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- float: left; - margin-right: 1em } - -.align-right { clear: right; - float: right; - margin-left: 1em } - -.align-center { margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto } - -div.shrinkwrap { display: table; } - -/* SECTIONS */ - -body { margin: 5% 10% 5% 10% } - -/* compact list items containing just one p */ -li p.pfirst { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } - -.first { margin-top: 0 !important; - text-indent: 0 !important } -.last { margin-bottom: 0 !important } - -span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } -img.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; max-width: 25% } -span.dropspan { font-variant: small-caps } - -.no-page-break { page-break-before: avoid !important } - -/* PAGINATION */ - -@media screen { - .coverpage, .frontispiece, .titlepage, .verso, .dedication, .plainpage - { margin: 10% 0; } - - div.clearpage, div.cleardoublepage - { margin: 10% 0; border: none; border-top: 1px solid gray; } - - .vfill { margin: 5% 10% } -} - -@media print { - div.clearpage { page-break-before: always; padding-top: 10% } - div.cleardoublepage { page-break-before: right; padding-top: 10% } - - .vfill { margin-top: 20% } - h2.title { margin-top: 20% } -} - -</style> -<title>FOUR MONTHS AFOOT IN SPAIN</title> -<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" /> -<meta name="PG.Title" content="Four Months Afoot in Spain" /> -<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" /> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Harry A. Franck" /> -<meta name="DC.Created" content="1911" /> -<meta name="PG.Id" content="40357" /> -<meta name="PG.Released" content="2012-07-27" /> -<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" /> -<meta name="DC.Title" content="Four Months Afoot in Spain" /> - -<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.DCTERMS" /> -<link href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" rel="schema.MARCREL" /> -<meta content="Four Months Afoot in Spain" name="DCTERMS.title" /> -<meta content="spain.rst" name="DCTERMS.source" /> -<meta content="en" scheme="DCTERMS.RFC4646" name="DCTERMS.language" /> -<meta content="2012-07-27T21:32:31.595689+00:00" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" /> -<meta content="Project Gutenberg" name="DCTERMS.publisher" /> -<meta content="Public Domain in the USA." name="DCTERMS.rights" /> -<link href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40357" rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" /> -<meta content="Harry A. Franck" name="DCTERMS.creator" /> -<meta content="2012-07-27" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" /> -<meta content="width=device-width" name="viewport" /> -<meta content="EpubMaker 0.3.19b4 by Marcello Perathoner <webmaster@gutenberg.org>" name="generator" /> -<style type="text/css"> -.pageno { position: absolute; right: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.pageno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.lineno { position: absolute; left: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 } -.lineno:after { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' } -.toc-pageref { float: right } -pre { font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.9em; white-space: pre-wrap } -</style> -</head> -<body> -<div class="document" id="four-months-afoot-in-spain"> -<h1 class="document-title level-1 pfirst title">FOUR MONTHS AFOOT IN SPAIN</h1> - -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="clearpage"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="align-None container language-en noindent pgheader" id="pg-header" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<p class="noindent pfirst">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 <a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a> -included with this eBook or online at -<a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a>.</p> -<p class="noindent pnext"></p> -<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<div class="align-None container noindent white-space-pre-line" id="pg-machine-header"> -<p class="noindent pfirst white-space-pre-line"><span class="white-space-pre-line">Title: Four Months Afoot in Spain<br /> -<br /> -Author: Harry A. Franck<br /> -<br /> -Release Date: July 27, 2012 [EBook #40357]<br /> -<br /> -Language: English<br /> -<br /> -Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p> -</div> -<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line">*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span>FOUR MONTHS AFOOT IN SPAIN</span> ***</p> -<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p> -<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 1em"> -</div> -<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p> -</div> -<div class="align-None container coverpage"> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 49%" id="figure-56"> -<img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-cover.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -Cover</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="align-None container frontispiece"> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 68%" id="figure-57"> -<img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-front.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -Map showing the author's itinerary</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<div class="align-None center container titlepage white-space-pre-line"> -<p class="large pfirst white-space-pre-line">HARRY A. FRANCK</p> -<div class="vspace white-space-pre-line" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst white-space-pre-line x-large">FOUR MONTHS AFOOT<br /> -IN SPAIN</p> -<div class="vspace white-space-pre-line" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="medium pfirst white-space-pre-line">GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC,<br /> -GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK</p> -<div class="vspace white-space-pre-line" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -</div> -<div class="align-None center container verso white-space-pre-line"> -<p class="pfirst small white-space-pre-line">COPYRIGHT 1911, BY THE CENTURY CO. ALL<br /> -RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br /> -AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> -</div> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<div class="align-None container plainpage"> -<p class="center large pfirst">A FOREWORD</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Yet another story of travels in western Europe, -especially one having for its basis the mere -random wanderings of a four-months' absence from -home, may seem almost to call for apology. If so, -it is hereby duly tendered. What befell me on this -vacation jaunt is no story of harrowing adventure, nor -yet a record of the acquisition of new facts. But as -I covered a thousand miles of the Iberian peninsula -on foot, twice that distance by third-class rail, and -am given to mingling with "the masses," it may be -that there have filtered into the following pages some -facts and impressions that will be new to the reader. -Yet it is less to record these that I have written, than -to answer a question that has often been put to me -since my return:</p> -<p class="pnext">"How can a man make such a journey on $172?"</p> -</div> -<p class="left pfirst">THE AUTHOR.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst">CONTENTS</p> -<p class="left medium pnext">CHAPTER</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<ol class="left medium upperroman simple white-space-pre-line"> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#a-tweendecks-journey">A 'Tweendecks Journey</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#footpaths-of-andalusia">Footpaths of Andalusia</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#the-last-foothold-of-the-moor">The Last Foothold of the Moor</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#the-banks-of-the-guadalquivir">The Banks of the Guadalquivir</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#the-torero-at-home">The Torero at Home</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#tramping-northward">Tramping Northward</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#spanish-roads-and-roadsters">Spanish Roads and Roadsters</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#on-the-road-in-la-mancha">On the Road in La Mancha</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#the-trail-of-the-priest">The Trail of the Priest</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#shadows-of-the-philips">Shadows of the Philips</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#crumbling-cities">Crumbling Cities</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#wildest-spain">Wildest Spain</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#the-land-of-the-basque">The Land of the Basque</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#a-descent-into-aragon">A Descent into Aragon</a></p> -</li> -<li class="white-space-pre-line"><p class="first pfirst white-space-pre-line"><a class="reference internal white-space-pre-line" href="#emigrating-homeward">Emigrating Homeward</a></p> -</li> -</ol> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center pfirst x-large" id="a-tweendecks-journey">FOUR MONTHS AFOOT IN SPAIN</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst">CHAPTER I</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">A 'TWEENDECKS JOURNEY</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Not the least of the virtues of the private schools -of New York City is the length of their -summer vacations. It was an evening late in May -that I mounted to my lodgings in Hartley Hall, -rollicksome with the information that I should soon -be free from professional duties a full four months. -Where I preferred to spend that term of freedom -was easily decided. Except for one migratory -"year off," I had not been so long outside a -classroom since my fifth birthday; and it seemed fully -as far back that I had begun to dream of tramping -through Spain. If the desire had in earlier days -battened on mere curiosity, it found more rational -nourishment now in my hope of acquiring greater -fluency in the Spanish tongue, the teaching of which, -with other European languages, was the source of -my livelihood.</p> -<p class="pnext">There was one potent obstacle, however, to my -jubilant planning. When I had set aside the -smallest portion of my savings that could tide me over -the first month of autumn, there was left a stark -one hundred and seventy-two dollars. The briefest -of mathematical calculations demonstrated that such -a sum could cover but scantily one hundred and -twenty days. Yet the blithesome project would not -be put to rout by mere figures. I had been well -schooled at least in the art of spending sparingly; -with a long summer before me I was not averse to -a bit of adventure, even the adventure of falling -penniless in foreign lands. A permanent stranding -was easily averted--I had but to leave in trust a -sum sufficient for repatriation, to be forwarded to -whatever corner of the globe insolvency might -overhaul me. Which, being done, I pocketed in express -checks and cash the remainder of my resources--to-wit, -one hundred and thirty-two dollars--tossed -into a battered suit-case a summer's supply of small -clothes and a thread-bare costume for ship wear, and -set out to discover what portion of the Iberian -peninsula might be surveyed with such equipment.</p> -<p class="pnext">Thus it was that on the morning of June first I -boarded the "L" as usual at One Hundred and -Sixteenth street; but took this time the west side -express instead of the local that screeches off at -Fifty-third into the heart of the city. A serge -suit of an earlier vintage and double-soled oxfords -were the chief articles of my attire, reduced already -to Spanish simplicity except for the fleckless collar -and the cracked derby I had donned for the flight -through exacting Manhattan. As for the suitcase -that rocked against the platform gate as we roared -southward, it was still far from a pedestrian's scrip. -For with the ambitious resolution to rectify during -the long sea voyage before me some of the sins of -omission, I had stuffed into it at the last moment a -dozen classic volumes in Sixth-avenue bindings.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Christ'fer!" croaked the guard.</p> -<p class="pnext">I descended to the street and threaded my way -to the ferry. Across the river Hoboken was -thronged with luggage-laden mankind, swarthy sons -and daughters of toil for the most part; an eddying -stream of which the general trend was toward a -group of steamship docks. With it I was borne into -a vast two-story pier, strewn below with everything -that ships transport across the seas and resounding -above with the voice of an excited multitude. Near -the center of the upper wharf stood an isolated -booth bearing a transient sign-board:</p> -<p class="center medium pnext white-space-pre-line">"SCHNELLDAMPFER.<br /> -PRINZESSIN ----."</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Within, sat a coatless, broad-gauge Teuton, puffing -at a stogie.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Third-class to Gibraltar," I requested, stooping -to peer through the wicket.</p> -<p class="pnext">The German reached mechanically for a pen and -began to fill in a leaf of what looked like a large -check-book. Then he paused and squinted out upon -me:</p> -<p class="pnext">Ah--er--you mean <em class="italics">steerage</em>?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Steerage, mein Herr; to Gibraltar."</p> -<p class="pnext">He signed the blue check and pushed it toward -me, still holding it firmly by one corner.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Thirty dollars and fifty cents," he rumbled.</p> -<p class="pnext">I paid it and, ticket in hand, wormed my way -to the nearer of two gangways. Here I was -repulsed; but at the second, an officer of immaculate -exterior but for two very bleary eyes, tore off a -corner of the blue check and jerked a thumb over -his shoulder toward the steamer behind him. As I -set foot on her deck a seaman sprang up suddenly -from the scuppers and hurled at my chest a tightly -rolled blanket. I caught it without a fumble, having -once dabbled in football, and, spreading it out on a -hatch, disclosed to view a deep tin plate, a huge -cup, a knife, fork and spoon of leaden hue, and a -red card announcing itself as "Buono per una -razione."</p> -<p class="pnext">A hasty inspection of the <em class="italics">Prinzessen</em> ---- -confirmed a suspicion that she would not offer the -advantages of the steamers plying the northern route. -She was a princess indeed, a sailor's princess, such -as he may find who has the stomach to search in the -dives along West street or down on the lower -Bowery. At her launching she had, perhaps, -justified her christening; but long years have passed -since she was degraded to the unfastidious southern -service.</p> -<p class="pnext">The steerage section, congested now with -disheveled Latins and cumbrous bundles, comprised the -forward main deck, bounded on the bow by the -forecastlehead and aft by an iron wall that rose a sheer -eight feet to the first-class promenade, above which -opened the hurricane deck and higher still the -wheelhouse and bridge. This space was further limited -by two large hatchways, covered with tarpaulins, of -which a corner of each was thrown back to disclose -two dark holes like the mouths of a mine. By these -one entered the third-class quarters, of which the -forward was assigned to "single men" and the -other to any species of the human race that does not -fall into that category. I descended the first by a -perpendicular ladder to a dungeon where all but -utter darkness reigned. As my eyes accustomed -themselves to this condition, there grew up about me -row after row of double-decked bunks, heaped with -indistinct shapes. I approached the nearest and -was confronted by two wolfish eyes, then another -pair and another flashed up about me on every side. -My foresighted fellow-passengers, having preëmpted -sleeping-space, were prepared to hold their claims by -force of arms--and baggage.</p> -<p class="pnext">Every berth seemed to be taken. I meandered in -and out among them until in a far corner I found -one empty; but as I laid a hand upon its edge, a -cadaverous youth sprang at me with a plaintive -whine, "E mío! è mío!" I returned to the central -space. A sweater-clad sailor whom I had not made -out before was standing at the edge of an opening -in the deck similar to that above.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Qui non ch' è più," he said; "Giù!"</p> -<p class="pnext">I descended accordingly to a second bridewell -below the water-line and lighted only by a feeble -electric bulb in the ceiling. Here half the bunks were -unoccupied. I chose one athwartships against the -forward bulkhead--a wooden bin containing a -burlap sack of straw--tossed into it blanket and -baggage, and climbed again to daylight and fresh air.</p> -<p class="pnext">At eleven the sepulchral bass of the steamer -sounded, the vast pier, banked with straining faces -and fluttering handkerchiefs, began slowly to recede, -sweeping with it the adjoining city, until all -Hoboken had joined in the flight to the neighboring -hills. We were off. I pitched overboard the -cracked derby and crowded with a half-thousand -others to the rail, eager for the long-anticipated -pleasure of watching the inimitable panorama of -New York grow smaller and smaller and melt away -on the horizon. But we were barely abreast the -Battery when three officers, alleging the -impossibility of checking their human cargo on the open -deck, ordered the entire steerage community below. -When, long after, it came my turn to be released, -my native land was utterly effaced, and the deck was -spattering with a chilling rain before which we -retreated and frittered away the remnant of the day -with amical advances and bachelor banter.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning the scene was transformed. -Almost without exception my fellow-voyagers had -changed from the somber garb of America to the -picturesque comfort of their first landing in the -Western world. The steerage deck, flooded with -sunshine, resembled the <em class="italics">piazza</em> of some Calabrian -city on a day of festival. Women in many-hued -vesture and brilliant <em class="italics">fazzoletti</em> sat in groups on the -hatches, suckling their babes or mirthful over their -knitting. Along the rail lounged men in bag-like -trousers and tight-fitting jackets of velveteen, with -broad scarlet sashes. Jaunty, deep-chested youths -strolled fore and aft angling for glances from -winsome eyes. Unromantic elders squatted in circles -about the deck, screaming over games of mora; in -and out among them all raced sportive bambini. -High up on a winch sat a slender fellow Turkish -fashion, thumbing a zither.</p> -<p class="pnext">Though there was not one beside myself to whom -that tongue was native, English was still the -dominating language. Except for a handful of Greeks, -the entire 'tweendecks company hailed from southern -Italy or her islands. But force of habit or -linguistic pride still gave full sway to the slang-strewn -speech of east New York or the labor camp. There -were not a few who might have expressed themselves -far more clearly in some other medium, yet when I -addressed them in Italian silence was frequently the -response. The new world was still too close astern -to give way to the spell of the old.</p> -<p class="pnext">But it was in their mother tongue that I -exchanged the first confidences with three young men -with whom I passed many an hour during the -journey. The mightiest was Antonio Massarone, a -vociferous giant of twenty, whose scorn was -unbounded for those of his race who had pursued -fortune no further than the over-peopled cities of our -eastern coast. Emigration had carried him to the -mines of Nevada, and it was seldom that he refrained -from patting his garnished waistband when tales of -experience were exchanging. But the time had come -when he must give up his princely wage of three -dollars a day and return for years of drudgery and -drill at as many cents, or forever forfeit the right to -dwell in his native land. When his term was ended -he would again turn westward; before that glad day -comes what a stalwart task confronts certain officers -of the Italian army!</p> -<p class="pnext">Nicolò, too, expected to return. In fact, of all -the steerage community a very few had resolved to -remain at home, and for each of these there were a -score who had emigrated a half-dozen times in the -face of similar resolutions. Nicolò was a bootblack, -proud of his calling and envious of no other. -Already there hovered in his day dreams a three-chair -"parlor" in which his station should be nearest the -door and bordering on the cash-register. Conscription -called him also, but he approached the day of -recruiting light of heart, knowing a man of four -feet nine would be quickly rejected.</p> -<p class="pnext">As for Pietro Scerbo, the last of our quartet, his -home-coming was voluntary, for the family obligation -to the army had already been fulfilled by two older -brothers. Pietro had spent his eighteen months -kneading spaghetti dough in the Bronx at seven -dollars a week; and he physically quaked at the -sarcasm of 'Tonio on the subject of wages. Still he -was by no means returning empty-handed. "To be -sure, I am not rich with gold, like 'Tonio," he -confessed one day, when the miner was out of earshot, -"but I have spent only what I must--two dollars -in the boarding-house, sometimes some clothes, and -in the winter each week six lire to hear Caruso."</p> -<p class="pnext">Thirty dollars a month and the peerless-voiced a -necessity of life! I, too, had been a frequent -"standee" at the Metropolitan, yet had as often -charged myself with being an extravagant young -rascal.</p> -<p class="pnext">The steerage rations on the <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em> were in no -way out of keeping with her general unattractiveness. -Those who kept to their bunks until expelled by the -seaman whose duties included the daily fumigation -of the dungeons, were in no way the losers for being -deprived of the infantile roll and the strange -imitation of coffee that made up the European breakfast. -Sea breezes bring appetite, however, especially on a -faintly rippling ocean, and it was not strange that, -though the dinner-hour came early, even racial -lethargy fled at its announcement. Long before -noon a single jangle of the steward's bell cut short -all morning pastimes and instantly choked the -passages to the lower regions with a clamorous, jocose -struggle of humanity as those on deck dived below -for their meal-hour implements and collided with the -foresighted, fighting their way up the ladders. -Once disentangled, we filed by the mouth of the -culinary cavern under the forecastlehead, to -receive each a ladleful of the particular pièce de -résistance of the day, a half-grown loaf of bread, and -a brimming cupful of red wine. Thus laden, each -squirmed his way through the multitude and made -table of whatever space offered,--on the edge of a -hatch, the drum of a winch, or on the deck itself. -Unvaryingly day by day boiled beef alternated with -pork and beans. Then there was macaroni, not -alternately, nor yet moderately, but ubiquitously, -fourteen days a week; for supper was in no way -different from dinner even in the unearthly hour of its -serving. It was tolerably coarse macaroni, but -otherwise no worse than omnipresent macaroni must -be when boiled by the barrel under the watchful eye -of a rotund, torpescent, bath-fearing, tobacco-loving, -Neapolitan ship's cook. For the wine we were -supremely grateful; not that it was particularly -good wine, but such as it was not even the pirates in -the galley could make it worse.</p> -<p class="pnext">The ensembled climax of this daily extravaganza, -however, had for its setting the steerage -"washroom," an iron cell furnished with two asthmatic -salt-water faucets. To it dashed first the long -experienced in the quick-lunch world, and on their -heels the competing multitude. The 'tweendecks -strongholds housed six hundred, the "wash-room" -six, whence it goes without saying that the minority -was always in power and the majority howling for -admittance and a division of the spoils. Yet -dissension, as is wont, was rampant even among the -sovereign. From within sounded the splashing of -water, the tittering of jostled damsels, or the -shouting for passage of one who had resigned his post -and must run the gauntlet to freedom through a -vociferous raillery. In due time complete rotation -in office was accomplished, but it was ever a late -hour when the last gourmand emerged from the -alleyway and carried his dripping utensils below.</p> -<p class="pnext">The <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em> plowed steadily eastward. Gradually, -as the scent of the old world came stronger to -our nostrils, the tongue of the West fell into disuse. -Had I been innocent of Italian I must soon have lost -all share in the general activities. As it was, I had -the entrée to each group; even the solemn socialists, -seated together behind the winch planning the -details of the portending reversal of society, did not -lower their voices as I passed.</p> -<p class="pnext">How little akin are anticipation and realization! -Ever before on the high seas it had been my part -to labor unceasingly among cattle pens or to bear -the moil of watch and watch; and the unlimited -leisure of the ticketed had seemed always fit object -for envy. Yet here was I myself at last crossing -the Atlantic as a passenger, and weary already of -this forced inactivity before the voyage was well -begun. The first full day, to be sure, had passed -delightfully, dozing care-free in the sun or striding -through the top-most volume in my luggage. But -before the second was ended reading became a bore; -idling more fatiguing than the wielding of a -coal-shovel. On the third, I sauntered down into the -forecastle more than half inclined to suggest to one -of its inmates a reversal of rôles; but the watch -below greeted me with that chill disdain accorded -mere passengers, never once lapsing into the -masculine banter that would have marked my acceptance -as an equal. As a last resort I set off on long -pedestrian tours of the deck, to the astonishment of -the lounging Latins, though now and then some -youth inoculated with the restlessness of the West, -notably 'Tonio, fell in with me for a mile or two.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was the miner, too, who first accepted my -challenge to a bout of hand-wrestling and quickly -brought me undeserved fame by sprawling prone on -his back, when, had he employed a tithe of science, -he might have tossed me into the scuppers. From -the moment of its introduction this exotic pastime -won great popularity. Preliminary jousts filled the -morning hours; toward evening the hatches were -transformed into grandstands from which the -assembled third-class populace cheered on the panting -contestants and greeted each downfall with a -cannonade of laughter, in which even the vanquished -joined.</p> -<p class="pnext">More constant and universal than all else, however, -was the demand for music. The most diffident -possessor of a mouth-organ or a jew's-harp knew -no peace during his waking hours. Great was the -joy when, as dusk was falling on the second day out, -a Calabrian who had won fortune and corpulence -as a grocer in Harlem, clambered on deck, straining -affectionately to his bosom a black box with -megaphone attachment.</p> -<p class="pnext">"E un fonógrafo," he announced proudly; "a -present I take to the old madre at home." He -warded off with his elbows the exultant uprising and -deposited the instrument tenderly on a handkerchief -spread by his wife on a corner of the hatch. "For -a hundred dollars, signori!" he cried; "Madre di -Dío! How she will wonder if there is a little man -in the box! For on the first day, signori, I do not -tell her how the music is put in the fonógrafo, -ha! ha! ha! not for a whole day!"--and the joke came -perilously near to choking him into apoplexy long -before its perpetration.</p> -<p class="pnext">A turn of the key and the apparatus struck up -"La donna è móbile," the strikingly clear tones -floating away on the evening air to blend with the -wash of the sea on our bow. A hush fell over the -forward deck; into the circle of faces illumed by the -swinging ship's lantern crept the mirage of dreams; -a sigh sounded in the black night of the outskirts.</p> -<p class="pnext">"E Bonci, amici," whispered the Calabrian as the -last note died away.</p> -<p class="pnext">The announcement was superfluous; no one else -could have sung the sprightly little lyric with such -perfection.</p> -<p class="pnext">Bits of other operas followed, plantation melodies, -and the monologues of witty Irishmen; but always -the catholic instrument came back to "La donna è -móbile," and one could lean back on one's elbows and -fancy the dapper little tenor standing in person on -the corner of the hatch, pouring out his voice to his -own appreciative people.</p> -<p class="pnext">Thereafter as regularly as the twilight appeared -the Calabrian with his "fonógrafo." The forward -deck took to sleeping by day that the evening -musicale might be prolonged into the small hours. -Whatever its imperfections, the little black box did -much to charm away the monotony of the voyage, -in its early stages.</p> -<p class="pnext">But good fortune is rarely perennial. One night -in mid-Atlantic a first-class passenger of the type -that adds, by contrast, to the attractiveness of the -steerage, his arms about the waists of two damsels -old enough to have known better, paused to hang -over the rail. Bonci was singing. The promenader -surveyed the oblivious multitude below in silence until -the aria ended, then turned on his heel with a snort -of contempt. The maidens giggled, the affectionate -trio strolled aft, and a moment later the cabin -piano was jangling a Broadway favorite. When I -turned my head the Calabrian was closing his instrument.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, amici, no more," he said as protest rose; -"We must not annoy the rich signori up there."</p> -<p class="pnext">Nor could he be moved to open the apparatus -again as long as the voyage lasted.</p> -<p class="pnext">Amid the general merriment of home-coming was -here and there a note of sadness in the caverns of -the <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em>. On a hatch huddled day by day, when, -the sun was high, a family of three, doomed to early -extinction by the white-faced scourge of the north. -Below, it was whispered, lay an actress once famous -in the Italian quarter, matched in a race with death -to her native village. A toil-worn Athenian, on -life's down grade, who had been robbed on the very -eve of sailing of seven years' earnings of pick and -shovel, tramped the deck from dawn to midnight -with sunken head, refusing either food or drink. -Now and again he stepped to the rail to shake his -knotted fist at the western horizon, stretched his arms -on high, and took up again his endless march.</p> -<p class="pnext">Then there were the deported--seven men whose -berths were not far from my own. One had shown -symptoms of trachoma; another bore the mark of a -bullet through one hand; a third was a very -Hercules, whom the port doctors had pronounced -flawless, but who had landed with four dollars less than -the twenty-five required. With this single -exception, however, one could not but praise the judgment -of Ellis Island. The remaining four were dwarfish -Neapolitans, little more than wharf rats; and the -best of Naples bring little that is desirable. Yet -one could not but pity the unpleasing little wretches, -who had risen so far above their environment as to -save money in a place where money is bought dearly, -and whose only reward for years of repression of -every appetite had been a month of misery and -frustration.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Porca di Madonna!" cursed the nearest, pointing -to three small blue scars on his neck; "For -nothing but these your infernal doctors have made me a -beggar!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"On the sea, when it was too late," whined his -companion, "they told me we with red eyes should -not go to New York, but to a city named Canada. -Madre dí Dío! Why did I not take my ticket to this -Canada?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"You will next time?" I hinted.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Next time!" he shrieked, dropping from his -bunk as noiselessly as a cat. "Is there a next time -with a book like that?" He shook in my face the -libretto containing a record of his activities since -birth, lacking which no Italian of the proletariat -may live in peace in his own land nor embark for -another. Across every page was stamped indelibly -the word "deported."</p> -<p class="pnext">"They ruined it, curse them! It's something in -your maledetta American language that tells the -police not to let me go and the agenzia not to sell -me a ticket. My book is destroyed! Sono -scomunicato! And where shall I get the money for this -next time, díceme? To come to America I have -worked nine, ten, sangue della Vergine! how do I -know how many years! Why did I not take the -ticket to this Canada?"</p> -<p class="pnext">On the morning of June seventh we raised the -Azores; at first the dimmest blot on the horizon, a -point or two off the starboard bow, as if the edge -of heaven had been salt-splashed by a turbulent wave. -Excited dispute arose in the throng that quickly -mustered at the rail. All but the nautical-eyed -saw only a cloud, which in a twinkling the hysterical -had pronounced the forerunner of a howling tempest -that was soon to bring to the <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em> the dreaded -<em class="italics">mal di mare</em>, perhaps even ununctioned destruction. -One quaking father drove his family below and -barricaded his corner against the tornado-lashed night -to come.</p> -<p class="pnext">An hour brought reassurance, however, and with -it jubilation as the outpost of the eastern world took -on corporate form. Before sunset we were abreast -the island. An oblong hillside sloped upward to a -cloud-cowled peak. Villages rambled away up -tortuous valleys; here and there the green was dotted -with chalk-white houses and whiter churches. -Higher still the island was mottled with duodecimo -fields of grain, each maturing in its own season; -while far and near brilliant red windmills, less stolid -and thick-set than those of Holland, toiled in the -breeze, not hurriedly but with a deliberate vivacity -befitting the Latin south. Most striking of all was -a scent of profoundest peace that came even to the -passing ship, and a suggestion of eternal summer, -not of burning days and sultry nights, but of early -June in some fairy realm utterly undisturbed by the -clamorous rumble of the outer world.</p> -<p class="pnext">Two smaller islands appeared before the day was -done, one to port so near that we could count the -cottage windows and all but make out the features -of skirt-blown peasant women standing firm-footed -in deep green meadows against a background of -dimming hills. As the night descended, the houses -faded to twinkling lights, now in clusters, now a -stone's-throw one from another, but not once failing -as long as we remained on deck.</p> -<p class="pnext">For two days following the horizon was unbroken. -Then through the morning mists of June tenth rose -Cabo San Vicente, the scowling granite corner-stone -of Europe, every line of its time-scarred features a -defiance to the sea and a menace to the passerby. -Beyond stretched a wrinkled, verdureless plateau, -to all appearances unpeopled, and falling into the -Atlantic in grim, oxide-stained cliffs that here -advanced within hailing distance, there retreated to -the hazy horizon. All through the day the world's -commerce filed past,--water-logged tramps crawling -along the face of the land, whale-like oil tanks -showing only a dorsal fin of funnel and deck-house, -East Indiamen straining Biscayward, and all the -smaller fry of fishermen and coasters. A rumor, -rising no one knew where, promised that early -morning should find us entering the Mediterranean. I -subsidized the services of a fellow-voyager dexterous -with shears and razor and, reduced to a tuft of -forelock, descended once more to the lower dungeon.</p> -<p class="pnext">Long before daylight I was awakened by the -<em class="italics">commissario</em>, or steerage steward, tugging at a leg -of my trousers and screeching in his boyish falsetto, -"Gibiltèrra! Make ready! Gibiltèrra!" It was -no part of the commissario's duties to call -third-class passengers. But ever since the day he had -examined my ticket, the little whisp of a man who -never ceased to regard me with suspicion, as if he -doubted the sanity of a traveler who was bound for -a land that was neither Italy nor America. Of late -he seemed convinced that my professed plan was -merely a ruse to reach Naples without paying full -fare, and he eyed me askance now as I clambered -from my bunk, in his pigwidgeon face a stern -determination that my knavery should not succeed.</p> -<p class="pnext">Supplied with a bucket by a sailor, I climbed on -deck and approached the galley. The cook was -snoring in a corner of his domain; his understudy -was nowhere to be seen. I tip-toed to the hot-water -faucet and was soon below again stripping off my -"ship's clothes," which the obliging seaman, having -bespoken this reward, caught up one by one as they -fell. The splashing of water aroused the encircling -sleepers. Gradually they slid to the deck and -gathered around me, inquiring the details of my -eccentric plan. By the time I was dressed in the best -my suitcase offered, every mortal in the "single" -quarters had come at least once to bid me a dubious -farewell.</p> -<p class="pnext">The commissario returned and led the way in -silence along the deserted promenade to the deck -abaft the cabins. The <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em> lay at anchor. A -half-mile away, across a placid lagoon, towered the -haggard Rock of Gibraltar, a stone-faced city -strewn along its base. About the harbor, glinting -in the slanting sunlight, prowled rowboats, sloops, -and yawls, and sharp-nosed launches. One of the -latter soon swung in against the starboard ladder -and there stepped on deck two men in white -uniforms, who seated themselves without a word at a -table which the commissario produced by some magic -of his own, and fell to spreading out impressive -documents. A glance sufficed to recognize them -Englishmen. At length the older raised his head with an -interrogatory jerk, and the commissario, with the -air of a man taken red-handed in some rascality, -minced forward and laid on the table a great legal -blank with one line scrawled across it.</p> -<p class="pnext">"T 'ird classy maneefesto, signori," he apologized.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Eh!" cried the Englishman. "A steerage passenger -for Gibraltar?"</p> -<p class="pnext">The steward jerked his head backward toward me.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Humph!" said the spokesman, inspecting me -from crown to toe. "Where do you hail from?"</p> -<p class="pnext">Before I could reply there swarmed down the -companionway a host of cabin passengers, in port-of-call -array, whom the Englishman greeted with bared -head and his broadest welcome-to-our-city smile; -then bowed to the launch ladder. As he resumed his -chair I laid my passport before him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"For what purpose do you desire to land in -Gibraltar?" he demanded.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I am bound for Spain--" I began.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Spain!" shouted the Briton, with such emphasis -as if that land lay at the far ends of the earth. -"Indeed! Where are you going from Gibraltar, -and how soon?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Until I get ashore I can hardly say; in a day or -so, at least; to Granada, perhaps, or Málaga."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Out of respect for the American passport," -replied the Englishman grandiloquently, "I am -going to let you land. But see you stick to this -story."</p> -<p class="pnext">I descended to the launch and ten minutes later -landed with my haughty fellow-tourists at a bawling, -tout-lined wharf. An officer peeped into my -handbag, and I sauntered on through a fortress gate -under which a sun-scorched Tommy Atkins marched -unremittingly to and fro. Beyond, opened a -narrow street, paralleling the harbor front and peopled -even at this early hour with a mingling of races that -gave to the scene the aspect of a temperate India, or -a scoured and rebuilt Egypt. Sturdy British -troopers in snug khaki and roof-like tropical -helmets strode past; bare-legged Moors in flowing -<em class="italics">bournous</em> stalked by in the widening streak of sunshine -along the western walls; the tinkle of goat-bells -mingled with the rhythmic cries of their drivers, -offering a cup fresh-drawn to whomever possessed -a copper; now an orange woman hobbled by, chanting -her wares; everywhere flitted swarthy little men -in misfit rags, with small baskets of immense -strawberries which sold for a song to all but the tourists -who tailed out behind me.</p> -<p class="pnext">Suddenly, a furlong beyond the gate, a -signboard flashed down upon me, and I turned -instinctively in at the open door of the "Seaman's -Institute." I found myself in a sort of restaurant, -with here and there a pair of England's soldiers at -table, and a towsled youth of darker tint hanging -over the bar. I commanded ham and eggs; when -they were served the youth dropped into the chair -opposite and, leaning on his elbows, smiled speechlessly -upon me, as if the sight of an unfamiliar face -brought him extraordinary pleasure.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Room to put me up?" I asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Nothin' much else but room," sighed the youth, -in the slurring speech of the Anglo-Spanish -half-cast, "but the super 's not up yet, an' I 'm only -the skittles."</p> -<p class="pnext">I left my baggage in his keeping and, roaming -on through the rapidly warming city to the Alameda -Gardens, clambered away the day on the blistered -face of the great Rock above.</p> -<p class="pnext">The "super," a flabby-muscled tank of an -Englishman, was lolling out the evening among his -clients when I reëntered the Institute. My request -for lodging roused him but momentarily from his -lethargy.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sign off here?" he drawled.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Left the <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em> this morning," I answered, -suddenly reminded that I was no longer a seaman -prepared to produce my discharge-book on demand.</p> -<p class="pnext">"A.B., eh?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Been before the mast on the <em class="italics">Warwickshire</em>, <em class="italics">Glen</em>--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"All right. A bob a night is our tax. But no -smoking aloft," he added, as I dropped a coin on -the table before him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"'Ow ye like Gib?" asked the half-cast, leading -the way up a narrow stairway.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Like it," I replied.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Yes, they all does," he mourned, "for one day. -But 'ow if you 'ad always to bask on the stewin' -old Rock, like a bally lizard? Saint Patrick! If -only some toff 'ud pay me a ticket to America!"</p> -<p class="pnext">He entered a great room, divided by thin wooden -partitions into a score of small ones, and, tramping -down a hallway, lighted me into the last chamber. -Opposite the cot was a tall window with heavy -wooden blinds. I flung them open and leaned out -over the <em class="italics">reja</em>; and all at once, unheralded, the Spain -of my dreams leaped into reality. Below, to one -side, flowed the murmuring stream of Gibraltar's -main thoroughfare; further away the flat-roofed -city descended in moonlit indistinctness into the -Mediterranean. From a high-walled garden a pebble-toss -away and canopied with fragrant fruit-trees, -rose the twang of a guitar and a man's clear voice -singing a languorous air of Andalusia. Now and -again a peal of laughter broke on the night and -drifted away on the wings of the indolent sea-breeze. -I rolled a cigarette and lighted it pensively, not in -contempt for the "super's" orders, but because -some transgression of established law seemed the -only fitting celebration of the untrammeled summer -that was opening before me.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="footpaths-of-andalusia">CHAPTER II</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">FOOTPATHS OF ANDALUSIA</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Gibraltar rises early. Proof of the -assertion may be lacking, but certainly not even a -"Rock lizard" could recompose himself for another -nap after the passing of the crashing military band -that snatched me at daybreak back to the waking -world. With one bound I sprang from cot to -window. But there was no ground for alarm; in -gorge-like Waterport street below, Thomas Atkins, a -regiment strong, was marching briskly barrackward, -sweeping the flotsam of civilian life into the nooks -and crannies of the flanking buildings.</p> -<p class="pnext">According to the Hoyle of travelers a glimpse of -Morocco was next in order. But with the absurdity -of things inanimate and Oriental both the Tangiers -steamers were scheduled to loll out the day in harbor. -When "Skittles" had again stowed away my chattels, -I drifted aimlessly out into the city. But the -old eagerness to tread Spanish soil was soon upon me, -heightened now by the sight of Algeciras gleaming -across the bay. The harbor steamer would have -landed me there a mere peseta poorer. Instead, I -sauntered through the Landport gate and away -along the shifting highway which the Holder of the -Rock has dubbed, in his insular tongue, the "Road -to Spain."</p> -<p class="pnext">It led me past the double rank of sentry boxes -between which soldiers of England tramp everlastingly, -and into bandit-famed La Linea. A Spaniard -in rumpled uniform scowled out upon me from the -first stone hovel, but, finding me empty-handed, as -silently withdrew. I turned westward through the -disjointed town and out upon the curving shore of -the bay.</p> -<p class="pnext">Here was neither highway nor path. Indeed, were -each Spanish minute tagged with a Broadway -price-mark, the peseta would have been dearly saved, for -the apparent proximity of Algeciras had been but a -tricking of the eye. Hour after hour I waded on -through seashore sand, halting now and then in the -shadow of some time-gnawed watch-tower of the -departed Moor, before me such a survey of the -shimmering sea to the very base of the hazy African -coast as amply to justify the setting of an outlook -on this jutting headland.</p> -<p class="pnext">The modern guardian of the coast dwells more -lowly. Every here and there I came upon a bleached -and tattered grass hut just out of reach of the -languid surf, and under it a no less ragged and listless -<em class="italics">carabinero</em> squatted in Arabic pose and tranquillity, -musket within reach, or frankly and audibly asleep -on his back in the sand. Yet his station, too, was -wisely chosen. The watch and ward of to-day is set -for no war-trimmed galley from the rival continent, -but against petty smugglers skulking along the rim -of the bay. Nor could the guard better spend his -day than asleep: his work falls at night.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was the hour of <em class="italics">siesta</em> when I shuffled up a -sandy bank into Algeciras. Except for a cur or two -that slunk with wilted tail across the plaza, the town -lay in sultry repose. I sat down in a shaded corner -of the square. Above me nodded the aged city tower, -housing the far-famed and often-cursed bell of -Algeciras. Recently, which is to say some time -during the past century, it was cracked from rim to -crown; and the city fathers have not yet taken up -the question of its replacement. Meanwhile, it -continues afflictingly faithful to its task. At -quarter-hourly intervals it clanked out across the bay like the -suspended hull of a battleship beaten with the butt -of a cannon, a languid sigh rose over the drowsing -city, and silence settled down anew.</p> -<p class="pnext">As the shadows spread, life revived, slowly and -yawningly at first, then swelling to a contrasting -merry-making that reached its climax toward -midnight in the festooned streets beyond the plaza. -Algeciras was celebrating her annual <em class="italics">feria</em>. -Somewhere I fell in with a carpenter in blouse and hemp -sandals, whose Spanish flowed musically as a -woodland brook, and together we sauntered out the -evening among the lighted booths. The amusement -mongers were toiling lustily. Gypsy and clown, -<em class="italics">bolerina</em>, juggler, and ballad-singer drew each his -little knot of idlers, but a multitude was massed only -around the gambling tables. Here a hubbub of -excited voices assailed the ear; an incessant rain of -coins fell on the green cloth, from the ragged and -the tailored, from quavering crones and little -children. The carpenter dived into the fray with his -only peseta, screaming with excitement as the wheel -stopped on the number he had played. Within an -hour a pocket of his blouse was bulging with silver. -I caught him by the sleeve and shouted a word in his -ear. Wild horses could not have dragged him away, -nor the voices of sirens have distracted his eyes from -the spinning trundle. A half-hour later he did not -possess a copper.</p> -<p class="pnext">"If you had listened," I said, when we had reached -a conversational distance, "you would not have lost -your fortune."</p> -<p class="pnext">"What fortune!" he panted. "All I have lost, -señor, is one peseta, and had an evening of a lifetime."</p> -<p class="pnext">I caught the morning steamer to Gibraltar and an -hour later was pitching across the neck of the -Mediterranean on board the <em class="italics">Gebel Dersa</em>. Third-class -fare to Africa was one peseta; first-class, ten; and -the difference in accommodation about forty feet,--to -wit, the distance from the forward to the afterdeck. -One peseta, indeed, seemed to be the fixed -charge for any service in this corner of the world. -My evening meal, the night's lodging, the boatman's -fee for setting me aboard the steamer had each cost -as much. It would be as easy to quote a fixed -selling-price for mining-stocks as to set the value of that -delusive Spanish coin. The summer's average, -however, was close upon sixteen cents for the peseta, of -which the <em class="italics">céntimo</em> is the hundredth part. There are -at large, be it further noted, a vast number of -home-made pesetas worth just sixteen cents less, which -show great affinity for the stranger's pocket until -such time as he learns to emulate the native and sound -each coin on the stone set into every counter.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was while we were skirting the calcined town of -Tarifa that I made the acquaintance of Aghmed -Shat. The introduction was not of my seeking--but -of the ingratiating ways of Aghmed I need say -nothing, known as he is by every resident of our -land. At least I can recall no fellow-countryman -whose visiting-card he did not dig up from the -abysmal confusion of his inner garments.</p> -<p class="pnext">To that host of admirers it will bring grief to -learn that Aghmed was most unjustly treated aboard -the <em class="italics">Gebel Dersa</em> on that blistering thirteenth day of -June. Yet facts must be reported. It chanced that -the dozen Anglo-Saxons sprawled ungracefully -about the after-deck composed, at such times as -composure was possible, a single party. As all the -world knows, it is for no other purpose than to -offer the protection of his name and learning to just -such defenseless flocks that the high-born Moroccan -gentleman in question has been journeying thrice -weekly to the Rock these thirty years. Yet the -bellwether of the party, blind to his opportunity, had -chosen as guide an ignorant, vile, ugly, utterly -unprincipled rascal whose only motive was mercenary. -True, Aghmed and the rascal were outwardly as -alike as two bogus pesetas. But surely any man -worthy the title of personal conductor should be -versed in the reading of character, or at least able -to distinguish between genuine testimonials from the -world's élite and a parcel of bald forgeries! Worst -of all, the leader, with that stiff-neckedness -congenital to his race, had persisted in his error even -after Aghmed had recounted in full detail the rascal's -crimes. Small wonder there was dejection in the -face of the universally-recommended as he crossed -the pitching plank that connected the first-class with -the baser world, his skirts threshing in the wind, his -turban awry.</p> -<p class="pnext">At sight of me, however, he brightened visibly. -With outstretched hand and a wan smile he minuetted -forward and seated himself on the hatch beside me -with the unobtrusive greeting:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Why for you travel third-class?"</p> -<p class="pnext">The question struck me as superfluous. But it is -as impossible to scowl down Aghmed's spirit of -investigation as to stare him into believing an -American a Spaniard. By the time the valleys of the -African coast had begun to take on individuality, I -had heard not only the full story of his benevolent -life but had refused for the twentieth time his -disinterested offer of protection. Nature, however, made -Aghmed a guardian of his fellow-man, as she has -made other hapless mortals poets; and her commands -must be carried out at whatever sacrifice. Gradually, -slowly, sadly, the "souvenir" which "americano -gentlemen" were accustomed to bestow upon him -with their farewell hand-clasp fell from twenty -shillings to ten, to five, to three, then to as many pesetas. -It was useless to explain that I had trusted to my -own guidance in many an Arab land, and been fully -satisfied with the service. When every other -argument had fallen lifeless at his slippered feet, he sent -forth at regular intervals the sole survivor, cheering -it on with a cloud of acrid cigarette smoke:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Si el señor"--for his hamstrung English had -not far endured the journey--"if the gentleman has -never taken a guide, this will be a new experience."</p> -<p class="pnext">In the end the sole survivor won. What, after all, -is travel but a seeking after new experience? Here, -in truth, was one; and I might find out for myself -whether a full-grown man tagging through the -streets of a foreign city on the heels of a -twaddle-spouting native feels as ridiculous as he looks.</p> -<p class="pnext">We anchored toward noon in the churning harbor -of Tangiers and were soon pitched into the -pandemonium of all that goes to make up an Oriental mob -lying in wait for touring Europeans. In a -twinkling, Aghmed had engaged donkeys to carry us to -the principal hotel. I paused on the outskirts of -the riot to inform him that our sight-seeing would -be afoot; and with a scream of astonishment he reeled -and would, perhaps, have fallen had not the street -been paved in that which would have made such -stage-business unpleasant.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Pero, señor!" he gasped. "You do not--you--why, -people will say you have no money!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Horrible!" I cried, dodging a slaughtered sheep -on the head of a black urchin in scanty night-shirt -that dashed suddenly out of a slit between two -buildings. Aghmed, myopic with excitement, failed to -side-step, and it was some distance beyond that his -wail again fell on my ear:</p> -<p class="pnext">"O señor! Americano gentlemen never go by this -street. I cannot guide without donkeys--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"You can perhaps run along home to dinner?" I -suggested; but he merely fell silent and pattered on -at my heels, now and again heaving a plaintive sigh.</p> -<p class="pnext">For the better part of the day we roamed in and -out through the tangled city. In the confusion of -donkeys, bare legs, and immodesty, the narcotic -smell of hashish, the sound of the harsh guttural -tongue once so familiar, memories of more distant -Mohammedan lands surged upon me. Yet by -comparison Tangiers seemed only a faded segment of -the swarming Arab world set aside to overawe -European tourists, Arabic enough in its way, but -only a little, mild-mannered sample.</p> -<p class="pnext">Late in the afternoon I rounded the beach and, -falling upon the highway to Fez, strolled away out -of sight and sound of the seaport. Aghmed still -languished at my heels. To him also the day had -brought a new experience. As we leaned back -against a grassy slope to watch the setting of the -red sun, he broke a long hour's silence.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," he said, "never have I walked so much. -When we had come to the Socco I was tired. When -we had seen all the city my legs were as two stone -pillars. Yet I must keep walking."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Why?" I asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Because you must be protected! Ah, señor, you -do not know how dangerous is Tangiers; and here in -the country alone you would before now be dead, or -carried off by bandits. Perhaps this much walking -will make me sick. Or if I have been seen by my -friends or a gentleman tourist! Allah meskeen! -They will say I am no longer a gentleman guide, but -a donkey boy."</p> -<p class="pnext">When her night traffic had taken on its wonted -swing, my stone-legged protector called at the inn -for the purpose of proving that the far-famed -naughtiness of his city was no mere conceit. The -demonstration was not convincing. Two hours or -more we ambled from wineshop to <em class="italics">café cantante</em>, -enduring a deal of caterwauling and inane vulgarity -by no means superior to a Friday-night performance -on the Bowery. The relieving shepherd's crook, -moreover, being nowhere in evidence, I fled the -torture and retired to bed.</p> -<p class="pnext">To my infinite relief, Aghmed was on hand in full -health next morning to bid me farewell at the end -of the pier and to receive his specified "souvenir." He -was profuse, too, with the hope that I might soon -revisit his land; but I caught no hint of a desire to -add my card to his collection.</p> -<p class="pnext">The steamer plowed her way back to Europe, and -by mid-afternoon I emerged from the Sailor's -Institute face to face with a serious problem. The most -patient of men, which I am not, would hardly set off -on a tramp across the Iberian peninsula carrying a -forty-pound suitcase, even of unread classics. To -have dumped the books in the first alleyway would -have been easy, yet painful, for there runs a strain -of Scotch in my veins. I dropped in on the nearest -bookseller to inquire whether he could see his way -clear to accept at a bargain a batch of novels newly -imported from New York. But the eager glow -quickly faded from his features as I laid the volumes -before him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Why, sir!" he cried. "These be <em class="italics">old</em> books, out -of date. I thought had you something New York -is reading this summer--"</p> -<p class="pnext">In which attitude his two rivals also dismissed me, -even though I sought the good will of the last by -squandering the bulk of a bright gold sovereign for -Baedeker's "Spain." As I turned down to the -harbor, a thought, or more exactly the sight of a -sergeant's uniform under the fortress gate, struck me. -The wearer stiffened like a ramrod when I halted -before him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Have you a library in the barracks?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah--certainly, garrison library. But I hardly -fawncy the commander would allow--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Of course not," I interrupted, tossing the books -into his arms; "but I am off for Spain and if you -have any use for a few novels--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah--er--well, thank you most kindly, sir!" -bawled the officer after me.</p> -<p class="pnext">Though the fact may never be called to his -attention, the sergeant had heard the last phrase of -English that passed my lips in many a week. As a -personal experiment I had resolved not to speak a word -of my native tongue within the kingdom of Spain, -even to myself; though this latter proviso, to be sure, -necessitated the early acquisition of a few Spanish -terms of double voltage.</p> -<p class="pnext">The forerunner of evening was descending upon -Algeciras as I mounted through her now all but -voiceless fiesta and struck away over a grass-patched -hillock. The further slope was skirted by a dusty -highway that wound off through a billowy country -pregnant with the promise of greater heights to -come. But the trend of the road was west rather -than north. Over the hills ahead two male voices -were bawling a sort of dialogue of song. I mended -my pace and had soon overtaken two peasants -rollicking homeward from the festival. When I inquired -if this were the highway to Madrid they fell suddenly -silent, after a word of greeting, and strode along -beside me exchanging puzzled glances.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Well, then, to Honda, señores?" I asked. "Poresta -carretera?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, no, señor!" they answered quickly. "Por -aquí no! You must go on the railroad."</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, I am traveling on foot."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Perfectamente, señor; and to walk to Honda you -must take the railroad."</p> -<p class="pnext">There was nothing in the mien of either to suggest -the practical joker. Yet so far as my experience -carried there was not a corner of Europe where two -steps on the right of way was rated less a crime than -arson or housebreaking.</p> -<p class="pnext">We reached the line not far beyond, the highway -diving under by a stone-faced cutting and bearing the -peasants away with it. Over the next rise their -dove-tailed duet rang out again and, melting in volume -and rendered almost musical by distance, filtered back -to me from the deepening valleys a full quarter-hour -longer.</p> -<p class="pnext">I climbed the embankment not without misgiving. -Sure enough, a track there was, beside the -broad-gauge rails, covered with cinders and scarred with -many imprints of donkey hoofs. A mile along it -demonstrated how poor a walking kit is even a -half-empty suitcase. I sat down to take stock of the -contents. In the jumble was a blue flannel shirt past -its prime. I fished out thread and needle and sewed -a Jack-Tar seam across the garment below the -armpits, amputated sleeves and shoulders with a few, -slashes, and behold! a knapsack that might bear my -burdens through all the kingdom of Spain, and hold -its own in any gathering of shoulder-packed -wayfarers. When I had stuffed my possessions into it -there was still room to spare for such odds and ends -as find their way into the baggage of the least -acquisitive of travelers. Then pitching the suitcase -spread-eagle over the bordering hedge, I cut a stick -in a neighboring thicket and struck off again at the -regular stride so indispensable to any true enjoyment -of tramping.</p> -<p class="pnext">Night fell soon after. A fall it was indeed; no -half-hearted settling down of gloom as in our -northern zone, but a descendant flood of obscurity that -left the eyes blinking in dismay. To right and left, -where had been rolling uplands and heathered fields -sharp-cut in smallest detail, nothing--a sea of inky -blackness; and ahead, the stony-blind unknown. -The cinder path held firm, but only a foot rubbing -along the rail guided my steps, until such time as -sight resumed its leadership.</p> -<p class="pnext">An hour or more I marched on into the summer -night. Then out of the darkness ahead stole a feeble -point of light, an increasing murmur of human -voices, and the end of the first day's tramp was before -me. Beside the way a stone building stood open, an -oil torch twilighting a cobble-floored room heaped -at one end with a Spanish grocer's wares. An -unshaven man of fifty, a red handkerchief bound -brigand-fashion about his head, bulked forward -through an inner doorway.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You furnish lodgings?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sí, señor; and your burro?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"I am walking. Is supper to be had?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Claro, hombre! Choose from the baskets and -the señora shall cook it for you in a twinkling."</p> -<p class="pnext">All through the following day the path continued -parasitic to the railway. The roadbed was thickly -covered with crushed stone, with nowhere a hint of -the existence of section-gangs. On either hand -rolled away a landscape stamped with the features -of an African ancestry, all but concealed at times -by the cactus-trees of a willow's height that hedged -the track. At rare intervals a stuccoed station -serving some hamlet hidden among the hills found -standing-room on the right of way. An occasional hovel -built of field stones frowned down from the crest of -a parched hillock. Now and again out of the -meeting-place of the rails ahead came jogging a peasant -seated sidewise on an ass, to swerve suddenly aside -and rattle off down a rocky gorge, singing a -high-pitched ballad of Arabic cadence. But these were -but bubbles on the surface of a fathomless solitude, -though a solitude brilliant with an all-invading -sunshine that left no skulking-place for somber moods.</p> -<p class="pnext">It turned out that the railroad had not been built -for the exclusive convenience of pedestrians and -donkeys. A bit before noon a rumbling arose out -of the north, and no unconscionable time thereafter -the daily "expreso" roared by--at a rate close -upon fifteen miles an hour. The ticket collector, -cigarette in mouth, clambered hand over hand along -the running board, in imminent peril of losing his -footing--and being obliged to pursue his train to -the next station. During the afternoon there passed -two "mixtos," toy freight trains with a caudal -carload of passengers. But the speed of these was more -reasonable, varying from six to eight miles, with -vacations at each station and frequent holidays in the -open country.</p> -<p class="pnext">The sun was still an hour high when I reached the -station of San Pablo. This time the town itself -stood in plain sight, pitched on the summit of an -oak-grown hill barely a mile from the line. I -plunged quickly down into the intervening valley.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was a checker-board place, perhaps only a -century or two old; certainly no relic of the Moor, for -there was not a sign of shop or market in all its -extent. Only in the last street did I catch sight of one -of its inhabitants, dining in solitary state in the -center of a bare room. He stared at me a long -moment when I halted before the immense open window -to inquire for an inn.</p> -<p class="pnext">"San Pablo, señor," he answered at last, "is a -private town owned by the mining company. There -is no inn."</p> -<p class="pnext">I was turning away when he continued:</p> -<p class="pnext">"But step inside and we shall see what the ama -can arrange for you."</p> -<p class="pnext">He was, as I had guessed, a Frenchman, an expert -employed in the mines. The Spanish, however, in -which he addressed the <em class="italics">ama</em> was faultless.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah, Don Victor!" protested that matron, "How -can I give posada, having no license from the -government? And without the permission of Don José--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Pepete," said the Gaul to an urchin peering in -upon us, "ask Don José to have the goodness to step -over. He is manager of the mines," he continued, -"and so alcalde and potentate of San Pablo."</p> -<p class="pnext">It would have been a misfortune, indeed, to have -journeyed through Andalusia without making the -acquaintance of Don José. He burst in upon us a -moment later; a very hippopotamus of a man, -dressed in baggy trousers, slouch hat, and alpaca -jacket. Unfortunately his arrival coincided with -my announcement that I was walking to Córdoba--the -whole itinerary would have been too strong meat -for Latin consumption--and his native geniality -was for a time overshadowed by astonishment at my -extraordinary means of locomotion. I had all but -finished the meal set for me in an adjoining room -when the pair entered and sat down beside me.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," began the manager, in what was meant to -be a whisper, "you cannot walk to Córdoba. It is -forty leagues."</p> -<p class="pnext">"How much money have you?" put in the Frenchman.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Er--I have something over seven pesetas," I answered.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Bueno! Bonísima!" cried the alcalde, patting -me on the shoulder. "Don Victor and I will add the -rest and I shall go with you to the station to buy -the ticket--in the morning."</p> -<p class="pnext">Great, I reflected, is the infant mortality among -generous resolutions in the gray of dawn, and -accordingly held my peace.</p> -<p class="pnext">Having settled my future to his own satisfaction, -Don José linked an arm in one of mine and plunged -out into the night.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Your bed is waiting for you in your own house," -he said with Spanish formality. "You have only to -say the word."</p> -<p class="pnext">The first syllable of which I had not found time to -say before we marched full front into San Pablo's -barrack-like café. A roar of greeting sounded -through the dense cloud of cigarette smoke: "Buenas -tardes! Don José!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Buenas, amigos! Que le gusta!" returned my -companion, and pushing toward a table with two -vacant chairs he continued without a break, "Un -ponche, Don Gregario! And you, señor? Anything -you may choose, though there is nothing equal -to ponche. Verdad, Rufo?" Then as I opened my -lips to express a preference, "Sí! sí! Don Gregario! -Dos ponches!"</p> -<p class="pnext">The room was filled with a hundred bronze-tinted -miners over wine and cards. Don José was the -industrial autocrat of every man present, yet one would -have fancied him rather a brother or cousin, so free -was the intercourse from haughtiness on the one -hand and servility on the other. Miner and -manager addressed each other by their given names, -shouted at each other in friendly dispute, thumped -each other fraternally on the back. Despite all which -one felt absolute assurance that when labor again -caught up its pick the manager's word would -command instant obedience.</p> -<p class="pnext">The landlord, flushed with the exertion of their -concoction, soon set the incomparable beverages -before us. With the alacrity of a man who will have -no shadow of debt hanging over his head, Don José -thrust a hand into a pocket of his alpaca and cast -on the table three mammoth coppers, the combined -value of which was close upon five cents. With the -first sip he rolled a cigarette and pushed pouch and -papers toward me. Then having introduced me as -"Señor Newyorkano," he plunged headlong into the -story of my life, addressing not merely the -assembled miners but whomever else may have been -prowling within gunshot of the building. "And to -think, amigos," he concluded, "after crossing all -the sea el señor should have wandered into San Pablo -looking for a posada!"</p> -<p class="pnext">The company beat their hands on the tables and -howled with merriment. Whatever the uproarious -humor of that climax to my adventures, it lost -nothing of its poignancy as long as the evening lasted, -and served to top off a score of otherwise pointless -tales.</p> -<p class="pnext">My ignorance of the Andalusian game notwithstanding, -I had soon taken a hand. The alcalde, consuming -uncounted cigarettes, beamed over my shoulder -shouting praise of my sagacity each time I cast -on the table the card he pointed out. As for -"ponche," what the peerless libation lacked in favor -with the masses it gained in the unswerving fidelity of -its sponsor. With clock-like regularity his -reverberating voice rang out above the din of revelry: "Don -Gregario, un ponche!" In vain did I announce my -thirst permanently abated, in vain did I "say the -word" or strive at least to take advantage of the -free choice offered me. My protest was invariably -drowned in the roar of the amended order: "Sí, sí! -Dos ponches, Don Gregario!"</p> -<p class="pnext">Evening rolled into night, night into morning, and -still the clank of copper coins continued. Once I -attempted to forestall the diving into that fathomless -alpaca by thrusting a hand into my own pocket. -My unquenchable host started to his feet with a -bellow that seemed to set the very walls vibrating:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Strangers, señor, cannot spend money in San -Pablo! We are a private town!"</p> -<p class="pnext">The minute hand was nearing the completion of -its third lap when a general uprising, subtly -instigated by the landlord, swept the carousers into the -coal-black night. "My house" was no such regal -mansion as befitted an industrial sovereign, an alcalde, -and a man of unlimited coppers rolled into one. It -was different, to be sure, from the other bare stone -dwellings of San Pablo, but only in the wild bachelor -disorder that reigned within its four naked walls. -In one corner was a mountainous husk mattress. Its -mate, alleged my host, lay somewhere buried in the -jumble; and he verified the assertion not long after -by dragging it forth. While he was booting this -into some resemblance to a bed, I kicked off my shoes -and sank into profound slumber.</p> -<p class="pnext">Don José, too, awoke at sunrise. His generosity, -however, was but a shadow of its former self. On -the descent from the town he listened to my objections -to the proposed charity without once proffering -a reply. In the depth of the valley he halted and -stared gloomily up at the steep, sun-glazed path to -the station observing that Providence after all is -the appointed guardian of the foolhardy. I thrust -out a hand. He shook it dejectedly and, bidding -me go with God and remember there is no drink equal -to ponche, set out to clamber his way back to the -village.</p> -<p class="pnext">Beyond the curve that swept San Pablo into the -past a stream brawled down out of the hills. I -climbed a little way up the gorge and came upon a -tumbled boulder that had stored up a pool of just -the depth for a morning plunge. Further on the -railway grew more winding with every mile. The -hills increased to mountain spurs, and soon after -came the mountains themselves, the parched and -rock-tumbled Sierra de Honda, fertile only with the -memory of smugglers and intricate pathways. The -route led through many long, sombrous tunnels, -entrance into which from the blazing sunshine was like -the diving into a mountain lake. Where the -burrowings ended, the line became still more circuitous, -leaping over abysmal, jagged gulleys by massive -dry bridges.</p> -<p class="pnext">I fasted all the day; for it was Sunday, and the -few station buildings that appeared were deserted. -Yet the privation passed almost unnoticed. Were -a choice to be made I would willingly sacrifice any -day's dinner for the unfailing sunshine of Spain, -reinforced by the pleasure of knowing that with the -new dawn another unclouded day will begin.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-58"> -<span id="a-moorish-gate-of-ronda"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-048a.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -A Moorish gate of Ronda</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">My night's halt was beneath swaying palm-trees.</p> -<p class="pnext">Down through a ravine beside the track were -scattered a few rambling houses, in one of which I found -accommodations. Its owner was a peasant, battered -with years, who sat before his dwelling smoking in -the cool of evening with his three sons. One of -these was a <em class="italics">guardia civil</em> who had seen all the -provinces of Spain, and whose language in consequence -was Spanish. His brothers, on the other hand, -spoke the crabbed dialect of Andalusia. I caught -the sense of most of their remarks only at the third -or forth repetition, to their ever-increasing astonishment.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-59"> -<img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-048b.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -A gitana of Granada. In the district of the Alhambra.</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">"Hermano," interrupted the guardia once, "you -know you do not speak Spanish?"</p> -<p class="pnext">The speaker fell silent and listened for some time -open-mouthed to his brother in uniform.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Caracoles!" he cried suddenly. "I speak no -other tongue than you, brother, except for the fine -words you have picked up at las Cortes!"</p> -<p class="pnext">Which was exactly the difficulty. The "fine" -words were of pure Castilian, for which the rural -andaluz substitutes terms left behind by the Moor. -Furthermore his speech is guttural, explosive, -slovenly, more redolent of Arabic than of Spanish. He -is particularly prone to slight the S. His version -of "estes señores" is "ete señore." Which is -comprehensible; but how shall the stranger guess that -"cotóa e' l' jutí'a" is meant to convey the -information that "la justicia es costosa?"</p> -<p class="pnext">My evening meal consisted of a <em class="italics">gazpacho</em>, olives, -eggs, cherries, blood-dripping pomegranates, a rich -brown bread, and wine; my couch of a straw -mattress in a corner of the great kitchen--and my -reckoning was barely twelve cents.</p> -<p class="pnext">Afoot with the dawn, I had soon entered the vast -cork forest that covers all the northern slope of the -sierra. Wherever a siding offered, stood long rows -of open freight cars piled high with bales of the -spongy bark; the morning "mixto" hobbled by -bearing southward material seemingly sufficient to -stop all the bottles in Christendom.</p> -<p class="pnext">By rail Ronda was still a long day distant--but -not afoot. Before the morning was old I came upon -the beginning of the short-cut which my hosts of -the night had described. It straggled uncertainly -upward for a time across a rolling sandy country -knobbed with tufts of withered grass and overspread -with mammoth cork-trees, some still unbarked, some -standing stark naked in the blistering sun. Then all -at once, path, sand and vegetation ceased, and above -me stretched to the very heavens the grilling face of -a bare rock. I mounted zigzagging, as up the slate -roof of some gigantic church, swathed in a heat that -burned through the very soles of my shoes. A mile -up, two guardias civiles emerged suddenly from a -fissure, the sun glinting on their muskets and polished -black three-cornered hats. Here, then, of all places, -was to be my first meeting with these officious -fellows, whose inquisitiveness was reported the chief -drawback to a tramp in Spain. But they greeted -me with truly Spanish politeness, even cordiality. -Only casually, when we had chatted a bit, as is wont -among travelers meeting on the road, did one of them -suggest:</p> -<p class="pnext">"You carry, no doubt, señor, your personal papers?"</p> -<p class="pnext">I dived into my shirt--my knapsack, and drew -out my passport. The officers admired it a moment -side by side without making so bold as to touch it, -thanked me for privilege, raised a forefinger to their -hats, and stalked on down the broiling rock.</p> -<p class="pnext">A full hour higher I brought up against a sheer -precipice. Of the town that must be near there was -still not a trace. For some time longer I marched -along the foot of the cliff, swinging half round a -circle and always mounting. Then all at once the -impregnable wall gave way, a hundred white stone -houses burst simultaneously on my sight, and I -entered a city seething in the heat of noonday.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="the-last-foothold-of-the-moor">CHAPTER III</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">THE LAST FOOTHOLD OF THE MOOR</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Ronda crouches on the bald summit of a rock -so mighty that one can easily fancy it the -broken base of some pillar that once upheld the -sky. Nature seems here to have established -division of labor. The gigantic rock bearing aloft the -city sustains of itself not a sprig of vegetation. -Below, so far below that Ronda dares even in -summer to fling down unburied the mutilated carcasses -from her bullring, spreads the encircling <em class="italics">vega</em>, -producing liberally for the multitude above, but -granting foothold scarcely to a peasant's hovel. Beyond -and round about stretches the sierra, having for its -task to shelter the city against prowling storms and -to enrich the souls of her inhabitants with its rugged -grandeur.</p> -<p class="pnext">Travelers come to Ronda chiefly to gaze elsewhere. -As an outlook upon the world she is well worth the -coming; as a city she is almost monotonous, with her -squat, white-washed houses sweltering in the -omnivorous sunshine. Her only "sight" is the <em class="italics">Tajo</em>, -the "gash" in the living rock like the mark of some -powerful woodman's ax in the top of a tree-stump. -A stork-legged bridge spans it, linking two unequal -sections of the town, which without this must be utter -strangers. A stream trickles along its bottom, how -deep down one recognizes only when he has noted -how like toy buildings are the grist-mills that squat -beside it pilfering their power.</p> -<p class="pnext">Elsewhere within the town the eyes wander away -to the enclosing mountains. The wonder is not that -her inhabitants are dreamy-eyed; rather that they -succeed at intervals in shaking off the spell of -nature's setting to play their rôles in life's prosaic -drama. As for myself, I rambled through her -piping streets for half the afternoon because she is -Spanish, and because my supply of currency was -falling low. Ronda boasts no bank. Her chief -dry-goods merchant, however--by what right my -informant could not guess--boasts himself a banker. -I found the amateur financier at home, which chanced -to be distant the height of one short stairway from -his place of business. When I had chatted an hour -or two with his clerks, the good man himself -appeared, rosy with the exertions of the siesta, and -examined the ten-dollar check with many expressions of -gratitude for the opportunity.</p> -<p class="pnext">"We shall take pleasure," he said, "in liquidating -this obligation. You will, of course, bring persons of -my acquaintance to establish your identity, como es -costumbre in large financial transactions?"</p> -<p class="pnext">I had never so fully realized how convincing was -my command of Spanish as when I had succeeded -within an hour in convincing this bond-slave of -"costumbre" that express-checks are designed to -avoid just this difficulty. He expressed a desire to -examine the document more thoroughly and retired -with it to the depths of his establishment. Toward -evening he returned with pen and ink-horn.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I accept the obligation," he announced, "and -shall pay you fifty-seven pesetas, according to -yesterday's quotation on the Borsa. But I find I have -such a sum on hand only in coppers."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Which would weigh," I murmured, after the -necessary calculation, "something over thirty -pounds. You will permit me, señor, to express my -deep gratitude--and to worry along for the time -being with the money in pocket."</p> -<p class="pnext">Travelers who arraign Honda for lack of creature -comforts can never have been assigned the quarters -a peseta won me for the night in the "Parador de -Vista Hermosa." The room was a house in itself, -peculiarly clean and home-like, and furnished not -only with the necessities of bed, chairs, and -taper-lighted effigy of the Virgin, but with table, -washstand, and even a bar of soap, the first I had seen -in the land except that in my own knapsack. When -the sun had fallen powerless behind the sierra, I -drew the green reed shade and found before my -window a little <em class="italics">rejaed</em> balcony hanging so directly -over the Tajo that the butt of a cigarette fell -whirling down, down to the very bottom of the gorge. -I dragged a chair out into the dusk and sat smoking -beneath the star-sprinkled sky long past a pedestrian's -bedtime, the unbroken music of the Guadalvin far -below ascending to mingle with the murmur of the -strolling city.</p> -<p class="pnext">To the north of Ronda begins a highway that -goes down through a country as arid and -rock-strewn as the anti-Lebanon. Here, too, is much of -the Arab's contempt for roads. Donkeys bearing -singing men tripped by along hard-beaten paths just -far enough off the public way to be no part of it. -Now and again donkey and trail rambled away -independently over the thirsty hills, perhaps to return -an hour beyond, more often to be swallowed up in -the unknown. The untraveled carretera lay inches -deep in fine white dust. Far and near the landscape -was touched only with a few slight patches of -viridity. The solitary tree under which I tossed -through an hour of siesta cast the stringy, wavering -shade of a bean-pole.</p> -<p class="pnext">Sharp-eyed with appetite, I came near, nevertheless, -to passing unseen early in the afternoon a -village hidden in plain sight along the flank of a -reddish, barren hill. In this, too, Andalusia resembles -Asia Minor; her hamlets are so often of the same -colored or colorless rocks as the hills on which they -are built as frequently to escape the eye. I forded -a bone-dry brook and climbed into the tumbled -<em class="italics">pueblo</em>. Toward the end of the principal lack of a -street one of the crumbling hovel-fronts was scrawled -in faded red, with the Spaniard's innocent -indistinction between the second and twenty-second letters -of the alphabet:</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 53%" id="figure-60"> -<span id="aqui-se-bende-bino"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-056.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -Aqui se bende bino</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Once admitted to the sleepy interior, I regaled -myself on bread, cheese, and "bino" and scrambled back -to the highway. It wandered more and more erratically, -slinking often around hills that a bit of -exertion would have surmounted. I recalled the -independence of the donkeys and, picking up a path at -an elbow of the route, struck off across the rugged -country.</p> -<p class="pnext">But there is sound truth, as in all his venerable if -somewhat baggy-kneed proverbs, in the Spaniard's -assertion that "no hay atajo sin trabajo." In this -short-cut there was work and to spare. As long as -the day lasted the way continued stiff and stony, -ceaselessly mounting or descending, with never a -level of breathing-space breadth nor a moment's -respite from the rampant sunshine. A few times I -stumbled upon an inhabited heap of stones in a fold -of the hills. Man, at least fully clothed, seemed -never before to have strayed thus far afield. From -each hutch poured forth a shaggy fellow with his -draggled mate and a flock of half-naked children, -all to stare speechlessly after me as long as the crown -of my hat remained in sight.</p> -<p class="pnext">The highway had deserted me entirely. As darkness -came on, the dimming outline of the cragged -hills rising on either hand carried the thoughts more -than ever back to the savage, Bedouin-skulking -solitudes of Asia Minor. Long after these, too, had -blended into the night I stumbled on. At length -there fell on my ear the distant dismal howling of -dogs. I pressed forward, and when the sound had -grown to a discordant uproar plunged, stick in hand, -into a chaos of buildings jumbled together on a rocky -ridge,--the village of Peñarruria.</p> -<p class="pnext">The twisting, shoulder-broad channels between the -predelugian hovels were strewn with cobblestones, no -two of equal size or height, but all polished icy -smooth. I sprawled and skated among them, a prey -to embarrassment for my clumsiness, until my -confusion was suddenly dispelled by the pleasure of -seeing a native fall down, a buxom girl of eighteen -who suffered thus for her pride in putting on shoes. -Throughout the town these were rare, and stockings -more so.</p> -<p class="pnext">The <em class="italics">venta</em> into which I straggled at last was the -replica of an Arabic <em class="italics">khan</em>, as ancient as the days of -Tarik. It consisted of a covered barnyard court -surrounded by a vast corridor, with rock arches and -pillars, beneath which mules, <em class="italics">borricos</em>, and a horse -or two were munching. One archway near the -entrance was given over to human occupation. The -<em class="italics">posadero</em> grumbled at me a word of greeting; his -wife snarled interminably over her pots and jars in -preparing me a meager supper. Now and again as -I ate, an <em class="italics">arriero</em> arrived and led his animal through -the dining-room to the stable. I steeled myself to -endure a rough and stony night.</p> -<p class="pnext">When I had sipped the last of my wine, however, -the hostess, sullen as ever, mounted three stone steps -in the depth of the archway and lighted me into a -room that was strikingly in contrast with the -dungeon-like inn proper. The chamber was neatly, even -daintily furnished, the walls decorated college-fashion -with pictures of every size and variety, the tile -floor carpeted with a thick rug, the bed veiled with -lace curtains. It was distinctly a feminine room; and -as I undressed the certainty grew upon me that I -had dispossessed for the night the daughter of the -house, who had turned out to be none other than -that maid whose pride-shod downfall had so relieved -my embarrassment. Evidently the venta of -Peñarruria afforded no other accommodations befitting a -guest who could squander more than a half peseta -for a mere night's lodging.</p> -<p class="pnext">Over the head of the bed, framed in flowers and -the dust-dry memento of Palm Sunday, was a chromo -misrepresentation of the Virgin, beneath which -flickered a wick floating in oil. I was early trained -to sleep in darkness. When I had endured for a -long half-hour the dancing of the light on my -eyelids, I rose to blow it out, and sank quickly into -slumber.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had all but finished my coffee and wedge of black -bread next morning when a double shriek announced -that my forgotten sacrilege had been discovered. -The modern vestal virgins, in the persons of the -posadera and her now barefoot daughter, charged -fire-eyed out of my erstwhile quarters and swooped -down upon me like two lineal descendants of the -Grecian Furies. I mustered such expression of -innocence and fearlessness as I was able and listened in -silence. They exhausted in time their stock of -blistering adjectives and dashed together into the street -publishing their grievance to all Peñarruria. -Gradually the shrill voices died away in the contorted -village, and with them my apprehension of figuring -in some modern auto da fé. As I was picking up -my knapsack, however, an urchin burst in upon me -shouting that the guardia civil thereby summoned me -into his presence.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ha," thought I, "Spain has merely grown more -up-to-date in dealing with heretics."</p> -<p class="pnext">The officer was not to be avoided. He sat before -a building which I must pass to escape from the -town; a deep-eyed man who manipulated his cigarette -with one hand while he slowly ran the fingers of the -other through the only beard, perhaps, in all the -dreaded company of which he was a member. His -greeting, however, was cordial, almost diffident. In -fact, the cause of my summons was quite other than -I had apprehended. Having learned my nationality -from the inn register, he had made so bold as to hope -that I would delay my departure long enough to -give him a cigarette's worth of information -concerning the western hemisphere.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I have resigned from the guardia," he said in -explanation of his un-Spanish curiosity, "and in -three months I go to make cigars in your Tampa, -in la Florida. Spain can no longer feed her children."</p> -<p class="pnext">I sketched briefly the life in the new world, not -forgetting to picture some of the hardships such -a change must bring a man of the fixed habits of -forty, and took leave of him with the national benediction.</p> -<p class="pnext">For some hours I trudged on across a country -similar to that of the day before. The heat was -African. The Spanish summer resembles an intermittent -fever; with nightfall comes an inner assurance -that the worst is over, and infallibly with the new -day the blazing sun sends down its rays seemingly -more fiercely than before. The reflection of how -agreeable would be a respite from its fury was -weaving itself into my thoughts when I swooped -suddenly down upon a railway at a hamlet named -Gobantes. I had no hope of covering all Spain -afoot. Away among the hills to the north the -whistle of a locomotive that moment sounded. I -turned aside to the station and bought a ticket to -Málaga.</p> -<p class="pnext">The train squirmed away through howling, arid -mountains, abounding in tunnels and tumbled -bottomless gorges; then descending headlong to the -plain, landed me at the seaport in mid-afternoon. -Even Malaga on the seashore suffers from the heat. -Her Alameda was thick in dust as an Andalusian -highway; beneath the choking trees that bordered -it the stone benches were blistering to the touch. -The excursion was rewarded, however, if by nothing -more than the mighty view of the sail-flecked -Mediterranean from the summit of the Gibilfaro, -reached by a dripping climb through shifting rubble -and swarms of begging gypsy children. Africa -was visible, dimly but unmistakably. Below -simmered the city, unenlivened by a single touch of -green; to the right the vega stretched floor-level to -the foot of the treeless Alhama. Directly beneath -me, like some vast tub, yawned the bullring, empty -now but for a score of boys playing at "torero," -flaunting their jackets in the face of an urchin fitted -with paper horns, and dashing in pretended terror -for the barrier when he turned upon them. The -ascent of the Gibilfaro must certainly be forbidden -on Sunday afternoons. From this height the struggle -in the arena, visible in its entirety, yet purged -by distance of its unpleasing details, would be a -scene more impressive than from the best seat in the -tribunes.</p> -<p class="pnext">When I reached the station next morning the -platform gate was locked and the train I had hoped to -take was legally departed. A railway hanger-on, in -rags and hemp sandals, however, climbed the iron -picket fence and shouted a word to the engineer. -Then beckoning to me to follow, he trotted back into -the building and rapped authoritatively on the closed -window of the ticket-office.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," he said, as the agent looked out upon -us, "be kind enough to sell this caballero a ticket."</p> -<p class="pnext">"The train is gone," answered the agent.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Not so, señor," replied the bundle of rags -haughtily; "I am having it held that this cavalier -may take it."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah, very well," responded the official; and -having sold me the ticket, he handed to the hanger-on -the key to the platform gate. As I passed through -it the latter held out his hand, into which I dropped -a copper.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Muchísimas gracias, caballero," he said, bowing -profoundly, "and may your grace forever travel -with God."</p> -<p class="pnext">It was noon when I descended at Bobadilla, the -sand-swept junction where all southern Spain -changes cars. The train to Granada was soon -jolting away to the eastward. Within the third-class -compartment the heat was flesh-smelting. The bare -wooden cell, of the size of a piano-crate, was packed -not merely to its lawful and unreasonable capacity -of ten persons, but with all the personal chattels -under which nine of those persons had been able to -totter down to the station. Between the two plank -benches, that danced up and down so like the screen -of a threshing machine as to deceive the blind man -beside me into the ludicrous notion that the train -was moving rapidly, was heaped a cart-load. To -attempt an inventory thereof would be to name -everything bulky, unpleasing, and sharp-cornered that -ever falls into the possession of the Spanish peasant. -Suffice it to specify that at the summit of the heap -swayed a crate of chickens whose cackling sounded -without hint of interruption from Bobadilla to the -end of the journey.</p> -<p class="pnext">The national characteristics of third-class are -clearly marked. Before a French train is well under -way two men are sure to fall into some heated dispute, -to which their companions give undivided but -speechless attention. The German rides in moody silence; -the Italian babbles incessantly of nothing. An -Englishman endures a third-class journey frozen-featured -as if he were striving to convince his fellows -that he has been thus reduced for once because he -has bestowed his purse on the worthy poor. But the -truly democratic Spaniard settles down by the -compartmentful into a cheery family. Not one of -my fellow-sufferers but had some reminiscence to -relate, not a question arose to which each did not -offer his frank opinion. He who descended carried -away with him the benediction of all; the newcomer -became in a twinkling a full-fledged member of the -impromptu brotherhood.</p> -<p class="pnext">Nine times I was fervently entreated to partake of -a traveler's lunch, and my offer to share my own -afternoon nibble was as many times declined with -wishes for good appetite and digestion. Travelers -who assure us that this custom inherited from the -Moor has died out in Spain are in error; it is dead -only among foreigners in first-class carriages and -tourist hotels--who never had it. The genuine -Spaniard would sooner slap his neighbor in the face -than to eat before him without begging him to share -the repast.</p> -<p class="pnext">We halted more than frequently. On each such -occasion there sounded above the last screech of the -brakes the drone of a guard announcing the length -of the stay. Little less often the traveler in the -further corner of the compartment squirmed his way -to the door and departed. With a sigh of relief the -survivors divided the space equitably between -them--and were incontinently called upon to yield it up -again as some dust-cloaked peasant flung his bag of -implements against my legs with a cheery "buenas -tardes" and climbed in upon us.</p> -<p class="pnext">Then came the task of again getting the train -under way. The brisk "all aboard" of our own -land would be unbearably rude to the gentle Spanish -ear. Whence every station, large or small, holds in -captivity a man whose only duty in life seems to be -that of announcing the departure of trains. He is -invariably tattered, sun-bleached, and sandal-footed, -with the general appearance of one whom life has -used not unkindly but confounded roughly. How -each station succeeds in keeping its announcer in -the pink of dilapidation is a Spanish secret. But -there he is, without fail, and when the council of -officials has at length concluded that the train must -depart, he patters noiselessly along the edge of the -platform, chanting in a music weird, forlorn, purely -Arabic, a phrase so rhythmic that no printed words -can more than faintly suggest it:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Seño-o-o-res viajeros al tre-e-e-en."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Gentlemen travelers to the train" is all it means -in mere words; but rolling from the lips of one of -these forlorn captives it seems to carry with it all the -history of Spain, and sinks into the soul like a voice -from the abysmal past.</p> -<p class="pnext">Among my fellow-passengers was the first Spanish -priest with whom I came into conversational -contact. In the retrospect that fact is all but effaced -by the memory that he was not merely the first but -the only Spaniard who ever declined my proffer of -a cigarette. To one eager to find the prevailing -estimation of the priesthood of Spain false or vastly -overdrawn, this first introduction to the gown -augured well. He was neither fat nor sensual: -rather the contrary, with the lineaments of a man -sincere in his work and beneficent in his habits. His -manner was affable, without a hint of that patronizing -air and pose of sanctity frequently to be -observed among Protestant clergy, his attitude of -equality toward the laity peculiarly reminiscent of -the priests of Buddha.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the station of San Francisco half the -passengers descended. The building was perched on a -shelf of rock that fell away behind it into a stony -gulf. Surrounding all the station precinct ran a -weather-warped and blackened fence, ten feet high, -along the top of which screamed and jostled fully -two score women and girls, offering for sale every -species of ware from cucumbers to turkeys. -Hucksters and beggars swarm down--or rather up--on -San Francisco in such multitudes that the railway -company was forced to build the fence for the -protection of its patrons. But the women, not to be so -easily outdone, carry each a ladder to surmount the -difficulty. As the train swung on around a pinnacle -of rock, we caught a long enduring view of the source -of the uproar--the populous and pauperous city of -Loja, lodged in a trough-like hillside across the valley.</p> -<p class="pnext">Not far beyond there burst suddenly on the sight -the snow-cowled Sierra Nevada, and almost at the -same moment the train halted at Puente Pinos. I -recalled the village as the spot where Columbus saw -the ebbing tide of his fortunes checked by the -messengers of "Ysabel la Católica"; but not so the -priest.</p> -<p class="pnext">"One of our great industries, señor," he said, -pointing to several smoke-belching chimneys near at -hand. "Puente Pinos produces the best sugar in -Spain."</p> -<p class="pnext">"The cane is harvested early?" I observed, -gazing away across the flat fields.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, no," laughed the priest, "betabel (sugar beets)."</p> -<p class="pnext">Spanish railways are as prone as those of Italy to -repudiate the printed promise of their tickets. We -descended toward sunset at a station named Granada -only to find that the geographical Granada was still -some miles distant. The priest had offered to direct -me to an inn or I should perhaps have escaped -entirely the experience of riding in a Spanish -street-car. It crawled for an hour through an ocean of -dust, anchoring every cable-length to take aboard -some floundering pedestrian. Many of these were -priests; and as they gathered one by one on either -side of my companion, the hope I had entertained of -discovering more of virtue beneath the Spanish sotana -than the world grants oozed unrestrainably away. -For they were, almost without exception, pot-bellied, -self-satisfied, cynical, with obscenity and the evidences -of unnatural vice as plainly legible on their -countenances as the words on a printed page.</p> -<p class="pnext">We reached at last the central plaza, where my -guide pointed out a large modern building bearing -across the front of its third story the inscription, -"Gran Casa de Viajeros de la Viuda Robledo." As -I alighted, a band of valets de place swept down upon -me. I gave them no attention; which did not, of -course, lessen the impertinence with which they danced -about me. Having guessed my goal, one of them -dashed before me up the stairs, shouting to the señora -to be prepared to receive the guest he was bringing.</p> -<p class="pnext">The widow Robledo was a serene-visaged woman in -the early fifties; her house a species of family hotel -never patronized by foreigners. We came quickly -to terms, however; I was assigned a room overhanging -the culinary regions, for which, with the -customary two and a half meals a day, I engaged to pay -four pesetas.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the mention of money, the tout, who during all -the transaction had not once withdrawn the light of -his simian countenance, demanded a peseta for having -found me a lodging. I reminded him of the real facts -of the case and invited him to withdraw. He -followed me instead into my new quarters, repeating his -demands in a bullying voice, and for the only time -in my Spanish experience I was compelled to resort -to physical coercion. Unfortunate indeed is the -tourist who must daily endure and misjudge the race -from these pests, so exactly the antithesis of the -courteous, uncovetous Spaniard of the working class.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had not yet removed the outer stain of travel -when a vast excitement descended upon Granada,--it -began to rain. On every hand sounded the slamming -of doors, the creaking of unused shutters; from -below came up the jangling of pans and the agitated -voices of servants. The shower lasted nearly ten -minutes, and was chronicled at length next day in all -the newspapers of Spain.</p> -<p class="pnext">From the edge of Granada city a long green aisle -between exotic elms leads easily upward to the -domain of the Alhambra. In its deep-shaded groves, -so near yet seeming so far removed from the stony -face of thirsty Spain, reigns a dream-inviting -stillness, a quiet enhanced rather than broken by the -murmur of captive brooks. For this, too, remains in -memory of the Moor, that the waters of the Genii -and Darro are still brought to play through a score -of little stone channels beneath the trees. There I -drifted each morning, other plans notwithstanding, to -idle away the day on the grassy headland before and -below which spreads the vastness of the province of -Granada, or distressing the guardians of the ancient -palace with my untourist-like loiterings. But for her -fame the traveler would surely pass the Alhambra by -as a half-ruined nest of bats and beggars. Yet -within she retains much of her voluptuous splendor, -despite the desolating of time and her prostitution to -a gaping-stock of tourists. Like so much of the -Mussulman's building, the overshadowed palace is -effeminate, seeming to speak aloud of that luxury and -wantonness of the Moor in his decadent days before -the iron-fisted reyes católicos came to thrust him -forth from his last European kingdom. In this she -resembles the Taj Mahal; yet the difference is great. -For the effeminacy of the Alhambra is the unrobustness -of woman, while the Taj, like the Oriental man, -is effeminate outwardly, superficially, beneath all -which shows sound masculinity.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the city below is only enough to be seen to give -contrast to the half-effaced traces of magnificence on -the hill. He who comes to Granada trusting to read -in her the last word of the degradation of the once -regal and all powerful must continue his quest. Of -squalor and beggars she is singularly free--for -Spain. Something of both remains for him who will -wander through the Albaicin, peering into its -cave-dwellings, wherein, and at times before which romp -brown gypsy children garbed in the costume in which -the reputed ancestor of us all set forth from the -valley of Eden, or occasional jade-eyed hoydens of -the grotto sunning their blacker tresses and -mumbling crones plying their <em class="italics">bachi</em> in conspicuous places. -But even this seems rather a misery of parade than -a reality, a theatrical lying-in-wait for the gullible -<em class="italics">Busné</em> from foreign shores.</p> -<p class="pnext">By night there is life and movement in Granada; -a strolling to and fro along the Alameda to the -strains of a military band, the droning of the -water-carriers who bring down lump by lump the ice-fields -of the Sierra Nevada, and a dancing away of the -summer night to the clatter of the castanet. But by -day--once only during my stay was the languid -pulse of the city stirred during the sunlit hours. A -conscript regiment thundered in upon us, blocking -all traffic and filling the air with a fog of dust that -dispelled for a time my eagerness to seek again the -open road; a dust that thick-shrouded beneath its -drab the very color of caisson and uniform, -dry-blanketing the panting horses, and streaking the faces -of men and officers with figures like unto the -ornamental writing on the inner walls of the Alhambra.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="the-banks-of-the-guadalquivir">CHAPTER IV</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">THE BANKS OF THE GUADALQUIVIR</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Granada was sleeping a fitful Sunday siesta -when I repacked my knapsack in the Casa -Robledo. In the streets were only the fruit-sellers from -the surrounding country, still faintly chanting over -the half-empty baskets on the backs of their lolling -asses. I paused to spend two "perros gordos" for as -many pounds of cherries--for he who has once -tasted the cherries of Granada has no second -choice--and trudged away through the northern suburb -leaving a trail of pits behind me.</p> -<p class="pnext">The highway surmounted the last crest and swung -down to the level of the plain. Like a sea of heat -mist diked by the encircling mountains stretched the -vega, looking across which one saw at a glance no -fewer than a score of villages half concealed by an -inundation of sunshine so physically visible that one -observed with astonishment that the snow lay still -unmelted on the peak of Mulhacen behind.</p> -<p class="pnext">Yet for all the heat I would not have been elsewhere -nor doing else than striking across the steaming -vega of Granada. In such situations, I confess, I like -my own company best. With the finest companion -in the world a ten-mile tramp through this heat and -dust would have been a labor like the digging of a -ditch. Alone, with the imagination free to take color -from the landscape, each petty inconvenience seemed -but to put me the more in touch with the real Spain.</p> -<p class="pnext">Just here lies the advantage of traveling in this -half-tramp fashion. The "personally conducted" -traveler, too, sees the Alhambra; yet how slight is -that compared with sharing the actual life of the -Spanish people, which the tourist catches if at all in -vagrant, posing fragments? To move through a -foreign country shut up in a moving room, carrying -with one the modern luxuries of home, is not travel; -we call it so by courtesy and for lack of an exact -term. "Il faut payer de sa personne." He who -will gather the real honey of travel must be on the -scene, a "super" at least on the stage itself, not -gossiping with his fellows in a box.</p> -<p class="pnext">With all its aridity the vega was richly productive. -Olive-trees hung heavy, on either hand spread -broad fields of grain in which peasants were toiling -swelteringly as if they had never heard of the -common sense institution of Sunday. When sun and -tree-tops met, the highway began to wind, leaving -the vega behind and wandering through low hills -among which appeared no villages, only an occasional -rough-hewn house by the way. Toward twilight -there opened a more verdant valley, and a stream, -rising somewhere near at hand, fell in with the -carretera and capered prattling along with it into the -night.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was ten perhaps when I came upon a lonely -little venta by the wayside, a one-story building older -than the modern world, serving both for dwelling and -stable. The master of the house and her husband -were both of that light-hearted gentry to whom life -means nothing more than to be permitted good health -and a place to eat an occasional <em class="italics">puchero</em>. With -these and a pair of mountain arrieros I gossiped until -my eyelids grew heavy, and turned in on a husk -mattress spread, like that of my hosts, on the kitchen -floor.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the first hint of dawn I was off and had set the -sun a handicap of three miles or more before he -began to ruddy the jagged chain to the eastward. The -family was already at work, the arrieros wending on -their southward way singing savage fragments of -song; for like the Arab the rural andaluz sleeps -full-dressed and springs instantly from bed to labor.</p> -<p class="pnext">A country lightly populated continued. At high -noon I reached a bath-inviting irrigating stream that -wound through a grove of willows offering protection -enough from the sun for a brief siesta. Soon after, -the landscape grew savage and untenanted, and the -carretera more and more constricted until it passed, -like a thread through the eye of a needle, through -a short tunnel, built, said the inscription, by Isabel -II--an example of exaggerated Spanish courtesy -evidently, for history shouts assurance that the -activities of that lady were rather exclusively confined -to less enduring works. Once released, the gorge -expanded to a rambling valley with many orchards of -apricots and plums, still walled, however, by hills -so lofty that the sun deserted it early and gave the -unusual sight of a lingering twilight.</p> -<p class="pnext">From sunset until well into the night I kept sharp -lookout for a public hostelry; but only a few -peasants' hovels appeared, and with fifty-six kilometers -in my legs I gave up the search and made my bed -of a bundle of straw on a little nose of meadow above -the highway. All through the night the tramp of -asses and the cursing or singing of their drivers -passing below drifted into my dreams. The weather -was not cold, yet in the most silent hour a chilliness -half-arousing crept over me, and it was with a sense -of relief that I awoke at last entirely and wandered on.</p> -<p class="pnext">By daylight the hills receded somewhat, flattening -themselves out to rolling uplands; the stream grew -broad and noisy in its strength. Then suddenly at -the turning of an abrupt hill Jaen rose before me, a -city pitched on a rocky summit like the capping over -a haycock, in the center the vast cathedral; the whole -radiant with the flush of morning and surrounded by -a soil as red as if the blood of all the Moorish wars -were gathered here and mixed with the clay. The -highway, catching sight of its goal, abandoned -unceremoniously the guidance of the river and climbed -with great strides up the red hillside into the town.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had been so long up that the day seemed -already far advanced. But Jaen was still half abed. -I drifted into what was outwardly a little <em class="italics">cantina</em>, -with zinc bar and shining spigots, but domestically -the home of an amiable couple. The <em class="italics">cantinero</em>, -lolling in the customary fat-man's attitude behind the -bar, woke with a start from the first of that day's -siestas when I requested breakfast, while his spouse -ceased her sweeping to cry out, "Como! Tan -temprano! Why, it is scarcely eight o'clock!" The -lady, however, gave evidence of an un-Spanish -adaptability by rising to the occasion. While Señor -Corpulence was still shaking his head condolingly, she -called to the driver of a passing flock of goats, one -of which, under her watchful eye, yielded up a -foaming cupful that tided me over until I sat down in -the family dining-room to a breakfast such as is -rarely forthcoming in Spain before high noon.</p> -<p class="pnext">The cantina was no more a lodging-house than a -restaurant. But so charming a couple was not to be -lost sight of, and before the meal was ended I -expressed a hope of making my home with them during -my stay. The landlord was taking breath to express -his regrets when the matron, after a moment of -hesitation, admitted that even that might be possible, -adding however, with an air of mystery, that she -could not be certain until toward night. I left my -bundle and sauntered out into the city.</p> -<p class="pnext">Jaen is a town of the Arab, a steep town with those -narrow, sun-dodging streets that to the utilitarian -are inexcusable but to all others give evidence of the -wisdom of the Moor. Content, perhaps, with its past -history, it is to-day a slow, serenely peaceful place -riding at anchor in the stream of time and singularly -free from that dread disease of doing something -always. Unusually full it seemed of ingenuous, -unhurrying old men engaged only in watching life -glide by under the blue sky. I spent half the day -chatting with these in the thirsting, dust-blown park -in the center of the town. Their language was still -a dialect of Andalusia, a bit more Castilian perhaps -than on the southern coast, at any rate now grown as -familiar as my own.</p> -<p class="pnext">Each conversation was punctuated with cigarette -smoke. Nothing in Spain is more nearly incessant -than the rolling and burning of what Borrow dubbed -in the days before the French word had won a place -in our language "paper cigars." We of America -are inclined to look upon indulgence in this form of -the weed as a failing of youth, undignified at least -in old men. Not so the Spaniard. Whatever his -age or station in life--the policeman on his beat, -the engineer at his throttle, the boy at his father's -heels, the priest in his gown, puff eternally at their -cigarillo. The express-check cashed in a Spanish -bank is swallowed up in a cloud of smoke as thick -as the fog that hovers over the Grand Banks; the -directors who should attempt to forbid smoking in -their establishment would in all probability be -invited to hump over their own ledgers. The Spaniard -is strikingly the antithesis of the American in this, -that his "pleasures," his addictions come first and his -work second. Let the two conflict and his work must -be postponed or left undone. In contrast to his -ceaseless smoking the Spaniard never chews tobacco; -his language has no word for that habit.</p> -<p class="pnext">To the foreigner who smokes Spain is no Promised -Land. The ready-made cigarettes are an abomination, -the tobacco a stringy shag that grows endurable -only with long enduring. Matches, like tobacco, are -a fabrication--and a snare--of the government -monopoly. Luckily, fire was long before matches -were. These old men of Jaen one and all carried -flint and steel and in lieu of tinder a coil of fibrous -rope fitted with a nickled ring as extinguisher. Few -peoples equal the Spaniard in eagerness and ability -to "beat" the government.</p> -<p class="pnext">I returned at evening to the wineshop to be -greeted as a member of the household.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You wondered," laughed the señora, "why I -could not answer you this morning. It is because -the spare room is rented to Don Luis, here, who works -at night on the railroad. Meet Don Luis, who has -just risen and given permission that you sleep in his -bed, which I go now to spread with clean sheets."</p> -<p class="pnext">The railway man was one of nature's satisfactions, -a short solid fellow of thirty-five, overflowing with -contagious cheerfulness. The libation incidental to -our introduction being drained, the landlord led the -way, chair in hand, to the bit of level flagging before -the shop. As we sat "al fresco" drinking into our -lungs the refreshing air of evening, we were joined -by a well-dressed man whom I recalled having seen -somewhere during the day. He was a lawyer, speaking -a pure Castilian with scarcely a trace of the local -patois, in short, one whom the caste rules of any -other land of Europe would have forbidden to spend -an evening in company with a tavern-keeper, a -switchman, and a wandering unknown.</p> -<p class="pnext">"How does it happen, señor," I asked, when our -acquaintance had advanced somewhat, "that I saw -you in the cathedral this morning?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"The domain of women, priests and tourists?" -he laughed. "Because, señor, it is the one place in -town where I can get cool."</p> -<p class="pnext">Truly the heat of a summer day in Jaen calls for -some such drastic measure, for it grows estival, -gigantic, weighing down alike on mind and body -until one feels imperative necessity of escaping from -it somehow, of running away from it somewhere; and -there is no surer refuge than the cavernous cathedral.</p> -<p class="pnext">This as well as the fact that the edifice contains -considerable that is artistic led me back to it the next -morning. But this time it was in the turmoil of a -personally conducted party. When I had taken -refuge in a shaded seat across the way, the flock poured -out upon the broad stone steps and, falling upon a -beggar, checked their flight long enough to bestow -upon him a shower of pity and copper coins.</p> -<p class="pnext">The mendicant was blind and crippled, outwardly -a personification of gratitude and humility, and -attended by a gaunt-bellied urchin to whom might -fittingly have been applied the Spanish appellation -"child of misery." Long after the hubbub of the -passing tourists had died away in the tortuous city -his meekly cadenced voice drifted on after them:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Benditos sean, caballeros. Que Dios se lo -pagará mil veces al cielo!"</p> -<p class="pnext">A curiosity to know whether such gentleness were -genuine held me for a time in my place across the -way. Silence had settled down. Only a shopkeeper -wandering by to a day of drowsing passed now and -then; within the great cathedral stillness reigned. -The urchin ran after each passerby, wailing the -familiar formula, only to be as often ordered off. At -length he ascended the steps stealthily and, creeping -within a few feet of his master, lay down and was -instantly lost in sleep, a luxury he had evidently not -tasted for a fortnight.</p> -<p class="pnext">The beggar rocked to and fro on his worthless -stumps, now and again uttering as mournful a wail -as if his soul had lost not one but all save a scattered -half-dozen of its strings. Gradually the surrounding -silence drew his attention. He thrust a hand -behind one of his unhuman ears and listened intently. -Not a sound stirred. He groped with his left hand -along the stones, then with the right and, suddenly -touching the sleeping child, a tremor of rage shivered -through his misshapen carcass. Feeling with his -finger tips until he had located the boy's face, he -raised his fist, which was massive as that of a -horseshoer, high above his head and brought it down three -times in quick succession. They were blows to have -shattered the panel of a door; but the boy uttered -only a little stifled whine and, springing to his feet, -took up again his task, now and then wiping away -with a sleeve the blood that dripped from his face -down along his tattered knees.</p> -<p class="pnext">Before the sun had reached its full strength, I -struck off to explore the barren bluff that overlooks -Jaen on the south and east. Barely had I gained the -first crest, however, before the inexorable leaden heat -was again upon me, and the rest of the day was a -perspiring labor. Only the reflection that real travel -and sight-seeing is as truly work as any life's -vocation lent starch to my wilted spirits.</p> -<p class="pnext">At intervals of two or three hundred yards along -the precipitous cliff that half circles the city stood -the shelter of an octroi guard, built of anything that -might deflect a ray of sunlight. In the shade of each -crouched a ragged, ennui-eyed man staring away into -the limitless expanse of sunshine. Their fellows may -be found forming a circle around every city in the -kingdom of Spain, the whole body numbering many -thousands. The impracticable, the quixotic character -of official Spain stands forth nowhere more clearly -than in this custom of sentencing an army of her sons -to camp in sloth about her cities on the bare chance -of intercepting ten-cent's worth of smuggling, when -the same band working even moderately might -produce tenfold the octroi revenues of the land.</p> -<p class="pnext">I halted with one of the tattered fellows, whose -gladness for the unusual boon of companionship was -tempered by a diffidence that was almost bashfulness, -so rarely did he come in contact with his fellow-man. -For a long hour we sat together in the shadow of the -hut, our eyes drifting away over the gray-roofed, -closely-packed city below. When our conversation -touched on the loneliness of his situation the guard -grew vehement in bewailing its dreariness and -desolation. But when I hinted that the octroi might -perhaps be abolished to advantage, he sprang to his feet -crying almost in terror:</p> -<p class="pnext">"For los clavos de Cristo, señor! What then -would become of nosotros? I have no other trade -whatever than to be guard to the octroi."</p> -<p class="pnext">A sorry craft indeed, this squatting out a lifetime -under a grass hut.</p> -<p class="pnext">The bluish haze of a summer evening was gathering -over Jaen when, returning through a winding -street to my lodging, there fell on my ear the thrum -of a solitary guitar and the rich and mellow voice of -a street singer. The musician was a blind man of -fifty, of burly build and a countenance brimming with -good cheer and contentment, accompanied by a -woman of the same age. As I joined the little knot -of peasants and townsmen gathered about him, his -song ended and he drew out a packet of hand bills.</p> -<p class="pnext">"On this sheet, señores," he announced, holding -one up, "are all the songs I have sung for you. -And they are all yours for a perro gordo."</p> -<p class="pnext">I was among the first to buy, glad to have paid -many times this mere copper to be able to carry -home even one of those languorous ballads so filled -with the serene melancholy of the Moor and the fire -of Andalusia. But the sheet bore nothing but -printed words.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Every word is there, señores," continued the -minstrel, as if in response to my disappointment. "As -for the music, anyone can remember that or make it -up for himself."</p> -<p class="pnext">To illustrate how simple this might be he threw -a hand carelessly across his guitar and struck up -another of the droning, luring melodies, that rose and -fell and drifted away through the passages of the -dimming city. Easy, indeed! One could as easily -remember or make up for one's self the carol of the -meadow lark in spring or the lullaby of the -nightingale in the darkened tree-tops.</p> -<p class="pnext">That I might catch the five-thirty train my host -awoke me next morning at three-twenty. I turned -over for a nap and descending in the dawn by the -dust-blanketed Alameda to the station two miles -distant, found this already peopled with a gathering of -all the types of southern Spain. The train was due in -twenty minutes, wherefore the ticket-office, of course, -was already closed. After some search I discovered -the agent, in the person of a creature compared with -whom Caliban would have been a beauty, exchanging -stories with a company of fellow-bandits on the -crowded platform. He informed me in no pleasant -manner that it was too late to buy a ticket. When -I protested that the legal closing hour was but five -minutes before train time, he shrugged his shoulders -and squinted away down the track as if he fancied -the train was already in sight. I decoyed him into -the station at last, but even then he refused to sell -a ticket beyond Espeluy.</p> -<p class="pnext">We reached that junction soon after and I set off -westward along the main line. The landscape was -rich and rolling, broad stretches of golden grain -alternating with close-shaven plains seething in the -sun. Giant cacti again bordered the way. Once, in -the forenoon, I came upon a refreshing forest, but -shadows were rare along the route. The line was -even more traveled than that below Honda. -Field-laborers passed often, while sear-brown peasant women, -on dwarf donkeys jogged by in almost continual -procession on their way to or from market.</p> -<p class="pnext">Not once during all my tramps on the railways -of Spain had a train passed of which the engineer -did not give me greeting. Sometimes it was merely -the short, crisp "Vaya!" more often the complete -expression "Vaya V. con Dios!" not infrequently -accompanied by a few words of good cheer. Here on -the main line I had occasion to test still further the -politeness of the man at the throttle. I had rolled a -cigarette only to find that I had burned my last -match. At that moment the Madrid-bound express -swung out of a shallow cutting in the hills ahead. I -caught the eye of the engineer and held up the -cigarette in sign of distress. He saw and understood, -and with a kindly smile and a "Vaya!" as he passed, -dropped two matches at my very feet.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was not far beyond that I caught my first -glimpse of the Guadalquivir. Shades of the -Mississippi! The conquering Moor had the audacity to -name this sluggish, dull-brown stream the "Wad-al-Gkebir," -the "Great River!" Yet, after all, things -are great or small merely by comparison. To a -people accustomed only to such trickles of water as had -thus far crossed my path in the peninsula no doubt -this over-grown brook, bursting suddenly on their -desert eyes, had seemed worthy the appellation. -But many streams wandering by behind the barn of -an American farmer and furnishing the old -swimming-hole are far greater than the Guadalquivir.</p> -<p class="pnext">I crossed it toward three of the afternoon by an -ancient stone bridge of many arches that seemed -fitted to its work as a giant would be in embroidering -doilies. Beyond lay Andújar, a hard-baked, -crumbling town of long ago, swirling with sand; -famous through all Spain for its porous clay jars. -In every street sounded the soft slap of the potter; I -peeped into a score of cobble-paved courts where the -newly baked <em class="italics">jarras</em> were heaped high or were -being wound with straw for shipment.</p> -<p class="pnext">A long search failed to disclose a casa de comidas -in all the town. The open market overflowed with -fruit, however, stocked with which I strolled back -across the river to await the midnight train. It was -packed with all the tribes of Spain, in every sleeping -attitude. Not until we had passed Córdoba at the -break of day did I find space to sit down and drowse -for an hour before we rumbled into Seville.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had exhibited my dust-swathed person in at -least half a dozen hotels and fled at announcement -of their charges, when I drifted into the narrow calle -Rosario and entered the "Fonda de las Quatro -Naciones." There ensued a scene which was often -to be repeated during the summer. The landlord -greeted me in the orange-scented patio, noted my -foreign accent, and jumped instantly to the conclusion, -as Spaniards will, that I knew no Castilian, in -spite of the fact that I was even then addressing him -with unhesitating glibness. Motioning to me to be -seated, he raced away into the depths of the fonda -calling for "Pasquale." That youth soon appeared, -in tuxedo and dazzling expanse of shirt-front, -extolling as he came the uncounted virtues of his house, -in a flowing, unblushing imitation of French. -Among those things that I had not come to Spain -to hear was Spanish mutilation of the Gaelic tongue. -For a long minute I gazed at the speaker with every -possible evidence of astonishment. Then turning to -the landlord I inquired in most solemn Castilian.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Está loco, señor? Is he insane that he jabbers -such a jargon?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Cómo, señor!" gasped Pasquale in his own -tongue. "You are not then a Frenchman?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Frenchman, indeed!" I retorted. "Yo, señor, -soy americano."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor!" cried the landlord, bowing profoundly, -"I ask your pardon on bended knee. In your -Castilian was that which led me to believe it was not -your native tongue. Now, of course, I note that it -has merely the little pequeñísimos peculiarities that -make so charming the pronunciation of our people -across the ocean."</p> -<p class="pnext">A half-hour later I was installed in a third-story -room looking down upon the quiet little calle Rosario, -and destined to be my home for a fortnight to come. -During all that time Pasquale served me at table -without once inflicting upon me a non-Spanish word. -Nor did he once suspect what a hoax I had played -on the "Four Nations" by announcing my nationality -without prefixing the qualification "norte."</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="the-torero-at-home">CHAPTER V</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">THE TORERO AT HOME</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Even though one deny the right of its -inhabitants to pity the man who must live and die -elsewhere, even he who finds it panting and simmering -in the heat of summer, will still count it no -punishment to spend a fortnight in Seville. Tranquillity -and that laggard humor so befitting vacation days -reign within its precincts; yet it is a real city, never -falling quite inert even at the hour of siesta, which -is so like the silence of the grave in other towns of -Andalusia. In the slender calle Rosario itself the -stillness was never supreme, but tempered always by -the droning of a passing <em class="italics">ajero</em> with his necklace of -garlic, an itinerant baker, or a blind crone hobbling -by with the fifth or the tenth of a lottery ticket, -crooning in mournful voice, "La lotería! El -numero trienta seis mil quinientos cincuenta y cinco-o-o. -Who will win a fortune in the lotería-a-a?" Then -above all else the soft, quarter-hourly booming of the -cathedral bells to mark the passing of the day, like -mile-stones on a wandering highway.</p> -<p class="pnext">Nor with all her languor is Seville slovenly. Outwardly, -like all that carries the ear-mark of the Moor, -she is bare. In the first brief survey one may fancy -one's self in a city of dismal hovels. But this is -because the houses are turned wrong-side out; a -glimpse into one of the marble-paved patios, fragrant -with orange-trees and cooled by fountains -throwing their waters high in the dry air, forever -dispells the illusion.</p> -<p class="pnext">My first full day in Seville fell on a holiday -dedicated to San Pedro which, chancing also to be my -birthday, it was easy to imagine a personal festival. -In truth, the celebration of the day was marked by -nothing other than a bit more indolence than usual. -The real fiesta began at night in the Alameda of -Hercules. There, among a hundred booths, the chief -object of interest was a negro, the first of his race, -one might fancy, who ever invaded the city.</p> -<p class="pnext">By day, indeed, there is little else to do in Seville -than the royal occupation of doing nothing, a stroll -along the Sierpes in the morning, a retreat toward -noisy, glaring noonday to the cool and silent -cathedral or those other churches that rival it as museums -of art, there to wander undisturbed among masterpieces -of Spain's top-most century. The cathedral, -by the way, houses the most recent traveler in the -calendar of saints. Saint Anthony of Padua, not -many years ago, released by the dexterous knife of -an impulsive admirer, struck out into the unknown -and journeyed as far as our own New York. But -there repenting such conduct at his years or daring -to venture no further when his companion found a -sojourn in the Tombs imperative, he returned to his -place, and resumed it so exactly that only the sharpest -eye can detect the evidence of his unseemly excursion.</p> -<p class="pnext">A city that styles her most important street that -"of the Serpents," even though it harbors no more -of the outcasts of the pavement than many another -famous thoroughfare, may be expected to abound in -other strange names. Nor are they lacking. How -unworthy his lodging must the worldly Sevillian feel -who wanders uncertainly homeward in the small hours -to his abode in "Jesús del Gran Poder"--"Powerful -Jesus street." Or with what face can the merchant -turn off after a day of fleecing his fellow-man toward -his dwelling in "Amor de Dios"? Top-heavy -nomenclature is not confined to the streets. There -are many windows in which one may read the -announcement of a "Media Noche de Jamón." No, -it is not a new law by the cortes, but a "Middle of -the Night of Ham," or, succinctly, the over-worked -ham sandwich. The uninstructed may be led at sight -of a building proclaiming itself an "Academia del -Tiro al Blanco" into the belief that Seville is -overrun with institutions of higher learning. Not so, -distinctly not so. The "Academy of the Shot at -the White" is what less extravagant and imaginative -peoples dub a shooting gallery.</p> -<p class="pnext">The man in the street is frequently no less -colorful in his language. Yet the crisp, trenchant word -common to that personage the world over is here, -too, in full force, led by that never idle explosive -"hombre." Dictionarically speaking, "hombre" -means "man," and nothing more--which only proves -how dismally the dictionary has failed to keep up -with the times. For child, woman, or hen-pecked -male answers to the expression as readily as to his -own name. A sevillano leading a pup at the end of -a string may be frequently observed to give a jerk -at the leash and cry over his shoulder, "Hombre! -Vámonos!"--"Come along, man!"</p> -<p class="pnext">Anent the man in the street, it may be asserted -that the Sevillian is usually there. Writers of -Spanish romances have for centuries sought to win our -sympathy for their love-lorn heroes by stationing -them in the public way to whisper their pleadings -through the cold bars of a reja. The picture is -true; the lover of flesh and blood and of to-day still -stands there. But so, for that matter, does the -butcher's boy, the ol'-clothes man, and even less -reputable persons. In Spanish newspapers the -national wealth of phrase is too often overshadowed--like -the news columns--by the touching assurance -of personal announcements. Rare the page that is -not half taken up with a black-bordered inset -conveying the information that:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor and Señora Perez have the honor to advise -their sorrowing friends and business associates that -little Willie Perez, aged six, went up to heaven at -7:32 last evening."</p> -<p class="pnext">There is nothing like being exact and punctual in -these little matters.</p> -<p class="pnext">Toward sunset, after the siesta, it is not merely -à la mode but good sense to stroll down to the banks -of the Guadalquivir by the Golden Tower and drift -an hour or two back and forth along the deep-shaded -Alameda. There one will be in the best company in -Seville--and the worst; for all the city is there, -lolling in its carriage or pattering along the gravel -in its hempen sandals.</p> -<p class="pnext">But it is only at night that Seville is wholly and -genuinely awake and approaches somewhat to that -fountain of joy her inhabitants would have the world -believe her. Then at last does she shake off entirely -the daytime lassitude. The noises of the day are all -there, the street-hawkers have gained a hundredfold -in volume of lung, in number, and in activity, the -cathedral bells seem twice as loud. Toward nine all -the city and his wife and children and domestics are -gathered or gathering in the great focal point, the -palm-fringed Plaza San Fernando. The attractions -are several. First of all is the "cinematagrafo," a -moving-picture machine throwing its mirth and -puerility on a sheet suspended in the center of the -plaza. Second, a military band, not a caterwauling -of strange noises that one would desire suppressed -by fire or earthquake, but a company seriously and -professionally engaged in producing genuine music, -which it does from near nine till after midnight as -continuously as any band could be expected to until -some invention makes it possible to blow a trombone -and smoke a cigarette at one and the same time. -Third, there is the excitement which the mingling -together in crowds brings every Latin people, and -the supreme pleasure of strolling to and fro admiring -one another and themselves. Fourth, if so many -excuses are needed, there is fresh air and the nearest -approach to coolness that the city affords.</p> -<p class="pnext">Yet with all Seville gathered the thousand -roped-off chairs around the curtain are rarely half -filled; for to sit in one costs a "fat dog," as the -Spaniard facetiously dubs his Lacedemonian two-cent -piece. But what a multitude in the rest of the -square! Out of doors all Spain mixes freely and -heartily. Hidalgos with the right to conceal their -premature baldness from Alfonso himself shudder -not in the least at being jostled by beggars; nay, -even exchange with them at times a few words of -banter. Silly young fops, in misfit imitation of -Parisian style, a near-Panama set coquettishly over one -ear, trip by arm in arm, swinging their jaunty canes. -Workingmen scorning such priggishness stride -slowly by in trim garments set off by bright red -<em class="italics">fajas</em> in which is stuck a great <em class="italics">navaja</em>, or clasp-knife -of Albacete. Rich-bosomed <em class="italics">majas</em> with their black -masses of mane-like hair, in crimson skirts or -yellow--as yellow as the gown of Buddha--drift -languorously by with restless fan. No type is missing -from the strolling multitude. Strolling, too, it is, -in spite of the congestion; for the slow tide-like -movement of the throng not only gives opportunity -but compels any lazy foreigner to walk whether he -will or not. Everyone is busy with gallantry and -doing nothing--doing it only as the Spaniard can -who, thanks to temperament, climate, and training -knows that peerless art and follows it with pleasure, -not with the air of one who prefers or pretends to -prefer to be working.</p> -<p class="pnext">The Sevillian is in many things, above all in his -amusements, a full-grown child. Groups of portly -business men, Seville's very captains of industry, sit -hour by hour watching the unrolling of just such -films, as are shown in our "nickelodeons," shouting -with glee and clapping each other on the shoulder -when a man on the screen falls off a chair or a -baker's boy deluges a passerby with flour. No less -hilarious are the priests, shaking their fat sides with -merriment at the pictured discomfiture of one of -their guild in eager pursuit of some frail beauty. -As interested as the rest are the policemen--and as -little engaged in the fulfillment of their duties, -whatever those may be. A poor species, a distressingly -unattractive breed are these city policemen of Spain, -in their uniform closely resembling checkerboard -pajamas, lacking even the Hibernian dignity of size, -stoop-shouldered and sunken-chested with lounging -on their spines and the inordinate sucking of -cigarette smoke into their lungs. Of the self-respect -and pride of office characteristic of the national -guardia civil they have none whatever. I recall no -evening in the Plaza San Fernando that at least one -pair of these wind-broken, emasculate caricatures of -manhood did not fall to quarreling, dancing in rage -and shrieking mutual curses in their smoke-ruined -voices, while the throng dogged them on.</p> -<p class="pnext">Families gather early in the plaza. There ensues -a moment or two of idle thrumming--for father or -brother is certain to bring his guitar--then out -bursts the sharp, luring <em class="italics">fandango</em>; the little girls in -snowy white squirm a moment on their seats, spring -suddenly out upon the gravel, and fall to dancing to -the click of their castanets as rhythmically as any -professionals. They do not dance to "show off," -they are indeed rarely conscious of attracting -attention; they dance because the fire in them compels, -because they wish to--and what the Andalusian -wishes to do he does then and there, gloriously -indifferent to whoever may be looking on. Let him -who can imagine an American bringing his guitar to -the public square of a large city and, surrounded by -thousands, play serenely on into the depths of the -night.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-61"> -<span id="a-sevillian-street"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-096a.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -A Sevillian street</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">The Andalusian is one of the most truly musical -beings on earth, in the sense that his music expresses -his real emotions. Song is almost his natural mode -of expression, always spontaneous, with none of the -stiffness of learned music. He has no prelude, -follows no conscious rules, displays none of that -preliminary affectation and patent evidence of technic -that so frequently makes our northern music stilted -and unenchanting. He plunges headlong into his -song, anywhere, at any time, as a countryman -unsullied by pedantry enters into conversation.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-62"> -<span id="the-plaza-san-fernando-a-ua-a-ua-fresca-quien-quiere-beber"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-096b.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -The Plaza, San Fernando. "A'ua! A'ua fresca! Quién quiere beber?"</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Thus wanes the night in the Plaza San Fernando, -marked by the boom of the Giralda's bells, the -bawling of vendors of lottery-tickets, of titbits, of -matches, of <em class="italics">azucarillos</em>, of <em class="italics">naranjeros</em> crying their -oranges, of boys carrying miniature roulette-wheels -with a cone of sherbet as prize, that the little -children may be taught to gamble early in life; and -sharply above all else and most incessantly the -alpargata-shod water-seller, with his vessel like a -powder-can slung across one shoulder, his glasses -clinking musically, crying, crying always in his -voluptuous, slovenly dialect:</p> -<p class="pnext">"A'ua! A'ua fresca! A'ua fresca como la nieve! -Quién quiere beber?"</p> -<p class="pnext">We have street calls in the United States, but he -whose ear is daily assaulted therewith would have -difficulty in imagining how musical these may be when -filled, like the thrum of the guitar, the street ballad, -the "carol of the lusty muleteer," and the wail of the -railway announcer, with the inner soul of Andalusia.</p> -<p class="pnext">There is to-day very little left of the national -costume of Spain. One may except the stiff, square-cut -sombrero, the alpargata of workman and beggar, the -garb of the arriero, fitting and suiting him as if it -had grown on him, the blanket which the peasant -wears thrown over one shoulder, not because he -realizes what a charm this adds to his appearance, -but because he often sleeps out of doors or on the -stone floor of public stables. Last, and least to be -forgotten, is the mantilla. Except for it the women -of Spain have succumbed to the ugly creations of -Paris; may that day be centuries distant when the -abomination masquerading under the name of -woman's hat makes its way into the peninsula. Yet -there is never among Spanish women that gaudy -affectation of style so frequent elsewhere. Give her -the merest strip of gay calico and the española will -make it truly ornamental; with a red flower to wear -over one temple and a mantilla draped across the -back of her head she is more pleasingly adorned than -the best that Paris can offer.</p> -<p class="pnext">There is something unfailingly coquettish about -the mantilla. It sets best, perhaps, with a touch of -Arab blood; and in the Plaza San Fernando this -is seldom lacking. Everywhere are morisco faces -framed in the black mantilla and, as if in further -reminder of Mohammedan days, there still remains the -instinctive habit of holding a corner of the shawl -across the chin. Thus accoutered only the Castilian -"ojear" can in any sense express the power given -the andaluza by her Oriental ancestry to do or say -so much with a glance of her black eye. With the -fan, too, she is an adept. The Japanese geisha is -in comparison a bungler. The woman of Spain has -her fan in such fine training that it will carry on -extended conversations for her without a word from -her lips, as Spanish peasants can talk from two -hilltops miles apart by the mere motions of their arms.</p> -<p class="pnext">But who of all the misinformers of humanity first -set afoot the rumor that the sevillana is beautiful? -"Salada" she is, brimming over with that "salt" -for which she is so justly renowned; chic, too, at -times, with her tiny feet and hands and graceful -carriage; and always voluptuous. But one might wander -long in the music-livened Plaza San Fernando -without espying a woman to whom could be granted the -unqualified adjective beautiful. On the other hand -it is rare that one meets a sevillana, unless she be -deeply marked by the finger of time, who is ugly; -never, if my search was thorough, one scrawny or -angular. In Spain is never that blending and -mixture of all types as in our land of boundless -migration; hence one may generalize. Salada, graceful, -full of languor, above all wholly free from pose, is -the sevillana in her mantilla. Of education in the -bookish sense she has little, of the striving after -"culture" to the divorce of common sense none -whatever. She may--and probably does--know -nothing of the sciences, or the wrinkle-browed joys -of the afternoon club. But she is brimming with -health and sound good sense, above all she is -incontestably charming; and is not this after all--whisper -it not in New England--the chief duty of her sex?</p> -<p class="pnext">The Andalusian is primarily an out-door people; -not merely in the plain and physical sense, but in -life and character. He lives his life openly, frankly, -setting his face in no mask of Puritanical pretension -when he sallies forth into the world, being himself -always, in public or in private. All in all among -the sincerest, he is also the most abstemious and -healthiest of peoples; not yet spoiled by luxury. -His existence is reduced to simplicity; more exactly -he has never lost touch with eternal nature. He -takes time to live and never admits the philosophy -that he must work before resting, but hinges his -conduct on the creed that he must live first, and do -whatever of work there is time left to do. In no sense is -he lazy; rather in his sound sanity he has a real -appreciation of the value of life. To-day is the -great day to him. Live now is his motto, not put -off living until he has earned enough to live, only -to find it too late to begin. One would seek through -Seville in vain for that strained, devil-chased air so -stamped on our own national physiognomy. Whatever -his vocation, or the hour of the day, the Spaniard -has always time to choose the shady side of -the street, time to halt and talk with his friends. As -I watched him night by night in the Plaza San -Fernando--and this is largely typical of all Spain--there -came the reflection that the lands of continual -striving, the lands where "culture" demands the -repression of every natural emotion and enthusiasm, -are dreary realms, indeed, compared with the Living -Latin South. Here is not merely animation, but life, -real life everywhere, no mere feigned living.</p> -<p class="pnext">On my second Sunday in Seville I attended my -second bullfight. The first I had seen from the -depths of the <em class="italics">sombra</em>, believing the assertion that -none but a man with Arabic blood in his veins could -endure the unshaded side of the arena. But my fear -of sun-stroke had melted away; moreover, the -sun-side gate keeper is most easily satisfied. I bought a -ticket at a corner of las Sierpes and entered the plaza -as soon as the doors were opened.</p> -<p class="pnext">Not a half-dozen had preceded me when I took a -place on the stone bank directly behind the red <em class="italics">tablas</em>. -On my heels appeared a rabble of ragged, joyful -fellows, who quickly demonstrated that I had not, as -I supposed, chosen the foremost seat, by coming to -roost along the top of the barrier in front of me. -One shudders to reflect what would befall individuals -in an American baseball crowd who should conduct -themselves as did these habitués of the Sevillian <em class="italics">sol</em>. -But to the mercurial andaluz, accustomed always and -anywhere to give his idiosyncrasies and enthusiasms -full play, the wildest antics seem quite in place.</p> -<p class="pnext">If, as many reputed authorities will have us believe, -the Spaniard's love for "toros" is dying out, what -must it have been before the dissolution began? At -any rate it has not yet sunk to that point where the -vast plaza of Seville will hold all who would come, -even to these <em class="italics">novilladas</em> in which the bulls are young -and the fighters not yet more famous than a member -of the cortes. From a dozen entries the spectators -poured into the enclosure; in the blazing semicircle -bronzed peasants and workmen with wine-swollen -<em class="italics">botas</em>, across the shimmering sand richly attired -señoritas in the white mantilla of festival, attended -by middle-aged duenas and, at respectful distance, -by caballeros of effeminate deportment. The -española is as ardent a lover of bulls as the men. One -must not, however, jump to the conclusion that she is -cruel and inhuman. On the contrary she is in many -things exceedingly tender-hearted. Habit and the -accustomed way of thinking make vast differences, -and the fact that Spain was for seven hundred years -in continual warfare may account for a certain -callousness to physical suffering.</p> -<p class="pnext">The Spanish plaza de toros is the nearest modern -prototype of the Roman Coliseum; when it is filled -one may easily form a mental picture of the scene -at a gladiatorial combat. By four-thirty the voice -of the circular multitude was like the rumble of some -distant Niagara. Howling vendors of thirst-quenching -fruits climbed over our blistering knees; between -the barriers circulated hawkers of everything that -may be sold to the festive-humored. Spain may be -tardy in all else, but her bullfights begin sharply on -time. At the first stroke of five from the Giralda -a bugle sounded, the barrier gates swung open, and -the game was on.</p> -<p class="pnext">It would be not merely presumptuous, which is -criminal, but trite, which is worse, to attempt at this -late day to picture a scene that has been described a -hundred times in every civilized tongue and in all -the gamut of styles from Byronic verse to -commercial-traveler's prose. But whereas every bullfight -is the same in its general features, no two were ever -alike in the unexpected incidents that make the -sport of perennial interest to the <em class="italics">aficionados</em>. An -"aficionado," be it noted in passing, is a "fan," a -being quite like our own "rooter" except that, his -infirmity being all but universal, he is not looked down -upon with such pity by his fellow-countrymen.</p> -<p class="pnext">Seville is the acknowledged headquarters of the -taurine art. In our modern days of migratory -mixture of races and carelessness of social lines, toreros -have arisen from all classes and in all provinces--nay, -even in foreign lands. One of Spain's famous -<em class="italics">matadores</em> is a Parisian, and one even more renowned -bears the nickname of the "Mexican Millionaire." -But the majority of bullfighters are still sons of -peasants and small landholders of Andalusia in -general and the vicinity of Seville in particular. The -torero touring "the provinces" is as fond of -announcing himself a sevillano as are our strolling -players of claiming "New Yawk" as home. Nowadays, -too, the bulls are bred in all parts of Spain -and by various classes of persons. But the -<em class="italics">ganaderías</em> of Andalusia still supply most of the animals -that die in the plazas of Spain, and command the -highest prices. Among the principal raisers is the -Duke of Veragua, who boasts himself--and can, -it is said, make good the boast--a lineal descendant -of that Christopher Columbus whose wandering ashes -now repose in the cathedral of Seville. The duke, -however, takes second place to one Eduardo Miúra, -whose bulls are so noted for their fury that a -movement has for some time been on foot to demand -double fees for facing animals from his pastures.</p> -<p class="pnext">The bulls of both my Sundays in Seville were -"miúras," and fully sustained the fame of their -ganadero. Each córrida began with the usual -caparisoned parade, the throwing of the key, the -fleeing of the over-cautious <em class="italics">alguaciles</em> amid the jeering -of the multitude. Is there another case in history -of a national sport conducted by the vested authorities -of government? Perhaps so, in Nero's little -matinées in the toasting of Christians. But here the -rules of the game are altered and to some extent -framed by those authorities. Imagine the city -fathers of, let us say Boston, debating with fiery -zeal whether a batter should be allowed to run on -the third strike! Then, too, the mayor or his -representative is the umpire, safely so, however, for he -is securely locked in his box high above the rabble -and there is never a losing team to lie in wait for him -beyond the club-house.</p> -<p class="pnext">It is the all but universal custom, I note in -skimming through the impressions of a half-hundred -travelers in Spain, to decry bullfighting in the -strongest terms. Nay, almost without exception, the -chroniclers, who appear in most cases to be -full-grown, able-bodied men, relate how a sickness nigh -unto death came upon them at about the time the -first bull was getting warmed up to his business which -forced them to flee the scene forever. One must, of -course, believe they are not posing before the gentle -reader, but it comes at times with difficulty. To be -sure, the game has little in common with croquet or -dominoes; there are stages of it, particularly the -disemboweling of helpless hacks, that give the -newcomer more than one unpleasant quarter of an hour. -Indeed, I am inclined to think that had I a dictator's -power I should abolish bullfighting to-morrow, or -next Monday at least; but so, for that matter, I -should auto races and country billboards, Salome -dancers and politicians, train-boys and ticket -speculators. Unfortunately--</p> -<p class="pnext">At any rate, I came out to this second córrida in -Seville and left it with the hope of seeing several -more. Certainly there is no other "sport" that can -more quickly and fully efface from the mind of the -spectator his personal cares and problems; and is -not this, after all, the chief, if not the only raison -d'être of professional sport? There is an intensity -in the moment of a matador standing with steeled eye -and bared sword before a bull panting in tired anger, -head lowered, a hush of expectancy in the vast -audience, the <em class="italics">chulos</em> poised on tiptoe at a little distance, -an equine corpse or two tumbled on the sand to give -the scene reality, compared with which the third man, -third strike in the ninth inning of a 0-0 contest is -as exciting as a game of marbles. It is his hunger -for such moments of frenetic attention that makes -the Spaniard a lover of the córrida, not the sight -of blood and the injuries to beast and man, which, -in his intoxication at the game itself, he entirely loses -sight of.</p> -<p class="pnext">The newcomer will long remember his first bull--certainly -if, as in my own case, the first bandarillero -slips at the moment of thrusting his barbed darts -and is booted like a soccer football half across the -ring by the snorting animal. Still less shall I forget -the chill that shot through me when, with the -fifth bull at the height of his fury, a gaunt and -awkward boy of fifteen sprang suddenly over the -barriers and shook his ragged blouse a dozen times -in the animal's face. As many times he escaped a -goring by the closest margin. The toreros did not -for a moment lose their heads. Calmly and -dexterously they maneuvered until one of them drew the -bull off, when another caught the intruder by the -arm and marched him across the ring to the shade -of the mayor's box. There the youth, who had taken -this means of gaining an audience, lifted up a -mournful voice and asked for food, asserting that he was -starving--a statement that seemed by no means -improbable. The response was thumbs down. But he -gained his point, in a way, for he was given a -fortnight in prison. Incidents of the sort had grown so -frequent of late in the plaza of Seville as to make -necessary a new law, promulgated in large letters on -that day's programme. Printed words, in all probability, -meant nothing to this neglected son of Seville. -Such occurrences are not always due to the same -motive. The impulsive andaluz is frequently not -satisfied with being a mere spectator at the national -game. A score of times the tattered aficionados -about me pounced upon one of their fellows and -dragged him down just as he was on the point of -bounding into the ring. Indeed, as at any spectacle -the world over, the audience was as well worth -attention as the performance itself. On the blistering -stone terraces of an Andalusian sol animation and -comedy are never lacking. In his excitement at a -clever thrust the Sevillian often sees fit to -fall--quite literally--on the neck of a total stranger; -friends and foes alike embrace each other and dance -about on the feet, shoulders, or heads of their -uncomplaining neighbors. There is a striking -similarity between the bantering of a famous torero by -the aficionados and the "joshing" of a favorite -pitcher in an American ball park, but the good day -has yet to come when the recorder of a home-run -will be showered in his circuit of the bleachers with -hats and wine-skins, handfuls of copper coins, and -tropical deluges of cigars. Nor does the most -inexcusable fumble call forth such a storm of derision -as descends upon a cowardly bull. The jibes have -in them often more of wit than vulgarity, as when an -aficionado rises in his place and solemnly offers the -animal his seat in the shade. The height of all -insults is to call him a cow. Through it all, the -leather wine-bottles pass constantly from hand to -hand. A dozen of these I had thrust upon me during -the fight, and tasted good wine each time. The -proceeding is so antiseptic as to warm the heart of the -most raving germ-theorist, for the bota is fitted with -a tiny spout out of which the drinker, holding the -receptacle high above his head, lets the wine trickle -down his throat. The skins so swollen when the -córrida begins are limp and flaccid when it ends.</p> -<p class="pnext">It seems the custom of travelers to charge that the -apparent bravery of the bullfighter is mere -pseudo-courage. Of all the detractors, however, not one -records having strolled even once across the arena -while the fight was on. In truth, the torero's calling -is distinctly dangerous. The meanest bull that enters -a Spanish ring, one for whom the spectators would -demand "banderillas de fuego"--explosives,--is -a more fearful brute than the king of a Texas -ranch. Their horns are long, spreading and needle-pointed; -the <em class="italics">empresa</em> that dared turn into the ring a -bull with the merest tip of a horn blunted or broken -would be jeered into oblivion. Not a year passes -that scores of toreros are not sent to the hospital.</p> -<p class="pnext">The Spanish espada is almost invariably "game" -to the last. The sixth bull of this Sunday's -tournament was, as often happens, the most ferocious. He -killed six horses, wounded two <em class="italics">picadores</em>, tossed a -chulo as high as a one-story house and, at the first -pass of Vasquez, the matador, knocked him down and -gored him in the neck. A coward, one fancies, would -have lost no time in withdrawing. Vasquez, on the -contrary, crawled to his feet and swung half round -the circle that all might see he was unafraid, though -blood was streaming down his bespangled breast. -The alguaciles between the barriers commanded him -to retire, but it was to be noted that not one of them -showed the least hint of entering the ring to enforce -the order. The diestro advanced upon the defiant -brute, unfurled his red muleta, poised his sword--and -swooned flat on the sand. The bull walked -slowly to him, sniffed at his motionless form, and with -an expression almost human of disdain, turned and -trotted away.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Palmas al toro!" bawled a boisterous fellow at -my elbow, and the vast circle burst out in a thunder -of hand-clapping and cries of "Bravo, toro!" while -the wounded espada still lay senseless in the center of -the ring.</p> -<p class="pnext">He was carried off by his <em class="italics">cuadrilla</em>, and the -<em class="italics">sobresaliente</em>, which is to say the "jumper-over," or -substitute, marched as boldly into the ring as if -accidents were unknown. Once begun a córrida knows -no intermission, even though a man is killed. The -newcomer took steady aim and drove the three-foot -sword to the very hilt between the heaving shoulders; -then nonchalantly turned his back and strolled away. -The bull did not fall, but wabbled off into the shade -to lean up against the tablas as if he had suddenly -grown disillusioned and disgusted with life, and the -spectators, no longer to be restrained, swarmed -head-long into the arena. I pushed toward the animal -with the rest and just as I paused a few feet from -him he dropped suddenly dead, his blood-smeared -horns rattling down along the barrier.</p> -<p class="pnext">On rare occasions the matador, disobeying the -unwritten law that the animal must be despatched by -a thrust down through the body, places the point of -his sword just behind the horns and with the slightest -of thrusts kills the bull so suddenly that his fall -sounds like the thump of a barrel dropped from a -height. Then does the spectator, the unseasoned at -least, experience an indefinable depression as if this -striking of a great brute dead by a mere prick in the -back of the neck were a warning of how frail after -all is the hold of the most robust on life.</p> -<p class="pnext">As we poured out of the plaza, I halted in -the long curving chamber beneath the tribunes. -Twenty-two horses, gaunt, mutilated things, lay -tumbled pellmell together in a vast heap. Brawny -men in sleeveless shirts were pawing them over. -Whenever they brought to light a mane or tail they -slashed off the hair and stuffed it into sacks; when -they dragged forth a hoof the shoe was quickly added -to the heap of old iron in a corner. The bulls were -treated with far more deference. Each lay in his -own space, and the group gathered about him wore -the respectful mien of soldiers viewing the last -remains of some formidable fallen enemy. On my -heels arrived the jingling mules with the last victim. -Two butchers skinned, quartered, and loaded this into -a wagon from the central markets in exactly eleven -minutes, the vehicle rattled away, and the week's -córrida was over.</p> -<p class="pnext">The Spanish torero is all but idolized by the rank -and file, being in this respect vastly above our -professional ball players. There is little society except -the purely bluestocking to which he has not the -entrée; wherever and whenever he appears he is sure -to be surrounded or followed by admiring crowds. -The famous, the Bombita family, for example, which -has given four renowned matadores to the ring--and -one to each of my Sevillian córridas--Machaquito -of Córdoba, and a half-dozen others of highest -rank are distinctly more popular and honored than -the king. Nor is this popularity, however clouded -by a bad thrust, transient or fleeting. Pepete, who -departed this life with exceeding suddenness back in -the sixties because a bull bounded after him over the -tablas and nailed him to the inner barrier, is to this -day almost a national hero.</p> -<p class="pnext">Of course every red-blooded Spanish boy dreams -of becoming a bullfighter and would not think of -being unfamiliar with the features, history, -peculiarities, and batting av--I mean number of <em class="italics">cogidas</em> or -wounds of the principal fighters. Rare the boy who -does not carry about his person a pack of portraits -of matadores such as are given away with cigarettes. -On the playground no other game at all rivals -"torero" in popularity. There is something -distinctly redolent of the baseball diamond in the -dialogues one is sure to hear several times on the way -home after a córrida. A boy whom fate or the -despotism of the family woodpile has deprived of -the joys of the afternoon, greets his inhuman father -outside the gates with a shout of, "Hóla! Papa! -Qué tal los toros?--How goes it with the bulls--what -is the score?" To which father, anxious now -to regain his popularity, answers jovially, "Bueno, -chiquillo! Tres cogidas y dos al hospital.--Fine, -son! Three wounded and two in the hospital."</p> -<p class="pnext">Having thus trod the very boards of the last act of -"Carmen" and passed a splendid setting for the -third in my tramp through the Sierra de Ronda, I -decided to celebrate the otherwise unglorious Fourth -by visiting the scene of the third. The great -government Fábrica de Tabacos of Seville is one of -the most massive buildings in Spain, and furnishes -well-nigh half the cigarettes and cigars smoked in -Andalusia. I passed through the outer offices and -crossed the vast patio without interference. When I -attempted to enter the factory itself, however, an -official barred the way. I asked why permission was -denied and with a wink he answered:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sh! Hace calor. It is hot, and las cigarreras -are not dressed to receive visitors. Come in the -autumn and I shall make it a pleasure to show you -through the fabrica."</p> -<p class="pnext">"But surely," I protested, "there are men among -the employees who have admittance to the workrooms -even in summer?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Claro, hombre!" he replied, with another wink. -"But that is one of the privileges of our trade."</p> -<p class="pnext">I strolled out around the building. Back of it, -sure enough, was a cavalry barracks, and any one of -a score of young troopers sitting astride chairs in -the shade of the building might have passed for Don -José. Some of them were singing, too, in good -clear voices; though rather a sort of dreamy -<em class="italics">malagüeño</em> than the vivacious music of Bizet. But, -alas! With Don Josés and to spare, when the -factory gates opened and the thousands of <em class="italics">cigarreras</em> -so famed in song and impropriety poured forth, not -one was there who could by any stretch of the -imagination be cast for Carmencita. Sevillanas there -were of every age, from three-foot childhood -upward; disheveled gypsy girls from Triana across the -river; fat, dumpy majas; hobbling old witches; -slatterns with an infant tucked under one arm; crippled -martyrs of modern invention; hollow-chested victims -of tobacco fumes; painted <em class="italics">sinvergüenzas</em>; above all, -hundreds of hale, honest women who looked as if they -worked to help support their families and lived life -seriously and not wantonly. But not a face or even -a form that could have seduced any young recruit to -betray his trust and ruin his career. Fiction, -frequently, is more picturesque than fact--and far less -pleasing in its morality.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="tramping-northward">CHAPTER VI</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">TRAMPING NORTHWARD</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">To the man who will travel cheaply, interlarding -his walking trips with such journeys by -train as may be necessary to cover the peninsula in -one summer, Spain offers the advantages of the -"billete kilométrico." The kilometer ticket is sold -in all classes and for almost any distance, and is -valid on all but a few branch lines. One applies -at a ticket agency, leaves a small photograph of -one's self, and comes back a couple of days later -to receive a sort of 16mo mileage-book containing -legal information sufficient to furnish reading -matter for spare moments for a week to come and -adorned with the interesting likeness already noted.</p> -<p class="pnext">I made such application during my second week -in Seville, and received for my pains a book good -for two thousand kilometers (1280 miles) of third-class -travel during the ensuing three months. The -cost thereof--besides the infelicity of sitting to a -photographer in a sadly mosquito-bitten condition--covering -transportation, government tax on the same, -printing and the tax therefor, the photograph and -the tax for that privilege, and the government stamp -attesting that the government was satisfied it could -tax no more, footed up to seventy-five pesetas, or -concisely, thirteen dollars and thirty cents.</p> -<p class="pnext">But--if there is anything in official Spain that -has not a "but" attached it should be preserved in -a museum--but, I say, the kilometer-coupons are -printed in fives rather than in ones, and however -small the fraction of distance overlapping, it costs -five kilometers of ticket. Moreover--there is -usually also a "moreover" following the "but" -clause in Spanish ordinances--moreover, there are -hardly two cities in Spain the railway distance -between which does not terminate in the figures one -or six. It does not seem reasonable to believe that -the railroads were surveyed round-about to -accomplish this result; it must be, therefore, that in the -hands of Spanish railway measurers the kilometer is -susceptible to such shrinkage as may be needful. -At any rate--and this is the thought I had hoped -to lead up to--at any rate it was very often -possible, by walking six or eleven or sixteen kilometers, -to save ten or fifteen or twenty kilometers of ticket; -and the game of thus outwitting the railway strategists -was incomparably more diverting than either -solitaire or one-hand poker.</p> -<p class="pnext">Thus it was that, though I planned to reach -Córdoba that evening, I left Seville during the -morning of July 8 on foot. In my knapsack was a -day's supply of both food and drink, in the form -of three-cent's worth of those fresh figs that abound -in Spain--the one fruit that is certainly descended -directly from the Garden of Eden. For miles the -route led across a desert-dry land as flat as a -western prairie, grilling in the blazing sunshine. At -rare intervals an olive-tree cast a dense black shadow. -There was no grass to be seen, but only an occasional -tuft of bright red flowers smiling bravely -above the moistureless soil.</p> -<p class="pnext">Long hours the retrospect of the city of toreros -remained, the overgrown cathedral bulking gigantic -above all else. All the day through cream-white -Carmona on her hilltop--a lofty island in a sea -turned sand--gleamed off to the southward, visible -almost in detail through the truly transparent air -of Andalusia. I did not go to Carmona, near as -she is to Seville; I never care to, for certainly she -cannot be half so bewitching in reality as she looks -on her sheer-faced rock across these burning plains of -sand. To the north, beyond the brown Guadalquivir, -lay the distance-blue foothills of the Sierra -Morena, dying away in the northern horizon.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was twenty-one o'clock by her station -timepiece when I descended at Córdoba from the train -I had boarded in the dusk at Tocina. A mile's -stroll brought me to the city itself, and a lodging. -Poor old Córdoba has fallen on parlous times. -Like those scions of nobility one runs across now -and then "on the road," it is well that she has her -papers to prove she was once what she claims to -have been. Surely none would guess her to-day a -former imperial city of the Caliphs, the Bagdad -and Mecca of the West. Her streets, or rather her -alleys, for she has no streets, are bordered for the -most part by veritable village hovels. Most African -in aspect of all the cities of Spain, this once center -of Arabic civilization looks as if she had been -overwhelmed so often that she has utterly lost heart and -given up, expending what little sporadic energy she -has left in constructing a tolerable Alameda to the -station, either that she may have always open an -avenue of escape, or to entice the unsuspecting -traveler into her misery.</p> -<p class="pnext">To the imagination the Córdoba of to-day is -wholly a deception. Yet she may rest assured that -she will not be entirely forgotten so long as her one -lion, the cathedral, or more properly her chief -mosque, remains. For in spite of Christian -desecration, in spite of the crippled old women who are -incessantly drawing water in its Patio of the -Orange-trees, despite even the flabby, cynical priests that -loaf in the shade of the same, smoking their -cigarettes, and the beggars at its doors like running -sores on the landscape, the Mesdjid al-Dijâmi of -Córdoba does not, like many a far-heralded "sight," -bring disappointment. Once in the cool stillness of -its forest of pillars one may still drift back into the -gone centuries and rebuild and repeople in fancy the -sumptuous days of the Moor.</p> -<p class="pnext">This reconstruction of the past was not uninterrupted, -however, on the morning of my visit. For in -the church, that heavy-featured intruder within the -mosque like a toadstool that has sprung up through -some broken old Etruscan vase, mass was celebrating. -I crossed before the open door and glanced in. -Some thirty strapping, well-fed priests were -lounging in the richly-carved choir stalls, chanting a -resonant wail that was of vast solace, no doubt, to -some unhappy soul writhing in purgatory. There -was not the shadow of a worshiper in the building. -Yet these able-bodied and ostensibly sane men -croaked on through their chants as serious-featured -as if all the congregation of Córdoba were -following their every syllable with reverent awe.</p> -<p class="pnext">They interfered not in the least with sight-seeing, -however, being, as I have said, in the church proper, -an edifice wholly distinct from the mosque and one -which none but a conscientious tourist or a fervent -Catholic would care to enter. There were, -nevertheless, certain annoyances, in the persons of a -half-dozen blearing crones and as many ragged and -officious urchins, who crowded about offering, nay, -thrusting upon me their services as guides.</p> -<p class="pnext">In time I shook off all but one ugly fellow of -about fifteen, who hung irrepressibly on my heels. -Mass ended soon after, and the priests filed out into -the mosque chatting and rolling cigarettes, and -wandered gradually away. One of them, however, -catching sight of me, advanced and clutching my -would-be guide by the slacker portions of his -raiment, sent him spinning toward the door.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Es medio loco, eso," he said, stepping forward -with a shifty smile and nudging me with an elbow, -"a half-witted fellow who will trouble you no more. -With your permission I will show you all that is to -be seen, and it shall cost you nothing."</p> -<p class="pnext">I accepted the offer, not because any guidance -was necessary, or even desirable, but glad of every -opportunity for closer acquaintance and observation -of that most disparaged class of Spanish society. -To one to whom not only all creeds, but each of the -world's half-dozen real religions sum up to much the -same total, the general condemnation of the -priesthood of Spain had hitherto seemed but another -example of prejudice.</p> -<p class="pnext">This member of the order was a man of forty, -stoop-shouldered, his tonsure merging into a frontal -baldness, with the face and manners of a man-about-town -and a frequenter of the Tenderloin. For three -sentences, perhaps, he conversed as any pleasant -man of the world might with a stranger. Then we -paused to view several paintings of the Virgin. -They were images deeply revered by all true -Catholics, yet this smirking fellow began suddenly to -comment on them in a string of lascivious indecencies -which even I, who have no reverence for them whatever, -could not hear without being moved to protest. -As we advanced, his sallies and anecdotes grew more -and more obscene, his conduct more insinuating. -When he fell to hinting that I should, in return for -his kindness, bring forward a few tales of a similar -vintage, I professed myself sated with sight-seeing -and, leading the way out into the sunshine to the -stone terrace overlooking the Guadalquivir, with -scanty excuse left him.</p> -<p class="pnext">A walk across the stately old bridge and around -the century-crumbled city walls lightened my spirits. -In the afternoon, cutting short my siesta, I -ventured back to the cathedral. The hour was well -chosen; not another human being was within its -walls. Unattended I entered the famous third -<em class="italics">mihrab</em> and satisfied myself that its marble floor is -really worn trough-like by the knees of pious -Mohammedans, centuries since departed for whatever -was in store for them in the realm of <em class="italics">houris</em>. Free -from the prattle of "guides," I climbed an -improvised ladder into the second mihrab, which was -undergoing repairs; and for a full two hours wandered -undisturbed in the pillared solitude.</p> -<p class="pnext">Night had fallen when I set out on foot from -Córdoba. The heat was too intense to have -permitted sleep until towards morning, had I remained. -Over the city behind, in the last glow of evening, -there seemed to rise again the melancholy chant, ages -dead, of the muezzin:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Allah hû Allah! There is no God but God. -Come to prayer. Allah ill Allah!"</p> -<p class="pnext">The moon was absent, but the stars that looked -down upon the steaming earth seemed more brilliant -and myriad than ever before. In spite of them the -darkness was profound. The Spaniard, however, is -still too near akin to the Arab to be wandering in -the open country at such an hour, and I heard not a -sound but my own footsteps and the restless repose -of the summer night until, in the first hour of the -morning, I arrived at the solitary station of -Arcoléa.</p> -<p class="pnext">There I stretched out on a narrow platform bench, -but was still gazing sleeplessly at the sky above -when a "mixto" rolled in at two-thirty. The -populous third-class compartment was open at the sides, -and the movement of the train, together with the -chill that comes at this hour even in Spain, made -the temperature distinctly cold. That of itself -would have been endurable. But close beside me, -oppressively close in fact, sat a woman to the -leeward of forty, of the general form of a sack of -wheat, in her hand the omnipresent fan. Regularly -at two-minute intervals she flung this open from -force of habit, sent over me several icy draughts of -air, and noting the time and place, heaved a vast -"ay de mi!" and dropped the fan shut again--for -exactly another two minutes.</p> -<p class="pnext">I slept not at all and, descending as the night was -fading at the station of Espeluy, shouldered my -bundle and set off toward the sunrise. Three -kilometers more and there lay before me the great open -highway to Madrid, three hundred and seven kilometers -away. I struck into it boldly, for all my -drowsiness, reflecting that even the immortal Murillo -had tramped it before me.</p> -<p class="pnext">The landscape lay desolate on either hand, almost -haggard in the glaring sunshine, offering a -loneliness of view that seemed all at once to stamp with -reality those myriad tales of the land pirates of -Spain. Indeed, the race has not yet wholly died out. -Since my arrival the peninsula had been ringing with -the exploits of one Pernales, a bandit of the old -caliber, who had thus far outgeneraled even that -world-famous exterminator of brigands, the modern -guardia civil. His haunt was this very territory to -the left of me, and not a week had passed since a -band of travelers on this national carretera had seen -fit to contribute to his transient larder.</p> -<p class="pnext">But his was an isolated case, a course that was -sure to be soon run. The necessity of making one's -will before undertaking a journey through Spain is -no longer imperative. In fact, few countries offer -more safety to the traveler; certainly not our own. -For the Spaniard is individually one of the most -honest men on the globe, notwithstanding that -collectively, officially he is among the most corrupt. -The old Oriental despotism has left its mark, deep -to this day; and the Spaniard of the masses asks -himself--and not without reason--why he should -show loyalty to a government that is little more than -two parties secretly bound by agreement alternately -to share the spoils. Hence the law-breaker is as of -yore not merely respected but encouraged. Pernales -in his short career had become already a hero -and a pride of the Spanish people, a champion -warring single-handed against the common enemy.</p> -<p class="pnext">Without pose or pretense I may say that I would -gladly have given two or three ten-dollar checks and -as many weeks of a busy life to have fallen into the -clutches of this modern Dick Turpin. His retreat -would certainly have been a place of interest. But -fortune did not favor, and I passed unmolested the -long, hot stretch to the stony hilltop village of -Bailen, a name almost better known to Frenchmen -than to Spaniards.</p> -<p class="pnext">There, however, I was waylaid. I had finished a -lunch of all that the single grocery-store offered, -which chanced to be stone-hard cheese and water, -and was setting out again, when two civil guards -gruffly demanded my papers. This was the only -pair I was destined to meet whose manners were not -in the highest degree polished. The screaming heat -was, perhaps, to blame. I turned aside into the -shade of a building and handed them my passport, -which they examined with the circumspection of a -French gendarme. In general, however, it spoke -well of my choice of garb that I was rarely halted -by the guardia as a possible vagrant nor yet by the -officers of the octroi as a possessor of dutiable -articles.</p> -<p class="pnext">It would seem the part of wisdom in tramping in -southern countries to walk each day until toward -noon and, withdrawing until the fury of the sun is -abated, march on well into the night. But the plan -is seldom feasible. In all this southern Spain -especially there is scarcely a patch of grass large enough -whereon to lay one's head, to say nothing of the -body; and shade is rare indeed. On this day, after -a sleepless night, a siesta seemed imperative. In -mid-afternoon I came upon a culvert under the -highway and lay down on the scanty, dust-dry leaves at -its mouth, shaded to just below the arm-pits. But -sleep had I none; for about me swarmed flies like -vultures over a field of battle, and after fighting -them for an hour that seemed a week, I acknowledged -defeat and trudged drowsily on.</p> -<p class="pnext">Soon began a few habitations and a country -growing much wheat. In nothing more than in her -methods of husbandry is Spain behind--or as the -Spaniard himself would put it--different from the -rest of the world. Her peasantry has not reached -even the flail stage of development, not to mention -the threshing machine. The grain is cut with sickles. -As it arrives from the field it is spread head-down -round and round a saucer-shaped plot of ground. -Into this is introduced a team of mules hitched to a -sled, which amble hour by hour around the -enclosure, sometimes for days, the boy driver squatting -on the cross-piece singing a never-ceasing Oriental -drone of a few tones. From each such threshing-floor -the chaff, sweeping in great clouds across the -carretera, covered me from head to foot as I passed.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was some distance beyond the town of Guarramán -and at nightfall that I entered a village of a -few houses like dug-out rocks tossed helter-skelter -on either side of the way. The dejected little shop -furnished me bread, wine, and dried fish and the -information that another of the hovels passed for a -posada. This was a single stone room, half floored -with cobbles. The back, unfloored section housed -several munching asses. The human portion was -occupied by a stray arriero, the shuffling, crabbed -old woman who kept the place, and by a hearty, -frank-faced blind man in the early thirties, attended -by a frolicsome boy of ten. It was furnished with -exactly four cooking utensils, a tumbled bundle of -burlap blankets in one corner, a smouldering cluster -of fagots in another, and one stool besides that on -which the blind man was seated.</p> -<p class="pnext">This I took, reflecting that he who will see Spain -must not expect luxury. The real Spaniard lives -roughly and shows himself only to those who are -willing to rough it with him. As I sat down, the blind -man addressed me:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hot days these on the road, señor."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Verdad es," I answered.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You are a foreigner from the north," he -remarked casually, as if to himself.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Yes; but how do you know that?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Oh, a simple matter," he replied. "That you -are a foreigner, by your speech. That you are -from the north, because you only half pronounce the -letter R. You said 'burro' in speaking of our -four-legged companion there, whereas the word is -'bur-r-r-ro.' You have walked many leagues."</p> -<p class="pnext">"What tells you that?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Carajo! Nothing simpler. Your step is tired, -you sit down heavily, you brush your trousers and a -thick dust arises."</p> -<p class="pnext">Blindness, I had hitherto fancied, was an advantage -only during certain histrionic moments at the -opera, but here was a man who evidently made it a -positive blessing.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Your are about twenty-five," he continued.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Twenty-six. You will be good enough, perhaps, -to tell me how you guessed that."</p> -<p class="pnext">"What could be easier? The tone of your voice; -the pace at which your words fall. It is strange that -you, a foreigner, should be such an amateur of bulls."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Caramba!" I gasped. "You certainly do not -learn that from the tone of my voice!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah! We cannot tell all our secrets," he -chuckled; "we who must make a living by them."</p> -<p class="pnext">Then in the night that had settled down he fell -to telling stories, not intentionally, one would have -said, but unconsciously, fascinating tales as those -of the "Arabian Nights," full of the color and the -extravagance of the East, the twinkle of his -cigarette gleaming forth from time to time and outlining -the boy seated wide-eyed on the floor at his feet -with his head against his master's knee. He was -as truly a minstrel as any troubadour that wandered -in the days of chivalry, a born story-teller all but -unconscious of his gift. When after a long time -he left off, we drifted again into conversation. He -was wholly illiterate and in compensation more filled -with true knowledge and wisdom than a houseful of -schoolmen. His calling for five and twenty years -had been just this of roaming about Spain telling -his colorful stories.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Were you born so?" I asked late in the evening.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Even so, señor."</p> -<p class="pnext">"A sad misfortune."</p> -<p class="pnext">"You know best, señor," he answered, with a -hearty laugh. "I have no notion how useful this -feeling you call sight may be, but with those I have -I live with what enjoyment is reasonable and find no -need for another."</p> -<p class="pnext">The crippled old crone, who seemed neither to -have known any other life than this nor ever to have -been attired in anything than the piece-meal rags -that now covered her, dragged the heap of burlap -from the corner and spread it in three sections on -the stone floor. On one she threw herself down with -many sighs and the creaking of rusty joints, the -second fell to my lot, and the blind man and his boy -curled up on the third. The arriero carried his own -blanket and had long since fallen to snoring with -his head on the saddle of his ass and his <em class="italics">alforjas</em> -close beside him.</p> -<p class="pnext">There is one Spanish sentence that expresses the -most with the least breath, perhaps, of any single -word on earth. It is "Madrugáis?" and means -nothing less than "Is it your intention to get up -early to-morrow morning?" In these wayside -fondas it calls always for an affirmative answer, for -the bedroom is certain to be turned into the living -room and public hall and stable exit at the first -glimmer of dawn.</p> -<p class="pnext">I was on the road again by four-thirty. Three -hours of plodding across a rising country brought -me to La Carolina, a town as pleasing in comparison -with its neighbors as its name. Its customs, -however, were truly Spanish, even though many of -the ancestors of its light-haired populace were Swiss, -and my untimely quest for breakfast did nothing -more than arouse vast astonishment in its half-dozen -cafés, wrecked and riotous places in charge of -disheveled, heavy-eyed "skittles." In the open -market I found fresh figs even cheaper than in -Seville and, asking no better fare, turned back -toward the highway.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had passed through half the town when suddenly -I heard in a side street a familiar voice, singing -to the accompaniment of a guitar. I turned -thither and found the blind singer I had first -encountered in Jaen, just on the point of drawing out -his bundle of handbills. While his wife canvassed -the group of early risers, I accosted him with the -information that I had bought one of his sheets in -Jaen a month before.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah! You too tramp la carretera?" he replied, -turning upon me a glance so sharp that for the -moment I forgot he could not see.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sí, señor. Do you not also sell the music of -your songs?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"How can music be put on paper?" he laughed. -"It comes as you sing. Are you going far?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"To Madrid."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Vaya!" he cried, once more posing his guitar. -"Well, there is much to be enjoyed on the road--when -the sun is not too high. Vaya V. con Dios, -young man."</p> -<p class="pnext">Beyond Las Navas de Tolosa the face of the -landscape changed, the carretera mounting ever higher -through a soilless stretch of angular hills of -dull-gray, slate-colored rock. Above Santa Elena these -broke up into deep gorges and mountain foothills, -an utterly unpeopled country as silent as the grave. -I halted to gaze across it, and all at once, reflecting -on the stillness as of desolation that hangs over all -rural Spain, there came upon me the recollection -that in all the land I had not once heard the note of -a wild bird.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the utter quiet I reached a deep slit in the -flanking mountain, and even the stream, that -descended along its bottom was as noiseless as some -phantom river. It offered all the facilities for a -bath, however, and moreover under an overhanging -mass of rock that warded off the sun had watered -to un-Spanish greenness a patch of grass of a few -feet each way. There I spent half the afternoon in -slumber. The highway shortly after plunged -headlong down into the very depths of the earth, -squirmed for a time in the abyss, then clambered -painfully upward between precipitous walls of -gloomy slate to a new level. When suddenly, -unexpectedly, almost physically there rose before my eyes -the picture of the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, -ambling past, close followed by thickset, hale-cheeked -Sancho on his ass. For I had traversed the -pass of Despeñaperros; languid Andalusia lay -behind me, and ahead as far as the eye could reach -spread the yet twice more barren and rocky -tableland of La Mancha.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="spanish-roads-and-roadsters">CHAPTER VII</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">SPANISH ROADS AND ROADSTERS</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">In the gloom of evening I espied on a dull, sterile -hillside a vast rambling venta, as bare, slate-colored, -and marked with time as the hills themselves. -Here was exactly such a caravansary as that in which -he of the Triste Figura had watched over his arms -by night and won his Micomiconian knighthood. -It consisted of an immense enclosure that was half -farmyard, backed by a great stable of which a strip -around two sides beneath the low vaulted roof had -been marked off for the use of man; the whole dull, -gloomy, cheerless, unrelieved by a touch of color. -Within the building were scattered a score of mules, -borricos and machos. Several tough-clothed -muleteers, with what had been bright handkerchiefs -wound about their brows, sauntered in the courtyard -or sat eating with their great razor-edged navajas -their lean suppers of brown bread and a knuckle of -ham. Even the massive wooden pump in the yard -among an array of ponderous carts and wagons was -there to complete the picture. Indeed, this was none -other than the Venta de Cardenas, reputed the very -same in which Don Greaves passed his vigilant night, -where Sancho was tossed in a blanket and Master -Nicholas, the barber, bearded himself with a cow's tail.</p> -<p class="pnext">The chance betrayal of my nationality aroused in -the arrieros a suggestion of wonder and even an -occasional question. But in general their interest -was as meager as their knowledge of the world -outside the national boundaries. Not once did they -display the eagerness to learn that is so characteristic of -the Italian. For the Spaniard considers it beneath -his dignity as a caballero and a cristino viejo to show -any marked curiosity, especially concerning a foreign -land, which cannot but be vastly inferior to his own. -Four centuries of national misfortune and shrinkage -have by no means eradicated his firm conviction, -implanted in his mind by Ferdinand and Isabel in the -days of conquest, that he is the salt of the earth, -superior in all things to the rest of the human race.</p> -<p class="pnext">Spain is one of the most illiterate countries of the -civilized world, yet also one of the best educated, -unless education be merely that mass of undigested -and commonly misapplied information absorbed -within four walls. Few men have a more exact -knowledge, a more solid footing on the -everyday earth than the peasant, the laborer, the -muleteer of Spain. One does not marvel merely -at the fluent, powerful, entirely grammatical -language of these unlettered fellows, but at the sound -basic wisdom that stands forth in their every -sentence. If their illiteracy denies them the advantage -of absorbing the festering rot of the yellow journal, -in compensation they have a wealth of vocabulary -and a forceful simplicity of diction that raises them -many degrees above the corresponding class in more -"advanced" lands.</p> -<p class="pnext">It is of the "lower" classes that I am speaking, -the common sense and backbone of Spain. The -so-called upper class is one of the most truly ignorant -and uneducated on earth--though among its -members, be it noted, is no illiteracy. The maltreated -Miguel was adamantinely right in choosing his hero -from the higher orders; no Spaniard of the masses -could be so far led astray from reason as to become -a Quixote.</p> -<p class="pnext">It is noticeable that the Spaniard of the laboring -class has almost none of that subservience born in -the blood in the rest of Europe. Not only does each -man consider himself the equal of any other; he takes -and expects the world to take for granted that this is -the case, and never feels called upon to demonstrate -that equality to himself and the rest of the world by -insolence and rowdyism. Dissipation he knows not, -except the dissipation of fresh air, sunshine, and a -guitar. Nowhere in Christian lands is drunkenness -more rare. Like the Arab the hardy lower-class -Spaniard thrives robustly on a mean and scanty diet; -he can sleep anywhere, at any time, and to the -creature comforts is supremely indifferent. One can -hardly believe this the country in which Alfonso X -felt it necessary to enact stern laws against the -serving of more than two dishes of meat at a meal or the -wearing of "slashed" silks. Yet the Spain of -to-day is not really a cheap country; it is merely that -within its borders frugality is universal and held in -honor rather than contempt.</p> -<p class="pnext">When the evening grew advanced, my fellow guests -lay down on the bare cobble-stones of the venta, -making pillows of the furniture of their mules, and were -soon sleeping peacefully and sonorously. For me, -soft-skinned product of a more ladylike world, was -spread a muleteer's thick blanket in the embrasure -of a wooden-blinded window, and amid the munching -of asses and the not unpleasant smell of a Spanish -stable I, too, drifted into slumber.</p> -<p class="pnext">From dawn until early afternoon I marched on -across the rocky vastness of Spain, where fields have -no boundary nor limit, a gnarled and osseous country -and a true despoblado, as fruitless as that sterile neck -of sand that binds Gibraltar to the continent. It is -in these haggard, unpeopled plateaus of the interior -that one begins to believe that the population of the -peninsula is to-day barely one-third what it was in -the prosperous years of Abd er-Rahman.</p> -<p class="pnext">At length, across a valley that was like a lake of -heat waves, appeared Santa Cruz, a hard, colorless -town where I was forced to be content with the usual -bread, cheese and wine, the former as ossified as the -surrounding countryside. In the further outskirts -of the place I found a potter at work in a large open -hovel and halted to pass the most heated hour with -him. In one end of the building was a great trough -of clay in which a bare-foot boy was slowly treading -up and down. Now and again he caught up a lump -of the dough and deposited it on a board before the -potter. This the latter took by the handful and, -placing it on his wheel, whirled it quickly into a -vessel of a shape not unlike a soup-bowl. I inquired -what these sold for and with a sigh he replied:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Three small dogs apiece, cocidos (cooked)"--pointing -at the kiln--"y cuantos--how many -break in the glazing! It is no joyful trade, señor."</p> -<p class="pnext">Once he left his work to munch a crust and to offer -me a cigarette and a drink from his leather bota, but -soon drifted back to his task with the restless, -harassed look of the piece-worker the world over. As -I sat watching his agile fingers a bit drowsily, there -came suddenly back to memory the almost forgotten -days when I, too, had toiled thus in the gloomy, -sweltering depths of a factory. Truer slavery there -never was than that of the piece-worker under our -modern division of labor. Stroll through a factory -to find a man seated at a machine stamping strips of -tin into canheads at two cents a hundred by a few -simple turns of the wrist, and his task seems easy, -almost a pastime in its simplicity. But go away for -a year, travel through half the countries of the -globe, go on a honeymoon to Venice and the Grecian -isles, and then come back to find him sitting on the -self-same stool, in the self-same attitude, stamping -strips of tin into canheads at two cents a hundred by -a few simple turns of the wrist.</p> -<p class="pnext">Three blazing hours passed by, and I found -myself entering a rolling land of vineyards, heralding -wine-famous Valdepeñas. The vines were low shrubs -not trained on sticks, the grapes touching the ground. -A dip in an exotic stream reduced the grime and -sweat of travel, and just beyond I came again upon -the railway. A half-hour along it brought me face -to face with the first foreign tramp I had met in -Spain,--a light-haired, muscular youth in tattered, -sun-brown garb, his hob-nailed shoes swung over one -shoulder and around his feet thick bandages of -burlap. He was a German certainly, perhaps a modern -Benedict Moll whose story would have been equally -interesting in its absurdity. But he passed me with -the stare of a man absorbed in his personal affairs -and accustomed to keep his own counsel, and stalked -away southward along the scintillant railroad.</p> -<p class="pnext">I halted for a drink at the stuccoed dwelling of a -track-walker. In the grassless yard, under the only -imitation of a tree in the neighborhood, slept a -roadster. Now and again the chickens that scratched -in vain the dry, lifeless earth about him, marched -disconsolately across his prostrate form.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Poor fellow," said the track-walker's wife at the -well, "he has known misery, more even than the rest -of us. Vaya como duerme!"</p> -<p class="pnext">I sat down in the streak of shade that was -crawling eastward across him. He wore a ten-day beard -and the garb of a Spanish workman of the city, set -off by a broad red faja around his waist. In one -bulging pocket of his coat appeared to be all his -earthly possessions.</p> -<p class="pnext">There was no evidence of overwhelming "miseria" -in the cheery greeting with which he awoke, and as -our ways coincided we continued in company. He -was a Sevillian named Jesús, bound northward in -general and wherever else the gods might lead him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"For a long time there has been no work in -Seville for nosotros, the carpenters," he explained, -though with no indication of grief. "This half year -I have been selling apricots and azucarillos in the -bullring and on the Alameda. But each day more of -Seville comes to sell and less to buy. I should have -gone away long ago, but my comrade Gáspare would -not leave his amiga. Gásparo is a stone-polisher -and had work.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Then one day I am taken by the police for I -know not what. When after two weeks I come out, -Gásparo is gone. But he has come north and -somewhere I shall run across him."</p> -<p class="pnext">Jesús had just passed through a marvelous experience, -which he proceeded to relate in all his Latin -wealth of language--though not in the phraseology, -of a graduate roadster:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Mira V., hombre! Two nights ago, when my -feet are worn away with more than ten leguas of -walking on the railroad, I come to Baeza. It is dark, -and I wander along the track to find a soft bank to -sleep. On the short railroad that is at each station -there is waiting a train of merchandise. Suddenly -a great idea comes to me. 'Sh! Jesús,' I whisper, -'what if you should hide yourself away somewhere -on this train of merchandise? It would perhaps -bring you to the next station.'</p> -<p class="pnext">"With great quiet I climb a wagon and hide -myself between bales of cork. Screech! Brrr! -Rboom! The train is off, and all night I am -riding--without a ticket. But at Vilches the man that goes -with the train with a lantern comes by and it is my -curse to be making some noise, moving to roll a -cigarette. 'Ya te 'pia!' (I spy you!) he cries. Vaca -que soy! So of course I must get down. But mira, -hombre! There I have traveled more than twelve -miles without paying a perrito!"</p> -<p class="pnext">I had not the heart to disillusion him with a yarn -or two from the land of the "hobo."</p> -<p class="pnext">In the telling we had come within sight of -Valdepeñas. It was a "valley of rocks" indeed, though -a city of good size and considerable evidence of -industry, abounding with great <em class="italics">bodegas</em>, or wine -warehouses. As we trudged through the long straight -street that had swallowed up the highway, we passed -the <em class="italics">taller</em> of a marble-cutter.</p> -<p class="pnext">"It is in a place like this that Gásparo works," -sighed Jesús, wandering languidly in at the open -door. I was strolling slowly on when a whoop as of -a man suddenly beset by a band of savages brought -me running back into the establishment. Jesús was -shaking wildly by both hands a stockily-built young -fellow in shirt sleeves and white canvas apron, who -was rivaling him in volubility of greeting. Gásparo -was found.</p> -<p class="pnext">Still shouting incoherently, the two left the shop -and squatted in the shade along the outside wall.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hombre!" panted Jesús, when his excitement had -somewhat died down. "I have told myself that by -to-morrow we should be tramping the carretera together."</p> -<p class="pnext">But Gásparo shook his head, sadly yet decisively.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, amigo. Jamás! Nunca! Never do I take -to the road again. I have here a good job, the finest -of patrons. No. I shall stay, and send for the -amiga--or find another here."</p> -<p class="pnext">With the dignity of a caballero, Jesús accepted -the decree without protest, and wished his erstwhile -comrade luck and prosperity. Then that they might -part in full knowledge, he launched forth in the story -of his journey from Seville. Gásparo listened -absently, shaking his head sadly from time to time. -When the episode of the amateur hoboing began, -he sat up with renewed interest; before it was ended -he was staring at the speaker with clenched fists, his -eyes bulging, the cigarette between his lips -stone-dead. From that great epic Jesús jumped without -intermission to a hasty survey of the anticipated joys -that lay between him and Madrid. Suddenly Gásparo -sprang into the air with an explosive howl, landing -on his feet.</p> -<p class="pnext">"By the blood of your namesake!" he shouted. -"How can a man stay always in one place? This -daily drudgery will kill me! I will throw the job in -the patron's face, and get my wages this very minute, -amaguito, and we will go to Madrid together. Jesús -Maria! Who knows but we can hide ourselves on -another freight train!"--and crying over his -shoulder some rendezvous, he disappeared within the -establishment.</p> -<p class="pnext">We sauntered on to the central plaza. It was utterly -treeless and paved with cobble-stones; nor could -we find a patch of grass or a shaded bench in all the -neighborhood.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Look here, señor!" cried Jesús, suddenly rushing -toward a policeman who was loitering in the shade of -a bodega. "Don't you have any parks or Alamedas -in this val de penas of yours? You call this a city!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," replied the officer in the most apologetic -of voices, "we are not a rich city, and the rain so -seldom falls in La Mancha. I am very sorry," and -touching a finger respectfully to his cap, he strolled -slowly on.</p> -<p class="pnext">Though the sun was low it was still wiltingly hot -in the stony streets. Jesús, as I knew, was penniless. -I suggested therefore that I would willingly pay the -score of two for the privilege of retreating to the -coolness of a wineshop.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Bueno!" cried the Sevillian. "The wine of -Valdepeñas is without equal, and of the cheapest--if -you know where to buy. Vámonos, hombre!"</p> -<p class="pnext">He led the way down the street and by some -Castilian instinct into a tiny underground shop that was -ostensibly given over to the sale of charcoal. The -smudged old keeper motioned us to the short rickety -bench on which he had been dreaming away the -afternoon and, descending still lower by a dark hole in the -floor, soon set before us a brown glazed pitcher -holding a <em class="italics">quarto</em>--about a quart--of wine, for which -I paid him approximately three and a half cents.</p> -<p class="pnext">In all western Europe I have drunk the common -table wine in whatever quantity it has pleased me, and -suffered from it always the same effect as from so -much clear water. It may be that the long tramp -under a scorching sun and the distance from my last -meal-place altered conditions. Certainly there was -no need of the seller's assurance that this was genuine -"valdepeñas" and that what had been sold us -elsewhere as such was atrociously adulterated. Before -the pitcher was half empty, I noted with wonder that -I was taking an extraordinary interest in the old -man's phillipic against the government and its -exorbitant tax on wine. Jesús, too, grew in animation, -and when the subterranean Demosthenes ended with a -thundering, "Sí, señores! If it wasn't for the cursed -government you and I could drink just such wine as -this pure valdepenas anywhere as if it was water!" I -was startled to hear us both applaud loud and long. -A scant four-cents' worth had seemed so parsimonious -a treat for two full-thirsted men that I had intended -to order in due time a second pitcherful. But this -strange mirth seemed worthy of investigation. I -sipped the last of my portion and made no movement -to suggest a replenishing. A few minutes later the -old man had bade us go with the Almighty, and we -were strolling away arm in arm.</p> -<p class="pnext">The sun was setting when we reached the plaza. -We sat down on the cathedral steps. The Sevillian -had suddenly an unaccountable desire to sing. He -struck up one of the Moorish-descended ballads of -his native city. To my increasing astonishment I -found myself joining in. Not only that, but for -the first and last time of my existence I caught the -real Andalusian rhythm. An appreciative audience -of urchins gathered. Then the sacristan stepped out -and politely invited us to choose some other stage.</p> -<p class="pnext">Across the square was a casa de comidas. We -entered and ordered dinner. The señora served us -about one-third of what the bill-of-fare promised, -and demanded full price--something that had never -before happened in all my Spanish experience. I -protested vociferously--another wholly unprecedented -proceeding. The policeman who had apologized -for the absence of parks sauntered in, and I -laid the case before him. The señora restated it still -more noisily. I declared I would not pay more than -one peseta. The lady took oath that I would pay -two. The policeman requested me to comply with -her demand. I refused to the extent of commanding -him to take his hand off the hilt of his sword. He -apologized and suggested that we split the difference. -This seemed reasonable. I paid it, and we left. -Dark night had settled down. We marched aimlessly -away into it. Somewhere Gásparo fell in with -us. Somewhere else, on the edge of the city, we -came upon a heap of bright clean straw on a -threshing floor, and fell asleep.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="on-the-road-in-la-mancha">CHAPTER VIII</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">ON THE ROAD IN LA MANCHA</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">It was Sunday morning, the market day of -Valdepeñas, when I returned alone to stock my -knapsack. The plaza that had been so deserted and -peaceful the evening before was packed from casa de -comidas to cathedral steps with canvas booths in -which the peasants of the encircling country were -selling all the products of La Mancha, and among -which circulated all the housewives of Valdepeñas, -basket on arm. The women of the smaller cities of -Spain cling stoutly to their local costumes, aping -not in the least the world of fashion. These of -Valdepeñas were strikingly different from the -Andalusians, considering how slight the distance that -separates them from that province. They were almost -German in their slowness, with hardly a suggestion -of "sal"; a solemn, bronze-tanned multitude who, -parting their hair in the middle and combing it tight -and smooth, much resembled Indian squaws.</p> -<p class="pnext">From the northern edge of the city the highway -ran straight as the flight of a crow to where it was -lost in a flat, colorless horizon. The land was -artificially irrigated. The first place I stopped for -water was a field in which an old man was driving round -and round a blind-folded burro hitched to a noria, -a water-wheel that was an exact replica of the -Egyptian <em class="italics">sakka</em>, even to its squawk, jars of Andújar being -tied to the endless chain with leather thongs. The -man, too, had that dreamy, listless air of the -Egyptian <em class="italics">fellah</em>; had I had a kodak to turn upon him I -should have expected him to run after me crying for -"backsheesh."</p> -<p class="pnext">Ahead stretched long vistas of low vineyards. The -only buildings along the way were an occasional bare -uniform stone dwelling of a <em class="italics">peon caminero</em>, or -government road-tender. At one of these I halted to -quench my thirst, and the occupant, smoking in -Sabbath ease before it, instantly pronounced me a -"norte americano." I showed my astonishment, for -hardly once before in the peninsula had I been taken -for other than a Frenchman, or a Spaniard from -some distant province.</p> -<p class="pnext">The peon's unusual perspicacity was soon -explained; he had been a soldier in Cuba during the -Spanish-American War. I readily led him into -reminiscences. Throughout the war, he stated, he -had fought like a hero, not because he was of that -rare breed but because every member of the troop -had been filled with the belief that once captured by -"los yanquis" he would be hanged on the spot.</p> -<p class="pnext">"And are you still of the opinion?" I asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Qué barbaridad!" he laughed. "I was taken -at Santiago and carried a prisoner to your country. -What a people! A whole meal at breakfast! We -lived as never before, or since.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You were quite right, vosotros, to take the -island. I do not blame you. It was competición, just -competition, like two shop-keepers in the city. I am -glad the miserable government lost their Cuba."</p> -<p class="pnext">So often did I hear exactly this view from Spaniards -of the laboring class that it may be considered -typical of their attitude toward the late disagreement. -The strange question has often been asked whether -it is safe so soon after the war for a North American -to travel alone in the interior of Spain. For answer -we have only to ask ourselves whether a Spaniard -traveling alone in the interior of the United States -would be in any imminent danger of having his -throat cut--even had we been defeated. In Spain -there is vastly less, for not only is the Spaniard -quicker to forgive and far less belligerent than he -is commonly fancied, but there exists in the -peninsula not one-tenth the rowdyism and hoodlum -"patriotism" of our own country.</p> -<p class="pnext">I stayed long and left with difficulty. Gregarious -is man, and on Sunday, when all the world -about him is at rest, even the pedestrian finds it hard -to exert himself. A league beyond I came upon -the Sevillians lolling in the shadow of another -isolated peon dwelling in what seemed once to have been -a village.</p> -<p class="pnext">Jesús in his eleven-day beard hailed me from afar; -moreover, the Sunday languor was still upon me. I -stretched out with them in the shade of the building, -but the flies prevented us from sleeping. We crawled -into a peasant's cart under the shed--but the flies -quickly found us out. We crossed the road to the -ruin of a church, split almost exactly through the -middle of tower and all, and one side fallen. Within -it was a grassy corner where the sun never fell, and -even a bit of breeze fanned us. But the flies had -made this their Spanish headquarters. We decided -to go on.</p> -<p class="pnext">In that only were we unanimous, for the Sevillians -wished to follow the railroad, a furlong away, and I -the carretera. I had all but won them over when a -freight train labored by.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ay! Ay! Los toros!" shouted the two in chorus.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Where?" I asked, seeing no such animals in sight.</p> -<p class="pnext">"En las jaulas, hombre! In the cages!" cried -Jesús, pointing to a flat-car on which, set close -together, were six tightly-closed boxes each just large -enough to hold a bull.</p> -<p class="pnext">"We go by the railroad!" shouted Gásparo, -decisively. "Alma de Dios! Who knows but we may -be able to hide ourselves on a train that is carrying -toros to the córrida!"</p> -<p class="pnext">We separated, therefore, and struck northward, -though we marched side by side within hailing distance -until we were all three swallowed up in the city -of Manzanares.</p> -<p class="pnext">The bare-faced, truly Manchegan town was half-deserted, -though the reason therefor was not hard to -guess, for the bullring in the outskirts was howling -as I passed. For all its size the place did not seem -to boast an eating-house of any description. At last -I halted before an old man seated in a shaded corner -of the plaza, to inquire:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor, what does a stranger in your town do -when he would eat?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Vaya, señor!" he replied, with the placid -deliberation of age, and pointing with his cane to the -shops that bordered the square. "He buys a perrito -of bread in the bakery there, dos perros of ham in -the butchery beyond, fruit of the market-woman--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"And eats it where?" I interrupted.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hi jo de mi alma!" responded the patriarch -with extreme slowness and almost a touch of sarcasm -in his voice. "Here is the broad plaza, all but -empty. In all that is there not room to sit down -and eat?"</p> -<p class="pnext">I continued my quest and entered two posadas. -But for the only time during the summer the -proprietors demanded my <em class="italics">cédula personal</em>. I explained -that Americans are not supplied with these government -licenses to live, and showed instead my passport. -Both landlords protested that it was not in Spanish -and refused to admit me. One might have fancied -one's self in Germany. It was some time after dark -that I was directed to a private boarding-house that -almost rewarded my long search. For the supper -set before me was equal to a five-course repast in the -Casa Robledo of Granada, and for the first time since -leaving Seville I slept in a bed, and not in my clothes.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning an absolutely straight road lay -before me across a land treeless but for a few stunted -shrubs, a face of desolation and aridity and solitude -as of Asia Minor. From the eastward swept a hot, -dry wind across the baked plains of La Mancha that -recalled all too forcibly the derivation of its name -from the Arabic <em class="italics">manxa</em>--a moistureless land.</p> -<p class="pnext">At fifteen kilometers the highway swerved slightly -and lost from view for the first time the immense -cathedral of Manzanares behind. On either hand, -miles visible in every direction, huddled stone towns -on bare hillsides and in rocky vales, each inconspicuous -but for its vast overtowering church. "Si la -demeure des hommes est pauvre, celle de Dieu est -riche," charges colorful Gautier; which, if the church -of Spain is truly the "demeure de Dieu," is sternly -true. City, town, village, hamlet, a church always -bulks vast above it like a hen among her chicks--rather -like some violent overpowering tyrant with a -club. To the right of the turn one might, but for -a slight rise of ground, have espied a bare twelve -kilometers away immortal Argamasilla itself.</p> -<p class="pnext">During the day there developed a hole in my shoe, -through a sole of those very "custom-made" -oxfords warranted by all the eloquent Broadway -salesman held sacred--whatever that may have been--to -endure at least six months of the hardest -possible wear. Sand and pebbles drifted in, as sand -and pebbles will the world over under such -circumstances, and for some days to come walking was not -of the smoothest.</p> -<p class="pnext">Almost exactly at noonday I caught sight of the -first windmills of La Mancha, three of them slowly -toiling together on a curving hillside, too distinctly -visible at this hour to be mistaken by the most -romance-mad for giants. The few peasants I fell in -with now and then were a more placid, somber people -than the Andaluz and, as is commonly the case in -villages reached by no railway, more courteous to -the roadster than their fellows more directly in touch -with the wide world.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was that hour when the sun halts lingering -above the edge of the earth, as if loath to leave it, -that I entered the noiseless little hamlet of Puerto -Lápiche. It contained no public hostelry, but the -woman who kept its single shop cooked me a supper, -chiefly of fried eggs, which I ate sitting on a stool -before the building. The fried eggs of Spain! -Wherein their preparation differs from that in other -lands I know not, but he who has never eaten them -after a long day's tramp cannot guess to what -Epicurean heights fried eggs may rise. How, knowing -of them, could Sancho have named cow-heel for his -choice?</p> -<p class="pnext">The evening was of that soft and gentle texture -that invites openly to a night out-of-doors. On the -edge of the open country beyond, too, was a -threshing-floor heaped with new straw that would certainly -have been my choice, had not the village guardia -been watching my every movement from across the -way. When I had returned the porcelain frying-pan -to its owner, I strolled boldly across to the -officer and inquired for a lodging.</p> -<p class="pnext">"With regret, señor," he replied, raising his hat -and offering me the stool on which he had been -seated, "I am forced to say that we are a small -village so rarely honored by the presence of travelers -that we have no public house. But--" he hesitated -a moment, then went on "--the weather is fine, -señor; the night is warm, the pure air hurts no one; -why do you not make your bed on the soft, clean straw -of the threshing-floor yonder?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Caballero," I responded, with my most Spanish -salute, "a thousand thanks--and may your grace -remain with God."</p> -<p class="pnext">For the first time during my journey the heat was -tempered next morning, though by no means routed, -by a slightly overcast sky. The wind continued. -The highway led on through a seared brown country, -for the most part a silent, smokeless, unpeopled land. -The windmills of La Mancha were numerous now -on either hand as the road sank slowly down to a gap -in the low, gaunt mountains of Ciudad Real. At -last it reached them and, picking its way through -the narrow pass of Lápiche, strode off again across -a still hotter, drier region, unmitigated even by the -wind, which had stopped short at the mountain -barrier--a land flowing not even with ditch-water. I -halted but briefly at the large village of Madridejos, -peopled by a slow, dreamy-eyed, yet toil-calloused -peasantry, as if their world of fancy and the hard -stony life of reality never quite joined hands.</p> -<p class="pnext">Hot, thirsty and hungry, I came in mid-afternoon -to an isolated ramshackle venta in a rocky -wilderness. An enormous shaggy man of a zoölogical cast -of countenance, and a male-limbed girl were harnessing -mules in the yard. No other living thing showed -itself. I offered a peseta for food. The man glared -at me for a time in silence, then growled that he -sold nothing, but that I should find a posada not far -beyond. He was evidently the champion prevaricator -of that region, for not the suggestion of a hovel -appeared during the rest of the afternoon. But he -would be a fellow with Sancho indeed, who could not -overrule a few hour's appetite in thinking of higher -things, and no fit traveler in this hard, toilsome land -where overeating is not numbered among the -vices.</p> -<p class="pnext">The setting of the sun was perhaps an hour off -when the highway, swinging a bit to the left and -surmounting a barren, rocky ridge, laid suddenly -before me an enthralling prospect. Below, far down -on a distinctly lower level, a flat, ruffled country still -misty with rising waves of heat, stretched away to -the uttermost endless distance. The whole, glinting -in the oblique rays of the setting sun, was scored in -every direction with dull rock villages huddled -compactly together, while on every hand, like signal fires -on a western prairie, rose from a hundred threshing-floors -columns of chaff straight and slender into the -motionless air to an incredible height before breaking -up. The road descended with decision, yet in -no unseemly haste and, marching for an hour across -a country traveled only by an occasional donkey -loaded with chopped straw, led me at nightfall into -the scene of Sancho's labors in the wheat-piles--the -village of Tembleque.</p> -<p class="pnext">In its immense fonda, but for the underground -stables one single, vast, cobble-paved room, a -vacant-eyed old man, a girl, and a leviathan of a woman sat -among the carts, wine-casks, and heaps of harnesses, -the latter knitting. In strictest Castilian the -establishment was no fonda, but a <em class="italics">parador</em>, from <em class="italics">parar</em>, -to stop; and certainly it could not with honesty have -laid claim to any more inviting name, for assuredly -no man in his senses would have dreamed of choosing -it as a <em class="italics">staying</em>-place. When I asked if lodging was -to be had, the woman replied with a caustic sneer that -she had always been able thus far to accommodate any -who were able and willing to pay.</p> -<p class="pnext">"And can one also get supper?" I inquired timorously.</p> -<p class="pnext">"How on earth do I know?" snapped the woman.</p> -<p class="pnext">I stared with a puzzled air at the old man and he -in like manner at the knitter, who turned out to be -his wife, espoused in budding maidenhood when his -march in life had well begun.</p> -<p class="pnext">"How can I cook him supper if he has none with -him?" snarled the no longer maidenly.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Er--what have you brought to eat?" asked the -preadamite in a quavering voice.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Nothing to be sure. What is a fonda for?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah, then how can la señora mía get you supper? -Over the way is the butcher, beyond, the green-grocer, -further still the panadero--"</p> -<p class="pnext">I returned some time later with meat, bread, -potatoes, garbanzos, and a variety of vegetables, -supplied with which the señora duly prepared me a -supper--by sitting tight in her chair and issuing a -volley of commands to the girl and the old man. For -this service she demanded two "fat dogs," and collected -at the same time an equal amount for my lodging.</p> -<p class="pnext">When I had eaten, the mistress of the house -mumbled a word to the dotard. He lighted with -trembling hand a sort of miner's lamp and led the -way downward into the subterranean stable and for -what seemed little short of a half-mile through great -stone vaults musty with time, close by the cruppers -of an army of mules and burros. Opening at last a -door some three feet square and as many above the -floor, he motioned to me to climb through it into a -bin filled with chaff. This was to all appearances -clean, yet I hesitated. For in these endless vaults, -to which the outer air seemed not to have penetrated -for a century, it was cold as a November evening. -I glanced at the old man in protest. He blinked back -at me, shook his ever-quaking head a bit more -forcibly, and turning, shuffled away through the -resounding cavern, the torch casting at first weird, -dancing shadows behind his wavering legs, then -gradually dying out entirely. I stood in blackest -darkness, undecided. Before, however, the last faint -sound of his going had wholly passed away, the -scrape of the veteran's faltering feet grew louder -again and in another moment he reappeared, -clutching under one thin arm a heavy blanket. When I -had taken it, he put a finger to his lips, cast his -sunken eyes about him, whispered "sh!" with a -labored wink, and tottered once more away. I -climbed into the bin and slept soundly until the -cursing of arrieros harnessing their mules aroused me -shortly before dawn.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="the-trail-of-the-priest">CHAPTER IX</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">THE TRAIL OF THE PRIEST</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">The people of Tembleque had been just certain -enough that none but an arriero could follow -the intricate route thither, and that no man could -cover the distance on foot in one day, to cause me to -awaken determined to leave the Madrid highway and -strike cross-country to Toledo. The first stage of -the journey was the road to the village of Mora, -which I was long in finding because at its entrance -to--which chanced also to be its exit from--Tembleque -it split up like an unraveled shoe-string. I -got beyond the loose ends at last, however, and set a -sharp pace--even though the hole in my shoe had -enlarged to the size of a peseta--across a scarred -and weather-beaten landscape that seemed constantly -reminding how aged is the world.</p> -<p class="pnext">Twenty-four kilometers brought me to Mora, a -sturdy town of countrymen, in time for an early and -stinted dinner and inquiries which led me off in a -new direction up a steadily mounting region to -Mascargne. There, at a still different point of the -compass, a ruined castle on a hilltop ten kilometers away -was pointed out to me as the landmark of El -Monacail; to which village a rugged and sterile road -clambered over a country hunch-backed with hills. It was -siesta-time when I arrived, the sun scorching hot, a -burning wind sweeping among the patched and -misshapen hovels that made up the place. There were -no inhabitants abroad, which argued their good -sense; but in the shadow of the only public building -a trio of soldiers were playing at cards. They leered -at me for some time when I made inquiry, then burst -out in derisive laughter.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Claro, hombre!" answered one of them sarcastically. -"You can walk to Toledo la Santa if you -know enough to follow a cow-path."</p> -<p class="pnext">I stumbled into it just beyond, a cow-path indeed, -though too little used to be clearly marked, and -meandering in and out with it for twenty kilometers -through rocky <em class="italics">barrancas</em> and across sandy patches, -gained as the day was nearing its close the -wind-bitten village of Nambroca. A few miles more -through a still greater chaos of rocks and I came out -unexpectedly on the crest of a jagged promontory -that brought me to a sudden halt before one of the -most fascinating panoramas in all Spain.</p> -<p class="pnext">A still higher rise cutting off the foreground, there -began a few miles beyond, the vast, wrinkled, -verdureless plateau of Castile, rolling away and upward like -an enormous tilted profile-map of the world, sea-blue -with distance and heat rays, all details blended -together into an indistinctness that left only an -undivided impression like a Whistlerian painting. -I pushed forward and at the top of the next ridge -gasped aloud with new wonder. From this summit -the world fell pell-mell away at my feet into a -bottomless gorge; and beyond, two or three miles away, -the culminating point in a tumultuous landscape of -ravines, gulleys and precipitous chasms, sat an -Oriental city, close-packed and isolated in its rocky -solitude, the sun's last rays casting over its domes -and minaret-like spires a flood of color that seemed -suddenly and bodily to transport the beholder into -the very heart of Asia. My goal was won; before -me lay the ancient capital of the Goths, history-rich Toledo.</p> -<p class="pnext">I sat down on the crest of the precipice overhanging -the Tajo, almost beneath the enormous iron cross -set in a rock to mark Toledo as the religious center -of Spain, and remained watching the city across the -gulf, full certain that whatever offered within its -walls could in no degree equal the view from this -facing hilltop. Richly indeed did this one sight of -her reward the long day's tramp across the choking -hills, even had there not been a pleasure in the -walk itself; and upon me fell a great pity for those -that come to her by railroad in the glare of day and -the swelter of humanity.</p> -<p class="pnext">As I sat, and the scene was melting away into the -descending night, a voice sounded behind me and a -ragged, slouching son of fortune proffered the -accustomed greeting and, rolling a cigarette, sat down -at my side. He was a "child of Toledo," and of his -native city we fell to talking. At length he raised -his flabby fist and, shaking it at the twinkling lights -across the Tajo, cried out:</p> -<p class="pnext">"O Toledo, my city! Gaunt, sunken-bellied -Toledo, bound to your rock and devoured by the -vulture horde of bloated churchmen while your children -are starving!</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," he continued, suddenly returning to a -conversational tone, "let me show you but one of a -thousand iniquities of these frailuchos."</p> -<p class="pnext">He rose and led the way a little further along the -path I had been following, halting at the edge of a -yawning hole in the rocks, like a bottomless well, the -existence of which I was thankful to have learned -before I continued my way.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," he said, "no man can tell how many -have died here, for it lies, as you see, in the very -center of the trail over these hills. For a -hundred years, as my grandfather has known, it has -stood so. But do you think yon cursed priests would -spend a perrito of their blood-sweated booty to -cover it?"</p> -<p class="pnext">It was black night when I picked my way down -into the valley of the Tajo and, crossing the -Alkántara bridge, climbed painfully upstairs into Toledo. -Even within, the Oriental impression was not lost, -though the Castilian tongue sounded on every side. -With each step forward came some new sign to -recall that for half the past eight hundred years Toledo -was an Arab-ruled and Arabic-speaking city. Thus -it is still her Eastern fashion to conceal her wealth by -building her houses inwardly, leaving for public -thoroughfare the narrow, haphazard passageways -between them, and giving to the arriving stranger the -sensation of wandering through a haughty crowd of -which each coldly turns his back.</p> -<p class="pnext">Her medley of streets was such as one might find -in removing the top of an ant-hill, an ant-hill in -which modern improvements have made little -progress; her pavements of round, century-polished -cobble-stones, glinting in the weak light of an occasional -street-lamp, were painful indeed to blistered feet. -Ugly and barn-like outwardly, like the Alhambra, hen -houses frequently resemble that ancient palace, too, -in that they are rich with decoration and comfort -within. It was an hour or more before I was directed -to a casa de huéspedes in the calle de la Lechuga, or -Lettuce street, a gloomy crack between two rows of -buildings. The house itself was such as only a man -of courage would have entered by night in any other -city. I ventured in, however, and found the family -out-of-doors--lolling in the flower and palm-grown -patio beneath the star-riddled sky, the canvas that -formed the roof by day being drawn back. Even the -well was in the patio, on which opened, like the others, -the room to which I was assigned, presenting toward -the street a blank, windowless wall.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was late the next forenoon before I had slept the -forty hot and rocky miles out of my legs and sallied -forth to visit a shoemaker. As he lived only two -streets away, it was my good fortune to find him in -less than an hour, and as Toledo is the last city in the -world in which a man would care to run about in his -socks, I sat on a stool beside his workbench for -something over three hours. His home and shop consisted -of one cavernous room; his family, of a wife who -sewed so incessantly that one might easily have -fancied her run by machinery, and of a daughter of -six who devised more amusement with a few scraps -of leather than many another might with all the toys -of Nürnberg. The shoemaker was of that old-fashioned -tribe of careful workmen, taking pride in their -labor, whom it is always a joy to meet--though not -always to sit waiting for. He, too, hinted at the -misery of life in Toledo, but unlike the specter of the -night before, did not lay the blame for the sunken -condition of his city on the "frailuchos," charging -it rather to the well-known perverseness of fate, -either because he was of an orthodox turn of mind -or because his wife sat close at hand. When he had -finished, having sewed soles and nailed heels on my -shoes that were to endure until Spain was left behind, -he collected a sum barely equal to forty cents.</p> -<p class="pnext">In striking contrast to him--indeed, the two well -illustrated the two types of workmen the world -harbors--was the barber who performed the next -service. He was a mountain of sloth who rose with -almost a growl at being disturbed and, his mind -elsewhere, listlessly proceeded to the task before him. -Though he was over forty and knew no other trade, -he had not learned even this one, but haggled and -clawed as that breed of man will who drifts through -life without training himself to do anything. The -reflective wanderer comes more and more to respect -only the man, be he merely a street-sweeper, who does -his life's work honestly; the "four-flusher" is ever -a source of nausea and a lowerer of the tone of life, -be he the president of a nation.</p> -<p class="pnext">While I suffered, a priest dropped in to have his -tonsure renovated and gloriously outdid in the -scrofulousness of his anecdotes not only this clumsy -wielder of the helmet of Mambrino, but exposed poor -timorous Boccaccio for a prude and a Quaker.</p> -<p class="pnext">Packed away down in a hollow of the congested -city is that famous cathedral surnamed "la Rica." "The -Rich"--it would be nearer justice to dub her -the Midian, the Ostentatious, for she is so overburdened -and top-heavy with wealth that one experiences -at sight of her a feeling almost of disgust, as for -a woman garish with jewelry. We of the United -States must see, to conceive what shiploads of riches -are heaped up within the churches of Spain by the -superstitions of her people and the rapacity of her -priests, who, discovering the impossibility of laying -up their booty hereafter, agree with many groans to -stack it here.</p> -<p class="pnext">"The Spanish church," observes Gautier, "is -scarcely any longer frequented except by tourists, -mendicants, and horrible old women." If one choose -the right hour of the afternoon even these vexations -are chiefly absent, entirely, perhaps, but for a poor -old crone or two kneeling before some mammoth doll -tricked out to represent the Virgin and bowing down -now and then in true Mohammedan fashion to kiss -the stone flagging. The Iberian traveler must visit -the cathedrals of the peninsula, not merely because -they offer the only cool retreat on a summer day, but -because they are the museums of Spain's art and -history. But even the splendor of the setting sun -through her marvelous stained-glass windows cannot -overcome the oppressiveness of "la Rica."</p> -<p class="pnext">As he stands before the wondrous paintings that -enrich the great religious edifices of Spain, the -matter-of-fact American of to-day is not unlikely to be -assailed by other thoughts than the pure esthetic. -There comes, perhaps, the reflection of how false is -that oft-repeated assertion that the world's truly great -artists exercised their genius solely for pure art's -sake. Would they then have prostituted their years -on earth to tickling the vanity of their patrons, in -depicting the wife of some rich candle-maker -walking arm in arm with the Nazarene on the Mount of -Olives, or the absurdity of picturing Saint Fulano, -who was fed to Roman lions in A.D. 300, strolling -through a Sevillian garden with the infant Jesus in -his arms and a heavenly smirk on his countenance? -How much greater treasures might we have to-day -had they thrown off the double yoke of contemporaneous -superstitions and servility to wealth and -painted, for example, the real Mary as in their -creative souls they saw her, the simple Jewish housewife -amid her plain Syrian surroundings. Instead of -which they have set on canvas and ask us to accept as -their real conception voluptuous-faced "Virgins" -who were certainly painted from models of a very -different type, and into whose likeness in spite of the -painter's skill has crept a hint that the poser's -thoughts during the sitting were much less on her -assumed motherhood of a deity than on the coming -evening's amours.</p> -<p class="pnext">Horror, too, stands boldly forth in Spanish painting. -The Spaniard is, incongruously enough, as -realist of the first water. He will see things -materially, graphically; the bullfight is his great -delight, not the pretended reality of the theater. -Centuries of fighting the infidel, centuries of -courting self-sacrifice in slaying heretics, the reaction -against the sensuous gentleness of the Moor, have all -combined to make his Christianity fervid, savage, -sanguinary. Yielding to which characteristic of his -fellow-countrymen, or tainted with it himself, many -a Spanish artist seems to have gloried in depicting -in all gruesome detail martyrs undergoing torture, -limbs and breasts lopped off and lying bleeding close -at hand, unshaven torturers wielding their dripping -knives with fiendish merriment. These horrors, too, -are set up in public places of worship, where little -children come daily, and even men on occasion. It -is strange, indeed, if childhood's proneness to -imitation does not make the playground frequently the -scene of similar martyrdoms. How much better to -treat the tots to a daily visit to the morgue, where -what they see would at least be true to nature--and -far less repulsive.</p> -<p class="pnext">There are other "sights" in Toledo than the -cathedral for him who is successful in running them -down in her jungle of streets. Each such chase is -certain sooner or later to bring him out into the -Zocodover, that disheveled central plaza in which the -sunbeams fall like a shower of arrows. The inferno -into which he seems plunged unwarned chokes at -once the rambler's grumble at the intricacies of the -city and brings him instead to mumble praises of the -Arabs, who had the good sense so to build that the -sun with his best endeavors rarely gets a peep into the -depth of the pavement; and the time is short indeed -before he dives back into the relief of one of the -radiating calles.</p> -<p class="pnext">As often as I crossed the "Zoco" my eyes were -drawn to a ragged fellow of my own age, with a -six-inch stump for one leg, lolling prone on the -dirt-carpeted earth in a corner of the square, mumbling from -time to time over his cigarette:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Una limosnita, señores; qué Dios se lo pagará."</p> -<p class="pnext">There was in his face evidence that he had been -born with fully average gifts, perhaps special -talents; and a sensation of sadness mingled with anger -came upon me with the reflection that through all the -years I had been living and learning and journeying -to and fro upon the earth, this hapless fellow-mortal -had been squatting in the dust of Toledo's Zocodover, -droning the national lamentation:</p> -<p class="pnext">"A little alms, señores, and may God repay you."</p> -<p class="pnext">Just another was he of her thousands of sons -that Spain has wantonly let go to waste, until even -at this early age he had sunk to a lump of living -human carrion that all the powers of earth or from -Elsewhere could not remake into the semblance of a man.</p> -<p class="pnext">Try though one may, one cannot escape the -conviction that the fat of Toledo goes to the priesthood, -both physically and figuratively. High or low, -the churchmen that overrun the place have all a sleek, -contented air and on their cynical, sordid faces an -all too plain proof of addiction to the flesh pots; -while the layman has always a hungry look, not quite -always of animal hunger for food, but at least for -those things that stand next above. Nowhere can -one escape the cloth. Every half-hour one is sure to -run across at least a bishop tottering under a -fortune's-worth of robes and attended by a bodyguard -of acolytes, pausing now and again to shed his -putative blessing on some devout passer-by. Of lesser -dignitaries, of cowled monks and religious mendicants -there is no lack, while with the common or -garden variety of priest, a cigarette hanging from a -corner of his mouth, his shovel hat set at a rakish -angle, his black gown swinging with the jauntiness -of a stage Mephistopheles, ogling the girls in street -or promenade, the city swarms. Distressingly close -is the resemblance of these latter to those creatures -one may find loitering about the stage-door toward -the termination of a musical comedy.</p> -<p class="pnext">I sat one afternoon on a bench of that broken -promenade that partly surrounds Toledo high above -the Tajo, watching the sun set across the western -vega, when my thoughts were suddenly snatched back -through fully a thousand years of time by the -six-o'clock whistle of the Fabrica de Armas below. -When my astonishment had died away, there came -over me the recollection that not once before in all -Spain had I heard that sound, a factory whistle. -Agreeable as that absence of sibilant discord is to -the wanderer's soul, I could not but wonder whether -just there is not the outward mark of one of the chief -reasons why the Spain of to-day straggles where she -does in the procession of nations.</p> -<p class="pnext">I descended one afternoon from Lettuce street to -the sand-clouded station on the plain and spent the -ensuing night in Aranjuez, a modern checker-board -city planted with exotic elms and royal palaces. It -was again afternoon before I turned out into the -broad highway that, crossing the Tajo, struck off -with business-like directness across a vega fertile -with wheat. Before long it swung sharply to the -right and, laboring up the scarified face of a cliff, -gained the great central tableland of Castilla Nueva, -then stalked away across a weird and solemn -landscape as drear and desolate as the hills of Judea.</p> -<p class="pnext">The crabbed village that I fell upon at dusk -furnished me bread and wine, but no lodging. I plodded -on, trusting soon to find a more hospitable hamlet. -But the desolation increased with the night; neither -man nor habitation appeared. Toward eleven I gave -up the search and, stepping off the edge of the -highway, found a bit of space unencumbered with rocks -and lay down until the dawn.</p> -<p class="pnext">The sun rose murky. In twenty kilometers the -deserted carretera passed only two squalid -wineshops. Then rounding in mid-morning a slight -eminence, it presented suddenly to my eyes a smoky, -indistinct, yet vast city stretching on a higher plane -half across the desolate horizon. It was Madrid. -I tramped hours longer, so uncertainly did the -highway wander to and fro seeking an entrance, -but came at last into a miserable outskirt -village and tossed away the stick that had borne my -knapsack since the day I had fashioned that -convenience in the southern foothills of Andalusia. -Two besmirched street Arabs, pouncing upon it -almost as it fell--so extraordinary a curiosity was -it in this unwooded region--waged pitched battle -until each carried away a half triumphant. I pushed -on across the massive Puente de Toledo high above -the trickle of water that goes by the name of the -river Manzanares and, mounting through a city as -different from Toledo as Cairo from Damascus, -halted at last in the mildly animated Puerta del Sol, -the center of Spain and, to the Spaniard, of the -universe.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="shadows-of-the-philips">CHAPTER X</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">SHADOWS OF THE PHILIPS</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">A day or two later I was installed for a -fortnight in a casa de huéspedes in the calle San -Bernardo. In such places as one plans to remain -for any length of time there are few cheaper -arrangements for ample fare in all Europe than these -Spanish "houses of guests." My room, which was -temporarily on the second-floor front, but solemnly -pledged to be soon changed to the third-floor back, -was all that an unpampered wanderer could have -required. Breakfast was light; a cup of chocolate and -a roll--no self-respecting traveler ventures to -sample Spanish coffee more than once. But one -soon grows accustomed and indeed to prefer the -European abstemiousness at the first meal. In -compensation the <em class="italics">almuerzo</em> and <em class="italics">comida</em>, at twelve and -seven, were more than abundant. A thick soup, -not unseldom redolent of garlic, was followed by a -salad, and that by a <em class="italics">puchero</em>, which is to say an -entire meal on one platter,--in the center a square -of boiled beef flanked like St. Peter's amid the hills of -Rome by seven varieties of vegetables, the -<em class="italics">garbanzos</em>--bright yellow chickpeas of the size of -marbles--with the usual disproportion granted that -robust comestible in Spain, overtowering not only -every other eminence but carpeting the intervening -valleys. That despatched, or seriously disfigured, -there came a second offering from the animal world,--a -<em class="italics">cocido</em> or an <em class="italics">olla podrida</em>, after which the -repast descended gradually by fruit, cheese, and -cigarettes to its termination. Through it all a common -wine flowed generously.</p> -<p class="pnext">Even on Friday this sturdy good cheer knew no -abatement. Centuries ago, in the raging days of -the Moor, the faithful of Spain were granted for -their Catholic zeal and bodily behoof this dispensation, -that they might nourish their lean frames on -whatever it should please Santiago, their patron, to -bring within bowshot of their home-made crosspieces. -The Moor has long since removed his dusky shadow -from the land, but the dispensation remains. -Indeed, there is left scarcely a custom the inobservance -of which betrays the non-Catholic; or if one -there be at all general it is this: when he -yawns--which he is not unwont to do even at table--the -devout Spaniard makes over his mouth the sign of -the cross, to keep the devil from gaining a foothold -therein--an exorcism that is not always successful.</p> -<p class="pnext">There is yet another custom, quite the opposite -of religious in result at least, which the guest at a -casa de huéspedes must school himself to endure. It -grows out of the Spaniard's infernal politeness. -Figure to yourself that you have just returned from -a morning of tramping through sweltering Madrid -on the ephemeral breakfast already noted, and sit -down at table just as a steaming puchero is served. -With a melodious and self-sacrificing "Serve -yourself, señor," the addle-pated Spaniard across the -way pushes the dish to his neighbor; to which the -neighbor responds by pushing it back again with a -"No! Serve <em class="italics">yourself</em>, señor," followed in quick -succession by "No! No! Serve yourself, señor;" "No! -No! No! señor! Serve yourself!" "No! No! No! -No! serve--" and so on to the end of time, or until -a wrathy Anglo-Saxon, rising in his place, picks up -the source of dispute and establishes order.</p> -<p class="pnext">Our household in the calle San Bernardo consisted -of a lawyer, a "man of affairs"--using the -latter word in its widest signification--of two young -Germans, "Don Hermann" and "Don Ricardo," -for some time employed in the city, and of the family -itself. Of this the husband, a slouching, toothless -fellow of fifty, and the grandmother were mere -supernumeraries. The speaking parts were taken by -the wife and daughter, the former an enormous, -unpolished woman with a well-developed mustache -and the over-developed voice of a stevedore. -Indeed, a stentorian, grating voice and a habit of -speaking always at the tiptop of it is one of the -chief afflictions of the Spanish women of the -masses--and of their hearers. Is it by chance due to the -custom of studying and reciting always aloud and -in chorus during their few years of schooling? Quién -sabe? There was presented during my stay in -Madrid the play, or more properly playlet--zarzuela--"Levantar -Mueros--Raising the Dead"; but I -dared not go lest it turn out to be a dramatized -sewing circle.</p> -<p class="pnext">But it remains to introduce the star member of the -cast, the center of that San Bernardo universe around -which revolved mother, supernumeraries, and guests -like planets in their orbits--the daughter. I fully -expect to wander many a weary mile before I again -behold so beautiful a maid--or one that I should -take more pleasure in being a long way distant from. -She was sixteen--which in Spain is past childhood--a -glorious, faultless blonde in a land where -blondes are at high premium, her lips forming what -the Spaniard calls a "nido de besos"--a nest of -osculatory delights--and-- But why drive the -impossible task further? Such radiant perfections -in human form must be seen at least to be appreciated. -It is sufficient, perhaps, to mention that her -likeness was on sale in every novelty shop in Madrid -and found more purchasers than that of Machaquito, -King of the Toreros. In short, a supreme beauty--had -she been captured early and suitably polished -instead of remaining at home with mother until she -had acquired mother's voice, and mother's roughshod -manners, and a slothful habit of life that was -destined, alas, in all probability to end by reproducing -her mother's bulk and mustache.</p> -<p class="pnext">There are two things worth seeing in howling, -meeowling, brawling, blistering Madrid--her -outdoor life and the Prado museum. It was the latter -that I viewed by day, for when relentless August has -settled down the capital is not merely hot, it is -plutonic, cowering under a dead, sultry heat without the -relief of a breath of air, a heat that weighs down -like a leaden blanket and makes Seville seem by -comparison a northern seaport. A saying as old as its -foolish founder's grave credits the city with three -month's invierno and nine months' infierno, a -characterization that loses much in symmetry, though -gaining, perhaps, in force by translation. It was -my fortune to have happened into the place when -the lowest circle of the latter region was having its -inning.</p> -<p class="pnext">Wherefore I went often to the Prado; and came as -often away more physically fatigued than after a -four-hour watch in a stokehole, and with my head -in a bewildered whirl that even a long stroll in the -Buen Retiro only partly reduced. It is like the -irrationality of man to bring together these -thousands of masterpieces, so close together that not -one of them can produce a tenth of its proper effect. -Of the pictures in the Prado the seeing alone would -require two years of continuous work, the attempt to -describe, a lifetime; pictures running through all -the gamut of art from the fading of the pre-Raphaelites -down to Goya, that plain-spoken Goya who -seems to have stood afar off and thrown paint by -the bucketful at his canvas--with marvelous -results. A pandemonium of paintings, not one of -which but off by itself would bring daily inspiration -to all beholders. It is the tendency of all things to -crowd together--wealth, art, learning, work, leisure, -poverty; man's duty to combat this tendency by -working for a sane and equitable distribution. The -Prado collection would be a treasure, indeed, had -those who exerted themselves to bring these paintings -together given half that exertion to spreading them -out. Then it might be that in a land as rich with -art as Spain one would not find daubs and -beer-calendars hung in the place of honor in the homes -and fondas of "the masses." When the good day -comes that the accumulation of the Prado is -dispersed I shall bespeak as my share the "Borrachos" -or "Vulcan's Forge" of sturdy Velazquez.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 91%" id="figure-63"> -<span id="la-puerta-del-sol-madrid-the-spaniard"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-176a.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -La Puerta del Sol, Madrid: the Spaniard'</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">center of the universe]</p> -<p class="pnext">Those who are curious may also visit, at -seasons and with permissions, the unpleasing royal -palace, about the outer walls of which sleep scores -of fly-proof vagrants in the shade of half leafless -trees, and sundry other government buildings, all of -which--except the vagrants--are duly and fully -described in the guide-books. There is, too, the daily -<em class="italics">juego de Pelota</em>, imported from the Basque provinces, -a sort of enlarged handball played in a slate-walled -chamber in which the screaming of gamblers -for bids and their insults to the players know no -cessation. Wandering aimlessly through her streets, as -the sojourner in Madrid must who cannot daily sleep -the day through, I found myself often pausing to -admire the splendid displays in the windows of her -tailors. Spain has no wool schedule, and as I gazed -a deep regret came over me that I could not always -be a dweller in Madrid when my garb grows threadbare -or a tailor bill falls due. But there was sure -remedy for such melancholy. When it grew acute -I had but to turn and note the fitting of these -splendid fabrics on the passer-by, and the sadness -changed to a wonder that the madrileño tailor has -the audacity to charge at all for his services.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 94%" id="figure-64"> -<span id="an-alameda-by-day-chairs-stacked-until-busy-night-time"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-176b.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -An Alameda by day--chairs stacked until busy night-time</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">So bare and uninviting are her environs--and she -has no suburbs--that Madrid never retires -outwardly as other cities for her picnics and holidays, -but crowds more closely together in the Buen Retiro. -The congestion is greatest about the Estanque -Grande. The largest body of water the normal -madrileño ever sees is this artificial pond of about the -area--though not the depth--of a college -swimming-pool. On it are marooned a few venerable -rowboats, for a ride in which most of the residents of -Madrid have been politely quarreling every fair day -since they reached a quarrelsome age. Small wonder -dwellers in the capital cry out in horror at the idea -of drinking water. One might as sanely talk of -burning wood for fuel.</p> -<p class="pnext">Obviously no untraveled native of "las Cortes" -has more than a vague conception of the sea. -Indeed, the ignorance on this point is nothing short -of pathetic, if one may judge from the popular sea -novel that fell into my hands during my stay. The -writer evidently dwelt in the usual hotbox that -constitutes a Madrid lodging and had not the remotest, -wildest notion what thing a sea may be, nor the -ability to tell a mainsail from a missionary's mule. -But he was a clever man--to have concocted such a -yarn and escaped persecution.</p> -<p class="pnext">Madrid, however, like all urban Spain, comes -thoroughly to life only with the fall of night. -Occasionally a special celebration carries her populace -to some strange corner of the city, but the fixed -rendezvous is the Paseo de Recoletos, a broader -Alameda where reigns by day an un-Spanish opulence -of shade enjoyed only by the chairs stacked house-high -beneath the trees. There is nothing hurried -about the congregating. Dinner leisurely finished, -the madrileño of high or low degree begins to drift -slowly thither. By nine the public benches are taken; -by ten one can and must move only with the throng -at the accepted pace, or pay a copper to sit in -haughty state in one of the now unstacked chairs. -Toward ten-thirty a military band straggles in from -the four points of the compass, finishes its cigarette, -languidly unlimbers its instruments, and near eleven -falls to work--or play. About the same time there -come wandering through the trees, as if drawn here -by merest chance, five threadbare blind men, each -with a battered violin or horn tucked tenderly under -one arm. During the opening number they listen -attentively, in silence, after the manner of musicians. -Then as the official players pause to roll new -cigarettes the sightless ragamuffins take their stand near -at hand and strike up a music that more than one -city of the western world could do worse than -subsidize. Thereafter melody is incessant; and with it -the murmur of countless voices, the scrape of leisurely -feet on the gravel, the cries of the hawkers of all -that may by any chance be sought, and louder and -more insistent than all else the baying of newsboys--aged -forty to sixty and of both sexes--"<em class="italics">El País!</em>" -"<em class="italics">El Heraldo!</em>" "<em class="italics">La Cor-r-respondencia-a-a-a!</em>"</p> -<p class="pnext">Midnight! Why, midnight is only late in the -afternoon in Madrid. The concert does not end until -three and half the babies of the city are playing in -the sand along the Paseo de Recoletos when the -musicians leave. Besides, what else is to be done? Even -did one feel the slightest desire to turn in there is -not the remotest possibility of finding one's room -less than a sweatbox. The populace shows little -inclination to disperse, and though many saunter -unwillingly homeward for form's sake, it is not to -sleep, for one may still hear chatting and the muffled -twang of guitars behind the blinds of the open -windows. As for myself, I drifted commonly after the -concert into the "Circo Americano" or a zarzuela, -though such entertainments demonstrated nothing -except how easily the madrileño is amused. Yet even -these close early--for Madrid; and rambling -gradually into my adopted section, it was usually my -fortune to run across a "friend of the house"--of -whom more anon--to retire with him to the nearest -<em class="italics">Juego de Billar</em>, or billiard-hall, there to play the -night gray-headed.</p> -<p class="pnext">The doors of Madrid close at midnight, and neither -the madrileño nor his guests have yet reached that -stage of civilization where they can be entrusted with -their own latch-key. But it is easy for all that to -gain admittance. One has only to halt before one's -door, clap one's hands soundly three or six or nine -or fifteen times, bawl in one's most musical and -top-most voice, "Ser-r-r-r-reno!" not forgetting to roll -the r like the whir of a broken emery-wheel, and -then sit calmly down on the curb and wait. Within -a half-hour, or an hour at most, the watchman is -almost sure to appear, rattling with gigantic keys, -carrying staff and lantern, and greeting the exile -with all the compliments of the Spanish season, -unlocks, furnishes him a lighted wax taper, wishes him -a "good night" and a long day's sleep, and -gracefully pockets his two-cent fee.</p> -<p class="pnext">Theoretically the sereno is supposed to keep order--or -at least orderly. But nothing is more noted -for its absence in Madrid by night than order. The -sereno of the calle San Bernardo showed great liking -for the immediate neighborhood of our casa de -huéspedes--after I had been admitted. Rare the -night--that is, morning--that he did not sit down -beneath my window--for my promotion to the third-floor -back was postponed until I left the city--with a -pair of hackmen or day-hawks and fall to rehearsing -in a foghorn-voice the story of his noble past. -Twice or thrice I let drop a hint in the form of what -water was in my pitcher. But the serenos of Madrid -are imperturbable, and water is precious. On each -such occasion the romancer moved over some two -feet and serenely continued his tale until the rising -sun sent him strolling homeward.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Don Ricardo," of our German boarders, aspired -to change from his stool in a banking-house to the -bullring. He had taken a course in Madrid's -Escuela Taurina and was already testing his prowess -each Sunday as a banderillero in the little plaza of -Tetuan, a few miles outside the city. In consequence--for -"Ricardo" was a companionable youth for -all his ragged Spanish--our casa de huéspedes -became a rendezvous of lesser lights in the taurine -world. Two or three toreros were sure to drop in -each evening before we had sipped the last of our -wine, to spend an hour or two in informal <em class="italics">tertulia</em>. -I had not been a week in the city before I numbered -among my acquaintances Curdito, Capita de -Carmona, Pepete, and Moreno de Alcala, all men whose -names have decorated many a ringside poster.</p> -<p class="pnext">There appeared one evening among the "friends -of the house" a young man of twenty, of singularly -attractive appearance and personality. Clear-eyed, -of lithe yet muscular frame, and a spring-like -quickness in every movement, he was noticeable -above all for his modest deportment, having barely -a touch of that arrogant self-esteem that is so -frequently the dominating characteristic of the -Spaniard. His speech was the soft, musical Andalusian; -his conversation quickly demonstrated him a man of -a high rate of intelligence.</p> -<p class="pnext">Such was Faustino Posadas, bullfighter, already -a favorite among the aficionados of Spain, though it -is by no means often that a youth of twenty finds -himself vested with the red muleta. Son of the -spare-limbed old herder who has been keeper for -many years of the Tabladas, or bull pastures, of -Seville, he had been familiar with the animals and -their ways from early childhood. At sixteen he was -already a banderillero. A famous espada carried -him in his caudrilla to Peru and an accident to a -fellow torero gave him the opportunity to -despatch his first two bulls in the plaza of Lima. He -returned to Spain a full-fledged "novillero" and -was rapidly advancing to the rank of graduate -espada, with the right to appear before bulls of any age.</p> -<p class="pnext">Once introduced, Posadas appeared often in the -calle San Bernardo; much too often in fact to leave -any suspicion that either his friendship for "Don -Ricardo" or the charms of our conversation was the -chief cause of his coming. A very few days passed -before it had become a fixed and accepted custom -for him to set out toward nine for the Paseo with -the radiant daughter of the house--though -mother waddled between, of course, after the dictates -of Spanish etiquette. Within a week he was -received by the family on the footing of a declared -suitor; and of his favor with the señorita there was -no room for doubt.</p> -<p class="pnext">There was always a long hour between the termination -of supper and the time when Madrid began -its nightly promenade, during which it was natural -that our conversation should touch chiefly upon -affairs of the ring.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Don Henrico," asked Capita one evening--for -I was known to the company as "Henrico -Franco"--"is it true that there are no bullfights -in your country?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Vaya que gente!" burst out Moreno, when I -had at length succeeded in making clear to them -our national objections to the sport. "What -rubbish! What does it matter if a few old hacks that -would soon fall dead of themselves are killed to -make sport for the aficionados? As for the -bull-- Carajo, hombre! You yourself, if you were in such -a rage as the toro, would no more feel the thrust of a -sword than the pricking of a gadfly."</p> -<p class="pnext">Posadas, on the other hand, readily grasped the -American point of view. He even admitted that he -found the goring of the horses unpleasant and that -he would gladly see that feature of the córrida -eliminated if there were any other way of tiring -the bull before the last act. But for the bull -himself he professed no sympathy whatever.</p> -<p class="pnext">"What would you have us do?" he cried in -conclusion. "Spain offers nothing else for a son of -the people without political pull than to become -torero. Without that we must work as peasants on -black bread and a peseta a day."</p> -<p class="pnext">"As in any other trade," I inquired, "I suppose -you enter the ring without any thought of danger, -any feeling of fear?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, I don't remember ever being afraid," -laughed the Sevillian, "though when Miúra furnishes -the stock I like to hear mass before the córrida."</p> -<p class="pnext">"What are the secrets of success?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"I know only one," answered Posadas, "and that -is no secret. Every move the bull makes shows -first in the whites of his eyes. Never for an -instant do I take my eyes off his. So it has been -my luck not to be once wounded," he concluded, -making the sign of the cross.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Cogidas!" cried Capita, passing a hand over -a dull brown welt on his neck. "Caramba! I have -five of them, and every one by a cursed miúra. No, -I never felt pain, only a cold chill that runs down -to your very toes. But afterward--in the -hospital! Carajo!"</p> -<p class="pnext">One would suppose that men engaged in so -perilous a calling would take extreme bodily care of -themselves. Not a torero among them, however, -knew the meaning of "training" as the word is -used by our athletes. They drank, smoked--even -during the córrida--ate what and when they -pleased, and more commonly spent the night -strolling in the Paseo with an "amiga" or carousing -in a wineshop than sleeping. Whether it is a -leaving of the Moor or native to this blear, rocky -land, there is much of the fatalist in the Spaniard, -especially the Andalusian. He is by nature a -gambler; be he torero, beggar, or senator, he is -always ready and willing to "take a chance."</p> -<p class="pnext">"If a man is marked to be killed in the ring he -will be killed there," asserted Pepete. "He cannot -change his fate by robbing himself of the pleasures -of life."</p> -<p class="pnext">Posadas was engaged to appear in the plaza of -Madrid on the first Sunday of our acquaintance. -When I descended to the street at three the city -was already drifting ringward, a picador in full -trim now and then cantering by on his Rozinante--a -sight fully as exciting to the populace as the -circus parade of our own land. I had reached the -edge of the Puerta del Sol when I heard a "Hola, -amigo!" behind me and turning, beheld none other -than Jesús the Sevillian bearing down upon me with -outstretched hand. He had found work at his trade -in the city--though not yet a barber apparently.</p> -<p class="pnext">"And Gásparo?" I asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Perdido, señor! Lost again!" he sighed. -"Perhaps he has found a new amiga. But I much -more fear he has fallen into the fingers of the -police. Mira V., señor. In all the journey we -have not been able once to hide ourselves on a -freight train. At last, señor, in Castillejo, -Gásparo goes mad and swears he will ride once for -nothing. With twenty people looking on he climbs -a wagon. A man shouts 'thief!' and around the -station comes running a guardia civil. I have not -been able to find Gásparo since. Señor, I have -come to think it is not right to ride on the -railroad without a ticket. Gásparo, perhaps, is in -prison. But we will meet again when he comes out," -he concluded cheerfully, as I turned away.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the plaza fully twelve thousand were -gathered. The córrida was distinguished particularly -for its clumsiness, though the fighters, while young, -were not without reputation. Falls and bruises were -innumerable and the entire performance a chapter -of accidents that kept the aficionados in an uproar -and gave no small amount of work to the attendant -surgeons. Of the three matadores, Serenito, a -hulking fellow whose place seemed last of all in -the bullring, was gored across the loins by his first -bull and forced to abandon his task and fee to the -sobresaliente. Then Platerito--"Silver-plated"--a -mere whisp of a man, having dedicated to the populace -as is the custom in Madrid the death of the fifth -bull, gasconaded up to the animal, fell immediately -foul of a horn, whirled about like a rag caught on -a fly-wheel, and landed on his shoulders fully sixty -feet away. To the astonishment even of the aficionados -he sprang to his feet as jaunty as ever and duly -despatched the animal, though not over handily.</p> -<p class="pnext">The misfortunes of his fellows served to bring out -by contrast the skill of Posadas. Not only did he -pass the day unscathed, but killed both his bulls at -the first thrust so instantly that the thud of their fall -might be heard outside the plaza, how rare a feat -only he knows who has watched the hacking and -butchering of many a "novillero." Indeed, so -pleasing was his work that he was at once engaged, -contrary to all precedent, to appear again on the -ensuing Sunday.</p> -<p class="pnext">By that time I had learned enough of the "fine -points of the game" to recognize that the Sevillian -was approaching already true matador "form," -and as I took leave of him next day it was with -the conviction that success in his chosen career -was as sure as the certainty of soon winning his -most cherished reward.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Vaya, Don Henrico," he laughed as we shook -hands. "We shall see each other again. Some -day when I go to Mexico or the Americas of the -south I shall come by New York and you shall show -me all you have told us of."</p> -<p class="pnext">There are few countries in which it is more difficult -to lay out an itinerary that will take in the -principal points of interest without often -doubling on one's track than Spain. By dint of -long calculation and nice adjustment of details I -sketched a labyrinthian route that my kilometer-book, -together with what walking I should have time -for, would cover. As for my check-book there was -left exactly three pesetas a day for the remainder -of my time in the peninsula.</p> -<p class="pnext">So one cloudy morning in early August I took -train at the Estación del Norte and wound away -upward through the gorges of the Guardarrama to -Segovia. Only there did I realize that the rumble -of Madrid had been absolutely incessant in my ears; -the stillness of the ancient city was almost oppressive, -even more than in Toledo one felt peculiarly out -of the world and a sensation that he must not remain -too long lest he be wholly forgotten and lose his -place in life's procession.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning I set off by the highway that -follows for some miles the great unmortared -aqueduct, that chief feature of Segovia, a thing indeed -far greater than the town, as if a man's gullet, or -his thirst should be larger than himself, so difficult -is it for a city to obtain water in this thirsty -land. Where the road abandoned the monument it -continued across a country brown and sear, with -almost the aspect of an American meadow in -autumn, steadily rising all but imperceptibly. -Well on in the morning I entered a forest, at a -side road of which I was joined by two guardias -civiles, who marched for an hour with me exchanging -information and marveling that I had wandered -so far afield. It has been my lot to become -well, nay, intimately acquainted with the police of -many lands, and I know of none that, as a body, -are more nearly what police should be than these -civil guards of Spain, to whom is due the -suppression of all the old picturesque insecurities of the -road. They have neither the bully-ism of our own -club-wielders nor the childishness of Asiatic officers. -Except in blistering Bailen the bearing of every -pair I met--they never travel singly--was such -as to win at once the confidence of the stranger -and to draw out of him such facts as it is their -duty to learn so naturally that it seemed but a -mutual exchange of politenesses. There are, no -doubt, petty corruptions in so large a body, but in -the presence of almost any of them one has a -conviction that their first thought is their duty.</p> -<p class="pnext">The highway ended its climb at noon in La Granja--The -Grange--residence of the king in spring -and autumn, a town little Spanish in aspect -seated in a carefully cropped forest at the base of -a thickly wooded mountain. I roamed unchallenged -for half the afternoon through the royal -park, replete with fountains compared with which -those of Versailles are mere water-squirts; -playthings that Philip the half-mad accused of -costing three million and amusing him three minutes. -I was more fortunate, for they cost me nothing and -amused me fully half an hour.</p> -<p class="pnext">After which I picked up the highway again and, -winding around the regal village, struck upward into -the mountains of Guardarrama. At the hamlet -of Valsain I had just paused at the public spring -when the third or fourth tramp I had seen on the -road in all Spain swung around a bend ahead, -marching doggedly northward. As I stooped to drink, -a moan and a thud sounded behind me. I turned -quickly around to behold the roadster writhing in -the middle of the highway, the gravel of which had -cut and gashed one side of his face. The simple -villagers, swarming wide-eyed out of their houses, -would have it at first that he was my companion and -I to blame for his mishap. He bore patent signs -of months on the road, being burned a tawny brown -in garb and face by the sun that was evidently the -author of his misfortune. For a time the village -stood open-mouthed about him, the brawny -housewives now and then giving vent to their sympathy -and helpless perplexity by a long-drawn "ay de -mi!" I suggested water, and a dozen women, -dashing away with the agility of middle-aged cows, -brought it in such abundance that the victim was -all but drenched to the skin before I could drive -them off. He revived a bit and while a woman -clumsily washed the blood and gravel from his face, -I addressed him in all the languages I could muster, -for he was evidently no Spaniard. The only -response was a few inarticulate groans, and when he -had been carried to a grassy slope in the shade, -I went on, knowing him in kind if awkward hands.</p> -<p class="pnext">A half-perpendicular hour passed by, and I -seemed to have left Spain behind. The road was -toiling sharply upward through deep forests of -evergreen, cool as an Alpine valley, opening now -and then to offer a vista of thick treetops and a -glimpse of red-tiled villages; a scene as different -from sterile, colorless, sunken-cheeked Castille as -could well be imagined. Nor did the dusk descend -so swiftly in these upper heights. The sun had -set when I reached the summit at six thousand feet -and, passing through the Puerto de Navacerrada, -started swiftly downward in the thickening gloom; -but it was some time before the night had settled -down in earnest.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had marched well into it when I was suddenly -startled by a sound of muffled voices out of the -darkness ahead. I moved forward noiselessly, for -this lonely pass has many a story to tell. A dim -light shone through what appeared to be a window. -I shouted for admittance and a moment later found -myself in the hovel of a peon caminero.</p> -<p class="pnext">Within, besides the family, were two educated -Spaniards, one indeed who had been a secretary in -the American Legation up to the outbreak of the -recent war. When he had been apprised of my -mode of travel and my goal, he stared wonderingly -at me for a moment and then stepped out with me -into the night. Marching a few paces down the -highway until we had rounded some obstruction, he -pointed away into the void.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Do you see those lights?" he asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">Far away and to the right, so far and so high -in the heavens that they seemed constellations, -twinkled three clusters of lights, almost in a row -but far separated one from another.</p> -<p class="pnext">"The third and farthest," said my companion, -"is El Escorial; and your time is well-chosen, for -to-morrow is the day of Saint Lawrence, her patron -saint."</p> -<p class="pnext">We returned to the hut, where the wife of the peon -was moved to cook me a bowl of garbanzos and -spread me a blanket on the stone floor. In the -morning the sharply descending highway carried me -quickly down the mountain, and by sunrise I was -back once more in the familiar Castille. It was -verging on noon when, surmounting a sterile rise, -I caught sight of the dome and towers of the -Escorial. A roadside stream, of which the water was -lukewarm, removed the grime of travel, and I -climbed sweltering into the village of Escorial de -Arriba, pitched on a jagged shoulder of the calcined -mountain high above the monastery.</p> -<p class="pnext">Spain is wont to show her originality and indifference -to the convenience of travelers, and on this, the -anniversary of the grilling of him in whose honor -it was built, the great monastery was closed for the -only time during the year. I experienced no regret, -however, for the vast gloomy structure against its -background of barren, rocky hills had far too much -the aspect of some dank prison to awaken any desire -to enter. Least impressive of famous buildings, the -Escorial is certainly the most oppressive. There -is poetry, inspiration in many a building, in the Taj -Mahal, the Cathedral of Cologne; but not in the -Escorial. It suggests some frowning, bulky -bourgeois of forty whose mother thinks him and who -would fain believe himself one of the most poetic -and spiritual of men.</p> -<p class="pnext">I wandered away the day in the town, drifting -in the afternoon down into the village "de Abajo." -There, in the multitude about the stone-pile of a -bullring, I ran across Curdito in festive garb. He -was scheduled to kill all three bulls of the day's -córrida, but in spite of his urgent invitation I felt -in no mood to sit out the blistering afternoon on -a bare stone slab of this rough-and-tumble plaza.</p> -<p class="pnext">El Escorial was so overrun with visitors to her -annual celebration that not a lodging of any sort -was to be had in either the upper or the lower -village. The discovery brought me no shock, for -a night out of doors I neither dreaded nor -regretted. But as I sauntered at dusk down past the -great building into the flanking "woods of -Herrera," I could not but wonder how those -travelers who bewail the accommodations of the "only -possible hotel" would have met the situation.</p> -<p class="pnext">Behind the monastery extends a broad, silent -forest, not over thick, and beneath the trees squat -bushes and brown heather. I spread the day's copy -of the <em class="italics">Heraldo</em> between two shrubs and, stretching -out at my ease, fell to munching the lunch I had -bought in the village market. Let the circumstances -be right and I know few more genuine joys -than to sleep the night out of doors. Lie down in -the open while a bit of daylight still lingers, or -awaken there when the dawn has come, and there is a -feeling of sordidness, mixed with the ludicrous, a -sense of being an outcast prone on the common -earth. But while the night, obscuring all details, -hangs its canopy over the world there are few -situations more pleasing.</p> -<p class="pnext">When I had listened a while to the panting of the -August night I fell asleep. For weeks past I had -been viewing too many famous spots, perhaps, had -been delving too constantly into the story of Spain, -My constant use of Castilian, too, had borne fruit; -English words no longer intruded even on my inner -meditations. Was it possible also that the market -lunch had been too heavy, or the nearness of the -gloomy monastery too oppressive? At any rate -I fell to dreaming.</p> -<p class="pnext">At first there passed a procession of all -Spain,--arrieros, peasants, Andalusian maidens, toreros, -priests, Jesús the tramp, a chanting water-seller, -merchants and beggars; close followed by two -guardias civiles who looked at me intently as they -passed. Then suddenly in their place Moors of -every garb and size were dancing about me. They -seemed to be celebrating a victory and to be -preparing for some Mohammedan sacrifice. A mullah -advanced upon me, clutching a knife. I started to -my feet, a distant bell boomed heavily, and the -throng vanished like a puff of smoke.</p> -<p class="pnext">Away off above, in a hollow in the gaunt -mountain, I made out gradually the form of a man -sitting pensive, elbows on knees, gazing -dark-browed down upon me. He was in royal robes, and -all at once he seemed to start, to grow in size, -and a line across his breast expanded to the letters -"Felipe II." Larger and larger he grew until he -overtowered the mountain itself; then slowly, -scowlingly he rose and strode down upon me. A -women joined him, a scrawny woman who laid a -hand inertly in his, and I recognized Bloody Mary, -who seemed thus in an instant to have leaped over -the seas from her island kingdom to join her gloomy -husband.</p> -<p class="pnext">In rapid succession new figures appeared,--Herrera -first, a torpid, lugubrious man strangely -like the building he has left behind; then quickly -a multitude, through which strolled a man whose -crown bore the name "Pedro," running his sword -with a chuckle of devilish laughter through any -that came within easy reach, young or old, asleep -or awake. Of a sudden there stalked forth from -nowhere a lean, deep-eyed man of fifty, a huge -parchment volume under one arm, an almost -cynical, yet indulgent smile on his countenance; and -as if to prove who he was there raced down over -the mountain a man not unlike him in appearance, -astride a caricature of a horse, and behind him a -dumpy, wondering peasant ambling on an ass. The -cavalier sprang suddenly from his hack and fell -affectionately on the shoulder of the parchment-bearer, -then bounding back into the saddle he -charged straight for Felipe, who, stepping to one -side, flung, backhanded, Mary his wife far out of -sight over the mountain.</p> -<p class="pnext">A sound drew my attention to another side. -Across the plain was marching with stately tread -a long file of Moors, each carrying in one hand his -head, by the hair.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Los Abencerrajes!" I seemed to shout; and -almost before it was uttered there remained only -Felipe and behind him a score of indistinct forms. -He waved a hand toward me and turned his back, -and the company moved down upon me unlimbering -a hundred instruments of torture. Distant bells were -tolling mournfully. A priest advanced holding -aloft a crucifix and chanting in sepulchral voice:</p> -<p class="center pnext">"The hour of heretics sounds."</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Louder and funereally rang the dismal bells; the -torturers drew near; I struggled to rise to my -feet--and awoke.</p> -<p class="pnext">The bells of the monastery were booming out -over the night.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="crumbling-cities">CHAPTER XI</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">CRUMBLING CITIES</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">It was well along in the next afternoon that I -descended at the station of Avila and climbed -a long dusty mile into the city. A scent of the dim, -half-forgotten past hovered over the close-walled, -peculiarly garbed place. When I had made a -circuit of her ancient wall, through which her no -less time-worn cathedral thrusts its hips, I drifted -down into the dusty vega below, where in the church -of Santo Tomás sleeps the dead hope of "los reyes -católicos." If the sculptor be trustworthy the -prince would have been an intelligent, kindly lad, -even though his martial valor might never have -rivaled that of his stout-hearted mother. Returned -to the city, I strolled for an hour along the lofty -Paséo del Rastro, watching the sun sink red behind -the serrated jumble of mountains on the far western -horizon, beyond which lay my next stopping-place; -and so to bed in the Posada de la Estrella amid the -munching asses and snoring arrieros.</p> -<p class="pnext">Avila is connected with Salamanca by rail, but the -route forms a sharp angle with its apex many miles -to the north. I had decided, therefore, to walk. -Swinging down through the western city gate and -across the babbling Adaja by the aged stone -bridge, I clambered again upward to where a huge -stone cross invites to a rest in its shade and a final -retrospect of crumbling Avila and her many-turreted, -constraining wall. An easy two-days' walk -lay before me. For had not Heir Baedeker, so -seldom in error as to plain facts, announced the -distance as thirty-five miles?</p> -<p class="pnext">As I wended on up the hillside, however, I was -suddenly stricken profane by a stone sign-post -rising before me with the dismal greeting:</p> -<p class="center pnext">"Salamanca 99 kilómetres."</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Herr Baedeker was wrong by a little matter of -thirty miles.</p> -<p class="pnext">But I had set the time of my entrance into -Salamanca; delay would bring havoc to my delicately -adjusted itinerary. I doubled my pace.</p> -<p class="pnext">The way led through a country as savage of -aspect as any in Spain, waterless, dusty, glaring, -overspread with huge rocks tumbled pell-mell as if -the Mason of the universe had thrown here the -materials left over from His building. By -afternoon a few lean farms began to crowd their way -in between the rocks, now and then a sturdy, thick-set -tree found place, and over all nature hovered -great clouds of locusts whose refrain reminded how -euphonious is the Spaniard's name for what we dub -"dog days,"--"canta la chicharra--the locust -sings." The inhabitants of the region seemed -somewhat more in fortune's favor than the rest -of the peninsula. Passing peasants, though rare, -had none a hungry look; their carts were fancifully -carved and painted both on body and wheels, -while the trappings of their cattle were decorative -in the extreme.</p> -<p class="pnext">All a summer day I tramped forward over hill -and hollow toward the great jagged range, the -hardy trees dying out, the fields growing in size and -number, but the sierra seeming to hold ever as far -aloof. Beyond a small withered forest in which -were roaming flocks of brown goats, I climbed a -steady five miles to a summit village exhibiting every -outward sign of poverty and most fittingly named -"Salvadios--God save us." The keeper of its -one quasi-public house deigned after long argument -to set before me a lame excuse for supper, but -loudly declined to furnish lodging. I withdrew, -therefore, to a threshing-floor across the way, -heaped high with still unbroken bundles of wheat, -and put in a shiveringly cold night--so great is -the contrast between the seething plains by day and -this hilltop bitten by every wind--not once falling -into a sound sleep for the gaunt, savage curs that -prowled about me.</p> -<p class="pnext">At dawn I was already afoot and three hours -later entered the city of Penaranda, in the -outskirts of which a fine plaza de toros was building, -but within all the confines of which was no evidence -of school, library, nor indeed of restaurant. I -contented myself with a bit of fruit and trudged on. -This may not, perhaps, have been the hottest day -of all that Spanish summer, but it bore certainly all -the earmarks thereof. The earth lay cracked and -blistered about me, the trees writhing with the heat, -the rays rising from the rocky soil like a dense -stage-curtain of steam. In a shriveled and parched -pueblo of mud huts, exactly resembling the villages -of Palestine, I routed out a kindly old woman for -a foreshortened lunch; and then on again in the -inferno, choking fields of grain and vineyards soon -becoming numerous on either hand. The wise -husbandmen, however, had sought refuge, and in all -the grilling landscape was not a human being to -be seen, save and except a sweat-dripping -pedestrian from foreign parts straining along the -scorching highway.</p> -<p class="pnext">This swung at length to the right, swooped -down through a river that had not a drop of water, -and staggering to the top of an abrupt knoll, -showed me far off, yet in all distinctness, a rich -reddish-brown city gathered together on a low -hilltop and terminating in glinting spires. It was -Salamanca; and of all the cities I have come thus -upon unheralded and from the unpeopled highway -none can rival her in richness of color, like ripe old -wine, a city that has grown old gracefully and with -increasing beauty. So fascinating the sight that -I sat down beneath the solitary tree by the way to -gaze upon it--and to swing half round the circuit -of the shrub as the sun drove the scanty shadow -before it.</p> -<p class="pnext">But I was still far off the golden-brown city and, -setting slowly onward in the descending evening, I -all but encircled the place before the carretera, -coming upon the ancient puente romano, clambered -upward into its unrivaled Blaza Mayor.</p> -<p class="pnext">Just back of this, four stories above the Plaza -de la Verduga, or Place of the Green Stuff, lives -a widow whose little spare chamber is let in the -winter season to some unpretentious student of the -now unpretentious university. I engaged this, -together with what of physical nourishment should -be reasonable, at three pesetas a day. As I took -possession, the daughter of the hostess, a muchacha -of eight, peered in upon me hugging a doll under -one arm.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Qué muñeca más bonita!" I hazarded, which -turned out to be unwise, for the homage so -overcame her diffidence that she came in not only to -offer the information that my complexion strangely -resembled that of a lobster in the salmantino -museum, but such a fund of further information that -it was long before I had inveigled her outside the -door and, throwing myself on the bed, slept the -clock round.</p> -<p class="pnext">As in many another city it had been my fortune -to reach Salamanca on the eve of one of her great -festivals. Indeed, that must be a foresighted -traveler who can journey through Spain without -being frequently caught up in the whirlpool of some -local fiesta. The excuse this time was Assumption -Day. The festivities within the city walls offered -nothing of extraordinary, being chiefly confined to -a band concert in the central plaza. Richer by far -would be the richest city of the earth could she -purchase and transplant into her own midst the -Plaza Mayor of Salamanca, with its small forest -of palms, the rich brown medallioned façades and -surrounding colonnades beneath which the -salmantino is wont to stroll, la salmantina on his arm, -while the band plays in the flower-shrouded stand -in its center. Salamanca might sell, too, in spite -of her boast that it is the finest in Spain, being -poorer than the proverbial church mouse, were she -not also Spanish and prouder than she is poor.</p> -<p class="pnext">The real fiesta, however, took the form of a -bullfight that had a character all its own. -Salamanca, as I have hinted, is no longer a city of -wealth. Indeed, those occasions are rare in these -modern days when she can indulge in a round of -the national sport, even though she possesses one -of the largest bullrings in Spain. On this great -holiday, however, the city fathers had decided that -nothing within the bounds of reason was too good -for the recreating of Salamanca's long unfeasted -children. A full-sized bullfight would, to be sure, -have far overstepped the bounds above mentioned. -But after long debate and deep investigation it had -been concluded that a córrida with four bulls, no -horses, one real matador, and seats of all shades and -distinctions at one peseta each might be conceded.</p> -<p class="pnext">With this unlimited choice of vantage-points at -my own price I went out early to the plaza and -picked my place in the sombra in what was evidently -a section reserved for the guardia civil; for before -long the guards, in full uniform and their -three-cornered hats, began to gather about me, first in -pairs, then in groups, then in swarms, until I was -wholly, shut in and surrounded by guardias civiles -like a dandelion in the center of a bed of tulips. -Far from resenting my intrusion, however, if such -it was, they initiated me into their order with botas -and cigarettes and included me in their conversation -and merriment during the rest of the day.</p> -<p class="pnext">The entertainment began at four. With that -exception, however, it had few points of similarity -with the regulation córrida. The procession -entered, fully six men in torero garb--though that -of two or three of them fitted like amateur theatrical -costumes--followed by two horsemen, two, in -their shirt-sleeves, as was also señor el alcalde in -his box. The key thrown, the fight began; with -the elimination of the one unquestionably -unpleasant feature,--the killing of horses. Even -aged hacks cost money and, as I have already more -than once suggested, money is a rare commodity in -Salamanca. When the bull had been worried a bit -with the cloaks, the banderilleros proceeded at once -to plant their darts. The professional matador, a -young man rejoicing in the name of -Trueno--"Thunder"--had, therefore, a far more difficult -task than usual, for more than anything else it is -the venting of his rage and strength on the -blindfolded steeds that tires the bull, and on this -occasion it was a still wild and comparatively fresh -animal which the diestro was called upon to face. -He despatched his three allotted bulls, however, -without accident and to the vociferous satisfaction -of the audience, which filled even at the low price -only a bit more than the shaded section. It was -not, as the guardia beside me was at some pains -to explain, that there were not salmantinos quite -sufficient to pack the plaza to overflowing, but that there -were not pesetas enough in town to go round. In -the throng, too, were no small number of peasants -from all the widely surrounding country, some in -the old dress with knee breeches.</p> -<p class="pnext">But to touch upon the unusual features of the -córrida. As a part of the worrying of the second -bull a chulo placed a chair in the ring and, -standing upon it with neither weapon nor cloak, awaited -the charge. When the bull had all but reached him -he sprang suddenly into the air, the animal dashed -under him and, falling upon the unoffending article -of furniture, dissolved it thoroughly into its -component parts and scattered them broadcast about the -arena.</p> -<p class="pnext">The most nerve-thrilling performance, however, -that it was my privilege to see in all the devil-may-care -land of Spain was the feat that followed -immediately on the death of the chair-wrecker. It -was the "star attraction" of the day and was -announced on the posters in all the Spaniard's richness -of superlatives--and he is a born and instinctive -writer of "ads." Clinging as closely as possible to -the eloquent phraseology of the original the -announcement may be set forth in near-English as -follows:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Various are the chances (tricks) which are -executed in the different plazas of Spain inside -the taurine art, but none that has more called -attention than that which is practised by JOSÉ -VILLAR son of the memorable matador (killer, -murderer) of bulls Villarillo who"--not father -Illo, who has left off all earthly sport, but son -José--"locating himself in the center of the arena and -placed with the head towards below and the feet by -above imploring the public to maintain the most -impressive silence during the risk (fate) consummates -the trick (chance) of Tancredo; very well, this -Management not reflecting on (sparing) either -expense or sacrifice has contracted with him in order -that he shall fulfill (lift, pull off; <em class="italics">sic.</em>) this trick -(risk) on the third bull to the end that the salmantinos -shall know it, with which program this Management -believes to have filled to the full the desires of -the aficionados (rooters, fans, amateurs)."</p> -<p class="pnext">The second bull, therefore, having been ignominiously -dragged to oblivion and the butcher-shop, and -the blood patches of the arena resanded, there sallied -forth from the further gate a small, athletic man -of thirty-five or so, hatless--and partly hairless--dressed -from head to foot in the brightest red, of a -material so thin that the movement of his every -muscle could be plainly seen beneath it. He was -entirely empty-handed. He marched with sprightly -stride across the ring and, bowing low to the alcalde -in his box above, addressed to the public a warning -and an entreaty to maintain the utmost silence during -the "consummation of the risk." An assistant then -appeared, carrying a small wooden box with a piece of -gas-pipe six feet long fixed upright in the top of it. -This Villar placed exactly in the center of the ring, -a hundred yards or more in every direction from the -barrier. Across the gas-pipe, near the top, he -fastened a much shorter piece, thus forming a cross. -On the box he placed a circular roll of cloth, stood on -his head thereon, hooked his toes over the cross-piece, -waved a hand gaily to the public, and folded his arms. -Every other torero stepped outside the ring, and the -toril gate swung open.</p> -<p class="pnext">A wild snort, and there plunged into the arena as -powerful and savage a brute as it had ever yet been -my lot to see. For an instant he stood motionless, -blinking in the blinding sunlight. Then suddenly -catching sight of the statue flaming with the hated -color, he shot away toward it with the speed of an -express-train--a Spanish express at least--until, -a bare three feet from it, he stopped instantly -stone-still by thrusting out his forelegs like a -Western broncho, then slowly, gingerly tiptoed up to the -motionless figure, sniffed at it, and turned and -trotted away.</p> -<p class="pnext">The public burst forth in a thunderclap of -applause. Villar got right end up as calmly and -gracefully as a French count in a drawing-room, laid a -hand on his heart, and smiling serenely, bowed once, -twice, th---- and just then a startled roar went up -from the tribunes, for the bull had suddenly turned -and, espying the man in red, dashed at him with -lowered horns and a bellow of anger.</p> -<p class="pnext">There is nowhere registered, so far as my investigations -carry, the record of José Villar, son of Villarillo, -in the hundred-yard dash. But this much -may be asserted with all assurance, that it has in it -nothing of that slow, languid, snail-like pace of the -ten-second college champion. Which was well; for -some two inches below his flying heels, as he set a new -record likewise in the vaulting of barriers, the -murderous horns crashed into the oak plank tablas with the -sound of a freight collision and an earnestness that -gave work to the plaza carpenters for some twenty -minutes to come.</p> -<p class="pnext">Therein Villar was more fortunate than the -Mexican Tancredo, inventor of the "suerte," and for -whom it was named. Tancredo, like Dr. Guillotin, -was overreached by his own invention, for while his -record for the hundred was but a second or two less -than that of Villar, it was just this paltry margin -that made him, on the day next following his last -professional appearance, the chief though passive -actor in a spectacle of quite a different character.</p> -<p class="pnext">The "Suerte de Tancredo" has never won any -vast amount of popularity in Spain, except with the -spectators. Toreros in general manifest a hesitation -akin to bashfulness in thus seeking the plaudits of -the multitude. By reason of which diffidence among -his fellows, José, son of Villarillo, memorable matador -de toros, pockets after each such recreation a sum -that might not seem overwhelming to an American -captain of industry or to a world-famous tenor, but -one which the average Spaniard cannot name in a -single breath.</p> -<p class="pnext">Salamanca's day of amusement did not, however, -by any means end here. Beneath the name of -"Thunder," the professional matador, there was -printed with equal bombast that of FERNANDO -MARTÍN. Now Fernando was quite evidently a -salmantino butt, a tall gawky fellow whose place in -the society of Salamanca was apparently very -similar to that of those would-be or has-been baseball -players to be found vegetating in many of our -smaller towns. Like them, too, Fernando was in all -probability wont to hover about the pool-rooms and -dispensing-parlors of his native city, boasting of his -untested prowess at the national game. That his -talents might not, therefore, forever remain hidden -under a wineglass, and also, perhaps, because his -services might be engaged at five hundred pesetas less -than the five hundred that a professional sobresaliente -would have demanded, the thoughtful city fathers had -caused him to be set down on the program, -likewise in striking type, as "SUBSTITUTE WITH -NECESSITY (CON NECESIDAD) TO KILL THE FOURTH BULL."</p> -<p class="pnext">It was this "necesidad" that worked the undoing -of Fernando Martín. When the customary by-play -had been practised on the fourth animal, enter -Fernando with bright red muleta, false pigtail, glinting -sword, and anything but the sure-of-one's-self -countenance of a professional espada. He faced the -brute first directly in front of the block of guardias -civiles, and the nearest he came to laying the animal -low at the first thrust was to impale on a horn and -sadly mutilate a sleeve of his own gay and rented -jacket. The crowd jeered, as crowds will the world -over at the sight of a man whose father and mother -and even grandfather they have known for years -trying to prove himself the equal of men imported -from elsewhere. Fernando advanced again, -maneuvering for position, though with a peculiar -movement of the knees not usual among toreros, and -which was all too visible to every eye in the hooting -multitude. Trueno, the professional, stuck close at -his side in spite of the clamorous demand of the -public that he leave the salmantino to play out his -own game unhampered. Martín hazarded two or -three more nerveless thrusts, with no other damage, -thanks to the watchful eye and cloak of Trueno, than -one toss of ten feet and a bleeding groin. By this -time the jeering of his fellow-townsmen had so -overshadowed the tyro's modicum of good sense that he -turned savagely on his protector and ordered him to -leave the ring. Fortunately Trueno was not of the -stuff to take umbrage at the insults of a foolish man -in a rage, or the population of Salamanca would -incontestably have been reduced by one before that -merry day was done.</p> -<p class="pnext">The utmost length of time between the entrance of -a professional matador for the last act and the death -of the bull is four or five minutes. Fernando -Martín trembled and toiled away ten, twenty, thirty, -forty. Slowly, but certainly and visibly his bit of -courage oozed away; the peculiar movement of his -knees grew more and more pronounced. No longer -daring to meet the bull face to face, he skulked along -the barrier until the animal's tail was turned and, -dashing past him at full speed, stabbed backward -at his neck as he ran, to the uproarious merriment -of the spectators. Trueno saved his life certainly -a score of times. At last, when the farce had run -close upon fifty minutes, a signal from the alcalde -sent across the arena the sharp note of a bugle, two -<em class="italics">cabestros</em>, or trained steers were turned into the ring, -and the bull, losing at once all belligerency, trotted -docilely away with them. The star of Fernando -Martín, would-be matador de toros, was forever set, -and if he be not all immune to ridicule his native -city surely knows him no more.</p> -<p class="pnext">It is law that no bull that has once entered the -ring shall live. Curious to know what was to be the -fate of this animal, I sprang over the barrier and -hurried across to the gate by which he had -disappeared. There I beheld a scene that forever -dispelled any notion that the task of the matador is an -easy one, however simple it may look from the -tribunes. The bull was threshing to and fro within a -small corral, bellowing with rage and lashing the air -with his tail. It required six men and a half-hour of -time to lasso and drag him to the fence. With a -hundred straining at the rope his head was drawn -down under the gate, a man struck him several blows -with a sledge, and another, watching his opportunity, -swung his great navaja and laid wide open the -animal's throat.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was late when, having mingled for some time -with the country folk dancing on the sandy plain -before the plaza, I returned to the city for my -bundle and repaired to the station. A twelve-hour -ride was before me. For I had decided to explore a -territory where even the scent of tourists is -unknown,--the northwest province of Galicia.</p> -<p class="pnext">The train that I boarded at eleven was crowded -with countrymen returning from the day's festival, -a merry but in no sense intoxicated company, in -which I saw my first wooden-shod Galicians. The -car was, for once, of the American pattern--though -of Spanish width--with thirty seats each -large enough for three persons. The brakeman, -too, who stood lantern on arm in the open door, -bore an unusual resemblance to an American "shack."</p> -<p class="pnext">A dozen men were standing in the aisle, but to my -surprise one seat near the center of the car seemed -to be unoccupied. When I reached it, however, I -found a priest stretched out on his back, his hands -clasped over his paunch, snoring impressively. I -carried a protest to the brakeman and with a snort -he swooped down upon the sleeper. At sight of him, -however, he recoiled.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Carajo!" he cried. "Es un padre! I could n't -disturb his reverence."</p> -<p class="pnext">I stooped and touched the monopolist on the -shoulder, being in no mood to remain standing all -night. Moreover, I had long been curious to know -the Spaniard's attitude toward a man who should -treat a priest as an ordinary human being. "His -reverence" grunted. I touched him again. His -snore lost a beat or two and began once more. I -shook him more forcibly. He opened his blood-shot -eyes, snorted "Huh!" so much like a certain -monopolist of the animal kingdom that even the passengers -about me laughed at the resemblance--and fell again -to snoring. I sat down gently on his fat legs and, -when he kicked me off, confiscated a place. He sat -up with the look of a man whose known world has -suddenly crumbled about his ears and glared at me -with bulging eyes a full two minutes, while over the -faces of the onlookers flitted a series of winks and -smiles.</p> -<p class="pnext">He was just huddling himself up again in the two-thirds -of the seat that remained to him when the door -opened and Trueno, the matador, his little <em class="italics">coleta</em> -peeping out from beneath his hat, his sword-case -under one arm, entered and, spying the extra place, -sat down in it with scant ceremony. We fell to -talking. The torero was a jovial, explosive, -devil-may-care fellow who looked and dressed his character -well. The priest slunk off somewhere in the thickest -hours and his place was taken by a peasant who had -been standing near me since leaving Salamanca. -When he found opportunity to break into the -conversation he addressed me with an amused smile:</p> -<p class="pnext">"You are not then a Catholic, señor?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"No."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah! A socialist!" he cried with assurance.</p> -<p class="pnext">For to the masses of southern Europe socialist -and non-Catholic are synonymous.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I doubt, señor," I observed, "whether you -yourself are a Catholic."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Cómo, señor!" he cried, raising his hands in a -comical gesture of quasi-horror. "I, a cristino -viejo, no Catholic!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Do you go to church and do what your cura commands?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"What nonsense!" he cried, using a still more -forcible term. "Who does? My wife goes now -and then to confession. I go to church, señor, to -be baptized, married, and buried."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Why go then?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Caramba!" he gasped. "How else shall a man -be buried, married, and baptized?"</p> -<p class="pnext">Toward morning I fell into a doze, from which I -was awakened by the extraordinary sensation of -feeling cold. Dawn was touching the far horizon. The -train was straining upward through a sharply rising -country. As the sun rose we came in sight of -Astorga, standing drearily on her bleak hilltop, and in -memory of Gil Blas and for the unlimbering of my -legs I alighted and climbed into the town. It proved -as uninteresting as any in Spain, and before the -morning was old I was again riding northwestward. -Soon there came an utter change of scene; tunnels -grew unaccountable, the railroad winding its way -doggedly upward through a wild, heavily wooded -mountain region that had little in common with -familiar Spanish landscapes. In mid-afternoon I -dismounted at the station of Lugo, the capital of Galicia.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="wildest-spain">CHAPTER XII</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">WILDEST SPAIN</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">Nearest of all the Iberian peninsula to our -own land, the ancient kingdom of Galicia is -as well-nigh unknown to us as any section of Europe. -As far back as mankind's memory carries it has been -Spain's "last ditch." Up into this wild mountain -corner of the peninsula retreated in its turn each -subdued race as conqueror after conqueror swept -over the land,--the aboriginal Iberians before the -Celts, the Celtiberians before the coast-hugging -Phoenicians and Carthaginians, these before the -omniverous Romans, followed as the centuries rolled -on by Vandal, Suevi, Goth and Moor. Further -they could not flee, for behind them the world falls -away by sheer cragged cliffs into the fathomless -sea. Here the fugitives melted together into a -racial amalgam, an uncourageous amalgam on the -whole, for in each case those who reached the -fastnesses were that remnant of the race that preferred -life to honor, those who "fought and ran away," -or who took to their heels even earlier in the proceedings.</p> -<p class="pnext">Yet it was a long two centuries after Hannibal -had followed his father Hasdrubal into the Stygian -realms of the defeated, after Rome had covered -the rest of the peninsula with that network of roads -that remains to this day, that the power of the -outside world pushed its way into this tumbled -wilderness. But for the necessity of loot to pay the -gambling debts of his merry youth the conqueror indeed -might never have appeared. Yet appear he did,--a -young Roman just beginning to display a -crownal baldness, known to his legions as Caesar and -answering to his friends of the Roman boulevards -and casinos to the name of Julius. He conquered; -and when he, too, had written his memoirs and -passed his perforated way, that lucky heir of all -Roman striving caused to be built in these his -mountains a city that should--like all that sprouted or -grew under his reign--bear his name,--"Lucus -Augusti--Gus's place."</p> -<p class="pnext">To-day it is Lugo, a modest city ensconced in the -lap of a plain near a thousand feet above the railway -station that bears its name. Politically Spanish, it -is so in little else. The last traces of the Arab, so -indelible in the rest of the peninsula, have -disappeared. The racial amalgam, now the gallego, is -close akin to the Portuguese, like all long dominated -peoples docile, unassertive, born to be a servant -to mankind. He is the chief butt, the low comedian -of the Spanish stage, slow, loutish, heavy of mind -and body, without a suggestion of the fire of that -bubbling child of enthusiasm, the Andaluz; none of -the native dignity and consciousness of personal -worth of the Castilian, not even the dreaminess of the -Manchegan. He is fitted to be what he is,--the -domestic, the server of his fellow-countrymen.</p> -<p class="pnext">From the posada at the city gate I climbed to -Lugo's chief promenade and Alameda, the top of -her surrounding wall. This is some forty feet high, -of flat, irregular slabs of slate-stone on Roman -foundations, with a circuit of nearly a mile and a -half. The town within and below is of the same -material, the dull gray or drab so predominating -as to give the place the somberness of a stone village -of Wales. The inhabitants, moreover, have little of -the Spaniard's love of color, being as sober in garb -as in demeanor. It is noteworthy that those -communities that are least embellished by nature are most -prone to garb themselves in all the colors of the -spectrum. The Venetian above his muddy water -has been noted in all times as a colorist; the -peasants of the Apennines barely a hundred miles away -have very little brightness of dress.</p> -<p class="pnext">So the Lugense; for if the town itself is somber -gray, the moss and vines that overrun the low, -leaden houses, the gardens scattered among them, -the flowers that trail from the windows of the -dwellings built medieval-fashion into the walls make the -scene gay even within. While outwardly it is -unsurpassed. From the wall-top promenade the eye -commands an endless vista of richest green landscape, -a labyrinth of munificent hill forms and mountain -ridges dense-wooded with veritable Alpine forests -rolling away on every side to the uttermost horizon.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the town itself is almost nothing of what the -tourist calls "sights"; which is, perhaps, a chief -reason why his shadow almost never falls within it. -There is only the dull, bluish-stone cathedral, and -an atmosphere wholly individual; nothing exciting, -nothing extraordinary, though one amusing detail -of life is sure to attract attention. Like many -towns of Spain, Lugo obtains her water through the -mouths of stone lions in her central plaza. But here -the fountain spouts are for some Gallegan reason -high above the flagging, far out of reach. Whence -the plaza and the streets of the city are at all hours -overrun with housewives and domestics carrying not -merely pitchers but a tin tube some ten feet long -through which to conduct the water into their -receptacles. In nothing does the town differ from -familiar Spain more than in temperature. Her -climate is like that of Bar Harbor. A change in a -few hours as from Florida in August to Mount -Desert brought quickly home to me the fact that my -garb was fitted only for perpetual summer. Almost -with the setting sun I fell visibly to shivering, and -by dark I was forced to take refuge in bed.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had come into Galicia proposing to strike across -country to Oviedo, capital of the Asturias, in the -hope of getting wholly and thoroughly "off the -beaten track." Therein I seemed fully to have -succeeded. Inquiries in Lugo elicited the information -that Oviedo was reputed to lie somewhere to the -eastward. Nothing more; except some nebulous -notion of a highway beginning at the base of the -city wall leading for a day or two in that direction. -For which uncertainty I was in no sense sorry, -delighted with the prospect of exploring by a route of -my own that wooded wilderness of mountains that -spreads endlessly away from Lugo's promenade, -certain of finding a land and a people unsullied by -tourists.</p> -<p class="pnext">Dinner over on the day after my arrival, I -descended from the city of Augustus by the unpaved -road that was to set me a little way on my journey. -It was soon burrowing through dense, scented -forests, broken by scores of little deep green meadows -along the way; so many and so inviting that it -required a strong tug of the will to keep from lying -down for a nap in each of them, in memory of the -many grassless, siestaless, fly-bitten days in the rest -of the peninsula. Truly the good things of this -world are unevenly distributed. In fact, only by -a dead lift of the imagination could one -comprehend that this also was Spain. Switzerland, -perhaps, but never a part and portion of the same -country with the sear, deforested uplands of Castille, the -sandy stretches of Andalusia, with osseous and all -but treeless La Mancha. The division line between -Europe and Africa was meant surely to be the -Pyrenees and this Cantabrian range rather than the -Mediterranean.</p> -<p class="pnext">When darkness settled down I halted at a jumbled -stone hamlet, where payment was refused except for -the few cents' worth of peasant fare I ate. For my -bed, was spread in an open stable a bundle of newly -threshed wheat-straw that was longer than myself. -A half-day's tramp had not left me sleepy. The -night lay cool and silent about me, and I sank into -that reverie of contentment that comes most surely -upon the wanderer when he has left the traveled -world behind and turns his face care-free toward the -unknown, that mysterious land across which -beckons the aërial little sprite men name <em class="italics">Wanderlust</em>. -For the joy of travel is not in arriving but in setting -forth, in moving onward; how fast matters little, -where, even less, but ever on and on, forgetting, for -the supremest satisfaction, that there is a goal to -attain. Let a man wander away into unknown lands -smiling with summer, his journey's end little more -than conjecture, his day of arrival a matter of -indifference, and if he feel not then the joy of the -open road he may know for a certainty that he is -a hug-the-hearth, and no gipsy and a vagabond.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning continued a roadway hobble-skirted -by forests, a country as pleasing as Caruso's -voice, as soothing to the traveler from stony Spain -as McDowell's music. To enumerate the details of -life and landscape here is merely to tell by contrast -what the rest of Spain is not. The inhabitants were -in the highest degree laconic, as taciturn as the -central and southern Spaniard is garrulous, -self-conscious to the point of bashfulness, a characteristic -as uncommon in the rest of the country as among -the Jews or Arabs; a heavy-handed, unobserving -peasantry that passed the stranger unaccosted, -almost unnoticed. Such conversation as exchanged -must be introduced by the traveler. The cheering -"Vaya!" was heard no more, the stock greeting -being a mumbled "Buenos."</p> -<p class="pnext">In appearance, be the inspection not too close, this -mountain people well deserves the outworn epithet -"picturesque." The women young and old wore -on their heads large kerchiefs of brilliant red, and -most of them a waist of the same color, offering -striking contrast to the rich green background, as the -latter was sure to be. As footwear, except those -unpossessed of any, both sexes had wooden shoes -painted black and fancifully carved, which, -scraping along the highway, carried the thoughts quickly -back to Japan. At nearer sight, however, something -of the picturesqueness was lost in the unfailing -evidences of a general avoidance of the bath and -washtub.</p> -<p class="pnext">Of least interest were the dwellings of this -peasantry,--villages neither frequent nor large, more -properly mere heaps of gray huts built without -order or plan of the slate-stone of which the -province itself is chiefly formed, as was seen wherever -the outer soil had been stripped away and the -skeleton of the mountain laid bare. For all the -character of the country abundance of rain and a -pains-taking agriculture gave good crops. Galicia indeed -supports, though in poverty, the densest population -of the peninsula. Wheat, Indian corn, and hay -abounded. The former was stacked, and threshed -with flails--two customs unknown in Spain, as the -latter products are entirely. The maize was sown. -A species of cabbage on a stalk some two feet long -was among the most common of the vegetables.</p> -<p class="pnext">All these products grew, not on the level, but in -little isolated, precipitous fields in which it seemed -impossible that the laborers, male and female with -sickles or mattocks, could stand upright. Flocks of -sheep and goats were many, and as the final change -from the Spain that I had hitherto known there was -nowhere silence. The forests on either hand were -vocal with the songs of birds. Mountain streams -came plunging, headlong down the ravines, or -brawled along through stony channels beside the -winding way. The water was of the purest and -clearest, which may, perhaps, have led the inhabitants -to give most of their mundifying attention to -the vessels in which it was carried,--great oaken -buckets each with three wide hoops scoured spotless -and shining as a Hindu's <em class="italics">lota</em>.</p> -<p class="pnext">But most unfailing breakers of the silence and -most characteristic of all the features of the province -was its vehicles. The Phrygian peasants who -dragged their produce into Troy before the siege -had certainly as up-to-date a conveyance. The -traveler's first encounter with one of these Homeric -contrivances is sure to be startling. There is only one -word that exactly expresses their sound from afar,--the -French <em class="italics">bourdonner</em>--the noise of the bumblebee. -Indeed, when first I heard it I fell to -threshing about my ears, sure that one of those -insects was upon me. Slowly the sound grew to the -meowling of a thousand cats, and around a turn of -the forest-hedged road came a peasant's cart drawn -by little brown oxen--they are as often cows--much -like our Jerseys in appearance, a great sheepskin -thrown over their heads, to the horns of which -the yoke was fastened. The unwieldy edifice, -wabbling drunkenly as it came, consisted of little -more than two solid disks of wood like cistern covers -turning on a wooden axle, the whole having about -it neither an ounce of iron nor a smell of axle-grease. -Its pace certainly did not exceed a mile an hour, -the oxen see-sawing from side to side of the road, -twisting their burdened heads to stare at me with -curious, sad eyes. As it passed, my ears literally -ached with its scream. I doubled my pace to flee the -torture. But there was no entire escape; hardly -once thereafter was I out of sound of a cart or two, -now screaming by, now "bourdonning" away across -some valley, buzzing at times even after the night -had settled down.</p> -<p class="pnext">Early on this second day, which was Sunday, there -appeared a far more precipitous and rocky country -through which the road began to wind its way -upward amid a chaos of rugged tumbled valleys, -gaining by early afternoon an elevation above the line -of vegetation. For two hours I kept lookout for a -bit of level space for a siesta, without finding a patch -of flat ground as large as my knapsack. I stepped -over the edge of the highway and lay down on a -bank so sheer that I was obliged to brace my stick -against the small of my back to keep from pitching -down the thousand-foot slope into a brook; and even -as it was I awoke to find I had shifted some ten -feet down the hill.</p> -<p class="pnext">The ascent thereafter grew still sharper, the -surrounding world being at last wholly enveloped in a -dense cloud. From out of this I heard, at what I -fancied must be toward sunset, sounds of revelry, by -which, marching onward, I was soon encompassed, -though still unseeing and unseen. Suddenly there -came waltzing toward me out of the fog a couple in -each other's arms, disappearing again as another -pair whirled forth out of the unknown. Wandering -on through a merry but invisible multitude I ran all -but into the arms of two guardias civiles leaning on -their muskets. They greeted me with vast surprise, -welcoming me to their mountain-top town of -Fonsagrada and, far from demanding my papers, -offered to find me a partner that I might join the -village in its Sunday celebration on the green. I -declined such hilarity, but for an hour stood chatting -with them while the dancers whirled unseen about us.</p> -<p class="pnext">Fonsagrada has no regular accommodations for -strangers. The peregrinating band of musicians, -however, furnishing the day's melody, was to be -cared for in a sort of grocery, to which I repaired -with them when the dance was over. Having -partaken of a substantial supper in which the far-famed -<em class="italics">bacalao</em>--cod preserved in great chunks in barrels -like salt pork; a main staple in this region--made -its initial appearance, I laid my case before the -proprietor. He was a Yankee-like man in the middle -thirties, of modern business methods even though he -knew next to nothing of the world outside his -cloud-bound village. Notwithstanding, therefore, that -there was no "costumbre" to sanction it, he bade -me spend the night under his roof--which I did all -too literally, for when I had left off swapping yarns -with the melodious nomads my host led the way to -the garret, half-filled with straw, where in the midst -of a too realistic dream I rose up suddenly and all -but shattered my head on the roof in question.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning the clouds were still wandering like -lost souls through the streets of Fonsagrada. A -mist that barely escaped being a rain was falling -when I set off in an attempt to follow the voluminous -directions of the dubious village. According to these, -when I had passed the "Mesón de Galo," a lonely -stone tavern a few miles out, I left the road, which -was bending toward Gijón on the north coast, and -fell into a descending mountain path. A tang of the -salt sea was in the air. All the day through I -climbed, slipped, and scrambled over jagged mountain -slopes and through deep, rocky barrancas. There -develops with much wandering an instinct to follow -the right fork of a mountain trail, slight hints that -could not be explained, but without the half-unconscious -noting of which I must have gone a score of -times astray. Twice or thrice I stumbled into a -hamlet in some wrinkle of the range, a village of five or -six hovels huddling in the shadow of an enormous, -overtowering church, all built of flat field stones and -swarming with huge white dogs.</p> -<p class="pnext">At Grandas, a bit larger village overhung by -massed up mountains, I was at length so fortunate -as to get after much search an intangible imitation -of a meal. From there I panted a long time upward -and came out at last above a seemingly bottomless -gorge, a gorge so deep that I had scrambled nearly -a half-hour along its brink before I noted that far -down in its depths was a town, encircled by vertical -vineyards, like embroidery on the lower skirts of its -overhanging mountains. My path lay plainly visible -on the opposite slope, only a long jump away, but a -jump for Pegasus or the princess of the Rosstrappe, -and I, mere mortal, was forced to wind a long hour -and a half to and fro on the rubbled face of the -mountain before I entered the town below, called Saline.</p> -<p class="pnext">Before me lay the most laborious task of all my -Spanish journey. A mountain as nearly perpendicular -as man could hope to ascend, without a break -or a knoll in all its slope, rose, a sheer wall, certainly -four thousand feet above. The gorge seemed some -boundary set by the gods between two worlds. Up -the face of the cliff a path had been laid out with -mathematical precision, every one of its score of legs -a toilsome climb over loose stones, with the sun, -untempered by a breath of wind, pouring down its fury -upon my back. It was hot as Spain in the depth of -the canyon; it was chilling cold when I reached the -summit heavily crested in clouds and threw myself -down breathless on my back. Darkness was coming -on, and I fell soon to shivering in the biting mountain -air and must rise and hurry forward. It was not -strange that in the fog and darkness instinct failed -and that when finally I reached a village of eight or -nine hovels and inquired its name the inhabitants -replied "Figuerina," not in the least like the "La -Mesa" I had expected.</p> -<p class="pnext">Of a brawny, weather-beaten girl milking a cow -by the light of a torch in what passed for the -principal street, I asked:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Is there a posada in town?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"No sé, señor," she answered.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Don't know! When your town has only nine houses?"</p> -<p class="pnext">But she only stared dully at me through the gloom, -and I carried my inquiry elsewhere. With no -better result, however, for each one I asked returned the -same laconic, "I don't know." I had sat down on a -boulder in the center of the hamlet to puzzle over -this strange ignorance when a strapping mountaineer -approached through the darkness and led me with -few words to the house of the head man. The latter -was in bed with a broken leg, having had the -misfortune to fall off his farm a few days before. I was -taken before him as he lay propped up with pillows -and, after a few brief questions, he commanded his -family to make me at home.</p> -<p class="pnext">Only at a distance are these mountain hamlets of -northern Spain inviting. For the good people live, -indoors and out, in peace and equality with their pigs -and chickens, not because they are by nature unclean, -but because they know no other life than this, nor any -reason why their domestic animals should not be -treated as equals. The wife of the village chief led -me into the living-room and kitchen. I knew it was -that, for she said so. The place was absolutely -dark. Since leaving Lugo I had not seen a pane of -glass, and lamps of any sort appear to be unknown -in these hamlets of the Sierra de Rañadoiro. -There was, to be sure, a bit of fire in one corner, -but it gave not the slightest illumination, only a -thick smoke that wandered about looking for an exit, -and unsuccessfully, for there was nothing whatever in -the way of chimney, and the door had been closed -as we entered. Smoker though I am, I began to -weep and did not once leave off while I remained in -the room.</p> -<p class="pnext">The mustiness of a dungeon assailed the nostrils; -the silence was broken by a continual droning. The -floor was stone. In the room were six or eight men -and women, as I discovered little by little from their -voices. Supper was announced, and a match I -struck showed an indistinct group of which I was a -part humped over a steaming kettle in the center of -the floor. Into this all began to dip their bread. -I hung back, which the wife discovering by some -instinct, she made an exclamation I did not -understand and soon after there was thrust into my hands -a private bowl of the concoction.</p> -<p class="pnext">It turned out to be a "caldo gallego"--an all -but tasteless thick soup of which the chief ingredient, -besides water, is the long-stemmed cabbage -indigenous to the region. A spoon was then handed me. -It was of wood, homemade, and flat as a canoe-paddle. -What most aroused my wonder was the bread. -A glimpse I had caught of it in the flicker of my -match seemed to show a loaf of about the size of a -large grindstone--though I charged this to optical -illusion--from which wedges were cut, one of them -being laid in my lap. It was coarse as mortar, yet -as savory, and proved later to be as sustaining a -bread as I have yet run across on the earth. This -and the caldo being no match for a mountain-climbing -appetite, I asked the privilege of buying a bowl of -milk. From my unseen companions arose many -ejaculations of wonder that I could afford such a -luxury, but a bowl of it was soon put in my hands. -A better milk I never broke bread in.</p> -<p class="pnext">Still I was at a loss to account for the incessant -droning in the room, like the croak of a distant -ox-cart. Since my entrance, too, I had been struck a -thousand times lightly in the face, as with bread -crumbs or the paper-wads indigenous to the old -country schoolhouse. When it occurred to me to put -the two mysteries together both were solved. The -flies were so thick in the room that they made this -sound in flying blindly back and forth.</p> -<p class="pnext">But once upstairs the dwelling assumed a new -rating. Here was, it is true, no luxury; but the -rough-fashioned chamber, partly store-room and -partly spare bedroom, was capacious and clean, of -the rough, unused sort of cleanliness of a farmer's -"best room," opened only on extraordinary occasions. -The one sheet of the massive bed was as stiff -as any windjammer's mainsail, the blanket as rough -as the robe of a Cistercian monk. Among a score of -multiform articles stored in the room was a stack of -bread such as I had eaten below, some forty loaves -each fully as large as a half-bushel measure. It is -baked from four to six months ahead, twice or thrice -a year, and has a crust hard and impervious as a -glazed pot, which keeps it fresh and savory for an -almost unlimited period.</p> -<p class="pnext">As I bade farewell to my host next morning I held -out to him two pesetas. He resented the offer as an -Arab or a Castilian might have, but being of those -accustomed to express themselves less in words than in -actions, did so laconically. When I offered it again -he rose half up on his elbows and bellowed "No!" His -gruffness was in no sense from anger, but merely -his mode of speaking emphatically, and a way of -hiding that bashfulness so common to mountaineers, -who are usually, as here, a shy and kindly people with -much more genuine benevolence than grace of -manner. I protested that I should at least be permitted -to pay for my extravagance, the milk, arguing that -even a wanderer on his feet was better able to spare a -peseta than a village chief on his back. But he -roared "No!" again, and furthermore commanded -his wife to cut me a wedge of the longevious bread, -"to carry me over the day."</p> -<p class="pnext">Once escaped from the tangle of inhabited stone-piles, -I strode away down rock-jumbled ravines, one -close succeeding another and carrying me all but -headlong downward. In the depths of the third I -risked a plunge into a mountain brook, though the -water was icy and the air still almost wintry cold. -The day was warming, however, by the time I -descended upon the hamlet of Berducedo, where I got -fried eggs and a new highway.</p> -<p class="pnext">To chronicle the vagaries of the latter during the -rest of the day would be a thankless task. For miles -it wound around and upward, ever upward on the face -of bare stony mountains like a spiral stairway to -heaven. Then suddenly from each giddy height it -dived headlong down into deep-wooded, fertile -valleys; then up again round and round another -mountain shoulder far beyond the last stunted shrub. -Later in the day it took to rounding these peaks -almost on the level, coming a score of times so close -to itself that I could all but toss my bundle across, -only to buckle back upon itself for miles around some -narrow but apparently bottomless gulley.</p> -<p class="pnext">Somewhere during the previous afternoon I had -crossed the unmarked boundary between Galicia and -the still more rugged kingdom of Asturias, to-day -the province of Oviedo. A new style of architecture -gradually became prevalent. The buildings were of -two stories, the lower, of stone, housing the animals, -while the dwelling proper was of wood and perched -a foot or more above the lower story on four -cone-shaped cornerstones, like some great awkward bird -ready to take flight.</p> -<p class="pnext">But for this peculiarity the village in which night -overhauled me differed but little from that of the -evening before, except in being many hundred feet -nearer sea level. It was called San Fecundo. As -before, my inquiry for an inn was each time answered -by a terse "I don't know." I found the head man in -good health, however,--a stalwart fellow little past -thirty who was shoveling manure in his front yard. -Yet so local is the dialect of every village in this -region that I tried for some time in vain to make -known my wants to him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Can't you speak Spanish, señor?" I cried out.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, señor," he replied like the report of a gun, -and apparently angered at the allegation. We -managed nevertheless by patience and repetition to -establish communication between us, and I found out -at last why my inquiry for a posada had evoked so -surprising an answer. Public hostelries being -unknown among them, the mountaineers understand the -question "Is there an inn in town?" to mean "Do -you suppose any resident will furnish me accommodations?"</p> -<p class="pnext">The head man did in this case, in spite of my -unfortunate blunder in calling him a gallego. So -great is the sectionalism in these Cantabrian ranges -that a man from one village deeply resents even being -taken for a resident of another a mile distant; while -the Asturians, a blending of the aboriginal Iberian -and the Goth, in whose caves of Covadonga was kept -alight the last flicker of Spanish liberty and -Christianity, consider themselves free and independent -hidalgos infinitely superior to the submissive gallego. -There were in truth some noticeable differences of -character and customs, that were to increase as I -advanced.</p> -<p class="pnext">We spent the evening in another ventless, smoky, -fly-buzzing kitchen, though this time the fireplace -gave a bit of blaze and from time to time the rugged -faces of the eight or ten men, who had gathered at -the invitation of the village leader, flashed visible. -I entertained them with such stories of America as -are most customary and popular on such occasions. -This was no light task. Not only were there many -words entirely indigenous to the village, but such -Castilian as my hearers used would scarcely be -recognized in Castille. The expression "For allà" (over -there) they reduced to "Pa cá"; "horse" was never -"caballo," but either "cabalo" or "cabayo." Worst -of all, the infinitive of the verb served indifferently -for all persons and tenses. "Yo ir" might -mean "I go," "I was going," "I shall go," "I -should go" and even "I would have gone" and "I -should be going."</p> -<p class="pnext">Most taking of all the stories I could produce -were those concerning the high buildings of New -York. I had developed this popular subject at some -length when a mountaineer interposed a question that -I made out at length to be a query whether those who -live in these great houses spend all their time in them -or take an hour or two every morning to climb the -stairs.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hay ascensores, señores," I explained, "elevators; -some expresses, some mixtos, as on your railroads."</p> -<p class="pnext">A long, unaccountable silence followed. I filled -and lighted my pipe, and still only the heavy -breathing of the untutored sons of the hills about me -sounded. Finally one of them cleared his throat -and inquired in humble voice:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Would you be so kind, señor, as to tell us what -is an elevator?"</p> -<p class="pnext">It was by no means easy. Long explanation -gave them only the conception of a train that ran up -and down the walls of the building. How this -overcame the force of gravity I did not succeed in -making clear to them; moreover there was only one of the -group that had ever seen a train.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the morning the head man accepted with some -protest two <em class="italics">reales</em>--half a peseta. The highway -again raced away downward, describing its parabolas -and boomerang movements as before, and gradually -bringing me to a realization of how high I had -climbed into the sky. On every hand rocky gorges -and sheer cliffs; now and again a group of charcoal-burners -on the summit of a slope stood out against -the dull sky-line like Millet's figures--for the sun -was rarely visible. As I descended still lower, more -pretentious, red-roofed villages appeared, and by -mid-afternoon I entered the large town of Tineo. -As I was leaving one of its shops a courtly youth -introduced himself as a student in the University of -Valladolid, and as he knew a bit of English it was -with no small difficulty that I resisted his entreaties -to talk that tongue with him in the mile or two he -walked with me. That night for the first time since -leaving Lugo I paid for my lodging in a public -posada.</p> -<p class="pnext">Salas, a long town in a longer green valley, was -so far down and sheltered that figs sold--by number -here rather than weight--nine for a cent. Beyond, -the highway strolled for miles through orchards of -apples and pears, while figs dropped thick in the road -and were trodden under foot. For the first time I -understood the force of the expression, "not worth a fig."</p> -<p class="pnext">In the wineshop where I halted for an afternoon -lunch I got the shock of that summer's journey. -Casually I picked up the first newspaper I had seen -in a week; and stared a full moment at it unbelieving. -The entire front page was taken up by a photograph -showing Posadas lying in bed, his familiar -face gaunt with pain, and about him his father, a -priest, and a fellow-torero.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Carajo!" I gasped. "What's this; Posadas wounded?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Más," replied the innkeeper shortly. "Killed -last Sunday. Too bad; he made good sport for the -aficionados."</p> -<p class="pnext">An accompanying article gave particulars. The -Sevillian had been engaged to alternate with a -well-known diestro in the humble little plaza of San Lucar -de Barrameda on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir. -The end of the day would have seen him a -graduate matador. The bulls were "miúras" five -years old. As he faced the first, Posadas executed -some pass that delighted the spectators. For once, -evidently, he forgot his one "secret of success"; he -turned to acknowledge the applause. In a flash -the animal charged and gored him in the neck. He -tried to go on, poised his sword, and fainted; and -was carried to the little lazaret beneath the -amphitheater, while the festival continued. Toward -morning he died.</p> -<p class="pnext">All this had passed while I was climbing into the -cloud-cloaked village of Fonsagrada, two weeks to an -hour since I had last seen the skilful Sevillian in the -ring. The article ended with the vulgarity common -to the yellow journal tribe:</p> -<p class="pnext">"We have paid the dying Posadas one thousand -pesetas for the privilege of taking this picture, -which is almost all the unfortunate torero left his -sorrowing family."</p> -<p class="pnext">I trudged on deep in such reflections as such -occurrences awaken, noting little of the scene. At -sunset I found myself tramping through a warmer, less -abrupt country, half conscious of having passed -Grado, with its palaces, nurse-girls, and conventional -costumes. As dusk fell I paused to ask for an inn. -"A bit further on," replied the householder. I -continued, still pensive. Several times I halted, always -to receive the same reply, "A bit further, señor." Being -in no sense tired, I gave the matter little attention -until suddenly the seventh or eighth repetition -of the unveracity aroused a touch of anger and -a realization that the night was already well advanced. -A lame man hobbling along the dark road gave me -once more the threadbare answer, but walked some -two miles at my side and left me at the door of a -wayside wineshop that I should certainly not have -missed even without him.</p> -<p class="pnext">The chief sources of the boisterousness within were -three young vagabonds who were displaying their -accomplishments to the gathering. One was playing -tunes on a comb covered with a strip of paper, -another produced a peculiarly weird music in a high -falsetto, while the third was a really remarkable -imitator of the various dialects of Spain. With the -three I ascended near midnight to the loft of the -building, where a supply of hay offered comfortable -quarters. For an hour he of the falsetto sat -smoking cigarettes and singing an endless ditty of his -native city, the refrain of which rang out at -frequent intervals:</p> -<blockquote> -<div> -<div class="line-block outermost"> -<div class="line">"Más bonita que hay,</div> -<div class="line">A Zaragoza me voy</div> -<div class="line">Dentro de Ar-r-r-rago-o-ón."</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -</div> -</div> -</blockquote> -<p class="pfirst">It was with genuine regret that I noted next -morning the reapproach of civilization. Rough as is -the life of these mountaineers of the north their -entire freedom from convention, the contact with real -men who know not even what pose and pretense are, -the drinking into my lungs of the exhilarating -mountain air had made the trip that was just ending -by far the most joyful portion of all my Spanish -experiences. Not since the morning I climbed into -Astorga had I heard the whine of a beggar; not -once in all the northwest had I caught the faintest -scent of a tourist. The trip had likewise been the -most inexpensive, for in the week's tramp I had -spent less than twelve pesetas.</p> -<p class="pnext">A few hours more down the mountainside brought -me into Oviedo, where I took up my abode in the -Calle de la Luna. The boyhood home of Gil Blas -is a sober, almost gloomy town, where the sun is -reputed to shine but one day in four. Its -inhabitants have much in common with the slow-witted -Lugense, though they are on the whole more wide-awake -and self-satisfied. Of window displays the most -frequent was that of a volume in richly illustrated paper -cover entitled, "Los Envenenadores (poisoners) de -Chicago." It was, possibly, an exposé of the -packing houses, but I did not find time to read it. -August was nearing its close, and there was still a -considerable portion of Spain to be seen. Luckily my -kilometer-book was scarcely half-used up; but of the -joyful days of freedom on the open road there could -not be many more.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="the-land-of-the-basque">CHAPTER XIII</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">THE LAND OF THE BASQUE</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">My knapsack garnished, I turned my back on -Oviedo early on Sunday morning. The -train wound slowly away toward the lofty serrated -range that shuts off the world on the south. As -we approached the mountains, the line began to tie -itself in knots, climbing ever upward. In one section -two stations seven miles apart had twenty-six miles -of railroad between them. At the second of the two -a flushed and puffing Spaniard burst into our -compartment with the information that, having reached -the former after the train had departed, he had -overtaken us on foot.</p> -<p class="pnext">Still we climbed until, at the turning of the day, -high up where clouds should have been we -surmounted the ridgepole of the range and, racing, -roaring downward, were almost in a moment back -in the barren, rocky, sun-baked Spain of old, dust -swirling everywhere, the heat wrapping us round as -with a woolen blanket, drying up the very tobacco -in my pouch; a change almost as decided as from -the forests of Norway to the plains of India.</p> -<p class="pnext">Arrived in León at three, I set off at once -tourist-fashion for the cathedral, with its soaring Gothic -towers and delicate, airy flying-buttresses the first -truly inspiring bit of Christian architecture I had -seen in Spain; the first indeed whose exterior was -anything. Much of the edifice, however, was glaringly -new, the scaffolds of the renovators being still in -place.</p> -<p class="pnext">But here again "if the house of God is rich that -of man is poor," pauperous in fact. When once the -traveler has forced himself to believe that León was -not many centuries since the rich capital of a vast -empire he must surely fall sad and pensive -reflecting how mutable and fleeting indeed are the things -of earth. The León of to-day is a large village, -a dried-up, dirty, dilapidated, depopulated, -cobble-streeted village of snarling, meretricious-minded -inhabitants jumbled together inside a wall that with -the cathedral is the only remaining proof of former -importance. Here once more was the beggar with -his distressing whine, his brow of bronze, and his all -too evident injuries; not numerously but constituting -a large percentage of the population. In all Spain -the devise of insurance companies on the fronts of -buildings is more than frequent; in León there was -barely a hovel without one or more. Which could -not but awaken profound wonder, for not only are -there no wooden houses within her walls to make -danger of fire imminent, but a greater blessing could -hardly be imagined for León than a general and -all-embracing conflagration.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was, perhaps, because of the unbroken misery -with which they were surrounded that the Leónese -were individually crabbed and cynical. Not a -courteous word do I remember having received in all the -town, and in vitriolic remarks the keepers and guests -of the tumble-down parador where I was forced to -put up outdid all others.</p> -<p class="pnext">I was off in the morning at the first opportunity, -again by train, which, passing in the early afternoon -through a blinding sand-storm near the village of -Cisneros, landed me soon after at Palencia. This -was a counterpart of León; a trifle less sulky and -universally miserable, but as sprawling, sun-parched, -and slovenly. Its surrounding plains were utterly -verdureless, their flanking hills ossified, its gardens, -promenades, and Alameda past all hope of relief by -sprinkling even had its river not long since gone -desert-dry as the rest. I left the place quickly, -riding into the night and descending at length to -march to the inspiriting music of a military band -along a broad, thick-peopled Alameda, at the end of -which a giant statue of Columbus bulked massive -against the moonlit sky, into Valladolid.</p> -<p class="pnext">I had come again upon a real city, almost the -first since leaving Madrid; whence accommodations, -while in no sense lacking, were high in price. In -the course of an hour of prowling, however, I was -apprised of the existence of a modest casa eta -huéspedes in a canyon-like side street. I rang the -great doorbell below several times in vain; which was -as I had expected, for foolish indeed would have -been the Spaniard who remained within doors on -such a night, while the band played and the city -strolled in the Alameda. I dropped my bundle at -my feet and leaned against the lintel of the massive -doorway.</p> -<p class="pnext">Within an hour there arrived another seeker after -quarters, a slender Spaniard in the early summer of -life, who carried two heavy portmanteaus and a -leather swordcase. Almost at the opening of our -conversation he surprised me by inquiring, "You are -a foreigner, verdad, señor?" I commended his penetration -and, as we chatted, sought for some sign of his -profession or place in society. All at once the long, -slender swordcase caught my eye.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah! Es usted torero, señor," I observed with -assurance.</p> -<p class="pnext">The youth awakened the echoes of the narrow -street with his laughter.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Bullfighter! No, indeed! I am happy to say -no. I am a student in the national cavalry school -here, just returned from my month's furlough. -But your error is natural," he went on, "and my -fault. I have really no right to appear in civilian -garb. It would mean a month of bread and water -at least if one of our officers caught a glimpse of -me. But carajo! The family above may not be -back by midnight. We can leave our baggage with -the portier next door."</p> -<p class="pnext">We strolled slowly back to the brilliantly lighted -Plaza de la Constitutión. Suddenly the youth interrupted -an anecdote of the tan-bark to exclaim in a -calm but earnest voice:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Caramba! There come my commandante and -the first lieutenant."</p> -<p class="pnext">Two men of forty-five or fifty, in resplendent -uniforms and tall red caps, their swords clinking along -the pavement, were sauntering down upon us. I -stepped quickly to the opposite side of my -companion, being taller--and likewise curious.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hombre!" he protested sharply, stepping back -again. "No tenga V. cuidado. It is not our way -to hide from our officers."</p> -<p class="pnext">With head erect and military stride he marched -straight on before him. Luckily the officers were so -engrossed in conversation that neither glanced up -as they passed.</p> -<p class="pnext">We drifted into a café and ordered "helado," that -Spanish imitation of ice-cream the calling of which -in the streets had so frequently caused me to whirl -about in astonishment, so much does it sound like our -"hello." Over it we fell to discussing things -American, in which we were gradually joined by several -well-dressed men at the adjoining marble tables. In -the course of the evening I chanced to remark that -one of the surprises of my summer's trip had been -to find so little resentment against the United States.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señor," said the youth, while each and all of -our companions gave signs of agreement, "nothing -more fortunate has befallen our country in a century -than the loss of Cuba and the Philippines. Not only -has it taken a load off the Spanish people; it has -brought more relief than you can guess to us of -the army. The colonies were the dumping-ground -of our profession. Once let an officer show ability -and he was forthwith shipped off to the islands to -die. Now they are taken away, Spain has already -begun to regain her lost place among the nations. -No, señor; we of the army at least think nothing but -kindness to your people for the relief."</p> -<p class="pnext">Returned to the casa de huéspedes, the student -and I were given adjoining rooms and saw much of -Valladolid together before I took train the second -morning after to Burgos. There, were regulation -"sights" in abundance; on every hand memories of -the Cid Campeador, even the spot where stood his -dwelling--all as authentic as the popular landmarks -of Jerusalem. Two miles or more out along the -shallow mill-race that Burgos calls a river I visited -the nunnery of Las Huelgas, which claims for its -distinction never in its centuries of existence to have -admitted to the veil less than a daughter of the -nobility. The stroll is pleasant, but the place, noble -though it be, unexciting--at least outwardly. Of -the cathedral, the finest in Spain, much might be -said--that has been often said before.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was in Burgos that I saw for the first time what -I might have seen earlier and frequently had my -tastes run that way,--a Spanish cemetery. More -exactly it was a corpse-file, a perpendicular hillside -in which hundreds of bodies had been pigeon-holed -for future reference, with the name and a charitably -indulgent characterization of the deceased on the -end of his coffin. The Spaniard, with his superstitions, -prefers this style of tomb for much the same -reason, it seems, that the Arab seals his graves with -cement,--that the emissaries from the less popular -regions may not bear away the departed before the -agents of the better and hence slower realm put in an -appearance.</p> -<p class="pnext">The greatest experience of my day in Burgos was -the view from the summit of the hot, dry Cerro de San -Miguel. Not merely does it offer a mighty and -comprehensive vista of half the stony-bare face of -Castilla Vieja, but a bird's-eye view as it were of all -Spain and her history. Of the city spread out at -one's feet fully three-fourths the space is taken up -by cathedral, churches, convents, monasteries, casas -de misericordia, the vast bulk of the castle, the -barracks, the bullring,--all the countless buildings of -non-producers; while between them in the nooks and -corners wherever a crack offers are packed and -huddled the hovels of the mere inhabitants. There, in -plain sight, is Spain's malady. She is a land of -non-producers. Ecclesiastics, soldiers, useless octroi -guards, beggars rotten with the notion fostered by -the omnivorous priesthood that mendicancy is an -honorable profession, make up almost the bulk of her -population of productive age. Not without reason -does nomadic Borrow lift up his clench-fisted wail -against "Batuschca."</p> -<p class="pnext">There is one road to redemption for Spain,--that -she shoot her priests and set her soldiers to work. -As isolated individuals the merry, dissolute fellows -of the cloth might be permitted to live on as they -have, and suffer the natural end of such living. -But as a class they are beyond reform; their point -of view is so utterly warped and incorrigible, they -have grown so pestiferous with laziness and "graft" -that there is no other remedy, "no hay otro -remedio" as the Spaniard himself would say could -his throttled mind cast off the rubbish of superstition -and cant for one clear thought. Let him who -protests that they are teachers of the youth go once and -see what they teach,--the vapid, senseless lies about -"saints" so far from truth as to be an abomination, -so far above the possible aspirations and attainments -of real humanity as to force the rising generations -from very hopelessness of imitation to lose heart and -sink to iniquity as the priesthood has done before -them. Or are there some who still credit them with -feeding the poor? A high praise, indeed, exactly -equal to that due the footpad who refunds his victim -carfare that he may be the more quickly rid of him.</p> -<p class="pnext">Therein lies the chief weakness of Spain. It is not -because she is ruled by a slender youth chosen by the -accident of birth rather than by a more portly man -chosen more or less by his fellow-citizens; not -because her religion happens to be that of Rome rather -than the austerities of Calvin or the fatalism of -Mohammed; not because her national sport is a bit more -dramatically brutal than that of other lands; not -because her soil is dry and stony and her rains and -rivers slight; not because her people are decadent, -her human stock run down--I have plowed in the -sea in the foregoing pages if I have not made it clear -that her real manhood, the workman, the peasant, the -arriero, the muscle and sinew of the nation, are as -hardy, toilsome and all-enduring as the world -harbors. But in the long centuries of warfare her -attention was drawn away from internal affairs, she fell -among thieves within, and the force of example, the -helplessness of the individual drove her people in the -line of least resistance,--to become thieves too, -nationally, officially, until mad -grab-what-you-can-and-the-devil-grab-the-ungrabbing -has her by the throat -gasping for life. If she is not to sink down for -the vultures of the nations to pick clean of her -meager scraps of flesh there must arise within her -boundaries a man, a movement, a sweeping change -that shall cast off the burden of precedent and turn -her officials to doing honestly with all their might -what now they do with all their might dishonestly. -She must regain confidence in the necessity and -prevalence of honesty. She must learn that patent yet -rarely comprehended truth that work and work only -is the real source of life; she must cease to be the -sworn enemy of the innovator, thinking her ways -best and those of the rest of the world abnormal, -unable to see a yard beyond her national boundaries, -scorning all ideas and arguments from the outside -like the most hide-bound of Orientals.</p> -<p class="pnext">The next afternoon found me in Vitoria, in the -land of the Basque; yet another kind of Spain. -Vitoria is a city of to-day, clean, bustling, almost -American in her streets and architecture and the -wide-awake air of the <em class="italics">Vascongado</em>. The <em class="italics">boína</em>--round -cap without visor and the end of a string for -tassel--had all at once become universal, worn, like the -fez in Damascus, by every age and grade of man from -bootblack to mayor. So pleasing was this prosaic -city that even though her prices were high I loitered -in her shade until the next afternoon before seeking -out the highway to Bilbáo.</p> -<p class="pnext">There lay sixty-seven kilometers to the seaport, a -half of which I hoped to cover before halting for the -night. For on the following day Bilbáo was to -celebrate in honor of the king. The way led me -through a country fertile for all its stoniness, made -so by the energy and diligence of the Basque, whose -strong features, bold curved nose, piercing eyes and -sturdy form was to be seen on every hand. With the -southern Spaniard this new race had almost -nothing in common, and though as serious of deportment -as the gallego there was neither his bashfulness nor -stupidity. The Castilian spoken in the region was -excellent, the farming implements of modern -manufacture and the methods of the husbandman thousands -of years ahead of Andalusia.</p> -<p class="pnext">As the day was fading I began to clamber my way -upward into the mountains that rose high in the -darkening sky ahead. The night grew to one of -the blackest, the heavens being overcast; but he who -marches on into the darkness without contact with -artificial light may still see almost plainly. It was -two hours, perhaps, after nightfall, and the road was -winding ever higher around the shoulder of a -mammoth peak, its edge a sheer precipice above -unfathomable depths, when suddenly I saw a man, a denser -blackness against the sea of obscurity, standing -stock-still on the utmost edge of the highway.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Buenos tardes," I greeted in a low voice, almost -afraid that a hearty tone would send him toppling -backward to his death.</p> -<p class="pnext">He neither answered nor moved. I stepped closer.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You have rather a dangerous position, verdad, señor?"</p> -<p class="pnext">Still he stared motionless at me through the -darkness. Could he be some sleep-walker? I moved -quietly forward and, thrusting out a hand, touched -him on the sleeve. It was hard as if frozen! For -an instant I recoiled, then with a sudden instinctive -movement passed a hand quickly and lightly over his -face. Was I dreaming? That, too, was hard and -cold. I sprang back and, rummaging hastily -through my pockets, found one broken match. The -wind was rushing up from the bottomless gulf below. -I struck a light, holding it in the hollow of my hand, -and in the instant before it was blown out I caught -a few words of an inscription on a pedestal:</p> -<p class="center medium pnext white-space-pre-line">"ERECTED TO THE MEM--<br /> -THROWN OVER THIS PRECIPICE--<br /> -BANDITS--NIGHT OF--"</p> -<p class="pnext">and before I had made out date or name I was again -in darkness.</p> -<p class="pnext">Over the summit, on a lower, less wind-swept level, -I came upon a long mining town scattered on either -side of the highway. I dropped in at a wineshop -and bespoke supper and lodging. A dish of the now -omnipresent bacalao was set before me, but for a time -the keeper showed strong disinclination to house a -wandering stranger falling upon him at this advanced hour.</p> -<p class="pnext">The young woman who served me at table and -answered the demands for wine of the half-dozen -youthful miners about me seemed strangely out of place -in such surroundings. Nothing was plainer than -that she was not of the barmaid type. One would -have said rather the convent-reared daughter of some -well-to-do merchant or large farmer. This surmise -turned out to be close to the truth. When the -carousing miners had drifted into the night and I, by dint -of talking and acting my best Castilian, had found -my way into the good graces of the family, I heard -the girl's story--for rightly approached the -Spaniard is easily led to talk of his private affairs. -Her father had been the principal shop-keeper of the -mining town, and had died a few weeks before. His -debts were heavy and when all claims had been -settled there remained to his orphaned daughter five -hundred pesetas.</p> -<p class="pnext">"But," I cried, "five hundred pesetas! It is a -fortune, señorita, in Spain. You could have started -a shop, or lived well until the novio appeared."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Jesus Maria!" cried the girl, looking at me with -wondering eyes. "Do you forget purgatory? For -the repose of my father's soul five hundred masses -must be said; no less, the cura himself told me; and -each mass costs a peseta. Then I have come to work here."</p> -<p class="pnext">There was that in the air next morning that -reminded me, as I wound down into a wooded, -well-peopled valley, that summer was drawing toward its -close. The day grew quickly warm, however. In the -knowledge that the king was sojourning in the city -upon which I was marching, I was fully prepared to -endure long catechizing and examination by guardias -civiles. My wonder was not slight, therefore, when -I was suffered to pass through one, two, three -villages without being once challenged.</p> -<p class="pnext">But the expected meeting came at last and quite -made up for the lack of others. The third village -lay already behind me when I heard an authoritative -shout and, turning around, saw a bareheaded man -of thirty, dressed half in peasant, half in village -garb, beckoning to me with a commanding gesture to -return. Fancying him some wily shop-keeper, I -swung on my heel and set off again. He shouted -loudly, and racing after me, caught me by an arm. -I shook him off with an indignation that sent him -spinning half across the highway. Instead of -retreating he sprang at me again and we should -certainly have been soon entangled in a crude performance -of the manly art had he not cried out in a voice -quaking with anger:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Have a care, señor, in resisting the law. I am -a miñón."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Miñón!" I cried, recalling suddenly that in the -Basque provinces the national guardias are -reënforced by local officers thus named. "Then why the -devil don't you wear your uniform? How shall I -know you are not a footpad?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"I shall prove that soon enough," he replied, still -visibly shaking with the rage of a Spaniard whose -"pundonor" has been sullied.</p> -<p class="pnext">I returned with him to the casa de ayuntamiento, -in the doorway of which he halted, and, examining me -for concealed weapons, demanded that I untie my -knapsack. Never before had this been more than -superficially inspected, but the thoroughness with -which the angry miñón overhauled it, examining even -my letters and fingering my clothes-brush over and -over as if convinced that it could be opened by some -secret spring, fully made up for any possible -carelessness of his fellow-officers elsewhere. When he -had lost hope of finding evidence of treason he -handed back my possessions reluctantly and bade me -with a scowl the conventional "Go with God;" to -which I answered, "Queda V. con el mismisimo -diablo"--but the thrust was too subtle for his -bullet-headed intellect.</p> -<p class="pnext">Toward noon the green slopes and cool forests -turned to a cindered soil and the sooty aspect of a -factory town. I mounted a last hill and descended -quickly through a smoke-laden atmosphere into -Bilbáo. Here was the first entirely modern city I had -seen in Spain; one might easily have fancied one's -self in Newcastle or Seattle. The Spanish casa de -huéspedes seemed not even known by name, and in -its place were only boisterous taverns, smacking of -sea-faring custom and overrun with the touts that -feed on the simple mariner.</p> -<p class="pnext">As I sat toward evening in one of these establishments, -there entered a man something over thirty-five, -dressed in boína and workingman's garb that showed -but slight wear. I noted him only half consciously, -being at that moment expressing to the landlord my -surprise that the king, instead of being in Bilbáo as -he was reported by the newspapers, was ten or twelve -miles away on his yacht at the mouth of the river. -The keeper, a stocky Basque of much better parts -than the average of his guild, glanced up from his -spigots and replied in a smooth and pleasant voice:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Porque, señor, no quiere morir tan joven--Because -he does not care to die so young."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Y con mujer tan bella y fresca--And with a wife -so beautiful and fresh," added a thick-set fellow at -a neighboring table without looking up from his cards.</p> -<p class="pnext">Love for Alfonso is not one of the characteristics -of the masses in this section of the country.</p> -<p class="pnext">Meanwhile the newcomer, whose eye had been -wandering leisurely over the assembly, threaded his -way half across the room to sit down at my table. I -wondered a bit at the preference, but certain he was -no tout, gave him the customary greeting. By the -time I had accepted a glass and treated in turn we -were exchanging personal information. He -announced himself a cobbler, and even before I had -broached the subject suggested that he could find me -a lodging with an old woman above his shop. This -workroom, when we reached it, proved to be nothing -but a kit of tools and a few strips of leather -scattered about the small hallway at the foot of the stairs. -I found above the hospitality he had promised, -however, and paying two night's lodging in an -unusually pleasant room, descended.</p> -<p class="pnext">The shoemaker appeared more obliging than -industrious, for he at once laid aside the shoe he was -hammering and announced that he was going to give -himself the pleasure of spending the evening with -me and of finding me the best place to take in the -fireworks that were to be set off in honor of the king. -I explained that it was rather my plan to attend the -city theater, where I might both see that remarkable -personage in the flesh and hear one of Molière's best -comedies in Spanish.</p> -<p class="pnext">"There is more than time for both," replied the -cobbler, and forthwith fell to extolling the coming -spectacle so highly that he came near to arousing -within me, too, an interest in the fireworks.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the end of an hour's stroll we found ourselves -on the summit of a knoll in the outskirts, in -a compact sea of Bilbaoans watching a tame imitation -of a Fourth of July celebration on the slope of one -of the surrounding hills. The display was, as I -have said, in honor of the king; though it turned out -that his indifferent majesty was at that moment -dining and wining a company of fellow-sportsmen on -board the <em class="italics">Giralda</em> twelve miles away.</p> -<p class="pnext">The cobbler set a more than leisurely pace back to -the city, but we regained at length the bank of the -river and, crossing the wooded Paseo Arenal, -approached the theater. Before it, was packed a vast -and compact multitude through which I struggled my -way to the entrance, only to be informed in the -customary box-office tones that there was not another -ticket to be had. The shoemaker was no theater-goer, -and as my own disappointment was not overwhelming, -we set out to fight our way back to the Paséo.</p> -<p class="pnext">Long before we had succeeded in that venturesome -undertaking, however, there burst forth a sudden, -unheralded roar of uncounted voices, the immense -throng surged riverward with an abruptness that all -but swept us off our feet, the thunder of thousands -of hoofs swelled nearer, and down upon us rode an -entire regiment of guardias civiles in uniforms so -new they seemed but that moment to have left the -tailor, and astride finer horses than I had dreamed -existed in Spain. Straight into the crowd they -dashed, headlong, at full canter, like cowboys into -a drove of steers, sweeping all before them, -scattering luckless individuals in all directions, and -completely surrounding the theater in solid phalanx. -Before I had recovered breath there arose another -mighty shout, and, some three hundred more horsemen, -with a richly caparisoned carriage in their midst, -dashed through the throng from a landing-stage on -the river bank behind us to the door of the theater. -I caught a fleeting glimpse of a slight figure in a -rakish overcoat, a burst of music sounded from the -theater, and died as suddenly away as the doors closed -behind the royal arrival. Again the cavalry charged, -driving men, women and children pellmell back a -hundred yards from the building and, forming a yet -wider circle around it, settled down to sit their horses -like statues until the play should be ended.</p> -<p class="pnext">When my wonder had somewhat subsided there -came upon me an all but uncontrollable desire to -shout with laughter. The ludicrousness, the -ridiculousness of it all! A vast concourse of humanity -driven helter-skelter like as many cattle, scores of -persons jostled and bruised, thirteen hundred of the -most able-bodied men in Spain to sit motionless on -horseback around a theater late into the night, all -for the mere protection of one slight youth whose -equal was easily to be found in every town or village -of the land! Truly this institution of kingship is as -humorous a hoax as has been played upon mankind -since man was.</p> -<p class="pnext">A hoax on all concerned. For the incumbent -himself, the slender youth inside, who must spend his -brief span of years amid such mummery, commands -of himself a bit of mild admiration. I fell to -wondering what he would give for the right to wander -freely and unnoticed all a summer's day along the -open highway. Let him who can imagine himself -born a king, discovering as early as such notions can -penetrate to his infant intellect that his -fellow-mortals have placed him high on a pedestal, have -given him even without the asking power, riches, -and almost reverence as a superior being, when at -heart he knows full well he is of quite the same clay -as they; and he may well ask himself whether he would -have grown up even as manly as the youth who goes -by the name of Alfonso XIII. Recalling that -former kings of Spain could not be touched by other than -a royal finger, we may surely grant common sense -to this sovereign who dances uncondescendingly with -daughters of the middle class, who chats freely with -bullfighters, peasants, or apple-women. Pleasing, -too, is his devil-may-carelessness. On this same -night, for instance, after reboarding his yacht, he -took it suddenly into his mad young head to return -at once through this, his most hostile province, to his -queen. At one in the morning he was rowed ashore -with one companion, stepped into his automobile, -himself playing chauffeur, and tore away through -Bilbáo and a hundred miles along the craggy coast -to San Sebastian. It is not hard to guess what -might have happened had he punctured a tire among -those stony mountains and been chanced upon by -a homing band of peasants brave with wine.</p> -<p class="pnext">Musing all which I turned to address the -cobbler and found him gone. The crowd was slowly -melting away. I sat down in the Paseo and waited an -hour, but my erstwhile companion did not reappear. -When I descended from my lodging next morning -there remained not a trace of his "shop" at the foot -of the stairs. Had the village miñón done me the -honor of telegraphing my description to the seaport, -or was my road-worn garb the livery of suspicion? -This only I know; when, that Sunday evening after -my return from a glimpse of the open sea, I asked -my hostess whether her fellow renter were really a -shoemaker, she screwed up her parchment-like -features into a smile and answered:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sí, señor, one of the shoemakers of his majesty."</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="a-descent-into-aragon">CHAPTER XIV</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">A DESCENT INTO ARAGON</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">There was an unwonted excitement in the air -when I boarded the train next morning for the -longest unbroken ride of my Spanish journey. -Pernales, the anachronism, the twentieth-century bandit -of the environs of Córdoba, had fallen. Aboard the -train newspapers were as numerous as on the New -York "Elevated" at a similar hour. I bought one -and was soon lost like the rest in the adventures of -this last defier of the mighty guardia civil.</p> -<p class="pnext">The story was simple. Two evenings before, -about the time I had been yawning over the king's -fireworks, Pernales had met a village arriero among -the foothills of his retreat, and asked him some -question about the road. The rustic gave him the -desired information, but guessing with whom he was -speaking, had raced away, once he was out of sight, -as fast as he could drive his ass before him, to carry -his suspicions to the village alcalde. The rest was -commonplace. A dozen guardias stalked the -unsuspecting bandolero among the hills, and coming -upon him toward sunrise, brought his unsanctioned -career abruptly to a close.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-65"> -<span id="the-roman-walls-of-leon"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-264a.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -The Roman walls of Leon</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">"Our special correspondent" had dismally failed -to cast over his account the glamour of romance, but -in compensation had taken a reporter's care to give -the precise point in the right temple where the ball -had entered, with the exact dimensions of the orifice, -as well as the life story of the hero who had bored -it. Nay, with almost American haste and resourcefulness -the paper printed a full-length portrait of -the successful hunter--or one at least of a man who -could not have been vastly different in appearance, -in a uniform that was certainly very similar. Alas! -The good old days of the bandit and the contrabandista -are forever gone in Spain; the humdrum era of -the civil guard is come. Pernales' is but another -story of a man born a century too late.</p> -<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 62%" id="figure-66"> -<span id="the-land-of-the-boina-alfonso-xii-at-a-picnic"></span><img class="align-center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/img-264b.jpg" /> -<div class="caption figure"> -The land of the boina. Alfonso XII at a picnic</div> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">All day long as we toiled and twisted over the -Cantabrian range and descended southward, this only -was the topic of conversation of all grades and sexes -of travelers. An hour's halt at Miranda and we -creaked on along the bank of Spain's greatest river, -the Ebro, talking still of bandoleros and the regret -of their passing. Slowly the green tinge in the -landscape faded away and in its place came reddish cliffs -and a sun-seared and all but desert country spreading -away from either bank of the red-dyed river, -sterile rolling plains relieved only by small oases of -fertility and isolated and in all probability bigoted -villages standing colorless on colorless hillsides. As -central Spain may be likened to rocky Judea, so this -resembles in some degree Egypt, with the Ebro as the -Nile.</p> -<p class="pnext">It was late in the evening when I arrived in -Saragossa and, crossing the broad river by the Puente de -Piedra, found myself in one of the most labyrinthian -cities of Spain. But so practiced had I grown in -such quest that in less than an hour I had engaged -accommodation at my own price, which by this time -had descended to two and a half pesetas.</p> -<p class="pnext">The "sight" par excellence of Saragossa is of -course her "Virgen del Pilar." The story runs that -Santiago, who is none other than Saint James, while -wandering about Spain, as he was wont to ramble in -various corners of the earth, was favored one evening -by a call from the Mother of Christ, who, during all -their little chat, stood on the top of a stone pillar. -That the tale is true there seems little chance for -doubt, for they have the pillar yet; and it is over this -that has been erected the vast cathedral to which flock -thousands of pilgrims during every month of the year.</p> -<p class="pnext">I repaired to it early, but was soon turned melancholy -with the recollection of Puck's profound saying -anent the folly of mankind. The interior of the -edifice is as impressive as that of an empty warehouse. -Under the main dome is a large chapel screaming with -riches, in the back of which, on her pillar, stands the -Virgin--turned to black, half-decayed wood--dressed -in more thousands of dollars' worth of gold -and silver, of resplendent robes and vociferous -gaudiness than god Juggernaut of India ever possessed at -the height of his influence. Before it worshipers are -always kneeling. In the back wall of the chapel is an -opening through which one can touch the pillar--and -find a cup-shaped hole worn in it by such action -during the centuries. I sat down on a bench near the -far-famed orifice, and for close upon an hour watched -the unbroken procession file past. Beggar women, -rag-pickers, ladies of wealth, cankerous old men, -merchants, city sports, lawyers--Saragossa is the -one city of Spain where even men go to church--every -grade and variety of Aragonese pressed close -upon the heels one of another, each bowing down as -he passed to kiss the hole deeper into the pillar. At -bottom the difference is slight indeed between the -religion of the Spaniard and that of the Hindu.</p> -<p class="pnext">In the city swarms a hungry, ragged people, more -often than not without shoes, yet one and all with -the proverbial haughty pride and somber mood of -Aragon in face and bearing, stiff-shouldered, -bristling with a touch-me-not-with-a-pole expression. -Here, too, may still be found, especially among the -peasants from the further districts, the old provincial -costume,--knee breeches, a jacket reaching -barely to the waist, and a red cloth wound about the head.</p> -<p class="pnext">Tiring of such things, there is a pleasant promenade -along the banks of the Ebro, whence one will -drift naturally through the Portillo gate where the -"flying Gaul was foil'd by a woman's hand." It is -startling to find the settings of two such world-famed -dramas so close together, but from the gate one has -only to saunter a few yards along the Madrid -highway to come upon the weather-battered Aljafería -of "Trovatore" fame. To-day it is a barracks. -Within its towers, through now unbarred windows, -may be seen soldiers polishing their spurs and -muskets, humming now and then a snatch of popular -song; but one may wait in vain to hear some tuneful -prisoner strike up the expected "miserere."</p> -<p class="pnext">There is one stroll in Saragossa that I would -commend to the wanderer who finds pleasure in gaining -elevations whence he may look down, as it were, on -the world. It is out along the Canal Imperial, past -the swollen-paunched statue of its sponsor Pignatelli, -and across the Huerva; then winding lazily southwest -and upward the stroller comes suddenly out on the -crown of a bald hillock. There, below him in its flat -valley, spreads all Saragossa, far enough away to -lose the crassness of detail, yet distinct, the two -finished towers of the Pilar rising above it like -minarets, the whole girded by the green huerta, and -beyond and all around the desert in gashed and gnarled -hills like the Libyan range of another continent. -Here I lounged until the setting sun, peering over -my shoulder, cast the radiant flush of evening on the -city below, which gradually fading away was at -length effaced in the night, its sounds mingling -together in a sort of music that drifted up to me long -after the scene itself had wholly disappeared.</p> -<p class="pnext">I descended for supper. It is the lot of man that -he has no sooner climbed to a height where he may -look down calmly on the scramble of life than he must -again plunge down into it to <em class="italics">eat</em>--or to earn more -bread. To-morrow I must set my face toward the -frontier, toward New York and a return to labor.</p> -<p class="pnext">On my way to the five-o'clock train next morning -I passed through Saragossa's vast covered market and -halted to lay in a last supply of figs. The cheery old -woman who sold them grasped my fifteen céntimos -tightly in her hand and solemnly made with it the -sign of the cross. I expressed surprise, and a -misgiving lest I had unwittingly parted with coppers -possessing peculiar virtues.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Cómo, señor!" she cried, in wonder at my ignorance. -"It is the first money of the day. If I do -not say a paternoster with it I may sit here until -nightfall without selling another perrito-worth, you -may be sure."</p> -<p class="pnext">The train labored back along the Ebro to Castejon, -where I changed cars and journeyed northward, -every click of the wheels seeming to cry out that my -Spanish summer was nearing its end. At high noon -I descended in a dusty plain before the sheer face of -the rock on which stands Pamplona of Navarre. -When I had climbed into the city I inquired of the -first policeman for a modest casa de huéspedes. He -rubbed his head a moment and set off with me along -the street, chatting sociably as we went. Soon we -came upon another officer, to whom the first repeated -my question. He scratched his head a moment and -fell in beside us, babbling cheerily. Fully a half-mile -beyond we accosted a third officer. He rasped his -close-shaven poll yet another moment and joined us -in the quest, adding a new stock of anecdotes. Here -was courtesy extraordinary, even for Spain. Had -the police force of Pamplona discovered in me some -prince incognito, or was mine to be the rôle of the -rolling pancake? We rambled on, but without -success, for not another officer could we find in all our -circuit of the city. It was certainly close upon an -hour after my original inquiry, and something like -a hundred yards from the same spot, that we entered -a side street and mounted, still in quartet, to a cheap -but homelike boarding-house high up in an aged -building. The courtesy was quickly explained. The -landlady, having expressed her deep gratitude for -being brought a new guest, begged each of the officers -to do her the favor of accepting a glass of wine. -They smacked their lips over it, exchanged with the -household the customary salutations and banter, and -sauntered back to their beats.</p> -<p class="pnext">When I had eaten, I descended for a turn about -the city with the uncle of my grateful hostess, a -mountain-hardened Basque of sixty, in the universal -boína, who had but recently retired from a lifetime -of rocky hillside farming. Of both his province of -Navarre and of himself he talked freely until -suddenly my tongue stumbled upon some question of -military conscription. He fell at once silent, his jaws -stiffened, and into his face came the reflection of a -bitter sadness. For the Basques are by no means -reconciled to the loss of their cherished <em class="italics">fueros</em>, or -special political privileges. In silence the sturdy old -man led the way half across the city to one of her -gates and, climbing a knoll that gave a good view -of the surrounding fortifications, said in cheerless -tones:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Don Henrico, we have here the strongest city -walls in Spain. But what use are they now against -the king's modern artillery? No hay remedio. We -must serve in his armies."</p> -<p class="pnext">As we threaded our way slowly back to the -boarding-house I halted at a money changer's to buy a -twenty-franc piece. The transaction left me only a -handful of coppers in Spanish currency, and I went -early to bed lest there be not enough remaining to -carry me out of the country.</p> -<p class="pnext">On a glorious clear September morning I turned -my back on Spain and set forth from Pamplona to -tramp over the Pyrenees by the pass of Roncesvalles, -being just uncertain enough of the road to lend zest -to the undertaking. At the edge of the plain to the -northward of the city a highway began to wind its -way upward along the bank of a young river, not -laboriously, but steadily rising. Habitations were -rare. Late in the morning a spot above whirling -rapids in shaded solitude suggested a plunge; but as -I pulled off my coat a sound fell on my ear and, -looking across the stream, I saw a half-dozen women -kneeling on the bank and staring curiously across at me. -When I retreated, they laughed heartily and fell once -more to pounding away at their laundry-work on the -stones.</p> -<p class="pnext">Some distance higher I found another pool in -which, by rolling over and over, I won the afterglow -of a real swim. Sharper ascents succeeded, though -still none steep. I was soon surrounded by a Tyrolian -scenery of forest and deep-cut valleys, and among -up-to-date people--the farming implements being of -modern type and the smallest villages having electric -lights run by power from the mountain streams. -Every fellow-mortal, young or old, as is usual in -mountain regions, gave me greeting, not with the -familiar "Vaya!" nor the "Buenos!" of Galicia, -but with "Adiós!" which seemed here to mean much -more than the grammatical "Good-by." In the -place of guardias civiles were carabineros in a -provincial uniform, whose advances, if less warm and -companionable, were none the less kindly.</p> -<p class="pnext">Toward evening the road flowed up into a broad, -oblong meadow, ankle-deep in greenest grass, musical -with the sound of cow-bells, across which it drifted as -if content to rest for a time on its oars before taking -the final climb. The sun was setting when I reached -Burguete at forty-four kilometers, station of the -trans-Pyrenean diligence and the point that I had -been assured I should do well to reach in a two-day's -walk. But I felt as unwearied as at the outset; the -towers of Roncesvalles stood plainly visible five -kilometers ahead across the green tableland. I rambled -on in the cool of evening and by dark was housed in -a good inn of the mountain village.</p> -<p class="pnext">When the supper hour arrived, the landlord stepped -across to me to ask whether I would eat as a guest -or as a member of the family. I inquired what the -distinction might be.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No difference," he answered, "except that as a -member of the family you pay a peseta upon leaving, -and as a guest you pay two."</p> -<p class="pnext">It was of course en famille that I supped, and -right royally, at a board merry with good-humored -peasants and arrieros rather than in the silent, -gloomy company of a half-dozen convention-ridden -travelers in an adjoining room.</p> -<p class="pnext">Roncesvalles would have been an unequaled spot -in which to pass an autumn week, roaming in the -forest glens of the mountains, dreaming of the heroic -days of Roland. But the hour of reckoning and of -New York was near at hand. Of all sensations I -most abhor the feeling that I must be in a given -place at a given time.</p> -<p class="pnext">A short climb through wooded hillsides strewn with -gigantic rocks and I found myself all at once and -unexpectedly on the very summit of the Pyrenees. In -no sense had the ascent been toilsome, vastly less so -than several scrambles of two or three hours' -duration between Lugo and Oviedo. From the French -side, no doubt, it would have been far more of a task. -Gazing northward I recognized for the first time that -I stood high indeed above the common level of the -earth. Miles below, blue as the sea, lay France, the -forested mountains at my feet rolling themselves out -into hills, the hills growing lower and lower and -spreading away into the far, far distance like -another world. The modern world--and I was all at -once assailed with a desire to ask what it had been -doing in all the days I had been gone. Then the -highway seized me in its grasp and hurried me away -down, racing, rushing, almost stumbling, so fast I -was forced to break away from it and clamber down -at my own pace through dense unpeopled forests, to -fall upon it again far below and stalk with it at -lunch-time into the village of Val Carlos. Yet another -hour's descent and I crossed a small stream into the -little hamlet of Arneguy; the long-forgotten figure of -a French gendarme slouched forth from a hut to -shout as I passed, "Anything dutiable, monsieur?" -and my Spanish journey was among the things that -have been.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em"> -</div> -<p class="center large pfirst" id="emigrating-homeward">CHAPTER XV</p> -<p class="center medium pnext">EMIGRATING HOMEWARD</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst">In reality almost as much as in fancy I had -entered another world. It is chiefly in retrospect -that a journey through Spain, as through Palestine, -brings home to the traveler the full difference -between those gaunt regions of the earth and the world -to which he is accustomed. Here the change was -like that from a squatter's cabin, a bachelor's quarters -to a residence of opulence.</p> -<p class="pnext">Arrived while the day was still in its prime at -St. Jean Pied de Port, I found myself undecided how to -continue. The rescuing forty dollars awaited -me--postal errors precluded--in Bordeaux; but -Baedeker having now become mere lumber, I had no means -of knowing which of two routes to follow to that city. -I halted to make inquiries of an old Spaniard -drowsing before his shop--so like one of mine own -people he seemed amid this babble of French. But -though he received me with Castilian courtesy he -could give me no real information. Under the -awning of a café a hundred paces beyond, two -well-dressed men were sipping cooling drinks. Their -touring-car stood before the building, and not far -away, in the shade of an overhanging shoulder of the -Pyrenees, loitered a chauffeur, in all the accustomed -accoutrements of that genus. He had the appearance -of an obliging fellow. I strolled across to him, -hastily summoning up my dormant French.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Monsieur," I began, "vous me pardonnerez, -mais pour aller d'ici à Bordeaux vaut il mieux passer -par Bayonne ou bien par Mont de--"</p> -<p class="pnext">He was grinning at me sheepishly and shifting -from one leg to the other. As I paused he blurted -out:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Aw, I don't talk no French!"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Then I suppose it 'll have to be English," I -answered, in the first words of that language I had -spoken in ninety-six days--and in truth they came -with difficulty.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Go' bly' me!" burst out the astounded knight of -the steering-wheel. "'Ow ever 'd you get in this -corner o' the world? Say, I ayn't said more 'n 'yes, -sir' or 'no, sir' to their lordships--" with a slight -jerk of the head toward the men under the awning--"in -so long I 've bally near forgot 'ow. 'Ere it -is Sunday an'--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Saturday," I interrupted.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sunday, I say," repeated the chauffeur, drawing -out a card on which were penciled many crude -crosses. "Ere 's 'ow I keep track--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Señora," I asked, turning to a woman who was -filling a pitcher at a hydrant behind me, "qué día -tenemos hoy?"</p> -<p class="pnext">Her lip curled disdainfully as she answered:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Tiens! Vous me croyez un de ces barbares-là?"--tossing -her head toward the mountain range behind us.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Mille pardons," I laughed. "Force of habit. -This monsieur and I are disputing whether to-day is -Saturday or Sunday."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Out again without your nurses!" she cried -sarcastically. "Saturday, of course."</p> -<p class="pnext">"Now 'ear that!" said the chauffeur, almost tearfully, -when I interpreted. "'Ow ever can a man keep -track of anything in this bally country? Say, what -was that question you was tryin' to ask me?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"I 'm walking from Gib to Bordeaux," I remarked -casually, and repeated my former inquiry. His -expression changed slowly from incredulity to -commiseration. Suddenly he thrust a hand into his -pocket.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I say, won't you 'ave a mite of a lift? Why, -we took near all yesterday to come from that place. -You couldn't walk there in a month."</p> -<p class="pnext">"No, thanks, I 'm fairly well heeled," I answered.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Better 'ave a yellow-boy," he persisted, drawing -out several English sovereigns. "Lord, you 're -more 'n welcome, y' know. They ayn't no bloomin' -use to me 'ere!"</p> -<p class="pnext">At that moment I noted that the milords under the -awning had spread out before them a large touring -map, and I left the chauffeur gasping at my audacity -as I stepped across to them. The older was -struggling to give an order to the waiter, who crouched -towel on arm over them. There is a strange -similarity between a full-grown Briton attempting to -speak French and a strong man playing with a doll.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Beg pawdon, gentlemen," I said, when I had -helped them out of the difficulty, "but would you -mind my glancing at your map? I want to find--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ah--why, certainly," gasped one of the startled -nobles.</p> -<p class="pnext">But even with the chart before me I was no nearer -a decision, for the two roads appeared of almost -equal length. As I turned away, however, a poster -on a nearby wall quickly settled my plans. It -announced a great bullfight in Bayonne the next -afternoon, with Quinito, Mazzatinito, and Regaterm, -among the most famous of Spain's matadores--far -more so than any it had been my fortune to see in -that country.</p> -<p class="pnext">I sped away at once along a macadamed highway -at the base of the Pyrenees beside a clear river--a -mere "rivière" to the French, but one that would -have been a mighty stream in Spain. Its banks -were thickly grown with willows. On the other hand -the mountain wall, no less green, rose sheer above -me, bringing an unusually early sunset. Along the -way I met several old men, all Basques, who noting -that I also wore the boína greeted me in their native -"Eúscarra." Not a word of any other tongue -could they speak; and when I shook my head -hopelessly at their hermetical language, they halted to -gaze after me with expressions of deep perplexity. -So, too, in the mountain-top village of Bidarry to -which I climbed long after dark after a dip in the -river, all speech was Basque; though some of the -younger inhabitants, finding I was of their race only -from the cap upward, fell to talking to me in fluent -French or Spanish.</p> -<p class="pnext">The first hours of the following clay were in the -highest degree pleasant. Thereafter the country -grew hilly, the sun torrid, and as I was forced to -set the sharpest pace to reach the bullring by four. -I put in as dripping a half-day as at any time -during the summer; and I have yet to be more nearly -incinerated in this life than in the sol of the great -"Place des Taureaux" of Bayonne, crushed between -a workman in corduroys and a Zouave in the -thickest woolen uniform the loom weaves.</p> -<p class="pnext">The fight, like the ring, was Spanish in every -particular, though the programmes were printed in -French. It was by all odds the greatest córrida I -was privileged to attend during the summer, for the -three matadores stand in the front rank of their -profession. Yet it was somehow far less exhilarating -than those I had seen in Spain. One had a feeling -that these past masters were running far less -risk than their younger colleagues; one enjoyed their -dexterity as one enjoys a seasoned public speaker, -yet the performance lacked just the thrill of -amateurishness.</p> -<p class="pnext">Here, too, I saw Spain's greatest picador, the only -one indeed I ever saw accomplish what the picador -is supposed to do,--to hold off the bull with his -<em class="italics">garrocha</em>. This he did repeatedly, placing his lance -so unerringly that he stopped the animal's most -furious charges and forced him to retire bellowing -with rage and with blood trickling down over his -shoulders. In all the afternoon this king of the -pike-pole had but one horse killed under him. It was in -connection with this one fall that Quinito, the -boldest of the matadores, won by his daring such applause -as seemed to shake the Pyrenees behind us. Moreno -lay half buried under his dead horse, in more than -imminent danger of being gored to death by the bull -raging above him. In vain the anxious caudrilla -flaunted their cloaks. All at once Quinito stepped -empty handed into the ring and caught the animal -by the tail. Away the brute dashed across the plaza, -twisting this way and that, but unable to bring his -horns nearer than an inch or two of his tormentor -who, biding his time, let go and vaulted lightly over -the barrier.</p> -<p class="pnext">I quitted Bayonne with the dawn and for four days -following marched steadily on across the great -Landes of France. Miles upon miles the broad -highway stretched unswerving before me through -an ultra-flat country between endless forests of pine. -On the trunk of every tree hung a sort of flowerpot -to catch the dripping pitch. There was almost no -agriculture, nothing but pine-trees stretching away -in regular rows in every direction, a solitude broken -only by the sighing of the wind sweeping across the -flatlands, where one could shout to the full capacity -of one's lungs without awakening other response than -long rolling echoes. Once in a while a pitch-gatherer -flitted among the trees; less often the highway -crossed a rusty and apparently trainless railroad at -the solitary stations of which were tumbled hundreds -of barrels of pitch.</p> -<p class="pnext">My shoes wore out, those very oxfords "custom-made" -in America and honestly tapped in Toledo, -and I was forced to continue the tramp in -alpargatas, or what had here changed their name to -<em class="italics">sandales</em>. As my twenty-franc piece melted away a -wondering began to grow upon me whether I was -really homeward bound after all; so myriad are the -mishaps that may befall a mere letter.</p> -<p class="pnext">Still the unswerving road continued, the endless -forests stretched ahead. Such few persons as I met -scowled at me in the approved French fashion, never -once imitating the cheery greeting of the Spaniard. -Now and again a man-slaughtering automobile tore -by like some messenger to or from, the infernal -regions, recalling by contrast one of the chief charms -of the land I had left behind. Hardly one of those -destroyers of peace and tranquillity had I seen or -heard in all Spain.</p> -<p class="pnext">Four months afoot had not improved my outward -appearance. It was not strange that the post-office -officials of Bordeaux stared at me long and suspiciously -when I arrived at length one afternoon with -a single franc in my pocket. The letter was there. -When I had, after the unwinding of endless red tape, -collected the amount of the order, my journey seemed -over indeed.</p> -<p class="pnext">The "Agents Maritimes" to whom I applied -accepted me readily enough as an emigrant to America, -agreeing to pick me up in Bordeaux and set me down -unstarved in New York for the net sum of two -hundred and three francs. But there came a hitch in the -proceedings. The agent was firing at me with -Gaelic speed the questions prescribed by our -exacting government--"Name?" "Age?" "Profession?"--and -setting down the answers almost before -I gave them, when:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Have you contracted to work in the United States?"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Oui, monsieur."</p> -<p class="pnext">He stopped like a canvas canoe that has struck -a snag.</p> -<p class="pnext">"C'est impossible," he announced, closing his book -of blanks with a thump. "We cannot of course sell -you a ticket."</p> -<p class="pnext">I plunged at once into an explanation. I -advanced the information that the contract labor law -was not framed to shut out American citizens. -I protested that I had already toiled a year -under the contract in question, and for my sins -must return to toil another. I made no headway -whatever.</p> -<p class="pnext">"It is the law of the United States," he snapped. -"Voilà! C'est assez."</p> -<p class="pnext">Luckily I had a day to spare. By dint of -appealing to every maritime authority in the city I -convinced the agent at last of his error. But it was -none too soon. With my bundle and ticket in one -hand and a sort of meal-sack tag to tie in my lapel--if -I so chose--in the other, I tumbled into the night -train for Paris just as its wheels began to turn. -Emigrant tickets are not good in France by day. There -was one other tagged passenger in the compartment, -a heavy-mannered young peasant likewise wearing a -boína. Being thus drawn together we fell gradually; -into conversation. He was at first exceeding chary, -with the two-fold canniness of the Basque and of the -untraveled rustic whose native village has warned -him for weeks to beware wily strangers. When I -displayed my ticket, however, he lost at once his -suspicion and, drawing out his own, proposed that we -make the journey as partners. He was bound for -Idaho. We did not, however, exchange ideas with -partner-like ease, for though he had passed his -twenty-five years in the province of Guipuzcoa he -spoke little Spanish.</p> -<p class="pnext">Near midnight a few passengers alighted and I fell -into a cramped and restless sort of dog-sleep from -which I awoke as we screamed into Versailles. When -we descended at the Montparnasse station we were -joined by three more Basques from another -compartment. They, too, wore boínas and, like my -companion, in lieu of coats, smocks reaching almost to -the knees. They were from near Pamplona and had -tickets from Bordeaux to Fresno, California, having -taken this route to avoid the difficulties of leaving -Spain by sea.</p> -<p class="pnext">The Paris agent of the "American Line" did not -meet us in silk hat and with open arms; but when -we had shivered about the station something over an -hour an unshaven Italian of forty, with lettered cap -and a remarkable assortment of unlearned tongues -picked us up and bore us away by omnibus to his -"Cucina Italiana" in the Passage Moulin. Breakfast -over, I invited my fellow-emigrants to view -Paris under my leadership. They accepted, after -long consultation, and we marched away along the -Rue de Lyon to the site of the Bastille, then on into -the roar of the city, the Spaniards so helplessly -overwhelmed by the surrounding sights and sounds that -I was called upon times without number to save them -being run down. At length we crossed to the island -and, the morgue being closed, entered Notre Dame. -I had hitherto credited Catholic churches with being -the most democratic of institutions. Hardly were we -inside, however, when a priest steamed down upon my -companions.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sortez de suite!" he commanded. "Get out! -How dare you enter the sacred cathedral in blouses!"</p> -<p class="pnext">The Basques stared at him open-mouthed, now and -then nervously wiping their hands on the offending -smocks. I passed on and they followed, pausing -where I paused, to gape at whatever I looked upon. -The priest danced shouting about them. They smiled -at him gratefully, as if they fancied he were -explaining to them the wonders of the edifice. His -commands grew vociferous.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Ces messieurs, sir," I remarked at last, "are -Spaniards and do not understand a word of French."</p> -<p class="pnext">"You then, tell them to get out at once!" he cried -angrily.</p> -<p class="pnext">"You must pardon me, monsieur," I protested, "if -I do not presume to appoint myself interpreter to -your cathedral."</p> -<p class="pnext">We continued our way, strolling down one nave -to the altar, sauntering back along the other toward -the entrance, the priest still prancing about us. In -the doorway the Basques turned to thank him by -signs for his kindness and backed away devoutedly -crossing themselves.</p> -<p class="pnext">At the Louvre, however, the smock-wearers were -halted at the door by two stocky officials, and we -wandered on into the Tuileries Gardens. There the -quartet balked. These hardy mountaineers, accustomed -to trudge all day on steep hillsides behind their -burros, were worn out by a few miles of strolling on -city pavements. For an hour they sat doggedly in -a bench before I could cajole them a few yards -further to the Place de la Concorde to board a Seine -steamer and return to the Cucina. I left them there -and returned alone to while away the afternoon -among my old haunts in the Latin Quarter.</p> -<p class="pnext">Soon after dark the razorless son of Italy took -us once more in tow and, climbing to the imperial of -an omnibus, we rolled away through the brilliant -boulevards to the gare St. Lazare. Here was -assembled an army of emigrants male and female, of all -ages and various distances from their last soaping. -In due time we were admitted to the platform. A -third-class coach marked "Cherbourg" stood near at -hand. I stepped upon the running-board to open a -door. A station official caught me by the coat-tail -with an oath and a violence that would have landed -me on the back of my head but for my grip on the -door handle. Being untrained to such treatment, I -thrust out an alpargata-shod foot mule-fashion -behind me. The official went to sit down dejectedly on -the further edge of the platform. By and by he -came back to shake his fist in my face. I spoke to -him in his own tongue and he at once subsided, crying:</p> -<p class="pnext">"Tiens! I thought you were one of those animals there."</p> -<p class="pnext">We were finally stuffed into four cars, so close -we were obliged to lie all night with our legs in one -another's laps. The weather was arctic, and we slept -not a wink. Early in the morning we disentangled -moody and silent in Cherbourg. Another unshaven -agent took charge of my companions' baggage with -the rest, promising it should be returned the moment -they were aboard ship. I clung skeptically to my -bundle. We were herded together in a tavern and -served coffee and bread, during the administration -of which the agent collected our tickets and any -proof that we had ever possessed them, and -disappeared. The day was wintry cold. All the -morning we marched shivering back and forth between -the statue of Napoleon and the edge of the beach, -the teeth of the south-born Basques chattering -audibly. At noon we jammed our way into the tavern -again for soup, beef and poor cider, and were given -rendezvous at two at one of the wharves.</p> -<p class="pnext">By that hour all were gathered. It was after -four, however, when a tender tied up alongside. A -man stepped forth with an armful of tickets and -began croaking strange imitations of the names -thereon. I heard at last a noise that sounded not -altogether unlike my own name and, no one else -chancing to forestall me, marched on board to -reclaim my credentials. A muscular arm thrust me -on through a passageway in which a Frenchman in -uniform caught me suddenly by the head and turned -up my eyelids with a sort of stiletto. Before I could -double a fist in protest another arm pushed me on. -At six a signal ran up, we steamed out through the -breakwater, and were soon tumbling up the gangway -of the steamer <em class="italics">New York</em>. At the top another -doctor lay in wait, but forewarned, I flung open my -passport, and flaunting it in his face, stepped -unmolested on deck.</p> -<p class="pnext">Some four hundred third-class passengers had -boarded the steamer in England, and no small -percentage of the berths were already occupied. -Unlike the nests of the <em class="italics">Prinzessin</em>, however, they might -reasonably be called berths, for though they offered -no luxury, or indeed privacy, being two hundred in a -section, the quarters were ventilated, well-lighted, -and to a certain extent clean. I stepped to the -nearest unoccupied bunk and was about to toss my bundle -into it when a young steward in shirt-sleeves and -apron sprang at me.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No good, John," he shouted, in Cockney accents -and striving to add force to his remarks by a clumsy -pantomime. "Berth take. No more. No good, -John. All gone. But--" jerking his head -sidewise--"Pst! John! I know one good berth. One -dollar--" holding up a hand with forefinger and -thumb in the form of that over-popular object--"All -take, Joh--"</p> -<p class="pnext">"Say, what t'ell's the game, anyhow, mate?" I -interrupted.</p> -<p class="pnext">His legs all but wilted under him.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Sye, ol' man," he cried, patting me on the -shoulder. "S'elp me, I took you for one o' these -waps, as why shouldn't I, in that there sky-piece -an' make-up? Of course you can 'ave the berth. -Or sye, over 'ere by the port'ole's a far 'an'somer -one. There y' are. Now, mite, if ever I can 'elp -you out--" and he was still chattering when I -climbed again on deck.</p> -<p class="pnext">Unfortunately, in the rough and tumble of -embarking I had lost sight of the Spaniards. When I -found them again every berth was really taken, for -there was a shortage--or rather considerably more -than the legal number of tickets had been sold; and -the quartet, having withstood the blackmail, were -among those unprovided. That night they slept, if -at all, on the bare deck. Next day I protested to -the third-class steward and he spread for them two -sacks of straw on a lower hatch. There, too, the icy -sea air circulated freely. Worst of all, in spite of -the solemn promises of the agent, their bags, in which -they had packed not only blankets and heavier -garments, but meat, bread, fruit, cheese, and botas of -wine sufficient to supply them royally during all the -journey, had been stowed away in the hold. For -two days they showed, after the fashion of -emigrants, no interest in gastronomic matters. When -appetite returned they could not eat American--or -rather English food. "No hay ajos!--It has -no garlic!" they complained. Once or twice I acted -as agent between them and an under cook who -sneaked out of the galley with a roast chicken under -his jacket, but they grew visibly leaner day by day.</p> -<p class="pnext">On the whole steerage life on the New York was -endurable. The third-class fare was on a par with -most English cooking,--well-meant but otherwise -uncommendable. The tables and dishes were moderately -clean, the waiters, expecting a sixpence tip at -the end of the passage, were almost obliging. In -the steerage dining-room, large and airy, was a piano -around which we gathered of an evening to chat, or -to croak old-fashioned songs. Here it was that I -felt the full force of my long total abstinence from -English. It was days before I could talk fluently; -many a time my tongue clattered about a full -half-minute in quest of some quite everyday word.</p> -<p class="pnext">On the fourth day out the oldest of the Spaniards -appealed to me for the twentieth time to intercede -for them with the third-class steward.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Hombre," I answered, "it is useless; I have -talked myself hoarse. Go to him yourself and it -may have some effect."</p> -<p class="pnext">"But he understands neither Castilian nor -Eúscarra!" cried the Basque.</p> -<p class="pnext">"No matter," I replied. "He is a man in such -and such a uniform. When you run across him -touch him on the sleeve and lay your head sidewise -on your hand--the pantomime for sleep the world -over--and he will remember your case."</p> -<p class="pnext">An hour or more afterward I was aroused from -reading a book in an alleyway aft by the third-class -steward.</p> -<p class="pnext">"I say," he cried, "will you come and see what -the bloomin' saints is biting these Spanish chaps? -They ayn't no one else can chin their lingo."</p> -<p class="pnext">I followed him forward. Before the dispensary -stood a wondering and sympathetic group, in the -center of which was the Basque making wry faces -and groaning, and the ship's surgeon looking -almost frightened.</p> -<p class="pnext">"What's up?" I asked.</p> -<p class="pnext">"Blow me if I know!" cried the medicine-man. -"This chap comes and touches me on the arm and -holds his hand against his cheek. I gave him a dose -for toothache, and the beggar 's been howling ever -since. Funny sort of creatures."</p> -<p class="pnext">The Spaniards got no berth during the voyage, -though I carried their appeal in person to the -captain. They were still encamped on the lower -hatch on the morning when the land-fever drew us -on deck at dawn. Soon appeared a light-ship, then -land, a view of the charred ruins of Coney Island, -then a gasp of wonder from the emigrants as the -sky-scrapers burst on their sight. We steamed -slowly up the harbor, checked by mail, custom, and -doctor's boats, and tied up at a wharf early in the -afternoon. Rain was pouring. I appeared before -a commissioner in the second cabin to establish my -nationality, bade the Basques farewell as they were -leaving for Ellis Island, and scudded away through -the deluge. In my pocket was exactly six cents. -I caught up an evening paper and with the last coin -in hand dived down into the Subway.</p> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em"> -</div> -<pre class="literal-block"> -The Summer's Expense Account: -Transportation ................... $90. -Food and Lodging ................. 55. -Bullfights, sights, souvenirs .... 10. -Miscellaneous .................... 17. - ----- - $172 -</pre> -<div class="vspace" style="height: 6em"> -</div> -<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- --> -<div class="backmatter"> -</div> -<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line">*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span>FOUR MONTHS AFOOT IN SPAIN</span> ***</p> -<div class="cleardoublepage"> -</div> -<div class="language-en level-2 pgfooter section" id="a-word-from-project-gutenberg" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> -<span id="pg-footer"></span><h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title">A Word from Project Gutenberg</h2> -<p class="pfirst">We will update this book if we find any errors.</p> -<p class="pnext">This book can be found under: <a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40357"><span>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40357</span></a></p> -<p class="pnext">Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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