The
+transmutation of human beings into mules, and <i>vice versa</i>, is a common
+fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superstition that
+unbaptised people can penetrate into the domains of the enchanted Moors,
+and that these have no power to injure them. The story of the Black
+Slave, who eventually married the King's daughter and had a white mule
+for his Prime Minister, is very Eastern in character. "From so wise a
+King and so good a Queen the people derived great benefit; disputes
+never went beyond the ears of the Chief Minister, and, in the words of
+the immortal barber and poet of the city, 'the kingdom flourished under
+the guidance of a mule: which proves that there are qualities in the
+irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do well to
+imitate.'" <i>The Watchful Servant</i> is, however, purely Spanish in
+character, and it closes with the proverb that "a jealous man on
+horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning." <i>King Robin</i>, the
+story of how the beasts and birds revenged themselves on Sigli and his
+father, the chief of a band of robbers, recalls "Uncle Remus" and his
+animal tales; for the monkeys, at the suggestion of the fox, and with
+the delighted consent of the birds and the bees, made a figure wholly of
+birdlime to represent a sleeping beggar, being quite certain that Sigli
+would kick it the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">{256}</a></span>moment that he saw the intruder from the windows of
+his father's castle. In effect both father and son became fast to the
+birdlime figure, when they were stung to death by ten thousand bees.
+Then King Robin ordered the wolves to dig the grave, into which the
+monkeys rolled the man and the boy and the birdlime figure, and, after
+covering it up, all the beasts and birds and insects took possession of
+the robbers' castle, and lived there under the beneficent rule of King
+Robin.</p>
+
+<p><i>Silver Bells</i> is, again, a story of a wholly different type, and
+charmingly pretty it is, with its new development of the wicked
+step-mother&mdash;in this case a mother who had married again and hated her
+little girl by the first husband. <i>Elvira, the Sainted Princess</i> tells
+how the daughter of King Wamba, who had become a Christian unknown to
+her father, by her prayers and tears caused his staff to blossom in one
+night, after he had determined that unless this miracle were worked by
+the God of the Christians she and her lover should be burned.</p>
+
+<p>One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told
+by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the
+Old-World fables of a primitive race. Hits at the Jesuits, the
+Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the
+glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore. The story of the <i>Black Hand</i>
+seems to have many varieties. It is somewhat like our stories of Jack
+and the Bean<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">{257}</a></span> Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the
+Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the
+part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a
+second term of a hundred years' enchantment, so as to free the wife whom
+he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous
+other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of
+the prince. The <i>White Dove</i> is another curious and pretty fable which
+has many variations in different provinces&mdash;a story in which the King's
+promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who
+has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her
+place. Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl
+again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has
+stuck into her head, and the usurper is "burnt" as punishment&mdash;an ending
+which savours of the <i>Quemadero</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country
+where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty. One is constantly reminded
+of the Spanish proverb, <i>De poetas y de locos, todos ten&eacute;mos un poco</i>
+(We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool). No
+one can tell whence the rhymed <i>jeux d'esprit</i> come; they seem to spring
+spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people. Children are
+constantly heard singing <i>coplas</i> which are evidently of recent
+production, since they speak of recent events, and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">{258}</a></span>yet which have the
+air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">Rey inocente&mdash;a weak king,</div>
+<div class="verse">Reina traidora&mdash;treacherous queen,</div>
+<div class="verse">Pueblo cobarde&mdash;a coward people,</div>
+<div class="verse">Grandes sin honra&mdash;nobles without honour,</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noind">sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday's shameful
+bargain with Napoleon.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">En el Puente de Alcol&eacute;a</div>
+<div class="verseind">La batalla gan&oacute; Prim,</div>
+<div class="verse">Y por eso la cant&aacute;mos</div>
+<div class="verseind">En las calles de Madrid.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">At the bridge of Alcol&eacute;a</div>
+<div class="verseind">A great battle gained Prim,</div>
+<div class="verse">And for this we go a-singing</div>
+<div class="verseind">In the streets of Madrid.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Se&ntilde;or Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this <i>copla</i> (<i>Folklore
+de Madrid</i>), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore,
+since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcol&eacute;a.
+Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the
+battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been
+sung in the streets of the capital. There is seldom, if ever, any
+grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people&mdash;never indecency or
+double meaning. No sooner has an event happened than it finds its
+history recorded in <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">{259}</a></span>some of these popular <i>coplas</i>, and sung by the
+children at their play.</p>
+
+<p>The Folklore Society has some interesting information to give about the
+innumerable rhymed games which Spanish children, like our own, are so
+fond of playing, many of them having an origin lost in prehistoric
+times. One finds, also, from some of the old stories, that the devils
+are much hurt in their feelings by having tails and horns ascribed to
+them. As a matter of fact, they have neither, and cannot understand
+where mortals picked up the idea! The question is an interesting one.
+Where did we obtain this notion?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/259.jpg" width="250" height="120" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">{260}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/260.jpg" width="450" height="99" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FUTURE OF SPAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">A</span><span class="smcap">n</span> Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close
+connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most
+valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:</p>
+
+<p>"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points
+strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the
+Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and
+leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the
+nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers
+of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy
+independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation
+that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of
+her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the
+Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is,
+indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.</p>
+
+<p>"True it is that our insular manners form at <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">{261}</a></span>first a bar to our
+intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of
+deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of
+mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong
+attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the
+strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know
+the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful
+friends than those they have amongst her people."</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of
+labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of
+judging, this writer says:</p>
+
+<p>"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not
+much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are
+exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great
+facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest&mdash;perfect gentlemen in
+their manners, and the lowest labourer has an <i>aplomb</i> and ease of
+manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might
+envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it
+is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real
+bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to
+meet with&mdash;not free from defects&mdash;what race is?&mdash;but possessed of
+excellent sterling qualities, which only require <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">{262}</a></span>knowing to be
+appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and
+politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and
+debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is,
+unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution
+of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called,
+and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time;
+because, after the battle of Alcol&eacute;a, when the cry raised in the Puerta
+del Sol, <i>Viva Prim!</i> was answered by the troops shut up in the
+Government offices, and the people, swarming up the <i>rejas</i> and the
+balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been
+intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot
+them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and
+of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance,
+the Queen and her <i>camarilla</i> had fled across the frontier, the
+Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet
+not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and
+quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street
+formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their
+positions at <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">{263}</a></span>the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and
+institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people
+were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went
+on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was
+touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the
+sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns,
+after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo,
+were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of
+interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as
+puppets.</p>
+
+<p>With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in
+the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the
+demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the
+Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in
+industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving
+the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this,
+or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is
+penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely
+to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing.
+The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country
+heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was
+begun&mdash;in fact, within the last few months&mdash;is bringing the northern and
+western <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">{264}</a></span>ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important
+industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing
+trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as
+Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh
+fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are
+coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost
+everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as
+the algaroba bean&mdash;said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist
+might have thriven&mdash;for it is the most fattening food for horses and
+cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat.
+This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to
+the mules and horses at all the little wayside <i>ventas</i>, and is now used
+in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of
+the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two
+kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. <i>Glucea
+dextrina</i> paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products
+of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of
+preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture
+of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many
+other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a
+most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it
+has all the quali<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">{265}</a></span>ties of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent.
+less in cost.</p>
+
+<p>A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the
+peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this
+unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention
+of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898,
+and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in
+circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold
+must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between
+fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in
+circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of
+the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two
+thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two
+thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in
+fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas.
+So states the <i>Boletin de la C&aacute;mara de Comercio de Espa&ntilde;a en la Gran
+Bret&aacute;&ntilde;a</i> of April 15, 1901.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Boletin</i>, after giving an account of the English custom of using
+cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper
+currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the
+English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any
+paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were
+not current outside the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">{266}</a></span>walls of Madrid, and had only a limited
+currency within.</p>
+
+<p>Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days
+before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other
+towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its
+general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is
+no longer the case. Although the capital of Catalu&ntilde;a has made enormous
+strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it
+before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it
+in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it
+very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its
+climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its
+wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly
+different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the
+dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.</p>
+
+<p>It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to
+finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of
+the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already
+remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it
+is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician,
+still less Basque, is a dialect&mdash;they are all more or less languages in
+themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">{267}</a></span>difference both by the
+<i>pueblo bajo</i> of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal
+peculiarities are the omission of the <i>d</i>&mdash;<i>prado</i> becomes <i>pra&ouml;</i>&mdash;in
+any case the pronunciation of <i>d</i>, except as an initial, is very soft,
+similar to our <i>th</i> in <i>thee</i>, but less accentuated. The final <i>d</i> is
+also omitted by illiterate speakers; <i>Usted</i> is pronounced <i>Uste</i>, and
+even <i>de</i> becomes <i>e</i>. <i>B</i> and <i>v</i> are interchangeable. One used to see,
+on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion
+of Madrid, <i>Serbicio de omnibus</i> quite as often as <i>Servicio</i>. Over the
+<i>venta</i> of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcal&aacute;&mdash;now an outskirt of
+Madrid&mdash;was written, <i>Aqui se veve bino y aguaardie&ntilde;te</i>&mdash;meaning, <i>Aqui
+se bebe vino</i>, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).</p>
+
+<p>The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the
+educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of
+transposing them in writing. The sound of <i>b</i> is much more liquid than
+in English, and to pronounce <i>Barcelona</i> as a Castilian pronounces it,
+we should spell it <i>Varcelona</i>; the same with <i>C&oacute;rdoba</i>, which to our
+ears sounds as if written <i>C&oacute;rdova</i>, and so, in fact, we English spell
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Spaniards, as a rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all
+the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England,
+Scotland, and Ireland, into account.</p>
+
+<p>Our <i>th</i>, which is unpronounceable to French, Italians, and Germans,
+however long they may <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">{268}</a></span>have lived in England, comes naturally to the
+Spaniard, because in his own <i>d</i>, soft <i>c</i>, and <i>z</i> he has the sounds of
+our <i>th</i> in "<i>th</i>ee" and "<i>th</i>in." His <i>ch</i> is identical with ours, and
+his <i>j</i> and <i>x</i> are the same as the Irish and Scotch pronunciation of
+<i>ch</i> and <i>gh</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish language is not difficult to learn&mdash;at any rate to read and
+understand&mdash;because there are absolutely no unnecessary letters, if we
+except the initial <i>h</i>, which is, or appears to us, silent&mdash;and the
+pronunciation is invariable. What a mine of literary treasure is opened
+to the reader by a knowledge of Spanish, no one who is ignorant of that
+majestic and poetic language can imagine. With the single exception of
+Longfellow's beautiful rendering of the <i>Coplas de Manrique</i>, which is
+absolutely literal, while preserving all the grace and dignity of the
+original, I know of no translation from the Spanish which gives the
+reader any real idea of the beauty of Spanish literature in the past
+ages, nor even of such works of to-day as those of Juan Valera and some
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Picturesque and poetic ideas seem common to the Spaniard to-day, as
+ever. Only the other day, in discussing the monument to be erected to
+Alfonso XII. in Madrid, one of the newspapers reported the
+suggestion&mdash;finally adopted, I think&mdash;that it should be an equestrian
+statue of the young King, "with the look on his face with which he
+entered Madrid after ending the Carlist war." What a picture it summons
+to the imagination of <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">{269}</a></span>the boy King&mdash;for he was no more&mdash;in the pride of
+his conquest of the elements of disorder and of civil war, which had so
+long distracted his beloved country&mdash;a successful soldier and a worthy
+King!</p>
+
+<p>Spain is a country of surprises and of contradictions; even her own
+people seem unable to predict what may happen on the morrow. Those who
+knew her best had come to despair of her emancipation at the very moment
+when Prim and Topete actually carried the Revolution to a successful
+issue. Again, after the miserable fiasco of the attempt at a republic,
+the world, even in Spain itself, was taken by surprise by the peaceful
+restoration of Alfonso XII.</p>
+
+<p>I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of
+Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most
+interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of
+her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of
+Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales
+Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his
+preface to his <i>Decadencia de Espa&ntilde;a</i>, published in Madrid in 1850: "It
+is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain.
+The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by,
+and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in
+which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing
+not to presume to dispute this former <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">{270}</a></span>glory, Se&ntilde;or Ferrer del Rio goes
+on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's
+subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the
+summit of her greatness&mdash;that of the Reyes Cat&oacute;licos, Don Fernando V.
+and Do&ntilde;a Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of
+Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system
+disappeared&mdash;it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the
+kingdom&mdash;the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the
+administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice
+began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people
+was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the
+conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been
+struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new
+world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that
+hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although
+for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real
+misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the <i>Comuneros</i>, and the
+execution of Padilla and his companions, champions of the people's
+rights, he goes on to show that while the aristocracy had received a
+mortal blow in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cause of
+consolidating the kingdom and of internal order, they had retained
+sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they
+were not strong <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">{271}</a></span>enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of
+the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually
+lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained
+the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal
+whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and
+Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all
+government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the
+Spanish people being led to wage war against heresy everywhere, and the
+nation&mdash;exhausted by its foreign troubles, oppressed internally under
+the tyranny of the Inquisition, which, usurping the name of 'Holy,' had
+become the right hand of the policy of Charles V., and the supreme power
+in the Government of his grandson, Philip II.&mdash;lost all the precious
+gifts of enlightenment in a blind and frantic fanaticism. The people
+only awoke from lethargy, and showed any animation, to rush in crowds to
+the <i>Autos da f&eacute;</i> in which the ministers of the altar turned Christian
+charity into a bleeding corpse, and reproduced the terrible scenes of
+the Roman amphitheatre. Where the patricians had cried 'Christians to
+the lions!' superstition shouted 'Heretics to the stake!' Humanity was
+not less outraged than in the spectacle of Golgotha. Spanish monarchs
+even authorised by their presence those sanguinary spectacles, while the
+nobles and great personages in the kingdom thought themselves <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">{272}</a></span>honoured
+when they were made <i>alguiciles</i>, or familiars of the holy office.
+Theocratic power preponderated, and intellectual movement became
+paralysed, civilisation stagnated."</p>
+
+<p>This has ever been the result of priestly rule. One can understand the
+feeling of the liberal-minded Spaniard of to-day that, without wishing
+to interfere with the charitable works inaugurated by the clergy, nor
+desiring in any way to show disrespect to the Church, or the religion
+which is dear to the hearts of the people, a serious danger lies, as the
+Press is daily pointing out, in the religious orders, more especially
+the Jesuits, obtaining a pernicious influence over the young,
+undermining by a system of secret inquisition the teachings of science,
+gaining power over the minds of the officers in the army, and
+establishing a press agency which shall become a danger to the
+constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Spain's outlook seems brighter to-day than it has ever been since her
+Golden Age of Isabella and Ferdinand; and it is the people who have
+awakened, a people who have shown what power lies in them to raise their
+beloved country to the position which is her right among the nations of
+the world. But prophecy is vain in a country of which it has been said
+"that two and two never make four." This year, if all go well meantime,
+Alfonso XIII. will take the reins in his own hands&mdash;a mere boy, even
+younger than his father was when called to the throne; than whom,
+however,<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">{273}</a></span> Spain has never had a more worthy ruler. But Alfonso XII. had
+been schooled by adversity&mdash;he had to some extent roughed it amongst
+Austrian and English boys. He came fresh from Sandhurst and from the
+study of countries other than his own. To a naturally clever mind he had
+added the invaluable lesson of a knowledge of the world as seen by one
+of the crowd, not from the close precincts of a court and the elevation
+of a throne.</p>
+
+<p>For his son it may be said that he has been born and carefully educated
+in a country where absolutism is dead, and by a mother who, as Regent,
+has scrupulously observed the laws of the constitution. He will come, as
+King, to a country which has known the precious boon of liberty too long
+to part with it lightly; to a kingdom now, for the first time in
+history, united as one people; where commerce and mutual interests have
+taken the place of internecine distrust and hatred. It is only at the
+present moment that this happy condition of things is spreading over the
+country; each month, each week, giving fresh evidence of new industries
+arising, of fresh capital invested in the development of the country. It
+is in the sums so invested by the mass of the people that those who
+believe in a bright future for Spain place their hopes; but we may all
+of us wish the young monarch for whom his country is longing,
+"God-speed."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Commercial and Industrial Spain</i>, by George Higgin,
+Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<!-- Blank Page {274} -->
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">{275}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/277.jpg" width="450" height="101" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</h2>
+
+<!-- Blank Page {276} -->
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">{277}</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="biggap">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>LAND AND PEOPLE</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">I</span><span class="smcap">t</span> has been said, and it is often repeated, that if you strip a Spaniard
+of his virtues, the residuum will be a Portuguese. This cruel statement
+is rather the result of prejudice than arising from any foundation in
+fact. It has a superficial cleverness which attracts some people, and
+especially those who have but an imperfect knowledge of the true life
+and character of the people thus stigmatised.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Londonderry, in Chapter VI. of his <i>Narrative of the Peninsular
+War</i>, writes thus of the difference of character between the two
+nations: "Having halted at Elvas during the night, we marched next
+morning soon after dawn; and, passing through a plain of considerable
+extent, crossed the Guadiana at Badajoz, the capital of<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">{278}</a></span> Estremadura.
+This movement introduced us at once into Spain; and the contrast, both
+in personal appearance and in manners, between the people of the two
+nations, which was instantly presented to us, I shall not readily
+forget. Generally speaking, the natives of frontier districts partake
+almost as much of the character of one nation as of another.... It is
+not so on the borders of Spain and Portugal. The peasant who cultivates
+his little field, or tends his flock on the right bank of the Guadiana,
+is, in all his habits and notions, a different being from the peasant
+who pursues similar occupations on its left bank; the first is a genuine
+Portuguese, the last is a genuine Spaniard.... They cordially detest one
+another; insomuch that their common wrongs and their common enmity to
+the French were not sufficient, even at this time, to eradicate the
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not, however, by the striking diversity of private character
+alone which subsisted between them, that we were made sensible, as soon
+as we had passed the Guadiana, that a new nation was before us. The
+Spaniards received us with a degree of indifference to which we had not
+hitherto been accustomed. They were certainly not uncivil.... Whatever
+we required they gave us, in return for our money; but as to enthusiasm
+or a desire to anticipate our wants, there was not the shadow of an
+appearance of anything of the kind about them. How different all this
+from <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">{279}</a></span>the poor Portuguese, who never failed to rend the air with their
+<i>vivats</i>, and were at all times full of promises and protestations, no
+matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or
+authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud,
+independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities,
+but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate
+them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of
+the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a
+people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally
+helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, and render them
+useful; but it is impossible highly to respect them. In the Spanish
+character, on the contrary, there is mixed up a great deal of
+haughtiness, a sort of manly independence of spirit, which you cannot
+but admire, even though aware that it will render them by many degrees
+less amenable to your wishes than their neighbours."</p>
+
+<p>With due allowance for time and circumstances, much in this passage
+might have been written to-day instead of nearly ninety years ago, and
+one cause of the difference in feeling is no doubt explained truly
+enough. Perhaps some shallow persons are affected by the fact that in
+good looks the Portuguese are as a race inferior to the Spaniards. But
+there is no such real difference in character as to justify an impartial
+observer in using a phrase so essentially galling to England's <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">{280}</a></span>allies,
+of whom Napier said: "The bulk of the people were, however, staunch in
+their country's cause ... ready at the call of honour, and susceptible
+of discipline, without any loss of energy."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula the main axiom of life appears to
+be the same: "Never do to-day what you can put off to to-morrow." On the
+left bank of the Guadiana it is summarised by the word <i>ma&ntilde;ana</i>; on the
+right bank the word used is <i>amanh&atilde;</i>. There is only a phonetic
+distinction between the Spanish and the Portuguese idea. It is necessary
+for the traveller in these countries to keep this axiom well in mind,
+for it affords a clue to character and conduct the value of which cannot
+be over-estimated, and not only to the character and conduct of
+individuals, but to the whole national life of the inhabitants. In
+Portugal it permeates all public and municipal life, and appears to
+affect most especially that portion of the population who do not earn
+their living by manual labour. The higher one goes up the scale, the
+greater becomes the evidence of the ingrained habits of dilatoriness and
+procrastination, and so any hard work on the part of the lower class of
+toilers cannot be properly directed, and the commerce and industry of
+the country either dwindle away together, or fall into the hands of more
+energetic and active foreigners, who naturally carry off the profits
+which should be properly applied to the welfare and prosperity of the
+Lusitanians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">{281}</a></span>The mineral wealth and natural resources of the country are enormous,
+and it is really sad to contemplate the little use that is made of the
+one or of the other unless developed by alien energy and worked by alien
+capital. As regards this latter important factor, the administrative
+corruption and the unsound state of the national finances render it
+difficult to find foreign capitalists who are able and willing to embark
+in the industrial enterprises, the successful issue of which affords the
+only chance for this most interesting nation to recover something of its
+ancient prosperity and to once more take a position in the world worthy
+of the land of the hardy sailors and valiant captains who have left so
+imperishable a record over the earth's surface.</p>
+
+<p>The intellectual life of Portugal seems to have ceased with Camoens. It
+is rather pathetic the way in which the ordinary educated Portuguese
+refers back to the great poet and to the heroic period which he
+commemorated. No conversation of any length can be carried on without a
+reference to Camoens and to Vasco da Gama. All history and all progress
+appear to have culminated and stopped then. Apparently nothing worthy of
+note has happened since. Camoens returned to Lisbon in 1569, and his
+great epic poem saw the light in 1572. He died in a public hospital in
+Lisbon in 1579 or 1580. In the latter year began the "sixty years'
+captivity," when Portugal became merely a Spanish province; yet <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">{282}</a></span>there
+is no recollection of this&mdash;except the ingrained hatred of Spaniards and
+of everything Spanish&mdash;or of the shaking off the yoke in 1640, and of
+the battle of Amexial in 1663, where the English contingent bore the
+brunt of the battle, and the "Portugueses," as they are called by the
+author of <i>An Account of the Court of Portugal</i>, published in 1700,
+claimed the principal part of the honour. The traces of the Peninsular
+War have faded away, and on the lines of Torres Vedras there is scarcely
+any tradition of the cause of their existence. In Lisbon, indeed, there
+is one incident of later date than Camoens, which is considered worthy
+of remembrance,&mdash;the great earthquake of 1755,&mdash;but this can scarcely be
+looked upon as a national achievement, or a matter of intellectual
+development.</p>
+
+<p>That Camoens is a fitting object for a nation's veneration cannot for a
+moment be doubted. The high encomium passed upon "the Student, the
+Soldier, the Traveller, the Patriot, the Poet, the mighty Man of Genius"
+by Burton, appears to be in no way exaggerated. The healthful influence
+of his life and writings has done and is still doing good in his beloved
+country. But though the man who in his lifetime was neglected, and who
+was allowed to die in the depths of poverty and misery, is now the most
+honoured of his countrymen, and his rank as one of the world's great
+poets is universally acknowledged, his labours have been to a certain
+extent in vain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">{283}</a></span>Not only industry, but culture, literature, and art appear to be
+infested with the mildew of decay. There is a good university at
+Coimbra, where alone, it is said, the language is spoken correctly.
+There is an excellent system of elementary and secondary schools, but in
+practice it is incomplete and subject to many abuses, like most public
+institutions in the country. The irregularities of the language, without
+authoritative spelling or pronunciation, and the best dictionary of
+which is Brazilian, have a bad effect upon the literature of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>The language, more purely Latin in its base than either of the other
+Latin tongues, with an admixture of Moorish, and <ins class="correction" title="text reads 'strengthend'">strengthened</ins> by the
+admission of many words of foreign origin, introduced during the period
+of great commercial prosperity, possesses ample means for the expression
+of ideas and of shades of thought, and though it loses somewhat of the
+musical quality of the other languages in consequence of a rather large
+percentage of the nasal tones which are peculiar to it, yet it will hold
+its own well with the remaining members of the group.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the cause, however, there is hardly any general literature;
+almost the only books (not professional or technical) which are
+published, appear to be translations of French novels&mdash;not of the
+highest class. Perhaps in the study of arch&aelig;ology and folklore is to be
+found the most cultured phase of Portuguese intelli<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">{284}</a></span>gence. The
+Arch&aelig;ological Society of Lisbon strives to do good work, and has a
+museum with interesting relics in the old church of the Carmo, itself
+one of the most interesting and graceful ruins left out of the havoc
+caused by the great earthquake.</p>
+
+<p>As might be expected under such circumstances, the newspapers are, with
+few exceptions, of the "rag" variety. Conducted for the most part by
+clever young fellows fresh from Coimbra, they are violent in their views
+and incorrect in their news, especially with regard to foreign
+intelligence. They have some influence, no doubt, but not so much as the
+same type of newspaper in France. The habitual want of veracity of the
+Portuguese character is naturally emphasised in the newspapers, and no
+one in his senses would believe any statement made in them.</p>
+
+<p>A sure sign of the decadence of intellectual life, as well as of
+commercial activity, is to be found in the postal service, with its
+antiquated methods and imperfect arrangements. It is administered in a
+happy-go-lucky manner, which amuses at the same time that it annoys.
+Truly, with the post-office, it is well constantly to repeat to one's
+self the phrase: "Patience! all will be well to-morrow!" Probably it
+won't be well; but none but a foolish Englishman or Frenchman or German
+will bother about such a little matter.</p>
+
+<p>A kindly, brave, docile, dishonest, patient, and courteous people, who,
+to quote Napier "retain a <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">{285}</a></span>sense of injury or insult with incredible
+tenacity;" and a due observance of their customs and proper politeness
+are so readily met, and friendly advances are so freely proffered, that
+a sojourn amongst them is pleasant enough. I have wondered that the
+tourist has not found his way more into this smiling land, though, no
+doubt, his absence is a matter of congratulation to the traveller in
+these regions. The country has many beauties, the people and their
+costumes are picturesque, and the cost of living&mdash;even allowing for a
+considerable percentage of cheating&mdash;is not excessive. There is, I
+suppose, a want of the ordinary attractions for the pure tourist or
+globe-trotter. There are churches, monuments, and objects of interest in
+goodly numbers, and there is beautiful scenery in great variety; but the
+true attraction to a thoughtful visitor lies in the contemplation of the
+people themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The Portuguese, taken as a whole, are not a good-looking race. The
+women, who, as a rule, are very pretty as little girls, lose their good
+looks as they grow up, and are disappointing when compared with the
+Spaniards. Sometimes one comes across fish- or market-women of
+considerable comeliness, which, when conjoined to the graceful figure
+and poise induced by the habitual carriage of heavy weights on the head
+and the absence of shoes, makes a striking picture. The costume is
+attractive, and the wealth of golden ear-rings, charms, chains, and such
+like, in which these <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">{286}</a></span>women invest their savings, does not somehow seem
+anomalous or incongruous, though shown on a background of dirty and
+ragged clothing.</p>
+
+<p>One unfortunate peculiarity that cannot help being noticed is the number
+of persons whose eyes are not on the same level. When this does not
+amount to an actual disfigurement, it is still a blemish which prevents
+many a young girl from being classed as a beauty. This and the peculiar
+notched or cleft teeth seem to point to an hereditary taint. Also
+unmistakable signs of a greater or lesser admixture of black blood are
+numerous. As a rule, the Portuguese are dark-complexioned, with large
+dark eyes and black hair; but, of course, one meets many exceptions. The
+men of the working class are fond of wearing enormous bushy whiskers,
+and women of all classes are accustomed to wear <i>moustachios</i>. The thin
+line of softest down which accentuates the ripe lips of the <i>senhorina</i>
+of some seventeen summers becomes an unattractive incident in the broad
+countenance of the stout lady of advancing years; and when, as sometimes
+happens, the hirsute appendages take the form of a thin, straggling
+beard, with a tooth-brush moustache, it can only be described as an
+unmitigated horror.</p>
+
+<p>Society in Portugal is very mixed. There are the old <i>fidalgos</i>, haughty
+and unapproachable, and often very poor, the descendants of the nobles
+whose duplicity, ability in intrigue, and want of patriotism are so
+often alluded to in the pages of<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">{287}</a></span> Napier. Then there are the new
+nobility, the "titled Brasileros," as Galenga calls them, who have come
+back from Brazil to their native land with large fortunes acquired
+somehow, and who practically buy titles, as well as lands and houses.
+Wealthy tradesmen, also, hold a special position in the mixed middle
+class. There is, too, a curious blending of old-fashioned courtesy with
+democratic sentiments. The tradesman welcomes his customers with
+effusive politeness&mdash;shakes hands as he invites them to sit down, and
+chats with these perhaps titled ladies without any affectation or
+assumption. After a while the parties turn to business. A sort of
+Oriental bargaining takes place, the seller asking twice as much as the
+object is worth and he intends to take. The purchaser meets this with an
+offer of about half what she intends to give. With the utmost politeness
+and civility the negotiations are conducted on either side. Each gives
+way little by little, and in the end a bargain is struck. The amounts
+involved appear to be enormous, as the <i>reis</i> are computed by thousands
+and hundreds; but, then, the <i>real</i> is only worth about the thousandth
+part of three shillings and twopence at the present rate of exchange,
+and the long and exciting transaction, in all its various phases, has
+resulted in one or other of the parties having scored or missed a small
+victory. Verily, even to the loser, the pleasure is cheap at the price.</p>
+
+<p>The Brazilian element is most conspicuous in<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">{288}</a></span> Lisbon, and partly in
+consequence that city is only a little modern capital, somewhat feebly
+imitating Paris in certain ways, and, consequently, lacking the
+individuality and interest of Oporto. Yet Lisbon has a charm of its own;
+and the beauties of the Aveneida, the Roscio (known to the English as
+the "Rolling Motion Square," from its curious pattern of black and white
+pavement), the Black Horse Square, the broad and beautiful Tagus, the
+hills whereon the city is built, and the lovely gardens with their
+sub-tropical vegetation, will repay a stay of some weeks' duration.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the mercantile element, there is considerable difficulty for a
+stranger to formulate the boundaries of other social strata. It would
+appear that the professions are in an indifferent position. Lawyers, of
+course, as in most other countries, are looked upon as rogues. How far
+this is the effect of the general prejudice, or whether it has any
+special foundation in fact, it would be hard to say. No doubt there are
+upright men amongst them, as in every other walk of life. There is a
+general idea that the medical training is lax, and the doctors, as a
+rule, are not highly considered. It is admitted, however, that they are
+as devoted, and as ready to risk their own lives, as those of other
+countries, a fact which was fully proved by several of the doctors at
+Oporto and Lisbon on the occasion of the outbreak of the plague in 1899.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">{289}</a></span>The system of fees in general use tends to damage the position of both
+lawyers and doctors. In reply to the question as to his indebtedness,
+the client or the patient is told: "What you please." This sounds
+courteous, but is, in effect, embarrassing, as it is hard to estimate
+what is a fair fee under the circumstances, and generally one or the
+other of the parties is dissatisfied, and a sore feeling is left behind.</p>
+
+<p>There are several orders of knighthood, which are showered about on
+occasion. The reasons for giving them are various. For instance, a Court
+tradesman may receive a decoration in lieu of immediate payment of a
+long-standing bill. The ribbons and buttons are not worn so freely as
+elsewhere on the Continent. The polite style in addressing a stranger is
+in the third person, and such titles as Your Excellency, Your Lordship,
+and Your Worship, sometimes enlarged with the adjective <i>illustrissimo</i>
+(most illustrious), are common enough. When an Englishman is first
+addressed as <i>Vossa Illustrissima Excellencia</i> (Your Most Illustrious
+Excellency), he begins to feel as if he were playing a part in one of
+Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas. He soon gets used to it, however,
+and accepts the superlatives without turning a hair.</p>
+
+<p>Of all classes it may be said that their manners are, on the whole,
+good, and their morals generally lax. Cleanliness has no special place
+assigned to it amongst the virtues. If it comes next to <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">{290}</a></span>godliness, then
+the latter must be very low down the scale. It seems incredible, but
+verminous heads are to be found in the ranks of well-to-do tradespeople.
+Fleas and bugs abound, and happy is he whose skin is too tough, or whose
+flesh is too sour, to attract these ferocious insects. There is not much
+luxury and there is a fair amount of thrift, while frugality of living
+is common, especially among the populace.</p>
+
+<p>One great characteristic is the intense love of children which is
+exhibited by all classes, and there is no surer way to the good will of
+a native than a kindness, however slight, to a child in whom he or she
+is interested. As is natural under such circumstances, the children are
+shockingly indulged and spoilt, with all the resultant unpleasant and
+evil consequences. Cats, also, are great favourites with the Portuguese,
+and the thousands of shabby animals of Lisbon and Oporto show no sign of
+fear if a stranger stops to stroke them. They are accustomed to kind
+treatment, and look upon all human beings as friends.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, a rather large number of servants are employed. They are
+poorly paid, and in many households indifferently fed and housed. Often
+they are dirty, lazy, dishonest sluts. They chatter shrilly with the
+master or mistress, answer and argue when told of any shortcoming, and
+are always ready to go off at a moment's notice. But they are often
+capable of devoted service, and of a sincere desire to be obliging, and
+may always <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">{291}</a></span>be counted on to exhibit the utmost kindness to the children
+of the house. Their written references, as a rule, are frauds. If you
+ask for the <i>boas referencias</i> (good references), so often mentioned in
+the advertisements of <i>criadas</i> (female servants), you will probably
+find that, even if genuine, they are antiquated, and that they leave
+many gaps between the various periods of service which can only be
+filled up by conjecture. <i>Criadas</i> are not, as a rule, of immaculate
+virtue, and give some trouble by their desire to go to <i>festas</i> and to
+servants' balls. The male servants are, as a rule, better than the
+<i>criadas</i>. Servants are somewhat roughly treated, and are ordered about
+as if they were dogs. It is always said that they do not understand or
+appreciate milder or more civil treatment, and are inclined to despise a
+master or mistress who uses the Portuguese equivalent to "please," or
+who acknowledges a service with thanks. I am inclined to doubt this,
+both from my personal observation and from a casual remark made to me by
+the landlady of a hotel at Cintra, that her waiters and servants much
+preferred English to native visitors, because of the greater politeness
+and consideration shown to them by the former. Of course, as in all
+other countries, servants are described as one of the greatest plagues
+in life; but this must be taken for what it is worth. And what would the
+ladies do without such a subject to grumble about?</p>
+
+<p>Portugal is a poor country, despite its natural <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">{292}</a></span>resources. The wealthy
+people are few, and consist mainly of returned Brazilians. It cannot be
+said, either, that the classes in the enjoyment of a competence
+constitute a fair average of the community. But the poor are very
+abundant. Wages are terribly low, even a foreman in an engineering shop
+getting only a milrei a day, averaging 3<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> in English money. On the
+other hand, it must be remembered that in such a climate the "living
+wage" is necessarily lower than in England. Many necessities in England
+are superfluities or even inconveniences under sunnier skies. The
+people, too, are very frugal, and even in towns, though rents be high,
+all other necessaries are moderate in price. The standard of life is not
+high, and the people are contented with a style of living which would be
+indignantly rejected by English labourers.</p>
+
+<p>The artisans are not good workmen, but plod on fairly well, and, with
+the exception of <i>festas</i>, require few holidays. They prefer to work on
+Sundays, and grumble at their English employers, who generally split the
+difference, by closing their shops for half a day. They look upon this
+as a grievance, however much they may be assured that it makes no
+difference in their wages.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/f292.jpg" width="550" height="375" alt="A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA" title="A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA" />
+<span class="caption">A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A very hard-working class of men are the Gallegos, the natives of
+Galicia, who are nearly as numerous in Lisbon as they were when Napier
+wrote, and where, then as now, they act as porters, messengers,
+scavengers, and water-carriers, and <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">{293}</a></span>are found in all sorts of lowly
+and laborious occupations. As porters and messengers, they have an
+excellent reputation for honesty, and for being most civil and obliging.
+Gallenga, a fairly shrewd observer, considers that the employment of
+these Spaniards has deplorable effects on the character of the
+Portuguese nation. I cannot go all the way with him in the gloomy view
+he takes of it, but it must be conceded that the existence of such a
+body of aliens (estimated at twelve thousand in Lisbon alone) working
+hard and well at occupations which the Portuguese will not do at all,
+or, if they attempt them, will do indifferently; herding together some
+ten or twelve in a small room, living on maize bread and a clove of
+garlic washed down with water; accepting thankfully a very attenuated
+hire, and yet contriving to send substantial savings back to
+Galicia,&mdash;must considerably affect the labour market and tend to keep
+wages low. They also close certain forms of labour to the native worker,
+and cause these industries to be looked on with contempt.</p>
+
+<p>In towns like Lisbon and Oporto a great number of persons are employed
+in the fish trade. The fish-girls, with their distinctive costumes,
+their bare feet, and the graceful poise of the heavy basket of fish on
+their heads, are a very characteristic feature of both towns. The
+costumes differ in the two cities, mainly in the head-gear, but they are
+both picturesque and dirty, and emit the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">{294}</a></span>same "ancient and fish-like
+smell." The men, too, with their bare legs and feet, balancing a long
+pole on the shoulder, with a basket of fish at each end, will cover a
+marvellous amount of ground in a day at the curious trotting pace which
+they affect. Miles inland these men will carry their finny wares,
+stopping at the public water-supplies to moisten the cloth which
+protects the fish from the sun and dust. These may or may not be fresh
+when the day's work is nearly done, but housewives purchasing a supply
+in the afternoon had better keep a very sharp look-out.</p>
+
+<p>Fish plays an important part in the domestic economy of dwellers within
+a reasonable distance of the sea, and forms a considerable item in the
+food-stuffs of the working classes. It is fairly cheap, and is cooked so
+as to get the full value of it. More important than the fresh fish is
+the salted cod (<i>bacalhao</i>). This, which Napier described as "the
+ordinary food of the Portuguese," is the backbone of the worker's
+<i>menu</i>. It is not fragrant, nor is it inviting in aspect in its raw
+state, but it is said to be highly nutritive, and it can certainly be
+cooked in ways which make it appetising. The midday meal, which the wife
+brings to her husband at his work, and shares with him as they sit in
+the shade, is often composed of a <i>caldo</i> (soup) made of <i>bacalhao</i>, or
+of all sorts of oddments, thickened with beans and flavoured with
+garlic, accompanied by a bit of rye-bread or of <i>broa</i>, the bread made
+from maize.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">{295}</a></span> These soups and breads, accompanied by salads, onions,
+tomatoes, and other vegetables, washed down with draughts of a light red
+table-wine of little alcoholic strength, form the not unwholesome
+average diet of the worker with his hands. If he wants to get drunk, he
+can do so, with some difficulty, by imbibing sufficient wine, but the
+easiest method is to drink the fearful crude spirit <i>aguardente</i>. If he
+survives, he gets horribly, brutally drunk, and possibly does some
+mischief before he recovers. But it is only fair to say that he but
+rarely gets drunk, and that when he is thirsty he quenches his thirst
+with water, with a harmless decoction of herbs or lemonade, or with the
+almost innocuous wine. This sobriety is not the result of any temperance
+legislation or restrictions. No license is required for opening a shop
+for the sale of liquor. Only revenue dues and <i>octroi</i> duties have to be
+paid, and, of course, there is a liability to police supervision, which
+provides the police with a means of increasing their very inadequate pay
+by bribes or blackmail.</p>
+
+<p>The amusements of the workman in the town are few enough, and mostly of
+a domestic character. He sits on his doorstep, or on a bench in the
+nearest gardens. He smokes the eternal cigarette, gossips with his
+neighbours, plays with his children, and pets the cat. His only real
+playtimes are the <i>festas</i>, when for some hours he indulges in
+revelry&mdash;if, indeed, it be worthy of such a title. He reads the
+newspaper but little,&mdash;if <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">{296}</a></span>he can read at all,&mdash;which is, perhaps, a
+good thing for him, and he is generally a Republican. This Republicanism
+is mostly academic, but the "red" type is not wanting, and a fiery
+spirit might be roused at any time, with consequences that cannot be
+foreseen. Of course, the younger men tinkle the guitar, and make love
+more or less openly to the girls. When age overtakes a man or misfortune
+overpowers him, there is no poor law to take him in charge, but there
+are extensive and well-organised charities in every centre which are
+eager and willing to assist those who are temporarily afflicted, and to
+afford sustenance&mdash;a bare sustenance, perhaps&mdash;to those who are
+permanently disabled.</p>
+
+<p>The amusements of the town&mdash;the theatre, the concert, and the opera&mdash;do
+not affect the workman much; his budget does not allow of such
+indulgence, except on the occasion of a free performance. Though they
+are fairly musical and love the theatre, the Portuguese have no really
+&aelig;sthetic side to their character. There is a queer song and dance,
+topical and rather broad, the <i>chula</i>, the somewhat monotonous refrain
+of which is to be heard everywhere and at all hours, and from all
+manners of lips. The washerwomen kneeling by the brook bang the
+unfortunate clothes on the flat stones in rhythm with the tune, and
+beguile the time with the interminable song. It arises in unexpected
+places, and is a fairly sure item in the gathering of the younger folk,
+both in <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">{297}</a></span>towns and villages, in the cool of the evening. Concerts and
+theatres are fairly patronised by the more moneyed classes, but the
+performances are not, as a rule, of a very high calibre. There is a
+subsidised theatre at Lisbon, but it does little to elevate the dramatic
+art elsewhere.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;">
+<img class="biggap" src="images/297.jpg" width="250" height="146" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">{298}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/298.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>PORTUGUESE INSTITUTIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="fletter">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> Portuguese army is raised by conscription, each parish, according to
+size, having to contribute an annual quota of young men between twenty
+and twenty-one years of age. These have to serve three consecutive years
+with the colours, and then pass into the reserve for another ten years.
+During the latter period no conscript can leave the country without a
+passport. In time of peace the army is supposed to number about thirty
+thousand men, and on the war footing should consist of about one hundred
+and twenty thousand men and two hundred and sixty-four guns. The men,
+who in summer wear brown holland clothes, look hardy enough, and,
+according to ordinary report, are worthy of the plucky <i>ca&ccedil;adores</i> of
+the Peninsular War, who, according to Napier, made most excellent
+soldiers when properly led. It is still said of the Portuguese soldier
+that with three beans in his pocket he can march and fight for a week
+without making any further demands upon the commissariat department.
+This military service does not affect the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">{299}</a></span>nation much, either morally
+or physically, and the only economical effect is probably that it
+provides a fruitful source of plunder to corrupt officials. As any man
+can free himself of the three years' service with the colours by paying
+a sum of about &pound;24, it may be imagined what an opening this affords for
+special peculation.</p>
+
+<p>The navy consists of about five thousand men, and of a few modern
+war-ships, and of some old boats whose seaworthiness is questionable.
+The best ship at present on the list is the cruiser <i>Dom Carlos</i>, which
+was sent to take part in the naval pageant which formed the first
+portion of the funeral of Queen Victoria. The sailors, who are much to
+be seen in Lisbon, where the great naval barracks are situated, look
+smart enough, and as the Portuguese have always been good sailors, it
+may safely be predicted that, in case of necessity, they will make the
+most of the limited means at their disposal, or of such of them as have
+not been utterly ruined by official indifference or worse.</p>
+
+<p>In the towns one meets men in various employments, such as the police,
+who have served in the army, and still retain some sort of soldierly
+appearance, but once get into the country, and it is vain to look for
+any evidence of military service amongst the rural population.</p>
+
+<p>The country-folk are a patient lot; most of them ruminants, like their
+own oxen. Sleepy always, and slow in their movements, they are <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">{300}</a></span>often
+devoted to the farm, or <i>quinta</i>, on which they work, and are, perhaps,
+slightly more honest than their fellows in the towns. They are frugal
+enough, and enjoy their huge junks of dark bread, washed down with
+water, at their midday meal, and a sound sleep under the shade of an
+orange tree or a eucalyptus, or a bit of a wall, until it is necessary
+to begin work again. The peasant costumes are not inviting; they are
+simply squalid. Costumes in the towns are much better. Still, on festal
+days the village women deck themselves out with bright-hued shawls, and
+the men wind brighter scarfs round their waists to keep up their
+patchwork trousers, and thus relieve what would otherwise be the
+intolerable dinginess of the whole scene. The farmer himself, mounted on
+his mule, with high-peaked saddle and enormous wooden stirrups decorated
+with brass, his cloak, with the bright scarlet or blue lining folded
+outwards, strapped on in front, with his short jacket and broad-brimmed
+hat, offers a smart and typical figure.</p>
+
+<p>In town or country, the beautiful oxen are worthy of admiration. They
+are the most satisfactory of all the rural animals. Horses, shabby and
+attenuated, little sheep of a colour from black to dirty grey, showing
+affinity to goats, and having neither the grace of the latter nor the
+sleepy comeliness of our own sheep, black and white cows whose points
+would not be much thought of by judges at an agricultural show, goats of
+all <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">{301}</a></span>sorts of breeds, and finally pigs of a most lanky and uninviting
+appearance, form the stock of the farms. Heaps of chickens of all sorts
+run about everywhere, and enjoy fine dust-baths by the side of the road.</p>
+
+<p>The aspect of the country varies much between north and south. In the
+former, one sees real grass and hedges, and the bright flowers that are
+common everywhere look all the better for their green background. The
+commonest hedge in the south, and occasionally in the north, is made of
+a few layers of stones loosely laid together with a row of aloe plants
+on the top. These grow formidable in time, with huge sharp-pointed
+leaves, and they present a curious appearance when at intervals in such
+a row plants send up their huge flowering stems from nine to twelve feet
+high, looking at a little distance like telegraph poles.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the squalid clothes of the peasants, there are many picturesque
+aspects of rural life. The driving of large herds of cattle by mounted
+men, armed with long goads, is an interesting as well as an artistic
+sight, and the same may be said of the primitive agricultural
+occupations. The crops are harvested with a sickle, and you may wake up
+some morning to see the field opposite your house invaded by some twenty
+to thirty reapers, men and women, boys and girls, patiently sawing their
+way through the wheat or barley, or whatever it is. The corn is threshed
+out with the <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">{302}</a></span>flail, or trodden out by the oxen&mdash;all operations fair to
+look upon. Forms of cultivation interesting to watch are the very
+primitive ploughing, the hoeing of the maize, and all those connected
+with the culture of the vines and the orange and other fruit trees, and
+especially the irrigation, which is so important to these latter. In
+fact, one of the most charming of rural sights is the old water-wheel,
+groaning and creaking as it is turned by the patient ox or mule or pony,
+splashing the cool water from the well out of its earthen pots&mdash;each
+with a hole in the bottom&mdash;and discharging it into the trough leading to
+the irrigation channels or to the reservoir from which the water may
+afterwards be let off in the required direction.</p>
+
+<p>But agriculture is not always so backward and primitive. There are great
+landowners and large farmers who use the newest and best agricultural
+implements. The Government does what it can to encourage the use of
+artificial manures, and there are societies which render important
+services to agriculturists and to fruit-growers. Amid such labours live
+the quiet country-folk. They have no thought of anything; they have no
+special amusements beyond an occasional <i>festa</i> and a dance. They sit
+round the village well in the evening, and when not talking scandal,
+tell stories about&mdash;"Once upon a time there was a poor widow with one or
+more daughters," or "There was once a king's son"&mdash;often a Moorish
+king.<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">{303}</a></span> The old well-known tales reappear, modified to the Portuguese
+character and morality.</p>
+
+<p>The following is a story taken from Braga's excellent book: "There was,
+once upon a time, a poor widow that had only one daughter. This girl,
+going out to bathe in the river with her companions on St. John's eve,
+at the advice of one of her friends, placed her ear-rings on the top of
+a stone, lest she should lose them in the water. While she was playing
+about in the river an old man passed along, who, seeing the ear-rings,
+took them and placed them in a leather bag he was carrying. The poor
+child was much grieved at this, and ran after the old man, who consented
+to restore her belongings if she would search for them inside his sack.
+This the girl did, and forthwith the artful old man closed the mouth of
+the bag and carried her off therein. He subsequently told her that she
+must help him to gain a living, and that whenever he recited&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">'Sing, sack,</div>
+<div class="verse">Else thou wilt be beaten with a stick!'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noind">she was to sing lustily. Wherever they came he placed his sack on the
+ground, and addressed the above formula to it, when the poor girl sang
+as loud as she could:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="verse">'I am placed in this sack,</div>
+<div class="verse">Where my life I shall lose,</div>
+<div class="verse">For love of my ear-rings,</div>
+<div class="verse">Which I left in the stream.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">{304}</a></span>The old man obtained much money from the audiences attracted by his
+singing leather bag. The authorities of one town, however, became
+suspicious, and, examining the sack while its owner was asleep, found
+and released the child. They filled up the bag with all the filth they
+could pick up, and left it where they had found it. The little girl was
+sent back to her mother. When the old man woke next morning, and took
+out the sack to earn his breakfast, the usual incantation had no effect,
+and when he applied the threatened stick the bag burst, and all the
+filth came out, which he was compelled to lick up by the enraged
+populace." At the close of the story the cigarettes glow, the white
+teeth gleam, the bushy whiskers wag, the old women chuckle, the girls
+giggle, and the youths snigger, and as the short twilight is now over,
+the group breaks up, and each vanishes into his or her own
+vermin-pasture to sleep until <i>amanh&atilde;</i> has actually become to-day, and
+the sun shines on another exact repetition of yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>The Portuguese are superstitious, and are devout up to a certain point,
+and the clerics are exceedingly intolerant. In the morning one sees, as
+in all Roman Catholic countries, devout worshippers kneeling about in
+the churches before their favourite shrines, but, unlike the practice of
+most Roman Catholic countries, the churches are closed at or about noon
+for the most part, and are only open for special masses after that time.
+The procession of the Host is greeted with most <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">{305}</a></span>extreme reverence, and
+whether it be in the fashionable Chiado at Lisbon or along a country
+lane, all uncover and make the sign of the cross, and many, even
+fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen, kneel down and bow themselves
+humbly as the sacred wafer passes by, borne by the gorgeously vested
+priest; at least, in the cities the vestments are gorgeous, and a long
+train of acolytes and attendants makes the procession imposing, but in
+the country the vestments are often mildewed and decayed, and the one or
+two rustic attendants are not dignified in appearance. Still, the sacred
+symbol is the same, and the reverence and the devotion are the same.</p>
+
+<p>There is an excessive hierarchy for the size of the country, there being
+in Portugal proper three ecclesiastical provinces, ruled respectively by
+the Patriarch of Lisbon and by the Archbishops of Braga and Evora.
+Besides these, there is the colonial province which is ruled by the
+Archbishop of Goa, Archpriests and other dignitaries abound, so that a
+priest has something to look forward to in the way of promotion; and
+yet, as a rule, the priests perform their duties without zeal and in a
+slovenly manner. One often hears it said that their behaviour and their
+morality leave much to be desired. There are among them gentlemen of
+blameless life and even of ascetic practices, but it is commonly
+reported that, as a whole, they are of inferior birth and education. It
+is not easy for a stranger to form any opinion <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">{306}</a></span>on these points, but it
+must be conceded that their appearance is generally suggestive of the
+truth of the statement, and it may be admitted that there is an undue
+proportion of ignoble and sensuous faces amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>Funerals are occasions of great pomp, and are often picturesque enough,
+while the masses for the dead at intervals after and on the anniversary
+are, no doubt, profitable to the Church. By attending these one has a
+good opportunity of testifying to the esteem in which the deceased was
+held, or to one's good will towards the family or representatives. These
+masses are generally advertised in the papers, with thanks to those
+friends who have attended funeral masses. As there is scarcely any
+intellectual activity in Portugal, there is practically no religious
+thought. A dull acquiescence in the dictates of the Church may be
+crossed by an occasional gleam of rebellion against sacerdotalism,
+roused by some temporary stirring up of the hatred felt against the
+Jesuits. But it in no way alters the habitual attitude of the people
+towards religion and its outward manifestations. One thing is certain,
+and that is that in town or country a man or a woman must be in the
+lowest depths of poverty and distress to refuse to throw a few <i>reis</i>
+into the bags of the licensed mendicants who, bareheaded, and clad in
+scarlet or white gowns, go round soliciting alms for the support of the
+churches on whose behalf they are sent out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">{307}</a></span>As is customary in most countries, the women are more amenable to
+religious influences than the men, and are more under the dominion of
+the priest. This is not likely to be altered yet awhile, for, under the
+present system of education and bringing up, the female portion of the
+community is not only not intellectual, but may even be described as
+being unintelligent. They are slovenly, and cannot be described as good
+housewives. They are pleasure-loving and garrulous, though this latter
+trait is not, I suppose, a specially national characteristic. They do
+much hard work, especially in the fields. In the classes above (if
+<i>above</i> be the proper word) the hand-workers, the young girls are still
+kept very strictly, and are not allowed to go out alone. Their knowledge
+of life is limited to the view from the windows of their homes, where
+they may be seen looking out on the street scenes below whenever the
+shade allows them to stand at the window or on the balcony. No "new
+woman" movement of any importance has yet taken place, and though there
+are modifications in woman's position in the national life, it is
+probable that it will take one if not more generations before women in
+Portugal achieve the emancipation which their sisters have attained in
+more progressive countries.</p>
+
+<p>In one circumstance, however, woman does take her place by the side of
+man, and that is in the bull-ring&mdash;not, indeed, in the arena, but in
+<span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">{308}</a></span>every part of the amphitheatre, from the worst seats on the sunny side
+to the costly boxes in the shade. She takes as great an interest in the
+bull-fight as the man, and if she does not shout and swear, or fling her
+hat into the ring in her enthusiasm, she delights probably more than the
+man in the beauty of the spectacle, and appreciates almost as fully the
+feats of skill and daring which give such special attraction to the
+national pastime. This is a right royal sport, and as in Portugal the
+horrid cruelty which defaces it in Spain is absent, there is no
+overwhelming reason why the women should not sit and applaud the
+picturesque scene and the exhibitions of pluck and agility shown by the
+performers.</p>
+
+<p>The scene is really magnificent, and the enthusiasm of the audience must
+be witnessed in order to understand the underlying potentialities of the
+Portuguese character. The vile abuse of a bull who will not show fight
+is comical to listen to. Probably, in such a case, the bull has been
+through it all before, and he does not care to make wild rushes at
+cloaks which have nothing substantial behind them. So he paws up the
+sand and looks theatrical, but refuses to budge. Then a nimble
+<i>bandarilhero</i> faces him, and fixes a pair of <i>bandarilhas</i> in his
+neck&mdash;one on each side if he can manage it. This is unpleasant, no
+doubt, but the bull's former experience tells him that it is not
+serious, and not even very painful. It was irritating the first time,
+but no well-bred <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">{309}</a></span>bull should condescend to be upset by such a trifle.
+Another pair of <i>bandarilhas</i>, and yet another, are fixed into his
+shoulders by their barbed points&mdash;or the attempt is made to fix them.
+Then the bull begins to play the game in a condescending sort of way.
+Then the great man, the <i>espada</i> himself, comes on the scene, and
+arranges and waves his scarlet flag, and walks up to the obstinate
+animal, perhaps flicks him in the nostrils with his pocket-handkerchief
+and calls him <i>vacca</i> (cow)! At last, seemingly out of good nature, the
+bull rushes at the red flag, has the highly decorated dart stuck between
+his shoulders, by the daring <i>espada</i> who may perform some other feat,
+listens to the applause, and laughs to himself when he hears the
+bugle-call and sees the trained oxen rush in with their long bells and
+their attendant herdsmen, and with more or less of a frolicsome air he
+trots out of the arena in their company and, having had his sore
+shoulders attended to, and having had a good feed, chews the cud with a
+pleasant reminiscence of the afternoon's work. It is a mistake not to
+kill the bull, which is not cruel in itself, but which would prevent
+some rather tiresome interludes when a knowing old bull refuses to be
+coaxed into playing his part of the game.</p>
+
+<p>Far different, however, is the scene when a really spirited bull comes
+in with a rush and charges wildly at the brightly attired performers,
+and makes them skip over the barrier, often <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">{310}</a></span>leaving their cloaks behind
+them. Sometimes the bull skips over too, and then there is a most
+amusing scene, as performers, attendants, and all vault back over the
+barrier into the ring itself. When the <i>espada</i> finally performs his
+courageous feat under such conditions, he obtains such an ovation as his
+skill deserves. Hats of all sorts and shapes are cast to him in the
+arena, which he has to pick up and throw or hand back to the admirers
+who testify their satisfaction in this curious manner. Cigars, also, are
+thrown at the successful bull-fighter's feet, and these he keeps. The
+most famous <i>espadas</i> are all Spaniards, and they all wear the
+traditional dress of their calling. If, on the one hand, there is not
+the thrill of the actual killing of the bull, on the other there are no
+miserable old horses to be ripped up, and no smell of blood. Next to the
+actual bull-fights come the selections of the young bulls from the
+herds, when the members of the Tauromachian Societies exhibit their
+skill, and where many a gay young fellow gets much knocked about in
+exhibiting his agility or the want of it.</p>
+
+<p>Other sports cannot be said to have any marked existence. Dancing is a
+national amusement, and a few of the Anglicised Portuguese go in for
+cricket and lawn-tennis. Cycling, though not unknown, is far from
+common, the roads being, as a rule, much too bad for comfortable or even
+for safe riding.</p>
+
+<p>Local and provincial government leaves much <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">{311}</a></span>to be desired in Portugal.
+The keeping up of the roads is inconceivably bad. A royal road (<i>estrada
+real</i>) is generally the worst of all, and, with such an example before
+them, it is not to be wondered at that local authorities neglect their
+duties in this matter.</p>
+
+<p>"No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want of
+good police regulations." This quotation from Napier might very well be
+written to-day, and extended to include all Portuguese towns. Perhaps it
+is fair to say that it is not so much the regulations that are at fault
+as the incompetence and indifference of each local authority, which
+irresistibly suggest that corruption alone can account for such a mass
+of evil. The administrative machine is elaborate, and ought to be more
+effective. First, there is the district, ruled by the Civil Governor, an
+officer somewhat resembling a French prefect, with its corporate body
+known as the District Commission. There are seventeen districts, which
+are subdivided into two hundred and sixty-two communes. The head of a
+commune is the Administrator, and the corporation is known as the
+Municipal Chamber. The last subdivision is that of the communes into
+parishes, of which there are three thousand seven hundred and
+thirty-five. Each of these has as its head an officer called a
+<i>regedor</i>, and occupies the attention of a <i>junta de parochia</i>, or
+parish council.</p>
+
+<p>The scavenging, sanitation, watering, paving, <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">{312}</a></span>and all the other works
+which fall within the sphere of the municipality or local authority are
+defective and neglected. The one bright point, both in Oporto and
+Lisbon, is the care, skill, and attention with which the public gardens
+and squares are tended. The palms, tree-ferns, cacti, and other
+semi-tropical and sub-tropical plants are beautiful in themselves, and
+are arranged and intermingled with other trees and shrubs in a most
+artistic manner. The grass (upon which no one, of course, may walk) is
+kept green by constant watering, and affords a delightful contrast to
+the generally dry and dusty aspect of the city. Another organisation
+which is generally efficient and well conducted is that of the fire
+brigades. The municipal firemen&mdash;the <i>bombeiros</i>&mdash;are often stimulated
+by a healthy rivalry with the volunteer brigades, which are numerous,
+well found, and, as a rule, well managed. The latter are often centres
+of good charitable work outside their actual fire service, and they are
+valuable as offering a fair and worthy opportunity for the display of
+sound public spirit and good feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Though Portuguese laws are, as a rule, admirable in themselves, the
+administration thereof is bad in the extreme, and the judiciary have a
+reputation for turpitude remarkable even amongst the recognised
+corruption of all officials. In Portugal proper there are two judicial
+districts&mdash;that of Lisbon and that of Oporto. Each has a high court
+known as a <i>Rela&ccedil;&atilde;o</i>, and there are inferior <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">{313}</a></span>courts of various styles
+and titles. Above all is the Supreme Tribunal of Justice at Lisbon,
+which is the final court of appeal, and the reputation of which is
+somewhat better than that of any other tribunal. The administration of
+criminal justice is naturally amongst the worst. According to common
+repute, the only consideration with the judges is how they are to get
+the costs paid&mdash;whether they are more likely to obtain them through an
+acquittal, which throws them on the prosecutor, or by a conviction.
+Also, it is generally said that the police themselves are recruited from
+amongst the very lowest classes.</p>
+
+<p>The prisons are described as being something awful, only to be equalled
+in Morocco and savage countries. In the market-place of beautiful Cintra
+stands the prison, against the barred windows of which crowd the
+prisoners, begging for money, cigarettes, and food, which are supplied
+to them through the prison bars by their friends and sympathisers, and
+by soft-hearted people. Those who are incarcerated in the upper story
+have baskets, which they lower by means of strings, so that they may be
+supplied in the same manner. This seems to have amused Miss Leck
+(<i>Iberian Sketches</i>, Chap. VI.), but it assumes a much more serious
+aspect when one considers that in those filthy dens all the prisoners
+are huddled together&mdash;old men and boys, the murderer and the petty
+thief, habitual criminals and unfortunate persons taken into custody on
+mere suspicion, or charged <span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">{314}</a></span>with an alleged breach of some police or
+even railway regulation; for it must be remembered that a station-master
+has nearly the same power as a policeman in taking a person into
+custody. "No one shall be put in prison," says the Portuguese code,
+"except under special circumstances"; but when the exceptions are
+considered, they are found to cover nearly every abuse of authority on
+the part of the pettiest official which can be conceived. Hence, all
+persons are obliged to submit to gross injustice and to a certain amount
+of blackmail if they wish to avoid the noisome experiences of a
+Portuguese gaol.</p>
+
+<p>The Portuguese must be undoubtedly "of a docile and orderly
+disposition," as Napier says, or the crying injustices to which they
+submit with such patience would lead them to revolt; and if this were to
+happen, who could attempt to predict what excesses would be left
+uncommitted by a violent southron mob whose passions had been roused to
+such a pitch of activity? Perhaps <i>paciencia</i> and <i>amanh&atilde;</i> have their
+utility, and enable the people to bear the ills they have. They can even
+joke and caricature themselves, and though the comic journals are
+neither brilliant nor artistic, they show, at least, that a sense of
+humour is still left in our Lusitanian friends.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">{315}</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/index_il.jpg" width="450" height="103" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="gap">INDEX</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Academies</span>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
+
+<li>Actors, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
+
+<li>Agriculture, <a href="#Page_167">167</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Alfonso XII., <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+
+<li>Alfonso XIII., <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+
+<li>Amadeo, King, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>American War, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Amusements, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Andaluces, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Andalucia, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Apostolic party, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>Aragon, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>Army, <a href="#Page_183">183</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Art, <a href="#Page_236">236</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Artillery, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li>Artistic furniture, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>Arts and crafts, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>Asturian nurses, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li>Asturias, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li>Asturias, Princess of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li>Austrian kings, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Autos-da-f&eacute;</i>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Bank</span> of Spain, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li>Barcelona, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Basque Provinces, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li>Basques, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Beggars, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li>Berwick y Alva, Duke of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">{316}</a></span>Bilbao, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Boletin de la C&aacute;mara de Comercio</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Bueyes</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Bull-fighters, <a href="#Page_126">126</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Bulls, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Bureaucracy, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap"><i>Cabestros</i></span>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
+
+<li>Caciqueism, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>C&aelig;sars, Spanish, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Camarilla</i>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li>Campoamor, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li>C&aacute;novas del Castillo, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Capital, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+
+<li>Carlos, Don, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
+
+<li>Carriages, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>-90</li>
+
+<li>Casa de Campo, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Castelar, <a href="#Page_139">139</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li><i>Castellano</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Castile, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>Castilians, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>Catalans, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li>Catalu&ntilde;a, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Cats, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Cervantes, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Cervera, Admiral, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Cesantes</i>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-147</li>
+
+<li>Characteristics, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li>
+
+<li>Charitable institutions, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li>Charles III., <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Charles V., <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>Children, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li>Church, the, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li>Cigar industry, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Clerical question, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+
+<li>Climate of Madrid, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">{317}</a></span>Climates of Spain, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li>Cock-fighting, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>Colonies, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Commerce, <a href="#Page_156">156</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Concas Palan, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li>Confessional, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
+
+<li>Conscription, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li>Constitution, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li>Consumption, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+
+<li>Costume, national, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
+
+<li>Courage, <a href="#Page_42">42</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Court, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Cristina, Queen, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+
+<li>Cuba, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Dance</span> and song, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Dances, modern, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+
+<li>Dances, national, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Dances, religious, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Daoiz y Valarde, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>Democratic feeling, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>Dignity, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>Donkeys, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Dos de Mayo</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>Drama, modern, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Dramas, religious, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>-212</li>
+
+<li>Dress of Spanish women, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Echegaray</span>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
+
+<li>Education, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li>Electra, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
+
+<li>Electrical science, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li>Elephant and bull, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+
+<li>Emperors, Roman, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Empleomania</i>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>Engineers, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">{318}</a></span>Espinosa, Monteros de, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>Estremadura, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>Etiquette of Spanish Court, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Exports, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Factories</span>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand and Isabella, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li>Ferdinand VII., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Feria</i> of Seville, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Fertility of soil, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Fiestas</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
+
+<li>Flowers, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+
+<li>Folklore, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Ford, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>French influence, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+
+<li>Fuente Castellana, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Fueros</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Fueros</i> of Aragon, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Gala</span> procession, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Gald&oacute;s, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li>
+
+<li>Galicia, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li>Gallegos, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
+
+<li>Games, national, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Gayangos, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+
+<li>Geographical features, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
+
+<li>Gloriosa, La, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>Goths, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Government, <a href="#Page_142">142</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Government, local, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>Grandes of Spain, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Guitar, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Hippodrome</span>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li>Horse-racing, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li>Horses, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>et seq.</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">{319}</a></span></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Iberian</span> rejon, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li>Iberian unity, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Incas, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Independence, War of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li>Industries, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Infantas, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li>Influence of the Press, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li>Inquisition, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li>
+
+<li>Irrigated land, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>Irrigation, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Isabel II., <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li>
+
+<li>Isabel la Cat&oacute;lica, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Jaime, Don</span>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Jota Aragonesa</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li>
+
+<li>Jesuits, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+
+<li>Journalists, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">King Alfonso XIII.</span>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+
+<li>Kings, Austrian, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Kings, Bourbon, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Labour</span>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li>Lace, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+
+<li>Lagartijo, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Land and people, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
+
+<li>Land laws, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+
+<li>Landscape round Madrid, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+
+<li>Land value, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>Language, <a href="#Page_266">266</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Literature, modern, <a href="#Page_246">246</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Madrazo</span>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
+
+<li>Madrid, modern, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Madrid, old, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Ma&ntilde;ana</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>Manners, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">{320}</a></span>Mantilla, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
+
+<li>Manufactures, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Manzanares, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li>Marriage customs, <a href="#Page_229">229</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Medical science, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Meetings, political, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendiz&aacute;bal, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>Metal work, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>Military system, <a href="#Page_183">183</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Mineral wealth, <a href="#Page_160">160</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Montpensier, Duke of, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Moors, <a href="#Page_17">17</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Mules, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
+
+<li>Music, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Narvaez</span>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>National feeling, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li>National games, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>Navy, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Newspapers, <a href="#Page_132">132</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Nicknames, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Noche Buena</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Orders</span>, religious, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li>
+
+<li>Ostriches, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Outlook, <a href="#Page_260">260</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Oxen, draught, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Pacing</span> horses, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li>Painters, <a href="#Page_239">239</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Palace Royal, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Palaci&ouml;</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>Pardo Bazan, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Pardo, el, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Parque de Madrid, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pasos</i>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li>
+
+<li>Passion plays, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">{321}</a></span>Pav&iacute;a, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pavo, pelando el</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li>
+
+<li>Peasants, <a href="#Page_24">24</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Pelayo, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pelota</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>People, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Philip II., <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li>
+
+<li>Pigs, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li>Poetry, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li>
+
+<li>Politeness, national, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Political parties, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Politicians, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pollos</i> and <i>pollas</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li>Ports and harbours, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
+
+<li>Pottery, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>Poverty, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li>Press, <a href="#Page_129">129</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Priesthood, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li>
+
+<li>Prim, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-144</li>
+
+<li>Procrastination, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Productive land, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Pronunciamientos</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li>Protestants, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li>
+
+<li>Pyrenees, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Queen Cristina</span>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li>Queen Merc&eacute;des, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Quemadero</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li>Quijote, Don, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Quixotic characteristics, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Race</span>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Railways, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Regent, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li>Religion, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Republic, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li>Restoration, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">{322}</a></span>Revolution, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>Rice, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li>Riding, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li>Roads, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li>Roman Spain, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Romero Robledo, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Sagasta</span>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Sala</i>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Salic Law, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>Schools, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Seises, los</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+
+<li>Sericulture, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li>Serrano, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>Sheep, merino, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+
+<li>Shipping, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
+
+<li>Silk manufactures, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li>Silvela, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>Smoking, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>
+
+<li>Society, <a href="#Page_55">55</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Songs, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li>Songs and dancing, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li>
+
+<li>Spanish-American War, I, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Sugar industry, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li>Superstitions popular, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Teatro Real</span>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li>Telegraphic system, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li>Terror of 1824, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Tertulia</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Theatres, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Tobacco, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Toledo, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li>Toothpicks, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Toreros</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Tribunal de las Aguas</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">{323}</a></span></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Universities</span>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Usted, de</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Valencia</span>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Valera, Juan, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Velo</i>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
+
+<li>Verse-making, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li>
+
+<li>Virgin, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">War</span> of Independence, <a href="#Page_45">45</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>War, Spanish-American, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Wars, Carlist, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
+
+<li>Water, want of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+
+<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li>Weyler, General, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li>Wines, <a href="#Page_162">162</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+
+<li>Women, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>Wood-carving, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>Woollen manufactures, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+
+<li>Working men, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap"><i>Zarzuela</i></span>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Zorilla, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Zortico zorisco</i>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h4>PORTUGUESE LIFE</h4>
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Agriculture</span>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Aloes, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Amanh&atilde;</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
+
+<li>Amusements, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Army, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
+
+<li>Artisan class, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap"><i>Bacalhao</i></span>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li>
+
+<li>Bargaining, love of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Brazilian elements, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>-291</li>
+
+<li>Bull-fighting, <a href="#Page_307">307</a> <i>et seq.</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">{324}</a></span></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Camoens</span>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li>Characteristics, <a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
+
+<li>Charities, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Chula</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Cleanliness, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Coimbra, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Costumes, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
+
+<li>Customs, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Dances</span>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Decorations and forms of address, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Fish</span>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li>
+
+<li>Fish-girls, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+
+<li>Funerals, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Gallegos</span>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
+
+<li>Gallenga, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+
+<li>Government, local, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Insects</span>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li>
+
+<li>Institutions, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
+
+<li>Intellectual life, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Land</span> and people, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
+
+<li>Language, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Laws, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
+
+<li>Lisbon, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li>Londonderry, Lord, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Manners</span> and morality, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Medical training, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
+
+<li>Military system, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
+
+<li>Mineral wealth, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Moustachios</i>, ladies', <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">National</span> fare, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">{325}</a></span>Navy, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li>
+
+<li>Newspapers, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap"><i>Octroi</i></span> duties, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
+
+<li>Oporto, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+
+<li>Oxen, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Peninsular</span> War, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
+
+<li>Police, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+
+<li>Postal service, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
+
+<li>Prisons, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Religion</span>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Scenery</span>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
+
+<li>Servants, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li>
+
+<li>Society, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">University</span>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Wages</span>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
+
+<li>Wealth, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
+
+<li>Wealth, mineral, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li>Women, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px;">
+<img class="gap" src="images/345.jpg" width="280" height="61" alt="Decorative motif" title="Decorative motif" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">{326}</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>Our European Neighbours</h2>
+
+<p class="center noind">Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON</p>
+
+<table summary="editions">
+<tr><td>12&ordm;. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="fright">1.30</span>By Mail.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>I.&mdash;FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Hannah Lynch</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Miss Lynch's pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her
+style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback
+of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly
+between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page
+description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a
+capital piece of work.... Such well finished portraits are frequent in
+Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real
+excellence."&mdash;<i>The London Academy.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lynch's book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series
+describing the home and social life of various European peoples&mdash;a
+series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is
+frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book
+which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special
+excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her
+continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up
+her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.'
+"&mdash;<i>The Outlook</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>II.&mdash;GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">W. H. Dawson</span>, author of "Germany and the Germans," etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and
+well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend
+it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into
+German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and
+strongest in Europe."&mdash;<i>Commercial Advertiser</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>III.&mdash;RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Francis H. E. Palmer</span>, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince
+Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those
+seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and
+conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more
+voluminous tomes.... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys
+practically all that well-informed people should know of 'Our European
+Neighbours.'"&mdash;<i>Mail and Express.</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">{327}</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>IV.&mdash;DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">P. M. Hough</span>, B.A.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"There is no other book which gives one so clear a picture of actual
+life in the Netherlands at the present date. For its accurate
+presentation of the Dutch situation in art, letters, learning, and
+politics as well as in the round of common life in town and city, this
+book deserves the heartiest praise."&mdash;<i>Evening Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work
+its charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people,
+their quaint characteristics, their conservative retention of old
+dress and customs, their quiet abstention from taking part in the
+great affairs of the world are clearly reflected in this faithful
+mirror. The illustrations are of a high grade of photographic
+reproductions."&mdash;<i>Washington Post.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>V.&mdash;SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Alfred T. Story</span>, author of the "Building of the British Empire," etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"We do not know a single compact book on the same subject in which Swiss
+character in all its variety finds so sympathetic and yet thorough
+treatment; the reason of this being that the author has enjoyed
+privileges of unusual intimacy with all classes, which prevented his
+lumping the people as a whole without distinction of racial and cantonal
+feeling."&mdash;<i>Nation.</i></p>
+
+<p>"There is no phase of the lives of these sturdy republicans, whether
+social or political, which Mr. Story does not touch upon; and an
+abundance of illustrations drawn from unhackneyed subjects adds to the
+value of the book."&mdash;<i>Chicago Dial.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>VI.-SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">L. Higgin</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Illuminating in all of its chapters. She writes in thorough sympathy,
+born of long and intimate acquaintance with Spanish people of
+to-day."&mdash;<i>St. Paul Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The author knows her subject thoroughly and has written a most
+admirable volume. She writes with genuine love for the Spaniards, and
+with a sympathetic knowledge of their character and their method of
+life."&mdash;<i>Canada Methodist Review.</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">{328}</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>VII.&mdash;ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Luigi Villari</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"A most interesting and instructive volume, which presents an intimate
+view of the social habits and manner of thought of the people of which
+it treats."&mdash;<i>Buffalo Express.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A book full of information, comprehensive and accurate. Its numerous
+attractive illustrations add to its interest and value. We are glad to
+welcome such an addition to an excellent series."&mdash;<i>Syracuse Herald.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>VIII.&mdash;DANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Jessie H. Brochner</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Miss Brochner has written an interesting book on a fascinating subject,
+a book which should arouse an interest in Denmark in those who have not
+been there, and which can make those who know and are attracted by the
+country very homesick to return."&mdash;<i>Commercial Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<p>"She has sketched with loving art the simple, yet pure and elevated
+lives of her countrymen, and given the reader an excellent idea of the
+Danes from every point of view."&mdash;<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>IX.&mdash;AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Francis H. E. Palmer</span>, author of "Russian Life in Town and Country,"
+etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"No volume in this interesting series seems to us so notable or valuable
+as this on Austro-Hungarian life. Mr. Palmer's long residence in Europe
+and his intimate association with men of mark, especially in their home
+life, has given to him a richness of experience evident on every page of
+the book."&mdash;<i>The Outlook.</i></p>
+
+<p>"This book cannot be too warmly recommended to those who have not the
+leisure or the spirit to read voluminous tomes of this subject, yet we
+wish a clear general understanding of Austro-Hungarian life."&mdash;<i>Hartford
+Times.</i><span class="pagenum noind"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">{329}</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>X.&mdash;TURKISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">L. M. J. Garnett</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Garnett, while not altogether ignoring the dark side of life in the
+Empire, portrays more particularly the peaceable life of the people&mdash;the
+domestic, industrial, social, and religious life and customs, the
+occupations and recreations, of the numerous and various races within
+the Empire presided over by the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>"The general tone of the book is that of a careful study, the style is
+flowing, and the matter is presented in a bright, taking way."&mdash;<i>St.
+Paul Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>"To the average mind the Turk is a little better than a blood-thirsty
+individual with a plurality of wives and a paucity of virtues. To read
+this book is to be pleasantly disillusioned."&mdash;<i>Public Opinion.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>XI.&mdash;BELGIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">Demetrius C. Boulger</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Mr. Boulger has given a plain, straight-forward account of the several
+phases of Belgian Life, the government, the court, the manufacturing
+centers and enterprises, the literature and science, the army, education
+and religion, set forth informingly."&mdash;<i>The Detroit Free Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The book is one of real value conscientiously written, and well
+illustrated by good photographs."&mdash;<i>The Outlook.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><b>XII.&mdash;SWEDISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="noind">By <span class="smcap">G. von Heidenstam</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 30%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by 
+L. Higgin and Eugène E. Street
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by
+L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Spanish Life in Town and Country
+
+Author: L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
+
+Editor: William Harbutt Dawson
+
+Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18053]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Pilar Somoza and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Spelling mistakes have been left in the text to
+match the original, except for a few obvious typos.]
+
+
+
+
+    OUR EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+    _French Life_
+          _German Life_
+                _Russian Life_
+                      _Dutch Life_
+                           _Swiss Life_
+                                 _Spanish Life_
+
+    _Italian Life_
+          _Danish Life_
+                _Austro-Hungarian Life_
+                      _Turkish Life_
+                            _Belgian Life_
+                                  _Swedish Life_
+
+
+
+
+                OUR EUROPEAN
+                 NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+                  EDITED BY
+            WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
+
+
+           SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND
+                   COUNTRY
+
+
+[Illustration: "IN CHURCH." SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO]
+
+
+
+
+                 SPANISH LIFE
+                 IN TOWN AND
+                   COUNTRY
+
+
+                 BY L. HIGGIN
+
+
+               WITH CHAPTERS ON
+
+         PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND
+         COUNTRY, BY EUGENE E. STREET
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                  ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+              G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+              NEW YORK AND LONDON
+            The Knickerbocker Press
+                     1904
+
+
+
+
+                COPYRIGHT, 1902
+                      BY
+              G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+
+             Published, May, 1902
+           Reprinted, February, 1903
+           May, 1904; September, 1904
+
+
+       The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+
+NOTE BY THE EDITOR
+
+
+It has been thought well to include Portugal in this volume, so as to
+embrace the entire Iberian Peninsula. Though geographically contiguous,
+and so closely associated in the popular mind, the Spanish and
+Portuguese nations offer in fact the most striking divergences alike in
+character and institutions, and separate treatment was essential in
+justice to each country. The preferential attention given to Spain is
+only in keeping with the more prominent part she has played, and may yet
+play, in the history of civilisation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am indebted for the chapters on Portugal to Mr. Eugene E. Street,
+whose long and intimate acquaintance with the land and its people
+renders him peculiarly fitted to draw their picture.
+
+                                                       L. HIGGIN.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_SPANISH LIFE_
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+CHAPTER I
+LAND AND PEOPLE                                                        1
+
+CHAPTER II
+TYPES AND TRAITS                                                      24
+
+CHAPTER III
+NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS                                              38
+
+CHAPTER IV
+SPANISH SOCIETY                                                       55
+
+CHAPTER V
+MODERN MADRID                                                         77
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE COURT                                                             97
+
+CHAPTER VII
+POPULAR AMUSEMENTS                                                   111
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE PRESS AND ITS LEADERS                                            129
+
+CHAPTER IX
+POLITICAL GOVERNMENT                                                 142
+
+CHAPTER X
+COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE                                             156
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE ARMY AND NAVY                                                    183
+
+CHAPTER XII
+RELIGIOUS LIFE                                                       198
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD                                         213
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+PHILANTHROPY--POSITION OF WOMEN--MARRIAGE CUSTOMS                    226
+
+CHAPTER XV
+MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA                                            236
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+MODERN LITERATURE                                                    246
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+THE FUTURE OF SPAIN                                                  260
+
+
+_PORTUGUESE LIFE_
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+LAND AND PEOPLE                                                      277
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+PORTUGUESE INSTITUTIONS                                              298
+
+
+INDEX                                                                315
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+"IN CHURCH." SHOWING THE MANTILLA AND VELO                _Frontispiece_
+
+PEASANTS                                                               2
+
+A CORNER IN OLD MADRID                                                 8
+
+SEVILLE CIGARRERA                                                     20
+
+PEASANTS                                                              20
+
+VALENCIANOS                                                           26
+
+THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN COSTUMES            34
+
+PAST WORK                                                             50
+
+KNIFE-GRINDER                                                         50
+
+OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID                                    78
+
+BUEYES RESTING                                                        94
+
+IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA                                            104
+
+PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL                           120
+
+PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION                                       124
+
+DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL                                           126
+
+THE ESCURIAL                                                         140
+
+A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA                                       170
+
+A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA                                           292
+
+
+
+
+SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LAND AND PEOPLE
+
+
+Only in comparatively late years has the Iberian Continent been added to
+the happy hunting-grounds of the ordinary British and American tourist,
+and somewhat of a check arose after the outbreak of the war with
+America. To the other wonderful legends which gather round this romantic
+country, and are spread abroad, unabashed and uncontradicted, was added
+one more, to the effect that so strong a feeling existed on the part of
+the populace against Americans, that it was unsafe for English-speaking
+visitors to travel there. Nothing is farther from the truth; there is no
+hatred of American or English, and, if there had been, they little know
+the innate courtesy of the Spanish people, who fear insult that is not
+due to the overbearing manners of the tourist himself.
+
+To-day, however, everyone is going to Spain, and as the number of
+travellers increases, so, perhaps, does the real ignorance of the
+country and of her people become more apparent, for, after a few days,
+or at most weeks, spent there, those who seem to imagine that they have
+discovered Spain, as Columbus discovered America, deliver their judgment
+upon her with all the audacity of ignorance, or, at best, with very
+imperfect information and capacity for forming an opinion.
+
+For many years, the foreign element in Spain was so small that all who
+made their home in the country were known and easily counted, while
+those who travelled were, for the most part, cultivated people--artists,
+or lovers of art, or persons interested in some way in the commercial or
+industrial progress of the nation. Even in those days, however, too many
+tourists spent their time amongst the dead cities, remnants of Spain's
+great past, and came back to add their quota to the sentimental notions
+current about the romantic land sung by Byron. Wrapped in a glamour for
+which their own enthusiasm was mainly responsible, they beheld all
+things coloured with the rich glow of a resplendent sunset; their
+descriptions of people and places raised expectations too often cruelly
+dispelled by facts, as presented to those of less exuberant
+imaginations.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+On the other hand, the mere British traveller, knowing nothing of art,
+almost nothing of history, and very little of anything beyond his own
+provincial parish, finds all that is not the commonplace of his own
+country, barbarous and utterly beneath contempt. His own manners, not
+generally of the best, set all that is proud and dignified in the lowest
+Spaniard in revolt; he imagines that he meets with discourtesy where, in
+fact, he has gone out to seek it, and his own ignorance is chiefly to
+blame for his failure to understand a people wholly unlike his own class
+associates at home. He, too, returns, shaking the dust off his feet, to
+draw a picture of the land he has left, as false and misleading as that
+of the dreamer who has overloaded his picture with colour that does not
+exist for the ordinary tourist. Thus it too often comes to pass that
+visitors to Spain experience keen disappointment during their short stay
+in the country. Whether they always acknowledge it or not, is another
+question. To hit the happy medium, and to draw from a tour in Spain, or
+from a more prolonged sojourn there, all the pleasure that may be
+derived from it, and to feel with those who, knowing the country and its
+people intimately, love it dearly, a remembrance of its past history and
+of its strange agglomeration of nationalities is absolutely necessary;
+nor can any true idea be formed of the country from a mere acquaintance
+with any one of its widely differing provinces. Galicia is, even to-day,
+more nearly allied to Portugal than to Spain, and it was only in 1668
+that the independence of the former was acknowledged, and it became a
+separate kingdom.
+
+With all rights now equalised, the inhabitants of the remaining
+provinces of Spain differ as widely from one another as they do from the
+sister kingdom, while the folklore of Asturias and of the Basque
+Provinces is very closely allied with that of Portugal. To judge the
+Biscayan by the same standard as the Andaluz, is as sensible as it would
+be to compare the Irish squatter with Cornish fisher-folk, or the
+peasants of Wilts and Surrey with the Celtic races of the West Highlands
+of Scotland, or even with the people of Lancashire or Yorkshire.
+
+Nor is it possible to speak of Spain as a whole, and of what she is
+likely to make of the present impulse towards national growth and
+industrial prosperity, without remembering that her population counts,
+among its rapidly increasing numbers, the far-seeing and business-like,
+if somewhat selfish, Catalan, with a language of his own; the dreamy,
+pleasure-loving Andaluz; the vigorous Basque, whose distinctive language
+is not to be learned or understood by the people of any other part of
+Spain; the half-Moorish Valencian and the self-respecting Aragonese, who
+have always made their mark in the history of their country, and were
+looked upon as a foreign element in the days when their kingdom and that
+of Leon were united, under one crown, with Castile. It was only after
+Alfonso XII. had stamped out the last Carlist war that the ancient
+_fueros_, or special rights, of the Basque Provinces became a thing of
+the past, and their people liable to conscription, on a par with all the
+other parts of Spain.
+
+Every student of history knows that the era of Spain's greatness was
+that of _Los Reyes Catolicos_, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of
+Aragon, when the wonderful discovery and opening up of a new world made
+her people dizzy with excitement, and seemed to promise steadily
+increasing power and influence. Everyone knows that these dreams were
+never realised; that, so far from remaining the greatest nation of the
+Western World, Spain has gradually sunk back into a condition that
+leaves her to-day outside of international politics; and that, with the
+loss of her last colonies overseas, she appears to the superficial
+observer to be a dead or dying nation, no longer of any account among
+the peoples of Europe.
+
+But this is no fact; it is rather the baseless fancy of incompetent
+observers, to some extent acquiesced in, or at least not contradicted,
+by the proud Castilian, who cares not at all about the opinions of other
+nationalities, and who never takes the trouble to enlighten ignorance of
+the kind. True, there was an exhibition of something like popular
+indignation when the people fancied they discovered a reference to Spain
+in the utterances of two leading English statesmen, during the war with
+America, and the feeling of soreness against England still to some
+extent exists; in fact, strange as it may appear, there is far less
+anger against America, which deprived Spain of her colonies, than
+against England, which looked on complacently, and with obvious sympathy
+for the aggressor. But all this is past, or passing. The Spaniards are a
+generous people, and no one forgets or forgives more easily or more
+entirely. Those who knew Madrid in the days of Isabel II., would not have
+imagined it possible that the Queen, who had been banished with so much
+general rejoicing, could, under any circumstances, have received in the
+capital a warm greeting; in fact, it was for long thought inexpedient to
+allow her to risk a popular demonstration of quite another character.
+But when she came to visit her son, after the restoration of Alfonso
+XII., her sins, which were many, were forgiven her. It was, perhaps,
+remembered that in her youth she had been more sinned against than
+sinning; that she was _muy Espanola_, kind-hearted and gracious in
+manner, pitiful and courteous to all. Hence, so long as she did not
+remain, and did not in any way interfere in the government, the people
+were ready to receive her with acclamation, and were probably really
+glad to see her again without her _camarilla_, and with no power to
+injure the new order of things.
+
+No nation in the world is more innately democratic than Spain--none,
+perhaps, so attached to monarchy; but one lesson has been learned,
+probably alike by King and people--that absolutism is dead and buried
+beyond recall. The ruler of Spain, to-day and in the future, must
+represent the wishes of the people; and if at any time the two should
+once more come into sharp collision, it is not the united people of this
+once-divided country that would give way. For the rest, so long as the
+monarch reigns constitutionally, and respects the rights and the desires
+of his people, there is absolutely nothing to fear from pretender or
+republican. At a recent political meeting in Madrid, for the first time,
+were seen democrats, republicans, and monarchists united; amidst a
+goodly quantity of somewhat "tall" talk, two notable remarks were
+received with acclamation by all parties: one was that Italy had found
+freedom, and had made herself into a united nationality, under a
+constitutional monarch; and the other, that between the Government of
+England and a republic there was no difference except in name--that in
+all Europe there was no country so democratic or so absolutely free as
+England under her King, nor one in which the people so entirely governed
+themselves.
+
+Among the many mistaken ideas which obtain currency in England with
+regard to Spain, perhaps none is more common or more baseless than the
+fiction about Don Carlos and his chances of success. A certain small
+class of journalists from time to time write ridiculous articles in
+English papers and magazines about what they are pleased to call the
+"legitimatist" cause, and announce its coming triumph in the Peninsula.
+No Spaniard takes the trouble to notice these remarkable productions of
+the fertile journalistic brain of a foreigner. There are still, of
+course, people calling themselves Carlists--notably the Duke of Madrid
+and Don Jaime, but the cult, such as there is of it in Spain, is of the
+"Platonic" order only,--to use the Spanish description of it, "a little
+talk but no fight,"--and it may be classed with the vagaries of the
+amiable people in England who amuse themselves by wearing a white rose,
+and also call themselves "legitimatists," praying for the restoration of
+the Stuarts.
+
+The truth about the Carlist pretension is so little known in England
+that it may be well to state it. Spain has never been a land of the
+Salic Law; the story of her reigning queens--chief of all, Isabel la
+Catolica, shows this. It was not until the time of Philip V., the first
+of the Bourbons, that this absolute monarch limited the succession to
+heirs male by "pragmatic sanction"; that is to say, by his own
+unsupported order. The Act in itself was irregular; it was never put
+before the Cortes, and the Council of Castile protested against it at
+the time.
+
+[Illustration: A CORNER IN OLD MADRID]
+
+This Act, such as it was, was revoked by Charles IV.; but the revocation
+was never published, the birth of sons making it immaterial. When,
+however, his son Ferdinand VII. was near his end, leaving only two
+daughters, he published his father's revocation of the Act of Philip V.,
+and appointed his wife, Cristina, Regent during the minority of Isabel
+II., then only three years of age.
+
+At no time, then, in its history, has the Salic Law been in use in
+Spain: the irregular act of a despotic King was repudiated both by his
+grandson and his great-grandson. Nothing, therefore, can be more
+ridiculous than the pretension of legitimacy on the part of a pretender
+whose party simply attempts to make an illegal innovation, in defiance
+of the legitimate kings and of the Council of Castile, a fundamental law
+of the monarchy. Carlism, the party of the Church against the nation,
+came into existence when, during the first years of Cristina's Regency,
+Mendizabal, the patriotic merchant of Cadiz and London, then First
+Minister of the Crown, carried out the dismemberment of the religious
+orders, and the diversion of their enormous wealth to the use of the
+nation. Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand VII., thereupon declared
+himself the Defender of the Faith and the champion of the extreme
+clerical party. _Hinc illae lachrymae_, and two Carlist wars!
+
+The position of the Church, or rather what was called the "Apostolic
+party," is intelligible enough, and it is easy also to understand why
+Carlism has been preached as a crusade to English Roman Catholics, who
+have been induced in both Carlist wars to provide the main part of the
+funds which made them possible; but to call Don Carlos "the legitimate
+King" is an absurd misnomer.
+
+For the rest, as regards Spain herself and the wishes of her people, it
+is perhaps enough to remark that if, after the expulsion of the Bourbons
+in 1868, at the time of the Revolution known as "La Gloriosa," when Prim
+had refused to think of a republic and declared himself once and always
+in favour of a monarchy, and the Crown of proud Spain went a-begging
+among the Courts of Europe,--if, at that time of her national need, Don
+Carlos was unable to come forward in his celebrated character of
+"legitimate Sovereign of the Spanish people," or to raise even two or
+three voices in his favour, what chance is he likely to have with a
+settled constitutional Government and the really legitimate Monarch on
+the throne? The strongest chance he ever had of success was when the
+Basque Provinces were at one time disposed, it is said almost to a man,
+to take his side; but, in fact, the men of the mountain were fighting
+much more for the retention of their own _fueros_--for their immunity
+from conscription, among others--than for any love of Don Carlos
+himself. They would have liked a king and a little kingdom all of their
+own, and, above all, to have held their beloved rights against all the
+rest of Spain.
+
+All that, however, is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as
+have those of the North by the settled advance of the country. Bilbao,
+once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil
+wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool in
+the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more
+populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete,
+it is the most flourishing of Spanish ports, and is able to compare with
+any in Europe for its commerce and its rapid growth. Viscaya and
+Asturias want no more civil war, and the Apostolic party may look in
+vain for any more Carlist risings. More to be feared now are labour
+troubles, or the contamination of foreign anarchist doctrines; but in
+this case, the Church and the nation would be on the same side--that of
+order and progress.
+
+In attempting to understand the extremely complex character of the
+Spaniard as we know him,--that is to say, the Castilian, or rather the
+Madrileno,--one has to take into account not only the divers races which
+go to make up the nationality as it is to-day, but something of the past
+history of this strangely interesting people. To go back to the days
+when Spain was a Roman province in a high state of civilisation: some of
+the greatest Romans known to fame were Spaniards--Quintilian, Martial,
+Lucan, and the two Senecas. Trajan was the first Spaniard named Emperor,
+and the only one whose ashes were allowed to rest within the city walls;
+but the Spanish freedman of Augustus, Gaius Julius Hyginus, had been
+made the chief keeper of the Palatine Library, and Ballus, another
+Spaniard, had reached the consulship, and had been accorded the honour
+of a public triumph. Hadrian, again, was a Spaniard, and Marcus Aurelius
+a son of Cordoba. No wonder that Spain is proud to remember that, of the
+"eighty perfect golden years" which Gibbon declares to have been the
+happiest epoch in mankind's history, no less than sixty were passed
+beneath the sceptre of her Caesars.
+
+The conquered had become conquerors; the intermarriage of Roman soldiers
+and settlers with Spanish women modified the original race; the Iberians
+invaded the politics and the literature of their conquerors. St.
+Augustine mourned the _odiosa cantio_ of Spanish children learning
+Latin, but the language of Rome itself was altered by its Iberian
+emperors and literati; the races, in fact, amalgamated, and the Spaniard
+of to-day, to those who know him well, bears a strange resemblance to
+the Roman citizens with whom the letters of the Younger Pliny so
+charmingly make us familiar. The dismemberment of the Roman Empire left
+Spain exposed to the inroads of the Northern barbarians, and led
+indirectly to the subsequent Moorish inrush; for the Jews, harassed by a
+severe penal code, hailed the Arabs as a kindred race; and with their
+slaves made common cause with the conquering hordes.
+
+The Goths seem to have been little more than armed settlers in the
+country. Marriage between them and the Iberians was forbidden by their
+laws, and the traces of their occupation are singularly few: not a
+single inscription or book of Gothic origin remains, and it seems
+doubtful if any trace of the language can be found in Castilian or any
+of its dialects. It is strange, if this be true, that there should be so
+strong a belief in the influence of Gothic blood in the race.
+
+In all these wars and rumours of war the men of the hardy North remained
+practically unconquered. The last to submit to the Roman, the first to
+throw off the yoke of the Moor, the Basques and Asturians appear to be
+the representatives of the old inhabitants of Spain, who never settled
+down under the sway of the invader or acquiesced in foreign rule. Cicero
+mentions a Spanish tongue which was unintelligible to the Romans; was
+this Basque, which is equally so now to the rest of Spain, and which, if
+you believe the modern Castilian, the devil himself has never been able
+to master?
+
+The history of Spain is one to make the heart ache. Some evil influence,
+some malign destiny, seems ever to have brought disaster where her
+people looked for progress or happiness. Her golden age was just in the
+short epoch when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon reigned and
+ruled over the united kingdoms: both were patriotic, both clever, and
+absolutely at one in their policy. It is almost impossible to us who can
+look back on the long records, almost always sad and disastrous, not to
+doubt whether in giving a new world "to Castile and Aragon," Cristobal
+Colon did not impose a burden on the country of his adoption which she
+was unable to bear, and which became, in the hands of the successors of
+her _muy Espanoles y muy Catolicos_ kings, a curse instead of a
+blessing. Certain it is that Spain was not sufficiently advanced in
+political economy to understand or cope with the enormous changes which
+this opening up of a new world brought about. The sudden increase of
+wealth without labour, of reward for mere adventure, slew in its infancy
+any impulse there might have been to carry on the splendid manufactures
+and enlightened agriculture of the Moors; trade became a disgrace, and
+the fallacious idea that bringing gold and silver into a country could
+make it rich and prosperous ate like a canker into the industrial heart
+of the people, and with absolute certainty threw them backward in the
+race of civilisation.
+
+Charles V. was the first evil genius of Spain; thinking far more of his
+German and Italian possessions than of the country of his mother, poor
+mad Juana, he exhausted the resources of Spain in his endless wars
+outside the country, and inaugurated her actual decline at a moment
+when, to the unthinking, she was at the height of her glory. The
+influence of the powerful nobility of the country had been completely
+broken by Isabella and Ferdinand, and the device of adopting the
+Burgundian fashion of keeping at the Court an immense crowd of nobles in
+so-called "waiting" on the Monarch flattered the national vanity, while
+it ensured the absolute inefficacy of the class when it might have been
+useful in stemming the baneful absolutism of such lunatics as Felipe II.
+and the following Austrian monarchs, each becoming more and more effete
+and more and more mad. The very doubtful "glory" of the reign of the
+Catholic Kings in having driven out the Moors after eight centuries of
+conflict and effort, proved, in fact, no advantage to the country; but
+twenty thousand Christian captives were freed, and every reader of
+history must, for the moment, sympathise with the people who effected
+this freeing of their country from a foreign yoke.
+
+Looking at the marvellous tracery of the church of San Juan de los Reyes
+at Toledo, picked out by the actual chains broken off the miserable
+Christian captives, and hanging there unrusted in the fine air and
+sunshine of the country for over four hundred years, one's heart beats
+in sympathy with the pride of the Spaniards in their Catholic Kings. But
+Toledo, alas! is dead; the centre of light and learning is mouldering in
+the very slough of ignorance, and Christianity compares badly enough
+with the rule of Arab and Jew.
+
+Nevertheless, it must be said that, had matters been left as Isabella
+and Ferdinand left them, Spain might have benefited by the example of
+her conquerors, as other countries have done, and as she herself did
+during the Roman occupation. Philip II. was too wise to expel the
+richest and most industrious of his subjects so long as they paid his
+taxes and, at least, professed to be Christians. It was not until the
+reign of Philip III. and his disgraceful favourite Lerma, himself the
+most bigoted of Valencian "Christians," that, by the advice of Ribera,
+the Archbishop of Valencia, these industrious, thrifty, and harmless
+people were ruthlessly driven out. They had turned Valencia into a
+prolific garden,--even to-day it is called the _huerta_,--their silk
+manufactures were known and valued throughout the world; their industry
+and frugality were, in fact, their worst crimes; they were able to draw
+wealth from the sterile lands which "Christians" found wholly
+unproductive. "Since it is impossible to kill them all," said Ribera,
+the representative of Christ, he again and again urged on the King their
+expulsion.
+
+The nobles and landowners protested in vain. September 22, 1609, is one
+of the blackest--perhaps, in fact, the blackest--of all days in the
+disastrous annals of Spain. The Marques de Caracena, Viceroy of
+Valencia, issued the terrible edict of expulsion. Six of the oldest and
+"most Christian" Moriscos in each community of a hundred souls were to
+remain to teach their modes of cultivation and their industries, and
+only three days were allowed for the carrying out of this most wicked
+and suicidal law. In the following six months one hundred and fifty
+thousand Moors were hounded out of the land which their ancestors had
+possessed and enriched for centuries. Murcia, Andalucia, Aragon,
+Cataluna, Castile, La Mancha, and Estremadura were next taken in hand.
+In these latter provinces the cruel blunder was all the worse, since the
+Moors had intermarried with the Iberian inhabitants, and had really
+embraced the Christian religion, so called.
+
+Half a million souls, according to Father Bleda, in his _Defensio
+Fidei_, were thrust out, with every aggravation of cruelty and robbery.
+No nation can commit crimes like this without suffering more than its
+victims. Spain has never to this day recovered from the blow to her own
+prosperity, to her commerce, her manufactures, and her civilisation
+dealt by the narrow-minded and ignorant King, led by a despicable
+favourite, and the fanatical bigot, Ribera. With the Moors went almost
+all their arts and industries; immense tracts of country became arid
+wastes: Castile and La Mancha barely raise crops every second year where
+the Moriscos reaped their teeming harvest, and Estremadura from a
+smiling garden became a waste where wandering flocks of sheep and pigs
+now find a bare subsistence. Nor was this all. Science and learning were
+also driven out with the Arab and Jew; Cordoba, like Toledo, vanished,
+as the centre of intellectual life. In place of enlightened agriculture,
+irrigation of the dry land, and the planting of trees, the peasant was
+taught to take for his example San Isidro, the patron saint of the
+labourer, who spent his days in prayer, and left his fields to plough
+and sow themselves; the forests were cut down for fuel, until the
+shadeless wastes became less and less productive, and the whole land on
+the elevated plains, which the Moors had irrigated and planted, became
+little better than a desert.
+
+It was not only in the mother country that frightful acts of bigotry and
+lust for wealth were enacted. In Peru the Spaniards found a splendid
+civilisation among the strange races of the Incas, a condition of order
+which many modern states might envy, a religion absolutely free from
+fetish worship, and a standard of morality which has never been
+surpassed. But they ruthlessly destroyed it all, desecrated the temples
+where the sun was worshipped only as a visible representative of a God
+"of whom nothing could be known save by His works," as their tenet ran,
+and substituted the religion which they represented as having been
+taught by Jesus of Nazareth; a religion which looked for its chief power
+to the horrible Inquisition and its orgies called _Autos da fe!_
+
+As regards the mysterious race of the Incas, who in comparison with the
+native Indians were almost white, and who possessed a high cultivation,
+it is curious to note that during the late troubles in China records
+came to light in the Palace of Pekin showing that Chinese missionaries
+landed on the coast subsequently known as Peru, in ages long antecedent
+to the discovery of the country by the Spaniards, and established
+temples and schools there. No one who reads the minute accounts of the
+Incas from Garcilaso de la Vega--himself of the royal race on his
+mother's side, his father having been one of the Spanish
+adventurers--can avoid the conclusion that the religion of the Incas,
+thus utterly destroyed by the Spaniards, was much more nearly that of
+Christ than the debased worship introduced in its place. The whole story
+of these "Children of the Sun," told by one of themselves afterwards in
+Cordoba, where he is always careful to keep on the right side of the
+Inquisition by pretending to be a "Christian after the manner of his
+father," is fascinatingly interesting as well as instructive.
+
+It is almost impossible to speak of the Spanish Inquisition and its
+baneful influence on the people without seeming to be carried away by
+prejudice or even bigotry, but it is equally impossible for the ordinary
+student of history to read, even in the pages of the "orthodox," the
+terrible repression of its iron hand on all that was advancing in the
+nation; its writers, its singers, its men of science, wherever they
+dared to raise their voices in ever so faint a cry, ground down to one
+dead level of unthinking acquiescence, or driven forth from their native
+land, without ceasing to wonder at all at Spain's decadence from the
+moment she had handed herself over, bound hand and foot, to the Church.
+Wondering, rather, at her enormous inherent vitality, which at last,
+after so many centuries of spasmodic effort, has shaken off the incubus
+and regained liberty, or for the first time established it in the realms
+of religion, science, and general instruction.
+
+It matters little or nothing whether the Inquisition, with its secret
+spies, its closed doors, its mockery of justice, and its terrible
+background of smouldering _Quemadero_, was the instrument of the Church
+or of the King for the moment. Whether a religious or a political
+tyranny, it was at all times opposed to the very essence of freedom, and
+it was deliberately used, and would be again to-day if it were possible
+to restore it, to keep the people in a gross state of ignorance and
+superstition. That it was admirable as an organisation only shows it in
+a more baneful light, since it was used to crush out all progress. Its
+effect is well expressed in the old proverb: "Between the King and the
+Inquisition we must not open our lips."
+
+"I would rather think I had ascended from an ape," said Huxley, in his
+celebrated answer to the Bishop of Oxford, "than that I had descended
+from a man who used great gifts to darken reason." It has been the
+object of the Inquisition to darken reason wherever it had the power,
+and it left the mass of the Spanish people, great and generous as they
+are by nature, for long a mere mob of inert animals, ready to amuse
+themselves when their country was at its hour of greatest agony, debased
+by the sight of wholesale and cruel murders carried out by the priests
+of their religion in the name of Christ.
+
+[Illustration: PEASANTS]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE CIGARRERA]
+
+Even to-day the Spaniard of the lower classes can scarcely understand
+that he can have any part or parcel in the government of his country.
+Long ages of misrule have made him hate all governments alike: he
+imagines that all the evils he finds in the world of his own experience
+are the work of whoever happens to be the ruler for the time being; that
+it is possible for him to have any say in the matter never enters his
+head, and he votes, if he votes at all, as he is ordered to vote. He has
+been taught for ages past to believe whatever he has been told. His
+reason has been "offered as a sacrifice to God," if indeed he is aware
+that he possesses any.
+
+The danger of the thorough awakening may be that which broke out so
+wildly during Castelar's short and disastrous attempt at a republic:
+that when once he breaks away from the binding power of his old
+religion, he may have nothing better than atheism and anarchism to fall
+back upon. The days of the absolute reign of ignorance and superstition
+are over; but the people are deeply religious. Will the Church of Spain
+adapt itself to the new state of things, or will it see its people drift
+away from its pale altogether, as other nations have done? This is the
+true clerical question which looms darkly before the Spain of to-day.
+
+To return, however. The Austrian kings of Spain had brought her only
+ruin. With the Bourbons it was hoped a better era had opened, but it was
+only exchanging one form of misrule for another. The kings existed for
+their own benefit and pleasure; the people existed to minister to them
+and find funds for their extravagance. Each succeeding monarch was ruled
+by some upstart favourite, until the climax was reached when Godoy, the
+disgraceful Minister of Charles IV., and the open lover of his Queen,
+sold the country to Napoleon. Then indeed awoke the great heart of the
+nation, and Spain has the everlasting glory of having risen as one man
+against the French despot, and, by the help of England, stopped his mad
+career. Even then, under the base and contemptible Ferdinand VII., she
+underwent the "Terror of 1824," the disastrous and unworthy regency of
+Cristina, and the still worse rule of her daughter, Isabel II., before
+she awoke politically as a nation, and, her innumerable parties forming
+as one, drove out the Queen, with her _camarilla_ of priests and
+bleeding nuns, and at last achieved her freedom.
+
+For, whatever may be said of the last hundred years of Spain's history,
+it has been an advance, a continuous struggle for life and liberty.
+There had been fluctuating periods of progress. Charles III., a truly
+wise and patriotic monarch, the first since Ferdinand and Isabella, made
+extraordinary changes during his too short life. The population of the
+country rose a million and a half in the twenty-seven years of his
+reign, and the public revenue in like proportions under his enlightened
+Minister, Florida Blanca. No phase of the public welfare was neglected:
+savings banks, hospitals, asylums, free schools, rose up on all sides;
+vagrancy and mendicancy were sternly repressed; while men of science and
+skilled craftsmen were brought from foreign countries, and it seemed as
+if Spain had fairly started on her upward course. But he died before his
+time in 1788, and was followed by a son and grandson, who, with their
+wives, ruled by base favourites, dragged the honour of Spain in the
+dust. Still, the impulse had been given; there had been a break in the
+long story of misrule and misery; Mendizabal and Espartero scarcely did
+more than lighten the black canopy of cloud overhanging the country for
+a time; but at last came freedom, halting somewhat, as must needs be,
+but no longer to be repressed or driven back by the baneful influence
+known as _palacioe_, intrigues arising in the immediate circle of the
+Court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TYPES AND TRAITS
+
+
+It is the fashion to-day to minimise the influence of the Goths on the
+national characteristics of the Spaniard. We are told by some modern
+writers that their very existence is little more than a myth, and that
+the name of their last King, Roderick, is all that is really known about
+them. The castle of Wamba, or at least the hill on which it stood, is
+still pointed out to the visitor in Toledo, perched high above the red
+torrent of the rushing Tagus; but little seems to be certainly known of
+this hardy Northern race which, for some three hundred years, occupied
+the country after the Romans had withdrawn their protecting legions. On
+the approach of the all-conquering Moor, many of the inhabitants of
+Spain took refuge in the inaccessible mountains of the north, and were
+the ancestors of that invincible people known in Spain as "los
+Montaneses," from whom almost all that is best in literature, as well as
+in business capacity, has sprung in later years.
+
+How much of the Celt-Iberian, or original inhabitant of the Peninsula,
+and how much of Gothic or of Teuton blood runs in the veins of the
+people of the mountains, it is more than difficult now to determine. It
+had been impossible, despite laws and penalties, to prevent the
+intermingling of the races: all that we certainly know is that the
+inhabitants of Galicia, Asturias, Viscaya, Navarro, and Aragon have
+always exhibited the characteristics of a hardy, fighting, pushing race,
+as distinguished from the Andaluces, the Valencianos, the Murcianos, and
+people of Granada, in whom the languid blood of a Southern people and
+the more marked trace of Arabic heritage are apparent.
+
+The Catalans would appear, again, to be descendants of the old
+Provencals, at one time settled on both sides of the Pyrenees, though
+forming, at that time, part of Spain. Their language is almost pure
+Provencal, and they differ, as history shows in a hundred ways, from the
+inhabitants of the rest of Spain. The Castilians, occupying the centre
+of the country, are what we know as "Spaniards," and may be taken to
+hold a middle place among these widely differing nationalities, modified
+by their contact with all. Their language is that of cultivated Spain.
+No one dreams of asking if you speak Spanish; it is always: _Habla v
+Castellano?_ And it is certainly a remnant of the old Roman, which, as
+we know, its emperors spoke "with a difference," albeit there are many
+traces of Arabic about it.
+
+Even at the present day, when Spain is rapidly becoming homogeneous, the
+people of the different provinces are almost as well known by their
+trades as by their special characteristics. A _Gallego_--really a native
+of Galicia--means, in the common parlance, a porter, a water-carrier,
+almost a beast of burden, and the Galicians are as well known for this
+purpose in Portugal as in Spain, great numbers finding ready employment
+in the former country, where manual labour is looked upon as impossible
+for a native. The men of the lowest class emigrate to more favoured
+provinces, since their own is too poor to support them; they work hard,
+and return with their savings to their native hills. Their
+fellow-countrymen consider them boorish in manners, uneducated, and of a
+low class; but they are good-natured and docile, hard-working,
+temperate, and honest. "In your life," wrote the Duke of Wellington,
+"you never saw anything so bad as the Galicians; and yet they are the
+finest body of men and the best movers I have ever seen." There is a
+greater similarity between Galicia and Portugal than between the former
+and any other province of Spain.
+
+Although they lie so close together, Asturias differs widely from its
+sister province both in the character of its people and its scenery. The
+Romans took two hundred years to subdue it, and the Moors never obtained
+a footing there. The Asturians are a hardy, independent race, proud of
+giving the title to the heir-apparent of the Spanish throne. The people
+of this province, like their neighbours the Basques, are handsome and
+robust in appearance; they are always to be recognised in Madrid by
+their fresh appearance and excellent physique. For the most part they
+are to be found engaged in the fish trade, while their women, gorgeously
+dressed in their native costume by their employers, are the nurses of
+the upper classes.
+
+[Illustration: VALENCIANOS]
+
+The ladies of Madrid do not think it "good style" to bring up their own
+children, and the Asturian wet nurse is as much a part of the ordinary
+household as the coachman or _mayordomo_. They are singularly handsome,
+well-grown women, and become great favourites in the houses of their
+employers; but, like their menkind, they go back to spend their savings
+among their beloved hills. Many of these young women come to Madrid on
+the chance of finding situations, leaving their own babies behind to be
+fed by hand, or Heaven knows how; they bring with them a young puppy to
+act as substitute until the nurse-child is found, and may be seen in the
+registry offices waiting to be hired, with their little canine
+foster-children. It is said that the Asturian women never part from the
+puppies that they have fed from their own breasts.
+
+The Basque Provinces are, perhaps, the best known to English travellers,
+since they generally enter Spain by that route, and those staying in the
+south of France are fond of running across to have at least a look at
+Spain, and to be able to say they have been there. The people pride
+themselves on being "the oldest race in Europe," and are, no doubt, the
+direct descendants of the original and unconquered inhabitants of the
+Iberian Peninsula. In Guipuzcoa, the Basque may still be seen living in
+his flat-roofed stone house, of which he is sure to be proprietor, using
+a mattock in place of plough, and leading his oxen--for _bueyes_ are
+never driven--attached to one of the heavy, solid-wheeled carts by an
+elaborately carved yoke, covered with a sheepskin. He clings tenaciously
+to his unintelligible language, and is quite certain that he is superior
+to the whole human race.
+
+The _fueros_, or special rights, already spoken of, for which the
+Basques have fought so passionately for five hundred years, might
+possibly have been theirs for some time longer if they had not unwisely
+thrown in their lot with the Carlist Pretender. They practically formed
+a republic within the monarchy; but in 1876, when the young Alfonso XII.
+finally conquered the provinces, all differences between them and the
+other parts of the kingdom were abolished, and they had to submit to the
+abhorred conscription. With all the burning indignation which still
+makes some of them say, "I am not a Spaniard; I am a Basque," the
+extraordinary advance made in this part of Spain seems to show that the
+hereditary energy and talent of the people are on the side of national
+progress.
+
+The distinctive dress of the Basques is now almost a thing of the past;
+the bright kerchiefs of the women and the dark-blue cap (_boina_) of the
+men alone remain. The Viscayan _boina_ has been lately introduced into
+the French army as the headgear of the Chasseurs and some other
+regiments.
+
+"Aragon is not ours; we ought to conquer it!" Isabel la Catolica is said
+to have remarked to her husband; and, indeed, the history of this little
+province is wonderfully interesting and amusing. It alone seems to have
+had the good sense always to secure its rights before it would vote
+supplies for the Austrian kings; whereas the other provinces usually
+gave their money without any security, except the word of the King,
+which was usually broken. Among the provisions of the _fueros_ of the
+Aragonese was one that ran thus: _"Que siempre que el rey quebrantose
+sus fueros, pudiessen eligir otro rey encora que sea pagano"_ (If ever
+the King should infringe our _fueros_, we can elect another King, even
+though he might be a pagan), and the preamble of the election ran thus:
+"We, who are as good as you, and are more powerful than you (_podemos
+mas que vos_) elect you King in order that you may protect our rights
+and liberties, and also we elect one between us and you (_el justicia_),
+who has more power than you: _y si no, no!_" which may be taken to mean,
+"otherwise you are not our King."
+
+Somewhat of this spirit still abides in the Aragonese. The costume is
+one of the most picturesque in Spain. The men wear short black velvet
+breeches, open at the knees and slashed at the sides, adorned with rows
+of buttons, and showing white drawers underneath; _alpargatas_, or the
+plaited hempen sandals, which, with the stockings, are black; a black
+velvet jacket, with slashed and button-trimmed sleeves, and the
+gaily-coloured _faja_, or silk sash, worn over an elaborate shirt.
+
+In the old days, when one entered Spain by diligence from Bayonne to
+Pampeluna over the Pyrenees, one learned something of the beauty of the
+scenery and the healthy, hardy characteristics of the people, as one
+whirled along through the chestnut groves, over the leaping streams,
+always at full gallop, up hill and down dale, with a precipice on one
+side of the road and the overhanging mountains on the other. Below lay a
+fertile country with comfortable little homesteads and villages
+clustering round their church, and the like dotted the hillsides and the
+valleys wherever there seemed a foothold. As the diligence, with its
+team of ten or twelve mules, dashed through these villages or past the
+isolated farms, the people stood at their doors and shouted; it was
+evidently the event of the day. The mules were changed every hour, or
+rather more, according to the road, and as the ascent became steeper
+more were added to their number; sometimes six or eight starting from
+Bayonne where twelve or fourteen were needed for the top of the Pass. At
+least half the journey was always made at night, and if there were a
+moon the scenery became magically beautiful; but, in any case, the
+stars, in that clear atmosphere, made it almost as bright as day, while
+a ruddy light streamed from the lamp over the driver's seat, far above
+the coupe, along the string of hurrying mules, as they dashed round
+precipitous corners, dangerous enough in broad daylight. If one of the
+animals chanced to fall, it was dragged by its companions to the bottom
+of the gorge, where it would get up, shake itself, and prepare to tear
+up the next ascent as if nothing had happened.
+
+A good idea could be formed of these hardy mountaineers in passing
+through their village homes. They are tall and good-looking, and seem to
+be simply overflowing with animal spirits. If it chanced to be on a
+Sunday afternoon, the priest, with his _sotana_ tucked up round his
+waist, would be found playing the national game of _pelota_ with his
+flock, using the blank wall of the church as a court.
+
+One is apt to forget that Old Castile is one of the provinces having a
+northern seaboard. The inhabitants of this borderland are, to judge by
+appearance, superior to the people of the plains, who certainly strike
+the casual observer as being dirty and somewhat dull. The Castilian and
+Aragonese, however, may be said to constitute the heart of the nation.
+Leon and Estremadura form a part of the same raised plateau, but their
+people are very different. In speaking of the national characteristics,
+one must be taken to mean, not by any means the Madrileno, but the
+countrymen, whose homes are not to be judged by the _posadas_, or inns,
+which exist mainly for the muleteer and his animals, and are neither
+clean nor savoury.
+
+"All the forces of Europe would not be sufficient to subdue the
+Castiles--_with the people against it_," was Peterborough's remark, and
+our Iron Duke never despaired "while the country was with him." He bore
+with the generals and the _Juntas_ of the upper classes, in spite of his
+indignation against them, and, "cheered by the _people's support_," as
+Napier says, carried out his campaign of victory.
+
+The ancient qualities of which the Castilians are proud are _gravedad,
+lealtad, y amor de Dios_--"dignity, loyalty, and love of God." No wonder
+that when the nation arises, it carries a matter through.
+
+Estremadura, after the expulsion of the Moors, in whose days it was a
+fruitful garden, seems to have been forgotten by the rest of Spain; it
+became the pasturage for the wandering flocks of merino sheep, the
+direct descendants of the Bedouin herds, and of the pigs, which almost
+overrun it. Yet the remains of the Romans in Estremadura are the most
+interesting in Spain, and bear witness to the flourishing condition of
+the province in their day; moreover, Pizarro and Cortes owe their birth
+to this forgotten land. The inhabitants of the southern provinces of
+Spain differ wholly from those of Castile and the north--they have much
+more of the Eastern type; in fact, the Valenciano or the Murciano of the
+_huerta_, the well-watered soil which the Moors left in such a high
+state of cultivation, in manners and appearance are often little
+different from the Arab as we know him to-day.
+
+From the gay Andaluz we derive most of our ideas of the Spanish peasant;
+but he is a complete contrast to the dignified Castilian or the brusque
+Montanese. From this province, given over to song, dancing, and outdoor
+life, come--almost without exception--the bull-fighters, whose graceful
+carriage, full of power, and whose picturesque costume, make them
+remarkable wherever seen. Lively audacity is their special
+characteristic. _Sal_ (salt) is their ideal; we have no word which
+carries the same meaning. Smart repartee, grace, charm, all are
+expressed in the word _Salada_; and _Salero_ (literally, salt-cellar) is
+an expression met with in every second song one hears.
+
+    Ole Salero! Sin vanidad,
+    Soy muy bonita, Soy muy Sala!
+
+is the refrain of one of their most characteristic songs, _La moza e
+rumbo_, and may be taken as a sample:--
+
+    Listen, Salero! without vanity,
+    I am lovely--I am Salada!
+
+During the _Feria_ at Seville, the upper classes camp out in tents or
+huts, and the girls pass their time in singing and dancing, like the
+peasantry.
+
+The Valencians are very different, being slow, quiet, almost stupid to
+the eye of the stranger, extremely industrious, and wrapped up in their
+agricultural pursuits. They fully understand and appreciate the system
+of irrigation left by the Moors, which has made their province the most
+densely populated and the most prosperous in appearance of all Spain.
+
+A curious survival exists in Valencia in the _Tribunal de las Aguas_,
+which is presided over by three of the oldest men in the city; it is a
+direct inheritance from the Moors, and from its verdict there is no
+appeal.
+
+Every Thursday the old men take their seats on a bench outside one of
+the doors of the cathedral, and to them come all those who have disputes
+about irrigation, marshalled by two beadles in strange, Old-World
+uniforms. When both sides have been heard, the old men put their heads
+together under a cloak or _manta_, and agree upon their judgment. The
+covering is then withdrawn, and the decision is announced. On one
+occasion they decreed that a certain man whom they considered in fault
+was to pay a fine. The unwary litigant, thinking that his case had not
+been properly heard, began to try to address the judges in mitigation of
+the sentence.
+
+"But, Senores--" he began.
+
+[Illustration: THE WATER TRIBUNAL IN VALENCIA. SHOWING VALENCIAN
+COSTUMES]
+
+"Pay another peseta for speaking!" solemnly said the spokesman of the
+elders.
+
+"_Pero, Senores_--"
+
+"_Una peseta mas!_" solemnly returned the judge; and at last, finding
+that each time he opened his lips cost him one more peseta, he soon gave
+up and retired.
+
+The Valencian costume for men consists of wide white cotton drawers to
+the knees, looking almost like petticoats, sandals of hemp, with gaiters
+left open between the knee and the ankle, a red sash, or _faja_, a short
+velvet jacket, and a handkerchief twisted turban-fashion round the head.
+The _hidalgos_ wear the long cloak and wide sombrero common to all the
+country districts of Spain.
+
+In speaking of Spaniards and their characteristics, as I have already
+said, we have to take into account the presence of all these widely
+differing races under one crown, and to remember that to-day there is no
+hard-and-fast line among the cultivated classes: intermarriage has fused
+the conflicting elements, very much for the good of the country, and
+rapid intercommunication by rail and telegraph has brought all parts of
+the kingdom together, as they have never been before. Education is now
+placed within reach of all, and even long-forgotten Estremadura is
+brought to share in the impulse towards national life and commercial
+progress. Comte Paul Vasili, in his charming _Lettres inedites_ to a
+young diplomatist, first published in the pages of _La Nouvelle Revue_,
+gives such an exact picture of the Spanish people, of whom he had so
+wide an experience and such intimate knowledge, that I am tempted to
+quote it in full.
+
+"The famous phrase, _A la disposition de V._, has no meaning in the
+upper ranks, is a fiction with the _bourgeoisie_, but is simple truth in
+the mouth of the people. The pure-blooded Spaniard is the most
+hospitable, the most ready giver in the world. He offers with his whole
+heart, and is hurt when one does not accept what he offers. He does not
+pretend to know anything beyond his own country ... he exaggerates the
+dignity of humanity in his own person.... Even in asking alms of you he
+says: _Hermanito, una limosna, por el amor de Dios._ He does not beg;
+no, he asks, demands; and, miserable and in rags as he may be, he treats
+you as a brother--he does you the honour of accepting you as his equal.
+The Spaniard who has a _novia_, a guitar, a _cigarillo_, and the
+knowledge that he has enough to pay for a seat at the bull-fight,
+possesses all that he can possibly need. He will eat a plateful of
+_gazpacho_ or _puchero_, a sardine, half a roll of bread, and drink
+clear water as often as wine. Food is always of secondary importance: he
+ranks it after his _novia_, after his _cigarillo_, after the bulls.
+Sleep? He can sleep anywhere, even on the ground. Dress? He has always
+his _capa_, and _la capa todo lo tapa_. The Spaniard is, above all
+things, _rumboso_; that is to say, he has a large, generous, and sound
+heart.... The masses in Spain are perfectly contented, believing
+themselves sincerely to be the most heroic of people. The Spaniard is
+naturally happy, because his wants are almost _nil_, and he has the
+fixed idea that kings--his own or those of other nations--are all, at
+least, his cousins."
+
+This is not the place to speak at large of the religion of the people;
+but one remark one cannot fail to make, and that is, the place which the
+Virgin holds in the life and affections of the masses. The name of the
+Deity is rarely heard, except as an exclamation, and the Christ is
+spoken of rather as a familiar friend than as the Second Person in the
+Trinity; but the deep-seated love for the Virgin, and absolute belief in
+her power to help in all the joys and sorrows of life is one of the
+strongest characteristics of this naturally religious people. The names
+given at baptism are almost all hers. Dolores, Amparo, Pilar, Trinidad,
+Carmen, Concepcion,--abbreviated into Concha,--are, in full, Maria de
+Dolores, del Pilar, and so forth, and are found among men almost as much
+as among women. The idea of the ever-constant sympathy of the divine
+Mother appeals perhaps even more strongly to the man, carrying with it
+his worship of perfect womanhood, and awakening the natural chivalry of
+his nature. Be this as it may, the influence of the Virgin, and the
+sincerity of her worship in every stage of life, in all its dangers and
+in all its woes, is a religion in itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
+
+
+Certain strong characteristics of the Spanish people, with which the
+history of the world makes us well acquainted, are as marked in this
+hurrying age of railway and telegraph as ever they were in the past. One
+of the stupid remarks one constantly hears made by the unthinking
+tourist is: "Spain is a country where nothing ever changes." This is as
+true of some of the national traits of character as it is false in the
+sense in which the speaker means it. He has probably picked it out of
+some handbook.
+
+Chief among these traits is dignity. The most casual visitor is
+impressed by it, sometimes very much to his annoyance, whether he finds
+it among the unlettered muleteers of Castile, the labourers of Valencia,
+or the present proprietor of some little Old-World _pueblo_ off the
+ordinary route. The _mayoral_ of the diligence in the old times, the
+domestic servant of to-day, the senora who happens to sell you fish, or
+the senor who mends your boots, all strike the same note--an absolute
+incapacity for imagining that there can be any inequality between
+themselves and any other class, however far removed from them by the
+possession of wealth or education. Wealth, in fact, counts for nothing
+in the way of social rank; a poor _hidalgo_ is exactly as much respected
+as a rich one, and he treats his tenants, his servants, all with whom he
+comes in contact, as brothers of the same rank in the sight of God as
+himself.
+
+_Bajo el Rey ninguno_ is their proverb, and its signification, that
+"beneath the King all are equal," is one that is shown daily in a
+hundred ways. The formula with which you are expected to tell the
+beggars--with whom, unfortunately, Spain is once more overrun--that you
+have nothing for them, is a lesson in what someone has well called the
+"aristocratic democracy" of Spain: "Pardon me, for the love of God, my
+brother," or the simple _Perdone me usted_, using precisely the same
+address as you would to a duke. It is no uncommon thing to hear two
+little ragged urchins, whose heads would not reach to one's elbow,
+disputing vigorously in the street with a _Pero no, Senor, Pero si,
+Senor_, as they bandy their arguments.
+
+English travellers are sometimes found grumbling because the senor who
+keeps a wayside _posada_, or even a more pretentious inn in one of the
+towns, does not stand, hat in hand, bowing obsequiously to the wayfarer
+who deigns to use the accommodation provided.
+
+This is one of the things in which Spain, to her honour, _is_
+unchanged. The courtesy of her people, high or low, is ingrained, and if
+foreign--perhaps especially English and American--travellers do not
+always find it so, the fault may oftenest be laid to their own ignorance
+of what is expected of them, and to what is looked upon as the absolute
+boorishness of their own manners.
+
+When a Spaniard goes into a shop where a woman is behind the counter, or
+even to a stall in the open market, he raises his hat in speaking to her
+as he would to the Duquesa de Tal y Fulano, and uses precisely the same
+form of address. The shopman lays himself at the feet of his lady
+customers--metaphorically only, fortunately, _A los pies de V.,
+Senora!_--with a bow worthy of royalty. She hopes that "God may remain
+with his worship" as she bids him the ordinary _Adios_ on going away,
+and he, with equal politeness, expresses a hope that she may "go in
+God's keeping," while he once more lays himself at the senora's feet.
+All these amenities do not prevent a little bargaining, the one asking
+more than he means to take, apparently for the purpose of appearing to
+give way perforce to the overmastering charms of his customer, who does
+not disdain to use either her fan or her eyes in the encounter. The old
+woman will bargain just as much, but always with the same politeness.
+When foreigners walk in and abruptly ask for what they want with an air
+of immense superiority, as is the custom in our country, they are not
+unnaturally looked upon as _muy bruto_, and at the best it is accounted
+for by their being rude heretics from abroad, and knowing no better.
+
+In Madrid and some of the large towns it is possible that the people
+have become accustomed to our apparent discourtesy, just as in some
+places--Granada especially--spoiled by long intimacy with tourists, the
+beggars have become importunate, and to some extent impudent; but in
+places a little removed from such a condition of modern "civilisation,"
+the effect produced by many a well-meaning but ordinary Saxon priding
+himself on his superiority, and without any intention of being ill-bred
+or ill-mannered, is that of disgust and contemptuous annoyance.
+
+No Spaniard will put up with an overbearing or bullying manner, even
+though he may not understand the language in which it is expressed; it
+raises in him all the dormant pride and prejudice which sleep beneath
+his own innate courtesy, and he probably treats the offending traveller
+with the profound contempt he feels for him, if with nothing worse. A
+little smiling and good-natured chaff when things go wrong, as they so
+often do in travelling, or when the leisurely expenditure of time, which
+is as natural to the Spaniard as it is irritating to our notions of how
+things ought to move, will go infinitely farther to set things right
+than black looks and a scolding tongue, even in an unknown language.
+
+When English people come back from Spain complaining of discourtesy, or
+what they choose to call insult, I know very well on whose head to fit
+the accusing cap, and it is always those people whose super-excellent
+opinion of themselves, and of their infinite importance at home, makes
+them certain of meeting with some such experience among a people to whom
+the mere expression "a snob" is by no means to be understood.
+
+That railway travelling in Spain calls for a great exercise of patience
+from those accustomed to Flying Dutchmen and such-like expresses is
+quite true; though, by the way, many of the lines are in French hands,
+and served by French officials. It may safely be said, however, even at
+the present day, that those who are always in a hurry would do well to
+choose some other country for their holiday jaunt. A well-known English
+engineer, of French extraction, trying to get some business through in
+Madrid, once described himself as feeling "like a cat in hell, without
+claws." Perhaps the ignorance of the language, which constituted his
+clawless condition, was a fortunate circumstance for him. But that was a
+good while ago, and Madrid moves more quickly now.
+
+Another characteristic of the Spaniard which awakens the respect and
+admiration of those who know enough of his past and present history to
+be aware of it is his courage: not in the least resembling the
+excitement and rush of mere conflict, nor the theatrical display of what
+goes by the name of "glory" among some of his neighbours; but the cool
+courage, the invincible determination which holds honour as the ideal to
+be followed all the same whether or not any person beyond the actor will
+know of it, and an unquestioning obedience to discipline, which call
+forth the ungrudging admiration of Englishmen, proud as we are of such
+national stories as that of our own _Little Revenge, The Wreck of the
+"Birkenhead,"_ or of "plucky little Mafeking," amongst hundreds of
+others. Spaniards are rich in such inspiring memories, reaching from the
+earliest days of authentic history to the terrible episodes of the late
+war with America. The story of Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba is
+one to make the heart of any nation throb with pride in the midst of
+inevitable tears.
+
+Again and again in reading Spanish history do we come upon evidences of
+this nobility of courage and disinterested patriotism. It was the
+Spaniard Pescara who brushed the French army of observation from the
+line of the Adda, and marched his own forces and the German troops to
+the relief of Pavia. All were unpaid, unclothed, unfed; yet when an
+appeal was made to the Spaniards, Hume tells us that they abandoned
+their own pay and offered their very shirts and cloaks to satisfy the
+Germans, and "the French were beaten before the great battle was
+fought." They did precisely the same in the days of Mendizabal.
+
+Again, in the height of Barbarossa's power, when Charles V., hoisting
+the crucifix at his masthead, led his crusading Spaniards against
+Goletta, and it fell, after a month's desperate siege, without pause or
+rest the troops, half dead with heat and thirst, pressed on to Tunis to
+liberate twenty thousand Christian captives. It was a splendid
+achievement, for the campaign was fought in the fierce heat of an
+African summer. Every barrel of biscuit, every butt of water, had to be
+brought by sea from Sicily, and as there were no draught animals, the
+soldiers themselves dragged their guns and all their provisions. It is,
+as we well know, no light task to find six weeks' supply for thirty
+thousand men with all our modern advantages; but these Spaniards did it
+when already exhausted, half fed, burnt up by the fierce African sun,
+and in face of an enemy well supplied with artillery and ammunition.
+
+In the miserable time of Philip II., a garrison of two hundred men held
+out for months against a Turkish army of twenty thousand men at
+Mers-el-Keber; and the same heroic story is repeated at Malta, when the
+enemy, after firing sixteen thousand cannon shots in one month against
+the Christian forts, abandoned the siege in despair. Meanwhile the
+unspeakable bigot, Philip, was wasting his time in processions,
+rogations, and fasts, for the relief of the town, while he stirred no
+finger to help it in any effective manner.
+
+These are stories by no means few and far between; the whole history of
+the race is full of such. We read of one town and garrison of eight
+thousand souls, abandoned by their king, starved, and without clothes or
+ammunition. Reduced at last to two thousand naked men, they stood in the
+breach to be slain to a man by the conquering Turk. Conqueror only in
+name, after all; for he who conquers is he who lives in history for a
+great action, and whose undaunted courage fires other souls long after
+he is at rest.
+
+"But all this is very ancient history, of the days of Spain's greatness;
+now she is a decadent nation," says the superficial observer. The column
+of the _Dos de Mayo_ on the Prado of Madrid, with its yearly memorial
+mass, shows whether that spirit is dead, or in danger of dying. The
+second of May is well called the "Day of Independence"; it was, in fact,
+the inauguration of the War of Independence, in which Spain gained
+enough honour to satisfy the proudest of her sons. The French had
+entered Madrid under pretence of being Spain's allies against Portugal,
+and Murat, once settled there to his own perfect satisfaction, made no
+secret of his master's intention to annex the whole peninsula. The
+imbecile King, Charles IV., had abdicated; his son, Ferdinand VII., was
+practically a captive in France. The country had, in fact, been sold to
+Napoleon, neither more nor less, by the infamous Godoy, favourite of the
+late King.
+
+A riot broke out among the people on discovering that the French were
+about to carry off the Spanish _Infantes_. The blood of some
+comparatively innocent Frenchmen was shed, and the base governor and
+magistrates of Madrid allowed Murat to make his own terms, which were
+nothing less, in fact, than the dispersion of the troops, who were
+ordered to clear out of their barracks, and hand them over to the
+French. The two artillery officers, Daoiz and Valarde, with one infantry
+officer named Ruiz, and a few of the populace, refused, and, all
+unaided, attempted to hold the barracks of Monteleon against the French
+army of invasion! The end was certain; but little recked these Spaniards
+of the old type. Daoiz and Valarde were killed, the former murdered by
+French bayonets after being wounded, on the cannon by which they had
+stood alone against the whole power of the French troops; Ruiz also was
+shot. On the following day, Murat led out some scores of the patriots
+who had dared to oppose him, and shot them on the spot of the Prado now
+sacred to their memory. Thus was the torch of the Peninsular War
+lighted. As one man the nation rose; the labourer armed himself with his
+agricultural implements, the workman with his tools; without leaders,
+nay, in defiance of those who should have led them, the people sprang to
+action, and, with England's help, the usurper was driven from the throne
+of France, and finally caged in St. Helena. But it is never forgotten
+that Spain--these two or three sons of hers preferring honour to
+life--has the glory of having been the first to oppose and check the
+man and the nation that aspired to tyrannise over Europe.
+
+It is not too much to say that the conduct of every individual in
+Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba showed that the Spaniard's
+magnificent courage, his absolute devotion to duty, and his disregard of
+death are no whit less to-day than when those two thousand naked men
+stood in the breach to be slain in the name of their country's honour.
+The _Oquendo_, already a wreck, coming quietly out of her safe moorings
+in obedience to the insane orders of the Government in Madrid, steering
+her way with absolute coolness so as to clear the sunken _Diamante_, to
+face certain and hideous death, is a picture which can never fade from
+memory. It was said at the time by their enemies that there was not a
+man in the Spanish fleet that did not deserve the Victoria Cross; and
+this was all the more true because there was not even a forlorn hope: it
+was obedience to orders in the absolute certainty of death, and, what
+was harder still, with full knowledge of the utter uselessness of the
+sacrifice.
+
+It is difficult to imagine that anyone can read the record of this
+heroic passage in the history of the Spain of to-day without a throb of
+admiration and pity. No wonder that the generous enemy went out of their
+way to do honour to the melancholy remnant of heroes as they mounted the
+sides of the American ironclads, prisoners of war.
+
+Cervantes gave to the world a new adjective when he wrote his romance
+of _The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha_--a world in which the
+filibusters are those of commerce, the pirates those of trade. When we
+English call an action "quixotic," we do not exactly mean disapproval,
+but neither, certainly, do we intend admiration; unless it be that of
+other-worldliness which it is well to affect, however far we may be from
+practising it ourselves. It is, at best, something quite unnecessary, if
+acknowledged to be admirable in the abstract. The quixotic are rarely
+successful, and success is the measure by which everything is judged
+to-day. Be that as it may, the more intimately one knows Spain, the more
+one becomes aware that what is with us an amiable quality of somewhat
+dubious value, is one of those which go to make up the Spaniard in every
+rank of life. His chivalry, his fine sense of honour, are nothing if not
+quixotic, as we understand the word; and just as in Scotland alone does
+one appreciate the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, so in Spain
+does one feel that, with due allowance for a spirit of kindly
+caricature, Don Quijote de la Mancha is not only possible, but it is a
+type of character as living to-day as it was when the genius of
+Cervantes distilled and preserved for all time that most quaint,
+lovable, inconsequent, and chivalrous combination of qualities which
+constitute a Spanish gentleman. Among her writers, her thinkers, her
+workers--nay, even now and then among her politicians--we come upon
+traits which remind us vividly of the ingenious gentleman and perfect
+knight of romance.
+
+But this estimate of the Spanish character differs a good deal from the
+pictures drawn of it by the casual tourist; and it is scarcely
+surprising that it should be so. It has been well said that "the
+contrast between the ideal of honour and the practice of pecuniary
+corruption has always been a peculiar feature of Spain and her
+settlements." If we hear one thing oftener than another said of Spain,
+it is fault-finding with her public men; the evils of bribery,
+corruption, and self-seeking amongst what should be her statesmen, and,
+above all, her Government employees, are pointed out, and by none more
+than by Spaniards themselves. There is a good deal of truth at the
+bottom of these charges; they are the melancholy legacy of the years of
+misrule and of the darkness through which the country has struggled on
+her difficult way. No one looks for the highest type of character in any
+country among its party politicians. The creed that good becomes evil if
+it is carried out under one _regime_, and evil good under another, is
+not calculated to raise the moral perception; and it is only when a
+politician has convictions and principles which are superior to any
+office-holding, and will break with his party a hundred times sooner
+than stultify his own conscience, that he earns the respect of
+onlookers. There are, and have been, many such men among the politicians
+of Spain whose names remain as watchwords with her people; but they
+have too often stood alone, and were not strong enough to leaven the
+mass and raise the whole standard of political integrity. Some of the
+highest and best men, moreover, have thrown down their tools and
+withdrawn from contact with a life which seemed to them tainted. But
+because Spain has done much in overthrowing her evil rulers and is
+struggling upwards towards the light, we expect wonders, and will not
+give time for what must always be a slow and difficult progress.
+
+In Spain, everyone is a politician. The schoolboy, who with us would be
+thinking of nothing more serious than football, aspires to sum up the
+situation and give his opinion of the public men as if he were an
+ex-prime minister at least. These orators of the _cafes_ and the street
+corners are delighted to find a foreigner on whom they can air their
+unfledged opinions, and the traveller who can speak or understand a few
+words of Spanish comes back with wonderful accounts of what "a Spaniard
+whom I met in the train told me." In any case, no one ever says as hard
+things of his countrymen as a Spaniard will say of those who do not
+belong to the particular little political clique which has the extreme
+honour of counting himself as one of its number. These cliques--for one
+cannot call them parties--are innumerable, called, for the most part,
+after one man, of whom no one has heard except his particular friends,
+_Un Senor muy conocido en su casa, sobre todo a la hora de comer_, as
+their saying is: "A gentleman very well known in his own house,
+especially at dinner-time."
+
+[Illustration: PAST WORK]
+
+[Illustration: KNIFE-GRINDER]
+
+Ford is answerable for many of the fixed ideas about Spain which it
+seems quite impossible to remove. Much that may have been true in the
+long ago, when he wrote his incomparable Guide Book, has now passed away
+with the all-conquering years; but still all that he ever said is
+repeated in each new book with unfailing certainty. Much as he really
+loved Spain, it must be confessed that he now and then wrote of her with
+a venom and bitterness quite at variance with his usual manner of
+judging things. It is in great part due to him that so much
+misunderstanding exists as to the Spanish custom of "offering" what is
+not intended to be accepted. If that peculiarity ever existed--for my
+part, I have never met with it at any time--it does so no longer. When a
+Spaniard speaks of his house as that of "your Grace" (_su casa de
+Usted_), it is simply a figure of speech, which has no more special
+meaning than our own "I am delighted to see you," addressed to some one
+whose existence you had forgotten, and will forget again; but nothing
+can exceed the generous hospitality often shown to perfect strangers in
+country districts where the accommodation for travellers is bad, when
+any real difficulty arises.
+
+It is customary, for instance, in travelling, when you open your
+luncheon-basket, to offer to share its contents with any strangers who
+may chance to be fellow-passengers. Naturally, it is merely a form of
+politeness, and, in an ordinary way, no one thinks of accepting
+it--everyone has his own provision, or is intending to lunch somewhere
+on the way; but it is by no means an empty form. If it should chance, by
+some accident, that you found yourself without--as has happened to me in
+a diligence journey which lasted twenty hours when it was intended only
+to occupy twelve--the Spanish fellow-travellers will certainly insist on
+your accepting their offer. Also, if they should be provided with fresh
+fruit--oranges, dates, or figs--and you are not, their offer to share is
+by no means made with the hope or expectation that you will say _Muchas
+gracias_, the equivalent of "No, thank you."
+
+What is really difficult and embarrassing sometimes is to avoid having
+pressed on your acceptance some article which you may have admired, in
+your ignorance of the custom, which makes it the merest commonplace of
+the Spaniard to "place it at your disposition," or to say: "It is
+already the property of your Grace." Continued refusal sometimes gives
+offence. The custom of never doing to-day what you can quite easily put
+off till to-morrow is, unfortunately, still a common trait of Spanish
+character; but as the Spaniard is rapidly becoming an alert man of
+business, it is not likely that that will long remain one of the
+national characteristics. Time in old days seemed of very little value
+in a country where trade was looked upon as a disgrace, or at least as
+unfitting any one to enter the charmed circle of the first _Grandeza_;
+but that is of the past now in Spain, as in most countries. To be sure,
+it has not there become fashionable for ladies to keep bonnet-shops or
+dress-making establishments, nor to open afternoon tea-rooms or
+_orchaterias_, still less to set up as so-called financiers, as it has
+with us. However, even that may come to pass in the struggle for "_el_
+high life," of which some of the Spanish writers complain so bitterly.
+Imagination absolutely refuses, however, to see the Spanish woman of
+rank in such surroundings.
+
+For the rest, the Spanish woman, wherever you meet her, and in whatever
+rank of society, is devout, naturally kind-hearted and sympathetic,
+polite, and entirely unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter;
+hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all
+things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted,
+full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that
+kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled sex, with no taint
+of sordidness about it; and, before all things, absolutely free from
+affectation. Their own expression, _muy simpatica_, gives better than
+any other the charm of the Spanish woman, whether young or old, gentle
+or simple.
+
+It was the possession of all these qualities in a high degree by Dona
+Isabel II. that covered the multitude of her sins, and made all who
+came within her influence speak gently of her, and think more of excuses
+than of blame. It is these qualities which give so much popularity to
+her daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who, like her mother, is above all
+things _muy Espanola_. That the Spanish woman is passionate, goes
+without saying; one only has to watch the quick flash of her
+eye--"throwing out sparks," as their own expression may be
+translated--to be aware of that. While the eyes of the men are for the
+most part languid, only occasionally flashing forth, those of the women
+are rarely quiet for a moment; they sparkle, they languish, they
+flame--a whole gamut of expression in one moment of time; and it must be
+confessed that they look upon man as their natural prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SPANISH SOCIETY
+
+
+There is something specially charming about Spanish society, its freedom
+from formality, the genuine pleasure and hospitality with which each
+guest is received, and the extreme simplicity of the entertainment. In
+speaking, however, of society in Madrid and other modern towns, it must
+be remembered that the old manners and customs are to a great extent
+being modified and assimilated with those of the other Continental
+cities. A great number of the Spanish nobility spend the season in Paris
+or in London as regularly as any of the fashionable people in France or
+England. There is no country life in Spain, as we understand the word;
+those of the upper ten thousand who have castles or great houses in the
+provinces rarely visit them, and still more rarely entertain there. A
+hunting or a shooting party at one of these is quite an event; so when
+the great people leave Madrid, it is generally to enter into London or
+Paris society, and, naturally, when they are at home they to a great
+extent retain cosmopolitan customs. At the foreign legations or
+ministries also, society loses much of its specially Spanish character.
+
+The word _tertulia_ simply means a circle or group in society; but it
+has come to signify a species of "At Home" much more informal than
+anything we have in the way of evening entertainment. The _tertulia_ of
+a particular lady means the group of friends who are in the habit of
+frequenting her drawing-room. The Salon del Prado is the general
+meeting-place of all who feel more inclined for _al fresco_
+entertainment than for close rooms, and the different groups of friends
+meeting there draw their chairs together in small circles, and thus hold
+their _tertulia_. The old Countess of Montijo was so much given to
+open-handed hospitality, and it was so easy for any English person to
+obtain an introduction to her _tertulia_, that her daughter, the Empress
+Eugenie, used to call it the _Prado cubierto_--"only the Prado with a
+roof on." It is not customary for anything but the very lightest of
+refreshments to be offered at the ordinary _tertulia_, and this is one
+of its great charms, for little or no expense is incurred, and those who
+are not rich can still welcome their friends as often as they like
+without any of the terrific preparations for the entertainment which
+make it a burden and a bore, and without a rueful glance at the weekly
+bill afterwards. Occasionally, chocolate is handed round, and any amount
+of tumblers of cold water. The chocolate is served in small coffee-cups,
+and is of the consistency of oatmeal porridge; but it is delicious all
+the same, very light and well frothed up. It is "eaten" by dipping
+little finger-rusks or sponge-chips into the mixture, and you are
+extremely glad of the glass of cold water after it. This is, however,
+rather an exception; lemonade, _azucarillas_ and water, or tea served in
+a separate room about twelve o'clock, is more usual. The _azucarilla_ is
+a confection not unlike "Edinburgh rock," but more porous and of the
+nature of a meringue. You stir the water with it, when it instantly
+dissolves, flavouring the water with vanilla, lemon, or orange, as well
+as sugar. Sometimes you are offered meringues, which you eat first, and
+then drink the water.
+
+I have a very perfect recollection of my first _tertulia_ in Madrid,
+when I was a very young girl. We had been asked to go quite early, as we
+were the strangers of the evening. Between seventy and eighty guests
+dropped in, the ladies chiefly in morning dress, as we understand the
+word. A Spanish lady never rises to receive a gentleman; but when any
+ladies entered the large drawing-room where we were all seated, every
+one rose and stood while the new arrivals made the circuit of the room,
+shaking hands with their friends or kissing them on both cheeks, and
+giving a somewhat undignified little nod to those whom they did not
+know. The first time every one rose I thought we were going to sing a
+hymn, or take part in some ceremony; but as it had to be repeated each
+time a lady entered the room, I began to wish they would all come at
+once. As soon as the dancing began, however, this ceremony was
+discontinued. When you are introduced to a partner, the first thing he
+does is to inquire your Christian name; from that time forth he
+addresses you by it, as if he had known you from infancy, and in
+speaking to him you are expected to use his surname alone. If there be
+more than one brother, you address the younger one as "Arturo," "Ramon,"
+or whatever his Christian name may be. The diminutives are, however,
+almost always used--Pacquita, Juanito, etc., in place of Francisca or
+Juan. Even the middle-aged and old ladies are always spoken to by their
+Christian names, and it is quite common to hear a child of six
+addressing a lady who is probably a grandmother as "Luisa" or
+"Mariquita."
+
+Between the dances the pauses were unusually long, but they were never
+spent by the ladies sitting in rows round the walls, while the men
+blocked up the doorways and looked bored. There were no "flirting
+corners," and sitting out on the stairs _a deux_ would have been a
+_compromiso_. The whole company broke up into little knots and circles,
+the chairs, which had been pushed into corners or an ante-room, were
+fetched out, and the men, without any sort of shyness, generally seated
+themselves in front of the ladies, and kept up a perfectly wild hubbub
+of conversation until the music for the next dance struck up. Dowagers
+and _duenas_ were few; they sat in the same spot all the evening, and
+asked each other what rent they paid, how many _chimeneas_ (fireplaces)
+they had, whether they burned wood or coal, and lamented over the price
+of both. They reminded one irresistibly of the "two crumbly old women"
+in _Kavanagh_ "who talked about moths, and cheap furniture, and the best
+cure for rheumatism."
+
+The dances were the same as ours, with some small differences: the
+_rigodon_ is a variation of the quadrille, and the lancers are slightly
+curtailed. There was a decided fancy for the polka and a species of
+mazurka, which I remembered having learned from a dancing-master in the
+dawn of life, under some strange and forgotten name. Spaniards dance
+divinely--nothing less. They waltz as few other men do, a very poetry of
+motion, an abandonment of enjoyment, as if their soul were in it,
+especially if the music be somewhat languid. This is especially the case
+with the artillery officers, who are great favourites in society, and
+belong exclusively to the upper ranks.
+
+I have described this _tertulia_ at length because it was a typical one
+of many. The cotillon was a great favourite, and generally closed the
+evening. I always had an idea that one cause of its popularity was the
+extended opportunities it gave for a couple who found each other's
+company pleasant to enjoy it without much interference. It rather made
+up for the loss of the staircase and the window-seats, or balconies,
+dear to English dancers. The rooms are generally kept in a stifling
+state of heat, a thick curtain always hanging over the door, and never
+an open window or any kind of ventilation; this, however, does not
+inconvenience the Spaniard in the least. It is usual to smoke during the
+intervals of the dances--cigarettes as a rule; but I have often known a
+man to lay his cigar on the edge of a table, and give it a whiff between
+the rounds of a _valse_ to keep it going.
+
+This, however, is the Spanish _tertulia_. You are "offered the house"
+once and for always, and told the evenings on which your hostess
+"receives," generally once, sometimes many more times in the week; then
+you drop in, without further invitation, whenever you feel inclined;
+after the opera, or on the days when there is no opera, or on your way
+from the theatre, or at any hour. This sort of visiting puts an end to
+what we, by courtesy, call "morning calls." There is always conversation
+to any amount, generally cards, music, and, when there are sufficient
+young people, a dance.
+
+There is no exclusiveness and no caste about Spanish society; all the
+houses are open, and the guests are always welcome. There are, of
+course, the houses of the nobility, and there are many grades in this
+_Grandeza_, some being of very recent creation, others of the
+uncontaminated _sangre azul_; but there is no hard-and-fast line. The
+successful politician or the popular writer has the entree anywhere,
+and there is no difficulty about going into the very best of the Court
+society, if one has friends in that _tertulia_. One guest asks
+permission to present his or her friend, the permission is courteously
+granted, and the thing is done. Poets and dramatists are in great
+request in Madrid society. It is the custom to ask them to recite their
+own compositions, and as almost every Spaniard is a poet, whatever else
+he may be, there is no lack of entertainment. All the popular
+authors--Campoamor, Nunez de Arce, Pelayo, Valera, and many others--may
+thus be heard; but the paid performer (so common in London
+drawing-rooms) of music, light drama, or poetical recitation, is
+probably absolutely unknown in Madrid society.
+
+During the season balls are given occasionally at the Palace, and at the
+houses of the great nobility, the Fernan-Nunez, the Romana, the
+Medinaceli, and others, whose names are as well known in Paris and
+London as in Madrid. Dinner-parties are also becoming much more common
+in private houses than they were before the Restoration, and as for
+public dinners, they are so frequent that they bid fair to become of the
+same importance as the like institution in England. Costume balls,
+dances, dinners, and evening entertainments among the _corps
+diplomatique_ abound. Everyone in Madrid has a box or stall at the
+Teatro Real, or opera-house, and many ladies make a practice of
+"receiving" in their _palcos_; and in the entrance-hall, after the
+performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for
+carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally
+making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same
+amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an
+_abono_ at one or other of the numerous theatres, sometimes at more than
+one; and if it be a box, the subscribers take friends with them, or
+receive visits there. It is a common thing, either in the opera-house or
+in the theatres, for a couple of friends to join in the _abono_; in this
+case it is arranged on which nights the whole box or the two or three
+stalls shall be the property of each in turn. Besides paying for the
+seats, there is always a separate charge each night made for the
+_entrada_--in the Teatro Real it is a peseta and a half, in the others
+one peseta. By this arrangement anyone can enter the theatre by paying
+the _entrada_, and take chance of finding friends there, frequently
+spending an hour or so going from one box to another. All this gives the
+theatre more the air of being an immense "At Home" than what we are
+accustomed to in England. The intervals between the acts are very long,
+and, as all the men smoke, somewhat trying.
+
+Spanish women are great dressers, and the costumes seen at the
+race-meetings at the Hippodrome, and in the Parque, are elaborately
+French, and sometimes startling. The upper middle class go to Santander,
+Biarritz, or one of the other fashionable watering-places, and it is
+said of the ladies that they only stop as many days as they can sport
+new costumes. If they go for a fortnight they must have fifteen
+absolutely new dresses, as they would never think of putting one on a
+second time. They take with them immense trunks, such as we generally
+associate with American travellers; these are called _mundos_
+(worlds)--a name which one feels certain was given by the suffering man
+who is expected to look after them.
+
+There are many little details in Spanish life, even of the upper
+classes, which strike one as odd. One, for instance, is the perfect
+_sangfroid_ with which they pick their teeth in public; but so little is
+this considered, as with us, a breach of good manners, that the
+dinner-tables are supplied with dainty little ornaments filled with
+tooth-picks, and these are handed round to the guests by the waiters
+towards the close of the meal. Nor is it an unknown thing for a Spanish
+lady to spit. I have seen it done out of a carriage window in the
+fashionable drive without any hesitation. At the same time, as one of
+the great charms of a Spanish woman is the total absence in her of
+anything savouring of affectation, one would far sooner overlook customs
+that are unknown in polite society with us than have them lose their own
+characteristics in an attempt to imitate the social peculiarities of
+other nations that have incorporated the ominous word "snob" in their
+vocabularies. It has no equivalent in the language of Castile, and it
+is to be hoped will never be borrowed. Nevertheless, a recent Spanish
+writer laments the fact that in the race for "_el_ high life" his
+fellow-countrywomen "are not ashamed to drink whisky!" We have yet to
+learn that whisky-drinking among women is an element of good style in
+any class of English society. The idea that Spanish ladies were in the
+habit of smoking in past times is a mistake. If they do so now it is an
+instance of the race for "_el_ high life," of which the writer quoted
+above complains.
+
+In imitation of foreign customs, many of the ladies in Madrid and the
+more modern cities have established their "day" for afternoon visitors.
+After all, this is but the Spanish _tertulia_ at a different hour, but
+if it should ever supersede the real evening _tertulia_ it will be a
+thousand pities; it would be far more sensible if we were to adopt the
+Spanish custom, rather than that they should follow ours. In the
+evening, the hour varying, of course, with the time of year, all Madrid
+goes to drive, ride, or walk in the Buen Retiro, now called the Parque
+de Madrid. It is beautifully laid out, with wide, well-kept roads and
+well-cared-for gardens; it has quite superseded the Paseo de la Fuente
+Castellano, which used to be the "Ladies' Mile" of Madrid.
+
+Madrid is a city of which one hears the most contradictory accounts. The
+mere traveller not uncommonly pronounces it "disappointing, uninteresting,
+less foreign than most Continental capitals,"--"everything to be seen at
+best second-rate France," etc., etc. The Museo, of course, must be
+admired,--even the most ignorant know that to contemn that is to write
+themselves down as Philistines;--but for the rest, they confess themselves
+glad to escape, after two or three days spent in La Corte, to what they
+fancy will prove more interesting towns, or, at any rate, to something
+which they hope will be more characteristic. But those who settle in
+Madrid, or know it well, winter and summer, and have friends among its
+hospitable people, come to love it, one might almost say, strangely,
+because it is not the love that springs from habit or mere familiarity,
+but something much warmer and more personal. One charm it has, which is
+felt while there and pleasantly remembered in absence--its much-maligned
+climate. The position of Madrid at the apex of a high table-land, two
+thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, with its
+wide expanse of plain on every hand but that on which the Guadarramas
+break the horizon with their rugged, often snow-capped, peaks, naturally
+exposes it to rapid changes of temperature; that is to say, that if the
+snow is still lying on the Sierra, and the wind should chance to blow from
+that direction on Madrid, which is steeped in sunshine winter and summer
+for far the greater part of the year, there is nothing to break its course,
+and naturally, a Madrileno, crossing from the sheltered corner, where
+he has been "taking the sun," to the shady side of the street and the
+full force of the chilly blast, will be very likely to "catch an air,"
+as the Spaniard expresses it. But that _tan sutil aire de Madrid_, which
+Ford seems to have discovered, and which every guide-book and slip-shod
+itinerary has ever since quoted, might very well now be allowed to find
+a place in the limbo of exploded myths; it has done far more than its
+duty in terrifying visitors quite needlessly. That _pulmonia fulminante_
+(acute pneumonia) is a very common disease among the men of Madrid,
+there is no doubt, and in the days when Ford wrote, they were no doubt
+immediately bled, and so hastened on their way out of this troublesome
+world by the doctors; but one has not very far to seek for the cause of
+this scourge when one notices the habits of the Madrileno. In the first
+place he hates nothing quite so much as fresh air, and the cafes, clubs,
+taverns, and places where he resorts are kept in such a state of heated
+stuffiness that it seems scarcely an exaggeration to say that the air
+could be cut out in junks, like pieces of cake. If he travel by train,
+all windows must be kept closely shut, while he smokes all the time.
+When, at last, it is necessary to brave the outer air in order to reach
+home, he, carefully and before leaving the vitiated atmosphere he has
+been breathing, envelops himself in his cloak, throwing the heavy cape,
+generally lined with velvet or plush, across his mouth and nose, barely
+leaving his eyes visible; he thus has three or four folds of cloth and
+velvet as a respirator. It often happens that at the corner of some
+street the long arm of the icy "Guadarrama" reaches him; a sudden gust
+of wind plucks off his respirator, and the mischief is done. But should
+he reach the safe closeness of his own house, he has certainly done his
+level best to charge his lungs with unwholesome and contaminated air.
+
+You have only to see the women on the coldest day in winter with nothing
+over their heads but a silk or lace mantilla, or a mere _velo_ of net,
+and the working-women with nothing but their magnificent hair, or, at
+most, a kerchief, to be certain that it is not the "air" that is to
+blame. I have seen the women going about Madrid in winter, both by day
+and night, when the men were muffled to the eyes, with thicker dresses,
+of course, and perhaps a fur cape, but no sort of wrap about their head
+or throat; and _pulmonia_ is comparatively unknown among women. To
+English people, accustomed to plenty of fresh air and water, Madrid has
+never been an unhealthy place, and it is extremely probable that one of
+these days our doctors will be sending their consumptive patients there
+for the winter. They might easily do worse.
+
+One of the coldest winters I remember in Madrid, a young Englishman came
+out with a letter of introduction from friends. He looked as if he had
+not many weeks to live, and in truth he was condemned by his doctors,
+and his hours were numbered. He was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had
+some years past developed seeds of consumption. He had been sent year
+after year to Madeira and other of the old resorts, having been told
+that a winter in England would certainly finish him. Finally, he made
+his doctors tell him the truth: it was that he had not many months,
+perhaps not many weeks, to live.
+
+"Very well, then," he replied, "there is no use worrying any more about
+my health. I shall do my best to enjoy the little time I may have left."
+He threw all his medicines and remedies out of the window, he looked out
+for the most unhealthy place he could find, where he would be most
+certain of never meeting another consumptive patient; and in the course
+of the search he came across the well-worn chestnut about the air of
+Madrid. "That is the place for me," he exclaimed; "only strong and
+healthy people can live there. At any rate, so long as I do live, I
+shall be amongst sound lungs, and shall see no more fellow-sufferers.
+The _aire tan sutil_ will kill me, and that will be the end of the
+matter." So far from killing him, the fine champagne-like air of Madrid
+went as near curing him as was possible for a man with only one lung. He
+took no precautions, never wrapped up, went out at night as well as by
+day, and when he died, fourteen years later, it was not of consumption.
+He used to come to Madrid for the winter to escape the damp of England,
+and revelled in the warmth and freshness of that sun-steeped air.
+
+The climate of Madrid has sensibly altered since I have known it, and
+will continue to do so as vegetation increases and trees spring up and
+grow to perfection within and around it. In the old times, before the
+splendid service of water of the Lozoya Canal was in common use, the air
+was so dry as to make one's skin uncomfortable, and one's hair to break
+off into pieces like tinder under the brush; there was also a constant
+thickening in the throat, causing slight discomfort, and a penetrating,
+impalpable dust which nothing ever laid, and which formed a veritable
+cloud reaching far above the heads of the promenaders in the Salon del
+Prado. A very short time changed all this. Twice a day the streets were
+watered with far-reaching hose, a constant stream ran about the stems of
+the trees in the Prado, gardens were planted and constantly watered, and
+while the hitherto barren, dust-laden places began to blossom as the
+rose, the air itself became softer, less trying, and, perhaps, there is
+rather more uncertainty about the weather, or at any rate a greater
+rainfall. At one time there were but two rainy seasons--spring and
+autumn--and never a cloud in between. For about three days clouds would
+be gathering gradually in the sky, beginning with one literally "no
+bigger than a man's hand." Whenever there was a cloud, you might be
+certain of rain, past or to come. Then one day, when there was no longer
+any blue to be seen, the heavens opened and the rain came down. There
+could be no mistake about it. When it rains or thunders in Madrid, it
+tries to get it all over as quickly as possible. There is nothing like
+doing a thing well when you are about it, and Madrid thoroughly
+understands this matter of rain. It never ceases, never tempts people to
+go out and then drowns them. No, if you go out, it is with a thorough
+understanding of what you are undertaking; and if you are disposed to be
+critical about anything in the municipal management of La Corte now, try
+to imagine what it was when the water from the roofs was carried out in
+wide pipes a few feet from the edge, and allowed to pour on the heads of
+the defenceless foot-passengers, or almost to break in the roof of
+carriage or cab which had to pass under them. This is the time to learn
+why the bridges over the Manzanares are so wide and so strong; not one
+whit too much of either, if they are to withstand the mighty on-rush. We
+used to go off to the Casa de Campo the moment the rain was over, for
+the sake of seeing Madrid as one never sees it at other times--its
+magnificent Palace crowning the steep bluff, round which a mighty river
+is rushing to the sea.
+
+The rain lasts a week, a fortnight, or even more, and then the sky takes
+at least three days to clear, during which it resembles our English
+white-flecked blue, or its hurrying grey masses, and the cloud-shadows
+fly over the wide landscape, now all suddenly changed to verdure, and
+lie on the distant _sierra_, giving an unwonted charm to the scene. The
+Casa de Campo, the Florida, and all green spots become carpeted with
+wild flowers; the trees seem to have put on new leafage, so fresh are
+they and free from the over-loading of dust. And then, gradually, the
+Manzanares repents him of his anger and haste; no more foam is dashing
+against the piers of the bridges, no more crested waves are hurrying
+before the wind; he sinks gently and slowly back to his accustomed
+lounging pace, "taking the sun" with lazy ease once more; and the
+washerwomen come down and resume their labours under the plane trees;
+and there is no more thought of rain for many a week, perhaps month, to
+come; and that strangely deep, impenetrable vault of a blue unknown
+elsewhere spreads its canopy over a clean, rain-washed city.
+
+The Parque de Madrid, which lies high above the Prado, affords a
+striking view of the country on all sides. An Englishman of wide
+Continental experience, describing this prospect, says he was "more than
+recompensed by the sudden apparition, through an opening between the
+houses, of the exquisite _campagna_ that surrounds Madrid.... Compared
+with that of Rome, it seemed to me clearer, and more extensive, while
+the hue of the atmosphere that overspread it was of a rich purple." I
+have quoted these remarks because it is so rare for English visitors,
+accustomed to the lush green of our own meadows and woods, to find
+anything to admire in what is too often called the "mangy," or at best
+the "arid," surroundings of the capital of Spain. This, however, was
+written in September, and there had been heavy rains; after the crops
+are gathered and before the autumn rains come on, the prospect is
+scarcely so much to be admired. That the view is extensive, no one can
+deny; there is unbroken horizon, except where the rugged peaks of the
+Guadarramas pierce the sky, and the atmospheric effects are often
+marvellously beautiful, especially when the swift shadows of clouds pass
+over the wide landscape, or lie upon the "everlasting hills."
+
+For myself, this vast expanse, with the sense of immensity which we
+generally are only able to associate with the sea, has always had an
+extraordinary charm. I have seen it at all times of the year, early in
+the morning, and at, or just before, sundown--nay, even once or twice by
+moonlight, or with the marvellous blue vault overhead, that seems so
+much higher and greater there than elsewhere, studded with planet and
+star, luminous beyond all that we know in our little island, where the
+blue is so pale by comparison, and the atmosphere laden with moisture
+when we think it most clear. I do not remember elsewhere in Spain, or in
+any other country, such a depth of sky or such brilliancy of moon and
+star light as in Madrid, where it is as easy to read by night as by day
+on some occasions.
+
+Given plenty of water, and Madrid is an ideal place for flowers. Such
+carnations as those which are grown in the nursery gardens there are
+never seen elsewhere--they are a revelation in horticulture; nor are the
+roses any less wonderful. The bouquet with which a Spaniard, whether
+_hidalgo_ or one of your servants, greets your birthday is generally a
+pyramid almost as tall as yourself. It needs to be placed in a large
+earthenware jar on the floor, and if you should be happy enough to have
+a good many friends, there is scarcely room for anything else in your
+_gabinete_. The flowers one can raise in a balcony in Madrid merely by
+using plenty of water, syringing the dust off the leaves, and shading
+them occasionally from the worst heat, are more than equal to anything a
+hothouse in England can produce. An idea may be formed of the really
+marvellous fertility of the soil and climate by the rapidity with which
+seeds develop. I remember one summer, when some of the new gardens were
+being laid out in the Buen Retiro, a grand concert and evening _fete_
+was to be given as the opening function. On the evening before this
+entertainment was to take place we happened to be near, and strolled in
+to see how the preparations were going on. The gravel walks were all
+there, the stands for the bands, the Chinese lanterns hanging from the
+trees, but where was the grass? Alas! wherever it ought to have been
+were to be seen brown, sad-looking patches of bare earth, not a blade
+springing anywhere; what was worse, an army of gardeners were, at that
+moment only, sowing the seed in some patches, while others were being
+rolled, and watered with hose. _Cosa de Espana!_ of course. It had been
+put off to _manana_, until now there might be _fete_, but no gardens.
+The following evening, when in company with all Madrid we went to the
+concert, behold a transformation! Soft, green, velvety sward--not to be
+walked on, it is true, but lovely to behold--covered the patches so
+absolutely bald twenty-four hours ago. The seed we had seen sown had
+sprung up as thickly as finest cut velvet. _Cosa de Espana_, indeed! It
+is not always in Spain--the land of the unexpected--that _Manana
+veremos_ is foolishness.
+
+Until after Christmas the winter in Madrid is charming, even if it be
+cold; the glorious sunshine from dawn to sunset, the fine exhilarating
+air, raise one's spirits unconsciously; but very often the old year is
+dead before any real cold comes on. I have sat out in the Buen Retiro
+many a day in December with book or work, and scarcely any more wrap
+than one wears in summer in England. After that there is generally a
+cold, and perhaps disagreeable, spell, when the wind comes howling
+across the plains straight from the snow and ice, and the Madrileno
+thinks it terrible; as a matter of fact, so long as the sky remains
+clear, there is always one side of the street where one can be warm.
+Sometimes, but not often, the cold weather or the bitter winds last
+pretty far into the spring, and it has certainly happened in the depth
+of the frost that one of the sentries on duty at the Palace, on the side
+facing the mountains, was found frozen to death when the relief came.
+After that the watch was made shorter, and the change of guard more
+frequent in winter. I have seen the Estanque Grande in the Retiro
+covered with ice several inches thick; but as all Madrid turned out to
+see the wonder and watch the foreigners skate, a thing that appeared
+never to have been seen before, it could not have been a very common
+occurrence.
+
+Riding early in the morning in winter outside Madrid, even with the sun
+shining brightly and a cloudless sky, the cold was often intense,
+especially in the dells and hollows. We have often had to put our hands
+under the saddle to keep them from freezing, so as to be able to feel
+the reins, and if I were riding with the sun on the off-side, my feet
+would become perfectly dead to feeling. But what an air it was!
+Something to be remembered, and long before we reached home we were in a
+delicious glow. The horses, English thoroughbreds, enjoyed it immensely,
+and went like the wind. I have been in Madrid in every part of the year,
+and never found it unbearably hot, though one does not generally wait
+for July or August; but here again the lightness and dryness of the air
+seem to make heat much easier to bear. Numbers of Madrid people think
+nothing of remaining there all the summer through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MODERN MADRID
+
+
+Madrid has grown out of all knowledge in the last thirty years. No one
+who had not seen it since the time of Isabel II. would recognise it now,
+and even then much had been done since Ferdinand VII. had come back from
+his fawning and despicable captivity in France--where he had gloried in
+calling himself a "French prince"--to act the despot in his own country.
+The Liberal Ministers who, for short periods, had some semblance of
+power during the regency of Cristina had done a little to restore the
+civilisation and light established by Charles III., and wholly quenched
+in the time of his unworthy and contemptible successors. But even in
+1865, the Alcala Gate, standing where the Plaza de la Independencia is
+now, formed one boundary of Madrid, the Gate of Atocha was still
+standing at the end of the _paseo_ of that name, and the Gate of Sta.
+Barbara formed another of the limits of the city. The Museo was
+unfinished and only to be entered by a side door, encumbered with
+builders' rubbish and half-hewn blocks of stone. The Paseo of la Fuente
+Castellana ended the Prado, and not a house was to be seen beyond the
+Mint, or outside the Gate of Alcala.
+
+All the town outside these barriers has arisen since; the magnificent
+viaduct across the Calle de Segovia, the Markets, the Parque de Madrid,
+the Hippodrome, the present Plaza de Toros, all are new. The old Bull
+Ring stood just outside the Alcala Gate, and all beyond it was open
+country; no _casas palacias_ along the Fuente Castellana, no Barrio
+Salamanca. Madrid has, however, always been a cheerful, noisy, stirring
+city, full of life and the expression of animal spirits. In days not so
+very long past the streets were filled with picturesque costumes of the
+provinces, with gaily decorated mules and donkeys carrying immense loads
+of hay or straw, or huge nets filled with melons or pumpkins, almost
+hiding everything but the head and the feet of the animal; or a
+smart-looking "Jacket" man from the country districts would go whistling
+by, Asturians, Murcians, Gallegos, gypsies, _toreros_ in their brilliant
+_traje_ Andaluz--always to be recognised by their tiny pigtails of hair,
+and by their splendidly lithe and graceful carriage--all these jostling,
+singing, chaffing each other, while the jingling bells on innumerable
+horses, mules, donkeys, rang through the sunlit air, and made the Puerta
+de Sol and the streets branching from it a constant scene of life and
+gaiety. Now and then would come the deep clang of the huge bell of the
+draught oxen, drawing their Old-World carts, often with solid discs of
+wood for wheels, while the women of the lower class sported their
+brilliantly embroidered Manila shawls, chattered, and fluttered their
+gaily-coloured fans just like the other senoritas. Mantillas, even then,
+were only to be seen on old ladies; but the smart little _velo_
+coquettishly fastened with a natural flower adorned all the young
+girls--French millinery, which never suits a Spanish face, being kept
+for the evening _paseo_. It is a pity these national costumes have gone
+out of fashion. A Spanish girl with _velo_ and fan is something quite
+superior to the same fascinating young person dressed after the style of
+Paris--with a difference; for there is always a difference.
+
+[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE PLAZA DE TOROS, MADRID]
+
+Madrid, in fact, is becoming cosmopolitan, and is little to be
+distinguished from other capitals, except in the _barrios bajos_ on the
+national _fiestas_, and wherever the country people, as distinguished
+from the Madrid work-people, congregate. These last are rapidly losing
+all picturesqueness, dressing just as the workers in any other capital
+dress. They are, perhaps, still no less _gatos_ (cats), those of them at
+least who have had the honour of being born in La Corte, this being the
+name given them by their fellow country-people.
+
+If it be meant as a term of reproach, the Madrileno has an excellent
+answer in giving the history of its origin. In the reign of Alfonso VI.,
+during one of the many war-like operations of this King, he wished to
+take an important and difficult fortress, and had collected all his
+forces to attack it--the Madrilenos alone were late; it was, in fact,
+only the day before the assault was to take place that they arrived upon
+the scene. The King was furious, and when their leader approached his
+Majesty to know where the troops were to bivouac for the night, he
+replied that there was no room in his camp for laggards; pointing to the
+enemy's fortress, he added: "_There_ will be found plenty of lodging for
+those who come too late for any other." Saluting his Majesty very
+courteously, the soldier withdrew, understanding thoroughly the indirect
+sneer at the valour of his troops; he went back to his regiment,
+summoned his officers and men, and repeated to them the King's word. One
+and all agreed that they would, in fact, seek their night's lodging just
+where the King had indicated. Impossible as the feat appeared, they
+instantly rushed to the attack of the formidable fortress with such
+irresistible dash that they succeeded in scaling the walls and entering
+it, pikes in rest. The King, who had run forward as soon as he heard of
+the attack, watched with delight his loyal Madrilenos climbing up the
+face of the masonry with extraordinary skill, and not a little loss.
+
+"Look, look!" he cried to those near him. "See how they climb! They are
+cats!"
+
+The other forces at once came to their assistance, the fortress fell
+into the King's hands before nightfall, and those who had been in "no
+hurry" to join the army found their lodgings within it, as his Majesty
+had contemptuously recommended them to do. His anger was forgotten in
+admiration and praise; and, from that time, all those born in Madrid
+have the right to call themselves _gatos_.
+
+It is curious how the observation of those who know Spain intimately
+differs--one must suppose according to temperament. Thus Antonio
+Gallenga, the well-known correspondent of the _Times_, who really knew
+Spain well, has left it on record that the people are not musical, and
+that he never remembers to have heard any of them singing in the
+streets, or at their work. I do not know how this could have happened,
+unless our old friend did not recognise the singing he did hear as
+music, for which he might, perhaps, be forgiven. My own experience is
+that the people are always singing, more or less, if you agree to call
+it so. As the houses are almost all built in flats, many of the windows
+open into _patios_, or court-yards, large or small, as the case may be.
+You may reckon on always having two or three servants, male or female,
+at work in the _patio_, the women washing or scrubbing, the men probably
+cleaning their horses, carriages, or harness; but whatever else they may
+be doing, you may be quite certain they will all be singing, though it
+is equally certain that, by the greatest exercise of amiability, you
+could scarcely call the result a song; the words seem to be improvised
+as the performer goes on. There was a light-hearted groom in one of the
+_patios_ of our flat, in the Calle Lope de Vega, who would continue
+almost without a break the whole day. An old friend who used to amuse
+himself by listening to this remarkable performer declared that if he
+started his song in the early morning with a stick that was thick
+enough, he would go on till midnight telling the world in general all
+the people he had killed with it, and the other wonders of Hercules it
+had performed.
+
+The ditty always begins on a high note, and goes quavering irregularly
+downwards, with infinite twirls, shakes, and prolonged notes, these
+being sung to the exclamation "Ay!" Minor keys enter a good deal into
+this kind of performance, and the most remarkable part of it is that the
+singer, once having reached the bottom of the scale--for there is no
+end--is able to begin again on the same high note, and hit upon, more or
+less, the same variations a second time. If you have nothing better to
+do than to listen to some of these improvisatores, you will get a long,
+and more or less connected, history of some event; but it takes a long
+time--and, perhaps, is not often worth the expenditure. The songs which
+you hear to the accompaniment of the guitar are different from these,
+though the introduction of the "Ay!" and the frequent shakes and twirls
+are always there.
+
+The working Madrileno's ideal of happiness is to go a little way along
+one of the dusty _caminos reales_ (highways) to some little _venta_, or
+tavern, or to take refreshments out in baskets. They will sit quite
+contentedly in the dust by the side of the road, or in a field of
+stubble or burnt-up grass, to eat and drink, and then the guitar comes
+into play, and the dancing begins. It is always the _jota aragonesa_,
+which is not so much dancing as twirling about slowly, and, it would
+almost seem, sadly; but there is always a circle of admiring lookers-on,
+who beat time with stamping of feet and clapping of hands, and watch the
+performance as eagerly as if there were something quite fresh and new
+about it. Occasionally, these parties go out by omnibus or tram, as far
+as they can, and then start their picnic repast, to be followed by the
+inevitable dance and song, just wherever they happen to be.
+
+One of the most curious sights of Madrid is the great wash-tub of the
+Manzanares. As you descend the steep bluff on which the city stands,
+towards the river, you find the banks covered with laundresses, kneeling
+at short distances from one another, each scrubbing the clothes on one
+board, which slopes down into the water, while another board, fixed so
+as to stand out into the stream, or a little embankment made of sand,
+dams up the scanty supply of water she can obtain. As the Manzanares in
+summer is divided into a great number of small streams, this scene is
+repeated on the edge of each one, while the expanse of sand which
+occupies the centre of what ought to be the river-bed is one forest of
+clothes-props, with all the wash of Madrid hanging on the lines. On the
+banks the children, in the intervals of school, are playing bull-fights,
+or some of their innumerable dancing and singing games; the women are
+one and all performing the gradual descent of the gamut with variations
+called singing; and above all is the glorious sun, transfiguring all
+things, and throwing deep, purple shadows from the high plane-trees
+along the banks.
+
+The road which runs along the bank of the Manzanares, at the farther
+side from Madrid, is a revelation to those who only know the plains
+through which the railway from the north passes, and which for the
+greater part of the year, except when the crops are growing, are quite
+as arid as we are accustomed to suppose. On the left lies the Casa de
+Campo, an immense extent of park, containing, on the high ground, some
+splendid specimens of the Scotch fir, and, in more sheltered spots,
+groves of beech, avenues of plane, and masses of the dark-leaved ilex,
+which grows to great perfection in this climate. The "Florida," another
+of the royal properties, lies to the right, and a splendid road shaded
+by majestic trees, and with wide, grassy margins, stretches away to the
+village of El Pardillo, where Longfellow established his quarters, and
+which he describes in his _Outre Mer_, and from that on to the forest,
+or whatever you may call it, of El Pardo, where there is a royal
+residence now but seldom used, you may ride for many hours and still
+find yourself in this wild park, which many of the inhabitants of Madrid
+have never seen. Here one can realise a little how the city may have
+once been a hunting lodge of the Kings, as we are told. The Pardo may be
+reached through the Casa de Campo, a gate at the extreme end of the
+principal drive leading into the forest.
+
+Up on the high ground of the Casa de Campo there is a splendid view of
+Madrid, with the Palace crowning the steep bluff overhanging the
+Manzanares. It was in the "country house" itself, near the gate, that
+our "Baby Charles" is said to have climbed the high wall of the
+courtyard to get a glimpse of the Infanta whom he hoped to make his
+wife. When I knew the place intimately, on the very highest part of the
+Park was a large enclosure of the wild forest, railed in with high
+wooden palisading. Within this lived a flock of ostriches, belonging to
+the Crown. No one seemed to know anything about them, nor how long they
+had been there. What puzzled us much was how they were fed, or if they
+were left to cater for themselves. One thing I can answer for: they were
+very wild, and very ferocious; the moment they saw our horses coming up
+the hill they would run from all parts of the enclosure trying their
+best to get at us, striking with their feet and wings, and uttering
+gruesome shrieks. It was one of our amusements to race them, keeping
+outside their high fence while they strode over the ground, their necks
+stretched out, and their absurd wings flapping after the manner of a
+farmyard gander; but, with the best efforts, the horses were never able
+to keep up the pace for long; the birds invariably won, and we left them
+screeching and using language that did not appear to be parliamentary,
+when they found that the fence was the only thing that did not give in,
+as they craned their necks and stamped in their baffled rage. The
+horses, at first rather afraid of the birds, soon learned to enjoy the
+fun, and raced them for all they were worth. I do not know if this
+strange colony is still settled there.
+
+A curious feature of Spanish country life to us are the goatherds. Where
+the large flocks of goats about Madrid pasture, I know not; but I have
+often seen them coming home in the evening to be milked, or starting out
+in the morning. The goatherd, clad in his _manta_, and carrying a long
+wand of office over his shoulder, and I think also a horn, stalks
+majestically along with all the dignity of a royal marshal of
+processions, and the goats follow him, with a good deal of lagging
+behind for play, or nibbling, if they should chance to see anything
+green. Still, they scamper after their _generalissimo_ in the end, and
+meanwhile he is much too dignified to look back. Taking advantage of
+this, I have seen women come out of their cottages on the roadside and
+milk a goat or two as it passed; and from the way the animal made a full
+stop, and lent itself to the fraud--if such it were--it was evidently a
+daily occurrence.
+
+In times not long past, if indeed they do not still exist, the
+dust-heaps outside Madrid were the homes of packs of lean, hungry dogs,
+great brindled creatures of the breed to be seen in Velasquez pictures;
+these animals prowled about the streets of Madrid in the early morning,
+acting as scavengers. When they became too numerous, the civil guards
+laid poison about at night in the dust-heaps before the houses, and the
+very early riser might see four or five of these great creatures lying
+dead on the carts which collect the refuse of Madrid before the world in
+general is astir. These wild dogs were disagreeable customers to meet
+when riding outside the city, until we learned to avoid the localities
+where they spent their days, for they would give chase to the horses if
+they caught sight of them, and the only thing to be done was to remain
+perfectly quiet until they tired of barking and returned to the
+dust-hills to resume their search for food.
+
+The description of peasant life in Madrid would be incomplete if we left
+unmentioned the daily siesta in the sun of the Gallegos and lower-class
+working-men. On the benches in the Prado, on the pavement, in the full
+blaze of the sun, these men will stretch themselves and sleep for an
+hour or two after their midday meal. I have seen the Gallego porters
+make themselves a hammock with the rope they always carry with
+them--_mozos de cuerda_ they are called--literally slinging themselves
+to the _reja_ or iron bars of the window of some private house, and
+sleep soundly in a position that would surely kill any other human
+being. "Taking the sun" (_tomando el sol_) is, however, the custom of
+every Spaniard of whatever degree.
+
+The casual visitor to Madrid is always struck with the number of
+carriages to be seen in the _paseo_; but the fact is that everyone keeps
+a carriage, if it be at all possible, and it is no uncommon thing for
+two or three _pollos_ to join together in the expense of this luxury,
+and a sight almost unknown to us is common enough in Madrid--young men,
+the "curled darlings" of society, lazily lounging in a Victoria or
+Berlina in what is known as the "Ladies' Mile." The Madrid _pollo_ is
+not the most favourable specimen of a Spaniard; the word literally means
+a "chicken," but applied to a young man it is scarcely a complimentary
+expression, and has its counterpart with us in the slang terms which
+from time to time indicate the idle exquisite who thinks as much of his
+dress and his style as any woman does or more. The Madrid _pollo_ often
+is, or ought to be, a schoolboy, and the younger he is, naturally, the
+more conceited and impertinent he is. It is curious that with the
+feminine termination, this word (_polla_) loses all sense of banter or
+contempt; it simply means a young girl in the first charm of her
+spring-time.
+
+Riding in the Row has always been a favourite pastime in Madrid, but to
+English ideas the _pollo_ is more objectionable there than elsewhere,
+since his idea of riding is to show off the antics of a horse specially
+taught and made to prance about and curvet while he sits it, his legs
+sticking out in the position of the Colossus of Rhodes, his heels, armed
+with spurs, threatening catastrophe to the other riders. An old English
+master of foxhounds, who was a frequent visitor in Madrid, used to
+compare the Paseo of the Fuente Castellana at the fashionable hour to a
+"_chevaux de frise_ on horseback." These gentlemen must not, however, be
+supposed to represent Spanish horsemanship. Ladies ride a good deal in
+the Paseo, but one cannot call them good horsewomen. To get into the
+saddle from a chair, or a pair of stable steps, and let their steed walk
+up and down for an hour or so in the Row, is not exactly what we call
+riding. If you hire a carriage in Madrid you are so smart that your best
+friends would not recognise you. A grand barouche and pair dashes up to
+your door, probably with a ducal coronet on the panels. The coachman and
+footman wear cockades, and the moment you appear they both take off
+their hats and hold them in their hands until you are seated in the
+carriage. This ceremony is repeated every time you alight, the coachman
+reverently uncovering as you leave the carriage or return to it, as well
+as the footman who is opening the door for you.
+
+It is most comforting; royalty, I feel sure, is nothing to it! We will
+not look critically at the lining of the noble barouche, nor at the
+varnish on its panels, still less make disagreeable remarks about the
+liveries, which do not always fit their wearers--it is economical to
+have liveries made a good medium size, so that if the servants are
+changed the clothes are not;--one can always feel grateful for the
+polite and agreeable attendants. How oddly it must strike the Spaniards
+in England to notice the stolid indifference of "Jeames de la Plush,"
+and the curt tap of his first finger on the brim of his hat as his lady
+enters her carriage or gives her directions!
+
+All the mules, and most of the horses, ponies, or donkeys ridden by the
+"Jacket" men or country people are trained to pace instead of to trot;
+it is said to be less fatiguing on a long journey. The motion as you
+ride is, to our notions, very unpleasant, being a kind of roll, which at
+first, at any rate, gives one the feeling of sea-sickness. The animal
+uses the fore and hind feet together alternately, as he literally runs
+over the ground. It does not appear to be a natural pace, but is
+carefully taught, and, once acquired, it is very difficult to break the
+animal of it; his idea of trotting has become quite lost; nor is it a
+pretty action, nor one suited to show off good qualities--it has always
+something of a shuffle about it. If it has its advantages, except that
+stirrups may be dispensed with, they are not very apparent to those
+accustomed to the usual paces of an English horse. Personally, I
+disliked it particularly.
+
+There have been many efforts to introduce racing, with its contingent
+improvement in the breed of horses, perhaps the earliest during the
+regency of Espartero; but these ended, as most things did in the old
+days when Spain was only beginning her long struggle for freedom, in
+failure and loss to the enterprising gentlemen--of whom the then Duque
+de Osuna was one--who spent large sums of money in the effort. The old
+race-course of that time lay somewhere in the low ground outside Madrid
+on the course of the Manzanares; many a good gallop I have had on it,
+though it was abandoned and forgotten long ago by the Madrilenos. At the
+present time horse-racing may be said to have become naturalised in
+Spain under the _Sociedad del Fomento de la Cria Caballar_ (Society for
+the Encouragement of Horse-breeding), and all that concerns horsemanship
+is naturally improved and improving.
+
+A good idea of Spanish horses may be gained by a visit to the Royal Mews
+in Madrid. There are the cream-coloured horses from the royal stud at
+Aranjuez, _jacuitas_ from Andalucia, as well as the mountain ponies of
+Galicia. Those who have never seen the Spanish mule have no idea what
+the animal is--powerful, active, graceful, and almost impossible to
+injure. They are used in the royal stables and in those of the nobility,
+for night work, since they are so hardy as not to be injured by long
+waiting in the cold or wet. They are the correct thing in the carriages
+of the Papal Nuncio and all ecclesiastics, and are generally preferred
+to horses for long or difficult journeys. They are a great feature in
+the army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only
+drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule
+carries a small gun on his back. A brigade of this arm would have been
+invaluable to the British in South Africa, having no doubt had its
+initiation in the guerilla warfare of Spain's frequent civil wars.
+
+The clipping of mules and donkeys, which are also very superior animals
+to anything we know by that name, is in the hands of the gypsies, who
+have a perfect genius for decorating their own animals and any others
+committed to their manipulation. Only the upper part is shaved, or
+clipped to the skin, the long winter coat being left on the legs and
+half-way up the body. Generally, on the shoulders and haunches a pattern
+is made by leaving some of the hair a little longer; the figure of the
+cross with rays is not uncommon, but it is wonderful how elaborate and
+beautiful some of these patterns are, looking as if embossed in velvet
+on the skin. One day, passing a _venta_ in a street in Madrid, we were
+attracted by a gaily-decked donkey standing outside. He had the words,
+_Viva mi Amo_ (Long live my Master!), finished with a beautiful and
+artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we
+stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us
+that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate
+decoration was a practical joke!
+
+The mules and donkeys which come in from the country are generally very
+picturesque, with a network of crimson silk tassels over their heads,
+and a bright-coloured _manta_ thrown across their sleek, glossy backs.
+These _mantas_ serve many purposes; they are made of two breadths of
+brightly striped and ornamented material of wool and silk, sewn up at
+one end, or sometimes for some distance at each end, like a purse;
+sometimes they are thrown across the mule to serve as saddle-bags,
+sometimes one end is used as a hood and is drawn over the master's head,
+while the remainder is thrown across his chest and mouth and over the
+left shoulder. The best of these _mantas_ are elaborately trimmed at
+both ends with a deep interlacing fringe, ending in a close row of
+balls, and have a thick ornamental cord sewn over the joining. These,
+which are intended for human wraps and not as saddle-bags, are only sewn
+up at one end, so as to form something very like the old monkish hood.
+All the horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen wear bells: the oxen have
+generally only one large bronze bell, which hangs under the head; the
+others have rows of small jingling silver or brass bells round their
+collars or bridles.
+
+These draught oxen are beautiful animals, mostly a deep cream in colour,
+with dark points, magnificent eyes, and a sphinx-like look of patience,
+as if biding their time for something much better to come. Their harness
+is not apparently irksome to them, and is not so heavy as one sees on
+the Portuguese oxen, for instance. They are coupled by a wooden bar
+across the head, and their driver, if such he can be called--rather,
+perhaps, the guide--walks in front with a long stick, possibly a wand of
+office, over his shoulder to show them the way. The dress of this
+functionary is picturesque: a wide-brimmed hat (_sombrero_), a shirt,
+short trousers to the knees, with gaiters of woven grass (_esparto_), a
+_faja_ round his waist, and _manta_ thrown over his shoulder if cold. He
+stalks majestically along, followed by his equally majestic _bueyes_,
+and one wonders of what all three are thinking as they trudge along the
+sun-smitten roads, regardless of dust or of anything else. The cars are
+rude enough, and the wheels sometimes solid discs of wood. Occasionally,
+a hood of bent pieces of wood covered with linen is fixed. Tame oxen, or
+_cabestros_, as they are called, play a very important part in the
+_ganaderos_ and the bull-rings. They appear to be held in some sort of
+superstitious reverence, or strange affection, by the poor beasts who
+only live to make sport for men. In driving the bulls from one pasture
+to another, or bringing them into the towns, the _cabestros_ are
+followed with unwavering faith by these otherwise dangerous animals;
+where the _cabestro_ goes, clanging his great bell, the bull follows,
+and while under the charge of his domesticated friend he is quite
+harmless.
+
+[Illustration: BUEYES RESTING]
+
+At one time, the bulls used to be driven to the bull-ring outside Madrid
+in specially made roads sunk some fifteen feet below the level of the
+fields, and paved. Along these the _pastor_, or shepherd, and
+_picadores_, armed with long lances, went with the _cabestros_ and the
+herd of bulls to be immolated. I have frequently met this procession
+when riding, either in the early morning or late evening, outside
+Madrid; but so long as the _cabestros_ are present, there is nothing to
+fear, for the bulls are perfectly quiet and harmless. Once, however,
+riding with a friend, I had a disagreeable and exciting adventure. We
+were quietly walking our horses along the Ronda de Alcala, when we heard
+an immense amount of shouting, and suddenly became aware that we
+ourselves were the objects of the excitement, waving of hands,
+screaming, and gesticulating. Before we had time to do more than realise
+that we were being warned of some terrific danger in wait for us round
+the corner of the high wall, some little distance in advance, two
+_picadores_ on horseback, armed with their long pikes, galloped round
+the corner, also shouting wildly to us, and pointing across the fields
+as if telling us to fly, and almost at the same moment the whole drove
+of bulls, tearing along at a terrific rate, without _cabestros_,
+appeared, charging straight towards us. We did not need a second hint.
+At one side of the road was the old wall of Madrid, at the other a high
+bank with a wide ditch beyond it. Without a word, we put our horses at
+the bank,--they had realised the situation as quickly as we had,--jumped
+the ditch at a flying leap from the top of the bank, and were off across
+a field of young wheat. Once only I looked behind, and saw a magnificent
+black bull, with his tail in the air--a signal of attack--on the top of
+the bank over which I had just leaped, preparing to follow me. Long
+afterwards, as it seemed, when my horse slackened his pace, I found
+myself alone in a wide plain, neither bulls nor fellow-rider to be seen.
+His horse had bolted in another direction from mine, and we heard
+afterwards that the _picadores_ had galloped in between me and the
+sporting bull and turned him back. Eventually, the _cabestros_ appeared
+on the scene, and the poor misguided bulls were inveigled into the
+shambles for the _fiesta_ of the morrow. How they had ever managed to
+break away or gain the public road at all, we were never able to learn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE COURT
+
+
+During the reign of Don Alfonso XII., except during the interval when
+the melancholy death of his first beloved Queen, Mercedes, plunged King,
+Court, and people into mourning, Madrid was gayer than perhaps it has
+ever been. No one loved amusement better than the young King, who was
+only seventeen when the military _pronunciamiento_ of Martinez Campo
+called him to the throne from which his mother had been driven seven
+years previously. He had taken his people, and indeed all the world, by
+storm, for from the first moment he had shown all the qualities which
+make a ruler popular, and Spain has never had a young monarch of so much
+promise. He had the royal gift of memory, and an extraordinary facility
+in speaking foreign languages; it was said that the Russian and the
+Turkish envoys were the only ones with whom he was unable to converse as
+freely in their languages as in his own. He was an excellent speaker,
+always knew the right thing to say, the best thing to do to gain the
+hearts of his people, and to make himself agreeable to all parties and
+all nationalities alike. He was the first King of Spain to address his
+people _de usted_ in place of _de tu_, a mark of respect which they were
+not slow to appreciate; he was a modern, in that he would go out alone,
+either on foot or riding, allowed applause in his presence at the
+theatres, unknown before, and himself would salute those he knew from
+his box. He gave audience to all who asked, was an early riser, devoted
+to business when it had to be performed, was an enthusiast in all
+military matters, and, perhaps better than all in the eyes of his
+people, he was devoted to the bull-ring. Extremely active, resolute,
+firm, fond of all kinds of active sports, such as hunting and shooting,
+equally fond of society, picnics, dances, and all kinds of
+entertainments, he seemed destined to become the idol of his people, and
+to lead his beloved country back to its place in Europe. His death, when
+only twenty-seven, changed all this. Queen Maria Cristina has been a
+model wife, widow, mother, and Regent. She was devoted to her husband,
+and though it was said at first to be a political marriage, contracted
+to please the people, it was undoubtedly a happy one. The Queen has
+scarcely taken more part in public life during her sad widowhood than
+Queen Victoria did. She has devoted herself to her public duties as
+Regent and to the education and care of her children.
+
+Alfonso XIII., born a king after his father's death, has always been
+rather a delicate boy; his mother has determined that his health and his
+education shall be the first and chief care of her life, and nothing
+turns her from this purpose. If she has never been exactly popular, she
+has at least the unbounded respect and admiration of the people. She
+does not love the "bulls," and, therefore, she is not _Espanola_ enough
+to awaken enthusiasm; she keeps the boy King too much out of sight, so
+that his people scarcely know him, even in Madrid; but this is the very
+utmost that anyone has to say against her, while all shades of
+politicians, even to declared Republicans, speak of her with respect and
+with real admiration of her qualities of heart and mind.
+
+All Court gaieties are, however, at an end. Once a year or so a ball at
+the palace, a formal dinner, or reception, when it cannot be
+avoided--that is all, and for the rest the Queen is rarely seen except
+at religious ceremonies or state functions, and the King, never. He is
+supposed to take his amusements and exercise in the Casa de Campo, and
+rarely crosses Madrid.
+
+Numerous stories used to be told of his precocity as a child, and of his
+smart sayings; sometimes of his generosity and sympathy with the poor
+and suffering. Now one is told he is somewhat of a pickle, but fables
+about royalty may always be received with more than a grain of salt. One
+of the stories told of him, which ought to be true, since it has the
+ring of childhood about it, is well known. When a small boy, his
+Austrian governess, of whom he was very fond, reproved him for using his
+knife in place of a fork. "Gentlemen never do so," she said. "But I am a
+King," he replied. "Kings, still less, eat with their knives," said the
+governess. "_This_ King does," was the composed reply of the child.
+
+The etiquette of the Spanish Court, although it was much modified by
+Alfonso XII., is still very formal. A perfectly infinite number of
+_mayordomos, caballerizos, gentiles hombres de casa y boca, ujieres,
+alabarderos, monteros_, aides-de-camp, _Grandes de Espana de servicio_,
+ladies-in-waiting, lackeys, servants, and attendants of every possible
+description abound. A man going to an audience with royalty uncovers as
+he enters the Palace. First, he will find the _alabardero de servicio_
+placed at the entrance of the vestibule; farther on, more _alabarderos_.
+Whenever a Grande de Espana, a prelate, a grand cross, or a title of
+Castile passes, these guards strike the marble floor with their arms--a
+noise which may well cause the uninitiated to start. Three halls are
+used for grouping, according to their rank, those who are about to be
+presented: first, the _saleta_, where ordinary people--all the world, in
+fact--wait; next, the _camara_, for those who have titles or wear the
+grand cross; third, the _antecamara_, reserved for the Grandes of Spain,
+and _gentiles hombres en ejercio_. The Grandes of Spain, chamberlains
+of the King, share between them the service of his Majesty. They are
+called in rotation, one day's notice being given before they are
+expected to attend in the Palace. In the ante-chamber of the King there
+is always the _Grande_ in waiting, the lady-in-waiting on the Queen, two
+aides-de-camp, and a _gentil hombre del interior_ (the last must not be
+confounded with the _gentiles hombres en ejercicio_, who have the right to
+enter the ante-chamber). There are, of course, equerries
+(_caballerizos_) who attend, as ours do, on horseback, when the King or
+Queen goes out; but the most essentially Spanish attendants are the
+Monteros de Espinosa, who have the exclusive right to watch while
+Royalty sleeps. These attendants must all be born in Espinosa; it is an
+hereditary honour, and the wives of the existing Monteros are careful to
+go to Espinosa when they expect an addition to their family, as no one
+not actually born there can hold the office. At the present time this
+guard is recruited from captains or lieutenants on the retired list.
+
+In the ante-chamber of each member of the Royal Family two of these take
+their place at eleven o'clock; they never speak, never sit down, but
+pass the whole night pacing the room, crossing each other as they go,
+until morning relieves them from what must be rather a trying watch. At
+eleven o'clock each evening there is a solemn procession of servants and
+officials in imposing uniforms down the grand staircase of the Palace;
+every door is closed and locked by a gentleman wearing an antique
+costume and a three-cornered hat, and having an enormous bunch of keys.
+From that time the Palace remains under the exclusive charge of the
+Monteros de Espinosa. Although this is the official programme, it is to
+be hoped the hour is not a fixed one. It would be a little cruel to put
+the Royal Family to bed so early, without regard to their feelings;
+especially as Madrid is essentially a city of late hours, and the
+various members of it would have to scamper away from opera, or in fact
+any entertainment, as if some malignant fairy were wanting to cast a
+spell at the witching hour of midnight. There are some curious
+superstitions, however, about being abroad when the clocks strike
+twelve, which we must suppose do not now affect the Madrileno.
+
+While the old church of Atocha was still standing, the Court, with a
+royal escort, or what is called _escadron de salut_, all the dignitaries
+of the Palace in attendance, guards, outriders, etc., in gorgeous array,
+drove in half state (_media gala_) across Madrid and the _paseos_ to
+hear the _salut "sa'nt"_ on Saturday. The Queen Regent and her
+daughters, but not often the King, now visit in turn some of the
+churches, but without the old state or regularity.
+
+Since the death of Alfonso XII., many of the purely Spanish customs of
+the Court have been modified or discontinued. Although the late King was
+credited with a desire to reduce the civil list, and to adopt more
+English customs, he was to some extent in the hands of the
+Conservatives, who had been the means of his restoration, and when he
+went forth to put an end to the Carlist insurrection and finish the
+civil war, which had laid desolate the Northern provinces and ruined
+commerce and industry for some seven years, it was at the head of a
+personal following of over five hundred people. Nor was the Court much,
+if any, less numerous when the Royal Family removed in the summer to the
+lovely Palace of St. Ildefonso at La Granja--that castle in the air,
+which has no equal in Europe, hanging, as it does, among gardens,
+forests, rivers, and lakes, three thousand eight hundred and forty feet
+above the level of the sea.
+
+The Queen is Austrian, and she has never gone out of her way to
+conciliate the people by making herself really Spanish. This she has
+left to the Infanta Isabel, the eldest sister of Alfonso XII. For many
+years before the birth of her brother, the Infanta Isabel was Princess
+of Asturias, as heiress apparent of the Crown. With the advent of a boy,
+she became, of course, only Infanta, losing the rank which she had held
+up to this time. Being but a child at the time, she perhaps knew or
+cared little for any difference it may have made in her surroundings.
+She shared in the flight of the Royal Family to France in 1868, and her
+education was completed in Paris. When the whirligig of Spanish politics
+called her brother Alfonso, who at the time was a military student at
+Sandhurst, to the throne from which his mother had been driven, Princess
+Isabel returned with him to Madrid, and was once more installed in the
+Palace, above the Manzanares, as Princess of Asturias. This rank
+remained hers during the short episode of her brother's marriage to his
+cousin Mercedes, and the melancholy death of the girl Queen at the
+moment when a direct heir to the throne was expected. Once more, when
+the daughter of Alfonso's second wife, the present Queen Regent, was
+born, the Infanta Isabel became her title, and she took again the lower
+rank.
+
+Nothing in history is more pathetic than this first marriage of Alfonso
+XII. and its unhappy termination. The children of Queen Isabel and those
+of her sister, the Duquesa de Montpensier, had been brought up together,
+and there was a boy-and-girl attachment between the Prince of Asturias
+and his cousin Mercedes. When Alfonso became King, almost as it seemed
+by accident, and it was thought necessary that he should marry, the boy
+gravely assured his Ministers that he was quite willing to do so, and in
+fact intended to marry his cousin. Nothing could be more inopportune,
+nothing more contrary to the welfare of the distracted country! From the
+time that the notorious "Spanish marriages" had become facts, the Duke
+of Montpensier had been an intriguer. The birth of heirs to the throne
+of Spain (it is useless to go back to those long-past scandals) had
+completely upset the machinations of Louis Philippe and his Ministers.
+So long as Don Francisco de Assis and the Spanish nation chose to
+acknowledge the children as legitimate, there was nothing to be done.
+The direct hope of seeing his sons Kings of Spain faded from the view of
+the French husband of the sister of Isabel II., but he never for one
+moment ceased to intrigue. Although loaded with benefits and kindness by
+the Queen, Montpensier took no small part in the revolution which drove
+her from the country. Topete, and Serrano--who had once been what the
+Spaniards called _Pollo Real_ himself--were bound in honour to uphold
+his candidature for the vacant throne; their promise had been given long
+before the _pronunciamiento_ at Cadiz had made successful revolution
+possible. Prim alone stood firm: "_Jamas, jamas!_" (Never, never!) he
+replied to every suggestion to bring Montpensier forward. In those words
+he signed his own death-warrant. His actual murderers were never brought
+to justice, ostensibly were never found; but there never was a Spaniard
+who doubted that the foul deed was the result of instigation.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE WOODS AT LA GRANJA]
+
+To have Mercedes as Queen Consort, was to bring her father once more
+within the limits of practical interference with national politics. To
+all remonstrance, however, the young King had one answer: "I have
+promised," and the nation, recognising that as a perfectly valid
+argument, acquiesced, though with many forebodings. The marriage took
+place, and within a few months the girl Queen was carried with her
+unborn child to the melancholy Panteon de los Principes at the Escorial.
+
+The marriage of the Infanta Isabel with Count Girgenti, a Neapolitan
+Bourbon, was an unhappy one, and she obtained a legal separation from
+him after a very short matrimonial life. Spaniards have a perfect genius
+for giving apt nicknames. Scarcely was the arrangement for the marriage
+made known when the Count's name was changed to that of _Indecente_. He
+fought, however, for Isabel II. at Alcolea, which was at any rate acting
+more decently than did Montpensier, who had furnished large sums of
+money to promote the rising against his confiding sister-in-law, and, in
+fact, never ceased his machinations against every person and every thing
+that stood in his way, until death fortunately removed him from the
+arena of Spanish politics, his one overmastering ambition unfulfilled.
+He had neither managed to ascend the throne himself, nor see any of his
+children seated there, except for the few months that Mercedes, "beloved
+of the King and of the nation," shared the throne of Alfonso XII.
+
+The Infanta Isabel, except for the episode of her exile in France, has
+always lived in the Royal Palace of Madrid, having her own quarters, and
+her little court about her. At times she has been the butt of much
+popular criticism, and even dislike, but she has outlived it all, and is
+now the most popular woman in Spain. It must have required no common
+qualities to have lived without discord--as a separated wife--with her
+brother and her younger sisters; then with Queen Mercedes, her cousin as
+well as sister-in-law; again, during the time of the King's widowhood
+and her own elevation to the rank of Princess of Asturias, and, finally,
+since the second marriage of her brother, and his untimely death, with
+Maria Cristina and her young nephew and nieces.
+
+One thing is to be said in favour of Isabel II. Deprived of all ordinary
+education herself, as a part of the evil policy of her mother, she was
+careful that her own children should not have to complain of the same
+neglect. One and all have been thoroughly educated: the Infanta Paz, now
+married to a Bavarian Archduke, has shown considerable talent as a
+poetess; and the Infanta Isabel is universally acknowledged to be a
+clever and a cultivated woman, inheriting much of her mother's charm of
+manner, and noted for ready wit and quick repartee. Her popularity, as I
+have said, is great, for she is careful to keep up all the Spanish
+customs. She is constantly to be seen in public, and, above and beyond
+all things, she never fails in attendance at the bull-fight, wearing the
+white mantilla. This alone would cover a multitude of sins, supposing
+the Infanta to be credited with them; but there has never been a breath
+of scandal connected with her. She is very devout, and never fails in
+the correct religious duties and public appearances. At the fair, and on
+_Noche buena_, she fills her carriage with the cheap toys and sweetmeats
+which mean so much to Spanish children, and she must be a veritable
+fairy godmother to those who come within her circle. She takes a close
+personal interest in many sisterhoods and societies for the help of the
+poor. In a word, she is _muy simpatica_ and _muy Espanola_. What could
+one say more?
+
+A gala procession in Madrid is something to be remembered, if it be only
+for the wealth of magnificent embroideries and fabrics displayed. The
+royal carriages are drawn by eight horses, having immense plumes of
+ostrich feathers, of the royal colours, yellow and red, on their heads,
+and gorgeous hangings of velvet, with massive gold embroideries reaching
+almost to the ground; the whole of the harness and trappings glitter
+with gold and silk. The grooms, leading each horse, are equally
+magnificently attired, their dresses being also one mass of needlework
+of gold on velvet. Equerries, outriders, and military guards precede and
+surround the royal carriages, and the cavalcade is lengthened by having
+a _coche de respecto_, caparisoned with equal splendour, following each
+one in which a royal person is being conveyed. Behind come the carriages
+of the Grandes, according to rank, all drawn by at least six horses,
+with trappings little, if at all, inferior to those of the Court, and
+each with its enormous plume of gaily-coloured ostrich feathers, showing
+the livery of its owner. In addition to all this grandeur, the balconies
+of the great houses lining the route of the processions display
+priceless heirlooms of embroideries, hanging before each window from
+basement to roof. If these ancient decorations could speak, what a
+strange story they might tell of the processions they have seen pass! In
+honour of the victories over the Moors; of the heroes of the New World;
+of the miserable murders of the _Autos-da-fe_; of the entry of the _Rey
+absoluto_, to inaugurate the "Terror," on to the contemptible "galas" of
+Isabel II., supposed to keep the people quiet; and, almost the last, the
+entry of Alfonso XII., after he had put an end to the Carlist war! On
+the day of rejoicing for "La Gloriosa" there was no such display,
+although all Madrid was _en fete_. It was the triumph of the people, and
+their heirlooms do not take the form of priceless embroideries.
+
+In former days the receptions at the Palace were known as _besamanos_
+(to kiss hand). On Holy Thursday the Royal Family and all the Court
+visit seven churches on foot--at least, that is the correct number,
+though sometimes not strictly adhered to. As no vehicular traffic is
+allowed on that day or on Good Friday, the streets where the royal
+procession pass are swept and laid with fresh sand. The ladies are in
+gala costume, and drag their trains behind them, all wearing the
+national mantilla. All Madrid also visits its seven or less number of
+churches, passing without obeisance before the high altars, on which
+there is no Host,--as the people will tell you _su Majestad_ is
+dead,--and after the _funcion_ is over there is a general parade in the
+Puerta del Sol and the Carrera de San Geronimo, to show off the smart
+costumes of the ladies, while the officers sit in chairs outside the
+Government offices and smoke, admiring the prospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+POPULAR AMUSEMENTS
+
+
+Nothing strikes one so much in studying the popular customs and
+pleasures of Spain as the antiquity of them all. Constantly one finds
+one's self back in prehistoric times, and to date only from the days
+when Spain was a Roman province is almost modernity. No one can travel
+through Spain, or spend any time there, without becoming aware that,
+however many other forms of recreation there may be, two are universal
+and all-absorbing in their hold on the widely differing
+provinces--dancing and the bull-ring. In the Basque Provinces, the
+national game of _pelota_, a species of tennis, played without rackets,
+is still kept up, and is jealously cultivated in the larger towns, such
+as Vitoria, San Sebastian, and Bilbao. In Madrid at the present time it
+is played in large courts built on purpose, and attracts many strangers.
+To view it, however, as a national sport, one should see it in some of
+the mountain villages, where it is still the great recreation for
+Sundays and religious _fiestas_. The working-classes also play at
+throwing the hammer or crowbar. This is more especially the case in the
+Northern provinces, where the workmen are a sound, healthy, and sober
+race, enjoying simple and healthy amusements, and affording an excellent
+example to those of countries considering themselves much more highly
+civilised.
+
+Pigeon-shooting, which was a great favourite with the late King Alfonso
+XII., and was made fashionable among the aristocracy in Madrid by him,
+is a very old sport--if it deserves the name--among the Valencians. Near
+La Pechina, at Valencia, where the great _tiro de las palomas_ takes
+place, was found, in 1759, an inscription: _Sodalicium vernarum colentes
+Isid_. This, Ford tells us, was an ancient _cofradia_ to Isis, which
+paid for her _culto_. Cock-fighting is still practised in most of the
+Spanish towns, as well as in Valencia, the regular cock-pits being
+constantly frequented in Madrid; but it is looked upon as suited only to
+_barrio's bajos_, and is not much, if at all, patronised even by the
+middle classes. It is said by those who have seen it to be particularly
+brutal; but it was never a very humanising amusement when practised by
+the English nobility not such a very long time back.
+
+Whatever amusements, however, may be popular in the towns, or in
+particular provinces, the guitar and the dance are universal. So much
+has been written about the Spanish national dances that an absurd idea
+prevails in England that they are all very shocking and indecent. It is
+necessary, however, to go very much out of one's way, and to pay a good
+round sum, to witness those gypsy dances which have come down unchanged
+from the remotest ages. As Ford truly says, "Their character is
+completely Oriental, and analogous to the _ghawarsee_ of the Egyptians
+and the Hindoo _nautch_." "The well-known statue at Naples of the Venere
+Callipige is the undoubted representation of a Cadiz dancing-girl,
+probably of Telethusa herself." These dances have nothing whatever in
+common with the national dances as now to be seen on the Spanish stage.
+They are never performed except by gypsies, in their own quarter of
+Seville, and are now generally gotten up as a show for money. Men
+passing through Seville go to these performances, as an exhibition of
+what delighted Martial and Horace, but they do not generally discuss
+them afterwards with their lady friends, and to describe one of these
+more than doubtful dances as being performed by guests in a Madrid
+drawing-room, as an English lady journalist did a short time ago in the
+pages of a respectable paper, is one of those libels on Spain which
+obtain currency here out of sheer ignorance of the country and the
+people.
+
+Wherever two or three men and women of the lower classes are to be seen
+together in Spain during their play-time, there is a guitar, with
+singing and dancing. The verses sung are innumerable short stanzas by
+unknown authors; many, perhaps, improvised at the moment. The _jota_,
+the _malaguena_, and the _seguidilla_ are combinations of music, song,
+and dance; the last two bear distinct indications of Oriental origin;
+each form is linked to a traditional air, with variations. The
+_malaguena_ is Andalusian, and the _jota_ is Aragonese; but both are
+popular in Castile. All are love-songs, most of them of great grace and
+beauty. Some writers complain that some of these dance-songs are coarse
+and more or less indecent; others aver that they never degenerate into
+coarseness. _Quien sabe?_ Perhaps it is a case of _Honi soit qui mal y
+pense_. In any case, throughout the length and breadth of Spain, outside
+the wayside _venta_, or the barber's shop, in the _patios_ of inns, or
+wherever holiday-makers congregate, there is the musician twanging his
+guitar, there are the dancers twirling about in obvious enjoyment to the
+accompaniment of the stamping, clapping, and encouraging cries of the
+onlookers, and the graceful little verse, with its probably weird and
+plaintive cadence:
+
+    Era tan dichoso antes
+    De encontrarte en mi camino!
+    Y, sin embargo, no siento
+    El haberte conocido.
+
+    I was so happy before
+    I had met you on my way!
+    And yet there is no regret
+    That I have learned to know you.
+
+The _malaguena_ and the _seguidilla_, which is more complicated, are
+generally seen on the stage only in Madrid, where they must charm all
+who can appreciate the poetry of motion. The dance of the peasant in
+Castile is always the _jota Aragonesa_. The part the tambourine and the
+castanets play in these dances must be seen and heard to be understood:
+they punctuate not only the music, but also the movement, the sentiment,
+and the refrain. The Andaluces excel in playing on the castanets. These
+are, according to Ford, the "Baetican _crusmata_ and _crotola_ of the
+ancients": and _crotola_ is still a Spanish term for the tambourine.
+Little children may be seen snapping their fingers or clicking two bits
+of slate together, in imitation of the castanet player; but the
+continuous roll, or succession of quick taps, is an art to be learned
+only by practice. The castanets are made of ebony, and are generally
+decorated with bunches of smart ribbons, which play a great part in the
+dance.
+
+The popular instrument in the Basque and Northern provinces is
+the bagpipe, and the dances are quite different from those of
+the other parts of Spain. The _zortico zorisco_, or "evolution
+of eight," is danced to sound of tambourines, fifes, and a kind of
+flageolet--_el silbato_, resembling the rude instruments of the
+Roman Pifferari--probably of the same origin.
+
+Theatrical representations have always been a very popular form of
+recreation among the inhabitants of the Iberian continent, from the days
+when the plays were acted by itinerant performers, "carrying all their
+properties in a sack, the stage consisting of four wooden benches,
+covered with rough boards, a blanket suspended at the back, to afford a
+green-room, in which some musician sang, without accompaniment, old
+ballads to enliven the proceedings." This is Cervantes's description of
+the national stage in the time of his immediate predecessor, Lope de
+Rueda.
+
+The Spanish _zarzuela_ appears to have been the forerunner and origin of
+all musical farce and "opera comique," only naturalised in our country
+during the present generation. The theatres in all the provinces are
+always full, always popular; the pieces only run for short periods, a
+perpetual variety being aimed at by the managers--a thing easily to be
+understood when one remembers that the same audience, at any rate in the
+boxes and stalls, frequent them week in, week out. In Madrid, with a
+population of five hundred thousand inhabitants, there are nineteen
+theatres. With the exception of the first-class theatres, the people pay
+two _reales_ (_5 d._) for each small act or piece, and the audience
+changes many times during the evening, a constant stream coming and
+going. Long habit and familiarity with good models have made the lower
+class of playgoers critical; their judgment of a piece, or of an actor,
+is always good and worth having.
+
+The religious _fiestas_ must also count among the amusements of the
+people in Spain. Whether it be the Holy Week in Seville or Toledo, the
+_Romeria_ of Santiago, the _Veladas_, or vigils, of the great festivals,
+or the day of Corpus Christi, which takes place on the first Thursday
+after Trinity Sunday--at all these the people turn out in thousands,
+dressed in their smartest finery, and combine thorough enjoyment with
+the performance of what they believe to be a religious duty. There is
+little or no drunkenness at these open-air festivities, but much gaiety,
+laughter, fluttering of fans, "throwing of sparks" from mischievous or
+languishing eyes--and at the end always a bull-fight.
+
+Here we touch the very soul of Spain. Take away the bull-rings, make an
+end of the _toreros_, and Spain is no longer Spain--perhaps a country
+counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it
+will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not
+now seem to be the remotest possibility. All that can be said is that
+to-day there is a party, or there are individuals, in the country who
+profess to abhor the bull-fight, and wish to see it ended; it is
+doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an
+"outlandish" notion. The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the
+Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in
+Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which they were founded was the
+display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and
+dexterity--all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert. It is
+undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to
+English _aficionados_, of whom there are many, and have caused the
+_fiestas de toros_ to live on in the affections of the whole Spanish
+people. In its earliest days, gentlemen, armed only with the _rejon_,
+the short spear of the original Iberian, about four feet long, fought in
+the arena with the bulls, and it was always a fair trial of skill and a
+display of good horsemanship.
+
+When the fatal race of the French Bourbons came to the throne, and the
+country was inundated with foreign favourites, the Court and the French
+hangers-on of the kings turned the fashion away from the national sport,
+and it gradually fell into the hands of the lower classes, professional
+bull-fighters taking the place of the courtly players of old, and these
+were drawn from the lowest and worst ranks of the masses; the sporting
+element, to a great extent, died out, and the whole spectacle became
+brutalised. _Pan y toros_ (bread and bulls) were all the people wanted,
+and, crushed out of all manliness by their rulers, and taught a thirst
+for cruelty and bloodshed by the example of their religious
+_autos-da-fe_, the bull-fight became the revolting spectacle which
+foreigners--especially the English--have been so ready to rail against
+as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, while they rarely let an
+opportunity escape them of assisting as interested spectators at what
+they condemned so loudly, and they quite forgot their own prize-ring,
+and other amusements equally brutal and disgraceful. If the _corrida de
+toros_ was ever as bad as it has been described by some, it has improved
+very much of late years, and most of its revolting features are
+eliminated. The pack of dogs, which used to be brought in when a bull
+was dangerous to the human fighters, has long been done away with. The
+_media luna_, which we are told was identical with the instrument
+mentioned in _Joshua_, is no longer tolerated to hamstring the
+unfortunate bull; and if a horse is gored in the fair fight, there are
+men especially in attendance to put him out of his misery at once. It is
+doubtful whether the animal suffers more than, or as much as, the
+unhappy favourites, that are sent alive, and in extremest torture, to
+Amsterdam and other foreign cities, to be manufactured into essence of
+meat and such-like dainties, after a life of cruelly hard work in our
+omnibuses and cabs has made them no longer of use as draught animals.
+
+The bull-fighter of to-day is by no means drawn from the dregs of the
+people; there is, at any rate, one instance of a man of good birth and
+education attaining celebrity as a professional _torero_. He risks his
+life at every point of the conflict, and it is his coolness, his
+courage, his dexterity in giving the _coup de grace_ so as to cause no
+suffering, that raise the audience to such a pitch of frenzied
+excitement. I speak wholly from hearsay, for I have myself only
+witnessed a _corrida de novillos_--in which the bulls are never killed,
+and have cushions fixed on their horns--and a curious fight between a
+bull and an elephant, who might have been described as an "old
+campaigner," in which there was no bloodshed, and much amusement. My
+sympathies always went with the bull,--who, at least, was not consulted
+in the matter of the fight,--as I have seen the popular _espada_, with
+his own particular _chulo_, a mass of white satin and gold embroidery,
+driving out to the bull-ring on the afternoon of a _fiesta_, bowing with
+right royal grace and dignity to the plaudits of the people. I was even
+accused of having given the evil eye to one well-known favourite as he
+passed my balcony, when I wished, almost audibly, that the bull might
+have his turn for once in a way that afternoon. And he had; for the
+popular _espada_ was carried out of the ring apparently dead, the
+spectators came back looking white and sick, and I felt like a very
+murderess until I learned later that he was not dead. All Madrid, almost
+literally, called to inquire for him daily, filling books of signatures,
+as if he had been an emperor at least. Personally, I was more interested
+in his courage after the event and the devotion of his _chulo_, who
+never left his side, but held his hands while the injured leg was cut
+off, in three separate operations, without any anaesthetic. Eventually,
+he completely recovered, and was fitted with an admirable mechanical
+cork limb in place of the one removed in three detachments; and my sense
+of evil responsibility was quite removed when I heard that his young
+wife was delighted to think that he could never enter the bull-ring as a
+fighter again, and her anxieties were at an end.
+
+[Illustration: PLAZA DE TOROS. PICADOR CAUGHT BY THE BULL]
+
+It is quite impossible to over-estimate the popularity of the _toreros_
+with the Spanish people. They are the friends and favourites of the
+aristocracy, the demi-gods of the populace. You never see one of them in
+the streets without an admiring circle of worshippers, who hang on every
+word and gesture of the great man; and this is no cult of the hour, it
+is unceasing. They are always known for their generosity, not only to
+injured comrades, but to any of the poor in need. Is there a disaster by
+which many are injured--flood, tempest, or railway accident? Immediately
+a bull-fight is arranged for the sufferers, and the whole _cuadrilla_
+will give their earnings to the cause. Not only so, but the private
+charities of these popular favourites are immense, and quite unheard of
+by the public. They adopt orphans, pay regular incomes to widows, as
+mere parts of every-day work. They are, one and all, religious men; the
+last thing they do, before entering the arena with their life in their
+hands, is to confess and receive absolution in the little chapel in the
+Bull-Ring, spending some time in silent prayer before the altar, while
+the wife at home is burning candles to the Virgin, and offering her
+prayers for his safety during the whole time that the _corrida_ lasts.
+Extreme unction is always in readiness, in case of serious accident to
+the _torero_, the priest (_mufti_) slipping into the chapel before the
+public arrive on the scene.
+
+Rafael Molina Lagartijo, one of the veterans of the bull-fighters, and
+an extreme favourite with the people for many years, died recently,
+after living for some time in comparative retirement in his native
+Cordoba. Some idea of the important place which these men occupy in
+Spanish society may be gathered from the numerous notices which appeared
+in the newspapers of all shades of political opinion after his death. I
+quote from the article which appeared in the charming little illustrated
+_Blanco y Negro_, of Madrid, on the favourite of the Spanish public. In
+what, to us, seems somewhat inflated language, but which is, however,
+quite simple and natural to the Spaniard, the writer began his notice
+thus:
+
+"He who has heard the magic oratory of Castelar, has listened to the
+singing of Gayarre, the declamation of Cabro, has read Zorilla, and
+witnessed the _torear_ of Lagartijo, may say, without any kind of
+reservation, that there is nothing left for him to admire!" Having thus
+placed the popular bull-fighter on a level with orators, authors, and
+musicians of the first rank, the writer goes on to describe the beauties
+of Lagartijo's play in words which are too purely technical of the ring
+to make translation possible, and adds: "He who has not seen the great
+_torero_ of Cordoba in the plenitude of his power will assuredly not
+comprehend why the name of Lagartijo for more than twenty years filled
+_plazas_ and playbills, nor why the _aficionados_ of to-day recall, in
+speaking of his death, times which can never be surpassed.... The
+_toreo_ (play) of Lagartijo was always distinguished by its classic
+grace, its dignity and consummate art, the absence of affectation, or
+struggle for effect. In every part of the fight the figure of Rafael
+fell naturally into the most graceful attitudes; and for this reason he
+has always worn the rich dress of the _torero_ with the best effect. He
+was the perfect and characteristic type of a _torero_, such as Spanish
+fancy has always imagined it. Lagartijo died with his eyes fixed on the
+image of the Virgen de los Dolores, to whom he had always confidently
+committed his life of peril, and with the dignity and resignation of a
+good man."
+
+The article was illustrated with numerous portraits of Don Rafael: in
+full _torero_ dress in 1886; his very last photograph; views of him in
+the courtyard of his home in Cordoba, and outside the Venta San Rafael,
+where he took his coffee in the evening, and others. The notice
+concludes by saying that his life was completely dedicated to his
+property, which he managed himself, and he was looked upon as the
+guardian angel of the labourers on his farm. _Probre Rafael!_ "The
+lovers of the bull-fight are lamenting the death of the _torero_, but
+the poor of Cordoba mourn the loss of their 'Senor Rafael.'"
+
+[Illustration: PLAZA DE TOROS. THE PROCESSION]
+
+The wives of the _toreros_ are generally celebrated for their beauty,
+their wit, and their devotion to their husbands--indeed, the men have a
+large choice before them when choosing their helpmates for life. To
+their wives is due much of the making and all the keeping up of the
+elaborate and costly dress of the _torero_. They are, as someone has
+said, "ferociously virtuous," and share in the open-handed generosity of
+their husbands. The earnings of a successful _torero_ are very large. In
+some cases, they make as much as L4000 or L5000 a year of English money,
+during the height of their popularity, and retire to end their days in
+their native and beloved Andalucia.
+
+Whatever may be said by foreigners of the brutalising effect of the
+Spanish popular game, it certainly has no more effect on those who
+witness or practise it than fox-hunting has on Englishmen, and it is
+doubtful whether there is any more cruelty in one sport than in the
+other. The foxes are fostered and brought up for the sole purpose of
+being harried to death, without even a semblance of fair play being
+allowed to them, and if a fox-hunter risks his life it is only as a bad
+rider that he does so. There is no danger and certainly no dignity in
+the English sport, even if it indirectly keeps up the breed of horses.
+
+A curious incident is related by Count Vasili as having happened in the
+Bull-Ring in Madrid some years ago during a _corrida_ of Cuchares, the
+celebrated _espada_. It is usual during _fiestas_ of charity to enclose
+live sparrows in the _banderillas_ which it is part of the play to
+affix, at great risk to the _torero_, in the shoulders of the bull; the
+paper envelope bursts, and the birds are set at liberty. Crossing the
+arena, one of the men carelessly hit at a bird turning wildly about in
+its efforts to escape, and killed it. "In my life," says the Count, "I
+have never seen such a spectacle. Ten thousand spectators, standing up,
+wildly gesticulating, shouting for death on the 'cruel _torero_'; nay,
+some even threw themselves into the arena, ready to lynch the heartless
+creature!"
+
+Horse-racing may now be said to have been fairly established in Spain in
+most of the great centres, and the Hippodrome in Madrid is little behind
+one of England's popular race-courses in its crowds, the brilliant
+dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will
+ever supersede the really national _fiesta_ is to be doubted. The upper
+classes also affect polo, tennis, and croquet, and go in a good deal for
+gymnastics, fencing, and fives.
+
+Cycling does not appear to commend itself greatly to the Spanish idea of
+recreation. Bicycles are, of course, to be seen in the large and more
+modern towns, but they are never very numerous, and as far as ladies are
+concerned, may be said to have made no way.
+
+I have referred to a curious spectacle several times presented in
+Madrid, chiefly in _fiestas_ for charitable purposes, where an elephant
+was introduced into the Bull-Ring to fight, in place of the usual
+_cuadrilla_ of men. This was an old elephant named Pizarro, a great
+favourite of many years' standing with the Madrilenos. He was an
+enormous animal, but one of his tusks had been broken off about a third
+from the tip, so that he had only one to use in warfare or as
+protection. He was tethered in the centre of the arena, by one of his
+hind legs, to a stump about twelve inches high. Then the bulls were let
+out one at a time. Meanwhile, Pizarro was amusing himself by eating
+oranges which were showered on him by his admirers on the benches. With
+the greatest coolness he continued his repast, picking up orange after
+orange with his trunk, all that he was careful to do being to keep his
+face to the bull, turning slowly as his enemy galloped round the ring
+trying to take him in flank. At last the bull prepared to charge;
+Pizarro packed away his trunk between his tusks, and quietly waited the
+onslaught. The bull rushed at him furiously; but the huge animal, quite
+good-naturedly and a little with the air of pitying contempt, simply
+turned aside the attack with his one complete horn, and as soon as the
+bull withdrew, a little nonplussed, went on picking up and eating his
+oranges as before. Bull after bull gave up the contest as impossible,
+and contentedly went out between the _cabestros_ sent in to fetch
+them. At last one more persistent or courageous than the others came
+bounding in. Pizarro realised at once that for the moment he must pause
+in eating his dessert; but he became aware at the same time that in
+turning round to face the successive bulls, he had gradually wound
+himself up close to the stump, and had no room to back so as to receive
+the attack. The most interesting incident in the whole affray was to
+watch the elephant find out, by swinging his tethered leg, first in one
+direction and then in another, how to free himself. This he did, first
+by swinging his leg round and round over the stump, then by walking
+slowly round and round, always facing the bull, and drawing his cord
+farther and farther until he was perfectly free: then he was careful
+only to turn as on a pivot, keeping the rope at a stretch. Finally the
+bull charged at him with great fury; stepping slightly aside, Pizarro
+caught him up sideways on his tusks, and held him up in the air,
+perfectly impotent and mad with rage. When he considered the puny
+creature had been sufficiently shown his inferiority, he gently put him
+down, and the astonished and humbled bull declined further contest. The
+fighting bulls of Spain are wonderfully small in comparison with English
+animals, it should be said.
+
+[Illustration: DRAGGING OUT THE DEAD BULL]
+
+Every night, after his turn at the circus was over poor old Pizarro used
+to walk home alone under my balcony, open his stable door with his own
+latch-key, or at least his trunk, and put himself to bed like any
+Christian.
+
+One of the most fashionable amusements in Madrid is to attend on the
+morning of the bull-fight while the _espadas_ choose the particular
+bulls they wish to have as enemy, and affix their colours, the large
+rosette of ribbon which shows which of the _toreros_ the bull is to meet
+in deadly conflict. The bulls are then placed in their iron cages in the
+order in which they are to enter the arena. The fashionable ladies and
+other _aficionados_ of the sport then drive back to Madrid to luncheon
+and to prepare for the entertainment of the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PRESS AND ITS LEADERS
+
+
+Perhaps there are few countries where the influence of the Press is
+greater than in Spain, and this is largely due to the fact that while
+the journals are read by everyone, for a great number of the people they
+form the only literature. The free library is not yet universal in the
+country, though, doubtless, in the near future it may become general. In
+the meantime, every imaginable shade of political opinion has its organ;
+even the Bull-Ring has at least two excellently illustrated newspapers:
+and the extra sheets, printed hastily and sold immediately after the
+_corrida_ has terminated, have an enormous sale. Deserving of mention is
+the curious little paper known as the "Night-cap of Madrid," because it
+is supposed to be impossible for anyone to go to rest until he has read
+the late edition, which comes out not long before midnight. It is said
+to have no politics, and only pretends to give all the news of the
+world. There are many illustrated papers, both comic and serious. The
+charmingly artistic little _Blanco y Negro_, beautifully gotten up, is
+at the head of all the more dignified illustrated journals of the
+country. There are no kiosks; the papers are sold by children or by old
+women in the streets, and the Madrid night is rent by the appalling
+cries of these itinerant vendors of literature. For the Spanish
+newspaper is always literature, which is a good deal more than can be
+said for some of the English halfpenny Press. Whatever may be the
+politics of the particular journal, its _Castellano_ is perfect; perhaps
+a little stilted or pompous, but always dignified and well-written.
+
+The journalists of Madrid have a special facility for saying with an air
+of extreme innocence what they, for various reasons, do not care to
+express quite openly. Allegories, little romances, stories of fact full
+of clever words of "double sense" make known to the initiated, or those
+who know how to read between the lines, much that might otherwise awaken
+the disagreeable notice of the censor, when there is one. There is an
+air of good-natured raillery which takes off the edge of political
+rancour, and keeps up the amenities and the dignity of the Spanish
+Press. Only the other day one of the leading English journals pointed
+out what a dignified part the Press of Madrid, of every shade of
+politics, had played in the recent effort made by some foreign
+newspapers--of a class which so far does not exist in Spain--to make
+mischief and awaken national jealousy between England and Spain on the
+subject of the works now being carried out by the English Government at
+Gibraltar. The Spanish newspapers, of all shades of opinion, have made
+it abundantly evident that their country entertains no unworthy
+suspicion of England's good faith, and has not the smallest intention of
+being led into strained or otherwise than perfectly friendly relations
+with their old allies of the Peninsular War, to gratify the rabid enmity
+of a section of a Press foreign to both countries. This is, perhaps, the
+more remarkable because a certain amount of misunderstanding of England
+exists among some elements of the Spanish Press.
+
+The Liberal party in Spain is, in fact, the party of progress, and the
+nation has at last awakened from its condition of slavery under unworthy
+rulers, and is practically united in its determination to return to its
+place among the nations of Europe.
+
+There are many shades of Liberalism, and even Republicanism, but, as
+will be seen in another place, the real welfare of the people, and not
+the success of a mere political party, is the underlying motive of all,
+however wild and unpractical may be some of the dreams for the carrying
+out of these ideas of universal progress. It is impossible for a
+Spaniard to conceive of maligning or belittling his own country for
+merely party purposes; and, therefore, when he finds an English
+newspaper calling itself "Liberal" he imagines the word to have the same
+signification it has in his own country. So it has come to pass that
+many of the worst misrepresentations--to use a very mild term--of a
+portion of the English Press have been reproduced in Spanish newspapers,
+and believed by their readers.
+
+Among the principal newspapers, in a crowd of less important ones, _La
+Epoca_, Conservative and dynastic ranks first; this is the journal of
+the aristocrats, of the "upper ten thousand," or those who aspire to be
+so, and it ranks as the _doyen_ of the whole Press. Its circulation is
+not so large as that of some of the other papers, but its clientele is
+supposed to be of the best. _El Nacional_ is also Conservative, but
+belonging to the party of Romero Robledo. What the exact politics of
+that variation of Conservatism might be, it is difficult, I might almost
+say impossible, for a stranger to say. If you were told nothing about
+it, and took it up accidentally to read of current events, you would
+certainly suppose it to be independent, with a decidedly Liberal
+tendency. Still it calls itself Conservative.
+
+_El Correo_ is Liberal, of the special type of Sagasta, the present
+Prime Minister. _El Espanol_, which also gives one the impression of
+independence, is Liberal after the manner of Gemaro. _El Heraldo_,
+calling itself _Diario Independente_, is credited with being the Liberal
+organ of Canalijas. _El Liberal_ and _El Pais_ are Republican, and _El
+Correo Espanol_ is Carlist, or clerical. This paper appears to be looked
+upon a good deal in the nature of a joke by its colleagues, and
+quotations from it are always accompanied by notes of exclamation.
+
+_La Correspondencia de Espana_ is a paper all by itself, an invention of
+Spanish journalism, and its unprecedented success is due to many of its
+quite unique peculiarities. Its originator, now a millionaire, is proud
+of relating that he arrived in Madrid with two dollars in his pocket. He
+it was who conceived the brilliant idea of founding a journal which
+should be the special organ of all. "_Diario politico independiente, y
+de noticias: Eco imparcial de la opinion y de la prensa_," he calls it,
+and the fourth page, devoted to advertisements, would make the fortune
+of ten others. His boast was that it had no editor, paid no writers, and
+employed no correspondents. It simply possessed a certain number of
+"caterers" for news, who thrust themselves everywhere, picking up
+morsels of news--good, bad, and indifferent, for the most part scribbled
+in pencil and thrown into a receptacle from which they are drawn in any
+order, or none, and handed to the printer as "copy"; coming out in
+short, detached paragraphs of uneven length, ranging from three lines to
+twenty. Extracts from foreign newspapers, official news, provincial
+reports, money matters, religious announcements, accidents, everything
+comes out pell-mell--absolutely all "the voices of the flying day," in
+Madrid and everywhere else, in one jumble, without order or sequence,
+one paragraph frequently being a direct contradiction to another in the
+same sheet. There are three editions during the day, but the
+"Night-cap," which sums up them all, appears about ten o'clock or later,
+and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it is bought by almost
+every householder in the city.
+
+The nature of the _Correspondencia_ has changed very little since its
+earliest days. It is a little more dignified, condescends even to short
+articles on current subjects of interest, but it is the same universal
+provider of news and gossip as ever. It goes with the times; so far as
+it has any leanings at all, it is with the Government of the hour; but
+it is for the most part quite impersonal, and it makes itself agreeable
+to all parties alike. Santa Ana, the clever initiator of this new and
+highly successful adventure in journalism, has two other very prosperous
+commercial enterprises in his hands--the manufacture of paper for
+printing and the supply of natural flowers. He himself is an enormous
+and indefatigable worker, personally looks after his various businesses,
+especially the _Correspondencia_, and, mindful of his own early
+difficulties, he has created benefit societies for his workmen.
+
+He who, being a foreigner, would attempt to understand Spanish politics,
+deserves to be classed with the bravest leaders of forlorn hopes. In the
+first place, it is doubtful whether Spaniards understand them
+themselves, although they talk, for the most part, of nothing
+else--except bulls. Whenever and wherever two or three men or boys are
+gathered together, you may be quite certain as to the subject of their
+conversation--that is, if they show signs of excitement and interest in
+the matter under discussion. Each man you meet gives you the whole
+matter in a nut-shell: he has studied politics ever since he was able to
+talk; all the other innumerable parties besides his own are _nada_! he
+can tell you exactly what is wrong with his country, and, what is more,
+exactly how it may all be made right. The only thing which puzzles one
+is that all the nut-shells are different, and, as there are an unlimited
+number of them, all that one carefully learns to-day has to be as
+carefully unlearned to-morrow, and a fresh adjustment made of one's
+political spectacles. After all, however, this is very much what would
+happen in any country if we were in turn to sit at the feet of
+successive teachers, and try to bring their doctrines into any kind of
+accord. The peculiarity in Spain lies rather in the multiplicity of
+private political opinions and the energy with which they are expressed,
+and in the fact that they are all honest.
+
+Emerson has somewhere said that "inconsistency is the bugbear of little
+minds." The Spanish politician has evidently not a little mind, for he
+has no fear whatever of inconsistency, nor, in fact, of making a
+_volte-face_ whenever he sees any reason for doing so. There are
+Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, as in other
+countries, but there are, besides all these, an infinite number of
+shades and tones of each political belief, each represented, as we have
+seen, by a newspaper of its own, and, for the most part, bearing the
+name of one man. It would seem, then, that you have only to make
+yourself acquainted with the opinions, or rather with the political
+acts, of that one man, and there you are! Vain and fond fancy! He has
+been a rabid Republican, perhaps, or he has belonged, at least, to the
+party which put up in Madrid in conspicuous letters, "The bastard race
+of the Bourbons is for ever fallen. Fit punishment of their obstinacy!"
+but you will find him to-day lending all the force of his paper to the
+support of the Queen Regent, and at the same time allying himself with
+the various classes of Republicans, even to the followers of Zorilla,
+who have, at any rate till now, been consistent enemies and haters of
+the Bourbon.
+
+Senor Don Romero Robledo, one among the politicians of the day who
+possess the gift of perfect oratory, so common among his countrymen, is
+an example of this puzzling "open mind." He appeared first in the
+character of revolutionist in 1868; then he became the Minister of the
+Interior in Amadeo's short reign, held somewhat aloof from the wild
+experiment in a republic of Castelar, joined the party of Don Alfonso on
+the eve of its success, and supported Canovas del Castillo in his
+somewhat retrograde policy in the restoration of the very Bourbon whom
+he had announced as "banished for ever," and, in fact, by his admirable
+genius for organising his party, enabled the Government of Canovas to
+continue to exist. It is said of him that he "buys men as one would buy
+sheep," and that he will serve any cause so long as he has the
+management of it, or rather so long as he may pull the wires. Comte
+Vasili says of him: "In politics, especially Conservative politics, men
+like Romero Robledo are necessary, finding easily that 'the end
+justifies the means,' energetic, ambitious, always in the breach
+opposing their qualities to the invasions of the parties of extremes."
+This was written of him some fifteen years ago by one eminently
+qualified to judge. At the present moment we find Senor Romero Robledo
+refusing office, but consulted by the Queen Regent in every difficulty.
+In the late crisis, when the Conservative party under Silvela, called
+into office for the sake of carrying the extremely unpopular marriage of
+the Princess of Asturias with the Count of Caserta, had nearly managed
+to wreck the monarchy, or, at any rate, the regency, and to bring the
+always dangerous clerical question to an acute stage by suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole of Spain, it was Romero Robledo
+who told the Queen quite plainly that before anything else could be done
+the guarantees must be restored, that the liberties of the people could
+not be interfered with, and that, in short, the Liberal party must be
+called into office. Then we find him holding meetings in which
+Conservatives, Republicans, even Zorillistas, all combined,
+enthusiastically declaring that they are on the side of order and
+progress, agreeing to hold up England, under her constitutional monarch,
+as the most really democratic and free of all nations, since in no other
+country, republican or otherwise, is the government, as a matter of
+fact, so entirely in the hands of the people; swearing eternal enmity
+against the interference of the clergy in government or in education,
+but counselling "quiet determination without rancour or bigotry in
+dealing with those of the clergy who openly, or through the
+confessional, attempt to usurp authority which it is intended they shall
+never again acquire in Spain." In fact, to read Senor Romero Robledo's
+discourses on these occasions, and the excellent articles in the
+newspaper which represents his views, _El Nacional_, one would imagine
+the Golden Age to have dawned for Spain. Liberty, honour, real religion,
+progress in science, art, manufactures, trade, the purification of
+politics, the ideal of good government--these are only a few of the
+things to which this amalgamation of parties is solemnly pledged.
+
+One thing, at least, is promising among so much that might be put
+down as "words, words": a general agreement as to the wisdom of making
+the best of the present situation, opposing a firm resistance to any
+attempt at a return to absolutism on the part of the monarchy, or
+domination in temporal matters by the Church; but no change, no more
+_pronunciamientos_, no more civil wars. Whenever the political parties
+of a country merge their differences of opinion in one common cause, the
+end may be foreseen. This was what happened in 1868; and if the party of
+Romero Robledo is what it represents itself to be and holds together, we
+may hope to see the reign of the young Alfonso XIII. open with good
+auguries this year (1902), as it seems to be certain that he is to
+attain his majority two years in advance of the usual time.
+
+The life, political career, and retirement of Emilio Castelar is one of
+the most pathetic pictures in history, and one altogether Spanish in
+character. It was after Amadeo had thrown down his crown, exclaiming, "A
+son of Savoy does not wear a crown on sufferance!" that the small party
+of Republicans--which Prim had said did not exist, and which had in fact
+only become a party at all during the disastrous period of uncertainty
+between the expulsion of Isabel II. and the election of the Italian
+prince--edged its way to the front, and Castelar became the head of
+something much worse than a paper constitution--a republic of
+visionaries. Don Quijote de la Mancha himself could scarcely have made a
+more pure-intentioned yet more unpractical President. Castelar, with his
+honest, unsophisticated opinions and theories, his unexampled oratory,
+which is said to have carried away crowds of men who did not understand
+or hear a word that he said, with the rhythm of his language, the simple
+majesty and beauty of his delivery, launched the nation into a
+government that might have been suited to the angels in heaven, or to
+what the denizens of this earth may become in far distant aeons of
+evolution--a republic of dreams, headed by a dreamer. The awakening was
+rude, but it was efficient. When Castelar found that in place of
+establishing a millennium of peace and universal prosperity, he had let
+loose over the land all the elements of disorder and of evil, he had the
+greatness to acknowledge himself mistaken: his own reputation never
+troubled him, and he admitted that the Cortes, from which he had hoped
+so much, worked evil, not good. It is said that he himself called on
+General Pavia, the Captain-General of Madrid, to clear them out. The
+deputies--Castelar had withdrawn--sat firm: "Death rather than
+surrender," they cried. Pavia, however, ordered his men to fire once
+down the empty lobbies, and the hint was enough: the Cortes dispersed,
+and Pavia, had he so minded it, might have been military dictator of
+Spain. But he had no such ambition, though there were not wanting those
+who ascribed it to him.
+
+[Illustration: THE ESCURIAL]
+
+As for Castelar, when angrily charged with inconsistency, he said:
+"Charge me with inconsistency, if you please. I will not defend myself.
+Have I the right to prefer my own reputation to the safety of my
+country? Let my name perish, let posterity pronounce its anathema
+against me, let my contemporaries send me into exile! Little care I! I
+have lived long enough! But let not the Republic perish through my
+weaknesses, and, above all, let no one say that Spain has perished in
+our hands!" Castelar went back to his chair of philosophy, which he had
+never resigned, poor as he left it, to the modest home and the devoted
+sister whom he loved so well--and no one laughed! Is there really any
+other country than Spain where such things can happen? His enthusiasm,
+his high-mindedness, his failures, his brave acknowledgment that he had
+failed, were accepted by the country in the exact spirit in which he had
+offered himself to her service, and the memory of Castelar stands as
+high to-day as ever it did in the respectful admiration of his
+fellow-countrymen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+POLITICAL GOVERNMENT
+
+
+The Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII.
+has been in reality what it was only in name before--a constitutional
+monarchy. During the first years of the young King's reign, Canovas del
+Castillo being Prime Minister, there was a distinctly reactionary
+tendency from the Liberalism of Prim and the revolutionary party of
+1868. It was almost impossible that it should be otherwise, considering
+the wild tumult of the varying opinions and the experiments in
+government that the country had passed through; and some of the
+difficulties of the situation to-day are no doubt due to the concessions
+made to the ultra-Conservative party in the re-introduction of the
+religious orders, which had been suppressed during the regency of
+Cristina, and had never been tolerated even during the reign of the
+_piadosa_, Isabel II.
+
+Prim had, from the first moment that the success of the Revolution was
+assured and the Queen and her _camarilla_ had crossed the frontier to
+seek asylum in France, declared for a constitutional monarchy. "How can
+you have a monarchy without a king?" he was asked by Castelar. "How can
+you have a republic without republicans!" was his reply. He might have
+made himself king or military dictator, but he wanted to be neither; nor
+would he hear of Montpensier, to whom Topete and Serrano had pledged
+themselves.
+
+The House of Savoy was the next heir to the Spanish throne, had the
+Bourbons become extinct, and to it the first glances of the Spanish
+king-maker were directed, but difficulties arose from the dislike of the
+Duke of Aosta himself to the scheme. A prince of some Liberal country
+was what was wanted: there was even some talk of offering the crown to
+the English Duke of Edinburgh, while one party dreamed of an Iberian
+amalgamation, and suggested Dom Luis of Portugal or his father Dom
+Ferdinand, the former regent. The candidature of Prince Leopold of
+Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who was a Roman Catholic, was looked upon with
+a certain amount of favour, but at the eleventh hour Napoleon III. made
+this scheme a pretext for the quarrel with Prussia which led to the
+fateful war of 1870 and 1871. Eventually, almost two years after the
+outbreak of the Revolution, Amadeo of Savoy was chosen by the Cortes at
+Madrid by a majority of one hundred and five votes, only twenty-three
+being given for Montpensier and sixty-three for a republic.
+
+On the day that King Amadeo set foot on Spanish soil Prim was
+assassinated; it was perfectly well known at whose instigation, and the
+man whom the Spaniards themselves said was _demasiado honesto_ (too
+honourable) for the hotch-potch of political parties into which he was
+thrown without a friend or helper, began his vain effort to rule a
+foreign nation in a constitutional manner. After he had thrown up the
+thankless task in despair, the absurd Republic of Zorilla and Castelar
+made confusion worse confounded, and it was with a feeling of relief to
+all that the _pronunciamiento_ of Martinez Campos at Muviedro put an end
+to the Spanish Republic under Serrano, and proclaimed the son of Isabel
+II. as King.
+
+He was but a lad of seventeen, but he had been educated in England; he
+was known to be brave, dignified, and extremely liberal, so that he was
+acclaimed throughout Spain, and during his short life he fully justified
+the high opinion formed of him. But the Government of Canovas was
+reactionary, and when the unexpected death of Alfonzo XII. left his
+young wife, the present Maria Cristina of Austria, a widow under
+exceptionally trying circumstances, Canovas himself placed his
+resignation in her hands, knowing that the Liberals were the party of
+the nation, and promised to give his own best efforts to work with what
+had up to then been his Opposition, for the good of the country and of
+the expected child, who a few months later had the unusual experience
+of being "born a king."
+
+Whatever may be said about the present Regent,--though in truth little
+but good has been said or thought of her,--she has been most loyal to
+the constitution, holding herself absolutely aloof from all favouritism
+or even apparent predilection. She has devoted her life to the education
+of her son and to his physical well-being, for he was not a strong child
+in his early years, and she has done her best, possibly more than any
+but a woman could have done, to keep the ship of State not only afloat,
+but making headway during the minority of her son.
+
+Two things militate against good government in Spain, and will continue
+to do so until the whole system is changed: what is known in the country
+as _caciquismo_, and the pernicious custom of changing all the
+Government officials, down to the very porter at the doors, with every
+change of ministry. It is much, however, that the Government does go out
+in a constitutional manner instead of by a military _pronunciamiento_ on
+each occasion, as in the old days; also that a civilian and not a
+soldier is always at the head of it. In reality, there are two great
+parties in Madrid, and only two: the _Empleados_ and the _Cesantes_--in
+plain English, the "Ins" and the "Outs." Whatever ministry is in power
+has behind it an immense army of provincial governors, secretaries,
+clerks, down to the porters, and probably even the charwomen who clean
+out the Government offices. This state of things is repeated over the
+whole country, and there is naturally created and sustained an enormous
+amount of bribery and corruption, which is continually at work
+discrediting all governments and giving to Spanish affairs that "bad
+name" which, according to our old proverb, is as bad as hanging. The
+_Cesantes_ haunt certain _cafes_ and possess certain newspapers, and the
+_Empleados_ other _cafes_ and other papers. The "Outs" and the "Ins"
+meet at night to discuss their prospects, and wonderful are the stories
+invented at these reunions, some of which even find their way into
+English newspapers--if their correspondents are not up to the ways of
+Spain--for we read ludicrous accounts of things supposed to have been
+taking place, and are treated to solemn prophecies of events never
+likely to occur, even in first-class English journals. It is naturally
+the interest of these subordinate employees of a vicious system to
+hasten or retard the day that shall see their respective chiefs change
+position, and if a few plausible untruths can do it, be assured they
+will not be wanting. Both in the popular novels, _de costumbres_, and in
+actual life, it is the commonest thing to hear a man described as a
+_Cesante_, in the same way that we should speak of him as being an
+engineer or a doctor, as if being out of place were just as much an
+employment as any other.
+
+One thing that appears strange to a foreigner about these _Cesantes_ is
+that they never seem even to dream of seeking other employment; they
+simply sit down to wait until their particular patron is "in" again, and
+in the old days they were a constant force making for the
+_pronunciamiento_ which would sooner or later make a place for them. As
+they had no means of existence except when in receipt of Government pay,
+it is easy to understand that, according to their views, they had to
+prepare for the evil day which assuredly awaited them, by appropriating
+and exacting all the money that was possible during their short reign of
+power. Probably the only difference between the highest and the lowest
+official was in the actual amount he was able to acquire when he was
+"in."
+
+This system, subversive of all efficient service, and leading inevitably
+to the worst evils of misappropriation of the national funds, had
+perhaps its worst aspects in the colonies. A Government berth in Cuba
+was a recognised means of making a fortune, or of rehabilitating a man
+who had ruined himself by gambling at home. Appointments were made, not
+because the man was fitted for the post, but because he had
+influence--frequently that of some lady--with the person with whom the
+appointments lay, or because he was in need of an opportunity for making
+money easily. That there have always been statesmen and subordinate
+officials above all such self-seeking, men of punctilious honour and of
+absolutely clean hands, is known to all; but such men--as Espartero,
+for instance--too often threw up the sponge, and would have naught to do
+with governing nor with office of any description. Espartero, who is
+generally spoken of as the "Aristides of Spain," when living in his
+self-sought retirement at Logrono, even refused to be proclaimed as King
+during the days when the crown was going a-begging, though he would
+probably have been acclaimed as the saviour of his country by a large
+majority. Long years of foreign kings and their generally contemptible
+favourites and ministers, long years of tyranny and corruption in high
+places, leavened the whole mass of Spanish bureaucracy; but the heart of
+the nation remained sound, and those who would understand Spain must
+draw a distinct line between her professional place-hunters and her
+people.
+
+Caciqueism is a mere consequence or outcome from the state of affairs
+already described. While the deputies to the Cortes are supposed to be
+freely elected as representatives by the people, in reality they are
+simply nominees of the heads of the two political powers which have been
+see-sawing as ministers for the last sixteen years. Two men since the
+assassination of Canovas have alternately occupied the post of First
+Minister of the Crown: Don Praxadis Mateo Sagasta, one of those mobile
+politicians who always fall on their feet whatever happens, and
+Francisco Silvela, who may be described as a Liberal-Conservative in
+contrast to Canovas, who was a Tory of the old school, and aspired to be
+a despot. Toryism, though the word is unknown there, dies hard in Spain;
+but there are not wanting signs that the Conservatives of the new school
+have the progress and emancipation of the country quite as much at heart
+as any Liberal. It was the Conservative _Nacional_ that in a leading
+article of March 29th in 1901, under the head of "Vicious Customs,"
+called attention to the crowds of place-hunters who invade the public
+offices after a change of ministry, and to the barefaced impudence of
+some of their claims for preferment. "The remedy is in the hands of the
+advisers of the Crown," it continued. "Let them shut the doors of their
+offices against influence and intrigue, keep _Empleados_ of acknowledged
+competence permanently in their posts, and not appoint new ones without
+the conviction that they have capacity and aptitude for the work they
+will have to do. By this means, if the problem be not entirely solved,
+it will at least be in train for a solution satisfactory at once for a
+good administration and for the highest interests of the State."
+
+The way in which the wire-pulling is done from Madrid, in case of an
+election, is through the _cacique_, or chief person in each
+constituency; hence the name of the process. This person may be the
+Civil Governor, the _Alcalde_, or merely a rich landowner or large
+employer of labour in touch with the Government: the pressure brought
+to bear may be of two sorts, taking the form of bribery or threat. The
+voters who hang on to the skirts of the _cacique_ may hope for
+Government employment, or they may fear a sudden call to pay up arrears
+of rent or of taxes; the hint is given from headquarters, or a
+Government candidate is sent down. It matters little how the thing is
+done so long as the desired end is accomplished. Speaking of the general
+election which took place last June, and in which it was well known
+beforehand that the Liberals were to be returned in a large majority,
+one of the Madrid newspapers wrote: "The people will vote, but assuredly
+the deputies sent up to the Cortes will not be _their_ representatives,
+nor their choice."
+
+We, who have for so many years enjoyed a settled government, forget how
+different all this is in a country like Spain, which has oftener had to
+be reproached for enduring bad government than for a readiness to effect
+violent changes, or to try new experiments; but the progress actually
+made since the Revolution of 1868 has really been extraordinary, and it
+has gone steadily forward. Spain has always been celebrated for the
+making of _convenios_--a word which is scarcely correctly translated by
+"arrangement." During the Carlist wars, the Government, and even
+generals in command, made _convenios_ with the insurgents to allow
+convoys to pass without interference, money value sometimes being a
+factor in the case; but one of the strangest of these out-of-sight
+agreements, and one which English people never understand, is that
+which has existed almost ever since the Restoration between the
+political parties in the Congress, or, at least, between their leaders.
+It is an arrangement, loyally carried out, by which each party is
+allowed in turn to come into power. The Cortes is elected to suit the
+party whose turn it is to be in office, and there is little reality in
+the apparent differences. Silvela and Sagasta go backwards and forwards
+with the regularity of a pendulum, and the country goes on its way
+improving its position daily and hourly, with small thanks to its
+Government.
+
+Perhaps it is as well! It gives assurance, at least, that no
+particularly wild schemes or subversive changes shall be made. When one
+administration has almost wrecked the ship, as in the Caserta marriage,
+the other comes in peacefully, and sets the public mind at rest; both
+parties wish for peace and quietness, and no more revolutions, and the
+political seesaw keeps the helm fairly straight in ordinary weather. To
+what extent the insane and disastrous policy which led to the war with
+America by its shilly-shally treatment of Cuba, now promising autonomy,
+now putting down the grinding heel of tyranny, and to what extent the
+suicidal action of the oscillating parties--for both share the
+responsibility--in their instructions to their generals and admirals,
+and the astounding unpreparedness for war of any kind, still less with a
+country like America, may be traced to this system of "arrangements,"
+which allows one party to hand its responsibilities over to the other,
+one can only guess. It is to be hoped that when the two figureheads at
+present before the country go over to the majority, there may come to
+the front some earnest and truly patriotic ministers, who have been
+quietly training in the school of practical politics, and can take the
+helm with some hope of doing away with the crying evils of _empleomania_
+and _caciquismo_. Until then there will be no political greatness for
+Spain.
+
+The advance which Spain has made, "in spite of her Governments, and not
+by their assistance," has been remarkable in past years. Since the
+beginning of the last century she has gone through a series of political
+upheavals and disasters which might well have destroyed any country;
+and, in fact, her division into so many differing nationalities has,
+perhaps, been her greatest safeguard. Even after the Revolution of 1868
+the series of events through which she passed was enough to have
+paralysed her whole material prosperity; the actual loss in materials,
+and still more in the lives of her sons, during the fratricidal wars at
+home and in her colonies, is incalculable, and that she was not ruined,
+but, on the contrary, advanced steadily in industry and commerce during
+the whole time, shows her enormous inherent vitality. Since then she has
+undergone the lamentable war with America, has lost her chief colonies,
+and the Peninsula has been well-nigh swamped by the _repatriados_ from
+Cuba, returning to their native country penniless and, in many cases,
+worn out. And yet the state of Spain was never so promising, her steady
+progress never more assured. Looking back to the Revolution, it will be
+enough to name some of the measures secured for the benefit of the
+people. They include complete civil and religious liberty, with reforms
+in the administration of the laws and the condition of prisoners,
+liberty of education, and the spread of normal schools into every corner
+of the Peninsula, the establishment of savings banks for the poor,
+somewhat on the lines of England's Post Office Savings Bank; railways
+have received an enormous impulse; quays and breakwaters have been
+erected, so that every portion of the kingdom is now in immediate touch
+with Madrid; while the universities are sending forth daily young men
+thoroughly trained as engineers, electricians, doctors, and scientists
+of every variety to take the places which some years ago were almost
+necessarily filled by foreigners for want of trained native talent.
+
+Local government in the smaller towns of the Peninsula is generally said
+to be very good, and to work with great smoothness and efficiency
+hand-in-hand with centralised authority in Madrid. The fusion of the
+varying nationalities is gradually gaining ground, and the hard-and-fast
+line between the provinces is disappearing. There is more nationality
+now in matters of every-day life than there has ever been before. In old
+times it needed the touch of a foreign hand, the threat of foreign
+interference, to rouse the nation as one man. Commerce and industry and
+the national emulation between province and province are doing gradually
+what it once needed the avarice of a Napoleon to evoke.
+
+The paper constitutions of Spain have been many, beginning with that of
+1812, which the Liberals tried to force on Ferdinand VII., to that of
+1845, which the Conservatives look upon as the ideal, or that of 1869,
+embodying all that the Revolution had gained from absolutism, including
+manhood suffrage. In the first Cortes summoned after the Restoration,
+thanks to the good sense of Castelar, the Republican party, from being
+conspirators, became a parliamentary party in opposition. Zorilla alone,
+looking upon it as a sham, retired to France in disgust. By the new
+constitution of 1876, the power of making laws remained, as before,
+vested in the Cortes and the Crown: the Senate consists of three
+classes, Grandes, Bishops, and high officers of State sitting by right,
+with one hundred members nominated by the Crown, and one hundred and
+eighty elected by provincial Councils, universities, and other
+corporations. Half of the elected members go out every five years. The
+deputies to the Congress are elected by indirect vote on a residential
+manhood suffrage, and they number four hundred and thirty-one. A
+certain number of equal electoral districts of fifty thousand
+inhabitants elect one member each; and twenty-six large districts,
+having several representatives, send eighty-eight members to the Cortes.
+Every province has its provincial elective Council, managing its local
+affairs, and each commune its separate District Council, with control
+over local taxation. Yet, though ostensibly free, these local bodies are
+practically in the power of the political wire-puller, or _cacique_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE
+
+
+Commerce and industry had progressed by leaps and bounds even during the
+disastrous and troublous years between the expulsion of Isabel II. and
+the restoration of her son. The progress is now much more steady and
+more diffused over the whole country, but it is by no means less
+remarkable, especially taking into consideration the disaster of the war
+with America and the loss to Spain of her old colonies.
+
+Among her politicians in past times there were never wanting those who
+considered that the loss of Cuba would be a distinct gain to the mother
+country, and perhaps it may be safely said that since the colony had not
+only been for so many years the forcing-house of bureaucratic
+corruption, but had also drained the resources of Spain both of money
+and lives to the extreme limit of her possibility, she is more likely
+now to regain her old position among European nations, when left at
+peace to develop her enormous resources and set her house in order
+without the distraction of war, either at home or abroad. When one
+remembers that this happy condition has never obtained in the country
+since the death of Ferdinand VII. until the close of the
+Spanish-American War, and that the country is only now recovering from
+the disorganisation caused by the return of her troops and refugees from
+Cuba and Manila, it is not surprising to find that the activity
+manifested in her trade, her manufactures, and her industries is such as
+to give the greatest hopes for her future to her own people and to those
+who watch her from afar with friendly eyes.
+
+Whichever we may regard as cause or effect, the progress of the country
+has been very largely identified with the extension of her railway
+system. It must have been a great step towards liberal education when
+the country which, priding herself on her geographical position and her
+rich internal resources, had hitherto wrapped herself in her national
+_capa_, and considered that she was amply sufficient to herself,
+condescended to throw open her mountain barriers to immigrants. It was
+not until 1848 that the first Spanish railway was opened, and it was but
+seventeen miles in length; but in the next ten years five hundred miles
+had been constructed, and between 1858 and 1868 no fewer than two
+thousand eight hundred and five miles, the Pyrenees had been pierced,
+and direct communication with the rest of Europe accomplished.
+
+During the troublous years following the Revolution and the melancholy
+struggles of the second Carlist war, very little progress was made.
+Foreign capital, which had hitherto been invested in Spanish railways,
+was naturally frightened away, and the Northern Railway itself, the
+great artery to France, was constantly being torn up and damaged, and
+the lives of the passengers endangered, by the armed mobs which infested
+the country, and were supposed by some people to represent the cause of
+legitimacy, and which had, in fact, the sanction of the Church and of
+the Pope. It was not, in the majority of cases, that the people
+sympathised with Don Carlos, but it was easier and more amusing for the
+lazy and the ne'er-do-weels to receive pay and rations for carrying a
+gun, and taking pot-shots at any object that presented itself, human or
+other, than to work in the fields, the mines, or on the railways. Hence
+public enterprise was paralysed; again and again the workmen, with no
+desire of their own, were driven off by superior bands of these
+wandering shooters, who scarcely deserved even the name of guerillas,
+and public works were left deserted and decaying, while the commerce and
+industry of the province were wrecked, and apparently destroyed
+irrevocably.
+
+In the earlier stages of railway construction and management, French
+capital and French labour were employed. England held aloof, partly on
+account of the closing of the London Stock Exchange to Spanish
+enterprises, in consequence of the vexed question of the celebrated
+coupons, but also because the aid afforded by the State did not fall in
+with the ideas of English capitalists. They desired a guaranteed rate of
+interest, while the Spanish Government would have nothing but a
+subvention paid down in one lump sum, arguing that it would be
+impossible to tell when a line was making more than the guaranteed
+interest, "as the companies would so arrange their accounts as to show
+invariably an interest smaller than that guaranteed!" With this view of
+the honesty of their own officials, no one else could be expected to
+have a better opinion of them; and England allowed France and Belgium
+thenceforward to find all the capital and all the materials for Spanish
+railways.
+
+The total amount of subventions actually paid by Government up to
+December 31, 1882, was L24,529,148. "If," says the author of _Commercial
+and Industrial Spain_, "the money that we so candidly lent to the swarm
+of defaulting South American Republics had been properly invested in
+Spanish railways, a great deal of trouble might probably have been
+spared to the unfortunate investors."
+
+All that, however, is altered now: the State schools and universities
+are turning out daily well-equipped native engineers, both for railway
+and mining works, and Spaniards are finding their own capital for public
+works. The phrase "Spain for the Spaniards" is acquiring a new
+significance--perhaps the most hopeful of all the signs of progress the
+country is making. In 1899, there were working 12,916 kilometros of
+railways, or 7.9 kilometros for each 10,000 of the population. A
+kilometro equals 1.609 English mile. There is no part of the country now
+isolated, either from the centre of government in Madrid, or from the
+coast, and communication with Portugal, and, through France, with the
+rest of Europe, is easy and constant. With this advance in means of
+transit, the trade of the country has received an immense impulse, and
+its raw and manufactured goods are now reaching all markets.
+
+The rich mineral wealth of the country and its wonderful climate only
+need enlightened enterprise to make Spain one of the richest and most
+important commercial factors in the world's trade. The list of minerals
+alone, raised from mines in working, amounts to twenty-two, ranging from
+gold and silver, copper, tin, zinc, quick-silver, salt, coal, etc., to
+cobalt and antimony; and 8,313,218 tons of minerals of all these
+twenty-two classes were raised in 1882 against 1,201,054 in 1862. The
+value of mines in 1880 was represented by one hundred and eleven
+millions of pesetas (francs), but in 1898 by three hundred and nineteen
+millions (pesetas). The value of imports in 1882 was 816,666,901
+pesetas, and of exports 765,376,087 pesetas. In 1899, imports were
+1,045,391,983, and exports 864,367,885. But this is taking exactly the
+period covered by the war with America; a fairer estimate of exports is
+that of 1897, which stood at 1,074,883,372. No statement has been
+published since 1899, but intermediate statistics show the trade of the
+country to be advancing rapidly.
+
+To return, however, to Spanish industries. In late years large
+smelting-works have been opened in Spain, with Spanish capital and
+management, while at Bilbao are large iron-works for the manufacture of
+steel rails. There are splendid deposits of iron in the country, and as
+the duty on foreign rails entering Spain is _L3 4s._ per ton, it is
+probable that the near future will see the country free from the
+necessity of importing manufactured iron, or, in fact, metal of any
+kind. A Catalan company has established important works for reducing the
+sulphur of the rich mines near Lorca, and confidently expects to produce
+some thirty thousand tons of sulphur per annum. The rich silver mines of
+the Sierra Almagrera are almost wholly in native hands, and have already
+yielded large fortunes to the owners. With the present improved
+transport and shipping facilities in every part of the country, it is
+probable that the valuable mines scattered all over the Peninsula will
+be thoroughly worked, to the advance of commercial and industrial
+interests over the entire country.
+
+While the seaboard provinces are rich in fisheries, as well as in mines,
+in the south the country is able to grow rice, sugar-cane, maize,
+raisins, as well as wheat, olives, oranges, grapes, dates, bananas,
+pine-apples, and almost all kinds of tropical fruits. The cultivation of
+all varieties of fruit and vegetables, and their careful gathering and
+packing have become the object of many large companies and private
+individuals. Dates, bananas, grapes, plums, tomatoes, melons, as well as
+asparagus and other early vegetables, are now being shipped to foreign
+markets as regular articles of trade, in a condition which insures a
+rapid and increasing sale. The exportation of fruit has doubled within
+the last few years. The production of cane sugar in 1899 was thirty-one
+thousand tons, or exactly three times the amount of that produced in
+1889. The exportation of wine, which in 1894 was two millions of
+milelitros, was in 1898 nearly five millions, and it is daily increasing
+(one gallon English measure equals about four and one half litros).
+
+Spain has always had excellent wines unknown to other countries, besides
+that which is manufactured into what we know as "sherry"; but many of
+them were so carelessly made as to be unfit for transit abroad. The
+attention of wine-growers has, however, been steadily turned to this
+subject during the last twenty years; greater care has been taken in the
+production; the best methods have been ascertained and followed, and it
+is possible now to obtain undoctored Spanish wines which perfectly bear
+the carriage in cask without injury; and, to meet a direct sale to the
+customer, small barrels containing about twelve gallons are shipped
+from Tarragona and other ports to England.
+
+One of the most hopeful signs of the economic awakening of the country
+is the establishment of the _Boletin de la Camara de Comercio de Espana
+en la Gran Bretana_, published each month in London.
+
+In this little commercial circular a review is given of the commerce and
+industry of all nations during the month; all fluctuations are noted,
+extracts from foreign statistics or money articles given, suggestions
+made for the opening up of Spanish commerce, and the introduction of her
+manufactures into this and other countries. Speaking on the question of
+the introduction of pure Spanish wines into England, a recent writer in
+the _Boletin_ remarks that English workmen are thirsty animals, that
+they like a big drink, but they are not really desirous of becoming
+intoxicated by it. In fact, they would most of them prefer to be able to
+drink more without bad effects. The writer goes on to say that if the
+English workman could obtain pure wine that would cost no more than his
+customary beer, and would not make him intoxicated, and if Spanish light
+wines--which he says could be sold in England for less than good
+beer--were offered in tempting-looking taverns and under pleasant
+conditions, he believes that a really enormous trade would be the
+result, to the benefit of both nations. The suggestion is, at least, an
+interesting one, and though the scheme would certainly not benefit the
+habitual drunkard, who becomes enamoured of his own debauchery, it
+might be very welcome to many of the working people, who, as "our
+neighbour" quaintly remarks, like a big drink, but do not necessarily
+wish to become intoxicated.
+
+In this connection, it may be interesting to know that the small
+twelve-gallon casks of red wine, resembling Burgundy rather than claret,
+but less heavy than the Australian wines, and forming a delicious drink
+with water, are delivered at one's own door carriage free for a price
+which works out, including duty, at _8-1/2d._ the ordinary bottle, or
+_1s. 2d._ the flagon, such as the Australian wine is sold in. This is,
+in fact, cheaper than good stout or ale.
+
+Spain has always been celebrated for two special manufactures--her silk
+and woollen goods; but for very many years these have been almost
+unknown beyond her own boundaries. In the time of the Moors her silken
+goods had a world-wide fame; and the silk-worm has been cultivated there
+probably from the earliest days, when it was surreptitiously introduced
+into Europe. Groves of mulberry trees were grown especially for
+sericulture in the irrigated provinces of the South, the care of the
+insect being undertaken by the women, while the men were employed on
+tasks more suitable to their strength. Native-grown spun and woven silk
+forms such an important part in the national costumes of the people that
+it has attained to great perfection without attracting much foreign
+notice. The silk petticoats of the women, the velvet jackets and trunk
+hose of the men, the beautiful silk and woollen _mantas_, with their
+deep fringes of silken or woollen balls; the _madronos_, or silk tufts
+and balls, used as decorations for the Andalusian or the gypsy hats, not
+to mention the beautifully soft and pure silks of Barcelona, or the silk
+laces made in such perfection in many parts of the country,--all these
+are objects of merchandise only needing to be known, to occasion a large
+demand, especially in these days when the French invention of weighted
+dyes floods the English market with something that has the outward
+appearance of silk, but which does not even wait for wear to disclose
+its real nature, but rots into holes on the drapers' shelves, and
+would-be smart young women of slender purses walk about in what has been
+well called "tin attire," in the manufacture of which the silk-worm has
+had only the slenderest interest.
+
+The blankets and rugs of Palencia have been known to some few English
+people for many years, owing to their extreme lightness, great warmth,
+and literally unending wear; but it is only within the last very few
+years that they can be said to have had any market at all in England,
+and now they are called "Pyrenean" rather than Spanish goods. One of the
+suggestions of the little commercial circular already referred to is
+that Spaniards should open depots or special agencies all over England
+for the sale of their woollen goods, after the manner of the Jaeger
+Company.
+
+The flocks of merino sheep to be seen on the wooded slopes of the
+Pyrenees, and all over Estremadura, following their shepherd after the
+manner with which Old Testament history makes us familiar, are said to
+be direct descendants of the old Arabian flocks, and certainly the
+appearance of one of these impassive-looking shepherds leading his flock
+to "green pastures, and beside the still waters," takes one back in the
+world's history in a way that few other things do. The flock know the
+voice of their shepherd, and follow him unquestioningly wheresoever he
+goes; there is no driving, no hurrying; and the same may be said of the
+pigs, which form such an important item in the social economy of a
+Spanish peasant's home.
+
+Staying once at Castellon de la Plana, in Valencia, my delight was to
+watch the pig-herd and his troop. Early in the morning, at a fixed hour,
+he issued from his house in one of the small alleys, staff in hand, and
+with a curious kind of horn or whistle. This he blew as he walked along,
+from time to time, without turning his head, in that strange trance of
+passivity which distinguishes the Valencian peasant. Out from dark
+corners, narrow passages, mud hovels on all sides, came tearing along
+little pigs, big pigs, dark, light, fat, thin pigs,--pigs of every
+description,--and joined the procession headed by this sombre-looking
+herdsman, with his long stick and his blue-and-white striped _manta_
+thrown over his shoulder. By the time he had reached the end of the
+village he had a large herd following him. Then the whole party slowly
+disappeared in the distance, under the groves of cork-trees or up the
+mountain paths. The evening performance was more amusing still. Just
+about sundown the stately herdsman again appeared with his motley
+following. He took no manner of notice of them. He stalked majestically
+towards his own particular hovel, and at each corner of a lane or group
+of cottages the pigs said "Good night" to each other by a kick-up of
+their heels and a whisk of their curly little tails, and scampered off
+home by themselves, until, at the end of the village, only one solitary
+pig was following his leader--probably they shared one home between
+them. It seemed a peaceful, if not an absolutely happy, life!
+
+One would expect a country with such a climate, or rather with so many
+climates, as Spain, to make a great feature of agriculture. It can at
+once produce wheat of the very finest quality, wine, oil, rice, sugar,
+and every kind of fruit and vegetable that is known; and it ought to be
+able to support a large agricultural population in comfort, and export
+largely. Taking into account, also, the rich mineral wealth, which
+should make her independent of imports of this nature, it is sad to see
+that in past years, even so late as 1882, wheat and flour, coal and
+coke, iron and tools figure amongst her imports--the first two in very
+large proportions. Although the vast plains of Estremadura and Castile
+produce the finest wheat known to commerce, the quantity, owing to the
+want of water, is so small in relation to the acreage under cultivation,
+that it does not suffice for home consumption, except in very favourable
+years; while the utilisation of the magnificent rivers, which now roll
+their waters uselessly to the sea, would make the land what it once was
+when the thrifty Moor held it--a thickly populated and flourishing
+grain-producing district. In place of the wandering flocks of sheep and
+pigs gaining a precarious existence on the herbage left alive by the
+blistering sun on an arid soil, there should be smiling homesteads and
+blooming gardens everywhere, trees and grateful shade where now the
+ground, between the rainy seasons, becomes all of one dusty, half-burnt
+colour, reminding one more of the "back of a mangy camel," as it has
+been described, than of a country that has once been fruitful and
+productive.
+
+The late General Concha, Marques del Duero, was the originator of
+sugar-cane cultivation. He spent a large portion of his private fortune
+in establishing what bids fair to be one of the most productive
+industries of his country. But, like most pioneers of progress, he
+reaped no benefit himself. His fine estates near Malaga, with their
+productive cane-farms, passed into other hands before he had reaped the
+reward of his patriotic endeavours. For a long time the cheap,
+bounty-fed beet sugars of Germany, which never approach beyond being an
+imitation of real sugar--as every housewife can testify who has tried to
+make jam with them--were able to undersell the produce of the cane; but
+the latest statistics show that this industry is now making steady
+progress, the production of 1899 being thirty-one thousand tons, or
+exactly three times that of 1899. _A propos_ of the difference between
+cane and beet sugars for all domestic purposes, and the superior
+cheapness of the more costly article, it is satisfactory to note that in
+England the working classes, through their own co-operative societies,
+insist on being supplied with the former, knowing by experimental proof
+its immense superiority; and one may hope that their wisdom may spread
+into households where the servants pull the wires, and care nothing
+about economy.
+
+Looking at the ordinary map of Spain, it appears to be ridiculous to say
+that the greater part of the country is in want of water. Although it is
+intersected by three large ranges of mountains beyond the Pyrenees, and
+innumerable others of smaller dimensions, thus making a great proportion
+of the country impossible for agriculture, it is rich in magnificent
+rivers and in smaller ones, all of which are allowed to run to waste in
+many parts of the country, while even a small portion of their waters,
+artificially dammed and utilised for irrigation, if only of the lands
+lying on each side of them, would mean wealth and prosperity and an
+abounding population where now the "everlasting sun" pours its rays over
+barren wastes. Moreover, by the growth of the wood, which once covered
+the plains and has been cut down, little by little, until the whole
+surface of the land was changed, in process of time the climate would
+become less dry, and vegetation more rapid and easy.
+
+Ever since the expulsion of the Moors from Castile and Estremadura, the
+land has been allowed gradually to go almost out of cultivation for want
+of water, the wholesale devastation of forests, in combination with the
+lapse of all irrigation, acting as a constantly accelerating cause for
+the arid and unproductive condition of the once genial soil. Irrigation
+has been the crying want of Spain for generations past; but even now the
+Government scarcely seems to have awakened to its necessity. Perhaps,
+however, the Spaniard who goes on his way, never troubling to listen to
+the opinion or advice of his neighbour, has not, after all, been so
+wanting in common sense as some of the more energetic of his critics
+have thought. In spite of all the changes and disasters of successive
+Governments, a steady and rapid advance has been made in providing means
+of transport and shipping, by the construction of railways to every part
+of the country, the making and keeping in condition of admirable
+highways, and the building of breakwaters and quays in many of the
+seaports, so that now the output of the mines and produce of all kinds
+can find market within the country, or be shipped abroad freely.
+
+[Illustration: A WEDDING PARTY IN ESTREMADURA]
+
+If the money no longer being expended in railways and docks were now
+devoted to irrigation wherever it is needed, a rapid change would become
+apparent over the whole face of the country, and the population would
+increase in proportion as the land would bear it. Irrigation works have
+been more than once undertaken by the aid of foreign money, and under
+the charge of foreign engineers; but the people themselves--the
+landowners and peasant proprietors--were not ripe for it, and, alas!
+some of the canals which would have turned whole valleys into gardens
+have been allowed to go to ruin, or to become actually obliterated,
+while the scanty crops are raised once in two or three years from the
+same soil, which will yield three crops in one year by the help of
+water. Difficulties arose about the sale of the water--a prolific cause
+of dispute even in the old irrigated districts--and the people said:
+"What do we want with water, except what comes from heaven? If the
+Virgin thinks we want water, she sends it." Fitting result of the
+teaching of the Church for so many years, with the example ever held up
+for admiration of the patron saint, Isidro, who knelt all day at his
+prayers, and left the tilling of his fields to the angels! It would seem
+that these ministers of grace are not good husbandmen, since the land
+became the arid waste it now is, while successive Isidros have been
+engaged in religious duties, which they were taught were all that was
+necessary.
+
+As an example of what irrigation means in the sunlit fields of Spain, an
+acre of irrigable land in Valencia or Murcia sells for prices varying
+from L150 to L400, according to its quality or its situation, while land
+not irrigable only fetches sums varying from L7 to L20. In Castile, land
+would not in any case fetch so high a price as that which has been under
+irrigated cultivation for centuries past; but in any district the value
+of dry land is never more than a twelfth of what it is when irrigable.
+In truth, however, there is more than irrigation needed to bring the
+lands of Castile and Estremadura into profitable cultivation, and it
+cannot be done without the expenditure of large sums of money at the
+outset in manures, and good implements in place of the obsolete old
+implements with which the ground is now scratched rather than ploughed.
+Given good capital and intelligent farming, as in the irrigated
+districts, and two, and even three, crops a year can be raised in
+unceasing succession; lucern gives from ten to twelve cuttings in one
+year, fifteen days being sufficient for the growth of a new crop.
+
+I have pointed out what one day's sun can do in raising grass seed in
+Madrid, which stands on the highest point of the elevated table-land
+occupying the centre of Spain. Seeing that the principal item of the
+revenue is derived from the land tax, and that it is calculated on the
+value of the land, it would appear to be the first interest of an
+enlightened government to foster irrigation in every possible way, and
+encourage agriculture and the planting of trees.
+
+Although the people of Spain have hated their more immediate neighbours
+with an exceeding bitter hatred,--as, indeed, they had good cause to do
+in the past,--her public men have had a strange fancy for importing or
+imitating French customs. One that militates more than anything else
+against agricultural prosperity is the law of inheritance, copied from
+the French. By this the State divides an estate amongst the heirs
+without any reference to the wishes of the proprietor at his death. Not
+only are all large estates broken up and practically dissipated, so that
+it is to no one's interest to improve his property or spend money on it,
+but the small farms of the peasant proprietor are broken into smaller
+fragments in the same way; and it is no uncommon thing to see a field of
+a few acres divided into six or eight furrows, none of them enough to
+support one man. While he has to go off seeking work where he can get
+it, his strip of land clings to him like a curse, for he must lose his
+work if he would try to cultivate it, and at his death it will again be
+subdivided, until at last there is nothing left to share. Meanwhile, the
+land, which is not enough to be of any value to anyone, has been allowed
+to go almost out of cultivation; or if it bear anything at all, it is
+weeds.
+
+Until some remedy be found for this enervating system, it would seem as
+if Spanish agriculture is doomed to remain in its present unsatisfactory
+condition over a great part of the kingdom. The improvement of
+agriculture is practically a question of private enterprise, and under
+the existing law of inheritance neither enterprise nor interest can be
+expected of the small proprietor; nor indeed of the large landowner, who
+knows that, whatever he may do to improve his estate, it is doomed to be
+cut to pieces and divided amongst his next of kin until it is eventually
+extinguished. Whether, in some future time, an enlightened scheme of
+co-operation could work the arid lands into cultivation again, if the
+Government would give the necessary aid in the form of irrigation,
+remains among the unanswered riddles of the future. Prophecy in Spain is
+never possible; it is always the unexpected which happens in that
+country of sharp contradictions. All one can do is to note past progress
+and the drift of the present current, which, whatever government is at
+the nominal head of affairs, seems to be towards widespread--in fact,
+quite general--advance both in knowledge and industrial activity.
+
+The greatest hope for the future lies in the fact that it is no longer
+foreign money or foreign labour that is working for the good of the
+country; the impulse is from within, and every penny of capital that is
+sunk in public works, manufactures, or industrial enterprise, is so much
+invested in a settled state of affairs. When the individual has
+everything to lose by revolutionary changes, when the commerce of the
+country is becoming too important to be allowed to be upset easily, and
+it is everybody's interest to support and increase it, the main body of
+the people are ranged on the side of peace and progress. They have had
+enough of civil war, enough of tyranny; they have achieved freedom, and
+want nothing so much as to taste of it in quietness.
+
+To revert for a moment to the special manufactures of the country, it
+appears to be the wise policy of the powers that be in Spain to-day to
+encourage, by every possible means, native industries and the
+development of the rich resources of the country. If it be only in the
+superior education required of the workmen, and the drawing out of their
+natural talents, the movement is an immense gain to the people, so long
+purposely kept in a condition of slothful ignorance.
+
+Besides the woollen manufactures of Palencia, Lorca, Jerez, Barcelona,
+Valencia, and other places, are many cloth factories in Cataluna, as
+well as others for the production of silk fabrics, lace, and very
+high-class embroideries, for which last Spain has long been famous, but
+which have hitherto been little known beyond her own frontiers. In
+artistic crafts may be named the pottery works of Pickman, Mesaque,
+Gomez, and others in Seville, where magnificent reproductions of Moorish
+and Hespano-Moresque tiles and pottery are being turned out; there are
+also factories for this class of goods in Valencia, Barcelona, Segovia,
+Talevera, and many other places. Ornamental iron and damascene work
+holds the high reputation which Spain has never lost, but the output is
+very largely increased. Gold and silver inlaid on iron, iron inlaid on
+copper and silver, are some of the forms of this beautiful work. That
+executed in Madrid differs from that of Toledo, Eibar, and other centres
+of the craft. The iron gate-work executed in Madrid and Barcelona is
+very hard to beat, and the casting of bronzes is carried out with every
+modern improvement. The wood-carvers of Spain have always been famous,
+and the craft appears to be in no danger of falling behind its old
+reputation, much beautiful decorative work of this description being
+produced for modern needs. The _Circulo de Artes_ holds an exhibition in
+Madrid every other year, and in the intervening years the Government has
+one, in the large permanent buildings erected for the purpose at the end
+of the Fuente Castellana. The manufacture of artistic furniture and
+other connected industries are encouraged also by a bi-yearly exhibition
+in Madrid, where prizes and commendations are given. The chief centres
+of artistic furniture-making are Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and
+Zaragoza. Exhibitions of arts and crafts and of all kinds of industries
+and manufactures are also held, at intervals, in the principal towns all
+over the country. An interesting exhibition of Spanish and South
+American productions was held in 1901 in Bilbao with great success.
+
+Nor ought we to forget the industry for which Seville is famed. The
+manufacture of tobacco is almost wholly in the hands of women, and is a
+very important industry, thousands being employed in the large factories
+making up cigars, cigarettes, and preparing and packing the finer kinds
+of tobacco. The cigar-girl of Seville is a well-known type, almost as
+much dreaded by the authorities as admired by her own class. The women
+are mostly young, and often attractive, extremely pronounced both in
+dress and manners, and are quite a power to be reckoned with when they
+choose to assert themselves. On more than one occasion they have taken
+up some cause _en masse_, and have gathered in thousands, determined to
+have their way.
+
+When this happens, the powers that be are reduced to great straits.
+Neither the _Guardia Civile_ nor the military can be relied on to use
+force, and unless the army of irate women can be persuaded to retire
+from the contest it is probable that, relying with perfect confidence on
+the privileges of their sex, they will gain what they consider their
+rights--at all events their will.
+
+No country in the world is more suited for manufactures and exports than
+Spain. She has an unexampled seaboard, and many magnificent natural
+harbours, and now an easy approach through Portugal to the sea, even if
+her own ports should be insufficient. Common commercial interests are
+likely to bring that Iberian kingdom or commonwealth to pass which has
+been the dream of some of her politicians, and is still cherished in
+parts of both countries. The northern ports in the Atlantic are,
+perhaps, the most important; that of Bilbao, a most unpromising one by
+nature, has grown out of all recognition since the close of the Carlist
+war. The railway to the iron mines was already in course of construction
+when the war broke out; everything was stopped, the workmen carried off
+willy-nilly to join the marauding bands of the Pretender, the
+town--which boasts that it has never been taken, although twice almost
+demolished during the two insane civil wars--was wrecked and well-nigh
+ruined, its industries destroyed, its commerce at an end. With peace and
+quietness came one of the most extraordinary revivals of modern times:
+the population increased at a marvellous rate, the new town sprang into
+existence on the left bank of the Nerrion, the river was deepened, the
+bar, which used to block almost all entrance, practically removed,
+extensive dock-works carried out; so that in ten years the shipment of
+ore from the port sprang up from four hundred and twenty-five thousand
+tons to 3,737,176, and is increasing daily. Bilbao, with its five
+railway stations, its electric tramways, and its population of
+sixty-six thousand, has become the first and most important shipping
+outlet of Spain. Nor have the southern ports of Huelva and Seville been
+much behind it in their rapid progress; while on the Mediterranean coast
+are Malaga, Almeria, Aguilas, Cartagena, Valencia, and Tarragona--all
+vying with the older, and once singular, centre of commercial and
+industrial activity, Barcelona. The northwest seaboard has been hitherto
+somewhat behind the movement, owing to a less complete railway
+communication with the rest of the country; now that this is no more a
+reproach, the fine natural harbours of Rivadeo, Vivero, Carril,
+Pontevedra, Vigo, and Coruna, are gradually following suit, some with
+more vigour than others. The little land-locked harbour of Pasages has
+for some years been rapidly rising to the rank of a first-class shipping
+port.
+
+It is satisfactory to note, from the latest statistics, that in 1899
+Spain possessed a total of one thousand and thirty-five merchant ships,
+that in the same year she bought from England alone sixty-seven, and
+that 17,419 ships, carrying 11,857,674 tons of exports, left Spanish
+ports for foreign markets. Although no official information has been
+published since that year, the increase since the close of the war has
+been in very much greater ratio. From the same records we find that
+during the year 1899 no fewer than sixty-nine large companies were
+formed, of which twenty-three were for shipping, eight were new sugar
+factories, seven banks, seven mining, six electric, and ten others
+related either to manufacture or commerce, the total capital of these
+new enterprises representing one hundred and twenty-eight millions of
+pesetas.
+
+In contrast to Portugal, the _caminos reales_, or high-roads, of Spain
+have long been very good. It is true that where these State roads do not
+exist, the unadulterated _arroyo_ serves as a country road, or a mere
+track across the fields made by carts and foot-passengers, and when an
+obstruction occurs in the form of too deep a hole to be got through, the
+track takes a turn outside it, and returns to the direct line as soon as
+circumstances permit. An _arroyo_ is given in the dictionary as "a
+rivulet"; it is, in fact, generally a rushing torrent during the rains,
+eating its way through the land, and laying down a smooth, deep layer of
+sand, or even soil, between high banks. Immediately after the rainy
+season this affords a firm, good road for a time, but eventually it
+becomes ploughed into impassable ruts by the wheels of the carts, unless
+trampled hard by the feet of passing flocks.
+
+Government undertakes the cost and the super-intendence of the _caminos
+reales_, and does it well. The corps of engineers is modelled on French
+lines, and is a department of the Ministry of Public Works. The course
+of study is extremely severe, and the examinations are strict and
+searching. When a candidate passes, he is appointed assistant-engineer
+by the Ministry, and he rises in his profession solely by seniority.
+Every province has its engineer-in-chief, with his staff of assistants;
+the superintendents of harbours, railways, and other public works are
+specially appointed from qualified engineers. In addition to the care of
+the construction and repair of all highways and Government works in his
+district, the engineer-in-chief has the overlooking of all works which,
+although they may be the result of private enterprise and private
+capital, are authorised or carried out under Government concession.
+These concessions are only granted after the project has been submitted
+to, and approved by, the Ministry of Public Works, and it passes under
+the supervision of the engineer of the provinces. In old days, if not
+now, there was a good deal of "the itching palm" about the officials,
+not excluding the Minister himself, through whose hands the granting of
+concessions passed, even the wives coming in for handsome presents and
+"considerations," without which events had a knack of not moving; and
+when the army of _Empleados_ became _Cesantes_, this work, of course,
+began all over again. The railway engineers form a separate body, the
+country being mapped out into arbitrary divisions, each under the charge
+of one engineer-in-chief, with a large body of assistants.
+
+The telegraph system of Spain has now for many years been in a good
+condition. The construction of the lines dates from about 1862, when
+only five miles were in operation. There is now probably not a village
+in the whole country that does not possess its telegraph office, and in
+all the important towns this is kept open all night. A peseta for twenty
+words, including the address, is the uniform charge, every additional
+word being ten centimos. The telegraphs were established by the
+Government, and are under its control. All railway lines of public
+service, and those which receive a subvention, must provide two wires
+for Government use. Telephones are now in use in all large centres, and
+electric lighting and traction are far more widely used than in England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE ARMY AND NAVY
+
+
+It is not necessary to say to anyone who has the smallest acquaintance
+with history that Spaniards are naturally brave and patriotic. The early
+history of the Peninsula is one of valour in battle, whether by land or
+sea. The standard of Castile has been borne by her sons triumphantly
+over the surface of the globe. Few of us now remember that Johnson wrote
+of the Spain of his day:
+
+    Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,
+    No pathless waste, no undiscovered shore,
+    No secret island on the trackless main,
+    No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?
+
+In the old days when Drake undertook to "singe the King of Spain's
+beard," and carried out his threat, our sailors and those of Philip II.,
+some time "King of England," as the Spaniards still insist on calling
+him, met often in mortal combat, and learned to recognise and honour in
+each other the same dogged fighting-power, the same discipline and quiet
+courage. The picture of the Spaniards standing bareheaded in token of
+reverence and admiration of a worthy foe, as some small English ships
+went down with all their crew rather than surrender, in those old days
+of strife, touches a chord which still vibrates in memory of battles
+fought and won together by Englishmen and Spaniards under the Iron Duke.
+True, some battered and torn English flags hang as trophies in the
+armoury of Madrid, but one likes to remember that in the only battle
+where our colours were lost, the Spanish troops were commanded by an
+Englishman, James Stuart, Duke of Berwick, the direct ancestor of the
+present Duque de Berwick y Alva, and the English by one of French birth.
+In every case where foreign foes have invaded Spain, sooner or later
+they have been driven out. _Santiago! y Cierra Espana!_ was the war-cry
+which roused every child of Spain to close his beloved country to alien
+domination.
+
+Unfortunately, the yoke of the foreigner came in more invidious guise.
+From the death of Ferdinand and Isabella to the year 1800, the sons of
+Spain were immolated to serve causes which were of no account to her, to
+protect the interests of sovereigns who had nothing in common with her
+provinces, to add to the power of the Austrian Hapsburgs and the French
+Bourbons. We have seen how the people whom Napoleon had believed to be
+sunk in fanaticism, dead to all national aspiration, the mere slaves of
+a despicable King, and the sport of his debauched Queen and her lover,
+sprang to arms and drove the invader from their land. So would it be
+to-day if the country were even threatened by foreign invasion. "The
+dogs of Spain," as Granville called them, know well how to protect their
+soil.
+
+Within comparatively recent years the campaign in Morocco, and the
+expeditionary force sent to Cochin-China, showed that the Spanish army
+was not to be despised. It has been the misfortune of Spain that her
+soldiers have too often had the melancholy task of fighting against
+their own people, or those of their colonies, both of whom have been
+excited and aided in insurrection for years by foreign contributions of
+arms and money. In these unhappy fratricidal struggles the fighting has
+never been more than half-hearted, and during the numerous military
+_pronunciamientos_ it has often been necessary to keep the troops from
+meeting, as they could never be trusted not to fraternise; and after the
+first abortive attempt by Prim to effect the revolution which later
+freed the country, the curious spectacle was afforded of Prim and his
+soldiers marching quietly out of one end of a village, while the troops
+of the Queen, sent in pursuit, were being purposely kept back from
+marching too quickly in at the other.
+
+The army of Spain would seem to suffer from a plethora of officers,
+especially those of the highest rank. In the time of Alfonso XII., there
+were ten marshals, fifty-five generals, sixty-six _mariscales de
+campo_, and one hundred and ninety-seven brigadiers; adding those on the
+retired list liable for service, there were in all five hundred and
+twenty generals, four hundred and seventy-two colonels, eight hundred
+and ninety-four lieutenant-colonels, 2113 commandants, 5041 captains,
+5880 lieutenants, and 4833 sous-lieutenants. With such an array of
+officers, it is scarcely to be wondered at that promotion in the
+ordinary way was looked on as impossible, and the juggle of military
+_pronunciamientos_ was regarded as almost the only means of rising in
+the army. It was no uncommon thing to promise a rise of one grade
+throughout a whole corps to compass one of these miniature revolutions.
+However, all that is happily past. General Weyler,--whose name indicates
+alien blood at some period of his family history,--the present Minister
+of War, has taken the thorough reform of the army in hand, though it is
+too soon to say if he will be as successful as is generally expected
+from his known energy and common sense, since the work is only now in
+progress.
+
+One of the most fertile sources of disturbance in the old days of Isabel
+II. was the presence of the _primo sargentos_. These petty officers,
+having risen from the ranks, and invested with an authority for which
+they were often quite unsuited, were always ready, for a consideration,
+to aid the cause of some aspiring politician, now on one side, now on
+another. They are now, fortunately, abolished.
+
+The Spanish artillery is a splendid body, and is officered from the
+best families in the country. In the only military insurrection in which
+the common soldiers shot some of the officers obnoxious to them--that of
+the Montano Barracks, in 1866--the leader of the mutinists was a certain
+_hidalgo_. It was the promotion of this man that led indirectly to the
+abdication of Don Amadeo, who opposed the action. Indignant at the
+disgrace to the service, all of the artillery officers in Spain sent in
+their resignations. They were accepted, and the _primo sargentos_ raised
+to the rank of officers to fill their places. The result was unlimited
+mutiny among the rank and file and danger to the State. Some of the
+young officers who had retained their uniforms, though no longer
+attached to the corps, finding the troops in utter disorder and revolt,
+quietly donned their uniforms, went down to the barracks, and gave their
+orders. The men instantly fell into the ranks, and the situation was
+saved. The _primo sargentos_ were abolished, the officers reinstated.
+But Amadeo had had enough; he ceased to attempt to reign
+constitutionally in a country where the constitution meant only one more
+form of personal greed and excess. He was _demasiado honesto_ for the
+crew he had been called to command, and he left the country to tumble
+about in its so-called "republican" anarchy until another military
+_pronunciamiento_ set Alfonso XII. on the throne. And that has been,
+fortunately, the last performance of a kind once so common in Spain.
+
+All military men admire the effective corps of light mountain artillery.
+The small guns are carried on the backs of the splendid mules for which
+the Spanish army is famous, and can be taken up any mountain path which
+these singular animals can climb. Mules are also used to drag the
+heavier guns, and must be invaluable in a mountainous country. The
+animals are quite as large as ordinary horses, are lithe, active, and
+literally unhurtable. I have myself seen a mule, harnessed to a cart
+which was discharging stones over the edge of a deep pit, when levelling
+the ground at the end of the Fuente Castellana in Madrid, over-balanced
+by the weight behind him, fall over, turn a somersault in mid-air, cart
+and all, and, alighting thirty feet below, shake himself, ponder for a
+few seconds on the unexpected event in his day's labour, and then
+proceed to draw the cart, by this time satisfactorily emptied, out of
+the pit by the sloping track at the farther side, and continue his task
+absolutely unhurt and undisturbed.
+
+Until the final overthrow of the Carlists by Alfonso XII., the Basque
+Provinces, amongst their most cherished _fueros_, were exempted from the
+hated conscription; but the victorious King made short work of that and
+of all other special rights and privileges--which, in truth, had been
+abused--and now all the country is subject to conscription. Every man
+from nineteen to twenty years of age is liable to serve in the ranks,
+except those who are studying as officers. A payment of L60 frees them
+from service during peace; but if the country is at war there is no
+exemption. The conscripts are bound for twelve years--three with the
+colours, three in the first reserve, three in the second, and three in
+the third.
+
+Navy? Alas! Spain has none. Two battle-ships alone remain--_El Pelayo_
+and _Carlos V._ (the former about nine thousand five hundred tons, the
+latter not more than seven thousand)--and some destroyers and torpedoes.
+How a nation that once ruled the sea, and whose sailors traversed and
+conquered the New World, has allowed her navy to become practically
+extinct at the moment when nations which have almost no seaboard are
+trying to bring theirs up within measurable distance of England's, it is
+impossible to say. Even before the outbreak of the war with America
+there were but a few battle-ships, and these were wanting in guns and in
+almost all that could make them effective--save and except the men, who
+behaved like heroes. It seems to be a consolation to Spaniards to
+remember that it was in the pages of an English journal that an
+Englishman, who had seen the whole of the disastrous war, wrote: "If
+Spain were served by her statesmen as she has been served by her navy,
+she would be one of the greatest nations of the world to-day."
+
+The history of the part borne by the Spanish navy in the late war with
+America, as written by one of Admiral Cervera's captains,[1] with the
+publication of the actual telegrams which passed between the Government
+and the fleet, and the military commanders in the colonies, is one of
+the most heartrending examples of the sacrifice, not only of brave men,
+but of a country's honour to political intrigue or the desire to retain
+office. This, at least, is the opinion of the writer of this painful
+history, and his statements are fully borne out by the original
+telegrams, since published. It is impossible to imagine that any
+definite policy at all was followed by the advisers of the Queen Regent
+in this matter, unless it were the incredible one ascribed to it by
+Captain Concas Palan of deliberately allowing the fleet, such as it was,
+to be destroyed--in fact, in the case of Admiral Cervera's squadron,
+sending it out to certain and foreseen annihilation--so as to make the
+disaster an excuse for suing for peace, without raising such a storm at
+home as might have upset the Ministry. With both fleets sunk, and those
+of their men not slain, prisoners of war, there was no alternative
+policy but peace. Captain Concas Palan claims for his chief and the
+comrades who fell in this futile and disastrous affair "a right to the
+legitimate defence which our country expects from us, though it is
+against the interested silence which those who were the cause of our
+misfortunes would fain impose on us," and says that "some day, and that
+probably much sooner than seems probable at present," the judgment of
+Spain on this episode will be that of the English _Review_, which he
+quotes as the heading of his chapter. He goes on: "War was accepted by
+Spain when the island of Cuba was already lost to her, and when the
+dispatch of a single soldier more from the Peninsula was infinitely more
+likely to have caused an insurrection than that of which our Ministers
+were afraid--at the moment, also, when our troops were in want of the
+merest necessaries, the arrears of pay being the chief cause of their
+debilitated condition, and when a great part of the Spanish residents in
+Cuba, under the name of 'Reformers,' 'Autonomists,' etc., had made
+common cause with the insurgents, while they were enriching themselves
+to a fabulous extent by contracts for supplies and transports. In these
+circumstances it was folly to accept a struggle with an immensely rich
+country, possessing a population four times that of ours, and but a
+pistol shot from the seat of action." The Government of Spain was
+perfectly aware that the troops in Cuba were already quite insufficient
+even to cope with the insurgents, that the people at home were already
+murmuring bitterly at the cost of the war, and that it was impossible to
+send out a contingent of any practical value. Sickness of all kinds,
+enteric, anaemia, and all the evils of under-fed and badly found troops,
+were rapidly consuming the forces in Cuba, "and yet the Government took
+no thought of who was to man the guns whose gunners were drifting daily
+into the hospital and the cemetery.... The national debt was increasing
+in a fabulous manner, and recourse was had to the mediaeval remedy of
+debasing the currency, while even at that moment the troops had more
+than a year's pay in arrear, and absolute penury was augmenting their
+other sufferings."
+
+    [1] _La Escuadra del Almirante Cervera_, por Victor M.
+    Concas Palan.
+
+This was the moment which the responsible Ministers of the Crown thought
+propitious to throw down the gauntlet to the overwhelming power of
+America rather than to face what the writer terms the "cabbage-headed
+riff-raff of the Plaza de la Cevada" of Madrid. Again and again was the
+absolute inefficiency of the fleet pointed out to them. Even the few
+ships there were, all of them vastly inferior to those of the United
+States' navy, were without their proper armament; they might have been
+of some service in defence of the coast of Spain, but in aggressive
+warfare they were useless. Allowing somewhat for the natural indignation
+of one of those who was sacrificed, who saw his beloved commander and
+his comrades-in-arms sent like sheep to the slaughter, and all for an
+idea,--and that a perfectly stupid and useless one,--there is no
+gainsaying the facts which Captain Concas Palan relates, and the
+original telegrams verify every word of his story. Admiral Cervera was
+sent out with sealed orders; but he had done all that was in his
+power--even asking to be relieved of his command--to prevent the folly
+of sending away from the coasts of the mother country the only ships
+which could have protected her, while they were absolutely useless
+against the American navy in the Antilles. Left with no alternative but
+obedience, he managed to gain the safe harbour of Santiago de Cuba with
+his squadron intact. Secure from attack, he landed his men to assist in
+the defence of the town from the land side. And then came the incredible
+orders that he was to take out his four ships to be destroyed by the
+American navy waiting outside! Never in the world's history was a more
+magnificent piece of heroism displayed than in the obedience to
+discipline which caused Admiral Cervera to re-embark his marines and
+lead them forth to certain death, well knowing what they were to face,
+for he hid nothing from them. He called on them as sons of Spain, and
+they answered heroically, as Spaniards have ever done in history: "For
+honour!"
+
+Spain has suffered deeply and sorely in her pride; but she has never
+worn her heart on her sleeve--she suffers in silence. A quotation from
+the _Epoca_ of July 5th, two days after the destruction of Cervera's
+fleet, shows the spirit in which the country bore that terrible blow. It
+is headed "Hours of Agony." "Our grief to-day has nothing in it which
+was unexpected. The laws of logic are invincible; our four ships could
+not by any possibility have escaped the formidable American squadron.
+The one thing that Spain expected of her sons was that they should
+perish heroically. They have perished! They have faced their destiny;
+they have realised the sole end which Spain looked for, in this
+desperate conflict into which she has been drawn by God knows what blind
+fatality; they have fallen with honour."
+
+That is true; but how about the leaders whose long misrule of the
+colonies had helped to bring on the disaster which their predecessors
+for many years had courted? How about the political corruption which,
+when large sums were being spent on the colonies, had allowed immense
+private fortunes to be made while Manila was left without defences, and
+the absolutely unassailable bay of Santiago de Cuba had on the fort
+which commanded its entrance only useless old guns of a past century,
+more likely to cause the death of those who attempted to serve them than
+to injure an enemy? How about the Government that deliberately entered
+on a war of which the end was perfectly foreseen, and, while seated
+safely in office at home, thought the "honour of Spain" sufficiently
+vindicated by offering up its navy, already made useless by neglect and
+niggardliness, as a sacrifice? Captain Concas Palan points out that even
+after it was fully recognised that the retention of Cuba was impossible,
+the worst catastrophes might have been avoided. "In place of treating
+for peace while the squadron was intact at Santiago, which, as well as
+Manila, could have been defended for some time, the Ministers waited to
+sue for peace until everything was lost, while it was perfectly well
+known beforehand that that result was inevitable." During the whole
+time, _manana veremos_ was the rule of action--a to-morrow that never
+was to dawn for those whose lives it was intended to sacrifice. Heaven
+works no miracles for those who fling themselves against the impossible!
+
+So long ago as 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President Monroe: "The
+addition of the island of Cuba to our Confederacy is exactly what is
+wanted to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost
+interest." John Quincy Adams went so far as to state that "Cuba
+gravitates to the United States as the apple yet hanging on its native
+trunk gravitates to the earth which sustains it"--a statement which has
+the more force when it is remembered that for over fifty years the Cuban
+insurgents had been liberally supplied with arms, ammunition, stores,
+and troops from the United States whenever they required them! And this,
+not because Cuba was mismanaged by Spain, but because America coveted
+her as "the most interesting addition that could be made to our system
+of States," to quote Jefferson once more.
+
+Nevertheless, the heroic sons of Spain were offered up as an expiation
+for the sins of her political jugglers for generations past. With the
+knowledge that America had at least for seventy years been seeking an
+excuse for "rounding her power as a nation" by the seizure of Cuba, no
+real effort was made to redress the grievances of her native population,
+nor to efficiently defend her coasts.
+
+The state of affairs in Manila was still worse. The culpable neglect of
+the Government had resulted in the so-called squadron not being
+possessed of one single ship of modern construction or armament; and
+when the unfortunate marines and their heroic commanders had been
+immolated by the overwhelming superiority in numbers and efficiency of
+the Americans, the noisy injustice and anger of a senseless crowd at
+home were allowed to compass the lasting disgrace of casting the blame
+for the foreseen disasters on Admiral Montojo, who was thrown as a
+victim to the jackals.
+
+To-day, we find Spain absolutely without a navy. Two second- or
+third-class ships--and they not even properly found or armed--are all
+she possesses. Men she has, however, with the traditions of a great
+past, while the officers of her navy are thoroughly alive to the class
+of ships and the armament which are needed to give their country the
+protection, and their foreign policy the dignity, which other countries
+of far less importance are able to sustain. No wonder that her writers
+are pointing out that instead of being satisfied with immense
+long-winded despatches and notes, couched in grandiloquent language,
+which Spanish Foreign Ministers seem to think amply sufficient, strong
+nations have a habit of sending an iron-clad, or two or three cruisers
+to back up their demands, and that no other European country but Spain
+thinks it safe or wise to leave her coasts and her commerce entirely
+without protection in case of a European war breaking out. Will the
+nation itself take the matter in hand, and in this, as in so many other
+matters, advance in spite of its Government? If it waits for the
+political seesaw by which both parties avoid responsibility, there will
+be small chance of a navy. The same ministry is in power to-day which
+landed the country in the Spanish-American War, and it would seem as if
+the nation considers it the best it can produce. _Manana veremos?_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RELIGIOUS LIFE
+
+
+The natural bent of the Spanish mind is religious. Taking the nation as
+a whole, with all its marvellous variations in race and character, no
+portion of it has ever been reproached for insincerity in its religious
+beliefs. It has been often held up to reproach for bigotry and
+superstition; but the people have in past ages been penetrated by a
+sincere reverence for what they have believed to be religion, and
+perhaps no other nation has been more thoroughly imbued with an
+unwavering faith in the dogmas taught by its religious instructors.
+English Roman Catholics--especially those who have seceded from the
+Anglican Church--are fond of declaring that Spain is "a splendid
+Catholic country," "the home of true Catholicism," and so forth. To a
+certain extent this has been true of it in the past, and "dignity,
+loyalty, and the love of God" are still the ideals of the people at
+large, although in Spain, as in some other Continental nations, the
+practice of religious duties is now, to a great extent, left to the
+women of the family and to the peasantry. Young Spain, and the
+progressive party in it, can no longer be said to be under the
+domination of the Church, even in outward appearance. It will be well if
+the swing of the pendulum does not carry them very far from it, and into
+open revolt.
+
+The history of the Church in Spain and of its relations with Rome is a
+curious one. It can scarcely be said to have been much more amenable to
+the Papacy than that of the Church of England, though it has remained
+always within the pale of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In the old time
+the kings aspired to be the head of the Spanish Church, and were none
+too subservient to the Pope. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesus
+were distinctly Spanish, and not Roman, and were at times actually at
+variance with the Vatican. Probably from their long struggles with the
+barbarians, and later with the Moors, Spaniards have a habit of always
+speaking of themselves as Christians rather than Catholics, which
+strikes strangely on one's ears.
+
+The evils which have been wrought in Spain by the terrible incubus of
+the Inquisition, and by the domination of the Jesuits and other orders,
+who obtained possession of the teaching of youth, have been little less
+than disastrous, because their power has been deliberately used for ages
+past to keep the lower classes in a state of absolute ignorance, slaves
+of the grossest superstition, and mere puppets in the hands of the
+priesthood. Even well within the memory of living people it was thought
+a pity that women should be allowed to learn even to read and
+write,--safer to have them quite ignorant,--while the peasantry and the
+inferior classes believed anything they were told, and could be excited
+to any pitch of fanaticism by the preaching of their religious teachers.
+The Inquisition was often used as a political machine, and was sometimes
+only clothed with the semblance of religion; but by whomsoever it was
+directed, and for whatsoever purpose, it was a vile and soul-destroying
+institution. It deliberately ground down and destroyed every spark of
+intelligence, of liberty, of attempt at progress; it dominated the whole
+nation like the shadow of the upas tree, manufactured hypocrites, and
+led to the debasing of a naturally fine people of good instincts to an
+ignorant and fanatical mob, who, in the name of religion, were
+entertained with gigantic _autos-da-fe_, as the Roman populace were with
+the terrible spectacles of their gladiatorial shows and the immolation
+of Christian victims in the arena.
+
+It was the people themselves who rose against this hateful tyranny; it
+was their better instincts that put an end to the "Holy Office" and its
+enormous crimes. Shortly after the Revolution of 1868, when religious
+liberty had been established, and the people, for the first time in
+their long history of disaster, were breathing the air of freedom,
+certain improvements which were being made, in the shape of laying out
+new streets, pulling down old rookeries, and building better houses, led
+to a new road being cut through the raised ground outside the Santa
+Barbara Gate. The exact spot of the great _Quemadero_--the oven of the
+Inquisition--was not known, but it chanced that the workmen cut right
+through the very centre of it. A more ghastly sight, or an object-lesson
+of more potency, could scarcely be imagined. The Government of the day
+found it advisable to cover it up as quickly as possible; the excitement
+of the people was thought to be dangerous; and though those at the head
+of affairs were no friends to the priests or the Jesuits, there was no
+desire to reawaken the passions and let loose the vengeance which led
+the populace in 1834 to murder them wholesale.
+
+I happened to be returning from a ride with a companion when, quite
+accidentally, we came upon this excavation, and even passed down the new
+road before we realised where we were. The _Quemadero_ had evidently
+been in the shape of an immense basin. There in the banks at each side
+were the stratified layers of human ashes; between each _auto-da-fe_ it
+was evident that the remains had been covered with a thick layer of
+earth; finally, at the top of all these smaller bands of black, horrible
+ashes, came one huge deposit, which marked the awful scene of the last
+gigantic _auto_. This ghastly bonfire was sixty feet square, and seven
+feet high, as history records, when one hundred and five victims were
+slowly tortured to a frightful death in the name of Christ, while the
+King, Charles II., and his Court and the howling rabble of Madrid looked
+on with savage enjoyment. Nothing can ever obliterate the impression of
+that scene, nor make one forget the deadly clinging of those ghastly
+black ashes, which the wind scattered about, and which it was impossible
+to escape or to get rid of. The fell work of the "religious" authors of
+the holocaust had been well done--nothing was left but ashes; and the
+next day, by order of the Government, sand or soil had been thrown over
+all that could bear witness to this horrible episode in the history of
+the Church in Spain, while the people who inhabit the houses built over
+the spot probably know nothing of the records of human agony and brutal
+bigotry that still lie beneath their homes.
+
+We hear of these things and read of them in history, but one needs to
+have seen that awful memorial to realise what share the Inquisition has
+had in transforming a naturally heroic and kindly people into the inert
+masses which nothing, or almost nothing, would move so long as they had
+_pan y toros_ (bread and bulls). Thanks to the horrors of the
+Inquisition and the _Autos-da-fe_, the whole people have acquired a
+character which assuredly they do not deserve. The blind bigotry and
+cynical cruelty of Philip II. and his lunatic successors have been
+identified with the races over which, unfortunately for Spain, they
+ruled for so many years. When one remembers that this is the view taken
+of the Inquisition, and of the domination of the Church in effacing all
+kinds of culture, by the liberal and educated Spaniard of to-day, and
+that there is, even now, an extreme party which would fain see the "Holy
+Office" re-established, with all its old powers, it is easy to
+understand at what a critical point the clerical question has arrived in
+Spain; nor need one wonder at the feeling which in all parts of the
+kingdom has been aroused by the recrudescence of the religious orders,
+more especially of the determined struggle of the Jesuits to retain and
+even to reassert their power.
+
+The Madonna, who is always spoken of as "La Virgen," never as "Santa
+Maria," is the great object of love and of reverence in Spain, while the
+words _Dios_ and _Jesus_ are used as common exclamations in a way that
+impresses English people rather unfavourably. It is a shock to hear all
+classes using the _Por Dios!_ which with us is a mark of the purest
+blackguardism, and the use as common names of that of Our Lord and of
+_Salvador_, or Saviour, always strikes a disagreeable note. There is in
+Madrid a "Calle Jesus," and the sacred name, used as a common expletive,
+is heard on all sides. One of the most charming of Yradier's Andalusian
+songs, addressed by a _contrabandista_ to his _novia_, runs thus:
+
+    Pero tengo unas patillas.
+    Que patillas punala!
+    Es lo mejor que se ha jecho
+    En de Jesu Cristo aca![2]
+
+    [2] "But I have such a stunning pair of whiskers!
+        The best that have ever been seen since those of Jesus Christ!"
+
+And no one is offended; in fact, no irreverence is probably meant.
+
+But the innumerable "Virgenes" which abound throughout the country, and
+all seem different, have the heartfelt devotion of all classes. To one
+or other of them the bull-fighter goes for protection and aid before he
+enters the arena; the mother whose child lies sick vows her magnificent
+hair to the Virgin of the Atocha, or of the Pillar, or some of the many
+others scattered about the country, if only she will grant what she
+asks; and you may see these marvellous locks, tied with coloured
+ribbons, hanging amongst the motley assemblage of votive offerings by
+the side of her altar, when the prayer has been answered. It is
+difficult for us, with the best intentions, not to let prejudice colour
+our judgment, and to understand what we are told--that these are really
+all the same "Mother of God"; for, if so, one would imagine that she
+would hear the devout prayers of her worshippers, to whichever of the
+wooden images--most of them said to have been carved by St. Luke, and
+black by age, if not by nature--they are addressed. But no, the Virgen
+del Carmen is only efficacious in certain circumstances; and in the time
+of Isabel II. she used to be taken down from her altar and placed in the
+Queen's bedroom whenever an addition to the Royal Family was imminent.
+Those in the other parts of Spain have each their specialty, and
+pilgrimages are necessary to their shrines before the prayers addressed
+to them can be listened to by the original.
+
+The various saints in their way are wooed with candles burnt before
+their images, or little altars set up to them at home; but they are
+sometimes treated with scant courtesy if they do not answer the
+expectations of their worshippers. On one occasion in Madrid, I
+remember, San Isidro, who is the patron of the labouring classes, had
+the bad taste, as his votaries considered, to send rain on his own
+_fiesta_--a thing unknown before. Lest he should err in this way again,
+the mob went to his church, at that time the principal one in Madrid,
+smashed the windows, and did all the damage they could compass before
+the Civil Guards came to the rescue. A servant-girl I knew, had for a
+long time been praying to San Antonio to send her a _novio_
+(sweetheart), expending money in tapers, and otherwise trying to
+propitiate the saint. At last, finding him deaf to all entreaties, she
+took the little wooden image she had bought, tied a string round his
+neck, and hung him in the well, saying: "You shall stop there till you
+send me what I want." Some little time after, she actually found a
+_novio_, and hastened gratefully to take San Antonio out of his damp
+quarters, set him up on his altar again, and burn tapers for his
+edification. I had thought this an example of special ignorance and
+superstition; but the other day, in reading some of the papers of the
+_Spanish Folklore Library_, I found there is a widespread belief that if
+San Antonio, and probably some other saints, do not answer the prayers
+of their votaries who burn candles before them, it is a good thing to
+hang them in a well till they come to their senses! It is difficult for
+any unbiassed person to understand that this is not fetish worship, as
+it would certainly seem to be, but we are told that it is something
+quite different.
+
+The religious _fiestas_, as I have said, may be classed among the
+amusements of the people. During the warm season they invariably end
+with a bull-fight. In winter there are no bulls. Whether it be the
+_Romeria_ of Santiago de Compostelo, the _Santa Semana_ in Toledo or
+Seville, _Noche-Buena_ and the _Day of the Nativity_ in Madrid or
+Barcelona, gaiety and enjoyment seem to be the order of the day. Even
+Lent is not so bad, for just before it comes the Carnival and the
+grotesque "Burial of the Sardine" by the _gente bajo_, and of the three
+great masked balls, one is given in mid-Lent, to prevent the Lenten
+ordeal being too trying, and Holy Thursday is always a _fiesta_ and day
+of enjoyment. On this day, in Madrid, takes place the washing of the
+feet of the poor in the Royal Palace--a function that savours a good
+deal of the ridiculous, but which was never omitted by the _piadosa_
+Isabel II., and was revived by her son. For forty-eight hours the bells
+of all the churches remain silent, no vehicles are allowed in the
+streets, which are gravelled along the routes Royalty will take to visit
+on foot seven of the churches, where the Holy Sepulchres are displayed;
+and in the afternoon all Madrid resorts to the Plaza del Sol and the
+Carrera San Geronimo, to show off their gayest costumes in a regular
+gala promenade. Finally, on Saturday morning--why forty-eight hours only
+is allowed for the supposed entombment does not quite appear--the bells
+clang forth, noise and gaiety pervade the whole city, and the day ends
+with a cock-fight and the reopening of the theatres, and the first grand
+bull-fight of the season is held on Easter Sunday. Verily, the Church is
+mindful of the weakness of its vassals, and shows as much indulgence as
+is thought needful to keep the people amused and careless of all else. I
+remember, when I first noticed this wearing of the most gaudy colours on
+Maundy Thursday, a day one would naturally expect to be one of special
+mourning, I was told it was allowed by the Church because on that day
+Pilate put the purple robe on Our Lord!
+
+The processions and functions of Holy Week and other _fiestas_ have been
+so often and so fully described that there is no need to refer to them;
+but there are several curious survivals and religious customs in
+out-of-the-way places which seem to have escaped notice. I have not been
+able to find in any book on Spain a description of the strange dance
+which takes place in the cathedral of Seville on, I think, three days in
+the year, of which two are certainly the day of the Virgin and that of
+Corpus Christi. The origin of the dance seems to be lost, nor is its
+special connection with Seville known. All that one can hear of it is
+that one of the archbishops of Toledo objected to the dance as being
+irreverent and unusual, and ordered it to be stopped. The indignant
+people referred the matter to the Pope, but even the date of this appeal
+seems to be dubious, if not unknown. His Holiness replied that he could
+not judge of the matter unless he himself saw the dance. Accordingly,
+the boys who figure in this strange performance were taken to Rome, and
+they solemnly danced before the Pope. His verdict was that there was
+nothing irreverent about the dance, but he thought, as it was known only
+to Seville, it would be better eventually to discontinue it; but so long
+as the dress worn on the occasions when it is practised, lasted, the
+dance might continue. The dresses have lasted to the present day, and
+will always continue to last, say the Sevillanos, for as one part wears
+out it is renewed, but never a whole garment made. The dress is
+peculiar: it consists of short trousers to the knees, and a jacket which
+hangs from one shoulder, stockings and shoes with large buckles or
+bows, and a soft hat, somewhat of the shape of a Tam-o'-shanter, with
+one feather--that of an eagle, I think. The dress is red and white for
+the day of Corpus, and blue and white for the day of the Virgin, covered
+with the richest gold embroidery, for which Spain has always been
+famous. The boys, holding castanets in each hand, advance, dancing with
+much grace and dignity, until they reach the front of the High Altar;
+there they remain, striking their castanets and performing slow and very
+graceful evolutions for some time, gradually retiring again as they came
+in, dancing, down the nave. The boys are regularly instructed in the
+dance by the priests, and the number is kept up, so that neither dancers
+nor garments ever fail. The Pope's order is obeyed, while the Sevillanos
+retain their strange religious function. The fact of the performance
+taking place in the evening perhaps accounts for its being so little
+known, but it would seem also as if the authorities of the cathedral do
+not care to have attention drawn to it. The dance is called _los
+seises_, and even the origin of the name is unknown.
+
+In Holy Week and at Christmas are performed passion plays at some of the
+theatres, strangely realistic, and sometimes rousing the audience to
+wild indignation, especially against Judas Iscariot, who is hissed and
+hooted, and is often the recipient of missiles from the spectators,
+while interspersed with this genuine feeling one hears shouts of
+laughter when anything occurs to provoke it. On one occasion one of the
+Roman soldiers (always unpopular in the religious processions) appeared
+on the stage, dragging, by a cord round the neck, a miserable-looking
+man carrying a huge cross, so heavy that it caused him continually to
+fall. As the soldier kicked him up again, and continued to drag him
+along by the neck, the audience became ungovernable in their rage.
+"_Dejale! Dejale! Bruto! Bruto!_" they yelled; and, finally threatening
+to storm the stage and immolate the offending soldier, the play had to
+be stopped and the curtain rung down.
+
+In villages too poor to possess _pasos_--the beautifully modelled
+life-size figures which form the _tableaux_ in the rich churches and
+processions--human actors take their place. In Castellon de la Plana,
+where there is a yearly procession in honour of Santa Maria Magdalena,
+somewhat curious scenes take place. The Magdalen, in the days of her
+sin, is acted by a girl chosen for her beauty, but not for her
+character. She is gorgeously attired, and is allowed to retain her dress
+and ornaments after the performance. She is installed in state in a cart
+decorated with palms and flowers, and is surrounded by all the men of
+the village on foot, for it is part of the performance that they are
+allowed to say what they please to her. She acts the part to perfection
+apparently, and enjoys it, to boot. In another car comes the penitent
+Magdalen, dressed in pure white, and decorated with flowers. This part
+may be taken only by a young girl of unblemished character. It is
+thought the greatest honour that can be paid to her, and you are told by
+the people that she is always married within the year. This procession
+winds its way up the mountain to a small shrine of Santa Maria
+Magdalena, where it is said that her church once stood; but finding the
+climb up the hill was inconvenient to the lame and the aged, she very
+considerately, one night, moved the whole edifice down intact to
+Castellon de la Plana, where it now stands.
+
+Going by rail once, many years ago, to Toledo, to see the processions on
+Good Friday, the train was accidentally delayed for some time a little
+distance from one of the stations, and there, in a small garden by the
+roadside, was being enacted the scene of the Crucifixion by human
+actors. A full-size cross was erected, and on it, apparently, hung a man
+crowned with thorns, and with head bowed upon his breast. In reality he
+was kneeling on two ledges placed for the purpose at a convenient
+distance from the cross-bars. It was cold, and the actor was covered by
+an old brown tattered cloak, such as the peasants wear now, and which we
+see in Velasquez's pictures. His feet stuck out behind the cross, but
+his arms were tied in a position which must soon have become painful.
+Around lay a cock tied by his legs, a ladder, a sponge tied on a stick,
+a sword, a lantern, and all the usual emblems of the Passion. The holy
+women and the Roman soldiers with their spears were just coming out of
+the cottage near by to take up their positions in this strange and
+pathetic _tableau_. The face of that peasant in the tattered brown
+cloak, not less than the spectacle of the people kneeling around in
+evident sorrow and worship, haunted me for many a day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+EDUCATION AND THE PRIESTHOOD
+
+
+Education, especially that of the masses, has made great strides since
+the Revolution. At that time perfect liberty of religion and of
+instruction was established, and in this particular the somewhat
+retrograde movement at the Restoration, in allowing the return of the
+religious orders banished in the early years of the century, has only
+resulted in a greater number of private schools being established by the
+Jesuits and other teaching orders. With the public instruction they have
+never been allowed to interfere.
+
+Every town and village has now its municipal and free schools, kept up
+by the _Diputacion provincial_. In all the chief towns there are
+technical and arts and crafts schools, also free, the expenses being
+borne by the Ministry of Fomento. Besides these are many private
+schools, taught by Jesuits and other teaching orders. The Ministry of
+Fomento is at present trying to bring in a law making education
+compulsory, and bringing all schools under State control. There are
+numerous girls' schools, managed by committees of ladies, as well as
+the convent schools and other private establishments. There are also
+normal schools, maintained by the Ministry of Fomento, where women and
+girls, as well as men, can take degrees and gain certificates for
+teaching purposes. In every capital of Spain one of these schools is
+established. There are ten universities, of which the principal is that
+of Madrid. In some of these only medicine and law are studied, but
+others are open for every class of learning. In all these numerous
+schools and colleges great advance has been made in late years; in the
+department of science, electricity has taken a very noticeable step
+forward, and in applied electricity Spain probably compares favourably
+with any of the European nations. Even the small towns and some villages
+are lighted by electricity, having gone straight from petroleum to
+electric light. Most of the large towns have, besides the light,
+electric tramways, telephones, etc., the engineers and artisans employed
+in these works being of a very high class. Electrical engineers are not
+under Government control, as the civil and mechanical engineers are, and
+have therefore better chances of coming to the front and making a career
+for themselves. The Government engineers, however, are kept up to the
+mark of other countries, and an attempt has been made by the present
+Minister to alter the system by which civil and mechanical engineers are
+compulsorily a body appointed and controlled by Government.
+
+Medical science has made great strides during the last ten or twelve
+years. The hospitals are reformed, and all sanitary and antiseptical
+arrangements are now strictly attended to, and brought into line with
+the latest developments of science. A fine new hospital, San Juan de
+Dios, has been built in Madrid, on the plan of St. Thomas's in London,
+and this is only one of many improvements. The reorganisation of all
+scientific teaching is now engaging the attention of the Minister. An
+excellent sign of the present state of medical science in Spain--which
+only a few years ago was so far behind the age--is the fact that the
+International Congress of Medicine is fixed to meet in Madrid, for the
+first time, in 1902.
+
+Since the establishment of religious liberty, the Americans seem to have
+made themselves very busy in missionary work. Mrs. Gulick, the wife of
+the American missionary in San Sebastian, claims to have "proved the
+intellectual ability of Spanish girls," and has secured State
+examination and recognition of her pupils by the National Institution of
+San Sebastian, and a few have even obtained admission to the
+examinations of the Madrid University, where they maintained a high
+rank. One always has a feeling that missionaries might easily find a
+field for their zealous labours in their own country; but if an impulse
+was needed from a foreign people for the initiation of a higher
+education among the daughters of Spain, they will certainly be able to
+carry on the work themselves, with such women as Emelia Pardo Bazan to
+lead the way. Mrs. Gulick is said to project a college for women in
+Madrid without distinction of creed. The whole affair sounds a little
+condescending, as though America were coming to the aid of a nation of
+savages; but if the Spaniards themselves do not object, no one else has
+any right to do so.
+
+The Protestant movement has made but little progress in Spain. The
+religion is scarcely fitted to the genius of the people, and the
+Anglican Church has shown no desire to proselytise a nation which has as
+much right to its own religious opinions and form of worship as the
+English nation. The Americans and English Nonconformists are very busy,
+however, and talk somewhat largely of the results of their labours. In
+most of the large towns there are English chapels and schools, and a
+certain number among the lower classes of Spaniards have joined these
+communities. A private diary of a visit to Madrid so long ago as 1877
+describes the English service there. The congregation numbered "quite
+five hundred." "They were of the poorer classes of both sexes, with a
+sprinkling of well-dressed men and women. They seemed to perform their
+devotions in a spirit of entire reverence and piety, not unlike a
+similar class in our churches at home. The clergyman delivered an
+impressive and forcible discourse, chiefly on the honour due to the name
+of God, and reprobated the profane use of the most sacred names, so
+common among the Spanish people.... Altogether I look upon the
+congregation at the Calle de Madera as a nucleus of genuine
+Protestantism in Spain."
+
+As this is the opinion of a perfectly unbiassed onlooker, and has
+nothing of the professional element about it, it may be taken as
+absolutely reliable. In the towns, such as Bilbao, where there is a
+large English colony, there are various churches and chapels, and
+considerable numbers of communicants and Sunday scholars. Looking back,
+as I am able to do, to the days when there was no toleration for an
+alien faith; when even Christian burial for the "heretic" was quite a
+new thing, and living people could tell of the indignities heaped on the
+corpse of any unlucky English man or woman who died in "Catholic" Spain;
+when to have omitted, or even hesitated about, any of the religious
+actions imposed by the Church would have exposed one to gross insult,
+and perhaps injury; the progress towards enlightened toleration of the
+opinions of others seems to have been remarkable. It is, perhaps, more
+significant that the members of the new congregations should be
+generally of the lower classes, because it is precisely these people who
+have always been mere unthinking puppets in the hands of their priests.
+
+Although there is at the present moment such a deep and widespread
+revolt against the Jesuits and some of the other orders, especially
+among the students and the better class of artisans and workmen, there
+is not, so far as a stranger may judge, a revolt against the Church
+itself, nor even against the parochial clergy. It would seem rather that
+there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their
+business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to
+interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to
+dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be
+filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery. The state of the Roman
+Catholic religion and its priesthood in England is constantly being held
+up as the ideal of what the Church in Spain should be.
+
+Almost all the modern novelists of Spain show us characters of priests
+with whom every reader must feel sympathy. Valera, Galdos, Pardo Bazan,
+and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward,
+pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the
+helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at
+all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented
+amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of
+distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a
+Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day,
+by one who signed himself "A priest of the Spanish Catholic Church."
+Lamenting over the sentimentalism of modern religion, and the distance
+it had travelled from its old models, he says: "Instead of the Virgen
+being held up to admiration as the Mother of Our Lord, and as an example
+of all feminine perfection, the ideal woman and mother, the people are
+called on to worship the idea of the Immaculate Conception, an abstract
+dogma of recent invention, and in place of showing us the perfect man in
+the Son of God, they are asked to worship a 'bleeding heart,' abstracted
+from the body, and held up as an object of reverence, apart from the
+living body of Jesus Christ." It is the reform of the national religion
+still ardently loved in spite of all the crimes that have been committed
+in her name, that the liberal-minded Spaniard wants, not the
+substitution of a foreign church; although no doubt the opportunity, now
+for the first time possible, of learning that there are people every
+whit as good and earnest as themselves, who yet hold religious opinions
+other than theirs, is bound to have a widening and softening effect on
+the narrowness of a creed which has hitherto been regarded as the only
+one.
+
+The extraordinary outbreak against the Jesuits and the religious orders
+of the last year had many causes, and had probably long been seething,
+and waiting for something to open the floodgates. That something came in
+the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, and the coincidence,
+accidental or otherwise, of the production of Galdos's play of
+_Electra_. The marriage was a love match; the two young sons of the
+Count of Caserta, who were nephews of the Infanta Isabel on her
+husband's side, had been constantly at the Palace in Madrid, companions
+of the boy King. An attachment sprang up between Don Carlos, the elder
+of the two, and the King's elder sister, the Princess of Asturias. In
+every way the projected marriage was obnoxious to the people. The Count
+of Caserta himself had been chief of the staff to the Pretender, Don
+Carlos, and though he and his sons had taken the oath of allegiance to
+the young King, Spaniards have learned to place little reliance on such
+oaths. Had not Montpensier sworn allegiance to his sister-in-law Isabel
+II.? and of how much was it worth when the time came that he thought he
+could successfully conspire against her? To allow the heiress to the
+Crown to marry a Carlist seemed the surest way to reopen civil war, and
+upset the dynasty once more. Moreover, the Jesuits were supposed to be
+behind it all. The Apostolic party was apparently scotched and Carlism
+dead, but was not this one more move of the hated Jesuits to resuscitate
+both? The Liberal Government refused to allow the marriage; the Queen
+Regent, actuated, it is said, solely by the desire to secure what she
+considered the happiness of her daughter, who refused to give up her
+lover, was obstinate; and rather than give in, Sagasta and his Ministers
+resigned. A Conservative Ministry was formed--the methods of
+manipulating elections must be borne in mind--and the marriage was
+carried out. Even before the wedding-day the storm broke, and things
+looked ugly enough. Riots and disturbances occurred all over the
+country, as well as in Madrid itself; attacks were made on the houses of
+the Jesuits, who were credited with being the authors of the situation;
+and then followed the Government's suicidal step of suspending the
+constitutional guarantees over the whole country. Absolutism had once
+more raised its head! The Conservative Ministers, or many of them, were
+accused of being mere tools in the hands of the Jesuits, and it was
+complained that the confessor of the young King was one of the hated
+order.
+
+For a time Spain seemed to be on the verge of one of her old
+convulsions. It appeared doubtful if the Queen Regent had not sacrificed
+the crown of one child to gratify the obstinacy of another. Fortunately,
+a catastrophe was averted. After vain efforts to retain the Conservative
+party in power, or to form a coalition, which all the best public men
+refused to join, Sagasta was once more recalled to power, the
+constitutional guarantees were restored, and the sharp crisis passed.
+But the attention of the nation had been attracted to what it considered
+the machinations of the Jesuits; order was indeed restored in Madrid and
+the provinces, but the "clerical question" had come to the front, and
+there was no possibility of allowing it to slumber again. It was
+discovered that not only had many of the religious orders, whose return
+had been allowed by convention after the Restoration, under certain
+limitations, largely increased their numbers beyond the limits allowed
+them, but that others had established themselves without any
+authorisation from the Government; also that considerable properties
+were being acquired in the country by the orders, though, of course,
+held under other names. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid
+petitioned the Government to order an inquiry into the affairs of these
+religious bodies, pointing out that they were establishing manufactories
+of shoes, chocolate, fancy post-cards, and other objects of commerce,
+interfering with the ordinary trades, and underselling them, because,
+under the plea of being charitable institutions, they evaded duty. The
+heads of colleges and the Society of Public Teachers also asked for
+Government interference and the reassertion of the laws of 1881 and
+1895, guaranteeing perfect liberty of instruction, because they affirmed
+that the Fathers, Jesuit and others, undermined the teaching of science
+in the schools by means of tracts distributed to the pupils, and also by
+using the power they obtained in the confessional to set aside the
+lessons in science given in the colleges.
+
+The action of the Government was prompt and judicious. Strict inquiries
+were at once made into the question of the manufacturing orders, and
+those not paying the duty were reminded of the immediate necessity of
+doing so, and of furnishing to the Ministry of Fomento full particulars
+of the trades carried on by them. Houses that were permitted by
+convention were warned to reduce their numbers to those allowed by law,
+and all unauthorised orders were warned at once to leave the country.
+The Press took a dignified and moderate position in the matter. It
+pointed out that perfect religious liberty existed, and that all that
+was needful was to see that the religious orders obeyed the law of the
+country as other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of
+persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad
+example set by the Church itself in former years.
+
+Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that
+public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would
+be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After
+all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional
+and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands
+of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.
+
+So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and
+law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by
+the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light
+of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary
+excitement caused by Galdos's play. To a stranger reading it, it is
+obvious that the public mind must have been in a strange condition of
+alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a
+drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace
+and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan
+girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional,
+though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emancipated young woman
+about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect
+genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard
+with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who,
+though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the
+interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by
+fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her _fiance_, and
+immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last
+resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of
+insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has
+been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun
+who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made
+known, and the girl is rescued.
+
+"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.
+
+"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last
+words of the play.
+
+This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen
+thousand copies of the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still
+running in the provinces. Some of the bishops and the superior clergy
+have had the folly to denounce the play and to forbid their
+congregations to witness or to read it. There is not an objectionable
+word or idea in it from first to last, except such as may be
+disagreeable to the Church--as that women should be educated so as to be
+the intellectual companions of their husbands, and should not be
+entrapped into convents by foul means and against their will. The action
+taken by the clergy in this matter has not only largely advertised the
+play, but has led to angry demonstrations against them, and has
+strengthened the temper of the people to resist all clerical domination
+in temporal matters.
+
+There have not been wanting from time to time signs, especially in the
+large manufacturing towns, of a spirit of revolt against all religion.
+Socialism, atheism, and even anarchism are all in the air, and if these
+are to be counteracted by religious teaching at all, it will certainly
+not be by the narrow dogmatism of the old school. There is a deep fund
+of religious feeling in the Spanish character which it would take a
+great deal to uproot, but it must be a wide-spirited and enlightened
+faith which will retain its hold over the people, who are everywhere
+breaking their old bonds and thinking for themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+PHILANTHROPY--POSITION OF WOMEN--MARRIAGE CUSTOMS
+
+
+Travellers complain somewhat bitterly of the increase in the numbers and
+the importunity of beggars in Spain; but wherever monks abound, beggars
+also abound, and the long-unaccustomed sight of the various religious
+habits naturally brings with it the hordes of miserable objects who
+afford opportunities for the faithful to exercise what they are taught
+to believe is charity--loved of God. This, however, is more especially
+the case in Granada, or those favoured spots affected by the rich
+tourist, who has not always the same opinion about indiscriminate
+charity as the native Spaniard. In old days, the wise policy of Charles
+III. had reduced very greatly the swarm of beggars. A certain number of
+terrible-looking objects--the fortunate possessors of withered limbs,
+sightless eyeballs, or other disqualifications for honest work--still
+ostentatiously displayed their badges of professional mendicancy, and
+lived, apparently quite comfortably, on the alms of the passers-by. But
+the enormous competition which has since sprung up in this "career"
+must interfere a good deal with its lucrativeness.
+
+There is no poor law as yet in Spain. Philanthropy is left to voluntary
+effort; but the list of charities is so great, and so widely spread over
+the whole country, that one would think wholesale beggary would be
+superfluous. Madrid is divided into thirty-three parishes, each having a
+board of _Beneficencias_, the Government holding a fund which these
+boards administer. The Queen is the President of the whole. Each board
+has its president and vice-president--generally ladies of the
+aristocracy--a treasurer, vice-treasurer, secretary, and vice-secretary,
+and a body of visitors; accounts are rendered monthly to the governing
+board, whose vice-president presides in the name of the Queen. There are
+also the confraternities of St. Vincent and St. Paul, the members of
+which are gentlemen and ladies who work independently of each other.
+These, however, have no established funds, but depend on voluntary
+subscriptions and gifts. Both these associations visit the poor in their
+own homes. The Pardo and the San Bernadino are societies and homes for
+benefiting men, women, and children; they have been founded by ladies.
+For boys there is the School of the Sacred Heart, and the Christian
+Brothers. The School of San Ildefonso belongs to the _Ayuntamiento_, and
+has secular masters. There is a small asylum, with chaplaincy attached,
+for architects. Santa Rita is a reformatory for boys in Carabanchel,
+under a religious brotherhood. For girls there is the Horfino, the
+Mercedes Asylum--founded in memory of and kept up by the rents of Queen
+Mercedes--Santa Isabel and San Ildefonso, the French St. Vincent de
+Paul, San Blas, on the same lines as the Mercedes, Santa Cruz, the
+Inclusa, and the Spanish Vincent de Paul. For fallen girls there are the
+Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ladies of the Holy Trinity, and
+the Oblates of the Holy Redeemer.
+
+In all parts of the country branches of these or similar institutions
+abound. None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities
+than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget
+the class from which they sprang, and are most generous in their
+donations. When occasion demands an extra effort, a _fiesta_ is given at
+the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for
+which it has been held. No doubt these schemes have their faults in
+operation, and Galdos in some of his popular novels does not fail to
+hold up--not exactly for admiration--the fashionable ladies who think
+it "smart," as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and
+talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of
+their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their
+own doors, or trying to send into "Homes" those who have no desire or
+need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by
+their neighbours. Nevertheless, there is a large amount of organised
+philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and
+efficient kind. One should not forget to mention also the workshops for
+the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the
+attention of the Government has been called by late events.
+
+The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public
+life cannot be described as of an advanced order. As a rule, they take no
+leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable
+works, such as those already named. There is, as we have seen, a general
+movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action
+amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range
+themselves on the side of so-called "emancipation," who attend
+socialistic and other "meetings"--a word which has now been formally
+admitted into the Spanish language--and who aspire to be the comrades of
+men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings. But this
+movement is scarcely more than in its infancy. It must be remembered
+that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls
+were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or
+unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the
+room with a man was to lose her reputation. Already these things seem to
+be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however a
+fact, that there were fathers of the upper classes in the first half of
+the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to
+read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read
+letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them. The
+natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed,
+of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing
+correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means
+of a complaisant _doncella_ with an open palm, or the pastime known as
+_pelando el pavo_ (literally plucking the turkey), which consisted of
+serenades of love-songs, amorous dialogues, or the passage of notes
+through the _reja_--the iron gratings which protect the lower windows of
+Spanish houses from the prowling human wolf--or from the balconies. Many
+a time have I seen these interesting little missives being let down past
+my balcony--how trustful the innocents were!--to the waiting gallant
+below, and his drawn up. Only once I saw a neighbour, in the balcony
+below, intercept the post, and I believe substitute some other letter.
+Cruel sport!
+
+Perhaps born of this necessity of making acquaintance by fair means or
+foul comes the custom, which appears to savour of such grossly bad
+manners to us, of a man making audible remarks on the appearance of a
+girl he has never seen before as she passes him in the street. _Ay! que
+buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! Que gracia tienes!_ and the like. Far
+from giving offence, the fair one goes on her way, perhaps vouchsafing
+one glance from those lovely eyes of hers, with only a sense that her
+charms have received their due tribute--not much elated, perhaps, but
+certainly by no means offended; nor, indeed, was offence intended. The
+fixed stare, which to us would mean mere ill-bred ignorance, is only
+another ordinary tribute to the passing fair one from the other sex.
+
+Marriage customs have changed much in the last few decades, and even
+civil marriages are now not wholly unknown. In old days, if the ceremony
+was performed in church, the bride and all the ladies must be attired in
+black, for which reason the fashionable world established marriages in
+the house, where more brilliant costumes might be displayed. These
+generally take place in the evening, and the newly married couple do not
+leave the house, unless the new home happens to be close by. In any
+case, honeymoon tours are, or were, unusual. The _velada_ is the
+ceremony in church, which must take place before the first child is
+born, to legalise the marriage, but it does not necessarily immediately
+follow the other ceremony. At it the ring is given. When the two
+ceremonies take place at the same time it must be in the morning,
+because the bride and bridegroom partake of the Holy Sacrament fasting.
+From the description of a _boda_ in Galicia, in one of Pardo Bazan's
+novels, it would seem that the bride there wears white, even at the
+church. The wedding is a portentous affair, lasting all day from early
+morning, and the bride and bridegroom remain in the house. Fernan
+Caballero devotes some pages in _Clemencia_ to showing how preferable is
+the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly
+married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of
+postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining
+ground, even in conservative Spain.
+
+Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in
+France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or
+law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl
+desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection
+from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her
+father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than
+that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents
+disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a
+magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive
+her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is
+entitled. I do not know if these things are altered now,--one does not
+hear so much of them,--but I know of several cases where daughters have
+been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their
+parents. In one case, the first intimation a father received of his
+daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that
+she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her
+mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man
+without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these
+cases, the contracting parties were of the upper classes.
+
+While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous
+manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English
+fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely
+followed amongst the upper classes. When the King was still an infant a
+great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in
+the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones
+playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in
+London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois class, the
+old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the
+death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the
+poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its
+limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coarse
+yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up
+that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end
+against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother was busy. There is a
+superstition, too, about never washing a child's head from the day it
+is born. The result is really indescribable. When it is about two years
+old, a scab, which covers the whole head, comes off of its own accord,
+and after that the head may be cleansed without fear of evil
+consequences. Some English servants who have married in Spain set the
+example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from
+the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children,
+a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of
+courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the
+sacred superstitions of ages--and the mother-in-law!
+
+One wonders, not that Spanish men grow bald so early, and not bald only,
+but absolutely hairless, but that they ever have any hair at all; for
+after all the troubles of their infancy their heads are regularly
+shaved, or the hair cut off close to the skin all the summer. On the
+principle of cutting off the heads of dandelions as soon as they appear,
+as a way of exterminating them, the surprising thing is that the hair
+does not become too much discouraged even to try to sprout again. Funny
+little objects they look, with only a dark mark on the skin where the
+hair ought to grow in summer, and at most a growth about as long as
+velvet in the winter, until they are quite big boys! The girls generally
+wear their hair so tightly plaited, as soon as it is long enough to
+allow of plaiting at all, that they can scarcely close their eyes.
+Young Spanish women, however, have magnificent hair; though they, too,
+grow bald when they are old, in a way that is never seen in England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MUSIC, ART, AND THE DRAMA
+
+
+One is apt to forget how much the history of music owes to Spain. The
+country was for so long considered to be in a state of chronic political
+disturbance that few foreigners took up their abode there, except such
+as had business interests, and for the rest the mere traveller never
+became acquainted with the real life of the people, or entered into
+their intellectual amusements. It is quite a common thing to find the
+tourist entering in his valuable notes on a country which he has not the
+knowledge of the world to understand: "The Spaniards are not a musical
+people," and remaining quite satisfied with his own dictum. Yet Albert
+Soubies, in his _Histoire de la Musique_, says, in the volume devoted to
+Spain: "Spain is the country where, in modern times, musical art has
+been cultivated with the greatest distinction and originality. In
+particular, the school of religious music in Spain, thanks to Morales,
+Guerrero, and Victoria, will bear comparison with all that has been
+produced elsewhere of the highest and most cultivated description. The
+national genius has also shown itself in another direction, in works
+which, like the ancient _eglogas_--the contemporary _zarzuelas_ of Lope
+de Vega and Calderon--and the _torradillas_ of the last century shine
+brilliantly by the verve, the gaiety, the strength, and delicacy of
+their comic sentiment.... The works of this class are happily inspired
+by popular art, which in this country abounds in characteristic
+elements. One notes how much the rhythm and melody display native
+colour, charm, and energy. In many cases, along with vestiges of Basque
+or of Celtic origin, they show something of an Oriental character, due
+to the long sojourn of the Moors in this country."
+
+As regards this pre-eminence, it is enough to remember that Spain was
+anciently one of the regions most thoroughly penetrated by Roman
+civilisation. It is not too much to say that this art has never sunk
+into decadence in Spain. During the sixteenth century the archives of
+the Pontifical chapel show the important place occupied by Spanish
+composers in the musical history of the Vatican, and among the artists
+who gained celebrity away from their own country were Escoledo, Morales,
+Galvey, Tapia, and many others. To the end of the seventeenth century a
+galaxy of brilliant names carried on the national history of Spanish
+music, both on religious and secular lines; and though in the eighteenth
+and part of the nineteenth centuries there was a passing invasion of
+French and Italian fashion, the true and characteristic native music
+has never died out, and at the present time there is a notable musical
+renaissance in touch with the spirit and natural genius of the people.
+
+A Royal Academy of Music has, within recent times, been added to the
+other institutions of a like kind, and native talent is being developed
+on native lines, not in imitations from countries wholly differing from
+them in national characteristics. Spaniards are exacting critics, and
+the best musicians of other countries are as well known and appreciated
+as their own composers and executants. Wagner is now a household word
+among them, where once Rossini was the object of fashionable admiration.
+The national and characteristic songs of Spain have been already
+referred to. They are perfectly distinct from those of any other nation.
+There is about them a dainty grace and pathos, combined frequently with
+a certain suspicion of sadness, which is full of charm, while those
+which are frankly gay are full of life, audacity, and "go," that carry
+away the listeners, even when the language is imperfectly understood.
+The charming songs, with accompaniment for piano or guitar, of the
+Master Yradier, are mostly written in the soft dialect of Andalucia,
+which lends itself to the music, and is liquid as the notes of a bird.
+The songs of Galicia are, in fact, the songs of Portugal; just as the
+Galician language is Portuguese, or a dialect of that language, which
+has less impress of the ancient Celt-Iberian and more of French than
+its sister, Castilian, both being descendants of Latin, enriched with
+words borrowed from the different nations which have at one time or
+another inhabited or conquered their country.
+
+The guitar is, of course, the national instrument, and the songs never
+have the same charm with any other accompaniment; but the Spanish women
+of to-day are prouder of being able to play the piano or violin than of
+excelling in the instrument which suits them so much better. The
+Spaniard is nervously anxious not to appear, or to be, behind any other
+European nation in what we call "modernity," a word that signifies that
+to be "up-to-date" is of paramount importance, leaving wholly out of the
+question whether the change be for the better or infinitely towards the
+lower end of the scale.
+
+The records of Spain in art, as in literature, are so grand, so
+European, in fact, that it is much if the artists of to-day come within
+measurable distance of those who have made the glory of their country.
+Nevertheless, the modern painters and sculptors of Spain hold their own
+with those of any country. After the temporary eclipse which followed
+the death of Velasquez, Ribera, and Murillo--the eighteenth century
+produced no great Spanish painter, if we except Goya, who left no
+pupils--Don Jose Madrazo, who studied at the same time as Ingres in the
+studio of David, began the modern renaissance. He became Court painter,
+and left many fine portraits; but, perhaps, as Comte Vasili says, "La
+meilleure oeuvre de Don Jose fut son fils, Federico; de meme que la
+meilleure de celui-ci est son fils Raimundo."
+
+Raimundo Madrazo and Fortuny the elder, who married Cecilia Madrazo,
+Raimundo's sister, have always painted in Paris, and have become known
+to Europe almost as French artists. Fortuny, by his _mariage Espagnol_,
+became the head of the Spanish renaissance. Unfortunately, he has been
+widely imitated by artists of all nations, who have not a tithe of his
+genius, if any. Pradilla, F. Domingo, Gallegos, the three Beulluire
+brothers, Bilbao, Gimenez, Aranda, Carbonero, are only a few of the
+artists whose names are known to all art collectors, and who work in
+Spain. Villegas has settled in Rome. The exhibition of modern Spanish
+paintings in the London Guildhall last year (1901) was a revelation to
+many English people, even to artists, of the work that is being done at
+the present day by Spanish painters, both at home and in Paris and Rome.
+In sculpture, also, Spain can boast many artists of the highest class.
+
+The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The
+traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de
+Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for
+these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the
+theatre is the beloved entertainment of all classes, and perhaps
+especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting
+dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are
+sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an
+alien stage. It would be impossible and useless to give a mere list of
+the names of modern dramatists, but that of Ayala is perhaps best known
+abroad, and his work most nearly approaches to that of his great
+forerunners. His _Consuelo_, _El tejado de Vidrio_, and _Tanto por ciento_
+show great power and extraordinary observation. His style, too, is
+perfect. Senor Tamago, who persistently hides his name under the
+pseudonym of "Joaquin Estebanez," may also be ranked amongst the leaders
+of the modern Spanish drama, and his _Drama Nuevo_ is a masterpiece.
+Echegaray belongs to the school of the old drama, whose characteristic
+is that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished. His plays are very
+popular because they touch an audience even to tears, and he has several
+followers or imitators. The comedies of manners and satirical plays are
+generally the work of Eusebio Blasco, Ramos Carrion, Echegaray the
+younger, Estremada, Alverez, though there are others whose names are
+legion. Echegaray is really a man of genius. A clever engineer and
+professor of mathematics, he was Minister of Finance during the early
+days of the Revolution. His first play took the world of Madrid by
+surprise and even by storm. _La Esposa del Vengador_ had an
+unprecedented success, and at least thirty subsequent dramas, in prose
+and in verse, have made this mathematician, engineer, and financier one
+of the most famous men of his day. His art and his methods are purely
+Spanish. I have already referred to the phenomenal success of Perez
+Galdos's _Electra_ within the last few months. It must, however, be
+ascribed chiefly to the moment of its presentation rather than to any
+superlative merit in the drama. It is well written, which is what may be
+said of almost all Spanish plays, for the language is in itself so
+dignified and so beautiful that, if it be only pure and not disfigured
+by foreign slang, it is always sonorous and charming. To the state of
+the popular temper, however, and the coincidence of the political events
+already referred to must be ascribed the fact that a piece like
+_Electra_ should cause the fall of a Government, and bring within
+dangerous distance the collapse of the monarchy itself. The excitement
+which it still produces, wherever played, is now in a great part due to
+the foolish action of some of the bishops and the fact that individual
+clerics use their pulpits to condemn it, and attempt to forbid its being
+read or seen.
+
+Spain is not particularly rich in great actors, although she has always
+a goodly number who come up to a fair standard of excellence. The great
+actors of the day in Madrid are Maria Guerrero and Fernando Diaz de
+Mendoza. They obtained a perfect ovation during the last season in the
+play, _El loco Dios_, of Echegaray--a work which gives every opportunity
+for the display of first-class talent in both actors, and which led to a
+fury of enthusiasm for the popular dramatist, which must have recalled
+to him the early days of his great successes.
+
+Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Spain has had three great
+Academies, which, even in the troublous times of her history, have done
+good work in the domains of history, language, and the fine arts; but it
+is since the Revolution that they have become of real importance in the
+intellectual development of the nation, and other societies have been
+added for the encouragement of scientific research and music. The
+earliest of her academies was that of language, known as the Royal
+Spanish Academy. It is exactly on the lines of the Academie Francaise.
+Founded in 1713, its statutes were somewhat modified in 1847, and again
+in 1859. There are only thirty-six members, about eighty corresponding
+members in different provinces of Spain, and an unlimited, or at least
+undetermined, number of foreign and honorary correspondents. Besides the
+Central Society in Madrid, the Royal Spanish Academy has many
+corresponding branches in South America, such as the Columbian, the
+Equatorial, the Mexican, and those of Venezuela and San Salvador. The
+existence of academies of language in the South American States does not
+appear to effect much in the way of maintaining the purity of Castilian
+among them, for South American Spanish, as spoken at least, is not much
+more like the original language than the South American Spaniard is like
+the inhabitant of the mother country. The dictionary of the Royal
+Academy of Spain, like that of France, is not yet completed.
+
+Philip V. founded the Royal Academy of History in 1738. Under its
+auspices, especially of late years, much valuable work has been done in
+publishing the original records of the country, to be found at Simancas
+and other places; but the authentic history of Spain is still
+incomplete. Up to the time of his assassination, Don Antonio Canovas del
+Castillo was its director, and Don Pedro de Madrazo its permanent
+secretary. The society, now known as the Real Academia de San Fernando,
+founded in 1752, under the title of Real Academia de las tres nobles
+Artes, has now had a fourth added to it--that of music. The functions of
+its separate sections are much the same as those of the English Academy
+of Painting and the sister arts. A permanent gallery of the works of its
+members exists in Madrid, and certificates, diplomas, honourable
+mention, etc., are distributed by the directors to successful
+competitors.
+
+Later societies are the Academies of Exact Science, Physical and
+Natural, of Moral and Political Science, of Jurisprudence and
+Legislation, and last, but by no means least, the Royal Academy of
+Medicine, under whose auspices medical science has of late years made
+immense strides, and is probably now in line with that of the most
+advanced of other countries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MODERN LITERATURE
+
+
+The name of Pascual de Gayangos is known far beyond the confines of his
+own country as a scholar, historian, philologist, biographer, and
+critic. Although now a man of very advanced age, he is one of the most
+distinguished of modern Orientalists, and his _History of the Arabs in
+Spain_, _Vocabulary of the Arabic Words in Spanish_, and his _Catalogue
+of Spanish MSS. in the British Museum_ are known wherever the language
+is known or studied. He has published in Spanish an edition of Ticknor's
+great work on Spanish literature, and has edited several valuable works
+in the Spanish Old Text Society besides innumerable other historical and
+philological books and papers, which have given him a European
+reputation. His immense store of knowledge, his modesty, and his genuine
+kindness to all who seek his aid endear him as much for his personal
+qualities as for his learning.
+
+Next to Gayangos in the same class of work, Marcelino Menendez y Palayo
+may perhaps be mentioned. His _History of AEsthetic Ideas in Spain_ has
+been left unfinished so far, owing to the demands made on his time by
+his position in the political world as one of the Conservative leaders.
+Don Modesto Lafuente, though scarcely possessing the qualities of a
+great historian, is accurate and painstaking to a great degree; but in
+the field of history many workers are searching the archives and
+documents in which the country is so rich, and throwing light on
+particular periods. Canovas del Castillo, in spite of his great
+political duties, was one of the most valuable of these; and the eminent
+jurist, Don Francisco de Cardenas, and the learned Jesuit, Fidel Fita,
+and other members of the Academy of History are constantly working in
+the rich mine at Simancas. New papers and books are continually being
+brought out under the auspices of this society, throwing light on the
+past history of the country.
+
+Fernan Caballero, a German by race, but married successively to three
+Spanish husbands, may be said to have inaugurated the modern Spanish
+novel _de costumbres_, and her books are perhaps better known in England
+than those of some of the later novelists. By far the greater writer of
+the day in Spain, however, in light literature, is Juan Valera, at once
+poet, critic, essayist, and novelist. His _Pepita Jimenez_ is a
+remarkable novel, full of delicate characterisation and exquisite style,
+second to none produced in any country--a novel full of fire, and yet
+irreproachable in taste, handling a difficult subject with the mastery
+of genius. It has been translated into English; but however well it may
+have been done, it must lose immensely in the transition, because the
+Spanish of Valera is the perfection of a perfectly beautiful language.
+In this novel we have the character of a priest, who, while we know him
+only through the letters addressed to him by the young student of
+theology, the extremely sympathetic hero of the story, lives in one's
+memory, showing us the best side of the Spanish priest. Other novels of
+Valera's, _Dona Luis_ and _El Comendador Mendoza_, a number of essays on
+all sorts of subjects, critical and other, and poems which show great
+grace and correctness of style, have given this writer a high place in
+the literature of the age.
+
+Perez Galdos is a writer of a wholly different class, although he enjoys
+a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read.
+His _Episodes Nacionales_, some fifty-six in number, attract by their
+close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most
+diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of
+different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces,
+among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real
+actors on the stage of history of the time. Thus Mendizabal, Espartero,
+Serrano, Narvaez, the Queen of Ferdinand VII., Cristina, and many other
+persons appear in the books, giving one the impression that history is
+alive, and not the record of long-dead actors we are accustomed to find
+it. Galdos appears to despise any kind of plot; the events run on, as
+they did in fact run on, only there are one or two people who take part
+in them whom we may suppose to be creations of the author's brain.
+Certainly, one learns more contemporary history by reading these
+_Episodes_ of Perez Galdos, and realises all the scenes of it much more
+vividly than one would ever do by the reading of ordinary records of
+events. As the tendency and the sympathy of the writer is always
+Liberal, one fancies that Galdos has written with the determined
+intention to tempt a class of readers to become acquainted with the
+recent history of their country who would never do so under any less
+attractive form than that of the novel. His works must do good, since
+they are very widely read, and are extremely accurate as history. His
+play, _Electra_, which is just now giving him such wide celebrity, is of
+the actual time, and the scene is laid wholly in Madrid. The freedom
+that he advocates for women is merely that which Englishwomen have
+always enjoyed, or, at least, since mediaeval times, and has nothing in
+common with the emancipation which our "new women" claim for themselves.
+Galdos, also, is fond of introducing the simple-minded and honest, if
+not very cultivated, priest. His style is pure, without any great
+pretention to brilliancy, or any of the straining after effect which so
+many of the English writers seem to think gives distinction.
+
+Pedro Alarcon is novelist first, and historian, poet, and critic
+afterwards. That is to say, his novels are his best-known and most
+widely read works. He has two distinct styles. His _Sombrero de Tres
+Picos_ is a fascinating sketch of quaint old village life, full of quiet
+grace, while _El Escandalo_ and _La Prodiga_ are of the sensational
+order. He writes, like Galdos, in series, such as _Historietas
+Nacionales_, _Narraciones Inverosimiles_, and _Viajes por Espana_.
+Parada is a native of Santander, and writes of his beloved countrymen.
+_Sotilezas_, his best-known, and perhaps best, novel, treats of life
+among the fisher-folk of Santander, before it became an industrial town.
+Writing in dialect makes many of his stories puzzling, if not impossible
+for foreign readers.
+
+The lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Emelia Pardo Bazan" may be
+said to be the leader or the pioneer of women's emancipation in the
+sense in which we use the words. She is a native of Galicia, and is
+imbued with that intense love of her native province which distinguishes
+the people of the mountains. Her novels are chiefly pictures of its
+scenery and the life of its people, though in at least one she does not
+hesitate to take her readers behind the scenes of student life in
+Madrid. It would not be fair to apply to this writer's work the standard
+by which we judge an English work, because in Spain there is a
+frankness, to call it by no other name, in discussing in mixed company
+subjects which it would not be thought good taste to mention under the
+same circumstances with us. _Una Cristiana_ and _La Prueba_, its sequel,
+are founded on the sex problem, and, probably without any intention of
+offence, Pardo Bazan has worked with a very full brush and a free hand,
+if I may borrow the terms from a sister art. Her articles on
+intellectual and social questions show an amount of education and a
+breadth of view which place her among the best writers of her nation.
+She is not in the least blinded by her patriotism to the faults of her
+country, especially to the hitherto narrow education of its women. She
+holds up an ideal of a higher type--a woman who shall be man's
+intellectual companion, and his helper in the battle of life. She is by
+no means the only woman writer in Spain at the present time; but she is
+the most talented, and occupies certainly the highest place. Her
+writings are somewhat difficult for anyone not conversant with
+Portuguese, or, rather, with the Galician variety of the Spanish
+language, for the number of words not to be found in the Spanish
+dictionary interfere with the pleasure experienced by a foreigner, and
+even some Castilians, in reading her novels. Pardo Bazan was an
+enthusiastic friend and admirer of Castelar, and belongs to his
+political party. A united Iberian republic, with Gibraltar restored to
+Spain, is, or was, its programme.
+
+_Hermana San Sulpicio_, by Armando Palacio Valdes, is one of the
+charming, purely Spanish novels which has made a name for its author
+beyond the confines of his own country; but since that was produced he
+has gone for his inspiration to the French naturalistic school, and,
+like some English writers, he thinks that repulsive and indecent
+incidents, powerfully drawn, add to the artistic value of his work.
+Padre Luis Coloma, a Jesuit, obtained a good deal of attention at one
+time by his _Pequeneces_, studies, written in gall, of Madrid society.
+His stories are too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue,
+and his views of life too much coloured by his ultramontane tendencies
+to be even true. Nunez de Arce is, like so many Spaniards of the last
+few decades, at once a poet and a politician. He played a stirring part
+from the time of the Revolution to the Restoration, always on the side
+of liberty, but never believing in the idea of a republic. His _Gritos
+del Combate_ were the agonised expression of a fighter in his country's
+battle for freedom and for light. Since the more settled state of
+affairs, Nunez de Arce has written many charming idyls and short poems.
+In the _Idilio_ is a wonderful picture of the, to some of us, barren
+scenery of Castile, in which the eye of the artist sees, and makes his
+readers see, a beauty all the more striking because it is hidden from
+the ordinary gaze.
+
+Of Jose Zorilla as a poet there is little need to speak. His countrymen
+read his voluminous works, but they are not of any real value.
+Campoamor describes his _Dorloras_ as "poetic compositions combining
+lightness, sentiment, and brevity with philosophic importance." His
+earlier works were studied from Shakespeare and from Byron, who was the
+star of the age when Campoamor began to write. His most ambitious work,
+the _Universal Drama_, is "after Dante and Milton." He is a great
+favourite with his fellow-countrymen, both as poet and companion. He is
+a member of the Academy and a Senator.
+
+It is impossible, however, to do more than indicate a few of the writers
+who are leaders in the literature of Spain to-day. There has, in fact,
+been an immense impulse in the production of books of all classes within
+the last twenty or thirty years. In fiction, Spain once more aspires to
+have a characteristic literature of her own, in place of relying on
+translations from the French, as was the case for a brief time before
+her political renaissance began.
+
+A notable departure has been the foundation of the Folklore Society, and
+the publication up to the present time of eleven volumes under the name
+of _Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Espanolas_, under the
+direction of Senor Don Antonio Machado y Alvarez. In the introduction to
+the first volume, the Director tells us that, with the help of the
+editor of _El Folklore Andaluz_ and his friends, D. Alejandro Guichot y
+Sierra and D. Luis Montolo y Raustentrauch, he has undertaken this great
+work, which arose out of the _Bases del Folklore Espanol_, published in
+1881, and the two societies established in 1882, the Folklore Andaluz
+and Folklore Extremeno. These societies have for object the gathering
+together, copying, and publishing of the popular beliefs, proverbs,
+songs, stories, poems, the old customs and superstitions of all parts of
+the Peninsula, including Portugal, as indispensable materials for the
+knowledge and scientific reconstruction of Spanish culture. In this
+patriotic and historical work many writers have joined, each bringing
+his quota of garnered treasure-trove, presenting thus, in a series of
+handy little volumes, a most interesting collection of the ancient
+customs, beliefs, and, in fact, the folklore of a country exceptionally
+rich in widely differing nationalities.
+
+Many of the tales, which it would seem even at the present time,
+especially in Portugal and Galicia, are told in the evening, and have
+rarely found their way into print, have the strong stamp of the
+legitimate Eastern fable, and bear a great family resemblance to those
+of the _Arabian Nights_. As, in fact, the _Thousand and One Nights_ was
+very early published in Spanish, it is probable that its marvellous
+histories were known verbally to the people of the Iberian continent for
+many centuries, and have coloured much of its folklore. _The Ingenious
+Student_ is certainly one of these. Barbers also play an important part
+in many of these tales. It is quite common for the Court barber to marry
+the King's daughter, and to succeed him as ruler; but the barber was,
+of course, surgeon or blood-letter as well as the principal
+news-agent--the forerunner of the daily newspaper of our times. The
+transmutation of human beings into mules, and _vice versa_, is a common
+fable, and we meet with wolf-children and the curious superstition that
+unbaptised people can penetrate into the domains of the enchanted Moors,
+and that these have no power to injure them. The story of the Black
+Slave, who eventually married the King's daughter and had a white mule
+for his Prime Minister, is very Eastern in character. "From so wise a
+King and so good a Queen the people derived great benefit; disputes
+never went beyond the ears of the Chief Minister, and, in the words of
+the immortal barber and poet of the city, 'the kingdom flourished under
+the guidance of a mule: which proves that there are qualities in the
+irrational beings which even wisest ministers would do well to
+imitate.'" _The Watchful Servant_ is, however, purely Spanish in
+character, and it closes with the proverb that "a jealous man on
+horseback is first cousin to a flash of lightning." _King Robin_, the
+story of how the beasts and birds revenged themselves on Sigli and his
+father, the chief of a band of robbers, recalls "Uncle Remus" and his
+animal tales; for the monkeys, at the suggestion of the fox, and with
+the delighted consent of the birds and the bees, made a figure wholly of
+birdlime to represent a sleeping beggar, being quite certain that Sigli
+would kick it the moment that he saw the intruder from the windows of
+his father's castle. In effect both father and son became fast to the
+birdlime figure, when they were stung to death by ten thousand bees.
+Then King Robin ordered the wolves to dig the grave, into which the
+monkeys rolled the man and the boy and the birdlime figure, and, after
+covering it up, all the beasts and birds and insects took possession of
+the robbers' castle, and lived there under the beneficent rule of King
+Robin.
+
+_Silver Bells_ is, again, a story of a wholly different type, and
+charmingly pretty it is, with its new development of the wicked
+step-mother--in this case a mother who had married again and hated her
+little girl by the first husband. _Elvira, the Sainted Princess_ tells
+how the daughter of King Wamba, who had become a Christian unknown to
+her father, by her prayers and tears caused his staff to blossom in one
+night, after he had determined that unless this miracle were worked by
+the God of the Christians she and her lover should be burned.
+
+One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told
+by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the
+Old-World fables of a primitive race. Hits at the Jesuits, the
+Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the
+glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore. The story of the _Black Hand_
+seems to have many varieties. It is somewhat like our stories of Jack
+and the Bean Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the
+Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the
+part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a
+second term of a hundred years' enchantment, so as to free the wife whom
+he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous
+other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of
+the prince. The _White Dove_ is another curious and pretty fable which
+has many variations in different provinces--a story in which the King's
+promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who
+has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her
+place. Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl
+again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has
+stuck into her head, and the usurper is "burnt" as punishment--an ending
+which savours of the _Quemadero_.
+
+The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country
+where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty. One is constantly reminded
+of the Spanish proverb, _De poetas y de locos, todos tenemos un poco_
+(We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool). No
+one can tell whence the rhymed _jeux d'esprit_ come; they seem to spring
+spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people. Children are
+constantly heard singing _coplas_ which are evidently of recent
+production, since they speak of recent events, and yet which have the
+air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.
+
+    Rey inocente--a weak king,
+    Reina traidora--treacherous queen,
+    Pueblo cobarde--a coward people,
+    Grandes sin honra--nobles without honour,
+
+sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday's shameful
+bargain with Napoleon.
+
+    En el Puente de Alcolea
+      La batalla gano Prim,
+    Y por eso la cantamos
+      En las calles de Madrid.
+
+    At the bridge of Alcolea
+      A great battle gained Prim,
+    And for this we go a-singing
+      In the streets of Madrid.
+
+Senor Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this _copla_ (_Folklore
+de Madrid_), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore,
+since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcolea.
+Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the
+battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been
+sung in the streets of the capital. There is seldom, if ever, any
+grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people--never indecency or
+double meaning. No sooner has an event happened than it finds its
+history recorded in some of these popular _coplas_, and sung by the
+children at their play.
+
+The Folklore Society has some interesting information to give about the
+innumerable rhymed games which Spanish children, like our own, are so
+fond of playing, many of them having an origin lost in prehistoric
+times. One finds, also, from some of the old stories, that the devils
+are much hurt in their feelings by having tails and horns ascribed to
+them. As a matter of fact, they have neither, and cannot understand
+where mortals picked up the idea! The question is an interesting one.
+Where did we obtain this notion?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE FUTURE OF SPAIN
+
+
+An Englishman who, from over thirty years' residence in Spain and close
+connection with the country, numbered among her people some of his most
+valued friends, thus speaks of the national characteristics:
+
+"The Spanish and English characters are, indeed, in many points
+strangely alike. Spain ranks as one of the Latin nations, and the
+Republican orators of Spain are content to look to France for light and
+leading in all their political combinations; but a large mass of the
+nation, the bone and sinew of the country, the silent, toiling tillers
+of the soil, are not of this way of thinking.... There is a sturdy
+independence in the Spanish character, and an impatience of dictation
+that harmonises more nearly with the English character than with that of
+her Latin neighbours.... There is a gravity and reticence also in the
+Spaniard that is absent from his mercurial neighbour, and which is,
+indeed, much more akin to our cast of temper.
+
+"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our
+intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of
+deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of
+mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong
+attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the
+strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know
+the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful
+friends than those they have amongst her people."
+
+Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of
+labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of
+judging, this writer says:
+
+"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not
+much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are
+exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great
+facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest--perfect gentlemen in
+their manners, and the lowest labourer has an _aplomb_ and ease of
+manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might
+envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it
+is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real
+bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to
+meet with--not free from defects--what race is?--but possessed of
+excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be
+appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and
+politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and
+debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is,
+unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]
+
+    [3] _Commercial and Industrial Spain_, by George Higgin,
+    Mem. Inst. C. E., London, 1886.
+
+In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution
+of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called,
+and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time;
+because, after the battle of Alcolea, when the cry raised in the Puerta
+del Sol, _Viva Prim!_ was answered by the troops shut up in the
+Government offices, and the people, swarming up the _rejas_ and the
+balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been
+intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot
+them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and
+of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance,
+the Queen and her _camarilla_ had fled across the frontier, the
+Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet
+not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and
+quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street
+formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their
+positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and
+institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people
+were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went
+on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was
+touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the
+sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns,
+after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo,
+were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of
+interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as
+puppets.
+
+With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in
+the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the
+demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the
+Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in
+industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving
+the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this,
+or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is
+penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely
+to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing.
+The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country
+heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was
+begun--in fact, within the last few months--is bringing the northern and
+western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important
+industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing
+trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as
+Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh
+fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are
+coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost
+everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as
+the algaroba bean--said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist
+might have thriven--for it is the most fattening food for horses and
+cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat.
+This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to
+the mules and horses at all the little wayside _ventas_, and is now used
+in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of
+the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two
+kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. _Glucea
+dextrina_ paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products
+of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of
+preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture
+of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many
+other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a
+most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it
+has all the qualities of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent.
+less in cost.
+
+A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the
+peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this
+unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention
+of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898,
+and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in
+circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold
+must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between
+fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in
+circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of
+the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two
+thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two
+thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in
+fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas.
+So states the _Boletin de la Camara de Comercio de Espana en la Gran
+Bretana_ of April 15, 1901.
+
+The _Boletin_, after giving an account of the English custom of using
+cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper
+currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the
+English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any
+paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were
+not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited
+currency within.
+
+Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days
+before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other
+towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its
+general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is
+no longer the case. Although the capital of Cataluna has made enormous
+strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it
+before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it
+in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it
+very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its
+climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its
+wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly
+different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the
+dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.
+
+It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to
+finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of
+the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already
+remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it
+is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician,
+still less Basque, is a dialect--they are all more or less languages in
+themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the
+_pueblo bajo_ of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal
+peculiarities are the omission of the _d_--_prado_ becomes _praoe_--in
+any case the pronunciation of _d_, except as an initial, is very soft,
+similar to our _th_ in _thee_, but less accentuated. The final _d_ is
+also omitted by illiterate speakers; _Usted_ is pronounced _Uste_, and
+even _de_ becomes _e_. _B_ and _v_ are interchangeable. One used to see,
+on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion
+of Madrid, _Serbicio de omnibus_ quite as often as _Servicio_. Over the
+_venta_ of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcala--now an outskirt of
+Madrid--was written, _Aqui se veve bino y aguaardiente_--meaning, _Aqui
+se bebe vino_, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).
+
+The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the
+educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of
+transposing them in writing. The sound of _b_ is much more liquid than
+in English, and to pronounce _Barcelona_ as a Castilian pronounces it,
+we should spell it _Varcelona_; the same with _Cordoba_, which to our
+ears sounds as if written _Cordova_, and so, in fact, we English spell
+it.
+
+Spaniards, as a rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all
+the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England,
+Scotland, and Ireland, into account.
+
+Our _th_, which is unpronounceable to French, Italians, and Germans,
+however long they may have lived in England, comes naturally to the
+Spaniard, because in his own _d_, soft _c_, and _z_ he has the sounds of
+our _th_ in "_th_ee" and "_th_in." His _ch_ is identical with ours, and
+his _j_ and _x_ are the same as the Irish and Scotch pronunciation of
+_ch_ and _gh_.
+
+The Spanish language is not difficult to learn--at any rate to read and
+understand--because there are absolutely no unnecessary letters, if we
+except the initial _h_, which is, or appears to us, silent--and the
+pronunciation is invariable. What a mine of literary treasure is opened
+to the reader by a knowledge of Spanish, no one who is ignorant of that
+majestic and poetic language can imagine. With the single exception of
+Longfellow's beautiful rendering of the _Coplas de Manrique_, which is
+absolutely literal, while preserving all the grace and dignity of the
+original, I know of no translation from the Spanish which gives the
+reader any real idea of the beauty of Spanish literature in the past
+ages, nor even of such works of to-day as those of Juan Valera and some
+others.
+
+Picturesque and poetic ideas seem common to the Spaniard to-day, as
+ever. Only the other day, in discussing the monument to be erected to
+Alfonso XII. in Madrid, one of the newspapers reported the
+suggestion--finally adopted, I think--that it should be an equestrian
+statue of the young King, "with the look on his face with which he
+entered Madrid after ending the Carlist war." What a picture it summons
+to the imagination of the boy King--for he was no more--in the pride of
+his conquest of the elements of disorder and of civil war, which had so
+long distracted his beloved country--a successful soldier and a worthy
+King!
+
+Spain is a country of surprises and of contradictions; even her own
+people seem unable to predict what may happen on the morrow. Those who
+knew her best had come to despair of her emancipation at the very moment
+when Prim and Topete actually carried the Revolution to a successful
+issue. Again, after the miserable fiasco of the attempt at a republic,
+the world, even in Spain itself, was taken by surprise by the peaceful
+restoration of Alfonso XII.
+
+I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of
+Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most
+interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of
+her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of
+Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales
+Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his
+preface to his _Decadencia de Espana_, published in Madrid in 1850: "It
+is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain.
+The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by,
+and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in
+which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing
+not to presume to dispute this former glory, Senor Ferrer del Rio goes
+on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's
+subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the
+summit of her greatness--that of the Reyes Catolicos, Don Fernando V.
+and Dona Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of
+Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system
+disappeared--it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the
+kingdom--the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the
+administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice
+began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people
+was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the
+conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been
+struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new
+world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that
+hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although
+for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real
+misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the _Comuneros_, and the
+execution of Padilla and his companions, champions of the people's
+rights, he goes on to show that while the aristocracy had received a
+mortal blow in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cause of
+consolidating the kingdom and of internal order, they had retained
+sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they
+were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of
+the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually
+lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained
+the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal
+whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and
+Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all
+government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the
+Spanish people being led to wage war against heresy everywhere, and the
+nation--exhausted by its foreign troubles, oppressed internally under
+the tyranny of the Inquisition, which, usurping the name of 'Holy,' had
+become the right hand of the policy of Charles V., and the supreme power
+in the Government of his grandson, Philip II.--lost all the precious
+gifts of enlightenment in a blind and frantic fanaticism. The people
+only awoke from lethargy, and showed any animation, to rush in crowds to
+the _Autos da fe_ in which the ministers of the altar turned Christian
+charity into a bleeding corpse, and reproduced the terrible scenes of
+the Roman amphitheatre. Where the patricians had cried 'Christians to
+the lions!' superstition shouted 'Heretics to the stake!' Humanity was
+not less outraged than in the spectacle of Golgotha. Spanish monarchs
+even authorised by their presence those sanguinary spectacles, while the
+nobles and great personages in the kingdom thought themselves honoured
+when they were made _alguiciles_, or familiars of the holy office.
+Theocratic power preponderated, and intellectual movement became
+paralysed, civilisation stagnated."
+
+This has ever been the result of priestly rule. One can understand the
+feeling of the liberal-minded Spaniard of to-day that, without wishing
+to interfere with the charitable works inaugurated by the clergy, nor
+desiring in any way to show disrespect to the Church, or the religion
+which is dear to the hearts of the people, a serious danger lies, as the
+Press is daily pointing out, in the religious orders, more especially
+the Jesuits, obtaining a pernicious influence over the young,
+undermining by a system of secret inquisition the teachings of science,
+gaining power over the minds of the officers in the army, and
+establishing a press agency which shall become a danger to the
+constitution.
+
+Spain's outlook seems brighter to-day than it has ever been since her
+Golden Age of Isabella and Ferdinand; and it is the people who have
+awakened, a people who have shown what power lies in them to raise their
+beloved country to the position which is her right among the nations of
+the world. But prophecy is vain in a country of which it has been said
+"that two and two never make four." This year, if all go well meantime,
+Alfonso XIII. will take the reins in his own hands--a mere boy, even
+younger than his father was when called to the throne; than whom,
+however, Spain has never had a more worthy ruler. But Alfonso XII. had
+been schooled by adversity--he had to some extent roughed it amongst
+Austrian and English boys. He came fresh from Sandhurst and from the
+study of countries other than his own. To a naturally clever mind he had
+added the invaluable lesson of a knowledge of the world as seen by one
+of the crowd, not from the close precincts of a court and the elevation
+of a throne.
+
+For his son it may be said that he has been born and carefully educated
+in a country where absolutism is dead, and by a mother who, as Regent,
+has scrupulously observed the laws of the constitution. He will come, as
+King, to a country which has known the precious boon of liberty too long
+to part with it lightly; to a kingdom now, for the first time in
+history, united as one people; where commerce and mutual interests have
+taken the place of internecine distrust and hatred. It is only at the
+present moment that this happy condition of things is spreading over the
+country; each month, each week, giving fresh evidence of new industries
+arising, of fresh capital invested in the development of the country. It
+is in the sums so invested by the mass of the people that those who
+believe in a bright future for Spain place their hopes; but we may all
+of us wish the young monarch for whom his country is longing,
+"God-speed."
+
+
+
+
+PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+LAND AND PEOPLE
+
+
+It has been said, and it is often repeated, that if you strip a Spaniard
+of his virtues, the residuum will be a Portuguese. This cruel statement
+is rather the result of prejudice than arising from any foundation in
+fact. It has a superficial cleverness which attracts some people, and
+especially those who have but an imperfect knowledge of the true life
+and character of the people thus stigmatised.
+
+Lord Londonderry, in Chapter VI. of his _Narrative of the Peninsular
+War_, writes thus of the difference of character between the two
+nations: "Having halted at Elvas during the night, we marched next
+morning soon after dawn; and, passing through a plain of considerable
+extent, crossed the Guadiana at Badajoz, the capital of Estremadura.
+This movement introduced us at once into Spain; and the contrast, both
+in personal appearance and in manners, between the people of the two
+nations, which was instantly presented to us, I shall not readily
+forget. Generally speaking, the natives of frontier districts partake
+almost as much of the character of one nation as of another.... It is
+not so on the borders of Spain and Portugal. The peasant who cultivates
+his little field, or tends his flock on the right bank of the Guadiana,
+is, in all his habits and notions, a different being from the peasant
+who pursues similar occupations on its left bank; the first is a genuine
+Portuguese, the last is a genuine Spaniard.... They cordially detest one
+another; insomuch that their common wrongs and their common enmity to
+the French were not sufficient, even at this time, to eradicate the
+feeling.
+
+"It was not, however, by the striking diversity of private character
+alone which subsisted between them, that we were made sensible, as soon
+as we had passed the Guadiana, that a new nation was before us. The
+Spaniards received us with a degree of indifference to which we had not
+hitherto been accustomed. They were certainly not uncivil.... Whatever
+we required they gave us, in return for our money; but as to enthusiasm
+or a desire to anticipate our wants, there was not the shadow of an
+appearance of anything of the kind about them. How different all this
+from the poor Portuguese, who never failed to rend the air with their
+_vivats_, and were at all times full of promises and protestations, no
+matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or
+authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud,
+independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities,
+but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate
+them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of
+the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a
+people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally
+helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, and render them
+useful; but it is impossible highly to respect them. In the Spanish
+character, on the contrary, there is mixed up a great deal of
+haughtiness, a sort of manly independence of spirit, which you cannot
+but admire, even though aware that it will render them by many degrees
+less amenable to your wishes than their neighbours."
+
+With due allowance for time and circumstances, much in this passage
+might have been written to-day instead of nearly ninety years ago, and
+one cause of the difference in feeling is no doubt explained truly
+enough. Perhaps some shallow persons are affected by the fact that in
+good looks the Portuguese are as a race inferior to the Spaniards. But
+there is no such real difference in character as to justify an impartial
+observer in using a phrase so essentially galling to England's allies,
+of whom Napier said: "The bulk of the people were, however, staunch in
+their country's cause ... ready at the call of honour, and susceptible
+of discipline, without any loss of energy."
+
+Throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula the main axiom of life appears to
+be the same: "Never do to-day what you can put off to to-morrow." On the
+left bank of the Guadiana it is summarised by the word _manana_; on the
+right bank the word used is _amanha_. There is only a phonetic
+distinction between the Spanish and the Portuguese idea. It is necessary
+for the traveller in these countries to keep this axiom well in mind,
+for it affords a clue to character and conduct the value of which cannot
+be over-estimated, and not only to the character and conduct of
+individuals, but to the whole national life of the inhabitants. In
+Portugal it permeates all public and municipal life, and appears to
+affect most especially that portion of the population who do not earn
+their living by manual labour. The higher one goes up the scale, the
+greater becomes the evidence of the ingrained habits of dilatoriness and
+procrastination, and so any hard work on the part of the lower class of
+toilers cannot be properly directed, and the commerce and industry of
+the country either dwindle away together, or fall into the hands of more
+energetic and active foreigners, who naturally carry off the profits
+which should be properly applied to the welfare and prosperity of the
+Lusitanians.
+
+The mineral wealth and natural resources of the country are enormous,
+and it is really sad to contemplate the little use that is made of the
+one or of the other unless developed by alien energy and worked by alien
+capital. As regards this latter important factor, the administrative
+corruption and the unsound state of the national finances render it
+difficult to find foreign capitalists who are able and willing to embark
+in the industrial enterprises, the successful issue of which affords the
+only chance for this most interesting nation to recover something of its
+ancient prosperity and to once more take a position in the world worthy
+of the land of the hardy sailors and valiant captains who have left so
+imperishable a record over the earth's surface.
+
+The intellectual life of Portugal seems to have ceased with Camoens. It
+is rather pathetic the way in which the ordinary educated Portuguese
+refers back to the great poet and to the heroic period which he
+commemorated. No conversation of any length can be carried on without a
+reference to Camoens and to Vasco da Gama. All history and all progress
+appear to have culminated and stopped then. Apparently nothing worthy of
+note has happened since. Camoens returned to Lisbon in 1569, and his
+great epic poem saw the light in 1572. He died in a public hospital in
+Lisbon in 1579 or 1580. In the latter year began the "sixty years'
+captivity," when Portugal became merely a Spanish province; yet there
+is no recollection of this--except the ingrained hatred of Spaniards and
+of everything Spanish--or of the shaking off the yoke in 1640, and of
+the battle of Amexial in 1663, where the English contingent bore the
+brunt of the battle, and the "Portugueses," as they are called by the
+author of _An Account of the Court of Portugal_, published in 1700,
+claimed the principal part of the honour. The traces of the Peninsular
+War have faded away, and on the lines of Torres Vedras there is scarcely
+any tradition of the cause of their existence. In Lisbon, indeed, there
+is one incident of later date than Camoens, which is considered worthy
+of remembrance,--the great earthquake of 1755,--but this can scarcely be
+looked upon as a national achievement, or a matter of intellectual
+development.
+
+That Camoens is a fitting object for a nation's veneration cannot for a
+moment be doubted. The high encomium passed upon "the Student, the
+Soldier, the Traveller, the Patriot, the Poet, the mighty Man of Genius"
+by Burton, appears to be in no way exaggerated. The healthful influence
+of his life and writings has done and is still doing good in his beloved
+country. But though the man who in his lifetime was neglected, and who
+was allowed to die in the depths of poverty and misery, is now the most
+honoured of his countrymen, and his rank as one of the world's great
+poets is universally acknowledged, his labours have been to a certain
+extent in vain.
+
+Not only industry, but culture, literature, and art appear to be
+infested with the mildew of decay. There is a good university at
+Coimbra, where alone, it is said, the language is spoken correctly.
+There is an excellent system of elementary and secondary schools, but in
+practice it is incomplete and subject to many abuses, like most public
+institutions in the country. The irregularities of the language, without
+authoritative spelling or pronunciation, and the best dictionary of
+which is Brazilian, have a bad effect upon the literature of the
+country.
+
+The language, more purely Latin in its base than either of the other
+Latin tongues, with an admixture of Moorish, and strengthened by the
+admission of many words of foreign origin, introduced during the period
+of great commercial prosperity, possesses ample means for the expression
+of ideas and of shades of thought, and though it loses somewhat of the
+musical quality of the other languages in consequence of a rather large
+percentage of the nasal tones which are peculiar to it, yet it will hold
+its own well with the remaining members of the group.
+
+Whatever the cause, however, there is hardly any general literature;
+almost the only books (not professional or technical) which are
+published, appear to be translations of French novels--not of the
+highest class. Perhaps in the study of archaeology and folklore is to be
+found the most cultured phase of Portuguese intelligence. The
+Archaeological Society of Lisbon strives to do good work, and has a
+museum with interesting relics in the old church of the Carmo, itself
+one of the most interesting and graceful ruins left out of the havoc
+caused by the great earthquake.
+
+As might be expected under such circumstances, the newspapers are, with
+few exceptions, of the "rag" variety. Conducted for the most part by
+clever young fellows fresh from Coimbra, they are violent in their views
+and incorrect in their news, especially with regard to foreign
+intelligence. They have some influence, no doubt, but not so much as the
+same type of newspaper in France. The habitual want of veracity of the
+Portuguese character is naturally emphasised in the newspapers, and no
+one in his senses would believe any statement made in them.
+
+A sure sign of the decadence of intellectual life, as well as of
+commercial activity, is to be found in the postal service, with its
+antiquated methods and imperfect arrangements. It is administered in a
+happy-go-lucky manner, which amuses at the same time that it annoys.
+Truly, with the post-office, it is well constantly to repeat to one's
+self the phrase: "Patience! all will be well to-morrow!" Probably it
+won't be well; but none but a foolish Englishman or Frenchman or German
+will bother about such a little matter.
+
+A kindly, brave, docile, dishonest, patient, and courteous people, who,
+to quote Napier "retain a sense of injury or insult with incredible
+tenacity;" and a due observance of their customs and proper politeness
+are so readily met, and friendly advances are so freely proffered, that
+a sojourn amongst them is pleasant enough. I have wondered that the
+tourist has not found his way more into this smiling land, though, no
+doubt, his absence is a matter of congratulation to the traveller in
+these regions. The country has many beauties, the people and their
+costumes are picturesque, and the cost of living--even allowing for a
+considerable percentage of cheating--is not excessive. There is, I
+suppose, a want of the ordinary attractions for the pure tourist or
+globe-trotter. There are churches, monuments, and objects of interest in
+goodly numbers, and there is beautiful scenery in great variety; but the
+true attraction to a thoughtful visitor lies in the contemplation of the
+people themselves.
+
+The Portuguese, taken as a whole, are not a good-looking race. The
+women, who, as a rule, are very pretty as little girls, lose their good
+looks as they grow up, and are disappointing when compared with the
+Spaniards. Sometimes one comes across fish- or market-women of
+considerable comeliness, which, when conjoined to the graceful figure
+and poise induced by the habitual carriage of heavy weights on the head
+and the absence of shoes, makes a striking picture. The costume is
+attractive, and the wealth of golden ear-rings, charms, chains, and such
+like, in which these women invest their savings, does not somehow seem
+anomalous or incongruous, though shown on a background of dirty and
+ragged clothing.
+
+One unfortunate peculiarity that cannot help being noticed is the number
+of persons whose eyes are not on the same level. When this does not
+amount to an actual disfigurement, it is still a blemish which prevents
+many a young girl from being classed as a beauty. This and the peculiar
+notched or cleft teeth seem to point to an hereditary taint. Also
+unmistakable signs of a greater or lesser admixture of black blood are
+numerous. As a rule, the Portuguese are dark-complexioned, with large
+dark eyes and black hair; but, of course, one meets many exceptions. The
+men of the working class are fond of wearing enormous bushy whiskers,
+and women of all classes are accustomed to wear _moustachios_. The thin
+line of softest down which accentuates the ripe lips of the _senhorina_
+of some seventeen summers becomes an unattractive incident in the broad
+countenance of the stout lady of advancing years; and when, as sometimes
+happens, the hirsute appendages take the form of a thin, straggling
+beard, with a tooth-brush moustache, it can only be described as an
+unmitigated horror.
+
+Society in Portugal is very mixed. There are the old _fidalgos_, haughty
+and unapproachable, and often very poor, the descendants of the nobles
+whose duplicity, ability in intrigue, and want of patriotism are so
+often alluded to in the pages of Napier. Then there are the new
+nobility, the "titled Brasileros," as Galenga calls them, who have come
+back from Brazil to their native land with large fortunes acquired
+somehow, and who practically buy titles, as well as lands and houses.
+Wealthy tradesmen, also, hold a special position in the mixed middle
+class. There is, too, a curious blending of old-fashioned courtesy with
+democratic sentiments. The tradesman welcomes his customers with
+effusive politeness--shakes hands as he invites them to sit down, and
+chats with these perhaps titled ladies without any affectation or
+assumption. After a while the parties turn to business. A sort of
+Oriental bargaining takes place, the seller asking twice as much as the
+object is worth and he intends to take. The purchaser meets this with an
+offer of about half what she intends to give. With the utmost politeness
+and civility the negotiations are conducted on either side. Each gives
+way little by little, and in the end a bargain is struck. The amounts
+involved appear to be enormous, as the _reis_ are computed by thousands
+and hundreds; but, then, the _real_ is only worth about the thousandth
+part of three shillings and twopence at the present rate of exchange,
+and the long and exciting transaction, in all its various phases, has
+resulted in one or other of the parties having scored or missed a small
+victory. Verily, even to the loser, the pleasure is cheap at the price.
+
+The Brazilian element is most conspicuous in Lisbon, and partly in
+consequence that city is only a little modern capital, somewhat feebly
+imitating Paris in certain ways, and, consequently, lacking the
+individuality and interest of Oporto. Yet Lisbon has a charm of its own;
+and the beauties of the Aveneida, the Roscio (known to the English as
+the "Rolling Motion Square," from its curious pattern of black and white
+pavement), the Black Horse Square, the broad and beautiful Tagus, the
+hills whereon the city is built, and the lovely gardens with their
+sub-tropical vegetation, will repay a stay of some weeks' duration.
+
+Outside the mercantile element, there is considerable difficulty for a
+stranger to formulate the boundaries of other social strata. It would
+appear that the professions are in an indifferent position. Lawyers, of
+course, as in most other countries, are looked upon as rogues. How far
+this is the effect of the general prejudice, or whether it has any
+special foundation in fact, it would be hard to say. No doubt there are
+upright men amongst them, as in every other walk of life. There is a
+general idea that the medical training is lax, and the doctors, as a
+rule, are not highly considered. It is admitted, however, that they are
+as devoted, and as ready to risk their own lives, as those of other
+countries, a fact which was fully proved by several of the doctors at
+Oporto and Lisbon on the occasion of the outbreak of the plague in 1899.
+
+The system of fees in general use tends to damage the position of both
+lawyers and doctors. In reply to the question as to his indebtedness,
+the client or the patient is told: "What you please." This sounds
+courteous, but is, in effect, embarrassing, as it is hard to estimate
+what is a fair fee under the circumstances, and generally one or the
+other of the parties is dissatisfied, and a sore feeling is left behind.
+
+There are several orders of knighthood, which are showered about on
+occasion. The reasons for giving them are various. For instance, a Court
+tradesman may receive a decoration in lieu of immediate payment of a
+long-standing bill. The ribbons and buttons are not worn so freely as
+elsewhere on the Continent. The polite style in addressing a stranger is
+in the third person, and such titles as Your Excellency, Your Lordship,
+and Your Worship, sometimes enlarged with the adjective _illustrissimo_
+(most illustrious), are common enough. When an Englishman is first
+addressed as _Vossa Illustrissima Excellencia_ (Your Most Illustrious
+Excellency), he begins to feel as if he were playing a part in one of
+Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas. He soon gets used to it, however,
+and accepts the superlatives without turning a hair.
+
+Of all classes it may be said that their manners are, on the whole,
+good, and their morals generally lax. Cleanliness has no special place
+assigned to it amongst the virtues. If it comes next to godliness, then
+the latter must be very low down the scale. It seems incredible, but
+verminous heads are to be found in the ranks of well-to-do tradespeople.
+Fleas and bugs abound, and happy is he whose skin is too tough, or whose
+flesh is too sour, to attract these ferocious insects. There is not much
+luxury and there is a fair amount of thrift, while frugality of living
+is common, especially among the populace.
+
+One great characteristic is the intense love of children which is
+exhibited by all classes, and there is no surer way to the good will of
+a native than a kindness, however slight, to a child in whom he or she
+is interested. As is natural under such circumstances, the children are
+shockingly indulged and spoilt, with all the resultant unpleasant and
+evil consequences. Cats, also, are great favourites with the Portuguese,
+and the thousands of shabby animals of Lisbon and Oporto show no sign of
+fear if a stranger stops to stroke them. They are accustomed to kind
+treatment, and look upon all human beings as friends.
+
+As a rule, a rather large number of servants are employed. They are
+poorly paid, and in many households indifferently fed and housed. Often
+they are dirty, lazy, dishonest sluts. They chatter shrilly with the
+master or mistress, answer and argue when told of any shortcoming, and
+are always ready to go off at a moment's notice. But they are often
+capable of devoted service, and of a sincere desire to be obliging, and
+may always be counted on to exhibit the utmost kindness to the children
+of the house. Their written references, as a rule, are frauds. If you
+ask for the _boas referencias_ (good references), so often mentioned in
+the advertisements of _criadas_ (female servants), you will probably
+find that, even if genuine, they are antiquated, and that they leave
+many gaps between the various periods of service which can only be
+filled up by conjecture. _Criadas_ are not, as a rule, of immaculate
+virtue, and give some trouble by their desire to go to _festas_ and to
+servants' balls. The male servants are, as a rule, better than the
+_criadas_. Servants are somewhat roughly treated, and are ordered about
+as if they were dogs. It is always said that they do not understand or
+appreciate milder or more civil treatment, and are inclined to despise a
+master or mistress who uses the Portuguese equivalent to "please," or
+who acknowledges a service with thanks. I am inclined to doubt this,
+both from my personal observation and from a casual remark made to me by
+the landlady of a hotel at Cintra, that her waiters and servants much
+preferred English to native visitors, because of the greater politeness
+and consideration shown to them by the former. Of course, as in all
+other countries, servants are described as one of the greatest plagues
+in life; but this must be taken for what it is worth. And what would the
+ladies do without such a subject to grumble about?
+
+Portugal is a poor country, despite its natural resources. The wealthy
+people are few, and consist mainly of returned Brazilians. It cannot be
+said, either, that the classes in the enjoyment of a competence
+constitute a fair average of the community. But the poor are very
+abundant. Wages are terribly low, even a foreman in an engineering shop
+getting only a milrei a day, averaging _3s. 2d._ in English money. On
+the other hand, it must be remembered that in such a climate the "living
+wage" is necessarily lower than in England. Many necessities in England
+are superfluities or even inconveniences under sunnier skies. The
+people, too, are very frugal, and even in towns, though rents be high,
+all other necessaries are moderate in price. The standard of life is not
+high, and the people are contented with a style of living which would be
+indignantly rejected by English labourers.
+
+The artisans are not good workmen, but plod on fairly well, and, with
+the exception of _festas_, require few holidays. They prefer to work on
+Sundays, and grumble at their English employers, who generally split the
+difference, by closing their shops for half a day. They look upon this
+as a grievance, however much they may be assured that it makes no
+difference in their wages.
+
+[Illustration: A COUNTRY CABIN IN GALICIA]
+
+A very hard-working class of men are the Gallegos, the natives of
+Galicia, who are nearly as numerous in Lisbon as they were when Napier
+wrote, and where, then as now, they act as porters, messengers,
+scavengers, and water-carriers, and are found in all sorts of lowly
+and laborious occupations. As porters and messengers, they have an
+excellent reputation for honesty, and for being most civil and obliging.
+Gallenga, a fairly shrewd observer, considers that the employment of
+these Spaniards has deplorable effects on the character of the
+Portuguese nation. I cannot go all the way with him in the gloomy view
+he takes of it, but it must be conceded that the existence of such a
+body of aliens (estimated at twelve thousand in Lisbon alone) working
+hard and well at occupations which the Portuguese will not do at all,
+or, if they attempt them, will do indifferently; herding together some
+ten or twelve in a small room, living on maize bread and a clove of
+garlic washed down with water; accepting thankfully a very attenuated
+hire, and yet contriving to send substantial savings back to
+Galicia,--must considerably affect the labour market and tend to keep
+wages low. They also close certain forms of labour to the native worker,
+and cause these industries to be looked on with contempt.
+
+In towns like Lisbon and Oporto a great number of persons are employed
+in the fish trade. The fish-girls, with their distinctive costumes,
+their bare feet, and the graceful poise of the heavy basket of fish on
+their heads, are a very characteristic feature of both towns. The
+costumes differ in the two cities, mainly in the head-gear, but they are
+both picturesque and dirty, and emit the same "ancient and fish-like
+smell." The men, too, with their bare legs and feet, balancing a long
+pole on the shoulder, with a basket of fish at each end, will cover a
+marvellous amount of ground in a day at the curious trotting pace which
+they affect. Miles inland these men will carry their finny wares,
+stopping at the public water-supplies to moisten the cloth which
+protects the fish from the sun and dust. These may or may not be fresh
+when the day's work is nearly done, but housewives purchasing a supply
+in the afternoon had better keep a very sharp look-out.
+
+Fish plays an important part in the domestic economy of dwellers within
+a reasonable distance of the sea, and forms a considerable item in the
+food-stuffs of the working classes. It is fairly cheap, and is cooked so
+as to get the full value of it. More important than the fresh fish is
+the salted cod (_bacalhao_). This, which Napier described as "the
+ordinary food of the Portuguese," is the backbone of the worker's
+_menu_. It is not fragrant, nor is it inviting in aspect in its raw
+state, but it is said to be highly nutritive, and it can certainly be
+cooked in ways which make it appetising. The midday meal, which the wife
+brings to her husband at his work, and shares with him as they sit in
+the shade, is often composed of a _caldo_ (soup) made of _bacalhao_, or
+of all sorts of oddments, thickened with beans and flavoured with
+garlic, accompanied by a bit of rye-bread or of _broa_, the bread made
+from maize. These soups and breads, accompanied by salads, onions,
+tomatoes, and other vegetables, washed down with draughts of a light red
+table-wine of little alcoholic strength, form the not unwholesome
+average diet of the worker with his hands. If he wants to get drunk, he
+can do so, with some difficulty, by imbibing sufficient wine, but the
+easiest method is to drink the fearful crude spirit _aguardente_. If he
+survives, he gets horribly, brutally drunk, and possibly does some
+mischief before he recovers. But it is only fair to say that he but
+rarely gets drunk, and that when he is thirsty he quenches his thirst
+with water, with a harmless decoction of herbs or lemonade, or with the
+almost innocuous wine. This sobriety is not the result of any temperance
+legislation or restrictions. No license is required for opening a shop
+for the sale of liquor. Only revenue dues and _octroi_ duties have to be
+paid, and, of course, there is a liability to police supervision, which
+provides the police with a means of increasing their very inadequate pay
+by bribes or blackmail.
+
+The amusements of the workman in the town are few enough, and mostly of
+a domestic character. He sits on his doorstep, or on a bench in the
+nearest gardens. He smokes the eternal cigarette, gossips with his
+neighbours, plays with his children, and pets the cat. His only real
+playtimes are the _festas_, when for some hours he indulges in
+revelry--if, indeed, it be worthy of such a title. He reads the
+newspaper but little,--if he can read at all,--which is, perhaps, a
+good thing for him, and he is generally a Republican. This Republicanism
+is mostly academic, but the "red" type is not wanting, and a fiery
+spirit might be roused at any time, with consequences that cannot be
+foreseen. Of course, the younger men tinkle the guitar, and make love
+more or less openly to the girls. When age overtakes a man or misfortune
+overpowers him, there is no poor law to take him in charge, but there
+are extensive and well-organised charities in every centre which are
+eager and willing to assist those who are temporarily afflicted, and to
+afford sustenance--a bare sustenance, perhaps--to those who are
+permanently disabled.
+
+The amusements of the town--the theatre, the concert, and the opera--do
+not affect the workman much; his budget does not allow of such
+indulgence, except on the occasion of a free performance. Though they
+are fairly musical and love the theatre, the Portuguese have no really
+aesthetic side to their character. There is a queer song and dance,
+topical and rather broad, the _chula_, the somewhat monotonous refrain
+of which is to be heard everywhere and at all hours, and from all
+manners of lips. The washerwomen kneeling by the brook bang the
+unfortunate clothes on the flat stones in rhythm with the tune, and
+beguile the time with the interminable song. It arises in unexpected
+places, and is a fairly sure item in the gathering of the younger folk,
+both in towns and villages, in the cool of the evening. Concerts and
+theatres are fairly patronised by the more moneyed classes, but the
+performances are not, as a rule, of a very high calibre. There is a
+subsidised theatre at Lisbon, but it does little to elevate the dramatic
+art elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+PORTUGUESE INSTITUTIONS
+
+
+The Portuguese army is raised by conscription, each parish, according to
+size, having to contribute an annual quota of young men between twenty
+and twenty-one years of age. These have to serve three consecutive years
+with the colours, and then pass into the reserve for another ten years.
+During the latter period no conscript can leave the country without a
+passport. In time of peace the army is supposed to number about thirty
+thousand men, and on the war footing should consist of about one hundred
+and twenty thousand men and two hundred and sixty-four guns. The men,
+who in summer wear brown holland clothes, look hardy enough, and,
+according to ordinary report, are worthy of the plucky _cacadores_ of
+the Peninsular War, who, according to Napier, made most excellent
+soldiers when properly led. It is still said of the Portuguese soldier
+that with three beans in his pocket he can march and fight for a week
+without making any further demands upon the commissariat department.
+This military service does not affect the nation much, either morally
+or physically, and the only economical effect is probably that it
+provides a fruitful source of plunder to corrupt officials. As any man
+can free himself of the three years' service with the colours by paying
+a sum of about L24, it may be imagined what an opening this affords for
+special peculation.
+
+The navy consists of about five thousand men, and of a few modern
+war-ships, and of some old boats whose seaworthiness is questionable.
+The best ship at present on the list is the cruiser _Dom Carlos_, which
+was sent to take part in the naval pageant which formed the first
+portion of the funeral of Queen Victoria. The sailors, who are much to
+be seen in Lisbon, where the great naval barracks are situated, look
+smart enough, and as the Portuguese have always been good sailors, it
+may safely be predicted that, in case of necessity, they will make the
+most of the limited means at their disposal, or of such of them as have
+not been utterly ruined by official indifference or worse.
+
+In the towns one meets men in various employments, such as the police,
+who have served in the army, and still retain some sort of soldierly
+appearance, but once get into the country, and it is vain to look for
+any evidence of military service amongst the rural population.
+
+The country-folk are a patient lot; most of them ruminants, like their
+own oxen. Sleepy always, and slow in their movements, they are often
+devoted to the farm, or _quinta_, on which they work, and are, perhaps,
+slightly more honest than their fellows in the towns. They are frugal
+enough, and enjoy their huge junks of dark bread, washed down with
+water, at their midday meal, and a sound sleep under the shade of an
+orange tree or a eucalyptus, or a bit of a wall, until it is necessary
+to begin work again. The peasant costumes are not inviting; they are
+simply squalid. Costumes in the towns are much better. Still, on festal
+days the village women deck themselves out with bright-hued shawls, and
+the men wind brighter scarfs round their waists to keep up their
+patchwork trousers, and thus relieve what would otherwise be the
+intolerable dinginess of the whole scene. The farmer himself, mounted on
+his mule, with high-peaked saddle and enormous wooden stirrups decorated
+with brass, his cloak, with the bright scarlet or blue lining folded
+outwards, strapped on in front, with his short jacket and broad-brimmed
+hat, offers a smart and typical figure.
+
+In town or country, the beautiful oxen are worthy of admiration. They
+are the most satisfactory of all the rural animals. Horses, shabby and
+attenuated, little sheep of a colour from black to dirty grey, showing
+affinity to goats, and having neither the grace of the latter nor the
+sleepy comeliness of our own sheep, black and white cows whose points
+would not be much thought of by judges at an agricultural show, goats of
+all sorts of breeds, and finally pigs of a most lanky and uninviting
+appearance, form the stock of the farms. Heaps of chickens of all sorts
+run about everywhere, and enjoy fine dust-baths by the side of the road.
+
+The aspect of the country varies much between north and south. In the
+former, one sees real grass and hedges, and the bright flowers that are
+common everywhere look all the better for their green background. The
+commonest hedge in the south, and occasionally in the north, is made of
+a few layers of stones loosely laid together with a row of aloe plants
+on the top. These grow formidable in time, with huge sharp-pointed
+leaves, and they present a curious appearance when at intervals in such
+a row plants send up their huge flowering stems from nine to twelve feet
+high, looking at a little distance like telegraph poles.
+
+Despite the squalid clothes of the peasants, there are many picturesque
+aspects of rural life. The driving of large herds of cattle by mounted
+men, armed with long goads, is an interesting as well as an artistic
+sight, and the same may be said of the primitive agricultural
+occupations. The crops are harvested with a sickle, and you may wake up
+some morning to see the field opposite your house invaded by some twenty
+to thirty reapers, men and women, boys and girls, patiently sawing their
+way through the wheat or barley, or whatever it is. The corn is threshed
+out with the flail, or trodden out by the oxen--all operations fair to
+look upon. Forms of cultivation interesting to watch are the very
+primitive ploughing, the hoeing of the maize, and all those connected
+with the culture of the vines and the orange and other fruit trees, and
+especially the irrigation, which is so important to these latter. In
+fact, one of the most charming of rural sights is the old water-wheel,
+groaning and creaking as it is turned by the patient ox or mule or pony,
+splashing the cool water from the well out of its earthen pots--each
+with a hole in the bottom--and discharging it into the trough leading to
+the irrigation channels or to the reservoir from which the water may
+afterwards be let off in the required direction.
+
+But agriculture is not always so backward and primitive. There are great
+landowners and large farmers who use the newest and best agricultural
+implements. The Government does what it can to encourage the use of
+artificial manures, and there are societies which render important
+services to agriculturists and to fruit-growers. Amid such labours live
+the quiet country-folk. They have no thought of anything; they have no
+special amusements beyond an occasional _festa_ and a dance. They sit
+round the village well in the evening, and when not talking scandal,
+tell stories about--"Once upon a time there was a poor widow with one or
+more daughters," or "There was once a king's son"--often a Moorish
+king. The old well-known tales reappear, modified to the Portuguese
+character and morality.
+
+The following is a story taken from Braga's excellent book: "There was,
+once upon a time, a poor widow that had only one daughter. This girl,
+going out to bathe in the river with her companions on St. John's eve,
+at the advice of one of her friends, placed her ear-rings on the top of
+a stone, lest she should lose them in the water. While she was playing
+about in the river an old man passed along, who, seeing the ear-rings,
+took them and placed them in a leather bag he was carrying. The poor
+child was much grieved at this, and ran after the old man, who consented
+to restore her belongings if she would search for them inside his sack.
+This the girl did, and forthwith the artful old man closed the mouth of
+the bag and carried her off therein. He subsequently told her that she
+must help him to gain a living, and that whenever he recited--
+
+    'Sing, sack,
+    Else thou wilt be beaten with a stick!'
+
+she was to sing lustily. Wherever they came he placed his sack on the
+ground, and addressed the above formula to it, when the poor girl sang
+as loud as she could:
+
+    'I am placed in this sack,
+    Where my life I shall lose,
+    For love of my ear-rings,
+    Which I left in the stream.'
+
+The old man obtained much money from the audiences attracted by his
+singing leather bag. The authorities of one town, however, became
+suspicious, and, examining the sack while its owner was asleep, found
+and released the child. They filled up the bag with all the filth they
+could pick up, and left it where they had found it. The little girl was
+sent back to her mother. When the old man woke next morning, and took
+out the sack to earn his breakfast, the usual incantation had no effect,
+and when he applied the threatened stick the bag burst, and all the
+filth came out, which he was compelled to lick up by the enraged
+populace." At the close of the story the cigarettes glow, the white
+teeth gleam, the bushy whiskers wag, the old women chuckle, the girls
+giggle, and the youths snigger, and as the short twilight is now over,
+the group breaks up, and each vanishes into his or her own
+vermin-pasture to sleep until _amanha_ has actually become to-day, and
+the sun shines on another exact repetition of yesterday.
+
+The Portuguese are superstitious, and are devout up to a certain point,
+and the clerics are exceedingly intolerant. In the morning one sees, as
+in all Roman Catholic countries, devout worshippers kneeling about in
+the churches before their favourite shrines, but, unlike the practice of
+most Roman Catholic countries, the churches are closed at or about noon
+for the most part, and are only open for special masses after that time.
+The procession of the Host is greeted with most extreme reverence, and
+whether it be in the fashionable Chiado at Lisbon or along a country
+lane, all uncover and make the sign of the cross, and many, even
+fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen, kneel down and bow themselves
+humbly as the sacred wafer passes by, borne by the gorgeously vested
+priest; at least, in the cities the vestments are gorgeous, and a long
+train of acolytes and attendants makes the procession imposing, but in
+the country the vestments are often mildewed and decayed, and the one or
+two rustic attendants are not dignified in appearance. Still, the sacred
+symbol is the same, and the reverence and the devotion are the same.
+
+There is an excessive hierarchy for the size of the country, there being
+in Portugal proper three ecclesiastical provinces, ruled respectively by
+the Patriarch of Lisbon and by the Archbishops of Braga and Evora.
+Besides these, there is the colonial province which is ruled by the
+Archbishop of Goa, Archpriests and other dignitaries abound, so that a
+priest has something to look forward to in the way of promotion; and
+yet, as a rule, the priests perform their duties without zeal and in a
+slovenly manner. One often hears it said that their behaviour and their
+morality leave much to be desired. There are among them gentlemen of
+blameless life and even of ascetic practices, but it is commonly
+reported that, as a whole, they are of inferior birth and education. It
+is not easy for a stranger to form any opinion on these points, but it
+must be conceded that their appearance is generally suggestive of the
+truth of the statement, and it may be admitted that there is an undue
+proportion of ignoble and sensuous faces amongst them.
+
+Funerals are occasions of great pomp, and are often picturesque enough,
+while the masses for the dead at intervals after and on the anniversary
+are, no doubt, profitable to the Church. By attending these one has a
+good opportunity of testifying to the esteem in which the deceased was
+held, or to one's good will towards the family or representatives. These
+masses are generally advertised in the papers, with thanks to those
+friends who have attended funeral masses. As there is scarcely any
+intellectual activity in Portugal, there is practically no religious
+thought. A dull acquiescence in the dictates of the Church may be
+crossed by an occasional gleam of rebellion against sacerdotalism,
+roused by some temporary stirring up of the hatred felt against the
+Jesuits. But it in no way alters the habitual attitude of the people
+towards religion and its outward manifestations. One thing is certain,
+and that is that in town or country a man or a woman must be in the
+lowest depths of poverty and distress to refuse to throw a few _reis_
+into the bags of the licensed mendicants who, bareheaded, and clad in
+scarlet or white gowns, go round soliciting alms for the support of the
+churches on whose behalf they are sent out.
+
+As is customary in most countries, the women are more amenable to
+religious influences than the men, and are more under the dominion of
+the priest. This is not likely to be altered yet awhile, for, under the
+present system of education and bringing up, the female portion of the
+community is not only not intellectual, but may even be described as
+being unintelligent. They are slovenly, and cannot be described as good
+housewives. They are pleasure-loving and garrulous, though this latter
+trait is not, I suppose, a specially national characteristic. They do
+much hard work, especially in the fields. In the classes above (if
+_above_ be the proper word) the hand-workers, the young girls are still
+kept very strictly, and are not allowed to go out alone. Their knowledge
+of life is limited to the view from the windows of their homes, where
+they may be seen looking out on the street scenes below whenever the
+shade allows them to stand at the window or on the balcony. No "new
+woman" movement of any importance has yet taken place, and though there
+are modifications in woman's position in the national life, it is
+probable that it will take one if not more generations before women in
+Portugal achieve the emancipation which their sisters have attained in
+more progressive countries.
+
+In one circumstance, however, woman does take her place by the side of
+man, and that is in the bull-ring--not, indeed, in the arena, but in
+every part of the amphitheatre, from the worst seats on the sunny side
+to the costly boxes in the shade. She takes as great an interest in the
+bull-fight as the man, and if she does not shout and swear, or fling her
+hat into the ring in her enthusiasm, she delights probably more than the
+man in the beauty of the spectacle, and appreciates almost as fully the
+feats of skill and daring which give such special attraction to the
+national pastime. This is a right royal sport, and as in Portugal the
+horrid cruelty which defaces it in Spain is absent, there is no
+overwhelming reason why the women should not sit and applaud the
+picturesque scene and the exhibitions of pluck and agility shown by the
+performers.
+
+The scene is really magnificent, and the enthusiasm of the audience must
+be witnessed in order to understand the underlying potentialities of the
+Portuguese character. The vile abuse of a bull who will not show fight
+is comical to listen to. Probably, in such a case, the bull has been
+through it all before, and he does not care to make wild rushes at
+cloaks which have nothing substantial behind them. So he paws up the
+sand and looks theatrical, but refuses to budge. Then a nimble
+_bandarilhero_ faces him, and fixes a pair of _bandarilhas_ in his
+neck--one on each side if he can manage it. This is unpleasant, no
+doubt, but the bull's former experience tells him that it is not
+serious, and not even very painful. It was irritating the first time,
+but no well-bred bull should condescend to be upset by such a trifle.
+Another pair of _bandarilhas_, and yet another, are fixed into his
+shoulders by their barbed points--or the attempt is made to fix them.
+Then the bull begins to play the game in a condescending sort of way.
+Then the great man, the _espada_ himself, comes on the scene, and
+arranges and waves his scarlet flag, and walks up to the obstinate
+animal, perhaps flicks him in the nostrils with his pocket-handkerchief
+and calls him _vacca_ (cow)! At last, seemingly out of good nature, the
+bull rushes at the red flag, has the highly decorated dart stuck between
+his shoulders, by the daring _espada_ who may perform some other feat,
+listens to the applause, and laughs to himself when he hears the
+bugle-call and sees the trained oxen rush in with their long bells and
+their attendant herdsmen, and with more or less of a frolicsome air he
+trots out of the arena in their company and, having had his sore
+shoulders attended to, and having had a good feed, chews the cud with a
+pleasant reminiscence of the afternoon's work. It is a mistake not to
+kill the bull, which is not cruel in itself, but which would prevent
+some rather tiresome interludes when a knowing old bull refuses to be
+coaxed into playing his part of the game.
+
+Far different, however, is the scene when a really spirited bull comes
+in with a rush and charges wildly at the brightly attired performers,
+and makes them skip over the barrier, often leaving their cloaks behind
+them. Sometimes the bull skips over too, and then there is a most
+amusing scene, as performers, attendants, and all vault back over the
+barrier into the ring itself. When the _espada_ finally performs his
+courageous feat under such conditions, he obtains such an ovation as his
+skill deserves. Hats of all sorts and shapes are cast to him in the
+arena, which he has to pick up and throw or hand back to the admirers
+who testify their satisfaction in this curious manner. Cigars, also, are
+thrown at the successful bull-fighter's feet, and these he keeps. The
+most famous _espadas_ are all Spaniards, and they all wear the
+traditional dress of their calling. If, on the one hand, there is not
+the thrill of the actual killing of the bull, on the other there are no
+miserable old horses to be ripped up, and no smell of blood. Next to the
+actual bull-fights come the selections of the young bulls from the
+herds, when the members of the Tauromachian Societies exhibit their
+skill, and where many a gay young fellow gets much knocked about in
+exhibiting his agility or the want of it.
+
+Other sports cannot be said to have any marked existence. Dancing is a
+national amusement, and a few of the Anglicised Portuguese go in for
+cricket and lawn-tennis. Cycling, though not unknown, is far from
+common, the roads being, as a rule, much too bad for comfortable or even
+for safe riding.
+
+Local and provincial government leaves much to be desired in Portugal.
+The keeping up of the roads is inconceivably bad. A royal road (_estrada
+real_) is generally the worst of all, and, with such an example before
+them, it is not to be wondered at that local authorities neglect their
+duties in this matter.
+
+"No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want of
+good police regulations." This quotation from Napier might very well be
+written to-day, and extended to include all Portuguese towns. Perhaps it
+is fair to say that it is not so much the regulations that are at fault
+as the incompetence and indifference of each local authority, which
+irresistibly suggest that corruption alone can account for such a mass
+of evil. The administrative machine is elaborate, and ought to be more
+effective. First, there is the district, ruled by the Civil Governor, an
+officer somewhat resembling a French prefect, with its corporate body
+known as the District Commission. There are seventeen districts, which
+are subdivided into two hundred and sixty-two communes. The head of a
+commune is the Administrator, and the corporation is known as the
+Municipal Chamber. The last subdivision is that of the communes into
+parishes, of which there are three thousand seven hundred and
+thirty-five. Each of these has as its head an officer called a
+_regedor_, and occupies the attention of a _junta de parochia_, or
+parish council.
+
+The scavenging, sanitation, watering, paving, and all the other works
+which fall within the sphere of the municipality or local authority are
+defective and neglected. The one bright point, both in Oporto and
+Lisbon, is the care, skill, and attention with which the public gardens
+and squares are tended. The palms, tree-ferns, cacti, and other
+semi-tropical and sub-tropical plants are beautiful in themselves, and
+are arranged and intermingled with other trees and shrubs in a most
+artistic manner. The grass (upon which no one, of course, may walk) is
+kept green by constant watering, and affords a delightful contrast to
+the generally dry and dusty aspect of the city. Another organisation
+which is generally efficient and well conducted is that of the fire
+brigades. The municipal firemen--the _bombeiros_--are often stimulated
+by a healthy rivalry with the volunteer brigades, which are numerous,
+well found, and, as a rule, well managed. The latter are often centres
+of good charitable work outside their actual fire service, and they are
+valuable as offering a fair and worthy opportunity for the display of
+sound public spirit and good feeling.
+
+Though Portuguese laws are, as a rule, admirable in themselves, the
+administration thereof is bad in the extreme, and the judiciary have a
+reputation for turpitude remarkable even amongst the recognised
+corruption of all officials. In Portugal proper there are two judicial
+districts--that of Lisbon and that of Oporto. Each has a high court
+known as a _Relacao_, and there are inferior courts of various styles
+and titles. Above all is the Supreme Tribunal of Justice at Lisbon,
+which is the final court of appeal, and the reputation of which is
+somewhat better than that of any other tribunal. The administration of
+criminal justice is naturally amongst the worst. According to common
+repute, the only consideration with the judges is how they are to get
+the costs paid--whether they are more likely to obtain them through an
+acquittal, which throws them on the prosecutor, or by a conviction.
+Also, it is generally said that the police themselves are recruited from
+amongst the very lowest classes.
+
+The prisons are described as being something awful, only to be equalled
+in Morocco and savage countries. In the market-place of beautiful Cintra
+stands the prison, against the barred windows of which crowd the
+prisoners, begging for money, cigarettes, and food, which are supplied
+to them through the prison bars by their friends and sympathisers, and
+by soft-hearted people. Those who are incarcerated in the upper story
+have baskets, which they lower by means of strings, so that they may be
+supplied in the same manner. This seems to have amused Miss Leck
+(_Iberian Sketches_, Chap. VI.), but it assumes a much more serious
+aspect when one considers that in those filthy dens all the prisoners
+are huddled together--old men and boys, the murderer and the petty
+thief, habitual criminals and unfortunate persons taken into custody on
+mere suspicion, or charged with an alleged breach of some police or
+even railway regulation; for it must be remembered that a station-master
+has nearly the same power as a policeman in taking a person into
+custody. "No one shall be put in prison," says the Portuguese code,
+"except under special circumstances"; but when the exceptions are
+considered, they are found to cover nearly every abuse of authority on
+the part of the pettiest official which can be conceived. Hence, all
+persons are obliged to submit to gross injustice and to a certain amount
+of blackmail if they wish to avoid the noisome experiences of a
+Portuguese gaol.
+
+The Portuguese must be undoubtedly "of a docile and orderly
+disposition," as Napier says, or the crying injustices to which they
+submit with such patience would lead them to revolt; and if this were to
+happen, who could attempt to predict what excesses would be left
+uncommitted by a violent southron mob whose passions had been roused to
+such a pitch of activity? Perhaps _paciencia_ and _amanha_ have their
+utility, and enable the people to bear the ills they have. They can even
+joke and caricature themselves, and though the comic journals are
+neither brilliant nor artistic, they show, at least, that a sense of
+humour is still left in our Lusitanian friends.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+    Academies, 238, 243
+
+    Actors, 242
+
+    Agriculture, 167 _et seq._
+
+    Alfonso XII., 28, 104, 144, 268, 273
+
+    Alfonso XIII., 98, 272
+
+    Amadeo, King, 143
+
+    American War, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Amusements, 111 _et seq._
+
+    Andaluces, 33
+
+    Andalucia, 33
+
+    Apostolic party, 9
+
+    Aragon, 29
+
+    Army, 183 _et seq._
+
+    Art, 236 _et seq._
+
+    Artillery, 187
+
+    Artistic furniture, 176
+
+    Arts and crafts, 175, 176
+
+    Asturian nurses, 27
+
+    Asturias, 26
+
+    Asturias, Princess of, 103, 219
+
+    Austrian kings, 15, 21, 22
+
+    _Autos-da-fe_, 18, 200, 201
+
+
+    Bank of Spain, 265
+
+    Barcelona, 266
+
+    Basque Provinces, 26, 27, 188
+
+    Basques, 28
+
+    Beggars, 226
+
+    Berwick y Alva, Duke of, 184
+
+    Bilbao, 11, 161, 177, 178, 266
+
+    _Boletin de la Camara de Comercio_, 163, 265
+
+    _Bueyes_, 28
+
+    Bull-fighters, 126 _et seq._
+
+    Bulls, 95 _et seq._
+
+    Bureaucracy, 148, 156
+
+
+    _Cabestros_, 95
+
+    Caciqueism, 145, 148 _et seq._
+
+    Caesars, Spanish, 11, 12
+
+    _Camarilla_, 6
+
+    Campoamor, 61
+
+    Canovas del Castillo, 136
+
+    Capital, 174, 175
+
+    Carlos, Don, 7, 9, 10
+
+    Carriages, 88-90
+
+    Casa de Campo, 84, 85
+
+    Castelar, 139 _et seq._
+
+    _Castellano_, 266
+
+    Castile, 31
+
+    Castilians, 11, 25, 32
+
+    Catalans, 25
+
+    Cataluna, 17, 175, 266
+
+    Cats, 79 _et seq._
+
+    Cervantes, 47, 48
+
+    Cervera, Admiral, 47, 190, 193
+
+    _Cesantes_, 145-147
+
+    Characteristics, 38 _et seq._, 260
+
+    Charitable institutions, 227
+
+    Charles III., 22
+
+    Charles V., 14
+
+    Children, 233
+
+    Church, the, 9, 199
+
+    Cigar industry, 177
+
+    Clerical question, 21, 221, 272
+
+    Climate of Madrid, 65 _et seq._
+
+    Climates of Spain, 167, 170
+
+    Cock-fighting, 112
+
+    Colonies, 147
+
+    Commerce, 156 _et seq._
+
+    Concas Palan, 190
+
+    Confessional, 218, 222, 223
+
+    Conscription, 188
+
+    Constitution, 154
+
+    Consumption, 67, 68
+
+    Costume, national, 78, 79
+
+    Courage, 42 _et seq._
+
+    Court, 97 _et seq._
+
+    Cristina, Queen, 9, 98
+
+    Cuba, 147, 195
+
+
+    Dance and song, 113 _et seq._
+
+    Dances, modern, 58, 59
+
+    Dances, national, 112 _et seq._
+
+    Dances, religious, 208
+
+    Daoiz y Valarde, 46
+
+    Democratic feeling, 6, 39
+
+    Dignity, 38
+
+    Donkeys, 90, 92
+
+    _Dos de Mayo_, 45
+
+    Drama, modern, 209, 240 _et seq._
+
+    Dramas, religious, 209-212
+
+    Dress of Spanish women, 62
+
+
+    Echegaray, 241
+
+    Education, 159, 213
+
+    Electra, 219, 242
+
+    Electrical science, 214
+
+    Elephant and bull, 126
+
+    Emperors, Roman, 12
+
+    _Empleomania_, 145, 146, 152
+
+    Engineers, 214
+
+    Espinosa, Monteros de, 102
+
+    Estremadura, 32
+
+    Etiquette of Spanish Court, 100 _et seq._
+
+    Exports, 177
+
+
+    Factories, 175, 176, 266
+
+    Ferdinand and Isabella, 5, 13, 15
+
+    Ferdinand VII., 8, 22
+
+    _Feria_ of Seville, 34
+
+    Fertility of soil, 73
+
+    _Fiestas_, 116, 206
+
+    Flowers, 73
+
+    Folklore, 253 _et seq._
+
+    Ford, 51
+
+    French influence, 173
+
+    Fuente Castellana, 78
+
+    _Fueros_, 10, 28, 188
+
+    _Fueros_ of Aragon, 29
+
+
+    Gala procession, 108, 109
+
+    Galdos, 219, 248
+
+    Galicia, 25, 26
+
+    Gallegos, 26, 87
+
+    Games, national, 111
+
+    Gayangos, 246
+
+    Geographical features, 178
+
+    Gloriosa, La, 10, 262
+
+    Goths, 12, 24
+
+    Government, 142 _et seq._
+
+    Government, local, 153
+
+    Grandes of Spain, 100
+
+    Guitar, 113, 238
+
+
+    Hippodrome, 62
+
+    Horse-racing, 125
+
+    Horses, 91 _et seq._
+
+
+    Iberian rejon, 118
+
+    Iberian unity, 251
+
+    Incas, 18
+
+    Independence, War of, 45
+
+    Industries, 161, 263 _et seq._
+
+    Infantas, 54, 103, 106
+
+    Influence of the Press, 129
+
+    Inquisition, 19, 199, 200, 271
+
+    Irrigated land, 172
+
+    Irrigation, 171 _et seq._
+
+    Isabel II., 6, 53, 107, 207
+
+    Isabel la Catolica, 5, 8, 15, 29, 270
+
+
+    Jaime, Don, 8
+
+    _Jota Aragonesa_, 114
+
+    Jesuits, 199, 213, 217, 218, 220 _et seq._, 272
+
+    Journalists, 130
+
+
+    King Alfonso XIII., 272, 273
+
+    Kings, Austrian, 21, 22
+
+    Kings, Bourbon, 8, 22, 118
+
+
+    Labour, 174
+
+    Lace, 165
+
+    Lagartijo, 122 _et seq._
+
+    Land and people, 1
+
+    Land laws, 173
+
+    Landscape round Madrid, 71, 72
+
+    Land value, 172
+
+    Language, 266 _et seq._
+
+    Literature, modern, 246 _et seq._
+
+
+    Madrazo, 239, 244
+
+    Madrid, modern, 77
+
+    Madrid, old, 77
+
+    _Manana_, 52, 74, 195, 197
+
+    Manners, 40
+
+    Mantilla, 79
+
+    Manufactures, 164, 165, 175 _et seq._
+
+    Manzanares, 83
+
+    Marriage customs, 229 _et seq._
+
+    Medical science, 215
+
+    Meetings, political, 138
+
+    Mendizabal, 9, 23
+
+    Metal work, 176
+
+    Military system, 183 _et seq._
+
+    Mineral wealth, 160 _et seq._
+
+    Montpensier, Duke of, 104 _et seq._
+
+    Moors, 17 _et seq._
+
+    Mules, 90, 188, 255
+
+    Music, 81, 236
+
+
+    Narvaez, 249
+
+    National feeling, 184, 185, 193
+
+    National games, 31
+
+    Navy, 47, 189 _et seq._
+
+    Newspapers, 132 _et seq._
+
+    Nicknames, 106
+
+    _Noche Buena_, 108
+
+
+    Orders, religious, 203, 213, 219, 221, 272
+
+    Ostriches, 85
+
+    Outlook, 260 _et seq._
+
+    Oxen, draught, 94
+
+
+    Pacing horses, 90
+
+    Painters, 239 _et seq._
+
+    Palace Royal, 61
+
+    _Palacioe_, 23
+
+    Pardo Bazan, 251
+
+    Pardo, el, 85
+
+    Parque de Madrid, 71
+
+    _Pasos_, 210
+
+    Passion plays, 209, 212
+
+    Pavia, 140
+
+    _Pavo, pelando el_, 230
+
+    Peasants, 24 _et seq._
+
+    Pelayo, 61
+
+    _Pelota_, 31, 111
+
+    People, 38 _et seq._
+
+    Philip II., 16, 202, 271
+
+    Pigs, 166, 167
+
+    Poetry, 114, 268
+
+    Politeness, national, 39, 40, 51, 52
+
+    Political parties, 7, 134 _et seq._
+
+    Politicians, 50, 135
+
+    _Pollos_ and _pollas_, 88, 89
+
+    Ports and harbours, 178
+
+    Pottery, 175, 176
+
+    Poverty, 226
+
+    Press, 129 _et seq._
+
+    Priesthood, 199, 218
+
+    Prim, 142-144
+
+    Procrastination, 52
+
+    Productive land, 172
+
+    _Pronunciamientos_, 144, 145, 147, 186
+
+    Protestants, 216
+
+    Pyrenees, 25, 30
+
+
+    Queen Cristina, 97, 98, 103
+
+    Queen Mercedes, 97, 106
+
+    _Quemadero_, 20, 201
+
+    Quijote, Don, 48
+
+    Quixotic characteristics, 48
+
+
+    Race, 24
+
+    Railways, 157 _et seq._
+
+    Regent, 9, 98, 145
+
+    Religion, 37, 109, 198 _et seq._
+
+    Republic, 139, 141
+
+    Restoration, 144
+
+    Revolution, 10, 262
+
+    Rice, 161
+
+    Riding, 89
+
+    Roads, 180
+
+    Roman Spain, 11, 12
+
+    Romero Robledo, 136, 137
+
+
+    Sagasta, 151
+
+    _Sala_, 33
+
+    Salic Law, 8, 9
+
+    Schools, 159, 160
+
+    _Seises, los_, 208, 209
+
+    Sericulture, 164
+
+    Serrano, 105
+
+    Sheep, merino, 32, 166
+
+    Shipping, 178
+
+    Silk manufactures, 16, 164
+
+    Silvela, 151
+
+    Smoking, 36, 60
+
+    Society, 55 _et seq._
+
+    Songs, 33, 81, 82, 114, 238
+
+    Songs and dancing, 114
+
+    Spanish-American War, I, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Sugar industry, 168
+
+    Superstitions popular, 102, 205, 233
+
+
+    Teatro Real, 62
+
+    Telegraphic system, 181
+
+    Terror of 1824, 22
+
+    _Tertulia_, 56 _et seq._
+
+    Theatres, 62, 116
+
+    Tobacco, 177
+
+    Toledo, 15
+
+    Toothpicks, 63
+
+    _Toreros_, 121
+
+    _Tribunal de las Aguas_, 34
+
+
+    Universities, 159
+
+    _Usted, de_, 98
+
+
+    Valencia, 34
+
+    Valera, Juan, 61
+
+    _Velo_, 79
+
+    Verse-making, 257
+
+    Virgin, 37, 203
+
+
+    War of Independence, 45 _et seq._
+
+    War, Spanish-American, 1, 192 _et seq._
+
+    Wars, Carlist, 9
+
+    Water, want of, 169
+
+    Wellington, Duke of, 26
+
+    Weyler, General, 186
+
+    Wines, 162 _et seq._
+
+    Women, 53, 62, 229 _et seq._, 249
+
+    Wood-carving, 176
+
+    Woollen manufactures, 164
+
+    Working men, 21, 83, 241, 261
+
+
+    _Zarzuela_, 116
+
+    Zorilla, 122, 252
+
+    _Zortico zorisco_, 115
+
+
+PORTUGUESE LIFE
+
+    Agriculture, 301, 302
+
+    Aloes, 301
+
+    _Amanha_, 280
+
+    Amusements, 296, 302
+
+    Army, 298
+
+    Artisan class, 292
+
+
+    _Bacalhao_, 294
+
+    Bargaining, love of, 287
+
+    Brazilian elements, 287-291
+
+    Bull-fighting, 307 _et seq._
+
+
+    Camoens, 281
+
+    Characteristics, 278 _et seq._, 284, 285
+
+    Charities, 296
+
+    _Chula_, 296
+
+    Cleanliness, 289
+
+    Coimbra, 283
+
+    Costumes, 285, 300
+
+    Customs, 285
+
+
+    Dances, 296
+
+    Decorations and forms of address, 289
+
+
+    Fish, 294
+
+    Fish-girls, 293
+
+    Funerals, 306
+
+
+    Gallegos, 292
+
+    Gallenga, 293
+
+    Government, local, 310
+
+
+    Insects, 290
+
+    Institutions, 298
+
+    Intellectual life, 281
+
+
+    Land and people, 277
+
+    Language, 283
+
+    Laws, 312
+
+    Lisbon, 281
+
+    Londonderry, Lord, 277
+
+
+    Manners and morality, 289
+
+    Medical training, 288
+
+    Military system, 298
+
+    Mineral wealth, 281
+
+    _Moustachios_, ladies', 286
+
+
+    National fare, 294
+
+    Navy, 299
+
+    Newspapers, 284
+
+
+    _Octroi_ duties, 295
+
+    Oporto, 293
+
+    Oxen, 300
+
+
+    Peninsular War, 277
+
+    Police, 311
+
+    Postal service, 284
+
+    Prisons, 313
+
+
+    Religion, 304, 305 _et seq._
+
+
+    Scenery, 285
+
+    Servants, 290
+
+    Society, 286
+
+
+    University, 283
+
+
+    Wages, 292
+
+    Wealth, 292
+
+    Wealth, mineral, 281
+
+    Women, 285, 287, 307
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Our European Neighbours
+
+Edited by WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON
+
+
+    12º. Illustrated. Each, net $1.20
+    By Mail.                     1.30
+
+
+=I.--FRENCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By HANNAH LYNCH.
+
+"Miss Lynch's pages are thoroughly interesting and suggestive. Her
+style, too, is not common. It is marked by vivacity without any drawback
+of looseness, and resembles a stream that runs strongly and evenly
+between walls. It is at once distinguished and useful.... Her five-page
+description (not dramatization) of the grasping Paris landlady is a
+capital piece of work.... Such well finished portraits are frequent in
+Miss Lynch's book, which is small, inexpensive, and of a real
+excellence."--_The London Academy._
+
+"Miss Lynch's book is particularly notable. It is the first of a series
+describing the home and social life of various European peoples--a
+series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is
+frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book
+which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special
+excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her
+continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up
+her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.'
+"--_The Outlook_.
+
+
+=II.--GERMAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By W. H. DAWSON, author of "Germany and the Germans," etc.
+
+"The book is as full of correct, impartial, well-digested, and
+well-presented information as an egg is of meat. One can only recommend
+it heartily and without reserve to all who wish to gain an insight into
+German life. It worthily presents a great nation, now the greatest and
+strongest in Europe."--_Commercial Advertiser_.
+
+
+=III.--RUSSIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, sometime Secretary to H. H. Prince
+Droutskop-Loubetsky (Equerry to H. M. the Emperor of Russia).
+
+"We would recommend this above all other works of its character to those
+seeking a clear general understanding of Russian life, character, and
+conditions, but who have not the leisure or inclination to read more
+voluminous tomes.... It cannot be too highly recommended, for it conveys
+practically all that well-informed people should know of 'Our European
+Neighbours.'"--_Mail and Express._
+
+
+=IV.--DUTCH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By P. M. HOUGH, B.A.
+
+"There is no other book which gives one so clear a picture of actual
+life in the Netherlands at the present date. For its accurate
+presentation of the Dutch situation in art, letters, learning, and
+politics as well as in the round of common life in town and city, this
+book deserves the heartiest praise."--_Evening Post._
+
+"Holland is always interesting, in any line of study. In this work
+its charm is carefully preserved. The sturdy toil of the people,
+their quaint characteristics, their conservative retention of old
+dress and customs, their quiet abstention from taking part in the
+great affairs of the world are clearly reflected in this faithful
+mirror. The illustrations are of a high grade of photographic
+reproductions."--_Washington Post._
+
+
+=V.--SWISS LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By ALFRED T. STORY, author of the "Building of the British Empire," etc.
+
+"We do not know a single compact book on the same subject in which Swiss
+character in all its variety finds so sympathetic and yet thorough
+treatment; the reason of this being that the author has enjoyed
+privileges of unusual intimacy with all classes, which prevented his
+lumping the people as a whole without distinction of racial and cantonal
+feeling."--_Nation._
+
+"There is no phase of the lives of these sturdy republicans, whether
+social or political, which Mr. Story does not touch upon; and an
+abundance of illustrations drawn from unhackneyed subjects adds to the
+value of the book."--_Chicago Dial._
+
+
+=VI.-SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By L. HIGGIN.
+
+"Illuminating in all of its chapters. She writes in thorough sympathy,
+born of long and intimate acquaintance with Spanish people of
+to-day."--_St. Paul Press._
+
+"The author knows her subject thoroughly and has written a most
+admirable volume. She writes with genuine love for the Spaniards, and
+with a sympathetic knowledge of their character and their method of
+life."--_Canada Methodist Review._
+
+
+=VII.--ITALIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By LUIGI VILLARI.
+
+"A most interesting and instructive volume, which presents an intimate
+view of the social habits and manner of thought of the people of which
+it treats."--_Buffalo Express._
+
+"A book full of information, comprehensive and accurate. Its numerous
+attractive illustrations add to its interest and value. We are glad to
+welcome such an addition to an excellent series."--_Syracuse Herald._
+
+
+=VIII.--DANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By JESSIE H. BROCHNER.
+
+"Miss Brochner has written an interesting book on a fascinating subject,
+a book which should arouse an interest in Denmark in those who have not
+been there, and which can make those who know and are attracted by the
+country very homesick to return."--_Commercial Advertiser._
+
+"She has sketched with loving art the simple, yet pure and elevated
+lives of her countrymen, and given the reader an excellent idea of the
+Danes from every point of view."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+
+=IX.--AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By FRANCIS H. E. PALMER, author of "Russian Life in Town and Country,"
+etc.
+
+"No volume in this interesting series seems to us so notable or valuable
+as this on Austro-Hungarian life. Mr. Palmer's long residence in Europe
+and his intimate association with men of mark, especially in their home
+life, has given to him a richness of experience evident on every page of
+the book."--_The Outlook._
+
+"This book cannot be too warmly recommended to those who have not the
+leisure or the spirit to read voluminous tomes of this subject, yet we
+wish a clear general understanding of Austro-Hungarian life."--_Hartford
+Times._
+
+
+=X.--TURKISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By L. M. J. GARNETT.
+
+Miss Garnett, while not altogether ignoring the dark side of life in the
+Empire, portrays more particularly the peaceable life of the people--the
+domestic, industrial, social, and religious life and customs, the
+occupations and recreations, of the numerous and various races within
+the Empire presided over by the Sultan.
+
+"The general tone of the book is that of a careful study, the style is
+flowing, and the matter is presented in a bright, taking way."--_St.
+Paul Press._
+
+"To the average mind the Turk is a little better than a blood-thirsty
+individual with a plurality of wives and a paucity of virtues. To read
+this book is to be pleasantly disillusioned."--_Public Opinion._
+
+
+=XI.--BELGIAN LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER.
+
+"Mr. Boulger has given a plain, straight-forward account of the several
+phases of Belgian Life, the government, the court, the manufacturing
+centers and enterprises, the literature and science, the army, education
+and religion, set forth informingly."--_The Detroit Free Press._
+
+"The book is one of real value conscientiously written, and well
+illustrated by good photographs."--_The Outlook._
+
+
+=XII.--SWEDISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY=
+
+By G. VON HEIDENSTAM.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Spanish Life in Town and Country, by
+L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPANISH LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18053.txt or 18053.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/5/18053/
+
+Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Pilar Somoza and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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