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diff --git a/7430.txt b/7430.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abc3eef --- /dev/null +++ b/7430.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9660 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Familiar Spanish Travels, by W. D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Familiar Spanish Travels + +Author: W. D. Howells + +Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7430] +Posting Date: July 24, 2009 [EBook + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR SPANISH TRAVELS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred + + + + + +FAMILIAR SPANISH TRAVELS + + +By W. D. Howells + + + + ILLUSTRATED + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + MCMXIII + COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + PUBLISHED OCTOBER. 1913 + + +TO M. H. + + +[Illustration: 01 PUERTA DEL SOL--GATE OF THE SUN--TOLEDO] + + +CONTENTS + + + I. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES + + II. SAN SEBASTIAN AND BEAUTIFUL BISCAY + + III. BURGOS AND THE BITTER COLD OF BURGOS + + IV. THE VARIETY OF VALLADOLID + + V. PHASES OF MADRID + + VI. A NIGHT AND DAY IN TOLEDO + + VII. THE GREAT GRIDIRON OF ST. LAWRENCE + + VIII. CORDOVA AND THE WAY THERE + + IX. FIRST DAYS IN SEVILLE + + X. SEVILLIAN ASPECTS AND INCIDENTS + + XI. TO AND IN GRANADA + + XII. THE SURPRISES OF RONDA + + XIII. ALGECIRAS AND TARIFA + + + + + +FAMILIAR SPANISH TRAVELS + + + + +I. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES + + + +I. + +As the train took its time and ours in mounting the uplands toward +Granada on the soft, but not too soft, evening of November 6, 1911, +the air that came to me through the open window breathed as if from an +autumnal night of the middle eighteen-fifties in a little village of +northeastern Ohio. I was now going to see, for the first time, the city +where so great a part of my life was then passed, and in this magical +air the two epochs were blent in reciprocal association. The question of +my present identity was a thing indifferent and apart; it did not matter +who or where or when I was. Youth and age were at one with each other: +the boy abiding in the old man, and the old man pensively willing to +dwell for the enchanted moment in any vantage of the past which would +give him shelter. + +In that dignified and deliberate Spanish train I was a man of +seventy-four crossing the last barrier of hills that helped keep Granada +from her conquerors, and at the same time I was a boy of seventeen in +the little room under the stairs in a house now practically remoter than +the Alhambra, finding my unguided way through some Spanish story of the +vanished kingdom of the Moors. The little room which had structurally +ceased fifty years before from the house that ceased to be home even +longer ago had returned to the world with me in it, and fitted perfectly +into the first-class railway compartment which my luxury had provided +for it. From its window I saw through the car window the olive groves +and white cottages of the Spanish peasants, and the American apple +orchards and meadows stretching to the primeval woods that walled the +drowsing village round. Then, as the night deepened with me at my book, +the train slipped slowly from the hills, and the moon, leaving the Ohio +village wholly in the dark, shone over the roofs and gardens of +Granada, and I was no longer a boy of seventeen, but altogether a man of +seventy-four. + +I do not say the experience was so explicit as all this; no experience +so mystical could be so explicit; and perhaps what was intimated to +me in it was only that if I sometime meant to ask some gentle reader's +company in a retrospect of my Spanish travels, I had better be honest +with him and own at the beginning that passion for Spanish things which +was the ruling passion of my boyhood; I had better confess that, however +unrequited, it held me in the eager bondage of a lover still, so that I +never wished to escape from it, but must try to hide the fact whenever +the real Spain fell below the ideal, however I might reason with +my infatuation or try to scoff it away. It had once been so +inextinguishable a part of me that the record of my journey must be more +or less autobiographical; and though I should decently endeavor to keep +my past out of it, perhaps I should not try very hard and should not +always succeed. + +Just when this passion began in me I should not be able to say; but +probably it was with my first reading of _Don Quixote_ in the later +eighteen-forties. I would then have been ten or twelve years old; and, +of course, I read that incomparable romance, not only greatest, but sole +of its kind, in English. The purpose of some time reading it in Spanish +and then the purpose of some time writing the author's life grew in me +with my growing years so strongly that, though I have never yet done +either and probably never shall, I should not despair of doing both if +I lived to be a hundred. In the mean time my wandering steps had early +chanced upon a Spanish grammar, and I had begun those inquiries in it +which were based upon a total ignorance of English accidence. I do not +remember how I felt my way from it to such reading of the language +as has endeared Spanish literature to me. It embraced something of +everything: literary and political history, drama, poetry, fiction; +but it never condescended to the exigencies of common parlance. These +exigencies did not exist for me in my dreams of seeing Spain which were +not really expectations. It was not until half a century later, when my +longing became a hope and then a purpose, that I foreboded the need of +practicable Spanish. Then I invoked the help of a young professor, who +came to me for an hour each day of a week in London and let me try to +talk with him; but even then I accumulated so little practicable Spanish +that my first hour, almost my first moment in Spain, exhausted my store. +My professor was from Barcelona, but he beautifully lisped his _c's_ +and _z's_ like any old Castilian, when he might have hissed them in the +accent of his native Catalan; and there is no telling how much I might +have profited by his instruction if he had not been such a charming +intelligence that I liked to talk with him of literature and philosophy +and politics rather than the weather, or the cost of things, or the +question of how long the train stopped and when it would start, or the +dishes at table, or clothes at the tailor's, or the forms of greeting +and parting. If he did not equip me with the useful colloquial phrases, +the fault was mine; and the misfortune was doubly mine when from my old +acquaintance with Italian (glib half-sister of the statelier Spanish) +the Italian phrases would thrust forward as the equivalent of the +English words I could not always think of. The truth is, then, that I +was not perfect in my Spanish after quite six weeks in Spain; and if +in the course of his travels with me the reader finds me flourishing +Spanish idioms in his face he may safely attribute them less to my +speaking than my reading knowledge: probably I never employed them in +conversation. That reading was itself without order or system, and I am +not sure but it had better been less than more. Yet who knows? The days, +or the nights of the days, in the eighteen-fifties went quickly, as +quickly as the years go now, and it would have all come to the present +pass whether that blind devotion to an alien literature had cloistered +my youth or not. + +I do not know how, with the merciful make I am of, I should then have +cared so little, or else ignored so largely the cruelties I certainly +knew that the Spaniards had practised in the conquests of Mexico and +Peru. I knew of these things, and my heart was with the Incas and the +Aztecs, and yet somehow I could not punish the Spaniards for their +atrocious destruction of the only American civilizations. As nearly as I +can now say, I was of both sides, and wistful to reconcile them, though +I do not see now how it could have been done; and in my later hopes for +the softening of the human conditions I have found it hard to forgive +Pizarro for the overthrow of the most perfectly socialized state known +to history. I scarcely realized the base ingratitude of the Spanish +sovereigns to Columbus, and there were vast regions of history that I +had not penetrated till long afterward in pursuit of Spanish perfidy and +inhumanity, as in their monstrous misrule of Holland. When it came in +those earlier days to a question of sides between the Spaniards and +the Moors, as Washington Irving invited my boyhood to take it in his +chronicle of the conquest of Granada, I experienced on a larger scale my +difficulty in the case of the Mexicans and Peruvians. The case of these +had been reported to me in the school-readers, but here, now, was an +affair submitted to the mature judgment of a boy of twelve, and yet +I felt as helpless as I was at ten. Will it be credited that at +seventy-four I am still often in doubt which side I should have had win, +though I used to fight on both? Since the matter was settled more than +four hundred years ago, I will not give the reasons for my divided +allegiance. They would hardly avail now to reverse the tragic fate of +the Moors, and if I try I cannot altogether wish to reverse it. Whatever +Spanish misrule has been since Islam was overthrown in Granada, it has +been the error of law, and the rule of Islam at the best had always been +the effect of personal will, the caprice of despots high and low, +the unstatuted sufferance of slaves, high and low. The gloomiest and +cruelest error of Inquisitional Spain was nobler, with its adoration of +ideal womanhood, than the Mohammedan state with its sensual dreams of +Paradise. I will not pretend (as I very well might, and as I perhaps +ought) that I thought of these things, all or any, as our train began to +slope rather more rapidly toward Granada, and to find its way under +the rising moon over the storied Vega. I will as little pretend that my +attitude toward Spain was ever that of the impartial observer after +I crossed the border of that enchanted realm where we all have our +castles. I have thought it best to be open with the reader here at +the beginning, and I would not, if I could, deny him the pleasure of +doubting my word or disabling my judgment at any point he likes. In +return I shall only ask his patience when I strike too persistently the +chord of autobiography. That chord is part of the harmony between the +boy and the old man who made my Spanish journey together, and were +always accusing themselves, the first of dreaming and the last of +doddering: perhaps with equal justice. Is there really much difference +between the two? + + + +II. + +It was fully a month before that first night in Granada that I arrived +in Spain after some sixty years' delay. During this period I had seen +almost every other interesting country in Europe. I had lived five +or six years in Italy; I had been several months in Germany; and a +fortnight in Holland; I had sojourned often in Paris; I had come and +gone a dozen times in England and lingered long each time; and yet I +had never once visited the land of my devotion. I had often wondered at +this, it was so wholly involuntary, and I had sometimes suffered from +the surprise of those who knew of my passion for Spain, and kept finding +out my dereliction, alleging the Sud-Express to Madrid as something that +left me without excuse. The very summer before last I got so far on the +way in London as to buy a Spanish phrase-book full of those inopportune +conversations with landlords, tailors, ticket-sellers, and casual +acquaintance or agreeable strangers. Yet I returned once more to America +with my desire, which was turning into a duty, unfulfilled; and when +once more I sailed for Europe in 1911 it was more with foreboding of +another failure than a prescience of fruition in my inveterate longing. +Even after that boldly decisive week of the professor in London I had my +doubts and my self-doubts. There were delays at London, delays at Paris, +delays at Tours; and when at last we crossed the Pyrenees and I found +myself in Spain, it was with an incredulity which followed me throughout +and lingered with me to the end. "Is this truly Spain, and am I actually +there?" the thing kept asking itself; and it asks itself still, in terms +that fit the accomplished fact. + + + + +II. SAN SEBASTIAN AND BEAUTIFUL BISCAY + + +Even at Irun, where we arrived in Spain from Bayonne, there began at +once to be temperamental differences which ought to have wrought against +my weird misgivings of my whereabouts. Only in Spain could a customs +inspector have felt of one tray in our trunks and then passed them +all with an air of such jaded aversion from an employ uncongenial to +a gentleman. Perhaps he was also loath to attempt any inquiry in that +Desperanto of French, English, and Spanish which raged around us; but +the porter to whom we had fallen, while I hesitated at our carriage door +whether I should summon him as _Mozo_ or _Usted,_ was master of that +_lingua franca_ and recovered us from the customs without question on +our part, and understood everything we could not, say. I like to think +he was a Basque, because I like the Basques so much for no reason that +I can think of. Their being always Carlists would certainly be no reason +with me, for I was never a Carlist; and perhaps my liking is only a +prejudice in their favor from the air of thrift and work which pervades +their beautiful province, or is an effect of their language as I first +saw it inscribed on the front of the Credit Lyonnais at Bayonne. It +looked so beautifully regular, so scholarly, so Latin, so sister to both +Spanish and Italian, so richly and musically voweled, and yet remained +so impenetrable to the most daring surmise, that I conceived at once +a profound admiration for the race which could keep such a language +to itself. When I remembered how blond, how red-blond our sinewy young +porter was, I could not well help breveting him of that race, and +honoring him because he could have read those words with the eyes that +were so blue amid the general Spanish blackness of eyes. He imparted a +quiet from his own calm to our nervousness, and if we had appealed to +him on the point I am sure he would have saved us from the error of +breakfasting in the station restaurant at the deceitful _table d'hote,_ +though where else we should have breakfasted I do not know. + + + +I. + +One train left for San Sebastian while I was still lost in amaze that +what I had taken into my mouth for fried egg should be inwardly fish +and full of bones; but he quelled my anxiety with the assurance, which I +somehow understood, that there would be another train soon. In the mean +time there were most acceptable Spanish families all about, affably +conversing together, and freely admitting to their conversation the +children, who so publicly abound in Spain, and the nurses who do nothing +to prevent their publicity. There were already the typical fat Spanish +mothers and lean fathers, with the slender daughters, who, in the +tradition of Spanish good-breeding, kept their black eyes to themselves, +or only lent them to the spectators in furtive glances. Both older +and younger ladies wore the scanty Egyptian skirt of Occidental +civilization, lurking or perking in deep-drooping or high-raking hats, +though already here and there was the mantilla, which would more and +more prevail as we went southward; older and younger, they were all +painted and powdered to the favor that Spanish women everywhere corne +to. + +When the bad breakfast was over, and the waiters were laying the table +for another as bad, our Basque porter came in and led us to the train +for San Sebastian which he had promised us. It was now raining outside, +and we were glad to climb into our apartment without at all seeing what +Irun was or was not like. But we thought well of the place because we +first experienced there the ample ease of a Spanish car. In Spain the +railroad gauge is five feet six inches; and this car of ours was not +only very spacious, but very clean, while the French cars that had +brought us from Bordeaux to Bayonne and from Bayonne to Irun were +neither. I do not say all French cars are dirty, or all Spanish cars are +as clean as they are spacious. The cars of both countries are hard +to get into, by steep narrow footholds worse even than our flights of +steps; in fact, the English cars are the only ones I know which are easy +of access. But these have not the ample racks for hand-bags which the +Spanish companies provide for travelers willing to take advantage of +their trust by transferring much of their heavy stuff to them. Without +owning that we were such travelers, I find this the place to say that, +with the allowance of a hundred and thirty-two pounds free, our excess +baggage in two large steamer-trunks did not cost us three dollars in +a month's travel, with many detours, from Irun in the extreme north to +Algeciras in the extreme south of Spain. + + + +II. + +But in this sordid detail I am keeping the reader from the scenery. It +had been growing more and more striking ever since we began climbing +into the Pyrenees from Bayonne; but upon the whole it was not so sublime +as it was beautiful. There were some steep, sharp peaks, but mostly +there were grassy valleys with white cattle grazing in them, and many +fields of Indian corn, endearingly homelike. This at least is mainly the +trace that the scenery as far as Irun has left among my notes; and after +Irun there is record of more and more corn. There was, in fact, +more corn than anything else, though there were many orchards, also +endearingly homelike, with apples yellow and red showing among the +leaves still green on the trees; if there had been something more +wasteful in the farming it would have been still more homelike, but a +traveler cannot have everything. The hillsides were often terraced, +as in Italy, and the culture apparently close and conscientious. The +farmhouses looked friendly and comfortable; at places the landscape was +molested by some sort of manufactories which could not conceal their +tall chimneys, though they kept the secret of their industry. They were +never, really, very bad, and I would have been willing to let them pass +for fulling-mills, such as I was so familiar with in _Don Quixote,_ if +I had thought of these in time. But one ought to be honest at any cost, +and I must own that the Spain I was now for the first time seeing with +every-day eyes was so little like the Spain of my boyish vision that I +never once recurred to it. That was a Spain of cork-trees, of groves +by the green margins of mountain brooks, of habitable hills, where +shepherds might feed their flocks and mad lovers and maids forlorn might +wander and maunder; and here were fields of corn and apple orchards and +vineyards reddening and yellowing up to the doors of those comfortable +farmhouses, with nowhere the sign of a Christian cavalier or a turbaned +infidel. As a man I could not help liking what I saw, but I could also +grieve for the boy who would have been so disappointed if he had come to +the Basque provinces of Spain when he was from ten to fifteen years old, +instead of seventy-four. + +It took our train nearly an hour to get by twenty miles of those +pleasant farms and the pretty hamlets which they now and then clustered +into. But that was fast for a Spanish way-train, which does not run, +but, as it were, walks with dignity and makes long stops at stations, +to rest and let the locomotive roll itself a cigarette. By the time we +reached San Sebastian our rain had thickened to a heavy downpour, and +by the time we mounted to our rooms, three pair up in the hotel, it +was storming in a fine fury over the bay under them, and sweeping the +curving quays and tossing the feathery foliage of the tamarisk-shaded +promenade. The distinct advantage of our lofty perch was the splendid +sight of the tempest, held from doing its worst by the mighty headlands +standing out to sea on the right and left. But our rooms were cold with +the stony cold of the south when it is cooling off from its summer, and +we shivered in the splendid sight. + + + +III. + +The inhabitants of San Sebastian will not hesitate to say that it is the +prettiest town in Spain, and I do not know that they could be hopefully +contradicted. It is very modern in its more obvious aspects, with a +noble thoroughfare called the Avenida de Libertad for its principal +street, shaded with a double row of those feathery tamarisks, and with +handsome shops glittering on both sides of it. Very easily it is first +of the fashionable watering-places of Spain; the King has his villa +there, and the court comes every summer. But they had gone by the time +we got there, and the town wore the dejected look of out-of-season +summer resorts; though there was the apparatus of gaiety, the fine +casino at one end of the beach, and the villas of the rich and noble all +along it to the other end. On the sand were still many bathing-machines, +but many others had begun to climb for greater safety during the winter +to the street above. We saw one hardy bather dripping up from the surf +and seeking shelter among those that remained, but they were mostly +tenanted by their owners, who looked shoreward through their open doors, +and made no secret of their cozy domesticity, where they sat and sewed +or knitted and gossiped with their neighbors. Good wives and mothers +they doubtless were, but no doubt glad to be resting from the summer +pleasure of others. They had their beautiful names written up over their +doors, and were for the service of the lady visitors only; there were +other machines for gentlemen, and no doubt it was their owners whom +we saw gathering the fat seaweed thrown up by the storm into the carts +drawn by oxen over the sand. The oxen wore no yokes, but pulled by a +band drawn over their foreheads under their horns, and they had the air +of not liking the arrangement; though, for the matter of that, I have +never seen oxen that seemed to like being yoked. + + +[Illustration: 02 THE CASINO, SAN SEBASTIAN, LOOKS OUT UPON THE CURVING CONCHA AND THE BLUE BAY] + +When we came down to dinner we found the tables fairly full of belated +visitors, who presently proved tourists flying south like ourselves. +The dinner was good, as it is in nearly all Spanish hotels, where for an +average of three dollars a day you have an inclusive rate which you must +double for as good accommodation in our States. Let no one, I say, fear +the rank cookery so much imagined of the Peninsula, the oil, the pepper, +the kid and the like strange meats; as in all other countries of Europe, +even England itself, there is a local version, a general convention of +the French cuisine, quite as good in Spain as elsewhere, and oftener +superabundant than subabundant. The plain water is generally good, With +an American edge of freshness; but if you will not trust it (we had to +learn to trust it) there are agreeable Spanish mineral waters, as +well as the Apollinaris, the St. Galmier, and the Perrier of other +civilizations, to be had for the asking, at rather greater cost than the +good native wines, often included in the inclusive rate. + +Besides this convention of the French cuisine there is almost everywhere +a convention of the English language in some one of the waiters. You +must not stray far from the beaten path of your immediate wants, but in +this you are safe. At San Sebastian we had even a wider range with the +English of the little intellectual-looking, pale Spanish waiter, with +a fine Napoleonic head, who came to my help when I began to flounder in +the language which I had read so much and spoken so little or none. He +had been a year in London, he said, and he took us for English, though, +now he came to notice it, he perceived we were Americans because we +spoke "quicklier" than the English. We did not protest; it was the +mildest criticism of our national accent which we were destined to +get from English-speaking Spaniards before they found we were not the +English we did not wish to be taken for. After dinner we asked for a +fire in one of our grates, but the maid declared there was no fuel; and, +though the hostess denied this and promised us a fire the next night, +she forgot it till nine o'clock, and then we would not have it. The cold +abode with us indoors to the last at San Sebastian, but the storm (which +had hummed and whistled theatrically at our windows) broke during the +first night, and the day followed with several intervals of sunshine, +which bathed us in a glowing-expectation of overtaking the fugitive +summer farther south. + + + +IV. + +In the mean time we hired a beautiful Basque cabman with a red Basque +cap and high-hooked Basque nose to drive us about at something above +the legal rate and let us not leave any worthy thing in San Sebastian +unseen. He took us, naturally, to several churches, old and new, with +their Gothic and rococo interiors, which I still find glooming and +glinting among my evermore thickening impressions of like things. We got +from them the sense of that architectural and sculptural richness which +the interior of no Spanish church ever failed measurably to give; but +what their historical associations were I will not offer to say. The +associations of San Sebastian with the past are in all things vague, at +least for me. She was indeed taken from the French by the English under +Wellington during the Peninsular War, but of older, if not unhappier +farther-off days and battles longer ago her history as I know it seems +to know little. It knows of savage and merciless battles between the +partisans of Don Carlos and those of Queen Isabella so few decades since +as not to be the stuff of mere pathos yet, and I am not able to blink +the fact that my beloved Basques fought on the wrong side, when they +need not have fought at all. Why they were Carlists they could perhaps +no more say than I could. The monumental historic fact is that the +Basques have been where they are immeasurably beyond the memories of +other men; what the scope of their own memories is one could perhaps +confidently say only in Basque if one could say anything. Of course, +in the nature of things, the Phoenicians must have been there and the +Greeks, doubtless, if they ever got outside of the Pillars of Hercules; +the Romans, of course, must have settled and civilized and then +Christianized the province. It is next neighbor to that province of +Asturias in which alone the Arabs failed to conquer the Goths, and from +which Spain was to live and grow again and recover all her losses from +the Moors; but what the share of San Sebastian was in this heroic fate, +again I must leave the Basques to say. They would doubtless say it with +sufficient self-respect, for wherever we came in contact that day with +the Basque nature we could not help imagining in it a sense of racial +merit equaling that of the Welsh themselves, who are indeed another +branch of the same immemorial Iberian stock, if the Basques are +Iberians. Like the Welsh, they have the devout tradition that they +never were conquered, but yielded to circumstances when these became too +strong for them. + +Among the ancient Spanish liberties which were restricted by the +consolidating monarchy from age to age, the Basque _fueros,_ or rights, +were the oldest; they lasted quite to our own day; and although it is +known to more ignorant men that these privileges (including immunity +from conscription) have now been abrogated, the custodian of the House +of Provincial Deputies, whom our driver took us to visit, was such a +glowing Basque patriot that he treated them as in full force. His pride +in the seat of the local government spared us no detail of the whole +electric-lighting system, or even the hose-bibs for guarding the edifice +against fire, let alone every picture and photograph on the wall of +every chamber of greater or less dignity, with every notable table and +chair. He certainly earned the peseta I gave him, but he would have done +far more for it if we had suffered him to take us up another flight +of stairs; and he followed us in our descent with bows and adieux that +ought to have left no doubt in our minds of the persistence of the +Basque _fueros._ + + + +V. + +It was to such a powerful embodiment of the local patriotism that our +driver had brought us from another civic palace overlooking the Plaza de +la Constitution, chiefly notable now for having been the old theater of +the bull-fights. The windows in the houses round still bear the numbers +by which they were sold to spectators as boxes; but now the municipality +has built a beautiful brand-new bull-ring in San Sebastian; and I do not +know just why we were required to inspect the interior of the edifice +overlooking this square. I only know that at sight of our bewilderment +a workman doing something to the staircase clapped his hands orientally, +and the custodian was quickly upon us in response to a form of summons +which we were to find so often used in Spain. He was not so crushingly +upon us as that other custodian; he was apologetically proud, rather +than boastfully; at times he waved his hands in deprecation, and would +have made us observe that the place was little, very little; he deplored +it like a host who wishes his possessions praised. Among the artistic +treasures of the place from which he did not excuse us there were some +pen-drawings, such as writing-masters execute without lifting the +pen from the paper, by a native of South America, probably of Basque +descent, since the Basques have done so much to people that continent. +We not only admired these, but we would not consent to any of the +custodian's deprecations, especially when it came to question of the +pretty salon in which Queen Victoria was received on her first visit to +San Sebastian. We supposed then, and in fact I had supposed till this +moment, that it was Queen Victoria of Great Britain who was meant; but +now I realize that it must have been the queen consort of Spain, who +seems already to have made herself so liked there. + +She, of course, comes every summer to San Sebastian, and presently our +driver took us to see the royal villa by the shore, withdrawn, perhaps +from a sense of its extreme plainness, not to say ugliness, among its +trees and vines behind its gates and walls. Our driver excused himself +for not being able to show us through it; he gladly made us free of +an unrestricted view of the royal bathing-pavilion, much more frankly +splendid in its gilding, beside the beach. Other villas ranked +themselves along the hillside, testifying to the gaiety of the social +life in summers past and summers to come. In the summer just past the +gaiety may have been interrupted by the strikes taking in the newspapers +the revolutionary complexion which it was now said they did not wear. At +least, when the King had lately come to fetch the royal household +away nothing whatever happened, and the "constitutional guarantees," +suspended amidst the ministerial anxieties, were restored during the +month, with the ironical applause of the liberal press, which pretended +that there had never been any need of their suspension. + +[Illustration: 03 THE SEA SWEEPS INLAND IN A CIRCLE OF BLUE, TO FORM THE ENTRANCE TO THE HARBOR, SAN SEBASTIAN] + + + +VI. + +All pleasures, mixed or unmixed, must end, and the qualified joy of our +drive through San Sebastian came to a close on our return to our hotel +well within the second hour, almost within its first half. When I +proposed paying our driver for the exact time, he drooped upon his box +and, remembering my remorse in former years for standing upon my just +rights in such matters, I increased the fare, peseta by peseta, till his +sinking spirits rose, and he smiled gratefully upon me and touched his +brave red cap as he drove away. He had earned his money, if racking his +invention for objects of interest in San Sebastian was a merit. At the +end we were satisfied that it was a well-built town with regular blocks +in the modern quarter, and not without the charm of picturesqueness +which comes of narrow and crooked lanes in the older parts. Prescient of +the incalculable riches before us, we did not ask much of it, and we got +all we asked. I should be grateful to San Sebastian, if for nothing +else than the two very Spanish experiences I had there. One concerned a +letter for me which had been refused by the bankers named in my letter +of credit, from a want of faith, I suppose, in my coming. When I did +come I was told that I would find it at the post-office. That would be +well enough when I found the post-office, which ought to have been easy +enough, but which presented certain difficulties in the driving rain of +our first afternoon. At last in a fine square I asked a fellow-man in +my best conversational Spanish where the post-office was, and after a +moment's apparent suffering he returned, "Do you speak English?" "Yes." +I said, "and I am so glad you do." "Not at all. I don't speak anything +else. Great pleasure. There is the post-office," and it seemed that I +had hardly escaped collision with it. But this was the beginning, not +the end, of my troubles. When I showed my card to the _poste restante_ +clerk, he went carefully through the letters bearing the initial of my +name and denied that there was any for me. We entered into reciprocally +bewildering explanations, and parted altogether baffled. Then, at +the hotel, I consulted with a capable young office-lady, who tardily +developed a knowledge of English, and we agreed that it would be well to +send the _chico_ to the post-office for it. The _chico,_ corresponding +in a Spanish hotel to a _piccolo_ in Germany or a page in England, or +our own now evanescing bell-boy, was to get a _peseta_ for bringing me +the letter. He got the _peseta,_ though he only brought me word that +the authorities would send the letter to the hotel by the postman that +night. The authorities did not send it that night, and the next morning +I recurred to my bankers. There, on my entreaty for some one who could +meet my Spanish at least half-way in English, a manager of the bank came +out of his office and reassured me concerning the letter which I had +now begun to imagine the most important I had ever missed. Even while we +talked the postman came in and owned having taken the letter back to the +office. He voluntarily promised to bring it to the bank at one o'clock, +when I hastened to meet him. At that hour every one was out at lunch; I +came again at four, when everybody had returned, but the letter was not +delivered; at five, just before the bank closed, the letter, which had +now grown from a _carta_ to a _cartela,_ was still on its way. I left +San Sebastian without it; and will it be credited that when it was +forwarded to me a week later at Madrid it proved the most fatuous +missive imaginable, wholly concerning the writer's own affairs and none +of mine? + +I cannot guess yet why it was withheld from me, but since the incident +brought me that experience of Spanish politeness, I cannot grieve for +it. The young banker who left his region of high finance to come out and +condole with me, in apologizing for the original refusal of my letter, +would not be contented with so little. Nothing would satisfy him but +going with me, on my hinted purpose, and inquiring with me at the +railroad office into the whole business of circular tickets, and even +those kilometric tickets which the Spanish railroads issue to such +passengers as will have their photographs affixed to them for the +prevention of transference. As it seemed advisable not to go to this +extreme till I got to Madrid, my kind young banker put himself at my +disposal for any other service I could imagine from him; but I searched +myself in vain for any desire, much less necessity, and I parted from +him at the door of his bank with the best possible opinion of the +Basques. I suppose he was a Basque; at any rate, he was blond, which +the Spaniards are mostly not, and the Basques often are. Now I am sorry, +since he was so kind, that I did not get him to read me the Basque +inscription on the front of his bank, which looked exactly like that on +the bank at Bayonne; I should not have understood it, but I should have +known what it sounded like, if it sounded like anything but Basque. + +Everybody in San Sebastian seemed resolved to outdo every other in +kindness. In a shop where we endeavored to explain that we wanted to get +a flat cap which should be both Basque and red, a lady who was buying +herself a hat asked in English if she could help us. When we gladly +answered that she could, she was silent, almost to tears, and it +appeared that in this generous offer of aid she had exhausted her +whole stock of English. Her mortification, her painful surprise, at the +strange catastrophe, was really pitiable, and we hastened to escape +from it to a shop across the street. There instantly a small boy rushed +enterprisingly out and brought back with him a very pretty girl who +spoke most of the little French which has made its way in San Sebastian +against the combined Basque and Spanish, and a cap of the right flatness +and redness was brought. I must not forget, among the pleasures done us +by the place, the pastry cook's shop which advertised in English "Tea +at all Hours," and which at that hour of our afternoon we now found so +opportune, that it seemed almost personally attentive to us as the only +Anglo-Saxon visitors in town. The tea might have been better, but it was +as good as it knew how; and the small boy who came in with his mother +(the Spanish mother seldom fails of the company of a small boy) in her +moments of distraction succeeded in touching with his finger all the +pieces of pastry except those we were eating. + + + +VII. + +The high aquiline nose which is characteristic of the autochthonic race +abounds in San Sebastian, but we saw no signs of the high temper which +is said to go with it. This, indeed, was known to me chiefly from my +first reading in _Don Quixote,_ of the terrific combat between the +squire of the Biscayan ladies whose carriage the knight of La Mancha +stopped after his engagement with the windmills. In their exchange of +insults incident to the knight's desire that the ladies should go to +Toboso and thank Dulcinea for his delivery of them from the necromancers +he had put to flight in the persons of two Benedictine monks, "'Get +gone,' the squire called, in bad Spanish and worse Biscayan, 'Get gone, +thou knight, and Devil go with thou; or by He Who me create... me kill +thee now so sure as me be Biscayan,'" and when the knight called him an +"inconsiderable mortal," and said that if he were a gentleman he would +chastise him: "'What! me no gentleman?' replied the Biscayan. 'I swear +thou be liar as me be Christian.... Me will show thee me be Biscayan, +and gentleman by land, gentleman by sea, gentleman in spite of Devil; +and thou lie if thou say the contrary.'" + +It is a scene which will have lived in the memory of every reader, and +I recurred to it hopefully but vainly in San Sebastian, where this +fiery threefold gentleman might have lived in his time. It would be +interesting to know how far the Basques speak broken Spanish in a +fashion of their own, which Cervantes tried to represent in the talk +of his Biscayan. Like the Welsh again they strenuously keep their +immemorial language against the inroads of the neighboring speech. How +much they fix it in a modern literature it would be easier to ask than +to say. I suppose there must be Basque newspapers; perhaps there are +Basque novelists, there are notoriously Basque bards who recite their +verses to the peasants, and doubtless there are poets who print their +rhymes: and I blame myself for not inquiring further concerning them of +that kindly Basque banker who wished so much to do something for me in +compensation for the loss of my worthless letter. I knew, too cheaply, +that the Basques have their poetical contests, as the Welsh have their +musical competitions in the Eisteddfod, and they are once more like the +Welsh, their brothers in antiquity, in calling themselves by a national +name of their own. They call themselves Euskaldunac, which is as +different from the name of Basque given them by the alien races as Cymru +is from Welsh. + +All this lore I have easily accumulated from the guide-books since +leaving San Sebastian, but I was carelessly ignorant of it in driving +from the hotel to the station when we came away, and was much concerned +in the overtures made us in a mixed Spanish, English, and French by a +charming family from Chili, through the brother to one of the ladies and +luisband to the other. When he perceived from my Spanish that we were +not English, he rejoiced that we were Americans of the north, and as +joyfully proclaimed that they were Americans of the south. We were +at once sensible of a community of spirit in our difference from our +different ancestral races. They were Spanish, but with a New World +blitheness which we nowhere afterward found in the native Spaniards; and +we were English, with a willingness to laugh and to joke which they had +not perhaps noted in our ancestral contemporaries. Again and again we +met them in the different cities where we feared we had lost them, until +we feared no more and counted confidently on seeing them wherever we +went. They were always radiantly smiling; and upon this narrow ground I +am going to base the conjecture that the most distinctive difference of +the Western Hemisphere from the Eastern is its habit of seeing the +fun of things. With those dear Chilians we saw the fun of many little +hardships of travel which might have been insupportable without the +vision. Sometimes we surprised one another in the same hotel; sometimes +it was in the street that we encountered, usually to exchange +amusing misfortunes. If we could have been constantly with these +fellow-hemispherists our progress through Spain would have been an +unbroken holiday. + +There is a superstition of travelers in Spain, much fostered by +innkeepers and porters, that you cannot get seats in the fast trains +without buying your tickets the day before, and then perhaps not, and +we abandoned ourselves to this fear at San Sebastian so far as to get +places some hours in advance. But once established in the ten-foot-wide +interior of the first-class compartment which we had to ourselves, every +anxiety fell from us; and I do not know a more flattering emotion than +that which you experience in sinking into your luxurious seat, and, +after a glance at your hand-bags in the racks where they have been put +with no strain on your own muscles, giving your eyes altogether to the +joy of the novel landscape. + +The train was what they call a Rapido in Spain; and though we were +supposed to be devouring space with indiscriminate gluttony, I do not +think that in our mad rush of twenty-five miles an hour we failed to +taste any essential detail of the scenery..But I wish now that I had +known the Basques were all nobles, and that the peasants owned many of +the little farms we saw declaring the general thrift. In the first two +hours of the six to Burgos we ran through lovely valleys held in the +embrace of gentle hills, where the fields of Indian corn were varied by +groves of chestnut trees, where we could see the burrs gaping on their +stems. The blades and tassels of the corn had been stripped away, +leaving the ripe ears a-tilt at the top of the stalks, which looked +like cranes standing on one leg with their heads slanted in pensive +contemplation. There were no vineyards, but orchards aplenty near the +farmhouses, and all about there were other trees pollarded to the quick +and tufted with mistletoe, not only the stout oaks, but the slim poplars +trimmed up into tall plumes like the poplars in southern France. The +houses, when they did not stand apart like our own farmhouses, gathered +into gray-brown villages around some high-shouldered church with a +bell-tower in front or at one corner of the fagade. In most of the +larger houses an economy of the sun's heat, the only heat recognized +in the winter of southern countries, was practised by glassing in the +balconies that stretched quite across their fronts and kept the cold +from at least one story. It gave them a very cheery look, and must have +made them livable at least in the daytime. Now and then the tall chimney +of one of those manufactories we had seen on the way from Irun invited +belief in the march of industrial prosperity; but whether the Basque who +took work in a mill or a foundry forfeited his nobility remained a part +of the universal Basque secret. From time to time a mountain stream +brawled from under a world-old bridge, and then spread a quiet tide for +the women to kneel beside and wash the clothes which they spread to dry +on every bush and grassy slope of the banks. + +The whole scene changed after we ran out of the Basque country and into +the austere landscape of old Castile. The hills retreated and swelled +into mountains that were not less than terrible in their savage +nakedness. The fields of corn and the orchards ceased, and the green of +the pastures changed to the tawny gray of the measureless wheat-lands +into which the valleys flattened and widened. There were no longer any +factory chimneys; the villages seemed to turn from stone to mud; the +human poverty showed itself in the few patched and tattered figures that +followed the oxen in the interminable furrows shallowly scraping the +surface of the lonely levels. The haggard mountain ranges were of stone +that seemed blanched with geologic superannuation, and at one place we +ran by a wall of hoary rock that drew its line a mile long against +the sky, and then broke and fell, and then staggered up again in a +succession of titanic bulks. But stupendous as these mountain masses +were, they were not so wonderful as those wheat-lands which in +harvest-time must wash their shores like a sea of gold. Where these now +rose and sank with the long ground-swell of the plains in our own West, +a thin gray stubble covered them from the feeble culture which leaves +Spain, for all their extent in both the Castiles, in Estremadura, in +Andalusia, still without bread enough to feed herself, and obliges +her to import alien wheat. At the lunch which we had so good in the +dining-car we kept our talk to the wonder of the scenery, and well away +from the interesting Spanish pair at our table. It is never safe in +Latin Europe to count upon ignorance of English in educated people, or +people who look so; and with these we had the reward of our prudence +when the husband asked after dessert if we minded his smoking. His +English seemed meant to open the way for talk, and we were willing he +should do the talking. He spoke without a trace of accent, and we at +once imagined circles in which it was now as _chic_ for Spaniards to +speak English as it once was to speak French. They are said never to +speak French quite well; but nobody could have spoken English better +than this gentleman, not even we who were, as he said he supposed, +English. Truth and patriotism both obliged us to deny his conjecture; +and when He intimated that he would not have known us for Americans +because we did not speak with the dreadful American accent, I hazarded +my belief that this dreadfulness was personal rather than national. But +he would not have it. Boston people, yes; they spoke very well, and he +allowed other exceptions to the general rule of our nasal twang, which +his wife summoned English enough to say was very ugly. They had suffered +from it too universally in the Americans they had met during the summer +in Germany to believe it was merely personal; and I suppose one may own +to strictly American readers that our speech _is_ dreadful, that it is +very ugly. These amiable Spaniards had no reason and no wish to +wound; and they could never know what sweet and noble natures had been +producing their voices through their noses there in Germany. I for my +part could not insist; who, indeed, can defend the American accent, +which is not so much an accent as a whiffle, a snuffle, a twang? It was +mortifying, all the same, to have it openly abhorred by a foreigner, and +I willingly got away from the question to that of the weather. We agreed +admirably about the heat in England where this gentleman went every +summer, and had never found it so hot before. It was hot even in +Denmark; but he warned me not to expect any warmth in Spain now that the +autumn rains had begun. + +If this couple represented a cosmopolitan and modern Spain, it was +interesting to escape to something entirely native in the three young +girls who got in at the next station and shared our compartment with us +as far as we went. They were tenderly kissed by their father in putting +them on board, and held in lingering farewells at the window till the +train started. The eldest of the three then helped in arranging their +baskets in the rack, but the middle sister took motherly charge of the +youngest, whom she at once explained to us as _enferma._ She was +the prettiest girl of the conventional Spanish type we Lad yet seen: +dark-eyed and dark-haired, regular, but a little overfull of the chin +which she would presently have double. She was very, very pale of face, +with a pallor in which she had assisted nature with powder, as all +Spanish women, old and young, seem to do. But there was no red underglow +in the pallor, such as gives many lovely faces among them the complexion +of whitewash over pink on a stucco surface. She wrapped up the youngest +sister, who would by and by be beautiful, and now being sick had only +the flush of fever in her cheeks, and propped her in the coziest corner +of the car, where she tried to make her keep still, but could not make +her keep silent. In fact, they all babbled together, over the basket of +luncheon which the middle sister opened after springing up the little +table-leaf of the window, and spread with a substantial variety +including fowl and sausage and fruit, such as might tempt any sick +appetite, or a well one, even. As she brought out each of these +victuals, together with a bottle of wine and a large bottle of milk, she +first offered it to us, and when it was duly refused with thanks, she +made the invalid eat and drink, especially the milk which she made a wry +face at. When she had finished they all began to question whether her +fever was rising for the day; the good sister felt the girl's pulse, and +got out a thermometer, which together they arranged under her arm, and +then duly inspected. It seemed that the fever _was_ rising, as it might +very well be, but the middle sister was not moved from her notable calm, +and the eldest did not fear. At a place where a class of young men +was to be seen before an ecclesiastical college the girls looked out +together, and joyfully decided that the brother (or possibly a cousin) +whom they expected to see, was really there among them. When we reached +Burgos we felt that we had assisted at a drama of family medicine and +affection which was so sweet that if the fever was not very wisely it +was very winningly treated. It was not perhaps a very serious case, and +it meant a good deal of pleasant excitement for all concerned. + + + + +III. BURGOS AND THE BITTER COLD OF BURGOS + + +It appears to be the use in most minor cities of Spain for the best +hotel to send the worst omnibus to the station, as who should say, "Good +wine needs no bush." At Burgos we were almost alarmed by the shabbiness +of the omnibus for the hotel we had chosen through a consensus of praise +in the guide-books, and thought we must have got the wrong one. It was +indeed the wrong one, but because there is no right hotel in Burgos +when you arrive there on an afternoon of early October, and feel the +prophetic chill of that nine months of winter which is said to contrast +there with three months of hell. + + + +I + + +The air of Burgos when it is not the breath of a furnace is so heavy and +clammy through the testimony of all comers that Burgos herself no longer +attempts to deny it from her high perch on the uplands of Old Castile. +Just when she ceased to deny it, I do not know, but probably when she +ceased to be the sole capital and metropolis of Christian Spain and +shared her primacy with Toledo sometime in the fourteenth century. Now, +in the twentieth, we asked nothing of her but two rooms in which we +could have fire, but the best hotel in Burgos openly declared that it +had not a fireplace in its whole extent, though there must have been one +in the kitchen. The landlord pointed out that it was completely equipped +with steam-heating apparatus, but when I made him observe that there was +no steam in the shining radiators, he owned with a shrug that there was +truth in what I said. He showed us large, pleasant rooms to the south +which would have been warm from the sun if the sun which we left playing +in San Sebastian had been working that day at Burgos; he showed us his +beautiful new dining-room, cold, with the same sunny exposure. I rashly +declared that all would not do, and that I would look elsewhere for +rooms with fireplaces. I had first to find a cab in order to find +the other hotels, but I found instead that in a city of thirty-eight +thousand inhabitants there was not one cab standing for hire in the +streets. I tried to enlist the sympathies of some private carriages, but +they remained indifferent, and I went back foiled, but not crushed, +to our hotel. There it seemed that the only vehicle to be had was the +omnibus which had brought us from the station. The landlord calmly (I +did not then perceive the irony of his calm) had the horses put to +and our baggage put on, and we drove away. But first we met our dear +Chilians coming to our hotel from the hotel they had chosen, and from a +search for hearthstones in others; and we drove to the only hotel they +had left unvisited. There at our demand for fires the landlord all but +laughed us to scorn; he laid his hand on the cold radiator in the +hotel as if to ask what better we could wish than that. We drove back, +humbled, to our own hotel, where the landlord met us with the Castilian +cairn he had kept at our departure. Then there was nothing for me but +to declare myself the Prodigal Son returned to take the rooms he +had offered us. We were so perfectly in his power that he could +magnanimously afford to offer us other rooms equally cold, but we did +not care to move. The Chilians had retired baffled to their own hotel, +and there was nothing for us but to accept the long evening of gelid +torpor which we foresaw must follow the effort of the soup and wine to +warm us at dinner. That night we heard through our closed doors agonized +voices which we knew to be the voices of despairing American women +wailing through the freezing corridors, "Can't she understand that +I want _boiling_ water?" and, "Can't' we go down-stairs to a fire +somewhere?" We knew the one meant the chambermaid and the other the +kitchen, but apparently neither prayer was answered. + +[Illustration: 04 GROUPS OF WOMEN ON THEIR KNEES BEATING CLOTHES IN THE WATER] + + + +II + + +As soon as we had accepted our fate, while as yet the sun had not set +behind the clouds which had kept it out of our rooms all day, we hurried +out not only to escape the rigors of our hotel, but to see as soon as we +could, as much as we could of the famous city. We had got an excellent +cup of tea in the glass-roofed pavilion of our beautiful cold +dining-room, and now our spirits rose level with the opportunities of +the entrancing walk we took along the course of the Arlanson. I say +course, because that is the right word to use of a river, but really +there was no course in the Arlanzon. Between the fine, wide Embankments +and under the noble bridges there were smooth expanses of water +(naturally with women washing at them), which reflected like an +afterglow of the evening sky the splendid masses of yarn hung red from +the dyer's vats on the bank. The expanses of water were bordered by +wider spaces of grass which had grown during the rainless summer, but +which were no doubt soon to be submerged under the autumnal torrent the +river would become. The street which shaped itself to the stream was +a rather modern avenue, leading to a beautiful public garden, with the +statues and fountains proper to a public garden, and densely shaded +against the three infernal months of the Burgos year. But the houses +were glazed all along their fronts with the sun-traps which we had noted +in the Basque country, and which do not wait for a certain date in the +almanac to do the work of steam-heating. They gave a tempting effect to +the house-fronts, but they could not distract our admiration from the +successive crowds of small boys playing at bull-fighting in the streets +below, and in the walks of the public garden. The population of +Burgos is above thirty-seven thousand and of the inhabitants at +least thirty-six thousand are small boys, as I was convinced by the +computation of the husband and brother of the Chilian ladies which +agreed perfectly with my own hasty conjecture; the rest are small girls. +In fact large families, and large families chiefly of boys, are the rule +in Spain everywhere; and they everywhere know how to play bull-fighting, +to flap any-colored old shawl, or breadth of cloth in the face of +the bull, to avoid his furious charges, and doubtless to deal him his +death-wound, though to this climax I could not bear to follow. + +[Illustration: 05 THE IRON-GRAY BULK OF THE CATHEDRAL REARS ITSELF FROM CLUSTERING WALLS AND ROOFS] + +One or two of the bull-fighters offered to leave the national sport +and show us the House of Miranda, but it was the cathedral which was +dominating our desire, as it everywhere dominates the vision, in Burgos +and out of Burgos as far as the city can be seen. The iron-gray bulk, +all flattered or fretted by Gothic art, rears itself from the clustering +brown walls and roofs of the city, which it seems to gather into its +mass below while it towers so far above them. We needed no pointing of +the way to it; rather we should have needed instruction for shunning it; +but we chose the way which led through the gate of Santa Maria where +in an arch once part of the city wall, the great Cid, hero above every +other hero of Burgos, sits with half a dozen more or less fabled or +storied worthies of the renowned city. Then with a minute's walk up +a stony sloping little street we were in the beautiful and reverend +presence of one of the most august temples of the Christian faith. The +avenue where the old Castilian nobles once dwelt in their now empty +palaces climbs along the hillside above the cathedral, which on its +lower side seems to elbow off the homes of meaner men, and in front to +push them away beyond a plaza not large enough for it. Even this the +cathedral had not cleared of the horde of small boys who followed us +unbidden to its doors and almost expropriated those authorized blind +beggars who own the church doors in Spain. When we declined the further +company of these boys they left us with expressions which I am afraid +accused our judgment and our personal appearance; but in another moment +we were safe from their censure, and hidden as it were in the thick +smell of immemorial incense. + +It was not the moment for doing the cathedral in the wonted tiresome and +vulgar way; that was reserved for the next day; now we simply wandered +in the vast twilight spaces; and craned our necks to breaking in trying +to pierce the gathered gloom in the vaulting overhead. It was a precious +moment, but perhaps too weird, and we were glad to find a sacristan with +businesslike activity setting red candlesticks about a bier in the area +before the choir, which here, as in the other Spanish cathedrals, is +planted frankly in the middle of the edifice, a church by itself, as if +to emphasize the incomparable grandeur of the cathedral. The sacristan +willingly paused in his task and explained that he was preparing the +bier for the funeral of a church dignitary (as we learned later, the +dean) which was to take place the next day at noon; and if we would come +at that hour we should hear some beautiful music. We knew that he +was establishing a claim on our future custom, but we thanked him and +provisionally feed him, and left him at his work, at which we might have +all but fancied him whistling, so cheerfully and briskly he went about +it. + +Outside we lingered a moment to give ourselves the solemn joy of the +Chapel of the Constable which forms the apse of the cathedral and is its +chief glory. It mounted to the hard, gray sky, from which a keen wind +was sweeping the narrow street leading to it, and blustering round +the corner of the cathedral, so that the marble men holding up the +Constable's coat-of-arms in the rear of his chapel might well have ached +from the cold which searched the marrow of flesh-and-blood men below. +These hurried by in flat caps and corduroy coats and trousers, with +sashes at their waists and comforters round their necks; and they were +picturesque quite in the measure of their misery. Some whose tatters +were the most conspicuous feature of their costume, I am sure would have +charmed me if I had been a painter; as a mere word-painter I find myself +wishing I could give the color of their wretchedness to my page. + + + +III + + +In the absence of any specific record in my notebook I do not know just +how it was between this first glimpse of the cathedral and dinner, +but it must have been on our return to our hotel, that the little +interpreter who had met us at the station, and had been intermittently +constituting himself our protector ever since, convinced us that we +ought to visit the City Hall, and see the outside of the marble tomb +containing the bones of the Cid and his wife. Such as the bones were +we found they were not to be seen themselves, and I do not know that I +should have been the happier for their inspection. In fact, I have no +great opinion of the Cid as an historical character or a poetic fiction. +His epic, or his long ballad, formed no part of my young study in +Spanish, and when four or five years ago a friend gave me a copy of it, +beautifully printed in black letter, with the prayer that I should read +it sometime within the twelvemonth, I found the time far too short. As +a matter of fact I have never read the poem to this day, though. I have +often tried, and I doubt if its author ever intended it to be read. He +intended it rather to be recited in stirring episodes, with spaces for +refreshing slumber in the connecting narrative. As for the Cid in real +life under his proper name of Rodrigo de Vivas, though he made his +king publicly swear that he had had no part in the murder of his royal +brother, and though he was the stoutest and bravest knight in Castile, +I cannot find it altogether admirable in him that when his king banished +him he should resolve to fight thereafter for any master who paid +him best. That appears to me the part of a road-agent rather than a +reformer, and it seems to me no amend for his service under Moorish +princes that he should make war against them on his personal behalf +or afterward under his own ungrateful king. He is friends now with the +Arabian King of Saragossa, and now he defeats the Aragonese under the +Castilian sovereign, and again he sends an insulting message by the +Moslems to the Christian Count of Barcelona, whom he takes prisoner +with his followers, but releases without ransom after a contemptuous +audience. Is it well, I ask, that he helps one Moor against another, +always for what there is in it, and when he takes Valencia from the +infidels, keeps none of his promises to them, but having tortured the +governor to make him give up his treasure, buries him to his waist and +then burns him alive? After that, to be sure, he enjoys his declining +years by making forays in the neighboring country, and dies "satisfied +with having done his duty toward his God." + +Our interpreter, who would not let us rest till he had shown us the +box holding the Cid's bones, had himself had a varied career. If you +believed him he was born in Madrid and had passed, when three years old, +to New York, where he grew up to become a citizen and be the driver of a +delivery wagon for a large department-store. He duly married an American +woman who could speak not only French, German, and Italian, but also +Chinese, and was now living with him in Burgos. His own English had +somewhat fallen by the way, but what was left he used with great +courage; and he was one of those government interpreters whom you find +at every large station throughout Spain in the number of the principal +hotels of the place. They pay the government a certain tax for +their license, though it was our friend's expressed belief that the +government, on the contrary, paid him a salary of two dollars a day; but +perhaps this was no better founded than his belief in a German princess +who, when he went as her courier, paid him ten dollars a day and all his +expenses. She wished him to come and live near her in Germany, so as to +be ready to go with her to South America, but he had not yet made up his +mind to leave Burgos, though his poor eyes watered with such a cold as +only Burgos can give a man in the early autumn; when I urged him to look +to the bad cough he had, he pleaded that it was a very old cough. He had +a fascination of his own, which probably came from his imaginative habit +of mind, so that I could have wished more adoptive fellow-citizens were +like him. He sympathized strongly with us in our grief with the cold of +the hotel, and when we said that a small oil-heater would take the chill +off a large room, he said that he had advised that very thing, but that +our host had replied, with proud finality, "I am the landlord." Whether +this really happened or not, I cannot say, but I have no doubt that our +little guide had some faith in it as a real incident. He apparently had +faith in the landlord's boast that he was going to have a stately marble +staircase to the public entrance to his hotel, which was presently of +common stone, rather tipsy in its treads, and much in need of scrubbing. + +There is as little question in my mind that he believed the carriage we +had engaged to take us next morning to the Cartuja de Miraflores +would be ready at a quarter before nine, and that he may have been +disappointed when it was not ready until a quarter after. But it was +worth waiting for if to have a team composed of a brown mule on the +right hand and a gray horse on the left was to be desired. These animals +which nature had so differenced were equalized by art through the lavish +provision of sleigh-bells, without some strands of which no team in +Spain is properly equipped. Besides, as to his size the mule was quite +as large as the horse, and as to his tail he was much more decorative. +About two inches after this member left his body it was closely shaved +for some six inches or more, and for that space it presented the effect +of a rather large size of garden-hose; below, it swept his thighs in a +lordly switch. If anything could have added distinction to our turnout +it would have been the stiff side-whiskers of our driver: the only pair +I saw in real life after seeing them so long in pictures on boxes of +raisins and cigars. There they were associated with the look and +dress of a _torrero,_ and our coachman, though an old Castilian of the +austerest and most taciturn pattern, may have been in his gay youth an +Andalusian bull-fighter. + + + +IV + + +Our pride in our equipage soon gave way to our interest in the market +for sheep, cattle, horses, and donkeys which we passed through just +outside the city. The market folk were feeling the morning's cold; +shepherds folded in their heavy shawls leaned motionless on their long +staves, as if hating to stir; one ingenious boy wore a live lamb round +his neck which he held close by the legs for the greater comfort of it; +under the trees by the roadside some of the peasants were cooking their +breakfasts and warming themselves at the fires. The sun was on duty in +a cloudless sky; but all along the road to the Cartuja we drove between +rows of trees so thickly planted against his summer rage that no ray of +his friendly heat could now reach us. At times it seemed as if from this +remorselessly shaded avenue we should escape into the open; the trees +gave way and we caught glimpses of wide plains and distant hills; then +they closed upon us again, and in their chill shadow it was no comfort +to know that in summer, when the townspeople got through their work, +they came out to these groves, men, women, and children, and had supper +under their hospitable boughs. + +One comes to almost any Cartuja at last, and we found ours on a sunny +top just when the cold had pinched us almost beyond endurance, and +joined a sparse group before the closed gate of the convent. The group +was composed of poor people who had come for the dole of food daily +distributed from the convent, and better-to-do country-folk who had +brought things to sell to the monks, or were there on affairs not openly +declared. But it seemed that it was a saint's day; the monks were having +service in the church solely for their own edification, and they had +shut us sinners out not only by locking the gate, but by taking away the +wire for ringing the bell, and leaving nothing but a knocker of feeble +note with which different members of our indignation meeting vainly +hammered. Our guide assumed the virtue of the greatest indignation, +though he ought to have known that we could not get in on that saint's +day; but it did not avail, and the little group dispersed, led off by +the brown peasant who was willing to share my pleasure in our excursion +as a good joke on us, and smiled with a show of teeth as white as the +eggs in his basket. After all, it was not wholly a hardship; we could +walk about in the sunny if somewhat muddy open, and warm ourselves +against the icily shaded drive back to town; besides, there was a little +girl crouching at the foot of a tree, and playing at a phase of the +housekeeping which is the game of little girls the world over. Her sad, +still-faced mother standing near, with an interest in her apparently +renewed by my own, said that she was four years old, and joined me +in watching her as she built a pile of little sticks and boiled an +imaginary little kettle over them. I was so glad even of a make-believe +fire that I dropped a copper coin beside it, and the mother smiled +pensively as if grateful but not very hopeful from this beneficence, +though after reflection I had made my gift a "big dog" instead of a +"small dog," as the Spanish call a ten and a five centimo piece. The +child bent her pretty head shyly on one side, and went on putting more +sticks under her supposititious pot. + +I found the little spectacle reward enough in itself and in a sort +compensation for our failure to see the exquisite alabaster tomb of Juan +II. and his wife Isabel which makes the Cartuja Church so famous. There +are a great many beautiful tombs in Burgos, but none so beautiful there +(or in the whole world if the books say true) as this; though we made +what we could of some in the museum, where we saw for the first time in +the recumbent effigies of a husband and wife, with features worn away by +time and incapable of expressing the disappointment, the surprise they +may have felt in the vain effort to warm their feet on the backs of the +little marble angels put there to support them. We made what we could, +too, of the noted Casa de Miranda, the most famous of the palaces in +which the Castilian nobles have long ceased to live at Burgos. There we +satisfied our longing to see a _patio,_ that roofless colonnaded court +which is the most distinctive feature of Spanish domestic architecture, +and more and more distinctively so the farther south you go, till at +Seville you see it in constant prevalence. At Burgos it could never have +been a great comfort, but in this House of Miranda it must have been +a great glory. The spaces between many of the columns have long been +bricked in, but there is fine carving on the front and the vaulting of +the staircase that climbs up from it in neglected grandeur. So many feet +have trodden its steps that they are worn hollow in the middle, and to +keep from falling you must go up next the wall. The object in going up +at all is to join in the gallery an old melancholy custodian in looking +down into the _patio,_ with his cat making her toilet beside him, and to +give them a fee which they receive with equal calm. Then, when you have +come down the age-worn steps without breaking your neck, you have done +the House of Miranda, and may lend yourself with what emotion you choose +to the fact that this ancient seat of hidalgos has now fallen to the low +industry of preparing pigskins to be wine-skins. + +[Illustration: 06 THE TOMB OF DONNA MARIA MANUEL] + +I do not think that a company of hidalgos in complete medieval armor +could have moved me more strongly than that first sight of these +wine-skins, distended with wine, which we had caught in approaching the +House of Miranda. We had to stop in the narrow street, and let them pass +piled high on a vintner's wagon, and looking like a load of pork: they +are trimmed and left to keep the shape of the living pig, which they +emulate at its bulkiest, less the head and feet, and seem to roll in +fatness. It was joy to realize what they were, to feel how Spanish, how +literary, how picturesque, how romantic. There they were such as the +wine-skins are that hang from the trees of pleasant groves in many a +merry tale, and invite all swains and shepherds and wandering cavaliers +to tap their bulk and drain its rich plethora. There they were such as +Don Quixote, waking from his dream at the inn, saw them malignant giants +and fell enchanters, and slashed them with his sword till he had spilled +the room half full of their blood. For me this first sight of them was +magic. It brought back my boyhood as nothing else had yet, and I never +afterward saw them without a return to those days of my delight in all +Spanish things. + +Literature and its associations, no matter from how lowly suggestion, +must always be first for me, and I still thought of those wine-skins in +yielding to the claims of the cathedral on my wonder and reverence when +now for the second time we came to it. The funeral ceremony of the dean +was still in course, and after listening for a moment to the mighty +orchestral music of it--the deep bass of the priests swelling up with +the organ notes, and suddenly shot with the shrill, sharp trebles of the +choir-boys and pierced with the keen strains of the violins--we left the +cathedral to the solemn old ecclesiastics who sat confronting the bier, +and once more deferred our more detailed and intimate wonder. We went, +in this suspense of emotion, to the famous Convent of Las Huelgas, which +invites noble ladies to its cloistered repose a little beyond the town. +We entered to the convent church through a sort of slovenly court where +a little girl begged severely, almost censoriously, of us, and presently +a cold-faced young priest came and opened the church door. Then we found +the interior of that rank Spanish baroque which escapes somehow the +effeminate effusiveness of the Italian; it does not affect you as +decadent, but as something vigorously perfect in its sort, somberly +authentic, and ripe from a root and not a graft. In its sort, the high +altar, a gigantic triune, with massive twisted columns and swagger +statues of saints and heroes in painted wood, is a prodigy of inventive +piety, and compositely has a noble exaltation in its powerful lift to +the roof. + +The nuns came beautifully dressed to hear mass at the grilles giving +into the chapel adjoining the church; the tourist may have his glimpse +of them there on Sundays, and on week-days he may have his guess of +their cloistered life and his wonder how much it continues the tradition +of repose which the name of the old garden grounds implies. These lady +nuns must be of patrician lineage and of fortune enough to defray their +expense in the convent, which is of the courtliest origin, for it was +founded eight hundred years ago by Alfonso VIII. "to expiate his sins +and to gratify his queen," who probably knew of them. I wish now I had +known, while I was there, that the abbess of Las Huelgas had once had +the power of life and death in the neighborhood, and could hang people +if she liked; I cannot think just what good it would have done me, but +one likes to realize such things on the spot. She is still one of the +greatest ladies of Spain, though perhaps not still "lady of ax and +gibbet," and her nuns are of like dignity. In their chapel are the tombs +of Alfonso and his queen, whose figures are among those on the high +altar of the church. She was Eleanor Plantagenet, the daughter of our +Henry II., and was very fond of Las Huelgas, as if it were truly a rest +for her in the far-off land of Spain; I say our Henry II., for in the +eleventh century we Americans were still English, under the heel of the +Normans, as not the fiercest republican of us now need shame to own. + +In a sense of this historical unity, at Las Huelgas we felt as much at +home as if we had been English tourists, and we had our feudal pride +in the palaces where the Gastilian nobles used to live in Burgos as we +returned to the town. Their deserted seats are mostly to be seen after +you pass through the Moorish gate overarching the stony, dusty, weedy +road hard by the place where the house of the Cid is said to have stood. +The arch, so gracefully Saracenic, was the first monument of the Moslem +obsession of the country which has left its signs so abundantly in the +south; here in the far north the thing seemed almost prehistoric, almost +preglacially old, the witness of a world utterly outdated. But perhaps +it was not more utterly outdated than the residences of the nobles who +had once made the ancient Castilian capital splendid, but were now as +irrevocably merged in Madrid as the Arabs in Africa. + + + +VI + + +Some of the palaces looked down from the narrow street along the +hillside above the cathedral, but only one of them was kept up in the +state of other days; and I could not be sure at what point this street +had ceased to be the street where our guide said every one kept cows, +and the ladies took big pitchers of milk away to sell every morning. +But I am sure those ladies could have been of noble descent only in +the farthest possible remove, and I do not suppose their cows were even +remotely related to the haughty ox-team which blocked the way in front +of the palaces and obliged xis to dismount while our carriage was lifted +round the cart. Our driver was coldly disgusted, but the driver of +the ox-team preserved a calm as perfect as if he had been an hidalgo +interested by the incident before his gate. It delayed us till the +psychological moment when the funeral of the dean was over, and we could +join the formidable party following the sacristan from chapel to chapel +in the cathedral. + +We came to an agonized consciousness of the misery of this progress in +the Chapel of the Constable, where it threatened to be finally stayed +by the indecision of certain ladies of our nation in choosing among the +postal cards for sale there. By this time we had suffered much from the +wonders of the cathedral. The sacristan had not spared us a jewel or +a silvered or gilded sacerdotal garment or any precious vessel of +ceremonial, so that our jaded wonder was inadequate to the demand of the +beautiful tombs of the Constable and his lady upon it. The coffer of +the Cid, fastened against the cathedral wall for a monument of his +shrewdness in doing the Jews of Burgos, who, with the characteristic +simplicity of their race, received it back full of sand and gravel in +payment of the gold they had lent him in it, could as little move us. +Perhaps if we could have believed that he finally did return the value +received, we might have marveled a little at it, but from what we knew +of the Cid this was not credible. We did what we could with the painted +wood carving of the cloister doors; the life-size head of a man with +its open mouth for a key-hole in another portal; a fearful silver-plated +chariot given by a rich blind woman for bearing the Host in the +procession of Corpus Christi; but it was very little, and I am not +going to share my failure with the reader by the vain rehearsal of +its details. No literary art has ever reported a sense of picture or +architecture or sculpture to me: the despised postal card is better for +that; and probably throughout these "trivial fond records" I shall be +found shirking as much as I may the details of such sights, seen or +unseen, as embitter the heart of travel with unavailing regret for the +impossibility of remembering them. I must leave for some visit of the +reader's own the large and little facts of the many chapels in the +cathedral at Burgos, and I will try to overwhelm him with my sense of +the whole mighty interior, the rich gloom, the Gothic exaltation, +which I made such shift as I could to feel in the company of those +picture-postal amateurs. It was like, say, a somber afternoon, verging +to the twilight of a cloudy sunset, so that when I came out of it into +the open noon it was like emerging into a clear morrow. Perhaps because +I could there shed the harassing human environment the outside of the +cathedral seemed to me the best of it, and we lingered there for a +moment in glad relief. + + + +VII + +[Illustration: 07 A BURGOS STREET] + +One house in some forgotten square commemorates the state in which +the Castilian nobles used to live in Burgos before Toledo, and then +Valladolid, contested the primacy of the grim old capital of the +northern uplands. We stayed for a moment to glance from our carriage +through the open portal into its leafy _patio_ shivering in the cold, +and then we bade our guide hurry back with us to the hot luncheon which +would be the only heat in our hotel. But to reach this we had to pass +through another square, which we found full of peasants' ox-carts and +mule-teams; and there our guide instantly jumped down and entered into +a livelier quarrel with those peaceable men and women than I could +afterward have believed possible in Spain. I bade him get back to his +seat beside the driver, who was abetting him with an occasional guttural +and whom I bade turn round and go another way. I said that I had hired +this turnout, and I was master, and I would be obeyed; but it seemed +that I was wrong. My proud hirelings never left off their dispute +till somehow the ox-carts and mule-teams were jammed together, and a +thoroughfare found for us. Then it was explained that those peasants +were always blocking that square in that way and that I had, however +unwillingly, been discharging the duty of a public-spirited citizen in +compelling them to give way. I did not care for that; I prized far more +the quiet with which they had taken the whole affair. It was the first +exhibition of the national repose of manner which we were to see so +often again, south as well as north, and which I find it so beautiful to +have seen. In a Europe abounding in volcanic Italians, nervous Germans, +and exasperated Frenchmen, it was comforting, it was edifying to see +those Castilian peasants so self-respectfully self-possessed in the +wrong. + +From time to time in the opener spaces we had got into the sun from the +chill shadow of the narrow streets, but now it began to be cloudy, and +when we re-entered our hotel it was almost as warm indoors as out. We +thought our landlord might have so far repented as to put on the steam; +but he had sternly adhered to his principle that the radiators were +enough of themselves; and after luncheon we had nothing for it but to +go away from Burgos, and take with us such scraps of impression as we +could. We decided that there was no street of gayer shops than those +gloomy ones we had chanced into here and there; I do not remember now +anything like a bookseller's or a milliner's or a draper's window. There +was no sign of fashion among the ladies of Burgos, so far as we could +distinguish them; there was not a glowering or perking hat, and I do not +believe there was a hobble-skirt in all the austere old capital except +such as some tourist wore; the black lace mantillas and the flowing +garments of other periods flitted by through the chill alleys and into +the dim doorways. The only cheerfulness in the local color was to be +noted in the caparison of the donkeys, which we were to find more and +more brilliant southward. Do I say the only cheerfulness? I ought to +except also the involuntary hilarity of a certain poor man's suit which +was so patched together of myriad scraps that it looked as if cut from +the fabric of a crazy-quilt. I owe him this notice the rather because he +almost alone did not beg of us in a city which swarmed with beggars in +a forecast of that pest of beggary which infests Spain everywhere. I do +not say that the thing is without picturesqueness, without real pathos; +the little girl who kissed the copper I gave her in the cathedral +remains endeared to me by that perhaps conventional touch of poetry. + +There was compensation for the want of presence among the ladies of +Burgos, in the leading lady of the theatrical company who dined, the +night before, at our hotel with the chief actors of her support, before +giving a last performance in our ancient city. It happened another time +in our Spanish progress that we had the society of strolling players at +our hotel, and it was both times told us that the given company was the +best dramatic company in Spain; but at Burgos we did not yet know that +we were so singularly honored. The leading lady there had luminous black +eyes, large like the head-lamps of a motor-car, and a wide crimson mouth +which she employed as at a stage banquet throughout the dinner, +while she talked and laughed with her fellow-actors, beautiful as +bull-fighters, cleanshaven, serious of face and shapely of limb. They +were unaffectedly professional, and the lady made no pretense of not +being a leading lady. One could see that she was the kindest creature in +the world, and that she took a genuine pleasure in her huge, practicable +eyes. At the other end of the room a Spanish family--father, mother, +and small children, down to some in arms--were dining and the children +wailing as Spanish children will, regardless of time and place; and when +the nurse brought one of the disconsolate infants to be kissed by +the leading lady one's heart went out to her for the amiability and +abundance of her caresses. The mere sight of their warmth did something +to supply the defect of steam in the steam-heating apparatus, but when +one got beyond their radius there was nothing for the shivering traveler +except to wrap himself in the down quilt of his bed and spread his +steamer-rug over his knees till it was time to creep under both of them +between the glacial sheets. + +We were sorry we had not got tickets for the leading lady's public +performance; it could have been so little more public; but we had not, +and there was nothing else in Burgos to invite the foot outdoors +after dinner. From my own knowledge I cannot yet say the place was not +lighted; but my sense of the tangle of streets lying night long in a +rich Gothic gloom shall remain unimpaired by statistics. Very possibly +Burgos is brilliantly lighted with electricity; only they have not got +the electricity on, as in our steam-heated hotel they had not got the +steam on. + + + +VIII + + +We had authorized our little interpreter to engage tickets for us by the +mail-train the next afternoon for Valladolid; he pretended, of course, +that the places could be had only by his special intervention, and by +telegraphing for them to the arriving train. We accepted his romantic +theory of the case, and paid the bonus due the railroad agent in the +hotel for his offices in the matter; we would have given anything, we +were so eager to get out of Burgos before we were frozen up there. I +do not know that we were either surprised or pained to find that our +Chilian friends should have got seats in the same car without anything +of our diplomacy, by the simple process of showing their tickets. I +think our little interpreter was worth everything he cost, and more. I +would not have lost a moment of his company as he stood on the platform +with me, adding one artless invention to another for my pleasure, and +successively extracting peseta after peseta from me till he had made +up the sum which he had doubtless idealized as a just reward for his +half-day's service when he first told me that it should be what I +pleased. We parted with the affection of fellow-citizens in a strange +monarchical country, his English growing less and less as the +train delayed, and his eyes watering more and more as with tears of +com-patriotic affection. At the moment I could have envied that German +princess her ability to make sure of his future companionship at the +low cost of fifty pesetas a day; and even now, when my affection has had +time to wane, I cannot do less than commend him to any future visitor +at Burgos, as in the last degree amiable, and abounding in surprises of +intelligence and unexpected feats of reliability. + + + + +IV. THE VARIETY OF VALLADOLID + + +When you leave Burgos at 3.29 of a passably sunny afternoon you are not +at once aware of the moral difference between the terms of your approach +and those of your departure. You are not changing your earth or your +sky very much, but it is not long before you are sensible of a change of +mind which insists more and more. There is the same long ground-swell +of wheat-fields, but yesterday you were followed in vision by the +loveliness of the frugal and fertile Biscayan farms, and to-day this +vision has left you, and you are running farther and farther into the +economic and topographic waste of Castile. Yesterday there were more +or less agreeable shepherdesses in pleasant plaids scattered over the +landscape; to-day there are only shepherds of three days' unshornness; +the plaids are ragged, and there is not sufficient compensation in +the cavalcades of both men and women riding donkeys in and out of the +horizons on the long roads that lose and find themselves there. Flocks +of brown and black goats, looking large as cows among the sparse +stubble, do little to relieve the scene from desolation; I am not sure +but goats, when brown and black, add to the horror of a desolate scene. +There are no longer any white farmsteads, or friendly villages gathering +about high-shouldered churches, but very far away to the eastward or +westward the dun expanse of the wheat-lands is roughed with something +which seems a cluster of muddy protuberances, so like the soil at first +it is not distinguishable from it, but which as your train passes +nearer proves to be a town at the base of tablelands, without a tree +or a leaf or any spear of green to endear it to the eye as the abode of +living men. You pull yourself together in the effort to visualize the +immeasurable fields washing those dreary towns with golden tides of +harvest; but it is difficult. What you cannot help seeing is the actual +nakedness of the land which with its spindling stubble makes you think +of that awful moment of the human head, when utter baldness will be a +relief to the spectator. + + + +I + + +At times and in places, peasants were scratching the dismal surfaces +with the sort of plows which Abel must have used, when subsoiling was +not yet even a dream; and between the plowmen and their ox-teams it +seemed a question as to which should loiter longest in the unfinished +furrow. Now and then, the rush of the train gave a motionless goatherd, +with his gaunt flock, an effect of comparative celerity to the rearward. +The women riding their donkeys over + + The level waste, the rounding gray + +in the distance were the only women we saw except those who seemed to +be keeping the stations, and one very fat one who came to the train at +a small town and gabbled volubly to some passenger who made no audible +response. She excited herself, but failed to rouse the interest of the +other party to the interview, who remained unseen as well as unheard. I +could the more have wished to know what it was all about because nothing +happened on board the train to distract the mind from the joyless +landscape until we drew near Valladolid. It is true that for a while +we shared our compartment with a father and his two sons who lunched on +slices of the sausage which seems the favorite refection of the Latin as +well as the Germanic races in their travels. But this drama was not +of intense interest, and we grappled in vain with the question of our +companions' social standard. The father, while he munched his bread +and sausage, read a newspaper which did not rank him or even define +his politics; there was a want of fashion in the cut of the young men's +clothes and of freshness in the polish of their tan shoes which +defied conjecture. When they left the train without the formalities +of leave-taking which had hitherto distinguished our Spanish +fellow-travelers, we willingly abandoned them to a sort of middling +obscurity; but this may not really have been their origin or their +destiny. + +That spindling sparseness, worse than utter baldness, of the wheat +stubble now disappeared with cinematic suddenness, and our train was +running past stretches of vineyard, where, among the green and purple +and yellow ranks, the vintagers, with their donkeys and carts, were +gathering the grapes in the paling light of the afternoon. Again the +scene lacked the charm of woman's presence which the vintage had in +southern France. In Spain we nowhere saw the women sharing the outdoor +work of the men; and we fancied their absence the effect of the Oriental +jealousy lingering from centuries of Moorish domination; though we could +not entirely reconcile our theory with the publicity of their washing +clothes at every stream. To be sure, that was work which they did not +share with men any more than the men shared the labor of the fields with +them. + +It was still afternoon, well before sunset, when we arrived at +Valladolid, where one of the quaintest of our Spanish surprises awaited +us. We knew that the omnibus of the hotel we had chosen would be the +shabbiest omnibus at the station, and we saw without great alarm our +Chilian friends drive off in an indefinitely finer vehicle. But what we +were not prepared for was the fact of _octroi_ at Valladolid, and for +the strange behavior of the local customs officer who stopped us on our +way into the town. He looked a very amiable young man as he put his face +in at the omnibus door, and he received without explicit question our +declaration that we had nothing taxable in our trunks. Then, however, he +mounted to the top of the omnibus and thumped our trunks about as if to +test them for contraband by the sound. The investigation continued on +these strange terms until the officer had satisfied himself of our good +faith, when he got down and with a friendly smile at the window bowed us +into Valladolid. + +In its way nothing could have been more charming; and we rather liked +being left by the omnibus about a block from our hotel, on the border of +a sort of promenade where no vehicles were allowed. We had been halted +near a public fountain, where already the mothers and daughters of the +neighborhood were gathered with earthen jars for the night's supply of +water. The jars were not so large as to overburden any of them when, +after just delay for exchange of gossip, the girls and goodwives put +them on their heads and marched erectly away with them, each beautifully +picturesque irrespective of her age or looks. + +The air was soft, and after Burgos, warm; something southern, unfelt +before, began to qualify the whole scene, which as the evening fell grew +more dramatic, and made the promenade the theater of emotions permitted +such unrestricted play nowhere else in Spain, so far as we were witness. +On one side the place was arcaded, and bordered with little shops, not +so obtrusively brilliant that the young people who walked up and down +before them were in a glare of publicity. A little way off the avenue +expanded into a fine oblong place, where some first martyrs of the +Inquisition were burned. But the promenades kept well short of this, +as they walked up and down, and talked, talked, talked in that +inexhaustible interest which youth takes in itself the world over. They +were in the standard proportion of two girls to one young man, or, if +here and there a girl had an undivided young man to herself, she went +before some older maiden or matron whom she left altogether out of the +conversation. They mostly wore the skirts and hats of Paris, and if the +scene of the fountain was Arabically oriental the promenade was almost +Americanly occidental. The promenaders were there by hundreds; they +filled the avenue from side to side, and + + The delight of happy laughter + The delight of low replies + +that rose from their progress, with the chirp and whisper of their +feet cheered the night as long as we watched and listened from the sun +balcony of our hotel. + + + +II + + +There was no more heat in the radiators of the hotel there than at +Burgos, but for that evening at least there was none needed. It was the +principal hotel of Valladolid, and the unscrubbed and unswept staircase +by which we mounted into it was merely a phase of that genial pause, as +for second thought, in the march of progress which marks so much of the +modern advance in Spain, and was by no means an evidence of arrested +development. We had the choice of reaching our rooms either through the +dining-room or by a circuitous detour past the pantries; but our rooms +had a proud little vestibule of their own, with a balcony over the great +square, and if one of them had a belated feather-bed the other had a +new hair mattress, and the whole house was brilliantly lighted with +electricity. As for the cooking, it was delicious, and the table was +of an abundance and variety which might well have made one ashamed of +paying so small a rate as two dollars a day for bed and board, wine +included, and very fair wine at that. + +In Spain you must take the bad with the good, for whether you get the +good or not you are sure of the bad, but only very exceptionally are you +sure of the bad only. It was a pleasure not easily definable to find our +hotel managed by a mother and two daughters, who gave the orders +obeyed by the men-servants, and did not rebuke them for joining in +the assurance that when we got used to going so abruptly from the +dining-room into our bedrooms we would like it. The elder of the +daughters had some useful French, and neither of the younger ladies ever +stayed for some ultimate details of dishabille in coming to interpret +the mother and ourselves to one another when we encountered her alone +in the office. They were all thoroughly kind and nice, and they were +supported with surpassing intelligence and ability by the _chico,_ +a radiant boy of ten, who united in himself the functions which the +amiable inefficiency of the porters and waiters abandoned to him. + +When we came out to dinner after settling ourselves in our almost +obtrusively accessible rooms, we were convinced of the wisdom of our +choice of a hotel by finding our dear Chilians at one of the tables. We +rushed together like two kindred streams of transatlantic gaiety, and +in our mingled French, Spanish, and English possessed one another of our +doubts and fears in coming to our common conclusion. We had already seen +a Spanish gentleman whom we knew as a fellow-sufferer at Burgos, roaming +the streets of Valladolid, and in what seemed a disconsolate doubt, +interrogating the windows of our hotel; and now we learned from the +Chilians that he had been bitterly disappointed in the inn which a +patrician omnibus had borne him away to from our envious eyes at the +station. We learned that our South American compatriots had found +their own chosen hotel impossible, and were now lodged in rapturous +satisfaction under our roof. Their happiness penetrated us with a glow +of equal content, and confirmed us in the resolution always to take the +worst omnibus at a Spanish station as the sure index of the best hotel. + +The street-cars, which in Valladolid are poetically propelled through +lyre-shaped trolleys instead of our prosaic broomstick appliances, +groaned unheeded if not unheard under our windows through the night, and +we woke to find the sun on duty in our glazed balcony and the promenade +below already astir with life: not the exuberant young life of the +night before, but still sufficiently awake to be recognizable as life. A +crippled newsboy seated under one of the arcades was crying his papers; +an Englishman was looking at a plan of Valladolid in a shop window; a +splendid cavalry officer went by in braided uniform, and did not stare +so hard as they might have expected at some ladies passing in mantillas +to mass or market. In the late afternoon as well as the early morning +we saw a good deal of the military in Valladolid, where an army corps is +stationed. From time to time a company of infantry marched through the +streets to gay music, and toward evening slim young officers began to +frequent the arcades and glass themselves in the windows of the shops, +their spurs clinking on the pavement as they lounged by or stopped and +took distinguished attitudes. We speculated in vain as to their social +quality, and to this day I do not know whether "the career is open to +the talents" in the Spanish army, or whether military rank is merely +the just reward of civil rank. Those beautiful young swells in +riding-breeches and tight gray jackets approached an Italian type +of cavalry officer; they did not look very vigorous, and the common +soldiers we saw marching through the streets, largely followed by the +populace, were not of formidable stature or figure, though neat and +agreeable enough to the eye. + +While I indulge the record of these trivialities, which I am by no means +sure the reader will care for so much, I feel that it would be wrong to +let him remain as ignorant of the history of Valladolid as I was while +there. My ignorance was not altogether my fault; I had fancied easily +finding at some bookseller's under the arcade a little sketch of the +local history such as you are sure of finding in any Italian town, done +by a local antiquary of those always mousing in the city's archives. +But the bookseller's boy and then the boy's mother could not at first +imagine my wish, and when they did they could only supply me with a sort +of business directory, full of addresses and advertisements. So instead +of overflowing with information when we set out on our morning ramble, +we meagerly knew from the guide-books that Valladolid had once been the +capital of Castile, arid after many generations of depression following +the removal of the court, had in these latest days renewed its strength +in mercantile and industrial prosperity. There are ugly evidences of the +prosperity in the windy, dusty avenues and streets of the more modern +town; but there are lanes and alleys enough, groping for the churches +and monuments in suddenly opening squares, to console the sentimental +tourist for the havoc which enterprise has made. The mind readily goes +back through these to the palmy prehistoric times from which the town +emerged to mention in Ptolemy, and then begins to work forward past +Iberian and Roman and Goth and Moor to the Castilian kings who made it +their residence in the eleventh century. The capital won its first +great distinction when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile were +married there in 1469. Thirty-five years later these Catholic Kings, +as one had better learn at once to call them in Spain, let Columbus die +neglected if not forgotten in the house recently pulled down, where he +had come to dwell in their cold shadow; they were much occupied with +other things and they could not realize that his discovery of America +was the great glory of their reign; probably they thought the conquest +of Granada was. Later yet, by twenty years, the dreadful Philip II. +was born in Valladolid, and in 1559 a very famous _auto da fe_ wag +celebrated in the Plaza Mayor. Fourteen Lutherans were burned alive for +their heresy, and the body of a woman suspected of imperfect orthodoxy +after her death was exhumed and burned with them. In spite of such +precautions as these, and of all the pious diligence of the Holy Office, +the reader will hardly believe that there is now a Spanish Protestant +church in Valladolid; but such is the fact, though whether it derives +from the times of the Inquisition, or is a modern missionary church I +do not know. That _auto da fe_ was of the greatest possible distinction; +the Infanta Juana presided, and the universal interest was so great that +people paid a dollar and twenty-five cents a seat; money then worth five +or six times as much as now. Philip himself came to another _auto_ when +thirteen persons were burned in the same place, and he always liked +Valladolid; it must have pleased him in a different way from Escorial, +lying flat as it does on a bare plain swept, but never thoroughly +dusted, by winds that blow pretty constantly over it. + +While the Inquisition was purging the city of error its great university +was renowning it not only throughout Spain, but in France and Italy; +students frequented it from those countries, and artists came from many +parts of Europe. Literature also came in the person of Cervantes, +who seems to have followed the Spanish court in its migrations from +Valladolid to Toledo and then to Madrid. Here also came one of the +greatest characters in fiction, for it was in Valladolid that Gil Blas +learned to practise the art of medicine tinder the instruction of the +famous Dr. Sangrado. + + + +IV + +[Illustration: 08 A STREET LEADING TO THE CATHEDRAL] + +I put these facts at the service of the reader for what use he will +while he goes with us to visit the cathedral in Valladolid, a cathedral +as unlike that of Burgos as the severest mood of Spanish renaissance can +render it. In fact, it is the work of Herrera, the architect who made +the Escorial so grim, and is the expression in large measure of his +austere mastery. If it had ever been finished it might have been quite +as dispiriting as the Escorial, but as it has only one of the +four ponderous towers it was meant to have, it is not without its +alleviations, especially as the actual tower was rebuilt after the fall +of the original seventy years ago. The grass springs cheerfully up in +the crevices of the flagging from which the broken steps falter to the +portal, but within all is firm and solid. The interior is vast, and +nowhere softened by decoration, but the space is reduced by the huge +bulk of the choir in the center of it; as we entered a fine echo mounted +to the cathedral roof from the chanting and intoning within. When +the service ended a tall figure in scarlet crossed rapidly toward the +sacristy. It was of such imposing presence that we resolved at once it +must be the figure of a cardinal, or of an archbishop at the least. But +it proved to be one of the sacristans, and when we followed him to +the sacristy with half a dozen other sightseers, he showed us a silver +monstrance weighing a hundred and fifty pounds and decked with statites +of our first parents as they appeared before the Fall. Besides this we +saw, much against our will, a great many ecclesiastical vestments +of silk and damask richly wrought in gold and silver. But if we were +reluctant there was a little fat priest there who must have seen them +hundreds of times and had still a childish delight in seeing them again +because he had seen them so often; he dimpled and smiled, and for his +sake we pretended a joy in them which it would have been cruel to deny +him. I suppose we were then led to the sacrifice at the several side +altars, but I have no specific recollection of them; I know there was a +pale, sick-looking young girl in white who went about with her father, +and moved compassion by her gentle sorrowfulness. + +Of the University, which we visited next, I recall only the baroque +facade; the interior was in reparation and I do not know whether it +would have indemnified us for not visiting the University of Salamanca. +That was in our list, but the perversity of the time-table forbade. You +could go to Salamanca, yes, but you could not come back except at two +o'clock in the morning; you could indeed continue on to Lisbon, but +perhaps you did not wish to see Lisbon. A like perversity of the +time-table, once universal in Spain, but now much reformed, also kept +us away from Segovia, which was on our list. But our knowledge of it +enabled us to tell a fellow-countrywoman whom we presently met in the +museum of the University, how she could best, or worst, get to that +city. Our speech gave us away to her, and she turned to us from the +other objects of interest to explain first that she was in a hotel where +she paid only six pesetas a day, but where she could get no English +explanation of the time-table for any money. She had come to Valladolid +with a friend who was going next day to Salamanca, but next day was +Sunday and she did not like to travel on Sunday, and Segovia seemed the +only alternative. We could not make out why, or if it came to that +why she should be traveling alone through Spain with such a slender +equipment of motive or object, but we perceived she was one of the +most estimable souls in the world, and if she cared more for getting +to Segovia that afternoon than for looking at the wonders of the place +where we were, we could not blame her. We had to leave her when we left +the museum in the charge of two custodians who led her, involuntary but +unresisting, to an upper chamber where there were some pictures +which she could care no more for than for the wood carvings below. We +ourselves cared so little for those pictures that we would not go to see +them. Pictures you can see anywhere, but not statuary of such singular +interest, such transcendant powerfulness as those carvings of Berruguete +and other masters less known, which held us fascinated in the lower +rooms of the museum. They are the spoil of convents in the region about, +suppressed by the government at different times, and collected here with +little relevancy to their original appeal. Some are Scriptural subjects +and some are figures of the dancers who take part in certain ceremonials +of the Spanish churches (notably the cathedral at Seville), which have a +quaint reality, an intense personal character. They are of a fascination +which I can hope to convey by no phrase of mine; but far beyond this is +the motionless force, the tremendous repose of the figures of the Roman +soldiers taken in the part of sleeping at the Tomb. These sculptures are +in wood, life-size, and painted in the colors of flesh and costume, with +every detail and of a strong mass in which the detail is lost and must +be found again by the wondering eye. Beyond all other Spanish sculptures +they seemed to me expressive of the national temperament; I thought no +other race could have produced them, and that in their return to +the Greek ideal of color in statuary they were ingenuously frank and +unsurpassably bold. + +It might have been the exhaustion experienced from the encounter with +their strenuousness that suddenly fatigued us past even the thought of +doing any more of Valladolid on foot. At any rate, when we came out of +the museum we took refuge in a corner grocery (it seems the nature of +groceries to seek corners the world over) and asked the grocer where we +could find a cab. + +[Illustration: 09 THE UNIVERSITY OF VALLADOLID] + +The grocer was young and kind, and not so busy but he could give willing +attention to our case. He said he would send for a cab, and he called +up from his hands and knees a beautiful blond half-grown boy who was +scrubbing the floor, and despatched him on this errand, first making him +wipe the suds off his hands. The boy was back wonderfully soon to +say the cab would come for us in ten minutes, and to receive with +self-respectful appreciation the peseta which rewarded his promptness. +In the mean time we feigned a small need which we satisfied by a +purchase, and then the grocer put us chairs in front of his counter and +made us his guests while his other customers came and went. They came +oftener than they went, for our interest in them did not surpass their +interest in us. We felt that through this we reflected credit upon +our amiable host; rumors of the mysterious strangers apparently spread +through the neighborhood and the room was soon filled with people +who did not all come to buy; but those who did buy were the most, +interesting. An elderly man with his wife bought a large bottle which +the grocer put into one scale of his balance, and poured its weight +in chick-peas into the other. Then he filled the bottle with oil and +weighed it, and then he gave the peas along with it to his customers. +It seemed a pretty convention, though we could not quite make out its +meaning, unless the peas were bestowed as a sort of bonus; but the +next convention was clearer to us. An old man in black corduroy with a +clean-shaven face and a rather fierce, retired bull-fighter air, bought +a whole dried stock-fish (which the Spaniards eat instead of salt cod) +talking loudly to the grocer and at us while the grocer cut it across in +widths of two inches and folded it into a neat pocketful; then a glass +of wine was poured from a cask behind the counter, and the customer +drank it off in honor of the transaction with the effect also of +pledging us with his keen eyes; all the time he talked, and he was +joined in conversation by a very fat woman who studied us not unkindly. +Other neighbors who had gathered in had no apparent purpose but to +verify our outlandish presence and to hear my occasional Spanish, which +was worth hearing if for nothing but the effort it cost me. The grocer +accepted with dignity the popularity we had won him, and when at last +our cab arrived from Mount Ararat with the mire of the subsiding Deluge +encrusted upon it he led us out to it through the small boys who swarmed +upon us wherever we stopped or started in Valladolid; and whose bulk was +now much increased by the coming of that very fat woman from within the +grocery. As the morning was bright we proposed having the top opened, +but here still another convention of the place intervened. In Valladolid +it seems that no self-respecting cabman will open the top of his cab +for an hour's drive, and we could not promise to keep ours longer. The +grocer waited the result of our parley, and then he opened our carriage +door and bowed us away. It was charming; if he had a place on Sixth +Avenue I would be his customer as long as I lived in New York; and to +this moment I do not understand why I did not bargain with that blond +boy to come to America with us and be with us always. But there was no +city I visited in Spain where I was not sorry to leave some boy behind +with the immense rabble of boys whom I hoped never to see again. + + + +VI + + +After this passage of real life it was not easy to sink again to the +level of art, but if we must come down it there could have been no +descent less jarring than that which left us in the exquisite _patio_ +of the College of San Gregorio, founded for poor students of theology in +the time of the Catholic Kings. The students who now thronged the place +inside and out looked neither clerical nor poverty-stricken; but I dare +say they were good Christians, and whatever their condition they were +rich in the constant vision of beauty which one sight of seemed to us +more than we merited. Perhaps the facade of the college and that of the +neighboring Church of San Pablo may be elsewhere surpassed in the sort +of sumptuous delicacy of that Gothic which gets its name of plateresque +from the silversmithing spirit of its designs; but I doubt it. The +wonderfulness of it is that it is not mechanical or monotonous like +the stucco fretting of the Moorish decoration which people rave over +in Spain, but has a strength in its refinement which comes from its +expression in the exquisitely carven marble. When this is grayed with +age it is indeed of the effect of old silver work; but the plateresque +in Valladolid does not suggest fragility or triviality; its grace is +perhaps rather feminine than masculine; but at the worst it is only the +ultimation of the decorative genius of the Gothic. It is, at any rate, +the finest surprise which the local architecture has to offer and it +leaves one wishing for more rather than less of it, so that after the +facade of San Gregorio one is glad of it again in the walls of the +_patio,_ whose staircases and galleries, with the painted wooden beams +of their ceilings, scarcely tempt the eye from it. + +We thought the front of San Pablo deserved a second visit, and we were +rewarded by finding it far lovelier than we thought. The church was +open, and when we went in we had the advantage of seeing a large +silver-gilt car moved from the high altar down the nave to a side altar +next the door, probably for use in some public procession. The tongue +of the car was pulled by a man with one leg; a half-grown boy under the +body of it hoisted it on his back and eased it along; and a monk with +his white robe tucked up into his girdle pushed it powerfully from +behind. I did not make out why so strange a team should have been +employed for the work, but the spectacle of that quaint progress was +unique among my experiences at Valladolid and of a value which I wish I +could make the reader feel with me. We ourselves were so interested in +the event that we took part in it so far as to push aside a bench that +blocked the way, and we received a grateful smile from the monk in +reward of our zeal. + +We were in the mood for simple kindness because of our stiff official +reception at the Royal Palace, which we visited in the gratification +of our passion for _patios._ It is now used for provincial or municipal +offices and guarded by sentries who indeed admitted us to the courtyard, +but would not understand our wish (it was not very articulately +expressed) to mount to the cloistered galleries which all the +guide-books united in pronouncing so noble, with their decorative busts +of the Roman Emperors and arms of the Spanish provinces. The sculptures +are by the school of Berruguete, for whom we had formed so strong +a taste at the museum; but our disappointment was not at the moment +further embittered by knowing that Napoleon resided there in 1809. We +made what we could of other _patios_ in the vicinity, especially of one +in the palace across from San Gregorio, to which the liveried porter +welcomed us, though the noble family was in residence, and allowed us to +mount the red-carpeted staircase to a closed portal in consideration of +the peseta which he correctly foresaw. It was not a very characteristic +_patio,_ bare of flower and fountain as it was, and others more fully +appointed did not entirely satisfy us. The fact is the _patio_ is to be +seen best in Andalusia, its home, where every house is built round it, +and in summer cooled and in winter chilled by it. But if we were not +willing to wait for Seville, Valladolid did what it could; and if we saw +no house with quite the _patio_ we expected we did see the house where +Philip II. was born, unless the enterprising boy who led us to it was +mistaken; in that case we were, Ophelia-like, the more deceived. + + + +VII + +[Illustration: 10 CHURCH OF SAN PABLO] + +Such things do not really matter; the guide-book's object of interest is +seldom an object of human interest; you may miss it or ignore it without +real personal loss; but if we had failed of that mystic progress of the +silver car down the nave of San Pablo we should have been really if +not sensibly poorer. So we should if we had failed of the charming +experience which awaited us in our hotel at lunch-time. When we went out +in the morning we saw a table spread the length of the long dining-room, +and now when we returned we found every chair taken. At once we surmised +a wedding breakfast, not more from the gaiety than the gravity of the +guests; and the head waiter confirmed our impression: it was indeed a +_boda._ The party was just breaking up, and as we sat down at our table +the wedding guests rose from theirs. I do not know but in any country +the women on such an occasion would look more adequate to it than the +men; at any rate, there in Spain they looked altogether superior. It +was not only that they were handsomer and better dressed, but that they +expressed finer social and intellectual quality. + +All the faces had the quiet which the Spanish face has in such degree +that the quiet seems national more than personal; but the women's faces +were oval, though rather heavily based, while the men's were squared, +with high cheek-bones, and they seemed more distinctly middle class. Men +and women had equally repose of manner, and when the women came to put +on their headgear near our corner, it was with a surface calm unbroken +by what must have been their inner excitement. They wore hats and +mantillas in about the same proportion; but the bride wore a black +mantilla and a black dress with sprigs of orange blossoms in her hair +and on her breast for the only note of white. Her lovely, gentle face +was white, of course, from the universal powder, and so were the faces +of the others, who talked in low tones around her, with scarcely more +animation than so many masks. The handsomest of them, whom we decided +to be her sister, arranged the bride's mantilla, and was then helped on +with hers by the others, with soft smiles and glances. Two little girls, +imaginably sorry the feast was over, suppressed their regret in the +tutelage of the maiden aunts and grandmothers who put up cakes in +napkins to carry home; and then the party vanished in unbroken decorum. +When they were gone we found that in studying the behavior of the bride +and her friends we had not only failed to identify the bridegroom, but +had altogether forgotten to try. + + + +VIII + + +The terrible Torquemada dwelt for years in Valla-dolid and must there +have excogitated some of the methods of the Holy Office in dealing with +heresy. As I have noted, Ferdinand and Isabella were married there and +Philip II. was born there; but I think the reader will agree with me +that the highest honor of the city is that it was long the home of the +gallant gentleman who after five years of captivity in Algiers and the +loss of his hand in the Battle of Lepanto, wrote there, in his poverty +and neglect, the first part of a romance which remains and must always +remain one of the first if not the very first of the fictions of the +world. I mean that + + Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, + +Michael Cervantes; and I wish I could pay here that devoir to his memory +and fame which squalid circumstance forbade me to render under the roof +that once sheltered him. One can never say enough in his praise, and +even Valladolid seems to have thought so, for the city has put up a +tablet to him with his bust above it in the front of his incredible +house and done him the homage of a reverent inscription. It is a very +little house, as small as Ariosto's in Ferrara, which he said was so apt +for him, but it is not in a long, clean street like that; it is in a bad +neighborhood which has not yet outlived the evil repute it bore in the +days of Cervantes. It was then the scene of nightly brawls and in one of +these a gentleman was stabbed near the author's house. The alarm brought +Cervantes to the door and being the first to reach the dying man he +was promptly arrested, together with his wife, his two sisters, and his +niece, who were living with him and who were taken up as accessories +before the fact. The whole abomination is matter of judicial record, +and it appears from this that suspicion fell upon the gentle family (one +sister was a nun) because they were living in that infamous place. The +man whose renown has since filled the civilized world fuller even than +the name of his contemporary, Shakespeare (they died on the same day), +was then so unknown to the authorities of Valladolid that he had great +ado to establish the innocence of himself and his household. To be +sure, his _Don Quixote_ had not yet appeared, though he is said to have +finished the first part in that miserable abode in that vile region; +but he had written poems and plays, especially his most noble tragedy +of "Numancia," and he had held public employs and lived near enough to +courts to be at least in their cold shade. It is all very Spanish +and very strange, and perhaps the wonder should be that in this most +provincial of royal capitals, in a time devoted to the extirpation of +ideas, the fact that he was a poet and a scholar did not tell fatally +against him. In his declaration before the magistrates he says that +his literary reputation procured him the acquaintance of courtiers and +scholars, who visited him in that pitiable abode where the ladies of his +family cared for themselves and him with the help of one servant maid. + +They had an upper floor of the house, which stands at the base of a +stone terrace dropping from the wide, dusty, fly-blown street, where I +stayed long enough to buy a melon (I was always buying a melon in Spain) +and put it into my cab before I descended the terrace to revere the +house of Cervantes on its own level. There was no mistaking it; there +was the bust and the inscription; but it was well I bought my melon +before I ventured upon this act of piety; I should not have had the +stomach for it afterward. I was not satisfied with the outside of the +house, but when I entered the open doorway, meaning to mount to the +upper floor, it was as if I were immediately blown into the street +again by the thick and noisome stench which filled the place from some +unmentionable if not unimaginable source. + +It was like a filthy insult to the great presence whose sacred shrine +the house should have been religiously kept. But Cervantes dead was as +forgotten in Valladolid as Cervantes living had been. In some paroxysm +of civic pride the tablet had been set in the wall and then the house +abandoned to whatever might happen. I thought foul shame of Valladolid +for her neglect, and though she might have answered that her burden of +memories was more than she could bear, that she could not be forever +keeping her celebrity sweet, still I could have retorted, But Cervantes, +but Cervantes! There was only one Cervantes in the world and there never +would be another, and could not she watch over this poor once home of +his for his matchless sake? Then if Valladolid had come back at me with +the fact that Cervantes had lived pretty well all over Spain, and what +had Seville done, Cordova done, Toledo done, Madrid done, for the upkeep +of his divers sojourns more than she had done, after placing a tablet +in his house wall?--certainly I could have said that this did not excuse +her, but I must have owned that she was not alone, though she seemed +most to blame. + + + +IX + +[Illustration: 11 THE HOUSE IN WHICH PHILIP II. WAS BORN] + +Now I look back and am glad I had not consciously with me, as we drove +away, the boy who once meant to write the life of Cervantes, and who +I knew from my recollection of his idolatry of that chief of Spaniards +would not have listened to the excuses of Valladolid for a moment. +All appeared fair and noble in that Spain of his which shone with such +allure far across the snows through which he trudged morning and evening +with his father to and from the printing-office, and made his dream +of that great work the common theme of their talk. Now the boy is as +utterly gone as the father, who was a boy too at heart, but who died a +very old man many years ago; and in the place of both is another old man +trammeled in his tangled memories of Spain visited and unvisited. + +It would be a poor sort of make-believe if this survivor pretended any +lasting indignation with Valladolid because of the stench of Cervantes's +house. There are a great many very bad smells in Spain everywhere, and +it is only fair to own that a psychological change toward Valladolid had +been operating itself in me since luncheon which Valladolid was not very +specifically to blame for. Up to the time the wedding guests left us we +had said Valladolid was the most interesting city we had ever seen, and +we would like to stay there a week; then, suddenly, we began to turn +against it. One thing: the weather had clouded, and it was colder. But +we determined to be just, and after we left the house of Cervantes we +drove out to the promenades along the banks of the Pisuerga, in hopes of +a better mind, for we had read that they were the favorite resort of the +citizens in summer, and we did not know but even in autumn we might +have some glimpses of their recreation. Our way took us sorrowfully +past hospitals and prisons and barracks; and when we came out on the +promenade we found ourselves in the gloom of close set mulberry trees, +with the dust thick on the paths under them. The leaves hung leaden gray +on the boughs and there could never have been a spear of grass along +those disconsolate ways. The river was shrunken in its bed, and where +its current crept from pool to pool, women were washing some of the rags +which already hung so thick on the bushes that it was wonderful there +should be any left to wash. Squalid children abounded, and at one +point a crowd of people had gathered and stood looking silently and +motionlessly over the bank. We looked too and on a sand-bar near the +shore we saw three gendarmes standing with a group of civilians. Between +their fixed and absolutely motionless figures lay the body of a drowned +man on the sand, poorly clothed in a workman's dress, and with his poor, +dead clay-white hands stretched out from him on the sand, and his gray +face showing to the sky. Everywhere people were stopping and staring; +from one of the crowded windows of the nearest house a woman hung with +a rope of her long hair in one hand, and in the other the brush she was +passing over it. On the bridge the man who had found the body made a +merit of his discovery which he dramatized to a group of spectators +without rousing them to a murmur or stirring them from their statuesque +fixity. His own excitement in comparison seemed indecent. + + + +X + + +It was now three o'clock and I thought I might be in time to draw some +money on my letter of credit, at the bank which we had found standing in +a pleasant garden in the course of our stroll through the town the night +before. We had said, How charming it would be to draw money in such an +environment; and full of the romantic expectation, I offered my letter +at the window, where after a discreet interval I managed to call from +their preoccupation some unoccupied persons within. They had not a very +financial air, and I thought them the porters they really were, with +some fear that I had come after banking-hours. But they joined in +reassuring me, and told me that if I would return after five o'clock the +proper authorities would be there. + +I did not know then what late hours Spain kept in every way; but I +concealed my surprise; and I came back at the time suggested, and +offered my letter at the window with a request for ten pounds, which I +fancied I might need. A clerk took the letter and scrutinized it with +a deliberation which I thought it scarcely merited. His self-respect +doubtless would not suffer him to betray that he could not read the +English of it; and with an air of wishing to consult higher authority he +carried it to another clerk at a desk across the room. To this official +it seemed to come as something of a blow. Tie made a show of reading it +several times over, inside and out, and then from the pigeonhole of his +desk he began to accumulate what I supposed corroborative documents, +or _pieces justificatives._ When lie had amassed a heap several inches +thick, he rose and hurried out through the gate, across the hall where +I sat, into a room beyond. He returned without in any wise referring +himself to me and sat down at his desk again. The first clerk explained +to the anxious face with which I now approached him that the second +clerk had taken my letter to the director. I went back to my seat and +waited fifteen minutes longer, fifteen having passed already; then I +presented my anxious face, now somewhat indignant, to the first clerk +again. "What is the director doing with my letter?" The first clerk +referred my question to the second clerk, who answered from his place, +"He is verifying the signature." "But what signature?" I wondered to +myself, reflecting that he had as yet had none of mine. Could it be the +signature of my New York banker or my London one? I repaired once +more to the window, after another wait, and said in polite but firm +Castilian, "Do me the favor to return me my letter." A commotion +of protest took place within the barrier, followed by the repeated +explanation that the director was verifying the signature. I returned +to toy place and considered that the suspicious document which I had +presented bore record of moneys drawn in London, in Paris, in Tours, in +San Sebastian, which ought to have allayed all suspicion; then for the +last time I repaired to the window; more in anger now than in sorrow, +and gathered nay severest Spanish together for a final demand: "Do me +the favor to give me back my letter _without the pounds sterling."_ The +clerks consulted together; one of them decided to go to the director's +room, and after a dignified delay he came back with my letter, and +dashed it down before me with the only rudeness I experienced in Spain. + +I was glad to get it on any terms; it was only too probable that it +would have been returned without the money if I had not demanded it; +and I did what I could with the fact that this amusing financial +transaction, involving a total of fifty dollars, had taken place in the +chief banking-house of one of the commercial and industrial centers of +the country. Valladolid is among other works the seat of the locomotive +works of the northern railway lines, and as these machines average +a speed of twenty-five miles an hour with express trains, it seemed +strange to me that something like their rapidity should not have +governed the action of that bank director in forcing me to ask back my +discredited letter of credit. + + + +XI + + +That evening the young voices and the young feet began to chirp again +under our sun balcony. But there had been no sun in it since noon and +presently a cold thin rain was falling and driving the promenaders under +the arcades, where they were perhaps not unhappier for being closely +massed. We missed the prettiness of the spectacle, though as yet we did +not know that it was the only one of the sort we might hope to see in +Spain, where women walk little indoors, and when they go out, drive and +increase in the sort of loveliness which may be weighed and measured. +Even under the arcades the promenade ceased early and in the adjoining +Plaza Mayor, where the _autos da fe_ once took place, the rain still +earlier made an end of the municipal music, and the dancing of the +lower ranks of the people. But we were fortunate in our Chilian friend's +representation of the dancing; he came to our table at dinner, and did +with charming sympathy a mother waltzing with her babe in arms for a +partner. + +He came to the omnibus at the end of the promenade, when we were +starting for the station next morning, not yet shaven, in his friendly +zeal to make sure of seeing us off, and we parted with confident +prophecies of meeting each other again in Madrid. We had already bidden +adieu with effusion to our landlady-sisters-and-mother, and had wished +to keep forever our own the adorable _chico_ who, when cautioned against +trying to carry a very heavy bag, valiantly jerked it to his shoulder +and made off with it to the omnibus, as if it were nothing. I do not +believe such a boy breathes out of Spain, where I hope he will grow up +to the Oriental calm of so many of his countrymen, and rest from the +toils of his nonage. At the last moment after the Chilian had left us, +we perceived that one of our trunks had been forgotten, and the _chico_ +coursed back to the hotel for it and returned with the delinquent porter +bearing it, as if to make sure of his bringing it. + +When it was put on top of the omnibus, and we were in probably +unparalleled readiness for starting to the station, at an hour when +scarcely anybody else in Valladolid was up, a mule composing a portion +of our team immediately fell down, as if startled too abruptly from a +somnambulic dream. I really do not remember how it was got to its feet +again; but I remember the anguish of the delay and the fear that we +might not be able to escape from Valladolid after all our pains in +trying for the Sud-Express at that hour; and I remember that when we +reached the station we found that the Sud-Express was forty minutes +behind time and that we were a full hour after that before starting for +Madrid. + + + + +V. PHASES OF MADRID + + +I fancied that a kind of Gothic gloom was expressed in the black +wine-skins of Old Castile, as contrasted with the fairer color of those +which began to prevail even so little south of Burgos as Valladolid. I +am not sure that the Old Castilian wine-skins derived their blackness +from the complexion of the pigs, or that there are more pale pigs in the +south than in the north of Spain; I am sure only of a difference in +the color of the skins, which may have come from a difference in the +treatment of them. At a venture I should not say that there were more +black pigs in Old Castile than in Andalusia, as we observed them from +the train, rooting among the unpromising stubble of the wheat-lands. +Rather I should say that the prevailing pig of all the Spains was brown, +corresponding to the reddish blondness frequent among both the Visigoths +and the Moors. The black pig was probably the original, prehistoric +Iberian pig, or of an Italian strain imported by the Romans; but I do +not offer this as more than a guess. The Visigothic or Arabic pig showed +himself an animal of great energy and alertness wherever we saw him, +and able to live upon the lean of the land where it was leanest. At his +youngest he abounded in the furrows and hollows, matching his russet +with the russet of the soil and darting to and fro with the quickness +of a hare. He was always of an ingratiating humorousness and endeared +himself by an apparent readiness to enter into any joke that was going, +especially that of startling the pedestrian by his own sudden apparition +from behind a tuft of grass or withered stalk. I will not be sure, but I +think we began to see his kind as soon as we got out of Yalladolid, when +we began running through a country wooded with heavy, low-crowned pines +that looked like the stone-pines of Italy, but were probably not the +same. After twenty miles of this landscape the brown pig with pigs of +other complexions, as much guarded as possible, multiplied among the +patches of vineyard. He had there the company of tall black goats and +rather unhappy-looking black sheep, all of whom he excelled in the +art of foraging among the vines and the stubble of the surrounding +wheat-lands. After the vineyards these opened and stretched themselves +wearily, from low dull sky to low dull sky, nowise cheered in aspect by +the squalid peasants, scratching their tawny expanses with those crooked +prehistoric sticks which they use for plows in Spain. It was a dreary +landscape, but it was good to be out of Valladolid on any terms, and +especially good to be away from the station which we had left emulating +the odors of the house of Cervantes. + + + +I + + +There had been the usual alarm about the lack of places in the +Sud-Express which we were to take at Valladolid, but we chanced getting +them, and our boldness was rewarded by getting a whole compartment to +ourselves, and a large, fat friendly conductor with an eye out for tips +in every direction. The lunch in our dining-car was for the first time +in Spain not worth the American price asked for it; everywhere else +on the Spanish trains I must testify that the meals were excellent and +abundant; and the refection may now have felt in some obscure sort the +horror of the world in which the Sud-Express seemed to have lost itself. +The scene was as alien to any other known aspect of our comfortable +planet as if it were the landscape of some star condemned for the +sins of its extinct children to wander through space in unimaginable +desolation. It seldom happens in Spain that the scenery is the same on +both sides of the railroad track, but here it was malignly alike on one +hand and on the other, though we seemed to be running along the slope of +an upland, so that the left hand was higher and the right lower. It was +more as if we were crossing the face of some prodigious rapid, whose +surges were the measureless granite boulders tossing everywhere in +masses from the size of a man's fist to the size of a house. In a wild +chaos they wallowed against one another, the greater bearing on their +tops or between them on their shoulders smaller regular or irregular +masses of the same gray stone. Everywhere among their awful shallows +grew gray live-oaks, and in among the rocks and trees spread tufts of +gray shrub. Suddenly, over the frenzy of this mad world, a storm of cold +rain broke whirling, and cold gray mists drove, blinding the windows and +chilling us where we sat within. From time to time the storm lifted and +showed again this vision of nature hoary as if with immemorial eld; if +at times we seemed to have run away from it again it closed in upon us +and held us captive in its desolation. + +With longer and longer intervals of relief it closed upon us for the +last time in the neighborhood of the gloomiest pile that ever a man +built for his life, his death and his prayer between; but before we came +to the palace-tomb of the Escorial, we had clear in the distance the +vision of the walls and roofs and towers of the medieval city of Avila. +It is said to be the perfectest relic of the Middle Ages after or before +Rothenburg, and we who had seen Rothenburg solemnly promised ourselves +to come back some day from Madrid and spend it in Avila. But we never +came, and Avila remains a vision of walls and roofs and towers tawny +gray glimpsed in a rift of the storm that again swept toward the Spanish +capital. + + + +II + + +We were very glad indeed to get to Madrid, though dismayed by +apprehensions of the _octroi_ which we felt sure awaited us. We recalled +the behavior of the amiable officer of Valladolid who bumped our baggage +about on the roof of our omnibus, and we thought that in Madrid such +an officer could not do less than shatter our boxes and scatter their +contents in the streaming street. What was then our surprise, our +joy, to find that in Madrid there was no _octroi_ at all, and that the +amiable _mozos_ who took our things hardly knew what we meant when we +asked for it. At Madrid they scarcely wanted our tickets at the gate of +the station, and we found ourselves in the soft embrace of modernity, +so dear after the feudal rigors of Old Castile, when we mounted into a +motor-bus and sped away through the spectacular town, so like Paris, +so like Rome as to have no personality of its own except in this +similarity, and never stopped till the liveried service swarmed upon us +at the door of the Hotel Ritz. + +Here the modernity which had so winningly greeted us at the station +welcomed us more and consolingly. There was not only steam-heating, but +the steam was on! It wanted but a turn of the hand at the radiators, and +the rooms were warm. The rooms themselves responded to our appeal +and looked down into a silent inner court, deaf to the clatter of the +streets, and sleep haunted the very air, distracted, if at all, by the +instant facility and luxury of the appliances. Was it really in Spain +that a metallic tablet at the bed-head invited the wanderer to call with +one button for the _camerero,_ another for the _camerera,_ and another +for the _mozo,_ who would all instantly come speaking English like so +many angels? Were we to have these beautiful chambers for a humble two +dollars and forty cents a day; and if it was true, why did we ever +leave them and try for something ever so much worse and so very little +cheaper? Let me be frank with the reader whom I desire for my friend, +and own that we were frightened from the Eitz Hotel by the rumor of +Eitz prices. I paid my bill there, which was imagined with scrupulous +fullness to the last possible _centimo,_ and so I may disinterestedly +declare that the Eitz is the only hotel in Madrid where you get the +worth of your money, even when the money seems more but scarcely is so. +In all Spain I know of only two other hotels which may compare with it, +and these are the English hotels, one at Ronda and one at Algeciras. If +I add falteringly the hotel where we stayed a night in Toledo and the +hotel where we abode a fortnight in Seville, I heap the measure of merit +and press it down. + +We did not begin at once our insensate search for another hotel in +Madrid: but the sky had cleared and we went out into the strange capital +so uncharacteristically characteristic, to find tea at a certain cafe +we had heard of. It was in the Calle de Alcala (a name which so richly +stimulates the imagination), and it looked out across this handsome +street, to a club that I never knew the name of, where at a series of +open windows was a flare of young men in silk hats leaning out on their +elbows and letting no passing fact of the avenue escape them. It was +worth their study, and if I had been an idle young Spaniard, or an +idle old one, I would have asked nothing better than to spend my Sunday +afternoon poring from one of those windows on my well-known world of +Madrid as it babbled by. Even in my quality of alien, newly arrived and +ignorant of that world, I already felt its fascination. + +Sunday in Spain is perhaps different from other days of the week to +the Spanish sense, but to the traveler it is too like them to be +distinguishable except in that guilty Sabbath consciousness which is +probably an effect from original sin in every Protestant soul. The +casual eye could not see but that in Madrid every one seemed as much or +as little at work as on any other day. My own casual eye noted that the +most picturesquely evident thing in the city was the country life which +seemed so to pervade it. In the Calle de Alcala, flowing to the Prado +out of the Puerta del Sol, there passed a current of farm-carts and +farm-wagons more conspicuous than any urban vehicles, as they jingled +by, with men and women on their sleigh-belled donkeys, astride or atop +the heavily laden panniers. The donkeys bore a part literally leading in +all the rustic equipages, and with their superior intellect found a way +through the crowds for the string-teams of the three or four large mules +that followed them in harness. Whenever we saw a team of mules without +this sage guidance we trembled for their safety; as for horses, no team +of them attempted the difficult passage, though ox-trains seemed able to +dispense with the path-finding donkeys. + +To be sure, the horses abounded in the cabs, which were mostly bad, more +or less. It is an idiosyncrasy of the cabs in Madrid that only the open +victorias have rubber tires; if you go in a coupe you must consent to +be ruthlessly bounced over the rough pavements on wheels unsoftened. It +"follows as the night the day" that the coupe is not in favor, and that +in its conservative disuse it accumulates a smell not to be acquired out +of Spain. One such vehicle I had which I thought must have been stabled +in the house of Cervantes at Valladolid, and rushed on the Sud-Express +for my service at Madrid; the stench in it was such that after a short +drive to the house of a friend I was fain to dismiss it at a serious +loss in pesetas and take the risk of another which might have been as +bad. Fortunately a kind lady intervened with a private carriage and a +coachman shaved that very day, whereas my poor old cabman, who was of +one and the same smell as his cab, had not been shaved for three days. + + + +III + + +This seems the place to note the fact that no Spaniard in humble life +shaves oftener than once in three days, and that you always see him on +the third day just before he has shaved. But all this time I have left +myself sitting in the cafe looking out on the club that looks out on the +Calle de Aleala, and keeping the waiter waiting with a jug of hot milk +in his hand while I convince him (such a friendly, smiling man he is, +and glad of my instruction!) that in tea one always wants the milk cold. +To him that does not seem reasonable, since one wants it hot in coffee +and chocolate; but he yields to my prejudice, and after that he always +says, _"Ah, leche fria!"_ and we smile radiantly together in the bond of +comradery which cold milk establishes between man and man in Spain. As +yet tea is a novelty in that country, though the young English queen, +universally loved and honored, has made it the fashion in high life. +Still it is hard to overcome such a prepossession as that of hot milk in +tea, and in some places you cannot get it cold for love or money. + +But again I leave myself waiting in that cafe, where slowly, and at last +not very overwhelmingly in number, the beautiful plaster-pale Spanish +ladies gather with their husbands and have chocolate. It is a riotous +dissipation for them, though it does not sound so; the home is the +Spanish ideal of the woman's place, as it is of our anti-suffragists, +though there is nothing corresponding to our fireside in it; and the +cafe is her husband's place without her. When she walks in the street, +where mostly she drives, she walks with her eyes straight before her; to +look either to the right or left, especially if a man is on either hand, +is a superfluity of naughtiness. The habit of looking straight ahead is +formed in youth, and it continues through life; so at least it is said, +and if I cannot affirm it I will not deny it. The beautiful black eyes +so discreetly directed looked as often from mantillas as hats, even in +Madrid, which is the capital, and much infested by French fashions. You +must not believe it when any one tells you that the mantilla is going +out; it prevails everywhere, and it increases from north to south, and +in Seville it is almost universal. Hats are worn there only in driving, +but at Madrid there were many hats worn in walking, though whether +by Spanish women or by foreigners, of course one could not, though a +wayfaring man and an American, stop them to ask. + +There are more women in the street at Madrid than in the provincial +cities, perhaps because it is the capital and cosmopolitan, and perhaps +because the streets are many of them open and pleasant, though there arc +enough of them dark and narrow, too. I do not know just why the Puerta +del Sol seems so much ampler and gayer than the Calle de Alcala; it is +not really wider, but it seems more to concentrate the coming and +going, and with its high-hoteled opposition of corners is of a supreme +spectacularity. Besides, the name is so fine: what better could any city +place ask than to be called Gate of the Sun? Perpetual trams wheeze and +whistle through it; large shops face upon it; the sidewalks are thronged +with passers, and the many little streets debouching on it pour their +streams of traffic and travel into it on the right and left. It is +mainly fed by the avenues leaving the royal palace on the west, and its +eddying tide empties through the Calle de Alcala into the groves and +gardens of the Prado whence it spreads over all the drives and parks +east and north and south. + +For a capital purposed and planned Madrid is very well indeed. It has +not the symmetry which forethought gave the topography of Washington, or +the beauty which afterthought has given Paris. But it makes you think +a little of Washington, and a great deal of Paris, though a great deal +more yet of Rome. It is Renaissance so far as architecture goes, and it +is very modern Latin; so that it is of the older and the newer Rome that +it makes you think. From, time to time it seemed to me I must be in. +Rome, and I recovered myself with a pang to find I was not. Yet, as I +say, Madrid was very well indeed, and when I reflected I had to own that +I had come there on purpose to be there, and not to be in Rome, where +also I should have been so satisfied to be. + + + +IV + + +I do not know but we chose our hotel when we left the Ritz because it +was so Italian, so Roman. It had a wide grape arbor before it, with +a generous spread of trellised roof through which dangled the grape +bunches among the leaves of the vine. Around this arbor at top went a +balustrade of marble, with fat _putti,_ or marble boys, on the corners, +who would have watched over the fruit if they had not been preoccupied +with looking like so many thousands of _putti_ in Italy. They looked +like Italian _putti_ with a difference, the difference that passes +between all the Spanish things and the Italian things they resemble. +They were coarser and grosser in figure, and though amiable enough +in aspect, they lacked the refinement, the air of pretty appeal which +Italian art learns from nature to give the faces of _putti._ Yet they +were charming, and it was always a pleasure to look at them posing in +pairs at the corners of the balustrade, and I do not know but dozing in +the hours of _siesta._ If they had been in wood Spanish art would have +known how to make them better, but in stone they had been gathering +an acceptable weather stain during the human generations they had been +there, and their plump stomachs were weather-beaten white. + +I do not know if they had been there long enough to have witnessed +the murder of Cromwell's ambassador done in our street by two Jacobite +gentlemen who could not abide his coming to honor in the land where +they were in exile from England. That must have been sometime about the +middle of the century after Philip II., bigot as he was, could not bear +the more masterful bigotry of the archbishop of Toledo, and brought his +court from that ancient capital, and declared Madrid henceforward the +capital forever; which did not prevent Philip III. from taking his court +to Valladolid and making that the capital _en titre_ when he liked. +However, some other Philip or Charles, or whoever, returned with his +court to Madrid and it has ever since remained the capital, and has +come, with many natural disadvantages, to look its supremacy. For my +pleasure I would rather live in Seville, but that would be a luxurious +indulgence of the love of beauty, and like a preference of Venice in +Italy when there was Rome to live in. Madrid is not Rome, but it makes +you think of Rome as I have said, and if it had a better climate it +would make you think of Rome still more. Notoriously, however, it has +not a good climate and we had not come at the right season to get the +best of the bad. The bad season itself was perverse, for the rains do +not usually begin in their bitterness at Madrid before November, and now +they began early in October. The day would open fair, with only a few +little white clouds in the large blue, and if we could trust other's +experience we knew it would rain before the day closed; only a morning +absolutely clear could warrant the hope of a day fair till sunset. +Shortly after noon the little white clouds would drift together and be +joined by others till they hid the large blue, and then the drops would +begin to fall. By that time the air would have turned raw and chill, and +the rain would be of a cold which it kept through the night. + +This habit of raining every afternoon was what kept us from seeing rank, +riches, and beauty in the Paseo de la Castellana, where they drive only +on fine afternoons; they now remained at home even more persistently +than we did, for with that love of the fashionable world for which I am +always blaming myself I sometimes took a cab and fared desperately forth +in pursuit of them. Only once did I seem to catch a glimpse of them, and +that once I saw a closed carriage weltering along the drive between the +trees and the trams that border it, with the coachman and footman snugly +sheltered under umbrellas on the box. This was something, though not a +great deal; I could not make out the people inside the carriage; yet it +helped to certify to me the fact that the great world does drive in the +Paseo de la Castellana and does not drive in the Paseo del Prado; that +is quite abandoned, even on the wettest days, to the very poor and +perhaps unfashionable people. + + + +V + +[Illustration: 12 THE BULL-RING, MADRID] + +It may have been our comparative defeat with fashion in its most +distinctive moments of pleasuring (for one thing I wished to see how the +dreariness of Madrid gaiety in the Paseo de la Castellana would compare +with that of Roman gaiety on the Pincian) which made us the more +determined to see a bull-fight in the Spanish capital. We had vowed +ourselves in coming to Spain to set the Spaniards an example of +civilization by inflexibly refusing to see a bull-fight under any +circumstances or for any consideration; but it seemed to us that it was +a sort of public duty to go and see the crowd, what it was like, in the +time and place where the Spanish crowd is most like itself. We would go +and remain in our places till everybody else was placed, and then, +when the picadors and banderilleros and matadors were all ranged in the +arena, and the gate was lifted, and the bull came rushing madly in, we +would rise before he had time to gore anybody, and go inexorably away. +This union of self-indulgence and self-denial seemed almost an act of +piety when we learned that the bull-fight was to be on Sunday, and we +prepared ourselves with tickets quite early in the week. On Saturday +afternoon it rained, of course, but the worst was that it rained on +Sunday morning, and the clouds did not lift till noon. Then the glowing +concierge of our hotel, a man so gaily hopeful, so expansively promising +that I could hardly believe he was not an Italian, said that there could +not possibly be a bull-fight that day; the rain would have made the +arena so slippery that man, horse, and bull would all fall down together +in a common ruin, with no hope whatever of hurting one another. + +We gave up this bull-fight at once, but we were the more resolved to see +a bull-fight because we still owed it to the Spanish people to come away +before we had time to look at it, and we said we would certainly go at +Cordova where we should spend the next Sabbath. At Cordova we learned +that it was the closed season for bull-fighting, but vague hopes of +usefulness to the Spanish public were held out to us at Seville, the +very metropolis of bull-fighting, where the bulls came bellowing up +from their native fields athirst for the blood of the profession and +the _aficionados,_ who outnumber there the amateurs of the whole rest +of Spain. But at Seville we were told that there would be no more +bull-feasts, as the Spaniards much more preferably call the bullfights, +till April, and now we were only in October. We said, Never mind; we +would go to a bull-feast in Granada; but at Granada the season was even +more hopelessly closed. In Ronda itself, which is the heart, as Seville +is the home of the bull-feast, we could only see the inside of the empty +arena; and at Algeciras the outside alone offered itself to our vision. +By this time the sense of duty was so strong upon us that if there had +been a bull-feast we would have shared in it and stayed through till the +last _espada_ dropped dead, gored through, at the knees of the last +bull transfixed by his unerring sword; and the other _toreros,_ +the _banderilleros_ with their darts and the picadors with their +disemboweled horses, lay scattered over the blood-stained arena. Such +is the force of a high resolve in strangers bent upon a lesson of +civilization to a barbarous people when disappointed of their purpose. +But we learned too late that only in Madrid is there any bull-feasting +in the winter. In the provincial cities the bulls are dispirited by the +cold; but in the capital, for the honor of the nation, they somehow pull +themselves together and do their poor best to kill and be killed. Yet +in the capital where the zeal of the bulls, and I suppose, of the +bull-fighters, is such, it is said that there is a subtle decay in the +fashionable, if not popular, esteem of the only sport which remembers +in the modern world the gladiatorial shows of imperial Rome. It is said, +but I do not know whether it is true, that the young English queen who +has gladly renounced her nation and religion for the people who seem so +to love her, cannot endure the bloody sights of the bull-feast; and when +it comes to the horses dragging their entrails across the ring, or the +_espada_ despatching the bull, or the bull tossing a _landerillero_ +in the air she puts up her fan. It is said also that the young Spanish +king, who has shown himself such a merciful-minded youth, and seems +so eager to make the best of the bad business of being a king at all, +sympathizes with her, and shows an obviously abated interest at these +supreme moments. + +I do not know whether or not it was because we had failed with the +bull-feast that we failed to go to any sort of public entertainment in +Madrid. It certainly was in my book to go to the theater, and see some +of those modern plays which I had read so many of, and which I had +translated one of for Lawrence Barrett in the far-off days before the +flood of native American dramas now deluging our theater. That play was +"Un Drama Nueva," by Estebanez, which between us we called "Yorick's +Love" and which my very knightly tragedian made his battle-horse during +the latter years of his life. In another version Barrett had seen it +fail in New York, but its failure left him with the lasting desire to do +it himself. A Spanish friend, now dead but then the gifted and eccentric +Consul General at Quebec, got me a copy of the play from Madrid, and I +thought there was great reason in a suggestion from another friend that +it had failed because it put Shakespeare on the stage as one of its +characters; but it seemed to me that the trouble could be got over by +making the poet Heywood represent the Shakespearian epoch. I did this +and the sole obstacle to its success seemed removed. It went, as the +enthusiastic Barrett used to say, "with a shout," though to please him I +had hurt it all I could by some additions and adaptations; and though it +was a most ridiculously romantic story of the tragical loves of Yorick +(whom the Latins like to go on imagining out of Hamlet a much more +interesting and important character than Shakespeare ever meant him to +be fancied), and ought to have remained the fiasco it began, still it +gained Barrett much money and me some little. + +I was always proud of this success, and I boasted of it to the +bookseller in Madrid, whom I interested in finding me some still +moderner plays after quite failing to interest another bookseller. Your +Spanish merchant seems seldom concerned in a mercantile transaction; +but perhaps it was not so strange in the case of this Spanish bookseller +because he was a German and spoke a surprising English in response to my +demand whether he spoke any. He was the frowsiest bookseller I ever saw, +and he was in the third day of his unshavenness with a shirt-front +and coat-collar plentifully bedandruffed from his shaggy hair; but he +entered into the spirit of my affair and said if that Spanish play had +succeeded so wonderfully, then I ought to pay fifty per cent, more than +the current price for the other Spanish plays which I wanted him to get +me. I laughed with him at the joke which I found simple earnest when our +glowing concierge gave me the books next day, and I perceived that +the proposed supplement had really been paid for them on my account. +I should not now be grieving for this incident if the plays had proved +better reading than they did on experiment. Some of them were from the +Catalan, and all of them dealt with the simpler actual life of Spain; +but they did not deal impressively with it, though they seemed to me +more hopeful in conception than certain psychological plays of ten or +fifteen years ago, which the Spanish authors had too clearly studied +from Ibsen. + +They might have had their effect in the theater, but the rainy weather +had not only spoiled my sole chance of the bull-feast; the effect of it +in a stubborn cold forbade me the night air and kept me from testing +any of the new dramas on the stage, which is always giving new dramas in +Madrid. The stage, or rather the theater, is said to be truly a passion +with the Madrilenos, who go every night to see the whole or the part of +a play and do not mind seeing the same play constantly, as if it were +opera. They may not care to see the play so much as to be seen at it; +that happens in every country; but no doubt the plays have a charm which +did not impart itself from the printed page. The companies are reported +very good: but the reader must take this from me at second hand, as he +must take the general society fact. I only know that people ask you to +dinner at nine, and if they go to the theater afterward they cannot +well come away till toward one o'clock. It is after this hour that the +_tertulia,_ that peculiarly Spanish function, begins, but how long it +lasts or just what it is I do not know. I am able to report confidently, +however, that it is a species of _salon_ and that it is said to be +called a _tertulia_ because of the former habit in the guests, and no +doubt the hostess, of quoting the poet Tertullian. It is of various +constituents, according as it is a fashionable, a literary, or an +artistic _tertulia,_ or all three with an infusion of science. Oftenest, +I believe, it is a domestic affair and all degrees of cousinship resort +to it with brothers and sisters and uncles, who meet with the pleasant +Latin liking of frequent meetings among kindred. In some cases no doubt +it is a brilliant reunion where lively things are said; in others it +may be dull; in far the most cases it seems to be held late at night or +early in the morning. + + + +VI + + +It was hard, after being shut up several days, that one must not go out +after nightfall, and if one went out by day, one must go with closed +lips and avoid all talking in the street under penalty of incurring +the dreaded pneumonia of Madrid. Except for that dreaded pneumonia, +I believe the air of Madrid is not so pestilential as it has been +reported. Public opinion is beginning to veer in favor of it, just as +the criticism which has pronounced Madrid commonplace and unpicturesque +because it is not obviously old, is now finding a charm in it peculiar +to the place. Its very modernity embodies and imparts the charm, which +will grow as the city grows in wideness and straightness. It is in the +newer quarter that it recalls Rome or the newer quarters of Rome; but +there is an old part of it that recalls the older part of Naples, though +the streets are not quite so narrow nor the houses so high. There +is like bargaining at the open stands with the buyers and sellers +chaffering over them; there is a likeness in the people's looks, too, +but when it comes to the most characteristic thing of Naples, Madrid is +not in it for a moment. I mean the bursts of song which all day long and +all night long you hear in Naples; and this seems as good a place as any +to say that to my experience Spain is a songless land. We had read much +of the song and dance there, but though the dance might be hired the +song was never offered for love or money. To be sure, in Toledo, once, +a woman came to her door across the way under otir hotel window and sang +over the slops she emptied into the street, but then she shut the door +and we heard her no more. In Cordova there was as brief a peal of music +from a house which we passed, and in Algeciras we heard one short sweet +strain from a girl whom we could not see behind her lattice. Besides +these chance notes we heard no other by any chance. But this is by no +means saying that there is not abundant song in Spain, only it was kept +quiet; I suppose that if we had been there in the spring instead of the +fall we should at least have heard the birds singing. In Madrid there +were not even many street cries; a few in the Puerta del Sol, yes; but +the peasants who drove their mule-teams through the streets scarcely +lifted their voices in reproach or invitation; they could trust the wise +donkeys that led them to get them safely through the difficult places. +There was no audible quarreling among the cabmen, and when you called a +cab it was useless to cry "Heigh!" or shake your umbrella; you made +play with your thumb and finger in the air and sibilantly whispered; +otherwise the cabman ignored you and went on reading his newspaper. The +cabmen of Madrid are great readers, much greater, I am sorry to say, +than I was, for whenever I bought a Spanish paper I found it extremely +well written. Now and then I expressed my political preferences in +buying _El Liberal_ which I thought very able; even _El Imparcial_ I +thought able, though it is less radical than _El Liberal,_ a paper which +is published simultaneously in Madrid, with local editions in several +provincial cities. + +For all the street silence there seemed to be a great deal of noise, +which I suppose came from the click of boots on the sidewalks and of +hoofs in roadways and the grind and squeal of the trams, with the harsh +smiting of the unrubbered tires of the closed cabs on the rough granite +blocks of the streets. But there are asphalted streets in Madrid where +the sound of the hoofs and wheels is subdued, and the streets rough and +smooth are kept of a cleanliness which would put the streets of New York +to shame if anything could. Ordinarily you could get cabs anywhere, but +if you wanted one very badly, when remote from a stand, there was more +than one chance that a cab marked _Libre_ would pass you with lordly +indifference. As for motor taxi-cabs there are none in the city, and +at Cook's they would not take the responsibility of recommending any +automobiles for country excursions. + + + +VII + + +I linger over these sordid details because I must needs shrink before +the mention of that incomparable gallery, the Museo del Prado. I am +careful not to call it the greatest gallery in the world, for I think of +what the Louvre, the Pitti, and the National Gallery are, and what +our own Metropolitan is going to be; but surely the Museo del Prado is +incomparable for its peculiar riches. It is part of the autobiographical +associations with my Spanish travel that when John Hay, who was not yet, +by thirty or forty years, the great statesman he became, but only the +breeziest of young Secretaries of Legation, just two weeks from his post +in Madrid, blew surprisingly into my little carpenter's box in Cambridge +one day, he boasted almost the first thing that the best Titians in the +world were in the Prado galleries. I was too lately from Venice in 1867 +not to have my inward question whether there could be anywhere a better +Titian than the "Assumption," but I loved Hay too much to deny him +openly. I said that I had no doubt of it, and when the other day I +went to the Prado it was with the wish of finding him perfectly right, +triumphantly right. I had been from the first a strong partisan of +Titian, and in many a heated argument with Ruskin, unaware of our +controversy, I had it out with that most prejudiced partisan of +Tintoretto. I always got the better of him, as one does in such +dramatizations, where one frames one's opponent's feeble replies for +him; but now in the Prado, sadly and strangely enough, I began to wonder +if Ruskin might not have tacitly had the better of me all the time. If +Hay was right in holding that the best Titians in the world were in the +Prado, then I was wrong in having argued for Titian against Tintoretto +with Ruskin. I could only wish that I had the "Assumption" there, or +some of those senators whose portraits I remembered in the Academy +at Venice. The truth is that to my eye he seemed to weaken before the +Spanish masters, though I say this, who must confess that I failed to +see the room of his great portraits. The Italians who hold their own +with the Spaniards are Tintoretto and Veronese; even Murillo was more +than a match for Titian in such pictures of his as I saw (I must own +that I did not see the best, or nearly all), though properly speaking +Murillo is to be known at his greatest only in Seville. + +But Velasquez, but Velasquez! In the Prado there is no one else present +when he is by, with his Philips and Charleses, and their "villainous +hanging of the nether lip," with his hideous court dwarfs and his pretty +princes and princesses, his grandees and jesters, his allegories and +battles, his pastorals and chases, which fitly have a vast salon to +themselves, not only that the spectator may realize at once the rich +variety and abundance of the master, but that such lesser lights as +Rubens, Titian, Correggio, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rembrandt, +Zurbaran, El Greco, Murillo, may not be needlessly dimmed by his +surpassing splendor. I leave to those who know painting from the +painter's art to appreciate the technical perfection of Velasquez; I +take my stand outside of that, and acclaim its supremacy in virtue of +that reality which all Spanish art has seemed always to strive for and +which in Velasquez it incomparably attains. This is the literary quality +which the most untechnical may feel, and which is not clearer to the +connoisseur than to the least unlearned. + +After Velasquez in the Prado we wanted Goya, and more and more Goya, who +is as Spanish and as unlike Velasquez as can very well be. There was +not enough Goya abovestairs to satisfy us, but in the Goya room in the +basement there was a series of scenes from Spanish life, mostly frolic +campestral things, which he did as patterns for tapestries and which +came near being enough in their way: the way of that reality which is +so far from the reality of Velasquez. There, striving with their +strangeness, we found a young American husband and wife who said they +were going to Egypt, and seemed so anxious to get out of Spain that they +all but asked us which turning to take. They had a Baedeker of 1901. +which they had been deceived in at New York as the latest edition, and +they were apparently making nothing of the Goyas and were as if lost +down there in the basement. They were in doubt about going further in a +country which had inveigled them from Gibraltar as far as its capital. +They advised with us about Burgos, of all places, and when we said the +hotels in Burgos were very cold, they answered, Well they had thought +so; and the husband asked, Spain was a pretty good place to cut out, +wasn't it? The wife expected that they would find some one in Egypt who +spoke English; she had expected they would speak French in Spain, but +had been disappointed. They had left their warm things at Gibraltar and +were almost frozen already. They were as good and sweet and nice as they +could be, and we were truly sorry to part with them and leave them to +what seemed to be a mistake which they were not to blame for. + +I wish that all Europeans and all Europeanized Americans knew how to +value such incorruptible con-nationals, who would, I was sure, carry +into the deepest dark of Egypt and over the whole earth undimmed the +light of our American single-heartedness. I would have given something +to know from just which kind country town and companionable commonwealth +of our Union they had come, but I would not have given much, for I knew +that they could have come from almost any. In their modest satisfaction +with our own order of things, our language, our climate, our weather, +they would not rashly condemn those of other lands, but would give them +a fair chance; and, if when they got home again, they would have to +report unfavorably of the Old World to the Board of Trade or the Woman's +Club, it would not be without intelligent reservations, even generous +reservations. They would know much more than they knew before they +came abroad, and if they had not seen Europe distinctly, but in a glass +darkly, still they would have seen it and would be the wiser and none +the worse for it. They would still be of their shrewd, pure American +ideals, and would judge their recollections as they judged their +experiences by them; and I wish we were all as confirmed in our fealty +to those ideals. + +They were not, clearly enough, of that yet older fashion of Americans +who used to go through European galleries buying copies of the +masterpieces which the local painters were everywhere making. With this +pair the various postal-card reproductions must have long superseded the +desire or the knowledge of copies, and I doubt if many Americans of any +sort now support that honored tradition. Who, then, does support it? The +galleries of the Prado seem as full of copyists as they could have been +fifty years ago, and many of them were making very good copies. _I_ wish +I could say they were working as diligently as copyists used to work, +but copyists are now subject to frequent interruptions, not from the +tourists but from one another. They used to be all men, mostly grown +gray in their pursuit, but now they are both men and women, and younger +and the women are sometimes very pretty. In the Prado one saw several +pairs of such youth conversing together, forgetful of everything around +them, and on terms so very like flirtatious that they could not well be +distinguished from them. They were terms that other Spanish girls could +enjoy only with a wooden lattice and an iron grille between them and the +_novios_ outside their windows; and no tourist of the least heart could +help rejoicing with them. In the case of one who stood with her little +figure slanted and her little head tilted, looking up into the charmed +eyes of a tall _rubio,_ the tourist could not help rejoicing with the +young man too. + +The day after our day in the Prado we found ourselves in the Museum of +Modern Art through the kind offices of our mistaken cabman when we were +looking for the Archaeological Museum. But we were not sorry, for some +of the new or newer pictures and sculptures were well worth seeing, +though we should never have tried for them. The force of the masters +which the ideals of the past held in restraint here raged in unbridled +excess: but if I like that force so much, why do I say excess? The new +or newer Spanish art likes an immense canvas, say as large as the side +of a barn, and it chooses mostly a tragical Spanish history in which it +riots with a young sense of power brave to see. There were a dozen of +those mighty dramas which I would have liked to bring away with me if +I had only had a town hall big enough to put them into after I got them +home. There were sculptures as masterful and as mighty as the pictures, +but among the paintings there was one that seemed to subdue all the +infuriate actions to the calm of its awful repose. This was Gisbert's +"Execution of Torrejos and his Companions," who were shot at Malaga in +1830 for a rising in favor of constitutional government. One does not, +if one is as wise as I, attempt to depict pictures, and I leave +this most heroic, most pathetic, most heart-breaking, most consoling +masterpiece for my reader to go and see for himself; it is almost worth +going as far as Madrid to see. Never in any picture do I remember the +like of those sad, brave, severe faces of the men standing up there to +be shot, where already their friends lay dead at their feet. A tumbled +top-hat in the foreground had an effect awfuller than a tumbled head +would have had. + + + +VIII + + +Besides this and those other histories there were energetic portraits +and vigorous landscapes in the Modern Museum, where if we had not been +bent so on visiting the Archaeological Museum, we would willingly have +spent the whole morning. But we were determined to see the Peruvian and +Mexican antiquities which we believed must be treasured up in it; and +that we might not fail of finding it, I gave one of the custodians a +special peseta to take us out on the balcony and show us exactly how +to get to it. He was so precise and so full in his directions that we +spent the next half-hour in wandering fatuously round the whole region +before we stumbled, almost violently, upon it immediately back of the +Modern Museum. Will, it be credited that it was then hardly worth seeing +for the things we meant to see? The Peruvian and Mexican antiquities +were so disappointing that we would hardly look at the Etruscan, Greek, +and Roman things which it was so much richer in. To be sure, we had +seen and overseen the like of these long before in Italy; but they were +admirably arranged in this museum, so that without the eager help of the +custodians (which two cents would buy at any turn) we could have found +pleasure in them, whereas the Aztec antiquities were mostly copies in +plaster and the Inca jewelry not striking. + +Before finding the place we had had the help of two policemen and one +newsboy and a postman in losing ourselves in the Prado where we mostly +sought for it, and with difficulty kept ourselves from being thrust into +the gallery there. In Spain a man, or even a boy, does not like to say +he does not know where a place is; he is either too proud or too polite +to do it, and he will misdirect you without mercy. But the morning was +bright, and almost warm, and we should have looked forward to weeks of +sunny weather if our experience had not taught us that it would rain in +the afternoon, and if greater experience than ours had not instructed +us that there would be many days of thick fog now before the climate of +Madrid settled itself to the usual brightness of February. We had time +to note again in the Paseo Castellana, which is the fashionable drive, +that it consists of four rows of acacias and tamarisks and a stretch +of lawn, with seats beside it; the rest is bare grasslessness, with a +bridle-path on one side and a tram-line on the other. If it had been +late afternoon the Paseo would have been filled with the gay world, but +being the late forenoon we had to leave it well-nigh unpeopled and go +back to our hotel, where the excellent midday breakfast merited the best +appetite one could bring to it. + +In fact, all the meals of our hotel were good, and of course they were +only too superabundant. They were pretty much what they were everywhere +in Spain, and they were better everywhere than they were in Granada +where we paid most for them. They were appetizing, and not of the +cooking which the popular superstition attributes to Spain, where the +hotel cooking is not rank with garlic or fiery with pepper, as the +untraveled believe. At luncheon in our Madrid hotel we had a liberal +choice of eggs in any form, the delicious _arroz a la Valencia,_ a +kind of risotto, with saffron to savor and color it; veal cutlets or +beefsteak, salad, cheese, grapes, pears, and peaches, and often melon; +the ever-admirable melon of Spain, which I had learned to like in +England. At dinner there were soup, fish, entree, roast beef, lamb, +or poultry, vegetables, salad, sweet, cheese, and fruit; and there was +pretty poor wine _ad libitum_ at both meals. For breakfast there was +good and true (or true enough) coffee with rich milk, which if we +sometimes doubted it to be goat's milk we were none the worse if none +the wiser for, as at dinner we were not either if we unwittingly ate kid +for lamb. + +There were not many people in the hotel, but the dining-room was filled +by citizens who came in with the air of frequenters. They were +not people of fashion, as we readily perceived, but kindly-looking +mercantile folk, and ladies painted as white as newly calcimined house +walls; and all gravely polite. There was one gentleman as large round +as a hogshead, with a triple arrangement of fat at the back of his neck +which was fascinating. He always bowed when we met (necessarily with +his whole back) and he ate with an appetite proportioned to his girth. +I could wish still to know who and what he was, for he was a person very +much to my mind. So was the head waiter, dark, silent, clean-shaven, who +let me use my deplorable Spanish with him, till in the last days he came +out with some very fair English which he had been courteously concealing +from me. He looked own brother to the room-waiter in our corridor, +whose companionship I could desire always to have. One could not be so +confident of the sincerity of the little _camarera_ who slipped out of +the room with a soft, sidelong "_De nada"_ at one's thanks for the hot +water in the morning; but one could stake one's life on the goodness of +this _camarero._ He was not so tall as his leanness made him look; he +was of a national darkness of eyes and hair which as imparted to his +tertian clean-shavenness was a deep blue. He spoke, with a certain +hesitation, a beautiful Castilian, delicately lisping the sibilants and +strongly throating the gutturals; and what he said you could believe. +He never was out of the way when wanted; he darkled with your boots +and shoes in a little closet next your door, and came from it with the +morning coffee and rolls. In a stress of frequentation he appeared in +evening dress in the dining-room at night, and did honor to the place; +but otherwise he was to be seen only in our corridor, or in the cold, +dark chamber at the stair head where the _camareras_ sat sewing, kept in +check by his decorum. Without being explicitly advised of the fact, I am +sure he was the best of Catholics, and that he would have burnt me for a +heretic if necessary; but he would have done it from his conscience and +for my soul's good after I had recanted. He seldom smiled, but when he +did you could see it was from his heart. + +His contrast, his very antithesis, the joyous concierge, was always +smiling, and was every way more like an Italian than a Spaniard. He +followed us into the wettest Madrid weather with the sunny rays of his +temperament, and welcomed our returning cab with an effulgence that +performed the effect of an umbrella in the longish walk from the +curbstone to the hotel door, past the grape arbor whose fruit ripened +for us only in a single bunch, though he had so confidently prophesied +our daily pleasure in it. He seemed at first to be the landlord, +and without reference to higher authority he gave us beautiful rooms +overlooking the bacchanal vine which would have been filled with +sunshine if the weather had permitted. When he lapsed into the +concierge, he got us, for five pesetas, so deep and wide a wood-box, +covered with crimson cloth, that he was borne out by the fact in +declaring that the wood in it would last us as long as we stayed; it was +oak wood, hard as iron, and with the bellows that accompanied it we +blew the last billet of it into a solid coal by which we drank our last +coffee in that hotel. His spirit, his genial hopefulness, reconciled +us to the infirmities of the house during the period of transition +beginning for it and covering our stay. It was to be rebuilt on a scale +out-Ritzing the Ritz; but in the mean while it was not quite the Ritz. +There was a time when the elevator-shaft seemed to have tapped the awful +sources of the smell in the house of Cervantes at Valladolid, but I do +not remember what blameless origin the concierge assigned to the odor, +or whether it had anything to do with the horses and the hens which a +chance-opened back door showed us stabled in the rear of the hotel's +grandiose entrance. + +Our tourist clientele, thanks I think to the allure of our concierge for +all comers, was most respectable, though there was no public place for +people to sit but a small reading-room colder than the baths of Apollo. +But when he entered the place it was as if a fire were kindled in the +minute stove never otherwise heated, and the old English and French +newspapers freshened themselves up to the actual date as nearly as they +could. We were mostly, perhaps, Spanish families come from our several +provinces for a bit of the season which all Spanish families of +civil condition desire more or less of: lean, dark fathers, slender, +white-stuccoed daughters, and fat, white-stuccoed mothers; very +still-faced, and grave-mannered. We were also a few English, and from +time to time a few Americans, but I believe we were not, however worthy, +very great-world. The concierge who had so skilfully got us together was +instant in our errands and commissions, and when it came to two of us +being shut up with colds brought from Burgos it vas he who supplemented +the promptness of the apothecaries in sending our medicines and coming +himself at times to ask after our welfare. + + + +IX + + +In a strange country all the details of life are interesting, and +we noticed with peculiar interest that Spain was a country where the +prescriptions were written in the vulgar tongue instead of the little +Latin in which prescriptions are addressed to the apothecaries of other +lands. We were disposed to praise the faculty if not the art for this, +but our doctor forbade. He said it was because the Spanish apothecaries +were so unlearned that they could not read even so little Latin as the +shortest prescription contained. Still I could not think the custom a +bad one, though founded on ignorance, and I do not see why it should not +have made for the greater safety of those who took the medicine if those +who put it up should follow a formula in their native tongue. I know +that at any rate we found the Spanish medicines beneficial and were +presently suffered to go out-of-doors, but with those severe injunctions +against going out after nightfall or opening our lips when we went out +by day. It was rather a bother, but it was fine to feel one's self in +the classic Madrid tradition of danger from pneumonia and to be of the +dignified company of the Spanish gentlemen whom we met with the border +of their cloaks over their mouths; like being a character in a _capa y +espada_ drama. + +There was almost as little acted as spoken drama in the streets. I have +given my impression of the songlessness of Spain in Madrid as elsewhere, +but if there was no street singing there was often street playing by +pathetic bands of blind minstrels with guitars and mandolins. The blind +abound everywhere in Spain in that profession of street beggary which +I always encouraged, believing as I do that comfort in this unbalanced +world cannot be too constantly reminded of misery. As the hunchbacks are +in Italy, or the wooden peg-legged in England, so the blind are in +Spain for number. I could not say how touching the sight of their +sightlessness was, or how the remembrance of it makes me wish that I had +carried more coppers with me when I set out. I would gladly authorize +the reader when he goes to Madrid to do the charity I often neglected; +he will be the better man, or even woman, for it; and he need not mind +if his beneficiary is occasionally unworthy; he may be unworthy himself; +I am sure I was. + +But the Spanish street is rarely the theatrical spectacle that the +Italian street nearly always is. Now and then there was a bit in Madrid +which one would be sorry to have missed, such as the funeral of a civil +magistrate, otherwise unknown to me, which I saw pass my cafe window: +a most architectural black hearse, under a black roof, drawn by eight +black horses, sable-plumed. The hearse was open at the sides, with +the coffin fully showing, and a gold-laced _chapeau bras_ lying on +it. Behind came twenty or twenty-five gentlemen on foot in the modern +ineffectiveness of frock-coats and top-hats, and after them eight or ten +closed carriages. The procession passed without the least notice from +the crowd, which I saw at other times stirred to a flutter of emulation +in its small boys by companies of infantry marching to the music of +sharply blown bugles. The men were handsomer than Italian soldiers, but +not so handsome as the English, and in figure they were not quite the +deplorable pigmies one often sees in France. Their bugles, with the +rhythmical note which the tram-cars sound, and the guitars and mandolins +of the blind minstrels, made the only street music I remember in Madrid. + +Between the daily rains, which came in the afternoon, the sun was +sometimes very hot, but it was always cool enough indoors. The indoors +interests were not the art or story of the churches. The intensest +Catholic capital in Christendom is in fact conspicuous in nothing more +than the reputed uninterestingness of its churches. I went into one of +them, however, with a Spanish friend, and I found it beautiful, most +original, and most impressive for its architecture and painting, but +I forget which church it was. We were going rather a desultory drive +through those less frequented parts of the city which I have mentioned +as like a sort of muted Naples: poor folk living much out-of-doors, +buying and selling at hucksters' stands and booths, and swarming about +the chief market, where the guilty were formerly put to death, but the +innocent are now provisioned. Outside the market was not attractive, and +what it was within we did not look to see. We went rather to satisfy +my wish to see whether the Manzanares is as groveling a stream as the +guide-books pretend in their effort to give a just idea of the natural +disadvantages of Madrid, as the only great capital without an adequate +river. But whether abetted by the arts of my friend or not, the +Manzanares managed to conceal itself from me; when we left our carriage +and went to look for it, I saw only some pretty rills and falls which +it possibly fed and which lent their beauty to the charming up and down +hill walks, now a public pleasaunce, but formerly the groves and gardens +of the royal palace. Our talk in Spanish from him and Italian from me +was of Tolstoy and several esthetic and spiritual interests, and when +we remounted and drove back to the city, whom should I see, hard by the +King's palace, but those dear Chilians of my heart whom we had left at +Valladolid--husband, wife, sister, with the addition of a Spanish lady +of very acceptable comeliness, in white gloves, and as blithe as they. +In honor of the capital the other ladies wore white gloves too, but the +husband and brother still kept the straw hat which I had first known him +in at San Sebastian, and which I hope yet to know him by in New York. It +was a glad clash of greetings which none of us tried to make coherent or +intelligible, and could not if we had tried. They acclaimed their hotel, +and I ours; but on both sides I dare say we had our reserves; and +then we parted, secure that the kind chances of travel would bring us +together again somewhere. + +[Illustration: 13 GUARD-MOUNT IN THE PLAZA DE ARMAS, ROYAL PALACE, MADRID] + +I did not visit the palace, but the Royal Armory I had seen two days +before on a gay morning that had not yet sorrowed to the afternoon's +rain. At the gate of the palace I fell into the keeping of one of the +authorized guides whom I wish I could identify so that I could send the +reader to pay him the tip I came short in. It is a pang to think of +the repressed disappointment in his face when in a moment of insensate +sparing I gave him the bare peseta to which he was officially entitled, +instead of the two or three due his zeal and intelligence; and I +strongly urge my readers to be on their guard against a mistaken +meanness like mine. I can never repair that, for if I went back to the +Royal Armory I should not know him by sight, and if I sought among the +guides saying I was the stranger who had behaved in that shabby sort, +how would that identify me among so many other shabby strangers? He had +the intelligence to leave me and the constant companion of these travels +to ourselves as we went about that treasury of wonders, but before we +got to the armory he stayed us with a delicate gesture outside the court +of the palace till a troop for the guard-mounting had gone in. Then he +led us across the fine, beautiful quadrangle to the door of the museum, +and waited for us there till we came out. By this time the space was +brilliant with the confronted bodies of troops, those about to be +relieved of guard duty, and those come to relieve them, and our guide +got us excellent places where we could see everything and yet be out +of the wind which was beginning to blow cuttingly through the gates +and colonnades. There were all arms of the service--horse, foot, and +artillery; and the ceremony, with its pantomime and parley, was much +more impressive than the changing of the colors which I had once seen +at Buckingham Palace. The Spanish privates took the business not less +seriously than the British, and however they felt the Spanish officers +did not allow themselves to look bored. The marching and countermarching +was of a refined stateliness, as if the pace were not a goose step but +a peacock step; and the music was of an exquisitely plaintive and tender +note, which seemed to grieve rather than exult; I believe it was the +royal march which they were playing, but I am not versed in _such_ +matters. Nothing could have been fitter than the quiet beauty of the +spectacle, opening through the westward colonnade to the hills and woods +of the royal demesne, with yellowing and embrowning trees that billowed +from distance to distance. Some day these groves and forests must be for +the people's pleasure, as all royal belongings seem finally to be; and +in the mean time I did not grudge the landscape to the young king and +queen who probably would not have grudged it to me. Our guide valued +himself upon our admiration of it; without our special admiration he +valued himself upon the impressive buildings of the railway station +in the middle distance. I forget whether he followed us out of +the quadrangle into the roadway where we had the advantage of some +picturesque army wagons, and some wagoners in red-faced jackets and red +trousers, and top-boots with heavy fringes of leathern strings. Yet it +must have been he who made us aware of a high-walled inclosure where +soldiers found worthy of death by court martial could be conveniently +shot; though I think we discovered for ourselves the old woman curled up +out of the wind in a sentry-box, and sweetly asleep there while the boys +were playing marbles on the smooth ground before it. I must not omit the +peanut-boaster in front of the palace; it was in the figure of an ocean +steamer, nearly as large as the _Lusitania,_ and had smoke coming out +of the funnel, with rudder and screw complete and doll sailors climbing +over the rigging. + +But it is impossible to speak adequately of the things in that wonderful +armory. If the reader has any pleasure in the harnesses of Spanish kings +and captains, from the great Charles the Fifth down through all the +Philips and the Charleses, he can glut it there. Their suits begin +almost with their steel baby clothes, and adapt themselves almost to +their senile decrepitude. There is the horse-litter in which the great +emperor was borne to battle, and there is the sword which Isabella the +great queen wore; and I liked looking at the lanterns and the flags of +the Turkish galleys from the mighty sea-fight cf Lepanto, and the many +other trophies won from the Turks. The pavilion of Francis I. taken +at Pavia was of no secondary interest, and everywhere was personal and +national history told in the weapons and the armor of those who made the +history. Perhaps some time the peoples will gather into museums the pens +and pencils and chisels of authors and artists, and the old caps and +gowns they wore, or the chairs they sat in at their work, or the pianos +and violoncellos of famous musicians, or the planes of surpassing +carpenters, or the hammers of eminent ironworkers; but these things will +never be so picturesque as the equipments with which the military heroes +saved their own lives or took others'. We who have never done either +must not be unreasonable or impatient. It will be many a long century +yet before we are appreciated at the value we now set upon ourselves. In +the mean while we do not have such a bad time, and we are not so easily +forgotten as some of those princes and warriors. + + + +XI + + +One of the first errors of our search for the Archaeological Museum, +promoted by the mistaken kindness of people we asked the way, found us +in the Academy of Fine Arts, where in the company of a fat and flabby +Rubens (Susanna, of course, and those filthy Elders) we chanced on a +portrait of Goya by himself: a fine head most takingly shrewd. But there +was another portrait by him, of the ridiculous Godoy, Prince of the +Peace, a sort of handsome, foolish fleshy George Fourthish person +looking his character and history: one of the most incredible parasites +who ever fattened on a nation. This impossible creature, hated more than +feared, and despised more than hated, who misruled a generous people for +twenty-five years, throughout the most heroic period of their annals, +the low-born paramour of their queen and the beloved friend of the +king her husband, who honored and trusted him with the most pathetic +single-hearted and simple-minded devotion, could not look all that +he was and was not; but in this portrait by Goya he suggested his +unutterable worthlessness: a worthlessness which you can only begin to +realize by successively excluding all the virtues, and contrasting it +with the sort of abandon of faith on the part of the king; this in the +common imbecility, the triune madness of the strange group, has its +sublimity. In the next room are two pieces of Goya's which recall +in their absolute realism another passage of Spanish history with +unparalleled effect. They represent, one the accused heretics receiving +sentence before a tribunal of the Inquisition, and the other the +execution of the sentence, where the victims are mocked by a sort of +fools' caps inscribed with the terms of their accusal. Their faces are +turned on the spectator, who may forget them if he can. + +I had the help of a beautiful face there which Goya had also painted: +the face of Moratin, the historian of the Spanish drama whose book had +been one of the consolations of exile from Spain in my Ohio village. +That fine countenance rapt me far from where I stood, to the village, +with its long maple-shaded summer afternoons, and its long lamp-lit +winter nights when I was trying to find my way through Moratin's history +of the Spanish drama, and somehow not altogether failing, so that +fragments of the fact still hang about me. I wish now I could find the +way back through it, or even to it, but between me and it there are +so many forgotten passes that it would be hopeless trying. I can only +remember the pride and joy of finding my way alone through it, and +emerging from time to time into the light that glimmered before me. I +cannot at all remember whether it was before or after exploring this +history that I ventured upon the trackless waste of a volume of the +dramatists themselves, where I faithfully began with the earliest and +came down to those of the great age when Cervantes and Calderon and Lope +de Vega were writing the plays. It was either my misfortune that I read +Lope and not Calderon, or that I do not recall reading Calderon at all, +and know him only by a charming little play of Madrid life given ten or +fifteen years ago by the pupils of the Dramatic Academy in New York. My +lasting ignorance of this master was not for want of knowing how great +he was, especially from Lowell, who never failed to dwell on it when the +talk was of Spanish literature. The fact is I did not get much pleasure +out of Lope, but I did enjoy the great tragedy of Cervantes, and such of +his comedies as I found in that massive volume. + +I did not realize, however, till I saw that play of Calderon's, in New +York, how much the Spanish drama lias made Madrid its scene; and until +one knows modern Spanish fiction one cannot know how essentially the +incongruous city is the capital of the Spanish imagination. Of course +the action of Gil Bias largely passes there, but Gil Blas in only +adoptively a Spanish novel, and the native picaresque story is oftener +at home in the provinces; but since Spanish fiction has come to full +consciousness in the work of the modern masters it has resorted more +and more to Madrid. If I speak only of Galdos and Valdes by name, it is +because I know them best as the greatest of their time; but I fancy the +allure of the capital has been felt by every other modern more or less; +and if I were a Spanish author I should like to put a story there. If I +were a Spaniard at all, I should like to live there a part of the year, +or to come up for some sojourn, as the real Spaniards do. In such an +event I should be able to tell the reader more about Madrid than I now +know. I should not be poorly keeping to hotels and galleries and streets +and the like surfaces of civilization; but should be saying all sorts of +well-informed and surprising things about my fellow-citizens. As it is +I have tried somewhat to say how I think they look to a stranger, and if +it is not quite as they have looked to other strangers I do not insist +upon my own stranger's impression. There is a great choice of good books +about Spain, so that I do not feel bound to add to them with anything +like finality. + +I have tried to give a sense of the grand-opera effect of the street +scene, but I have record of only one passage such as one often sees in +Italy where moments of the street are always waiting for transfer to +the theater. A pair had posed themselves, across the way from our hotel, +against the large closed shutter of a shop which made an admirable +background. The woman in a black dress, with a red shawl over her +shoulders, stood statuesquely immovable, confronting the middle-class +man who, while people went and came about them, poured out his mind +to her, with many frenzied gestures, but mostly using one hand for +emphasis. He seemed to be telling something rather than asserting +himself or accusing her; portraying a past fact or defining a situation; +and she waited immovably silent till he had finished. Then she began +and warmed to her work, but apparently without anger or prejudice. She +talked herself out, as he had talked himself out. He waited and then +he left her and crossed to the other corner. She called after him as he +kept on down the street. She turned away, but stopped, and turned again +and called after him till he passed from sight. Then she turned once +more and went her own way. Nobody minded, any more than if they had been +two unhappy ghosts invisibly and inaudibly quarreling, but I remained, +and remain to this day, afflicted because of the mystery of their +dispute. + +We did not think there were so many boys, proportionately, or boys let +loose, in Madrid as in the other towns we had seen, and we remarked to +that sort of foreign sojourner who is so often met in strange cities +that the children seemed like little men and women. "Yes," he said, "the +Spaniards are not children until they are thirty or forty, and then they +never grow up." It was perhaps too epigrammatic, but it may have caught +at a fact. From another foreign sojourner I heard that the Catholicism +of Spain, in spite of all newspaper appearances to the contrary and many +bold novels, is still intense and unyieldingly repressive. But how far +the severity of the church characterizes manners it would be hard to +say. Perhaps these are often the effect of temperament. One heard more +than one saw of the indifference of shop-keepers to shoppers in Madrid; +in Andalusia, say especially in Seville, one saw nothing of it. But from +the testimony of sufferers it appears to be the Madrid shop-keeper's +reasonable conception that if a customer comes to buy something it is +because he, or more frequently she, wants it and is more concerned than +himself in the transaction. He does not put himself about in serving +her, and if she intimates that he is rudely indifferent, and that though +she has often come to him before she will never come again, he remains +tranquil. From experience I cannot say how true this is; but certainly +I failed to awaken any lively emotion in the booksellers of whom I tried +to buy some modern plays. It seemed to me that I was vexing them in the +Oriental calm which they would have preferred to my money, or even my +interest in the new Spanish drama. But in a shop where fans were sold, +the shopman, taken in an unguarded moment, seemed really to enter into +the spirit of our selection for friends at home; he even corrected my +wrong accent in the Spanish word for fan, which was certainly going a +great way. + + + +XII + + +It was not the weather for fans in Madrid, where it rained that cold +rain every afternoon, and once the whole of one day, and we could not +reasonably expect to see fans in the hands of ladies in real life so +much as in the pictures of ladies on the fans themselves. In fact, I +suppose that to see the Madrilenas most in character one should see them +in summer which in southern countries is the most characteristic season. +Theophile Gautier was governed by this belief when he visited Spain in +the hottest possible weather, and left for the lasting delight of the +world the record of that _Voyage en Espagne_ which he made seventy-two +years ago. He then thought the men better dressed than the women at +Madrid. Their boots are as "varnished, and they are gloved as white as +possible. Their coats are correct and their trousers laudable; but the +cravat is not of the same purity, and the waistcoat, that only part of +modern dress where the fancy may play, is not always of irreproachable +taste." As to the women: "What we understand in France as the Spanish +type does not exist in Spain... One imagines usually, when one says +_mantilla_ and _senora,_ an oval, rather long and pale, with large dark +eyes, surmounted with brows of velvet, a thin nose, a little arched, +a mouth red as a pomegranate, and, above all, a tone warm and golden, +justifying the verse of romance, _She is yellow like an orange._ This +is the Arab or Moorish type and not the Spanish type. The Madrilenas are +charming in the full acceptation of the word; out of four three will be +pretty; but they do not answer at all to the idea we have of them. They +are small, delicate, well formed, the foot narrow and the figure curved, +the bust of a rich contour; but their skin is very white, the features +delicate and mobile, the mouth heart-shaped and representing perfectly +certain portraits of the Regency. Often they have fair hair, and you +cannot take three turns in the Prado without meeting eight blonds of all +shades, from the ashen blond to the most vehement red, the red of the +beard of Charles V. It is a mistake to think there are no blonds in +Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but they are not so much liked as the +black." + +Is this a true picture of the actual Madrilenas? What I say is that +seventy-two years have passed since it was painted and the originals +have had time to change. What I say is that it was nearly always +raining, and I could not be sure. What I say, above all, is that I +am not a Frenchman of the high Romantic moment and that what I chiefly +noticed was how beautiful the mantilla was whether worn by old or +young, how fit, how gentle, how winning. I suppose that the women we +saw walking in it were never of the highest class; who would be driving +except when we saw them going to church. But they were often of the +latest fashion, with their feet hobbled by the narrow skirts, of which +they lost the last poignant effect by not having wide or high or slouch +or swashbuckler hats on; they were not top-heavy. What seems certain is +that the Spanish women are short and slight or short and fat. I find it +recorded that when a young English couple came into the Royal Armory the +girl looked impossibly tall and fair. + +The women of the lower classes are commonly handsome and carry +themselves finely; their heads are bare, even of mantillas, and their +skirts are ample. When it did not rain they added to the gaiety of the +streets, and when it did to their gloom. Wet or dry the streets were +always thronged; nobody, apparently, stayed indoors who could go out, +and after two days' housing, even with a fire to air and warm our rooms, +we did not wonder at the universal preference. As I have said, the noise +that we heard in the streets was mainly the clatter of shoes and hoofs, +but now and then there were street cries besides those I have noted. +There was in particular a half-grown boy in our street who had a flat +basket decorated with oysters at his feet, and for long hours of the day +and dark he cried them incessantly. I do not know that he ever sold them +or cared; his affair was to cry them. + + + + +VI. A NIGHT AND DAY IN TOLEDO + + +If you choose to make your visit to Toledo an episode of your stay in +Madrid, you have still to choose between going at eight in the morning +and arriving back at five in the evening, or going at five one evening +and coming back at the same hour the next. In either case you will have +two hours' jolting each way over the roughest bit of railroad in the +world, and if your _mozo,_ before you could stop him, has selected for +your going a compartment over the wheels, you can never be sure that +he has done worse for you than you will have done for yourself when you +come back in a compartment between the trucks. However you go or come, +you remain in doubt whether you have been jolting over rails jointed +at every yard, or getting on without any track over a cobble-stone +pavement. Still, if the compartment is wide and well cushioned, as it is +in Spain nearly always, with free play for your person between roof and +floor and wall and wall; and if you go at five o'clock you have from +your windows, as long as the afternoon light lasts, while you bound +and rebound, glimpses of far-stretching wheat-fields, with nearer +kitchen-gardens rich in beets and cabbages, alternating with purple and +yellow patches of vineyard. + + + +I + + +I find from my ever-faithful note-book that the landscape seemed to grow +drearier as we got away from Madrid, but this may have been the effect +of the waning day: a day which at its brightest had been dim from +recurrent rain and incessant damp. The gloom was not relieved by the +long stops at the frequent stations, though the stops were good for +getting one's breath, and for trying to plan greater control over +one's activities when the train should be going on again. The stations +themselves were not so alluring that we were not willing to get away +from them; and we were glad to get away from them by train, instead of +by mule-team over the rainy levels to the towns that glimmered along the +horizon two or three miles off. There had been nothing to lift the +heart in the sight of two small boys ready perched on one horse, or of +a priest difficultly mounting another in his long robe. At the only +station which I can remember having any town about it a large number of +our passengers left the train, and I realized that they were commuters +like those who might have been leaving it at some soaking suburb of Long +Island or New Jersey. In the sense of human brotherhood which the fact +inspired I was not so lonely as I might have been, when we resumed +our gloomy progress, with all that punctilio which custom demands of +a Spanish way-train. First the station-master rings a bell of alarming +note hanging on the wall, and the _mozos_ run along the train shutting +the car doors. After an interval some other official sounds a pocket +whistle, and then there is still time for a belated passenger to find +his car and scramble aboard. When the ensuing pause prolongs itself +until you think the train has decided to remain all day, or all night, +and several passengers have left it again, the locomotive rouses itself +and utters a peremptory screech. This really means going, but your doubt +has not been fully overcome when the wheels begin to bump under your +compartment, and you set your teeth and clutch your seat, and otherwise +prepare yourself for the renewal of your acrobatic feats. I may not +get the order of the signals for departure just right, but I am sure +of their number. Perhaps the Sud-Express starts with less, but the +Sud-Express is partly French. + +It had been raining intermittently all day; now that the weary old day +was done the young night took up the work and vigorously devoted itself +to a steady downpour which, when we reached our hotel in Toledo, had +taken the role of a theatrical tempest, with sudden peals of thunder and +long loud bellowing reverberations and blinding flashes of lightning, +such as the wildest stage effects of the tempest in the Catskills when +Rip Van Winkle is lost would have been nothing to. Foreboding the inner +chill of a Spanish hotel on such a day, we had telegraphed for a fire in +our rooms, and our eccentricity had been interpreted in spirit as well +as in letter. It was not the habitual hotel omnibus which met us at the +station, but a luxurious closed carriage commanded by an interpreter who +intuitively opened our compartment door, and conveyed us dry and warm +to our hotel, in every circumstance of tender regard for our comfort, +during the slow, sidelong uphill climb to the city midst details of +historic and romantic picturesqueness which the lightning momently +flashed in sight. From our carriage we passed as in a dream between the +dress-coated head waiter and the skull-capped landlord who silently and +motionlessly received us in the Gothic doorway, and mounted by a stately +stair from a beautiful glass-roofed _patio,_ columned round with airy +galleries, to the rooms from which a smoky warmth gushed out to welcome +us. + +The warmth was from the generous blaze kindled in the fireplace against +our coming, and the smoke was from the crevices in a chimneypiece not +sufficiently calked with newspapers to keep the smoke going up the flue. +The fastidious may think this a defect in our perfect experience, but we +would not have had it otherwise, if we could, and probably we could not. +We easily assumed that we were in the palace of some haughty hidalgo, +adapted to the uses of a modern hotel, with a magical prevision which +need not include the accurate jointing of a chimneypiece. The storm +bellowed and blazed outside, the rain strummed richly on the _patio_ +roof which the lightning illumined, and as we descended that stately +stair, with its walls ramped and foliaged over with heraldic fauna +and flora, I felt as never before the disadvantage of not being still +fourteen years old. + +But you cannot be of every age at once and it was no bad thing to be +presently sitting down in my actual epoch at one of those excellent +Spanish dinners which no European hotel can surpass and no American +hotel can equal. It may seem a descent from the high horse, the winged +steed of dreaming, to have been following those admirable courses with +unflagging appetite, as it were on foot, but man born of woman is hungry +after such a ride as ours from Madrid; and it was with no appreciable +loss to our sense of enchantment that we presently learned from our +host, waiting skull-capped in the _patio,_ that we were in no real +palace of an ancient hidalgo, but were housed as we found ourselves by +the fancy of a rich nobleman of Toledo whom the whim had taken to equip +his city with a hotel of poetic perfection. I am afraid I have forgotten +his name; perhaps I should not have the right to parade it here if I +remembered it; but I cannot help saluting him brother in imagination, +and thanking him for one of the rarest pleasures that travel, even +Spanish travel, has given me. + + + +II + + +One must recall the effect of such a gentle fantasy as his with some +such emotion as one recalls a pleasant tale unexpectedly told when one +feared a repetition of stale commonplaces, and I now feel a pang of +retroactive self-reproach for not spending the whole evening after +dinner in reading up the story of that most storied city where this +Spanish castle received us. What better could I have done in the smoky +warmth of our hearth-fire than to con, by the light of the electric +bulb dangling overhead, its annals in some such voluntarily quaint and +unconsciously old-fashioned volume as Irving's _Legends of the Conquest +of Spain;_ or to read in some such (if there is any such other) +imperishably actual and unfadingly brilliant record of impressions as +Gautier's _Voyage en Espagne,_ the miserably tragic tale of that poor, +wicked, over-punished last of the Gothic kings, Don Roderick? It comes +to much the same effect in both, and as I knew it already from the notes +to Scott's poem of Don Roderick, which I had read sixty years before in +the loft of our log cabin (long before the era of my unguided Spanish +studies), I found it better to go to bed after a day which had not been +without its pains as well as pleasures. I could recall the story well +enough for all purposes of the imagination as I found it in the fine +print of those notes, and if I could believe the reader did not know +it I would tell him now how this wretched Don Roderick betrayed the +daughter of Count Julian whom her father had intrusted to him here in +his capital of Toledo, when, with the rest of Spain, it had submitted to +his rule. That was in the eighth century when the hearts of kings were +more easily corrupted by power than perhaps in the twentieth; and it +is possible that there was a good deal of politics mixed up with Count +Julian's passion for revenge on the king, when he invited the Moors to +invade his native land and helped them overrun it. The conquest, let me +remind the reader, was also abetted by the Jews who had been flourishing +mightily under the Gothic anarchy, but whom Don Roderick had reduced to +a choice between exile or slavery when he came to full power. Every one +knows how in a few weeks the whole peninsula fell before the invaders. +Toledo fell after the battle of Guadalete, where even the Bishop of +Seville fought on their side, and Roderick was lastingly numbered among +the missing, and was no doubt killed, as nothing has since been heard +of him. It was not until nearly three hundred years afterward that the +Christians recovered the city. By this time they were no longer Arians, +but good Catholics; so good that Philip II. himself, one of the best +of Catholics (as I have told), is said to have removed the capital to +Madrid because he could not endure the still more scrupulous Catholicity +of the Toledan Bishop. + +Nobody is obliged to believe this, but I should be sorry if any reader +of mine questioned the insurpassable antiquity of Toledo, as attested by +a cloud of chroniclers. Theophile Gautier notes that "the most moderate +place the epoch of its foundation before the Deluge," and he does not +see why they do not put the time "under the pre-Adamite kings, some +years before the creation of the world. Some attribute the honor of +laying its first stone to Jubal, others to the Greek; some to the Roman +consuls Tolmor and Brutus; some to the Jews who entered Spain with +Nebuchadnezzar, resting their theory on the etymology of Toledo, which +comes from Toledoth, a Hebrew word signifying generations, because the +Twelve Tribes had helped to build and people it." + + + +III + + +Even if the whole of this was not accurate, it offered such an +embarrassing abundance to the choice that I am glad I knew little or +nothing of the antagonistic origins when I opened my window to the sunny +morning which smiled at the notion of the overnight tempest, and lighted +all the landscape on that side of the hotel. The outlook was over +vast plowed lands red as Virginia or New Jersey fields, stretching +and billowing away from the yellow Tagus in the foreground to the +mountain-walled horizon, with far stretches of forest in the middle +distance. What riches of gray roof, of white wall, of glossy green, or +embrowning foliage in the city gardens the prospect included, one should +have the brush rather than the pen to suggest; or else one should have +an inexhaustible ink-bottle with every color of the chromatic scale in +it to pour the right tints. Mostly, however, I should say that the city +of Toledo is of a mellow gray, and the country of Toledo a rich orange. +Seen from any elevation the gray of the town made me think of Genoa; and +if the reader's knowledge does not enable him, to realize it from this +association, he had better lose no time in going to Genoa. + +[Illustration: 14 RICHES OF GRAY ROOF AND WHITE WALL MARK ITS INSURPASSABLE ANTIQUITY] + +I myself should prefer going again to Toledo, where we made only a day's +demand upon the city's wealth of beauty when a lifetime would hardly +have exhausted it. Yet I would not counsel any one to pass his whole +life in Toledo unless he was sure he could bear the fullness of that +beauty. Add insurpassable antiquity, add tragedy, add unendurable +orthodoxy, add the pathos of hopeless decay, and I think I would rather +give a day than a lifetime to Toledo. Or I would like to go back and +give another day to it and come every year and give a day. This very +moment, instead of writing of it in a high New York flat and looking +out on a prospect incomparably sky-scrapered, I would rather be in that +glass-roofed _patio_ of our histrionic hotel, engaging the services +of one of the most admirable guides who ever fell to the lot of mortal +Americans, while much advised by our skull-capped landlord to shun +the cicerone of another hotel as "an Italian man," with little or no +English. + +As soon as we appeared outside the beggars of Toledo swarmed upon us; +but I hope it was not from them I formed the notion that the beauty of +the place was architectural and not personal, though these poor +things were as deplorably plain as they were obviously miserable. The +inhabitants who did not ask alms were of course in the majority, but +neither were these impressive in looks or bearing. Rather, I should say, +their average was small and dark, and in color of eyes and hair as +well as skin they suggested the African race that held Toledo for four +centuries. Neither here nor anywhere else in Spain are there any traces +of the Jews who helped bring the Arabs in; once for all, that people +have been banished so perfectly that they do not show their noses +anywhere. Possibly they exist, but they do not exist openly, any more +than the descendants of the Moorish invaders practise their Moslem +rites. As for the beggars, to whom I return as they constantly returned +to us, it did not avail to do them charity; that by no means dispersed +them; the thronging misery and mutilation in the lame, the halt and the +blind, was as great at our coming back to our hotel as our going out of +it. They were of every age and sex; the very school-children left +their sports to chance our charity; and it is still with a pang that +I remember the little girl whom we denied a copper when she was really +asking for a _florecito_ out of the nosegay that one of us carried. But +how could we know that it was a little flower and not a "little dog" she +wanted? + +There was something vividly spectacular in the square, by no means +large, which we came into on turning the corner from our hotel. It was +a sort of market-place as well as business place, and it looked as if +it might be the resort at certain hours of the polite as well as the +impolite leisure of a city of leisure not apparently overworked in any +of its classes. But at ten o'clock in the morning it was empty enough, +and after a small purchase at one of the shops we passed from it without +elbowing or being elbowed, and found ourselves at the portal of that +ancient _posada_ where Cervantes is said to have once sojourned at least +long enough to write one of his _Exemplary Novels._ He was of such a +ubiquitous habit that if we had visited every city of Spain we should +have found some witness of his stay, but I do not believe we could have +found any more satisfactory than this. It is verified by a tablet in its +outer wall, and within it is convincingly a _posada_ of his time. It has +a large low-vaulted interior, with the carts and wagons of the muleteers +at the right of the entrance, and beyond these the stalls of the mules +where they stood chewing their provender, and glancing uninterestedly +round at the intruders, for plainly we were not of the guests who +frequent the place. Such, for a chamber like those around and behind the +stalls, on the same earthen level, pay five cents of our money a day; +they supply their own bed and board and pay five cents more for the use +of a fire. + +Some guests were coming and going in the dim light of the cavernous +spaces; others were squatting on the ground before their morning meal. +An endearing smoke-browned wooden gallery went round three sides of the +_patio_ overhead; half-way to this at one side rose an immense earthen +water jar, dim red; piles of straw mats, which were perhaps the bedding +of the guests, heaped the ground or hung from the gallery; and the +guests, among them a most beautiful youth, black as Africa, but of a +Greek perfection of profile, regarded us with a friendly indifference +that contrasted strikingly with the fixed stare of the bluish-gray hound +beside one of the wagons. He had a human effect of having brushed his +hair from his strange grave eyes, and of a sad, hopeless puzzle in the +effort to make us out. If he was haunted by some inexplicable relation +in me to the great author whose dog he undoubtedly had been in a +retroactive incarnation, and was thinking to question me of that ever +unfulfilled boyish self-promise of writing the life of Cervantes, I +could as successfully have challenged him to say how and where in such a +place as that an Exemplary Novelist could have written even the story of +_The Illustrious Scullion._ But he seemed on reflection not to push the +matter with me, and I left him still lost in his puzzle while I came +away in mine. Whether Cervantes really wrote one of his tales there or +not, it is certain that he could have exactly studied from that _posada_ +the setting of the scene for the episode of the enchanted castle in _Don +Quixote,_ where the knight suffered all the demoniacal torments which a +jealous and infuriate muleteer knew how to inflict. + + + +IV + + +Upon the whole I am not sure that I was more edified by the cathedral of +Toledo, though I am afraid to own it, and must make haste to say that it +is a cathedral surpassing in some things any other cathedral in Spain. +Chiefly it surpasses them in the glory of that stupendous _retablo_ +which fills one whole end of the vast fane, and mounting from floor to +roof, tells the Christian story with an ineffable fullness of dramatic +detail, up to the tragic climax of the crucifixion, the _Calvario,_ at +the summit. Every fact of it fixes itself the more ineffaceably in the +consciousness because of that cunningly studied increase in the stature +of the actors, who always appear life-size in spite of their lift from +level to level above the spectator. But what is the use, what _is_ the +use? Am I to abandon the young and younger wisdom with which I have +refrained in so many books from attempting the portrayal of any Italian, +any English church, and fall into the folly, now that I am old, of +trying to say again in words what one of the greatest of Spanish +churches says in form, in color? Let me rather turn from that vainest +endeavor to the trivialities of sight-seeing which endear the memory +of monuments and make the experience of them endurable. The beautiful +choir, with its walls pierced in gigantic filigree, might have been art +or not, as one chose, but the three young girls who smiled and whispered +with the young man near it were nature, which there could be no two +minds about. They were pathetically privileged there to a moment of +the free interplay of youthful interests and emotions which the Spanish +convention forbids less in the churches than anywhere else. + +The Spanish religion is, in fact, kind to the young in many ways, and +on our way to the cathedral we had paused at a shrine of the Virgin in +appreciation of her friendly offices to poor girls wanting husbands; +they have only to drop a pin inside the grating before her and draw a +husband, tall for a large pin and short for a little one; or if they can +make their offering in coin, their chances of marrying money are +good. The Virgin is always ready to befriend her devotees, and in the +cathedral near that beautiful choir screen she has a shrine above the +stone where she alighted when she brought a chasuble to St. Ildefonso +(she owed him something for his maintenance of her Immaculate Conception +long before it was imagined a dogma) and left the print of her foot +in the pavement. The fact is attested by the very simple yet absolute +inscription: + + Quando la Reina del Cielo + Puso los pies en el suelo, + En esta piedra los puso, + +or as my English will have it: + + When the Queen of Heaven put + Upon the earth her foot, + She put it on this stone + +and left it indelible there, so that now if you thrust your finger +through the grille and touch the place you get off three hundred years +of purgatory: not much in the count of eternity, but still something. + +We saw a woman and a priest touching it as we stood by and going away +enviably comforted; but we were there as connoisseurs, not as votaries; +and we were trying to be conscious solely of the surpassing grandeur +and beauty of the cathedral. Here as elsewhere in Spain the passionate +desire of the race to realize a fact in art expresses itself gloriously +or grotesquely according to the occasion. The rear of the chorus is one +vast riot of rococo sculpture, representing I do not know what mystical +event; but down through the midst of the livingly studied performance +a mighty angel comes plunging, with his fine legs following his torso +through the air, like those of a diver taking a header into the water. +Nothing less than the sublime touch of those legs would have satisfied +the instinct from which and for which the artist worked; they gave +reality to the affair in every part. + +I wish I could give reality to every part of that most noble, that most +lovably beautiful temple. We had only a poor half-hour for it, and we +could not do more than flutter the pages of the epic it was and +catch here and there a word, a phrase: a word writ in architecture or +sculpture, a phrase richly expressed in gold and silver and precious +marble, or painted in the dyes of the dawns and sunsets which used to +lend themselves so much more willingly to the arts than they seem to do +now. From our note-books I find that this cathedral of Toledo appeared +more wonderful to one of us than the cathedral of Burgos; but who knows? +It might have been that the day was warmer and brighter and had not yet +shivered and saddened to the cold rain it ended in. At any rate the vast +church filled itself more and more with the solemn glow in which we left +it steeped when we went out and took our dreamway through the narrow, +winding, wandering streets that seemed to lure us where they would. One +of them climbed with us to the Alcazar, which is no longer any great +thing to see in itself, but which opens a hospitable space within its +court for a prospect of so much of the world around Toledo, the world of +yellow river and red fields and blue mountains, and white-clouded azure +sky, that we might well have mistaken it for the whole earth. In itself, +as I say, the Alcazar is no great thing for where it is, but if we had +here in New York an Alcazar that remembered historically back through +French, English, Arabic, Gothic. Roman, and Carthaginian occupations to +the inarticulate Iberian past we should come, I suppose, from far and +near to visit it. Now, however, after gasping at its outlook, we left +it hopelessly, and lost ourselves, except for our kindly guide, in the +crooked little stony lanes, with the sun hot on our backs and the shade +cool in our faces. There were Moorish bits and suggestions in the +white walls and the low flat roofs of the houses, but these were not so +jealous of their privacy as such houses were once meant to be. Through +the gate of one we were led into a garden of simple flowers belted with +a world-old parapet, over which we could look at a stretch of the Gothic +wall of King Wamba's time, before the miserable Roderick won and lost +his kingdom. A pomegranate tree, red with fruit, overhung us, and +from the borders of marigolds and zinnias and German clover the gray +garden-wife gathered a nosegay for us. She said she was three _duros_ +and a half old, as who should say three dollars and a half, and she had +a grim amusement in so translating her seventy years. + + + +V + + +It was hard by her cottage that we saw our first mosque, which had +begun by being a Gothic church, but had lost itself in paynim hands for +centuries, in spite of the lamp always kept burning in it. Then one day +the Cid came riding by, and his horse, at sight of a white stone in the +street pavement, knelt down and would not budge till men came and dug +through the wall of the mosque and disclosed this indefatigable lamp in +the church. We expressed our doubt of the man's knowing so unerringly +that the horse meant them to dig through the mosque. "If you can believe +the rest I think you can believe that," our guide argued. + +[Illustration: 15 AN ANCIENT CORNER OF THE CITY] + +He was like so many taciturn Spaniards, not inconversable, and we had +a pleasure in his unobtrusive intelligence which I should be sorry +to exaggerate. He supplied us with such statistics of his city as we +brought away with us, and as I think the reader may join me in trusting, +and in regretting that I did not ask more. Still it is something to have +learned that in Toledo now each family lives English fashion in a house +of its own, while in the other continental cities it mostly dwells in +a flat. This is because the population has fallen from two hundred +thousand to twenty thousand, and the houses have not shared its +decay, but remain habitable for numbers immensely beyond those of the +households. In the summer the family inhabits the first floor which +the _patio_ and the subterranean damp from the rains keep cool; in the +winter it retreats to the upper chambers which the sun is supposed to +warm, and which are at any rate dry even on cloudy days. The rents would +be thought low in New York: three dollars a month get a fair house in +Toledo; but wages are low, too; three dollars a month for a manservant +and a dollar and a half for a maid. If the Toledans from high to low are +extravagant in anything it is dress, but dress for the outside, not the +inside, which does not show, as our guide satirically explained. They +scrimp themselves in food and they pay the penalty in lessened vitality; +there is not so much fever as one might think; but there is a great +deal of consumption; and as we could not help seeing everywhere in the +streets there were many blind, who seemed oftenest to have suffered from +smallpox. The beggars were not so well dressed as the other classes, but +I saw no such delirious patchwork as at Burgos. On the other hand, there +were no idle people who were fashionably dressed; no men or women who +looked great-world. + +Perhaps if the afternoon had kept the sunny promise of the forenoon they +might have been driving in the Paseo, a promenade which Toledo has like +every Spanish city; but it rained and we did not stop at the Paseo which +looked so pleasant. + +The city, as so many have told and as I hope the reader will imagine, is +a network of winding and crooked lanes, which the books say are Moorish, +but which are medieval like those of every old city. They nowhere lend +themselves to walking for pleasure, and the houses do not open their +_patios_ to the passer with Andalusian expansiveness; they are in fact +of a quite Oriental reserve. I remember no dwellings of the grade, +quite, of hovels; but neither do there seem to be many palaces +or palatial houses in my hurried impression. Whatever it may be +industrially or ecclesiastically, Toledo is now socially provincial and +tending to extinction. It is so near Madrid that if I myself were living +in Toledo I would want to live in Madrid, and only return for brief +sojourns to mourn my want of a serious object in life; at Toledo it must +be easy to cherish such an object. + +Industrially, of course, one associates it with the manufacture of the +famous Toledo blades, which it is said are made as wonderful as ever, +and I had a dim idea of getting a large one for decorative use in a New +York flat. But the foundry is a mile out of town, and I only got so far +as to look at the artists who engrave the smaller sort in shops open to +the public eye; and my purpose dwindled to the purchase of a little pair +of scissors, much as a high resolve for the famous marchpane of Toledo +ended in a piece of that pastry about twice the size of a silver dollar. +Not all of the twenty thousand people of Toledo could be engaged in +these specialties, and I owe myself to blame for not asking more about +the local industries; but it is not too late for the reader, whom +I could do no greater favor than sending him there, to repair my +deficiency. In self-defense I urge my knowledge of a military school +in the Alcazar, where and in the street leading up to it we saw some +companies of the comely and kindly-looking cadets. I know also that +there are public night schools where those so minded may study the arts +and letters, as our guide was doing in certain directions. Now that +there are no longer any Jews in Toledo, and the Arabs to whom they +betrayed the Gothic capital have all been Christians or exiles for many +centuries, we felt that we represented the whole alien element of the +place; there seemed to be at least no other visitors of our lineage or +language. + + + +VI + + +We were going to spend the rest of the day driving out through the +city into the country beyond the Tagus, and we drove off in our really +splendid turnout through swarms of beggars whose prayers our horses' +bells drowned when we left them to their despair at the hotel door. At +the moment of course we believe that it was a purely dramatic misery +which the wretched creatures represented; but sometimes I have since +had moments of remorse in which I wish I had thrown big and little +dogs broadcast among them. They could not all have been begging for the +profit or pleasure of it; some of them were imaginably out of work and +worthily ragged as I saw them, and hungry as I begin to fear them. I am +glad now to think that many of them could not see with their poor blind +eyes the face which I hardened against them, as we whirled away to the +music of our horses' bells. + +The bells pretty well covered our horses from their necks to their +haunches, a pair of gallant grays urged to their briskest pace by the +driver whose short square face and humorous mouth and eyes were a joy +whenever we caught a glimpse of them. He was one of those drivers who +know everybody; he passed the time of day with all the men we met, and +he had a joking compliment for all the women, who gladdened at sight of +him from the thresholds where they sat sewing or knitting: such a driver +as brings a gay world to home-keeping souls and leaves them with the +feeling of having been in it. I would have given much more than I gave +the beggars in Toledo to know just in what terms he and his universal +acquaintance bantered each other; but the terms might sometimes have +been rather rank. Something, at any rate, qualified the air, which I +fancied softer than that of Madrid, with a faint recurrent odor, as +if in testimony of the driver's derivation from those old rancid +Christians, as the Spaniards used to call them, whose lineage had never +been crossed with Moorish blood. If it was merely something the +carriage had acquired from the stable, still it was to be valued for +its distinction in a country of many smells; and I would not have been +without it. + +When we crossed the Tagus by a bridge which a company of workmen +willingly paused from mending to let us by, and remained standing +absent-mindedly aside some time after we had passed, we found ourselves +in a scene which I do not believe was ever surpassed for spectacularity +in any theater. I hope this is not giving the notion of something +fictitious in it; I only mean that here Nature was in one of her most +dramatic moods. The yellow torrent swept through a deep gorge of red +earth, which on the farther side climbed in precipitous banks, cleft by +enormous fissures, or chasms rather, to the wide plateau where the gray +city stood. The roofs of mellow tiles formed a succession of levels +from which the irregular towers and pinnacles of the churches stamped +themselves against a sky now filled with clouds, but in an air so clear +that their beautiful irregularities and differences showed to one very +noble effect. The city still looked the ancient capital of the two +hundred thousand souls it once embraced, and in its stony repair there +was no hint of decay. + +[Illustration: 16 THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE YELLOW TAGUS] + +On our right, the road mounted through country wild enough at times, but +for the most part comparatively friendly, with moments of being almost +homelike. There were slopes which, if massive always, were sometimes +mild and were gray with immemorial olives. In certain orchard nooks +there were apricot trees, yellowing to the autumn, with red-brown +withered grasses tangling under them. Men were gathering the fruit of +the abounding cactuses in places, and in one place a peasant was bearing +an arm-load of them to a wide stone pen in the midst of which stood a +lordly black pig, with head lifted and staring, indifferent to cactuses, +toward Toledo. His statuesque pose was of a fine hauteur, and a more +imaginative tourist than I might have fancied him lost in a dream of +the past, piercing beyond the time of the Iberian autochtons to those +prehistoric ages + + When wild in woods the noble savage ran, + +pursuing or pursued by his tusked and bristled ancestor, and then slowly +reverting through the different invasions and civilizations to that +signal moment when, after three hundred Moslem years, Toledo became +Christian again forever, and pork resumed its primacy at the table. +Dark, mysterious, fierce, the proud pig stood, a figure made for +sculpture; and if he had been a lion, with the lion's royal ideal of +eating rather than feeding the human race, the reader would not have +thought him unworthy of literature; I have seldom seen a lion that +looked worthier of it. + +We must have met farmer-folk, men and women, on our way and have seen +their white houses farther or nearer. But mostly the landscape was +lonely and at times nightmarish, as the Castilian landscape has a trick +of being, and remanded us momently to the awful entourage of our run +from Valladolid to Madrid. We were glad to get back to the Tagus, which +if awful is not grisly, but wherever it rolls its yellow flood lends the +landscape such a sublimity that it was no esthetic descent from the high +perch of that proud pig to the mighty gorge through which, geologically +long ago, the river had torn its way. When we drove back the +bridge-menders stood aside for us while we were yet far off, and the +women came to their doorways at the sound of our bells for another +exchange of jokes with our driver. By the time a protracted file of +mules had preceded us over the bridge, a brisk shower had come up, and +after urging our grays at their topmost speed toward the famous church +of San Juan de los Reyes Catolicos, we still had to run from our +carriage door through the rain. + +Happily the portal was in the keeping of one of those authorized beggars +who guard the gates of heaven everywhere in that kind country, and he +welcomed us so eagerly from the wet that I could not do less than give +him a big dog at once. In a moment of confusion I turned about, and +taking him for another beggar, I gave him another big dog; and when we +came out of the church he had put off his cap and arranged so complete a +disguise with the red handkerchief bravely tied round his head, that my +innocence was again abused, and once more a big dog passed between us. +But if the merit of the church might only be partially attributed +to him, he was worth the whole three. The merit of the church was +incalculable, for it was meant to be the sepulcher of the Catholic +Kings, who were eventually more fitly buried in the cathedral at +Granada, in the heart of their great conquest; and it is a most +beautiful church, of a mingled Saracenic plateresque Gothic, as the +guide-books remind me, and extravagantly baroque as I myself found it. I +personally recall also a sense of chill obscurity and of an airy gallery +wandering far aloof in the upper gloom, which remains overhead with me +still, and the yet fainter sense of the balconies crowning like capitals +the two pillars fronting the high altar. I am now sorry for our haste, +but one has not so much time for enjoying such churches in their +presence as for regretting them in their absence. One should live +near them, and visit them daily, if one would feel their beauty in its +recondite details; to have come three thousand miles for three minutes +of them is no way of making that beauty part of one's being, and I will +not pretend that I did in this case. What I shall always maintain is +that I had a living heartache from the sight of that space on the +fagade of this church which is overhung with the chains of the Christian +captives rescued from slavery among the Moors by the Catholic Kings in +their conquest of Granada. They were not only the memorials of the most +sorrowful fact, but they represented the misery of a thousand years of +warfare in which the prisoners on either side suffered in chains for +being Moslems or being Christians. The manacles and the fetters on the +church front are merely decorative to the glance, but to the eye that +reads deeper, how structural in their tale of man's inhumanity to man! +How heavily they had hung on weary limbs! How pitilessly they had +eaten through bleeding ulcers to the bone! Yet they were very, very +decorative, as the flowers are that bloom on battle-fields. + +Even with only a few minutes of a scant quarter-hour to spare, I would +not have any one miss seeing the cloister, from which the Catholic Kings +used to enter the church by the gallery to those balcony capitals, but +which the common American must now see by going outside the church. The +cloister is turned to the uses of an industrial school, as we were glad +to realize because our guide, whom we liked so much, was a night student +there. It remains as beautiful and reverend as if it were of no secular +use, full of gentle sculptures, with a garden in the middle, raised +above the pavement with a border of thin tiles, and flower-pots standing +on their coping, all in the shadow of tall trees, overhanging a deep +secret-keeping well. From this place, where you will be partly sheltered +from the rain, your next profitable sally through the storm will be to +Santa Maria la Blanca, once the synagogue of the richest Jews of Toledo, +but now turned church in spite of its high authorization as a place of +Hebrew worship. It was permitted them to build it because they declared +they were of that tribe of Israel which, when Caiaphas, the High Priest, +sent round to the different tribes for their vote whether Jesus should +live or die, alone voted that He should live. Their response, as +Theophile Gautier reports from the chronicles, is preserved in the +Vatican with a Latin version of the Hebrew text. The fable, if it is a +fable, has its pathos; and I for one can only lament the religious +zeal to which the preaching of a fanatical monk roused the Christian +neighborhood in the fifteenth century, to such excess that these kind +Jews were afterward forbidden their worship in the place. It is a very +clean-looking, cold-looking white monument of the Catholic faith, with +a _retablo_ attributed to Berruguete, and much plateresque Gothic detail +mingled with Byzantine ornament, and Moorish arabesquing and the famous +stucco honeycombing which we were destined at Seville and Granada to +find almost sickeningly sweet. Where the Rabbis read the law from their +pulpit the high altar stands, and the pious populace has for three +hundred years pushed the Jews from the surrounding streets, where they +had so humbled their dwellings to the lowliest lest they should rouse +the jealousy of their sleepless enemies. + + + +VII + + +When we had visited this church there remained only the house of the +painter known as El Greco, for whom we had formed such a distaste, +because of the long features of the faces in his pictures, that our +guide could hardly persuade us his house was worth seeing. Now I am glad +he prevailed with us, for we have since come to find a peculiar charm +in these long features and the characteristic coloring of El Greco's +pictures. The little house full of memorials and the little garden full +of flowers, which ought to have been all forget-me-nots, were entirely +delightful. As every one but I knew, and even I now know, he was born a +Greek with the name of Theotocopuli, and studied tinder Titian till he +found his account in a manner of his own, making long noses and long +chins and high narrow foreheads in ashen gray, and at last went mad in +the excess of his manner. The house has been restored by the Marquis de +la Vega, according to his notion of an old Spanish house, and has the +pleasantest small _patio_ in the world, looked down into from a carved +wooden gallery, with a pavement of red tiles interset with Moorish tiles +of divers colors. There are interesting pictures everywhere, and on one +wall the certificate of the owner's membership in the Hispanic Society +of America, which made me feel at home because it was signed with the +name of an American friend of mine, who is repressed by prosperity from +being known as a poet and one of the first Spanish scholars of any time. + +The whole place is endearingly homelike and so genuinely hospitable that +we almost sat down to luncheon in the kitchen with the young Spanish +king who had lunched with the Marquis there a few weeks before. There +was a veranda outside where we could linger till the rain held up, +and look into the garden where the flowers ought to have been +forget-me-nots, but were as usual mostly marigolds and zinnias. They +crowded round tile-edged pools, and other flowers bloomed in pots on the +coping of the garden-seats built up of thin tiles carved on their edges +to an inward curve. It is strongly believed that there are several +stories under the house, and the Marquis is going some day to dig them +up or out to the last one where the original Jewish owner of the house +is supposed to have hid his treasure. In the mean time we could look +across the low wall that belted the garden in, to a vacant ground a +little way off where some boys were playing with a wagon they had +made. They had made it out of an oblong box, with wheels so rudely and +imperfectly rounded, that they wabbled fearfully and at times gave way +under the body; just as they did with the wagons that the boys I knew +seventy years ago used to make. + +I became so engrossed in the spectacle, so essentially a part of the +drama, that I did not make due account of some particulars of the +subterranean six stories of El Greco's house. There must have been other +things worth seeing in Toledo, thousands of others, and some others we +saw, but most we missed, and many I do not remember. It was now coming +the hour to leave Toledo, and we drove back to our enchanted castle for +our bill, and for the omnibus to the station. I thought for some time +that there was no charge for the fire, or even the smoke we had the +night before, but my eyes were holden from the item which I found later, +by seeing myself addressed as Milor. I had never been addressed as +a lord in any bill before, but I reflected that in the proud old +metropolis of the Goths I could not be saluted as less, and I gladly +paid the bill, which observed a golden mean between cheapness and +dearness, and we parted good friends with our host, and better with +our guide, who at the last brought out an English book, given him by an +English friend, about the English cathedrals. He was fine, and I could +not wish any future traveler kinder fortune than to have his guidance +in Toledo. Some day I am going back to profit more fully by it, and +to repay him the various fees which he disbursed for me to different +doorkeepers and custodians and which I forgot at parting and he was too +delicate to remind me of. + +When all leaves were taken and we were bowed out and away our horses, +covered with bells, burst with the omnibus through a solid mass of +beggars come to give us a last chance of meriting heaven by charity +to them, and dashed down the hill to the station. There we sat a long +half-hour in the wet evening air, wondering how we had been spared +seeing those wretches trampled under our horses' feet, or how the long +train of goats climbing to the city to be milked escaped our wheels. But +as we were guiltless of inflicting either disaster, we could watch +with a good conscience the quiescent industry of some laborers in the +brickyard beyond the track. Slowly and more slowly they worked, +wearily, apathetically, fetching, carrying, in their divided skirts of +cross-barred stuff of a rich Velasquez dirt color. One was especially +worthy of admiration from his wide-brimmed black hat and his thoughtful +indifference to his task, which was stacking up a sort of bundles of +long grass; but I dare say he knew what it all meant. Throughout I +was tormented by question of the precise co-racial quality of some +English-speaking folk who had come to share our bone-breaking return to +Madrid in the train so deliberately waiting there to begin afflicting +us. English English they certainly were not; American English as +little. If they were Australian English, why should not it have been a +convention of polite travel for them to come up and say so, and save us +that torment of curiosity? But perhaps they were not Australians. + + + + +VII. THE GREAT GRIDIRON OF ST. LAWRENCE + + +It seems a duty every Protestant owes his heresy to go and see +how dismally the arch-enemy of heresy housed his true faith in the +palace-tomb-and-church of the Escorial. If the more light-minded tourist +shirks this act of piety, he makes a mistake which he will repent +afterward in vain. The Escorial is, for its plainness, one of the two +or three things worthiest seeing among the two or three hundred things +worth seeing in Spain. Yet we feigned meaning to miss it after we +returned to Madrid from Toledo, saying that everybody went to the +Escorial and that it would be a proud distinction not to go. All the +time we knew we should go, and we were not surprised when we were chosen +by one of our few bright days for the excursion, though we were taken +inordinately early, and might well have been started a little later. + + + +I + + +Nothing was out of the common on the way to the station, and our sense +of the ordinary was not relieved when we found ourselves in a car of the +American open-saloon pattern, well filled with other Americans bent upon +the same errand as ourselves; though I am bound to say that the backs of +the transverse seats rose well toward the roof of the car with a certain +originality. + +When we cleared the city streets and houses, we began running out +into the country through suburbs vulgarly gay with small, bright brick +villas, so expressive of commuting that the eye required the vision of +young husbands and fathers going in at the gates with gardening tools +on their shoulders and under their arms. To be sure, the time of day +and the time of year were against this; it was now morning and autumn, +though there was a vernal brilliancy in the air; and the grass, +flattered by the recent rains, was green where we had last seen it +gray. Along a pretty stream, which, for all I know may have been the +Manzanares, it was so little, files of Lombardy poplars followed +away very agreeably golden in foliage; and scattered about were +deciduous-looking evergreens which we questioned for live-oaks. We were +going northward over the track which had brought us southward to Madrid +two weeks before, and by and by the pleasant levels broke into rough +hills and hollows, strewn with granite boulders which, as our train +mounted, changed into the savage rock masses of New Castile, and as we +drew near the village of Escorial gave the scene the look of that very +desolate country. But it could not be so gloomy in the kind sunlight +as it was when lashed by the savage storm which we had seen it cowering +under before; and at the station we lost all feeling of friendlessness +in the welcome of the thronging guides and hotel touters. + +Our ideal was a carriage which we could keep throughout the day and use +for our return to the train in the afternoon; and this was so exactly +the ideal of a driver to whom we committed ourselves that we were +somewhat surprised to have his vehicle develop into a motor-omnibus, and +himself into a conductor. + +When we arrived at the palace some miles off, up a winding way, he +underwent another change, and became our guide to the Escorial. In the +event he proved a very intelligent guide, as guides go, and I really +cannot now see how we could have got on without him. He adapted the +Spanish names of things to our English understanding by shortening +them; a _patio_ became a _pat',_ and an old master an old mast'; and an +endearing quality was imparted to the grim memory of Philip II. by the +diminutive of Philly. We accepted this, but even to have Charles V. +brought nearer our hearts as Charley Fif, we could not bear to have our +guide exposed to the mockery of less considerate travelers. I instructed +him that the emperor's name was Charles, and that only boys and very +familiar friends of that name were called Charley among us. He thanked +me, and at once spoke again of Charley Fif; which I afterward found was +the universally accepted style of the great emperor among the guides +of Spain. In vain I tried to persuade them out of it at Cordova, at +Seville, at Granada, and wherever else they had to speak of an emperor +whose memory really seems to pervade the whole land. + + + +II + + +The genuine village of Escorial lies mostly to the left of the station, +but the artificial town which grew up with the palace is to the right. +Both are called after the slag of the iron-smelting works which were and +are the vital industry of the first Escorial; but the road to the palace +takes you far from the slag, with a much-hoteled and garden-walled +dignity, to the plateau, apparently not altogether natural, where the +massive triune edifice stands in the keeping of a throng of American +women wondering how they are going to see it, and lunch, and get back to +their train in time. Many were trying, the day of our visit, to see the +place with no help but that of their bewildering Baedekers, and we had +constant reason to be glad of our guide as we met or passed them in the +measureless courts and endless corridors. + +At this distance of time and place we seem to have hurried first to the +gorgeous burial vault where the kings and queens of Spain lie, each +one shut in a gilded marble sarcophagus in their several niches of the +circular chamber, where under the high altar of the church they have the +advantage of all the masses said above them. But on the way we must have +passed through the church, immense, bare, cold, and sullener far than +that sepulcher; and I am sure that we visited last of all the palace, +where it is said the present young king comes so seldom and unwillingly, +as if shrinking from the shelf appointed for him in that crypt shining +with gold and polished marble. + +It is of death, not life, that the Escorial preaches, and it was to +eternal death, its pride and gloom, and not life everlasting, that the +dark piety of Philip voluntarily, or involuntarily, consecrated +the edifice. But it would be doing a wrong to one of the greatest +achievements of the human will, if one dwelt too much, or too wholly, +upon this gloomy ideal. The Escorial has been many times described; I +myself forbear with difficulty the attempt to describe it, and I satisfy +my longing to set it visibly before the reader by letting an earlier +visitor of my name describe it for me. I think he does it larger justice +than modern observers, because he escapes the cumulative obligation +which time has laid upon them to find the subjective rather than the +objective fulfilment of its founder's intention in it. At any rate, in +March, 1623, James Howell, waiting as secretary of the romantic mission +the bursting of the iridescent love-dream which had brought Charles +Stuart, Prince of Wales, from England to woo the sister of the +Spanish king in Madrid, had leisure to write one of his most delightful +"familiar letters" concerning the Escorial to a friend in London. + +[Illustration: 17 THE TOWN AND MONASTERY OF ESCORIAL] + +"I was yesterday at the Escorial to see the monastery of St. Lawrence, +the eighth wonder of the world; and truly considering the site of the +place, the state of the thing, the symmetry of the structure, with +diverse other rareties, it may be called so; for what I have seen +in Italy and other places are but baubles to it. It is built among +a company of craggy hills, which makes the air the hungrier and +wholesomer; it is all built of freestone and marble, and that with +such solidity and moderate height that surely Philip the Second's chief +design was to make a sacrifice of it to eternity, and to contest with +the meteors and time itself. It cost eight millions; it was twenty-four +years abuilding, and the founder himself saw it furnished and enjoyed it +twelve years after, and carried his bones himself thither to be buried. +The reason that moved King Philip to waste so much treasure was a vow he +had made at the battle of St. Quentin, where he was forced to batter +a monastery of St. Lawrence friars, and if he had the victory he would +erect such a monument to St. Lawrence that the world had not the like; +therefore the form of it is like a gridiron, the handle is a huge +royal palace, and the body a vast monastery or assembly of quadrangular +cloisters, for there are as many as there be months of the year. There +be a hundred monks, and every one hath his man and his mule, and a +multitude of officers; besides there are three libraries there full of +the choicest books for all sciences. It is beyond all expression what +grots, gardens, walks, and aqueducts there are there, and what curious +fountains in the upper cloisters, for there be two stages of cloisters. +In fine, there is nothing that is vulgar there. To take a view of every +room in the house one must make account to go ten miles; there is a +vault called the Pantheon under the high altar, which is all paved, +walled, and arched with marble; there be a number of huge silver +candlesticks taller than I am; lamps three yards compass, and diverse +chalices and crosses of massive gold; there is one choir made all +of burnished brass; pictures and statues like giants; and a world of +glorious things that purely ravished me. By this mighty monument it may +be inferred that Philip the Second, though he was a little man, yet +he had vast gigantic thoughts in him, to leave such a huge pile for +posterity to gaze upon and admire in his memory." + + + +III + + +Perhaps this description is not very exact, but precision of statement +is not to be expected of a Welshman; and if Howell preferred to say +Philip built the place in fulfilment of that vow at the battle of St. +Quentin, doubtless he believed it; many others did; it has only of late +been discovered that Philip was not at St. Quentin, and did not "batter +a monastery of St. Lawrence friars" there. I like to think the rest is +all as Howell says down to the man and mule for every monk. If there are +no men and mules left, there are very few monks either, after the many +suppressions of convents. The gardens are there of an unquestionable +symmetry and beauty, and the "company of craggy hills" abides all round +the prodigious edifice, which is at once so prodigious, and grows larger +upon you in the retrospect. + +Now that I am this good distance away, and cannot bring myself to book +by a second experience, I feel it safe to say that I had a feeling of +St. Peter's-like immensity in the church of the Escorial, with more than +St. Peter's-like bareness. The gray colorlessness of the architecture +somberly prevails in memory over the frescoes of the painters invited +to relieve it in the roof and the _retablo,_ and thought turns from the +red-and-yellow jasper of altar and pulpit, and the bronze-gilt effigies +of kneeling kings and queens to that niche near the oratory where the +little terrible man who imagined and realized it all used to steal in +from his palace, and worship next the small chamber where at last he +died. It is said he also read despatches and state papers in this nook, +but doubtless only in the intervals of devotion. + +Every one to his taste, even in matters of religion; Philip reared +a temple to the life beyond this, and as if with the splendor of the +mausoleum which it enshrines he hoped to overcome the victorious grave; +the Caliph who built the mighty mosque at Cordova, which outlasts every +other glory of his capital, dedicated it to the joy of this life as +against the gloom of whose who would have put it under the feet of +death. "Let us build," he said to his people, "the Kaaba of the West +upon the site of a Christian temple, which we will destroy, so that we +may set forth how the Cross shall fall and become abased before the True +Prophet. Allah will never place the world beneath the feet of those who +make themselves the slaves of drink and sensuality while they preach +penitence and the joys of chastity, and while extolling poverty enrich +themselves to the loss of their neighbors. For these the sad and silent +cloister; for us, the crystalline fountain and the shady grove; for +them, the rude and unsocial life of dungeon-like strongholds; for us, +the charm of social life and culture; for them, intolerance and tyranny; +for us, a ruler who is our father; for them, the darkness of ignorance; +for us, letters and instruction as wide-spread as our creed; for them, +the wilderness, celibacy, and the doom of the false martyr; for us, +plenty, love, brotherhood, and eternal joy." + +In spite of the somewhat vaunting spirit of his appeal, the wager of +battle decided against the Arab; it was the Crescent that fell, the +Cross that prevailed; in the very heart of Abderrahman's mosque a +Christian cathedral rises. Yet in the very heart of Philip's temple to +the spirit of the cloister, the desert, the martyrdom, one feels that +a great deal could be said on Abderrahman's side. This is a world which +will not be renounced, in fact, and even in Christian Spain it has +triumphed in the arts and sciences beyond its earlier victories in +Moslem Spain. One finds Philip himself, with his despatches in that high +nook, rather than among the bronze-gilt royalties at the high altar, +though his statue is duly there with those of his three wives. The group +does not include that poor Bloody Mary of England, who should have been +the fourth there, for surely she suffered enough for his faith and him +to be of his domestic circle forever. + + + +IV + + +It is the distinct merit of the Escorial that it does not, and perhaps +cannot take long in doing; otherwise the doer could not bear it. A look +round the sumptuous burial chamber of the sovereigns below the high +altar of the church; a glance at the lesser sepulchral glories of the +infantes and infantas in their chapels and corridors, suffices for the +funereal third of the trinity of tomb and temple and palace; and though +there are gayer constituents of the last, especially the gallery of the +chapter-house, with its surprisingly lively frescoes and its sometimes +startling canvases, there is not much that need really keep you from +the royal apartments which seem the natural end of your visit. Of these +something better can be said than that they are no worse than most other +royal apartments; our guide led us to them through many granite courts +and corridors where we left groups of unguided Americans still maddening +over their Baedekers; and we found them hung with pleasing tapestries, +some after such designs of Goya's as one finds in the basement of +the Prado. The furniture was in certain rooms cheerily upholstered in +crimson and salmon without sense of color, but as if seeking relief from +the gray of the church; and there are battle-pieces on the walls, +fights between Moors and Christians, which interested me. The dignified +consideration of the custodian who showed us through the apartments +seemed to have adapted to our station a manner left over from the +infrequent presence of royalty; as I have said, the young king of Spain +does not like coming to the Escorial. + +I do not know why any one comes there, and I search my consciousness in +vain for a better reason than the feeling that I must come, or would be +sorrier if I did not than if I did. The worthy Howell does not commit +himself to any expression of rejoicing or regretting in having done the +Escorial. But the good Theophile Gautier, who visited the place more +than two hundred years after, owns frankly that he is "excessively +embarrassed in giving his opinion" of it. "So many people," he says, +"serious and well-conditioned, who, I prefer to think, have never seen +it, have spoken of it as a _chef d'oeuvre,_ and a supreme effort of +the human spirit, so that I should have the air, poor devil of a +_facilletoniste errant,_ of wishing to play the original and taking +pleasure in my contrary-mindedness; but still in my soul and conscience +I cannot help finding the Escorial the most tiresome and the most +stupid monument that could be imagined, for the mortification of his +fellow-beings, by a morose monk and a suspicious tyrant. I know very +well that the Escorial had a serious and religious aim; but gravity +is not dryness, melancholy is not marasm, meditation is not ennui, and +beauty of forms can always be happily wedded to elevation of ideas." +This is the Frenchman's language as he goes into the Escorial; he does +not cheer up as he passes through the place, and when he comes out he +has to say: "I issued from that desert of granite, from that monkish +necropolis with an extraordinary feeling of release, of exultation; +it seemed to me I was born into life again, that I could be young once +more, and rejoice in the creation of the good God, of which I had lost +all hope in those funeral vaults. The bland and luminous air wrapt me +round like a soft robe of fine wool, and warmed my body frozen in that +cadaverous atmosphere; I was saved from that architectural nightmare, +which I thought never would end. I advise people who are so fatuous as +to pretend that they are ever bored to go and spend three or four days +in the Escorial; they will learn what real ennui is and they will enjoy +themselves all the rest of their lives in reflecting that they might be +in the Escorial and that they are not." + +That was well toward a century ago. It is not quite like that now, +but it is something like it; the human race has become inured to the +Escorial; more tourists have visited the place and imaginably lightened +its burden by sharing it among their increasing number. Still there is +now and then one who is oppressed, crushed by it, and cannot relieve +himself in such ironies as Gautier's, but must cry aloud in suffering +like that of the more emotional De Amicis: "You approach a courtyard and +say, 'I have seen this already.' No. You are mistaken; it is another.... +You ask the guide where the cloister is and he replies, 'This is it,' +and you walk on for half an hour. You see the light of another world: +you have never seen just such a light; is it the reflection from the +stone, or does it come from the moon? No, it is daylight, but sadder +than darkness. As you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to +court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you +turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and +crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II.... You remember all +that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition; and +everything becomes clear to your mind's eye with a sudden light; for the +first time you understand it all; the Escorial is Philip II.... He is +still there alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God... . +Even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad, +I think of the Escorial, and then look at the walls of my room and +congratulate myself.... I see again the courtyards of the Escorial. ... +I dream of wandering through the corridors alone in the dark, followed +by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the doors +without finding a way of escape." + +[Illustration: 18 THE PANTHEON OF THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF SPAIN] + +I am of another race both from the Frenchman and the Italian, and +I cannot pretend to their experiences, their inferences, and their +conclusions; but I am not going to leave the Escorial to the reader +without trying to make him feel that I too was terribly impressed by it. +To be sure, I had some light moments in it, because when gloom goes too +far it becomes ridiculous; and I did think the convent gardens as I saw +them from the chapter-house window were beautiful, and the hills around +majestic and serious, with no intention of falling upon my prostrate +spirit. Yes, and after a lifelong abhorrence of that bleak king who +founded the Escorial, I will own that I am, through pity, beginning to +feel an affection for Philip II.; perhaps I was finally wrought upon by +hearing him so endearingly called Philly by our guide. + +Yet I will not say but I was glad to get out of the Escorial alive; and +that I welcomed even the sulkiness of the landlord of the hotel where +our guide took us for lunch. To this day I do not know why that landlord +should have been so sour; his lunch was bad, but I paid his price +without murmuring; and still at parting he could scarcely restrain his +rage; the Escorial might have entered into his soul. On the way to his +hotel the street was empty, but the house bubbled over with children +who gaped giggling at his guests from the kitchen door, and were then +apparently silenced with food, behind it. There were a great many flies +in the hotel, and if I could remember its name I would warn the public +against it. + +After lunch our guide lapsed again to our conductor and reappeared with +his motor-bus and took us to the station, where he overcame the scruples +of the lady in the ticket-office concerning our wish to return to Madrid +by the Sud-Express instead of the ordinary train. The trouble was about +the supplementary fare which we easily paid on board; in fact, there +is never any difficulty in paying a supplementary fare in Spain; the +authorities meet you quite half-way. But we were nervous because we had +already suffered from the delays of people at the last hotel where our +motor-bus stopped to take up passengers; they lingered so long over +lunch that we were sure we should miss the Sud-Express, and we did not +see how we could live in Escorial till the way-train started; yet for +all their delays we reached the station in time and more. The train +seemed strangely reduced in the number of its cars, but we confidently +started with others to board the nearest of them; there we were waved +violently away, and bidden get into the dining-car at the rear of the +train. In some dudgeon we obeyed, but we were glad to get away from +Escorial on any terms, and the dining-car was not bad, though it had a +somewhat disheveled air. We could only suppose that all the places in +the two other cars were taken, and we resigned ourselves to choosing +the least coffee-stained of the coffee-stained tables and ordered +more coffee at it. The waiter brought it as promptly as the conductor +collected our supplementary fare; he even made a feint of removing the +stains from our table-cloth with a flourish of his napkin, and then he +left us to our conjectures and reflections till he came for his pay and +his fee just before we ran into Madrid. + + + +VI + + +The mystery persisted and it was only when our train paused in the +station that it was solved. There, as we got out of our car, we +perceived that a broad red velvet carpet was laid from the car in front +into the station; a red carpet such as is used to keep the feet of +distinguished persons from their native earth the world over, but more +especially in Europe. Along this carpet were loosely grouped a number of +solemnly smiling gentlemen in frock-coats with their top-hats genteelly +resting in the hollows of their left arms, and without and beyond the +station in the space usually filled by closed and open cabs was a swarm +of automobiles. Then while our spirits were keyed to the highest pitch, +the Queen of Spain descended from the train, wearing a long black satin +cloak and a large black hat, very blond and beautiful beyond the report +of her pictures. By each hand she led one of her two pretty boys, Don +Jaime, the Prince of Asturias, heir apparent, and his younger brother. +She walked swiftly, with glad, kind looks around, and her ladies +followed her according to their state; then ushered and followed by the +gentlemen assembled to receive them, they mounted to their motors and +whirred away like so many persons of a histrionic pageant: not least +impressive, the court attendants filled a stage drawn by six mules, and +clattered after. + +From hearsay and reasonable surmise we learned that we had not come from +Escorial in the Sud-Express at all, but in the Queen's special train +bringing her and her children from their autumn sojourn at La Granja, +and that we had been for an hour a notable feature of the royal party +without knowing it, and of course without getting the least good of it. +We had indeed ignorantly enjoyed no less of the honor than two +other Americans, who came in the dining-car with us, but whether the +nice-looking Spanish couple who sat in the corner next us were equally +ignorant of their advantage I shall never know. It was but too highly +probable that the messed condition of the car was due to royal luncheon +in it just before we came aboard; but why we were suffered to come +aboard, or why a supplementary fare should have been collected from us +remains one of those mysteries which I should once have liked to keep +all Spain. + +We had to go quite outside of the station grounds to get a cab for our +hotel, but from this blow to our dignity I recovered a little later in +the day, when the king, attended by as small a troop of cavalry as I +suppose a king ever has with him, came driving by in the street where I +was walking. As he sat in his open carriage he looked very amiable, and +handsomer than most of the pictures make him. He seemed to be gazing at +me, and when he bowed I could do no less than return his salutation. As +I glanced round to see if people near me were impressed by our exchange +of civilities, I perceived an elderly officer next me. He was smiling as +I was, and I think he was in the delusion that the king's bow, which I +had so promptly returned, was intended for him. + + + + +VIII. CORDOVA AND THE WAY THERE + + +I should be sorry if I could believe that Cordova experienced the +disappointment in us, which I must own we felt in her; but our +disappointment was unquestionable, and I will at once offer it to +the reader as an inducement for him to go to Cordova with less lively +expectations than ours. I would by no means have him stay away; after +all, there is only one Cordova in the world which the capital of the +Caliphate of the West once filled with her renown; and if the great +mosque of Abderrahman is not so beautiful as one has been made to fancy +it, still it is wonderful, and could not be missed without loss. + + + +I + + +Better, I should say, take the _rapido_ which leaves Madrid three times +a week at nine-thirty in the morning, than the night express which +leaves as often at the same hour in the evening. Since there are now +such good day trains on the chief Spanish lines, it is flying in the +face of Providence not to go by them; they might be suddenly taken off; +besides, they have excellent restaurant-cars, and there is, moreover, +always the fascinating and often the memorable landscape which they pass +through. By no fault of ours that I can remember, our train was rather +crowded; that is, four or five out of the eight places in our corridor +compartment were taken, and we were afraid at every stop that more +people would get in, though I do not know that it was our anxieties +kept them out. For the matter of that, I do not know why I employed an +interpreter at Madrid to get my ticket stamped at the ticket-office; it +required merely the presentation of the ticket at the window; but the +interpreter seemed to wish it and it enabled him to practise his English +with me, and I realized that he must live. In a peseta's worth of +gratitude he followed us to our carriage, and he did not molest the +_mozo_ in putting our bags into the racks, though he hovered about the +door till the train started; and it just now occurs to me that he may +have thought a peseta was not a sufficient return for his gratitude; he +had rendered us no service. + +At Aranjuez the wheat-lands, which began to widen about us as soon as we +got beyond the suburbs of Madrid, gave way to the groves and gardens of +that really charming pleasaunce, charming quite from the station, with +grounds penetrated by placid waters overhung by the English elms which +the Castilians are so happy in having naturalized in their treeless +waste. Multitudes of nightingales are said to sing among them, but it +was not the season for hearing them from the train; and we made what +shift we could with the strawberry and asparagus beds which we could +see plainly, and the peach trees and cherry trees. One of these had +committed the solecism of blossoming in October, instead of April or +May, when the nobility came to their villas. + +We had often said during our stay in Madrid that we should certainly +come for a day at Aranjuez; and here we were, passing it with a five +minutes' stop. I am sure it merited much more, not only for its many +proud memories, but for its shameful ones, which are apt to be so much +more lasting in the case of royal pleasaunces. The great Catholic +King Ferdinand inherited the place with the Mastership of the Order of +Santiago; Charles V. used to come there for the shooting, and Philip +II., Charleses III. and IV., and Ferdinand VII. built and rebuilt its +edifices. But it is also memorable because the wretched Godoy fled there +with the king, his friend, and the queen, his paramour, and there the +pitiable king abdicated in favor of his abominable son Ferdinand VII. +It is the careful Murray who reminds me of this fact; Gautier, who +apparently fails to get anything to his purpose out of Aranjuez, passes +it with the remark that Godoy built there a gallery from his villa to +the royal palace, for his easier access to the royal family in which he +held a place so anomalous. From Mr. Martin Hume's _Modern Spain_ I learn +that when the court fled to Aranjuez from Madrid before the advance of +Murat, and the mob, civil and military, hunted Godoy's villa through for +him, he jumped out of bed and hid himself under a roll of matting, while +the king and the queen, to save him, decreed his dismissal from all his +offices and honors. + +But here just at the most interesting moment the successive bells and +whistles are screeching, and the _rapido_ is hurrying me away from +Aranjuez. We are leaving a railway station, but presently it is as if +we had set sail on a gray sea, with a long ground-swell such as we +remembered from Old Castile. These innumerable pastures and wheat-fields +are in New Castile, and before long more distinctively they are in La +Mancha, the country dear to fame as the home of Don Quixote. I must own +at once it does not look it, or at least look like the country I had +read out of his history in my boyhood. For the matter of that, no +country ever looks like the country one reads out of a book, however +really it may be that country. The trouble probably is that one carries +out of one's reading an image which one had carried into it. When I read +_Don Quixote_ and read and read it again, I put La Mancha first into the +map of southern Ohio, and then into that, after an interval of seven +or eight years, of northern Ohio; and the scenes I arranged for his +adventures were landscapes composed from those about me in my earlier +and later boyhood. There was then always something soft and mild in the +_Don Quixote_ country, with a blue river and gentle uplands, and woods +where one could rest in the shade, and hide one's self if one wished, +after easily rescuing the oppressed. Now, instead, a treeless plain +unrolled itself from sky to sky, clean, dull, empty; and if some azure +tops dimmed the clear line of the western horizon, how could I have got +them into my early picture when I had never yet seen a mountain in my +life? I could not put the knight and his squire on those naked levels +where they should not have got a mile from home without discovery and +arrest. I tried to think of them jogging along in talk of the adventures +which the knight hoped for; but I could not make it work. I could have +done better before we got so far from Aranjuez; there were gardens +and orchards and a very suitable river there, and those elm trees +overhanging it; but the prospect in La Mancha had only here and there a +white-availed white farmhouse to vary its lonely simplicity, its +desert fertility; and I could do nothing with the strips and patches of +vineyard. It was all strangely African, strangely Mexican, and not at +all American, not Ohioan, enough to be anything like the real La Mancha +of my invention. To be sure, the doors and windows of the nearer houses +were visibly netted against mosquitoes and that was something, but even +that did not begin to be noticeable till we were drawing near the Sierra +Morena. Then, so long before we reached the mighty chain of mountains +which nature has stretched between the gravity of New Castile and the +gaiety of Andalusia, as if they could not bear immediate contact, I +experienced a moment of perfect reconciliation to the landscape as +really wearing the face of that La Mancha familiar to my boyish vision. +Late in the forenoon, but early enough to save the face of La Mancha, +there appeared certain unquestionable shapes in the nearer and farther +distance which I joyously knew for those windmills which Don Quixote had +known for giants and spurred at, lance in rest. They were waving their +vans in what he had found insolent defiance, but which seemed to us +glad welcome, as of windmills waiting that long time for a reader of +Cervantes who could enter into their feelings and into the friendly +companionship they were offering. + + + +II + + +Our train did not pass very near, but the distance was not bad for +them; it kept them sixty or sixty-five years back in the past where they +belonged, and in its dimness I could the more distinctly see Don +Quixote careering against them, and Sancho Panza vainly warning, vainly +imploring him, and then in his rage and despair, "giving himself to the +devil," as he had so often to do in that master's service; I do not +know now that I would have gone nearer them if I could. Sometimes in the +desolate plains where the windmills stood so well aloof men were lazily, +or at least leisurely, plowing with their prehistoric crooked sticks. +Here and there the clean levels were broken by shallow pools of water; +and we were at first much tormented by expanses, almost as great as +these pools, of a certain purple flower, which no curiosity of ours +could prevail with to yield up the secret of its name or nature. It +was one of the anomalies of this desert country that it was apparently +prosperous, if one might guess from the comfortable-looking farmsteads +scattered over it, inclosing house and stables in the courtyard framed +by their white walls. The houses stood at no great distances from one +another, but were nowhere grouped in villages. There were commonly no +towns near the stations, which were not always uncheerful; sometimes +there were flower-beds, unless my memory deceives me. Perhaps there +would be a passenger or two, and certainly a loafer or two, and always +of the sex which in town life does the loafing; in the background +or through the windows the other sex could be seen in its domestic +activities. Only once did we see three girls of such as stay for the +coming and going of trains the world over; they waited arm in arm, and +we were obliged to own they were plain, poor things. + +Their whitewash saves the distant towns from the effect of sinking into +the earth, or irregularly rising from it, as in Old Castile, and the +landscape cheered up more and more as we ran farther south. We passed +through the country of the Valdepenas wine, which it is said would so +willingly be better than it is; there was even a station of that name, +which looked much more of a station than most, and had, I think I +remember, buildings necessary to the wine industry about it. Murray, +indeed, emboldens me in this halting conjecture with the declaration +that the neighboring town of Valdepenas is "completely undermined by +wine-cellars of very ancient date" where the wine is "kept in caves in +huge earthen jars," and when removed is put into goat or pig skins in +the right Don Quixote fashion. + +The whole region begins to reek of Cervantean memories. Ten miles from +the station of Argamasilla is the village where he imagined, and the +inhabitants believe, Don Quixote to have been born. Somewhere among +these little towns Cervantes himself was thrown into prison for +presuming to attempt collecting their rents when the people did not want +to pay them. This is what I seem to remember having read, but heaven +knows where, or if. What is certain is that almost before I was aware +we were leaving the neighborhood of Valdepenas, where we saw men with +donkeys gathering grapes and letting the donkeys browse on the vine +leaves. Then we were mounting among the foothills of the Sierra Morena, +not without much besetting trouble of mind because of those certain +circles and squares of stone on the nearer and farther slopes which we +have since somehow determined were sheep-folds. They abounded almost to +the very scene of those capers which Don Quixote cut on the mountainside +to testify his love for Dulcinea del Toboso, to the great scandal of +Sancho Panza riding away to give his letter to the lady, but unable to +bear the sight of the knight skipping on the rocks in a single garment. + + + +III + + +In the forests about befell all those adventures with the mad Cardenio +and the wronged Dorothea, both self-banished to the wilderness through +the perfidy of the same false friend and faithless lover. The episodes +which end so well, and which form, I think, the heart of the wonderful +romance, have, from the car windows, the fittest possible setting; +but suddenly the scene changes, and you are among aspects of nature as +savagely wild as any in that new western land where the countrymen of +Cervantes found a New Spain, just as the countrymen of Shakespeare found +a New England. Suddenly, or if not suddenly, then startlingly, we were +in a pass of the Sierra called (for some reason which I will leave +picturesquely unexplained) the Precipice of Dogs, where bare sharp peaks +and spears of rock started into the air, and the faces of the cliffs +glared down upon us like the faces of Indian warriors painted yellow and +orange and crimson, and every other warlike color. With my poor scruples +of moderation I cannot give a just notion of the wild aspects; I must +leave it to the reader, with the assurance that he cannot exaggerate +it, while I employ myself in noting that already on this awful summit we +began to feel ourselves in the south, in Andalusia. Along the mountain +stream that slipped silverly away in the valley below, there were +oleanders in bloom, such as we had left in Bermuda the April before. +Already, north of the Sierra the country had been gentling. The upturned +soil had warmed from gray to red; elsewhere the fields were green with +sprouting wheat; and there were wide spaces of those purple flowers, +like crocuses, which women were gathering in large baskets. Probably +they were not crocuses; but there could be no doubt of the vineyards +increasing in their acreage; and the farmhouses which had been without +windows in their outer walls, now sometimes opened as many as two to +the passing train. Flocks of black sheep and goats, through the optical +illusion frequent in the Spanish air, looked large as cattle in the +offing. Only in one place had we seen the tumbled boulders of Old +Castile, and there had been really no greater objection to La Mancha +than that it was flat, stale, and unprofitable and wholly unimaginable +as the scene of even Don Quixote's first adventures. + +But now that we had mounted to the station among the summits of the +Sierra Morena, my fancy began to feel at home, and rested in a scene +which did all the work for it. There was ample time for the fancy to +rest in that more than co-operative landscape. Just beyond the first +station the engine of a freight-train had opportunely left the track in +front of us, and we waited there four hours till it could be got back. +It would be inhuman to make the reader suffer through this delay with +us after it ceased to be pleasure and began to be pain. Of course, +everybody of foreign extraction got out of the train and many even, +went forward to look at the engine and see what they could do about it; +others went partly forward and asked the bolder spirits on their way +back what was the matter. Now and then our locomotive whistled as if +to scare the wandering engine back to the rails. At moments the +station-master gloomily returned to the station from somewhere and +diligently despaired in front of it. Then we backed as if to let our +locomotive run up the siding and try to butt the freight-train off the +track to keep its engine company. + +About this time the restaurant-car bethought itself of some sort of +late-afternoon repast, and we went forward and ate it with an interest +which we prolonged as much as possible. We returned to our car which was +now pervaded by an extremely bad smell. The smell drove us out, and we +watched a public-spirited peasant beating the acorns from a live-oak +near the station with a long pole. He brought a great many down, and +first filled his sash-pocket with them; then he distributed them among +the children of the third-class passengers who left the train and +flocked about him. But nobody seemed to do anything with the acorns, +though they were more than an inch long, narrow, and very sharp-pointed. +As soon as he had discharged his self-assumed duty the peasant lay down +on the sloping bank under the tree, and with his face in the grass, went +to sleep for all our stay, and for what I know the whole night after. + +It did not now seem likely that we should ever reach Gordova, though +people made repeated expeditions to the front of the train, and came +back reporting that in an hour we should start. We interested ourselves +as intensely as possible in a family from the next compartment, +London-tailored, and speaking either Spanish or English as they fancied, +who we somehow understood lived at Barcelona; but nothing came of our +interest. Then as the day waned we threw ourselves into the interest +taken by a fellow-passenger in a young Spanish girl of thirteen or +fourteen who had been in the care of a youngish middle-aged man when our +train stopped, and been then abandoned by him for hours, while he seemed +to be satisfying a vain curiosity at the head of the train. She owned +that the deserter was her father, and while we were still poignantly +concerned for her he came back and relieved the anxiety which the girl +herself had apparently not shared even under pressure of the whole +compartment's sympathy. + + + +IV + + +The day waned more and more; the sun began to sink, and then it sank +with that sudden drop which the sun has at last. The sky flushed +crimson, turned mauve, turned gray, and the twilight thickened over the +summits billowing softly westward. There had been a good deal of joking, +both Spanish and English, among the passengers; I had found particularly +cheering the richness of a certain machinist's trousers of bright golden +corduroy; but as the shades of night began to embrown the scene our +spirits fell; and at the cry of a lonesome bird, far off where the +sunset had been, they followed the sun in its sudden drop. Against +the horizon a peasant boy leaned on his staff and darkled against the +darkening sky. + +Nothing lacked now but the opportune recollection that this was the +region where the natives had been so wicked in times past that an +ingenious statesman, such as have seldom been wanting to Spain, imagined +bringing in a colony of German peasants to mix with them and reform +them. That is what some of the books say, but others say that the region +had remained unpeopled after the first exile of the conquered Moors. All +hold that the notion of mixing the colonists and the natives worked +the wrong way; the natives were not reformed, but the colonists were +depraved and stood in with the local brigands, ultimately, if not +immediately. This is the view suggested, if not taken, by that amusing +emissary, George Borrow, who seems in his _Bible in Spain_ to have been +equally employed in distributing the truths of the New Testament and +collecting material for the most dramatic study of Spanish civilization +known to literature. It is a delightful book, and not least delightful +in the moments of misgiving which it imparts to the reader, when he +does not know whether to prize more the author's observation or his +invention, whichever it may be. Borrow reports a conversation with an +innkeeper and his wife of the Colonial German descent, who gave a good +enough account of themselves, and then adds the dark intimation of an +Italian companion that they could not be honestly keeping a hotel in +that unfrequented place. It was not just in that place that our delay +had chosen to occur, but it was in the same colonized region, and I am +glad now that I had not remembered the incident from my first reading of +Borrow. It was sufficiently uncomfortable to have some vague association +with the failure of that excellent statesman's plan, blending creepily +with the feeling of desolation from the gathering dark, and I now recall +the distinct relief given by the unexpected appearance of two such +Guardias Civiles as travel with every Spanish train, in the space before +our lonely station. + +These admirable friends were part of the system which has made travel as +safe throughout Spain as it is in Connecticut, where indeed I sometimes +wonder that road-agents do not stop my Boston express in the waste +expanse of those certain sand barrens just beyond New Haven. The last +time I came through that desert I could not help thinking how nice it +would be to have two Guardias Civiles in our Pullman car; but of course +at the summit of the Sierra Morena, where our _rapido_ was stalled in +the deepening twilight, it was still nicer to see that soldier pair, +pacing up and down, trim, straight, very gentle and polite-looking, but +firm, with their rifles lying on their shoulders which they kept exactly +together. It is part of the system that they may use those rifles upon +any evil-doer whom they discover in a deed of violence, acting at +once as police, court of law, and executioners; and satisfying public +curiosity by pinning to the offender's coat their official certificate +that he was shot by such and such a civil guard for such and such a +reason, and then notifying the nearest authorities. It is perhaps too +positive, too peremptory, too precise; and the responsibility could +not be intrusted to men who had not satisfied the government of their +fitness by two years' service in the army without arrest for any +offense, or even any question of misbehavior. But these conditions +once satisfied, and their temperament and character approved, they are +intrusted with what seem plenary powers till they are retired for old +age; then their sons may serve after them as Civil Guards with the same +prospect of pensions in the end. I suppose they do not always travel +first class, but once their silent, soldierly presence honored our +compartment between stations; and once an officer of their corps +conversed for long with a fellow-passenger in that courteous ease and +self-respect which is so Spanish between persons of all ranks. + +It was not very long after the guards appeared so reassuringly before +the station, when a series of warning bells and whistles sounded, and +our locomotive with an impatient scream began to tug at our train. We +were really off, starting from Santa Elena at the very time when we +ought to have been stopping at Cordova, with a good stretch of four +hours still before us. As our fellow-travelers quitted us at one station +and another we were finally left alone with the kindly-looking old man +who had seemed interested in us from the first, and who now made some +advances in broken English. Presently he told us in Spanish, to account +for the English accent on which we complimented him, that he had two +sons studying some manufacturing business in Manchester, where he had +visited them, and acquired so much of our tongue as we had heard. He +was very proud and glad to speak of his sons, and he valued us for our +English and the strangeness which commends people to one another in +travel. When he got out at a station obscured past identification by its +flaring lamps, he would not suffer me to help him with his hand-baggage; +while he deplored my offered civility, he reassured me by patting my +back at parting. Yet I myself had to endure the kindness which he would +not when we arrived at Cordova, where two young fellows, who had got in +at a suburban station, helped me with our bags and bundles quite as if +they had been two young Americans. + + + +V + + +Somewhere at a junction our train had been divided and our car, left +the last of what remained, had bumped and threatened to beat itself to +pieces during its remaining run of fifteen miles. This, with our long +retard at Santa Elena, and our opportune defense from the depraved +descendants of the reforming German colonists by the Guardias Civiles, +had given us a day of so much excitement that we were anxious to have +it end tranquilly at midnight in the hotel which we had chosen from, our +Baedeker. I would not have any reader of mine choose it again from +my experience of it, though it was helplessly rather wilfully bad; +certainly the fault was not the hotel's that it seemed as far from the +station as Cordova was from Madrid. It might, under the circumstances, +have, been _a_ merit in it to be undergoing a thorough overhauling of +the furnishing and decoration of the rooms on the _patio_ which had +formed our ideal for a quiet night. A conventionally napkined waiter +welcomed us from the stony street, and sent us up to our rooms with the +young interpreter who met us at the station, but was obscure as to their +location. When we refused them because they were over that loud-echoing +alley, the interpreter made himself still more our friend and called +mandatorially down the speaking-tube that we wished _interiores_ and +would take nothing else, though he must have known that no such rooms +were to be had. He even abetted us in visiting the rooms on the _patio_ +and satisfying ourselves that they were all dismantled; when the waiter +brought up the hot soup which was the only hot thing in the house beside +our tempers, he joined with that poor fellow in reconciling us to the +inevitable. They declared that the people whom we heard uninterruptedly +clattering and chattering by in the street below, and the occasional +tempest of wheels and bells and hoofs that clashed up to us would be the +very last to pass through there that night, and they gave such good and +sufficient reasons for their opinion that we yielded as we needs must. +Of course, they were wrong; and perhaps they even knew that they were +wrong; but I think we were the only people in that neighborhood who got +any sleep that night or the next. We slept the sleep of exhaustion, but +I believe those Cordovese preferred waking outdoors to trying to sleep +within. It was apparently their custom to walk and talk the night away +in the streets, not our street alone, but all the other streets of +Cordova; the laughing which I heard may have expressed the popular +despair of getting any sleep. The next day we experimented in listening +from rooms offered us over another street, and then we remained +measurably contented to bear the ills we had. This was after an +exhaustive search for a better hotel had partly appeased us; but there +remained in the Paseo del Gran Capitan one house unvisited which has +ever since grown upon my belief as embracing every comfort and advantage +lacking to our hotel. I suppose I am the stronger in this belief because +when we came to it we had been so disappointed with the others that we +had not the courage to go inside. Smell for smell, the interior of that +hotel may have harbored a worse one than the odor of henhouse which +pervaded ours, I hope from the materials for calcimining the rooms on +the _patio._ + +By the time we returned we found a guide waiting for us, and we agreed +with him for a day's service. He did not differ with other authorities +as to the claims of Cordova on the tourist's interest. From being the +most brilliant capital of the Western world in the time of the Caliphs +it is now allowed by all the guides and guide-books and most of the +travelers, to be one of the dullest of provincial towns. It is no longer +the center of learning; and though it cannot help doing a large business +in olives, with the orchards covering the hills around it, the business +does not seem to be a very active one. "The city once the abode of +the flower of Andalusian nobility," says the intelligent O'Shea in +his _Guide to Spain, "_is inhabited chiefly by administradores of the +absentee senorio; their 'solares' are desert and wretched, the streets +ill paved though clean, and the whitewashed houses unimportant, low, and +denuded of all art and meaning, either past or present." Baedeker gives +like reasons for thinking "the traveler whose expectation is on +tiptoe as he enters the ancient capital of the Moors will probably be +disappointed in all but the cathedral." _Cook's Guide,_ latest but not +least commendable of the authorities, is of a more divided mind and +finds the means of trade and industry and their total want of visible +employment at the worst anomalous. + +[Illustration: 19 THE ANCIENT CITY OF CORDOVA] + +Vacant, narrow streets where the grass does not grow, and there is only +an endless going and coming of aimless feet; a market without buyers or +sellers to speak of, and a tangle of squat white houses, abounding in +lovely _patios,_ sweet and bright with flowers and fountains: this +seems to be Cordova in the consensus of the manuals, and with me in +the retrospect a sort of puzzle is the ultimate suggestion of the dead +capital of the Western Caliphs. Gautier thinks, or seventy-two years ago +he thought (and there has not been much change since), that "Cordova has +a more African look than any other city of Andalusia; its streets, or +rather its lanes, whose tumultuous pavement resembles the bed of dry +torrents, all littered with straw from the loads of passing donkeys, +have nothing that recalls the manners and customs of Europe. The Moors, +if they came back, would have no great trouble to reinstate themselves. +... The universal use of lime-wash gives a uniform tint to the +monuments, blunts the lines of the architecture, effaces the +ornamentation, and forbids you to read their age.... You cannot know +the wall of a century ago from the wall of yesterday. Cordova, once the +center of Arab civilization, is now a huddle of little white houses with +corridors between them where two mules could hardly pass abreast. Life +seems to have ebbed from the vast body, once animated by the active +circulation of Moorish blood; nothing is left now but the blanched +and calcined skeleton.... In spite of its Moslem air, Cordova is very +Christian and rests under the special protection of the Archangel +Raphael." It is all rather contradictory; but Gautier owns that the +great mosque is a "monument unique in the world, and novel even for +travelers who have had the fortune to admire the wonders of Moorish +architecture at Granada or Seville." + +De Amicis, who visited Cordova nearly forty-five years later, and in the +heart of spring, brought letters which opened something of the intimate +life of that apparently blanched and calcined skeleton. He meets young +men and matches Italian verses with their Spanish; spends whole nights +sitting in their cafes or walking their plazas, and comes away with his +mouth full of the rapturous verses of an Arab poet: "Adieu, Cordova! +Would that my life were as long as Noah's, that I might live forever +within thy walls! Would that I had the treasures of Pharaoh, to spend +them upon wine and the beautiful women of Cordova, with tho gentle +eyes that invite kisses!" He allows that the lines may be "a little too +tropical for the taste of a European," and it seems to me that there may +be a golden mean between scolding and flattering which would give the +truth about Cordova. I do not promise to strike it; our hotel still +rankles in my heart; but I promise to try for it, though I have to say +that the very moment we started for the famous mosque it began to rain, +and rained throughout the forenoon, while we weltered from wonder to +wonder through the town. We were indeed weltering in a closed carriage, +which found its way not so badly through the alleys where two mules +could not pass abreast. The lime-wash of the walls did not emit the +white heat in which the other tourists have basked or baked; the houses +looked wet and chill, and if they had those flowered and fountained +_patios_ which people talk of they had taken them in out of the rain. + + + +VI + + +At the mosque the _patio_ was not taken in only because it was so large, +but I find by our records that it was much molested by a beggar who +followed us when we dismounted at the gate of the Court of Oranges, and +all but took our minds off the famous Moorish fountain in the midst. It +was not a fountain of the plashing or gushing sort, but a noble great +pool in a marble basin. The women who clustered about it were not +laughing and chattering, or singing, or even dancing, in the right +Andalusian fashion, but stood silent in statuesque poses from which they +seemed in no haste to stir for filling their water jars and jugs. The +Moorish tradition of irrigation confronting one in all the travels and +histories as a supreme agricultural advantage which the Arabs took back +to Africa with them, leaving Spain to thirst and fry, lingers here in +the circles sunk round the orange trees and fed by little channels. +The trees grew about as the fancy took them, and did not mind the +incongruous palms towering as irregularly above them. While we wandered +toward the mosque a woman robed in white cotton, with a lavender scarf +crossing her breast, came in as irrelevantly as the orange trees and +stood as stably as the palms; in her night-black hair she alone in +Cordova redeemed the pledge of beauty made for all Andalusian women by +the reckless poets and romancers, whether in ballads or books of travel. + +One enters the court by a gate in a richly yellow tower, with a shrine +to St. Michael over the door, and still higher at the lodging of the +keeper a bed of bright flowers. Then, however, one is confronted with +the first great disappointment in the mosque. Shall it be whispered +in awe-stricken undertone that the impression of a bull-ring is what +lingers in the memory of the honest sight-seer from his first glance +at the edifice? The effect is heightened by the filling of the arcades +which encircle it, and which now confront the eye with a rounded wall, +where the Saracenic horseshoe remains distinct, but the space of yellow +masonry below seems to forbid the outsider stealing knowledge of the +spectacle inside. The spectacle is of course no feast of bulls (as the +Spanish euphemism has it), but the first amphitheatrical impression is +not wholly dispersed by the sight of the interior. In order that the +reader at his distance may figure this, he must imagine an indefinite +cavernous expanse, with a low roof supported in vaulted arches by some +thousand marble pillars, each with a different capital. There used to be +perhaps half a thousand more pillars, and Charles V. made the Cordovese +his reproaches for destroying the wonder of them when they planted +their proud cathedral in the heart of the mosque. He held it a sort of +sacrilege, but I think the honest traveler will say that there are still +enough of those rather stumpy white marble columns left, and enough of +those arches, striped in red and white with their undeniable suggestion +of calico awnings. It is like a grotto gaudily but dingily decorated, or +a vast circus-tent curtained off in hangings of those colors. + +[Illustration: 20 THE BELL-TOWER OF THE GREAT MOSQUE, CORDOVA] + +One sees the sanctuary where the great Caliph said his prayers, and the +Koran written by Othman and stained with his blood was kept; but I +know at least one traveler who saw it without sentiment or any sort of +reverent emotion, though he had not the authority of the "old rancid +Christianity" of a Castilian for withholding his homage. If people would +be as sincere as other people would like them to be, I think no one +would profess regret for the Arab civilization in the presence of its +monuments. Those Moors were of a religion which revolts all the finer +instincts and lifts the soul with no generous hopes; and the records of +it have no appeal save to the love of mere beautiful decoration. Even +here it mostly fails, to my thinking, and I say that for my part I found +nothing so grand in the great mosaue of Cordova as the cathedral which +rises in the heart of it. If Abderrahman boasted that he would rear a +shrine to the joy of earthly life and the hope of an earthly heaven, in +the place of the Christian temple which he would throw down, I should +like to overhear what his disembodied spirit would have to say to the +saint whose shrine he demolished. I think the saint would have the +better of him in any contention for their respective faiths, and could +easily convince the impartial witness that his religion then abiding in +medieval gloom was of promise for the future which Islam can never be. +Yet it cannot be denied that when Abderraham built his mosque the Arabs +of Cordova were a finer and wiser people than the Christians who +dwelt in intellectual darkness among them, with an ideal of gloom and +self-denial and a zeal for aimless martyrdom which must have been very +hard for a gentleman and scholar to bear. Gentlemen and scholars were +what the Arabs of the Western Caliphate seem to have become, with a +primacy in medicine and mathematics beyond the learning of all other +Europe in their day. They were tolerant skeptics in matters of religion; +polite agnostics, who disliked extremely the passion of some Christians +dwelling among them for getting themselves put to death, as they did, +for insulting the popularly accepted Mohammedan creed. Probably people +of culture in Cordova were quite of Abderrahman's mind in wishing +to substitute the temple of a cheerfuler ideal for the shrine of the +medieval Christianity which he destroyed; though they might have had +their reserves as to the taste in which his mosque was completed. If +they recognized it as a concession to the general preference, they could +do so without the discomfort which they must have suffered when some new +horde of Berbers, full of faith and fight, came over from Africa to push +back the encroaching Spanish frontier, and give the local Christians as +much martyrdom as they wanted. + +It is all a conjecture based upon material witness no more substantial +than that which the Latin domination left long centuries before the +Arabs came to possess the land. The mosque from which you drive through +the rain to the river is neither newer nor older looking than the +beautiful Saracenic bridge over the Guadalquivir which the Arabs +themselves say was first built by the Romans in the time of Augustus; +the Moorish mill by the thither shore might have ground the first wheat +grown in Europe. It is intensely, immemorially African, flat-roofed, +white-walled; the mules waiting outside in the wet might have been +drooping there ever since the going down of the Flood, from which the +river could have got its muddy yellow. + +If the reader will be advised by me he will not go to the Archaeological +Museum, unless he wishes particularly to contribute to the support of +the custodian; the collection will not repay him even for the time in +which a whole day of Cordova will seem so superabundant. Any little +street will be worthier his study, with its type of passing girls in +white and black mantillas, and its shallow shops of all sorts, their +fronts thrown open, and their interiors flung, as it were, on the +sidewalk. It is said that the streets were the first to be paved in +Europe, and they have apparently not been repaved since 850. This indeed +will not Hold quite true of that thoroughfare, twenty feet wide at +least, which led from our hotel to the Paseo del Gran Capitan. In this +were divers shops of the genteeler sort, and some large cafes, standing +full of men of leisure, who crowded to their doors and windows, with +their hats on and their hands in their pockets, as at a club, and let +no fact of the passing world escape their hungry eyes. Their behavior +expressed a famine of incident in Cordova which was pathetic. + + + +VII + + +The people did not look very healthy as to build or color, and there was +a sound of coughing everywhere. To be sure, it was now the season of +the first colds, which would no doubt wear off with the coming of next +spring; and there was at any rate not nearly so much begging as at +Toledo, because there could not be anywhere. I am sorry I can contribute +no statistics as to the moral or intellectual condition of Cordova; +perhaps they will not be expected or desired of me; I can only say that +the general intelligence is such that no one will own he does not know +anything you ask him even when he does not; but this is a national +rather than a local trait, which causes the stranger to go in many wrong +directions all over the peninsula. I should not say that there was any +noticeable decay of character from the north to the south such as the +attributive pride of the old Castilian in the Sheridan Knowlesian drama +would teach; the Cordovese looked no more shiftless than the haughtiest +citizens of Burgos. + +They had decidedly prettier _patios_ and more of them, and they had many +public carriages against none whatever in that ancient capital. Rubber +tires I did not expect in Cordova and certainly did not get in a city +where a single course over the pavements of 850 would have worn them to +tatters: but there seems a good deal of public spirit if one may judge +from the fact that it is the municipality which keeps Abderrahman's +mosque in repair. There are public gardens, far pleasanter than those of +Valladolid, which we visited in an interval of the afternoon, and there +is a very personable bull-ring to which we drove in the vain hope of +seeing the people come out in a typical multitude. But there had been no +feast of bulls; and we had to make what we could out of the walking +and driving in the Paseo del Gran Capitan toward evening. In its long, +discouraging course there were some good houses, but not many, and the +promenaders of any social quality were almost as few. Some ladies in +private carriages were driving out, and a great many more in public +ones as well dressed as the others, but with no pretense of state in +the horses or drivers. The women of the people all wore flowers in their +hair, a dahlia or a marigold, whether their hair was black or gray. No +ladies were walking in the Paseo, except one pretty mother, with her +nice-looking children about her, who totaled the sum of her class; but +men of every class rather swarmed. High or low, they all wore the kind +of hat which abounds everywhere in Andalusia and is called a Cordovese: +flat, stiff, squat in crown and wide in brim, and of every shade of +gray, brown, and black. + +I ought to have had my associations with the great Captain Gonsalvo in +the promenade which the city has named after him, but I am not sure that +I had, though his life was one of the Spanish books which I won my +way through in the middle years of my pathless teens. A comprehensive +ignorance of the countries and histories which formed the setting of his +most dramatic career was not the best preparation for knowledge of +the man, but it was the best I had, and now I can only look back at my +struggle with him and wonder that I came off alive. It is the hard fate +of the self-taught that their learning must cost them twice as much +labor as it would if they were taught by others; the very books they +study are grudging friends if not insidious foes. Long afterward when I +came to Italy, and began to make the past part of my present, I began to +untangle a little the web that the French and the Aragonese wove in +the conquest and reconquest of the wretched Sicilies; but how was I +to imagine in the Connecticut Western Reserve the scene of Gonsalvo's +victories in Calabria? Even loath Ferdinand the Catholic said they +brought greater glory to his crown than his own conquest of Granada; I +dare say I took some unintelligent pride in his being Viceroy of Naples, +and I may have been indignant at his recall and then his retirement from +court by the jealous king. But my present knowledge of these facts, and +of his helping put down the Moorish insurrection in 1500, as well as his +exploits as commander of a Spanish armada against the Turks is a +recent debt I owe to the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ and not to my boyish +researches. Of like actuality is my debt to Mr. Calvert's _Southern +Spain,_ where he quotes the accounting which the Great Captain gave +on the greedy king's demand for a statement of his expenses in the +Sicilies. + +"Two hundred thousand seven hundred and thirty-six ducats and 9 reals +paid to the clergy and the poor who prayed for the victory of the army +of Spain. + +"One hundred millions in pikes, bullets, and intrenching tools; 10,000 +ducats in scented gloves, to preserve the troops from the odor of the +enemies' dead left on the battle-field; 100,000 ducats, spent in the +repair of the bells completely worn out by every-day announcing fresh +victories gained over our enemies; 50,000 ducats in 'aguardiente' +for the troops on the eve of battle. A million and a half for the +safeguarding prisoners and wounded. + +"One million for Masses of Thanksgiving; 700,494 ducats for secret +service, etc. + +"And one hundred millions for the patience with which I have listened to +the king, who demands an account from the man who has presented him with +a Kingdom." + +It seems that Gonsalvo was one of the greatest humorists, as well as +captains of his age, and the king may very well have liked his fun no +better than his fame. Now that he has been dead nearly four hundred +years, Ferdinand would, if he were living, no doubt join Cordova in +honoring Gonzalo Hernandez de Aguila y de Cordova. After all he was not +born in Cordova (as I had supposed till an hour ago), but in the little +city of Montilla, five stations away on the railroad to the Malaga, and +now more noted for its surpassing sherry than for the greatest soldier +of his time. To have given its name to Amontillado is glory enough for +Montilla, and it must be owned that Gonzalo Hernandez de Aguila y de +Montilla would not sound so well as the title we know the hero by, when +we know him at all. There may be some who will say that Cordova merits +remembrance less because of him than because of Columbus, who first +came to the Catholic kings there to offer them not a mere kingdom, but +a whole hemisphere. Cordova was then the Spanish headquarters for the +operations against Granada, and one reads of the fact with a luminous +sense which one cannot have till one has seen Cordova. + + + +VIII + +[Illustration: 21 GATEWAY OF THE BRIDGE, CORDOVA] + +After our visits to the mosque and the bridge and the museum there +remained nothing of our forenoon, and we gave the whole of the earlier +afternoon to an excursion which strangers are expected to make into the +first climb of hills to the eastward of the city. The road which reaches +the Huerto de los Arcos is rather smoother for driving than the streets +of Cordova, but the rain had made it heavy, and we were glad of our good +horses and their owner's mercy to them. He stopped so often to breathe +them when the ascent began that we had abundant time to note the +features of the wayside; the many villas, piously named for saints, set +on the incline, and orcharded about with orange trees, in the beginning +of that measureless forest of olives which has no limit but the horizon. + +From the gate to the villa which we had come to see it was a stiff +ascent by terraced beds of roses, zinneas, and purple salvia beside +walls heavy with jasmine and trumpet creepers, in full bloom, and orange +trees, fruiting and flowering in their desultory way. Before the villa +we were to see a fountain much favored by our guide who had a passion +for the jets that played ball with themselves as long as the gardener +let him turn the water on, and watched with joy to see how high the +balls would go before slipping back. The fountain was in a grotto-like +nook, where benches of cement decked with scallop shells were set round +a basin with the figures of two small boys in it bestriding that of a +lamb, all employed in letting the water dribble from their mouths. It +was very simple-hearted, as such things seem mostly obliged to be, but +nature helped art out so well with a lovely abundance of leaf and petal +that a far more exacting taste than ours must have been satisfied. The +garden was in fact very pretty, though whether it was worth fifteen +pesetas and three hours coming to see the reader must decide for himself +when he does it. I think it was, myself, and I would like to be there +now, sitting in a shell-covered cement chair at the villa steps, and +letting the landscape unroll itself wonderfully before me. We were on a +shore of that ocean of olives which in southern Spain washes far up the +mountain walls of the blue and bluer distances, and which we were to +skirt more and more in bay and inlet and widening and narrowing expanses +throughout Andalusia. Before we left it we wearied utterly of it, and in +fact the olive of Spain is not the sympathetic olive of Italy, though +I should think it a much more practical and profitable tree. It is not +planted so much at haphazard as the Italian olive seems to be; its +mass looks less like an old apple orchard than the Italian; its regular +succession is a march of trim files as far as the horizon or the +hillsides, which they often climbed to the top. We were in the season of +the olive harvest, and throughout the month of October its nearer lines +showed the sturdy trees weighed down by the dense fruit, sometimes +very small, sometimes as large as pigeon eggs. There were vineyards and +wheat-fields in that vast prospect, and certainly there were towns and +villages; but what remains with me is the sense of olives and ever more +olives, though this may be the cumulative effect of other such prospects +as vast and as monotonous. + +While we looked away and away, the gardener and a half-grown boy were +about their labors that Sunday afternoon as if it were a week-day, +though for that reason perhaps they were not working very hard. They +seemed mostly to be sweeping up the fallen leaves from the paths, and +where the leaves had not fallen from the horse-chestnuts the boy was +assisting nature by climbing the trees and plucking them. We tried to +find out why he was doing this, but to this day I do not know why he +was doing it, and I must be content to contribute the bare fact to the +science of arboriculture. Possibly it was in the interest of neatness, +and was a precaution against letting the leaves drop and litter the +grass. There was apparently a passion for neatness throughout, which in +the villa itself mounted to ecstasy. It was in a state to be come and +lived in at any moment, though I believe it was occupied only in the +late spring and the early autumn; in winter the noble family went to +Madrid, and in summer to some northern watering-place. It was rather +small, and expressed a life of the minor hospitalities when the family +was in residence. It was no place for house-parties, and scarcely for +week-end visits, or even for neighborhood dinners. Perhaps on that +terrace there was afternoon ice-cream or chocolate for friends who rode +or drove over or out; it seemed so possible that we had to check in +ourselves the cozy impulse to pull up our shell-covered cement chairs to +some central table of like composition. + +Within, the villa was of a spick-and-spanness which I feel that I have +not adequately suggested; and may I say that the spray of a garden-hose +seemed all that would be needed to put the place in readiness for +occupation? Not that even this was needed for that interior of tile and +marble, so absolutely apt for the climate and the use the place would +be put to. In vain we conjectured, and I hope not impertinently, the +characters and tastes of the absentees; the sole clue that offered +itself was a bookshelf of some Spanish versions from authors scientific +and metaphysical to the verge of agnosticism. I would not swear to +Huxley and Herbert Spencer among the English writers, but they were such +as these, not in their entire bulk, but in extracts and special essays. +I recall the slightly tilted row of the neat paper copies; and I wish I +knew who it was liked to read them. The Spanish have a fondness for +such dangerous ground; from some of their novels it appears they feel it +rather chic to venture on it. + + + +IX + + +We came away from Cordova with a pretty good conscience as to its +sights. Upon the whole we were glad they were so few, when once we had +made up our minds about the mosque. But now I have found too late that +we ought to have visited the general market in the old square where the +tournaments used to take place; we ought to have seen also the Chapel +of the Hospital del Cardenal, because it was part of the mosque of +Al-Manssour; we ought to have verified the remains of two baths out of +the nine hundred once existing in the Calle del Bagno Alta; and we ought +finally to have visited the remnant of a Moorish house in the Plazuela +de San Nicolas, with its gallery of jasper columns, now unhappily +whitewashed. The Campo Santo has an unsatisfied claim upon my interest +because it was the place where the perfervid Christian zealots used to +find the martyrdom they sought at the hands of the unwilling Arabs; and +where, far earlier, Julius Caesar planted a plane tree after his victory +over the forces of Pompeii at Munda. The tree no longer exists, but +neither does Caesar, or the thirty thousand enemies whom he slew there, +or the sons of Pompeii who commanded them. These were so near beating +Casar at first that he ran among his soldiers "asking them whether they +were not ashamed to deliver him into the hands of boys." One of the boys +escaped, but two days after the fight the head of the elder was brought +to Caesar, who was not liked for the triumph he made himself after the +event in Rome, where it was thought out of taste to rejoice over the +calamity of his fellow-countrymen as if they had been foreign foes; +the Romans do not seem to have minded his putting twenty-eight thousand +Cordovese to death for their Pompeian politics. If I had remembered all +this from my Plutarch, I should certainly have gone to see the place +where Caesar planted that plane tree. Perhaps some kind soul will go to +see it for me. I myself do not expect to return to Cordova. + + + + +IX. FIRST DAYS IN SEVILLE + + +Cordova seemed to cheer up as much as we at our going. We had +undoubtedly had the better night's sleep; as often as we woke we found +Cordova awake, walking and talking, and coughing more than the night +before, probably from fresh colds taken in the rain. From time to time +there were church-bells, variously like tin pans and iron pots in +tone, without sonorousness in their noise, or such wild clangor as some +Italian church-bells have. But Cordova had lived through it, and at the +station was lively with the arriving and departing trains. The morning +was not only bright; it was hot, and the place babbled with many voices. +We thought one voice crying "Agua, agua!" was a parrot's and then we +thought it was a girl's, but really it was a boy with water for sale in +a stone bottle. He had not a rose, white or red, in his hair, but if he +had been a girl, old or young, he would have had one, white or red. Some +of the elder women wore mantillas, but these wore flowers too, and were +less pleasing than pathetic for it; one very massive matron was less +pleasing and more pathetic than the rest. Peasant women carried bunches +of chickens by the legs, and one had a turkey in a rush bag with a +narrow neck to put its head out of for its greater convenience in +gobbling. At the door of the station a donkey tried to bite a fly on +its back; but even a Spanish donkey cannot do everything. There was no +attempt to cheat us in the weight of our trunks, as there often is in +Italy, and the _mozo_ who put us and our hand-bags into the train was +content with his reasonable fee. As for the pair of Civil Guards who +were to go with us, they were of an insurpassable beauty and propriety, +and we felt it a peculiar honor when one of them got into the +compartment beside ours. + +We were to take the mail-train to Seville; and in Spain the _correo_ +is next to the Sud-Express, which is the last word in the vocabulary of +Peninsular railroading. Our _correo_ had been up all night on the +way from Madrid, and our compartment had apparently been used as a +bedchamber, with moments of supper-room. It seemed to have been occupied +by a whole family; there were frowsy pillows crushed into the corners of +the seats, and, though a porter caught these away, the cigar stubs, +and the cigarette ashes strewing the rug and fixed in it with various +liquids, as well as some scattering hair-pins, escaped his care. But +when it was dried and aired out by windows opened to the sunny weather, +it was by no means a bad compartment. The broad cushions were certainly +cleaner than the carpet; and it was something--it was a great deal--to +be getting out of Cordova on any terms. Not that Cordova seems at this +distance so bad as it seemed on the ground. If we could have had the +bright Monday of our departure instead of the rainy Sunday of our stay +there we might have wished to stay longer. But as it was the four hours' +run to Seville was delightful, largely because it Was the run from +Cordova. + +We were running at once over a gentle ground-swell which rose and sank +in larger billows now and then, and the yellow Guadalquivir followed us +all the way, in a valley that sometimes widened to the blue mountains +always walling the horizon. We had first entered Andalusia after dark, +and the scene had now a novelty little staled by the distant view of +the afternoon before. The olive orchards then seen afar were intimately +realized more and more in their amazing extent. None of the trees looked +so old, so world-old, as certain trees in the careless olive groves of +Italy. They were regularly planted, and most were in a vigorous middle +life; where they were old they were closely pollarded; and there were +young trees, apparently newly set out; there were holes indefinitely +waiting for others. These were often, throughout Andalusia, covered to +their first fork with cones of earth; and we remained in the dramatic +superstition that this was to protect them against the omnivorous hunger +of the goats, till we were told that it was to save their roots from +being loosened by the wind. The orchards filled the level foregrounds +and the hilly backgrounds to the vanishing-points of the mountainous +perspectives; but when I say this I mean the reader to allow for wide +expanses of pasturage, where lordly bulls were hoarding themselves +for the feasts throughout Spain which the bulls of Andalusia are happy +beyond others in supplying. With their devoted families they paraded +the meadows, black against the green, or stood in sharp arrest, the +most characteristic accent of the scene. In the farther rather than +the nearer distance there were towns, very white, very African, keeping +jealously away from the stations, as the custom of most towns is in +Spain, beyond the wheat-lands which disputed the landscape with the +olive orchards. + +One of these towns lay white at the base of a hill topped by a yellow +Moorish castle against the blue sky, like a subject waiting for its +painter and conscious of its wonderful adaptation to water-color. The +railroad-banks were hedged with Spanish bayonet, and in places with +cactus grown into trees, all knees and elbows, and of a diabolical +uncouthness. The air was fresh and springlike, and under the bright +sun, which we had already felt hot, men were plowing the gray fields +for wheat. Other men were beginning their noonday lunch, which, with the +long nap to follow, would last till three o'clock, and perhaps be rashly +accounted to them for sloth by the industrious tourist who did not know +that their work had begun at dawn and would not end till dusk. Indolence +may be a vice of the towns in Spain, but there is no loafing in the +country, if I may believe the conclusions of my note-book. The fields +often looked barren enough, and large spaces of their surface were +covered by a sort of ground palm, as it seemed to be, though whether it +was really a ground palm or not I know no more than I know the name or +nature of the wild flower which looked an autumn crocus, and which with +other wild flowers fringed the whole course of the train. There was +especially a small yellow flower, star-shaped, which we afterward +learned was called Todos Santos, from its custom of blooming at All +Saints, and which washed the sward in the childlike enthusiasm of +buttercups. A fine white narcissus abounded, and clumps of a mauve +flower which swung its tiny bells over the sward washed by the Todos +Santos. There were other flowers, which did what they could to brighten +our way, all clinging to the notion of summer, which the weather +continued to flatter throughout our fortnight in Seville. + +I could not honestly say that the stations or the people about them +were more interesting than in La Mancha. But at one place, where some +gentlemen in linen jackets dismounted with their guns, a group of men +with dogs leashed in pairs and saddle-horses behind them, took me with +the sense of something peculiarly native where everything was so +native. They were slim, narrow-hipped young fellows, tight-jerkined, +loose-trousered, with a sort of divided apron of leather facing the +leg and coming to the ankle; and all were of a most masterly Velasquez +coloring and drawing. As they stood smoking motionlessly, letting the +smoke drift from their nostrils, they seemed somehow of the same make +with the slouching hounds, and they leaned forward together, giving the +hunters no visible or audible greeting, but questioning their will with +one quality of gaze. The hunters moved toward them, but not as if they +belonged together, or expected any sort of demonstration from the men, +dogs, and horses that were of course there to meet them. As long as our +train paused, no electrifying spark kindled them to a show of emotion; +but it would have been interesting to see what happened after we +left them behind; they could not have kept their attitude of mutual +indifference much longer. These peasants, like the Spaniards everywhere, +were of an intelligent and sagacious look; they only wanted a chance, +one must think, to be a leading race. They have sometimes an anxiety of +appeal in their apathy, as if they would like to know more than they do. + +There was some livelier thronging at the station where the train stopped +for luncheon, but secure with the pretty rush-basket which the head +waiter at our hotel, so much better than the hotel, had furnished us at +starting, we kept to our car; and there presently we were joined by a +young couple who were unmistakably a new married couple. The man was of +a rich brown, and the woman of a dead white with dead black hair. They +both might have been better-looking than they were, but apparently not +better otherwise, for at Seville the groom helped us out of the car with +our hand-bags. + +I do not know what polite offers from him had already brought out the +thanks in which our speech bewrayed us; but at our outlandish accents +they at once became easier. They became frankly at home with themselves, +and talked in their Andalusian patter with no fear of being understood. +I might, indeed, have been far apter in Spanish without understanding +their talk, for when printed the Andalusian dialect varies as far from +the Castilian as, say, the Venetian varies from the Tuscan, and when +spoken, more. It may then be reduced almost wholly to vowel sounds, and +from the lips of some speakers it is really no more consonantal than if +it came from the beaks of birds. They do not lisp the soft _c_ or the +_z,_ as the Castilians do, but hiss them, and lisp the _s_ instead, as +the reader will find amusingly noted in the Sevillian chapters of _The +Sister of San Sulpice,_ which are the most charming chapters of that +most charming novel. At the stations there were sometimes girls and +sometimes boys with water for sale from stone bottles, who walked by +the cars crying it; and there were bits of bright garden, or there were +flowers in pots. There were also poor little human flowers, or call +them weeds, if you will, that suddenly sprang up beside our windows, and +moved their petals in pitiful prayer for alms. They always sprang up on +the off side of the train, so that the trainmen could not see them, but +I hope no trainman in Spain would have had the heart to molest them. +As a matter of taste in vegetation, however, we preferred an occasional +effect of mixed orange and pomegranate trees, with their perennial green +and their autumnal red. We were, in fact, so spoiled by the profusion of +these little human flowers, or weeds, that we even liked the change to +the dried stalk of an old man, flowering at top into a flat basket of +pale-pink shrimps. He gave us our first sight of sea-fruit, when we had +got, without knowing it, to Seville Junction. There was, oddly enough, +no other fruit for sale there; but there was a very agreeable-looking +booth at the end of the platform placarded with signs of Puerto +Rico coffee, cognac, and other drinks; and outside of it there were +wash-basins and clean towels. I do not know how an old woman with a +blind daughter made herself effective in the crowd, which did not seem +much preoccupied with the opportunities of ablution and refection at +that booth; but perhaps she begged with her blind daughter's help while +the crowd was busy in assorting itself for Cadiz and Seville and +Malaga and Cordova and other musically syllabled mothers of history and +romance. + + + +II + + +A few miles and a few minutes more and we were in the embrace of the +loveliest of them, which was at first the clutch on the octroi. But the +octroi at Seville is not serious, and a walrus-mustached old porter, who +looked like an old American car-driver of the bearded eighteen-sixties, +eased us--not very swiftly, but softly--through the local customs, and +then we drove neither so swiftly nor so softly to the hotel, where we +had decided we would have rooms on the _patio._ We had still to learn +that if there is a _patio_ in a Spanish hotel you cannot have rooms +in it, because they are either in repair or they are occupied. In +the present case they were occupied; but we could have rooms over the +street, which were the same as in the _patio,_ and which were perfectly +quiet, as we could perceive from the trolley-cars grinding and squealing +under their windows. The manager (if that was the quality of the patient +and amiable old official who received us) seemed surprised to see the +cars there, perhaps because they were so inaudible; but he said we could +have rooms in the annex, fronting on the adjoining plaza and siding on +an inoffensive avenue where there were absolutely no cars. The interior, +climbing to a lofty roof by a succession of galleries, was hushed by +four silent senoras, all in black, and seated in mute ceremony around a +table in chairs from which their little feet scarcely touched the marble +pavement. Their quiet confirmed the manager's assurance of a pervading +tranquillity, and though the only bath in the annex was confessedly on +the ground floor, and we were to be two floors above, the affair was +very simple: the chambermaid would always show us where the bath was. + +With misgiving, lost in a sense of our helplessness, we tried to think +that the avenue under us was then quieting down with the waning day; and +certainly it was not so noisy as the plaza, which, resounded with +the whips and quips of the cabmen, and gave no signs of quiescence. +Otherwise the annex was very pleasant, and we took the rooms shown us, +hoping the best and fearing the worst. Our fears were wiser than our +hopes, but we did not know this, and we went as gaily as we could for +tea in the _patio_ of our hotel, where a fountain typically trickled +amidst its water-plants and a noiseless Englishman at his separate table +almost restored our lost faith in a world not wholly racket. A young +Spaniard and two young Spanish girls helped out the illusion with their +gentle movements and their muted gutturals, and we looked forward to +dinner with fond expectation. To tell the truth, the dinner, when we +came back to it, was not very good, or at least not very winning, and +the next night it was no better, though the head waiter had then, made +us so much favor with himself as to promise us a side-table for the rest +of our stay. He was a very friendly head waiter, and the dining-room was +a long glare of the encaustic tiling which all Seville seems lined with, +and of every Moorish motive in the decoration. Besides, there was a +young Scotch girl, very interestingly pale and delicate of face, at one +of the tables, and at another a Spanish girl with the most wonderful +fire-red hair, and there were several miracles of the beautiful obesity +which abounds in Spain. + +When we returned to the annex it did seem, for the short time we kept +our windows shut, that the manager had spoken true, and we promised +ourselves a tranquil night, which, after our two nights in Cordova, we +needed if we did not merit. But we had counted without the spread of +popular education in Spain. Under our windows, just across the way, +there proved to be a school of the "Royal Society of Friends of their +Country," as the Spanish inscription in its front proclaimed; and +at dusk its pupils, children and young people of both sexes, began +clamoring for knowledge at its doors. About ten o'clock they burst from +them again with joyous exultation in their acquirements; then, shortly +after, every manner of vehicle began to pass, especially heavy market +wagons overladen and drawn by horses swarming with bells. Their +succession left scarcely a moment of the night unstunned; but if ever a +moment seemed to be escaping, there was a maniacal bell in a church near +by that clashed out: "Hello! Here's a bit of silence; let's knock it on +the head!" + +We went promptly the next day to the gentle old manager and told him +that he had been deceived in thinking he had given us rooms on a quiet +street, and appealed to his invention for something, for anything, +different. His invention had probably never been put to such stress +before, and he showed us an excess of impossible apartments, which we +subjected to a consideration worthy of the greatest promise in them. Our +search ended in a suite of rooms on the top floor, where we could have +the range of a flat roof outside if we wanted; but as the private family +living next door kept hens, led by a lordly turkey, on their roof, we +were sorrowfully forced to forego our peculiar advantage. Peculiar we +then thought it, though we learned afterward that poultry-farming was +not uncommon on the flat roofs of Seville, and there is now no telling +how we might have prospered if we had taken those rooms and stocked +our roof with Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes. At the moment, however, +we thought it would not do, and we could only offer our excuses to the +manager, whose resources we had now exhausted, but not whose patience, +and we parted with expressions of mutual esteem and regret. + +Our own grief was sincerer in leaving behind us the enthusiastic +chambermaid of the annex who had greeted us with glad service, and was +so hopeful that when she said our doors should be made to latch and lock +in the morning, it was as if they latched and locked already. Her zeal +made the hot water she brought for the baths really hot, _"Caliente, +caliente,"_ and her voice would have quieted the street under our +windows if music could have soothed it. At a friendly word she grew +trustful, and told us how it was hard, hard for poor people in Seville; +how she had three dollars a month and her husband four; and how they had +to toil for it. When we could not help telling her, cruelly enough, +what they singly and jointly earn in New York, she praised rather than +coveted the happier chance impossible to them. They would like to go, +but they could not go! She was gay with it all, and after we had left +the hotel and come back for the shawl which had been forgotten, she ran +for it, shouting with laughter, as if we must see it the great joke she +did; and she took the reward offered with the self-respect never wanting +to the Spanish poor. Very likely if I ransacked my memory I might find +instances of their abusing those advantages over the stranger which +Providence puts in the reach of the native everywhere; but on the spur +of the moment, I do not recall any. In Spain, where a woman earns three +dollars a month, as in America where she earns thirty, the poor seem to +abound in the comparative virtues which the rich demand in return for +the chances of Heaven which they abandon to them. There were few of +those rendering us service there whom we would not willingly have +brought away with us; but very likely we should have found they had the +defects of their qualities. + +When we definitely turned our backs on the potential poultry-farm +offered us at our hotel, we found ourselves in as good housing at +another, overlooking the length and breadth of the stately Plaza San +Fernando, with its parallelogram of tall palms, under a full moon +swimming in a cloudless heaven by night and by day. By day, of course, +we did not see it, but the sun was visibly there, rather blazing hot, +even in mid-October, and showing more distinctly than the moon the +beautiful tower of the Giralda from the waist up, and the shoulder of +the great cathedral, besides features of other noble, though less noble, +edifices. Our plaza was so full of romantic suggestion that I am rather +glad now I had no association with it. I am sure I could not have borne +at the time to know, as I have only now learned by recurring to my +Baedeker, that in the old Franciscan cloister once there had stood the +equestrian statue of the Comendador who dismounts and comes unbidden to +the supper of Don Giovanni in the opera. That was a statue which, seen +in my far youth, haunted my nightmares for many a year, and I am sure it +would have kept me from sleep in the conditions, now so perfect, of our +new housing if I had known, about it. + + + +III + + +The plaza is named, of course, for King Fernando, who took Seville from +the Moors six hundred years ago, and was canonized for his conquests and +his virtues. But I must not enter so rashly upon the history of Seville, +or forget the arrears of personal impression which I have to bring up. +The very drive from the station was full of impressions, from the narrow +and crooked streets, the houses of yellow, blue, and pink stucco, the +flowered and fountained _patios_ glimpsed passingly, the half-lengths +of church-towers, and the fleeting facades of convents and palaces, +all lovely in the mild afternoon light. These impressions soon became +confluent, so that without the constant witness of our note-books +I should now find it impossible to separate them. If they could be +imparted to the reader in their complexity, that would doubtless be the +ideal, though he would not believe that their confused pattern was a +true reflex of Seville; so I recur to the record, which says that the +morning after our arrival we hurried to see the great and beautiful +cathedral. It had failed, in our approach the afternoon before, to +fulfil the promise of one of our half-dozen guide-books (I forget which +one) that it would seem to gather Seville about it as a hen gathers her +chickens, but its vastness grew upon us with every moment of our +more intimate acquaintance. Our acquaintance quickly ripened into the +affectionate friendship which became a tender regret when we looked +our last upon it; and vast as it was, it was never too large for our +embrace. I doubt if there was a moment in our fortnight's devotion when +we thought the doughty canons, its brave-spoken founders, "mad to have +undertaken it," as they said they expected people to think, or any +moment when we did not revere them for imagining a temple at once so +beautiful and so big. + +Our first visit was redeemed from the commonplace of our duty-round of +the side-chapels by two things which I can remember without the help of +my notes. One, and the great one, was Murillo's "Vision of St. Anthony," +in which the painter has most surpassed himself, and which not to have +seen, Gautier says, is not to have known the painter. It is so glorious +a masterpiece, with the Child joyously running down from the clustering +angels toward the kneeling saint in the nearest corner of the +foreground, that it was distinctly a moment before I realized that the +saint had once been cut out of his corner and sent into an incredible +exile in America, and then munificently restored to it, though the seam +in the canvas only too literally attested the incident. I could not well +say how this fact then enhanced the interest of the painting, and then +how it ceased from the consciousness, which it must always recur to with +any remembrance of it. If one could envy wealth its chance of doing a +deed of absolute good, here was the occasion, and I used it. I did envy +the mind, along with the money, to do that great thing. Another great +thing which still more swelled my American heart and made it glow with +patriotic pride was the monument to Columbus, which our suffering his +dust to be translated from Havana has made possible in Seville. There +may be other noble results of our war on Spain for the suzerainty of +Cuba and the conquest of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, but there is +none which matches in moral beauty the chance it won us for this Grand +Consent. I suppose those effigies of the four Spanish realms of Castile, +Leon, Aragon, and Navarre, which bear the coffin of the discoverer in +stateliest processional on their shoulders, may be censured for being +too boldly superb, too almost swagger, but I will not be the one to +censure them. They are painted the color of life, and they advance +colossally, royal-robed and mail-clad, as if marching to some proud +music, and would tread you down if you did not stand aside. It is +perhaps not art, but it is magnificent; nothing less stupendously +Spanish would have sufficed; and I felt that the magnanimity which had +yielded Spain this swelling opportunity had made America her equal in +it. + +We went to the cathedral the first morning after our arrival in Seville, +because we did not know how soon we might go away, and then we went +every morning or every afternoon of our fortnight there. Habitually +we entered by that Gate of Pardon which in former times had opened the +sanctuary to any wickedness short of heresy; but, as our need of refuge +was not pressing, we wearied of the Gate of Pardon, with its beautiful +Saracenic arch converted to Christianity by the Renaissance bas-relief +obliterating the texts from the Koran. We tried to form the habit of +going in by other gates, but the Gate of Pardon finally prevailed; there +was always a gantlet of cabmen to be run beside it, which brought our +sins home to us. It led into the badly paved Court of Oranges, where the +trees seem planted haphazard and where there used also to be fountains. +Gate and court are remnants of the mosque, patterned upon that of +Cordova by one of the proud Moorish kings of Seville, and burned by the +Normans when they took and sacked his city. His mosque had displaced the +early Christian basilica of San Vicente, which the still earlier temple +to Venus Salambo had become. Then, after the mosque was rebuilt, the +good San Fernando in his turn equipped it with a Gothic choir and +chapels and turned it into the cathedral, which was worn out with +pious uses when the present edifice was founded, in their _folie des +grandeurs,_ by those glorious madmen in the first year of the fifteenth +century. + + + +IV + + +Little of this learning troubled me in my visits to the cathedral, or +even the fact that, next to St. Peter's, it was the largest church in +the world. It was sufficient to itself by mere force of architectural +presence, without the help of incidents or measurements. It was a city +in itself, with a community of priests and sacristans dwelling in it, +and a floating population of sightseers and worshipers always passing +through it. The first morning we had submitted to make the round of +the chapels, patiently paying to have each of them unlocked and wearily +wondering at their wonders, but only sympathizing really with the stern +cleric who showed the ceremonial vestments and jewels of the cathedral, +and whose bitter face expressed, or seemed to express, abhorrence of our +whole trivial tourist tribe. After that morning we took our curiosity +into our own keeping and looked at nothing that did not interest us, and +we were interested most in those fellow-beings who kept coming and going +all day long. + +[Illustration: 22 IN ATTITUDES OF SILENT DEVOTION] + +Chiefly, of course, they were women. In Catholic countries women have +either more sins to be forgiven than the men, or else they are sorrier +for them; and here, whether there was service or not, they were dropped +everywhere in veiled and motionless prayer. In Seville the law of the +mantilla is rigorously enforced. If a woman drives, she may wear a hat; +but if she walks, she must wear a mantilla under pain of being pointed +at by the finger of scorn. If she is a young girl she may wear colors +with it (a cheerful blue seems the favorite), but by far the greater +number came to the cathedral in complete black. Those somber figures +which clustered before chapel, or singly dotted the pavement everywhere, +flitted in and out like shadows in the perpetual twilight. For far the +greater number, their coming to the church was almost their sole escape +into the world. They sometimes met friends, and after a moment, or an +hour, of prayer they could cheer their hearts with neighborly gossip. +But for the greater part they appeared and disappeared silently and +swiftly, and left the spectator to helpless conjecture of their history. +Many of them would have first met their husbands in the cathedral when +they prayed, or when they began to look around to see who was looking +at them. It might have been their trysting-place, safeguarding them in +their lovers' meetings, and after marriage it had become their social +world, when their husbands left them for the clubs or the cafes. They +could not go at night, of course, except to some special function, but +they could come by day as often as they liked. I do not suppose that +the worshipers I saw habitually united love or friendship with their +devotions in the cathedral, but some certainly joined business with +devotion; at a high function one day an American girl felt herself +sharply nudged in the side, and when she turned she found the palm of +her kneeling neighbor stretched toward her. They must all have had their +parish churches besides the cathedral, and a devotee might make the day +a social whirl by visiting one shrine after another. But I do not +think that many do. The Spanish women are of a domestic genus, and are +expected to keep at home by the men who expect to keep abroad. + +I do not know just how it is in the parish churches; they must each +have its special rite, which draws and holds the frequenter; but +the cathedral constantly offers a drama of irresistible appeal. +We non-Catholics can feel this even at the distance to which our +Protestantism has remanded us, and at your first visit to the Seville +cathedral during mass you cannot help a moment of recreant regret when +you wish that a part in the mystery enacting was your birthright. The +esthetic emotion is not denied you; the organ-tide that floods the place +bears you on it, too; the priests perform their rites before the altar +for you; they come and go, they bow and kneel, for you; the censer +swings and smokes for you; the little wicked-eyed choir-boys and +mischievous-looking acolytes suppress their natures in your behalf as +much as if you were a believer, or perhaps more. The whole unstinted +hospitality of the service is there for you, as well as for the children +of the house, and the heart must be rude and the soul ungrateful that +would refuse it. For my part, I accepted it as far as I knew how, +and when I left the worshipers on their knees and went tiptoeing from +picture to picture and chapel to chapel, it was with shame for the +unscrupulous sacristan showing me about, and I felt that he, if not I, +ought to be put out and not allowed back till the function was over. I +call him sacristan at a venture; but there were several kinds of guides +in the cathedral, some in the livery of the place and some in civil +dress, willing to supplement our hotel interpreter, or lying in wait for +us when we came alone. I wish now I had taken them all, but at the time +they tired me, and I denied them. + +Though not a day passed but we saw it, I am not able to say what the +cathedral was like. The choir was planted in the heart of it, as it +might be a celestial refuge in that forest of mighty pillars, as great +in girth as the giant redwoods of California, and climbing to a Gothic +firmament horizoned round as with sunset light from near a hundred +painted windows. The chapels on each side, the most beautiful in Spain, +abound in riches of art and pious memorials, with chief among them the +Royal Chapel, in the prow, as it were, of the ship which the cathedral +has been likened to, keeping the bones not only of the sainted hero, +King Fernando, but also, among others, the bones of Peter the Cruel, and +of his unwedded love, Maria de Padilla, far too good for Peter in life, +if not quite worthy of San Fernando in death. You can see the saint's +body on certain dates four times a year, when, as your Baedeker will +tell you, "the troops of the garrison march past and lower their colors" +outside the cathedral. We were there on none of these dates, and, far +more regretably, not on the day of Corpus Christi, when those boys whose +effigies in sculptured and painted wood we had seen in the museum at +Valladolid pace in their mystic dance before the people at the opposite +portal of the cathedral. But I appoint any reader, so minded, to go and +witness the rite some springtime for me. There is no hurry, for it is +destined to endure through the device practised in defeating the pope +who proposed to abolish it. He ordained that it should continue only +as long as the boys' actual costumes lasted; but by renewing these +carefully wherever they began to wear out, they have become practically +imperishable. + +If we missed this attraction of the cathedral, we had the high good +fortune to witness another ceremony peculiar to it, but perhaps less +popularly acceptable. The building had often suffered from earthquakes, +and on the awful day, _dies irae,_ of the great Lisbon earthquake, +during mass and at the moment of the elevation of the Host, when the +worshipers were on their knees, there came such a mighty shock in +sympathy with the far-off cataclysm that the people started to their +feet and ran out of the cathedral. If the priests ran after them, as +soon as the apparent danger was past they led the return of their flock +and resumed the interrupted rite. It was, of course, by a miracle that +the temple was spared, and when it was realized how scarcely Seville +had escaped the fate of Lisbon it was natural that the event should +be dramatized in a perpetual observance. Every year now, on the 1st of +November, the clergy leave the cathedral at a chosen moment of the mass, +with much more stateliness than in the original event, and lead the +people out of one portal, to return with them by another for the +conclusion of the ceremonial. + +[Illustration: 23 THE CATHEDRAL AND TOWER OF THE GIRALDA] + +We waited long for the climax, but at last we almost missed it through +the overeagerness of the guide I had chosen out of many that petitioned. +He was so politely, so forbearingly insistent in his offer to see that +we were vigilantly cared for, that I must have had a heart harder than +Peter the Cruel's to have denied him, and he planted us at the most +favorable point for the function in the High Chapel, with instructions +which portal to hurry to when the movement began, and took his peseta +and went his way. Then, while we confidingly waited, he came rushing +back and with a great sweep of his hat wafted us to the door which he +had said the procession would go out by, but which he seemed to have +learned it would come in by, and we were saved from what had almost been +his fatal error. I forgave him the more gladly because I could rejoice +in his returning to repair his error, although he had collected his +money; and with a heart full of pride in his verification of my +theory of the faithful Spanish nature, I gave myself to the shining +gorgeousness of the procession that advanced chanting in the blaze of +the Sevillian sun. There was every rank of clergy, from the archbishop +down, in robes of ceremonial, but I am unable honestly to declare the +admiration for their splendor which I would have willingly felt. The +ages of faith in which those vestments were designed were apparently +not the ages of taste; yet it was the shape of the vestments and not the +color which troubled the eye of unfaith, if not of taste. The archbishop +in crimson silk, with his train borne by two acolytes, the canons in +their purple, the dean in his gold-embroidered robes, and the priests +and choristers in their black robes and white surplices richly satisfied +it; and if some of the clerics were a little frayed and some of the +acolytes were spotted with the droppings of the candles, these were +details which one remembered afterward and that did not matter at the +time. + +When the procession was housed again, we went off and forgot it in the +gardens of the Alcazar. But I must not begin yet on the gardens of the +Alcazar. We went to them every day, as we did to the cathedral, but we +did not see them until our second morning in Seville. We gave what was +left from the first morning in the cathedral to a random exploration of +the streets and places of the city. There was, no doubt, everywhere some +touch of the bravery of our square of San Fernando, where the public +windows were hung with crimson tapestries and brocades in honor of St. +Raphael; but his holiday did not make itself molestively felt in the +city's business or pleasure. Where we could drive we drove, and where we +must we walked, and we walked of course through the famous Calle de las +Sierpes, because no one drives there. As a rule no woman walks there, +and naturally there were many women walking there, under the eyes of +the popular cafes and aristocratic clubs which principally abound in Las +Sierpes, for it is also the street of the principal shops, though it is +not very long and is narrower than many other streets of Seville. It has +its name from so commonplace an origin as the sign over a tavern door, +with some snakes painted on it; but if the example of sinuosity had been +set it by prehistoric serpents, there were scores of other streets which +have bettered its instruction. There were streets that crooked away +everywhere, not going anywhere, and breaking from time to time into +irregular angular spaces with a church or a convent or a nobleman's +house looking into them. + + + +VI + + +The noblemen's houses often showed a severely simple facade to the +square or street, and hid their inner glories with what could have been +fancied a haughty reserve if it had not been for the frankness with +which they opened their _patios_ to the gaze of the stranger, who, when +he did not halt his carriage before them, could enjoy their hospitality +from a sidewalk sometimes eighteen inches wide. The passing tram-car +might grind him against the tall grilles which were the only barriers +to the _patios,_ but otherwise there would be nothing to spoil his +enjoyment of those marble floors and tiled walls and fountains potted +round with flowering plants. In summer he could have seen the family +life there; and people who are of such oriental seclusion otherwise +will sometimes even suffer the admiring traveler to come as well as +look within. But one who would not press their hospitality so far could +reward his forbearance by finding some of the _patios_ too new-looking, +with rather a glare from their tiles and marbles, their painted iron +pillars, and their glass roofs which the rain comes through in the +winter. The ladies sit and sew there, or talk, if they prefer, and +receive their friends, and turn night into day in the fashion of +climates where they are so easily convertible. The _patio_ is the place +of that peculiarly Spanish rite, the _tertulia,_ and the family nightly +meets its next of kin and then its nearer and farther friends there with +that Latin regularity which may also be monotony. One _patio_ is often +much like another, though none was perhaps of so much public interest +as the _patio_ of the lady who loved a bull-fighter and has made her +_patio_ a sort of shrine to him. The famous _espada_ perished in his +heroic calling, no worse if no better than those who saw him die, and +now his bust is in plain view, with a fit inscription recognizing his +worth and prowess, and with the heads of some of the bulls he slew. + +Under that clement sky the elements do not waste the works of man as +elsewhere, and many of the houses of Seville are said to be such as the +Moors built there. We did not know them from the Christian houses; but +there are no longer any mosques, while in our wanderings we had the +pretty constant succession of the convents which, when they are still in +the keeping of their sisterhoods and brotherhoods, remain monuments of +the medieval piety of Spain; or, when they are suppressed and turned to +secular uses, attest the recurrence of her modern moods of revolution +and reform. It is to one of these that Seville owes the stately Alameda +de Hercules, a promenade covering the length and breadth of aforetime +convent gardens, which you reach from the Street of the Serpents by the +Street of the Love of God, and are then startled by the pagan presence +of two mighty columns lifting aloft the figures of Caesar and of the +titular demigod. Statues and pillars are alike antique, and give you a +moment of the Eternal City the more intense because the promenade is of +an unkempt and broken surface, like the Cow-field which the Roman Forum +used to be. Baedeker calls it shady, and I dare say it is shady, but +I do not remember the trees--only those glorious columns climbing the +summer sky of the Andalusian autumn, and proclaiming the imperishable +memory of the republic that conquered and the empire that ruled the +world, and have never loosed their hold upon it. We were rather newly +from the grass-grown ruin of a Roman town in Wales, and in this other +Iberian land we were always meeting the witnesses of the grandeur which +no change short of some universal sea change can wholly sweep from the +earth. Before it Goth and Arab shrink, with all their works, into the +local and provisional; Rome remains for all time imperial and universal. + +[Illustration: 24 ANCIENT ROMAN COLUMNS LIFTING ALOFT THE FIGURES OF HERCULES AND CAESAR] + +To descend from this high-horsed reflection, as I must, I have to record +that there did not seem to be so many small boys in Seville as in the +Castillian capitals we had visited; in the very home of the bull-feast +we did not see one mimic _corrida_ given by the _torreros_ of the +future. Not even in the suburb of Triana, where the small boys again +consolingly superabounded, was the great national game played among +the wheels and hoofs of the dusty streets to which we crossed the +Guadalquivir that afternoon. To be sure, we were so taken with other +things that a boyish bull-feast might have rioted unnoticed under our +horses' very feet, especially on the long bridge which gives you the far +upward and downward stretch of the river, so simple and quiet and empty +above, so busy and noisy and thronged with shipping below. I suppose +there are lovelier rivers than that--we ourselves are known to brag +of our Pharpar and Abana--but I cannot think of anything more nobly +beautiful than the Guadalquivir resting at peace in her bed, where she +has had so many bad dreams of Carthaginian and Roman and Gothic and Arab +and Norman invasion. Now her waters redden, for the time at least, only +from the scarlet hulls of the tramp steamers lying in long succession +beside the shore where the gardens of the Delicias were waiting to +welcome us that afternoon to our first sight of the pride and fashion of +Seville. I never got enough of the brave color of those tramp steamers; +and in thinking of them as English, Norse, French, and Dutch, fetching +or carrying their cargoes over those war-worn, storied waters, I had +some finer thrills than in dwelling on the Tower of Gold which rose +from the midst of them. It was built in the last century of the Moorish +dominion to mark the last point to which the gardens of the Moorish +palace of the Alcazar could stretch, but they were long ago obliterated +behind it; and though it was so recent, no doubt it would have had its +pathos if I could ever have felt pity for the downfall of the Moslem +power in Spain. As it was, I found the tramp steamers more moving, and +it was these that my eye preferably sought whenever I crossed the Triana +bridge. + + + +VII + + +We were often crossing it on one errand or other, but now we were +especially going to see the gipsy quarter of Seville, which disputes +with that of Granada the infamy of the loathsomest purlieu imaginable. +Perhaps because it was so very loathsome, I would not afterward visit +the gipsy quarter in Granada, and if such a thing were possible I would +willingly unvisit the gipsy quarter of Seville. All Triana is pretty +squalid, though it has merits and charms to which I will try eventually +to be just, and I must even now advise the reader to visit the tile +potteries there. If he has our good-fortune he may see in the manager of +one a type of that fusion of races with which Spain long so cruelly +and vainly struggled after the fall of the last Moorish kingdom. He was +beautifully lean and clean of limb, and of a grave gentleness of manner; +his classically regular face was as swarthy as the darkest mulatto's, +but his quiet eyes were gray. I carried the sense of his fine decency +with me when we drove away from his warerooms, and suddenly whirled +round the corner of the street into the gipsy quarter, and made it my +prophylactic against the human noisomeness which instantly beset our +course. Let no Romany Rye romancing Barrow, or other fond fibbing +sentimentalist, ever pretend to me hereafter that those persistent +savages have even the ridiculous claim of the North American Indians to +the interest of the civilized man, except as something to be morally and +physically scoured and washed up, and drained and fumigated, and treated +with insecticides and put away in mothballs. Our own settled order +of things is not agreeable at all points; it reeks and it smells, +especially in Spain, when you get down to its lower levels; but it does +not assail the senses with such rank offense as smites them in the gipsy +quarter with sights and sounds and odors which to eye and ear, as well +as nose, were all stenches. + +Low huts lined the street, which swarmed at our coming with ragged +children running beside us and after us and screaming, "Minny, niooney, +_ money!"_ in a climax of what they wanted. Men leaned against the +door-posts and stared motionless, and hags, lean and fat, sat on the +thresholds and wished to tell our fortunes; younger women ranged the +sidewalks and offered to dance. They all had flowers in their hair, and +some were of a horrible beauty, especially one in a green waist, with +both white and red flowers in her dusky locks. Down the middle of the +road a troop of children, some blond, but mostly black, tormented +a hapless ass colt; and we hurried away as fast as our guide could +persuade our cabman to drive. But the gipsy quarter had another street +in reserve which made us sorry to have left the first. It paralleled +the river, and into the center of it every manner of offal had been cast +from the beginning of time to reek and fester and juicily ripen and rot +in unspeakable corruption. It was such a thoroughfare as Dante might +have imagined in his Hell, if people in his time had minded such +horrors; but as it was we could only realize that it was worse than +infernal, it was medieval, and that we were driving in such putrid +foulness as the gilded carriages of kings and queens and the prancing +steeds and palfreys of knights and ladies found their way through +whenever they went abroad in the picturesque and romantic Middle Ages. I +scarcely remember now how we got away and down to the decent waterside, +and then by the helpful bridge to the other shore of the Guadalquivir, +painted red with the reflections of those consoling tramp steamers. + +After that abhorrent home of indolence, which its children never left +except to do a little fortune-telling and mule and donkey trading, eked +out with theft in the country round, any show of honest industry looked +wholesome and kind. I rejoiced almost as much in the machinery as in the +men who were loading the steamers; even the huge casks of olives, which +were working from the salt-water poured into them and frothing at the +bung in great white sponges of spume, might have been examples of toil +by which those noisome vagabonds could well have profited. But now we +had come to see another sort of leisure--the famous leisure of fortune +and fashion driving in the Delicias, but perhaps never quite fulfilling +the traveler's fond ideal of it. We came many times to the Delicias +in hope of it, with decreasing disappointment, indeed, but to the last +without entire fruition. For our first visit we could not have had a +fitter evening, with its pale sky reddening from a streak of sunset +beyond Triana, and we arrived in appropriate circumstance, round the +immense circle of the bull-ring and past the palace which the Duc de +Montpensier has given the church for a theological seminary, with long +stretches of beautiful gardens. Then we were in the famous Paseo, a +drive with footways on each side, and on one side dusky groves widening +to the river. The paths were lit with gleaming statues, and among +the palms and the eucalyptuses were orange trees full of their golden +globes, which we wondered were not stolen till we were told they were of +that bitter sort which are mostly sent to Scotland, not because they +are in accord with the acrid nature of man there, but that they may be +wrought into marmalade. On the other hand stretched less formal woods, +with fields for such polite athletics as tennis, which the example of +the beloved young English Queen of Spain is bringing into reluctant +favor with women immemorially accustomed to immobility. The road was +badly kept, like most things in Spain, where when a thing is done it is +expected to stay done. Every afternoon it is a cloud of dust and every +evening a welter of mud, for the Iberian idea of watering a street is to +soak it into a slough. But nothing can spoil the Paseo, and that evening +we had it mostly to ourselves, though there were two or three carriages +with ladies in hats, and at one place other ladies dismounted and +courageously walking, while their carriages followed. A magnate of some +sort was shut alone in a brougham, in the care of footman and coachman +with deeply silver-banded hats; there were a few military and civil +riders, and there was distinctly a young man in a dog-cart with a groom, +keeping abreast the landau of three ladies in mantillas, with whom he +was improving what seemed a chance acquaintance. Along the course the +public park gave way at times to the grounds of private villas; before +one of these a boy did what he could for us by playing ball with a +priest. At other points there were booths with chairs and tables, where +I am sure interesting parties of people would have been sitting if they +could have expected us to pass. + + + +VIII + + +The reader, pampered by the brilliant excitements of our American +promenades, may think this spectacle of the gay world of Seville dull; +but he ought to have been with us a colder, redder, and sadder evening +when we had the Delicias still more to ourselves. Afterward the Delicias +seemed to cheer up, and the place was fairly frequented on a holiday, +which we had not suspected was one till our cabman convinced us from his +tariff that we must pay him double, because you must always do that in +Seville on holidays. By this time we knew that most of the Sevillian +rank and riches had gone to Madrid for the winter, and we were the more +surprised by some evident show of them in the private turnouts where +by far most of the turnouts were public. But in Spain a carriage is a +carriage, and the Sevillian cabs are really very proper and sometimes +even handsome, and we felt that our own did no discredit to the +Delicias. Many of the holiday-makers were walking, and there were +actually women on foot in hats and hobble-skirts without being openly +mocked. On the evening of our last resort to the Delicias it was quite +thronged far into the twilight, after a lemon sunset that continued to +tinge the east with pink and violet. There were hundreds of carriages, +fully half of them private, with coachmen and footmen in livery. With +them it seemed to be the rule to stop in the circle at a turning-point a +mile off and watch the going and coming. It was a serious spectacle, +but not solemn, and it had its reliefs, its high-lights. It was always +pleasant to see three Spanish ladies on a carriage seat, the middle one +protruding because of their common bulk, and oftener in umbrella-wide +hats with towering plumes than in the charming mantilla. There were no +top-hats or other formality in the men's dress; some of them were on +horseback, and there were two women riding. + +Suddenly, as if it had come up out of the ground, I perceived a tram-car +keeping abreast of the riding and walking and driving, and through all I +was agreeably aware of files of peasants bestriding their homing donkeys +on the bridle-path next the tram. I confess that they interested me more +than my social equals and superiors; I should have liked to talk with +those fathers and mothers of toil, bestriding or perched on the cruppers +of their donkeys, and I should have liked especially to know what passed +in the mind of one dear little girl who sat before her father with her +bare brown legs tucked into the pockets of the pannier. + + + + +X. SEVILLIAN ASPECTS AND INCIDENTS + + +It is always a question how much or little we had better know about +the history of a strange country when seeing it. If the great mass of +travelers voted according to their ignorance, the majority in favor of +knowing next to nothing would be overwhelming, and I do not say they +would be altogether unwise. History itself is often of two minds about +the facts, or the truth from them, and when you have stored away +its diverse conclusions, and you begin to apply them to the actual +conditions, you are constantly embarrassed by the misfits. What did it +avail me to believe that when the Goths overran the north of Spain the +Vandals overran the south, and when they swept on into Africa and melted +away in the hot sun there as a distinctive race, they left nothing but +the name Vandalusia, a letter less, behind them? If the Vandals +were what they are reported to have been, the name does not at all +characterize the liveliest province of Spain. Besides, the very next +history told me that they took even their name with them, and forbade me +the simple and apt etymology which I had pinned my indolent faith to. + + + +I + + +Before I left Seville I convinced a principal bookseller, much against +his opinions, that there must be some such brief local history of the +city as I was fond of finding in Italian towns, and I took it from +his own reluctant shelf. It was a very intelligent little guide, this +_Seville in the Hand,_ as it calls itself, but I got it too late for +use in exploring the city, and now I can turn to it only for those +directions which will keep the reader from losing his way in the devious +past. The author rejects the fable which the chroniclers delight in, +and holds with historians who accept the Phoenicians as the sufficiently +remote founders of Seville. This does not put out of commission those +Biblical "ships of Tarshish" which Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in +his graphic sketch of Spanish history, has sailing to and from the +neighboring coasts. Very likely they came up the Guadalquivir, and lay +in the stream where a few thousand years later I saw those cheerful +tramp-steamers lying. At any rate, the Phoenicians greatly flourished +there, and gave their colony the name of Hispalis, which it remained +content with till the Romans came and called the town Julia Romula, +and Julius Caesar fenced it with the strong walls which the Moorish +conquerors, after the Goths, reinforced and have left plain to be seen +at this day. The most casual of wayfaring men must have read as he ran +that the Moorish power fell before the sword of San Fernando as the +Gothic fell before their own, and the Roman before the Gothic. But it +is more difficult to realize that earlier than the Gothic, somewhere in +between the Vandals and the Romans, had been the Carthaginians, whose +great general Hamilcar fancied turning all Spain into a Carthaginian +province. They were a branch of the Phoenicians as even the older, +unadvertised edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ will tell, and the +Phoenicians were a sort of Hebrews. Whether they remained to flourish +with the other Jews under the Moors, my _Sevilla en la Mano_ does not +say; and I am not sure whether they survived to share the universal +exile into which Islam and Israel were finally driven. What is certain +is, that the old Phoenician name of Hispalis outlived the Roman name of +Julia Romula and reappeared in the Arabic as Ishbiliya (I know it from +my Baedeker) and is now permanently established as Seville. + +Under the Moors the city was subordinate to Cordova, though I can hardly +bear to think so in my far greater love of Seville. But it was the seat +of schools of science, art, and agriculture, and after the Christians +had got it back, Alfonso the Learned founded other schools there for the +study of Latin and Arabic. But her greatest prosperity and glory came +to Seville with the discovery of America. Not Columbus only, but all his +most famous contemporaries, sailed from the ports of her coasts; she was +the capital of the commerce with the new world, ruling and regulating it +by the oldest mercantile tribunal in the world, and becoming the richest +city of Spain. Then riches flowered in the letters and arts, especially +the arts, and Herrera, Pacheco, Velasquez, Murillo, and Zurburan +were born and flourished in Seville. In modern times she has taken a +prominent part in political events. She led in the patriotic war to +drive out the armies of Napoleon, and she seems to have been on both +sides in the struggle for liberal and absolutist principles, the +establishment of the brief republic of 1868, and the restoration of the +present monarchy. + +Through all the many changes from better to Worse, from richer to +poorer, Seville continued faithful to the ideal of religious unity which +the wise Isabel and the shrewd Ferdinand divined was the only means of +consolidating the intensely provincial kingdoms of Spain into one nation +of Spaniards. Andalusia not being Gothic had never been Aryan, and +it was one of her kings who carried his orthodoxy to Castile and +established it inexpugnably at Toledo after he succeeded his heretical +father there. When four or five hundred years later it became a +political necessity of the Catholic Kings to expel their Jewish and +Moorish subjects and convert their wealth to pious and patriotic uses, +Andalusia was one of the most zealous provinces in the cause. When +presently the inquisitions of the Holy Office began, some five hundred +heretics were burned alive at Seville before the year was out; many +others, who were dead and buried, paid the penalty of their heresy +in effigy; in all more than two thousand suffered in the region round +about. Before he was in Valladolid, Torquemada was in Seville, and there +he drew up the rules that governed the procedure of the Inquisition +throughout Spain. A magnificent _quemadero,_ or crematory, second only +to that of Madrid, was built: a square stone platform where almost every +day the smoke of human sacrifice ascended. This crematory for the living +was in the meadow of San Sebastian, now a part of the city park system +which we left on the right that first evening when we drove to the +Delicias. I do not know why I should now regret not having visited the +place of this dreadful altar and offered my unavailing pity there to +the memory of those scores of thousands of hapless martyrs who suffered +there to no end, not even to the end of confirming Spain in the faith +one and indivisible, for there are now, after so many generations of +torment, two Protestant churches in Seville. For one thing I did not +know where the place of the _quemadero_ was; and I do not yet know where +those Protestant churches are. + + + +II + +[Illustration: 25 GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR] + +If I went again to Seville I should try to visit them--but, as it was, +we gave our second day to the Alcazar, which is merely the first in +the series of palaces and gardens once stretching from the flank of +the cathedral to the Tower of Gold beside the Guadalquivir. A rich +sufficiency is left in the actual Alcazar to suggest the splendor of the +series, and more than enough in the gardens to invite our fatigue, day +after day, to the sun and shade of its quiet paths and seats when we +came spent with the glories and the bustling piety of the cathedral. In +our first visit we had the guidance of a patriotic young Granadan whose +zeal for the Alhambra would not admit the Alcazar to any comparison, +but I myself still prefer it after seeing the Alhambra. It is as purely +Moorish as that and it is in better repair if not better taste. The +taste in fact is the same, and the Castilian kings consulted it as +eagerly as their Arabic predecessors in the talent of the Moslem +architects whom they had not yet begun to drive into exile. I am not +going to set up rival to the colored picture postals, which give +a better notion than I could give of the painted and gilded stucco +decoration, the ingenious geometrical designs on the walls, and the +cloying sweetness of the honeycombing in the vaulted roofs. Every one +will have his feeling about Moorish architecture; mine is that a little +goes a great way, and that it is too monotonous to compete with the +Gothic in variety, while it lacks the dignity of any form of the Greek +or the Renaissance. If the phrase did not insult the sex which the faith +of the Moslem insufferably insults, one might sum up one's slight for it +in the word effeminate. + +The Alcazar gardens are the best of the Alcazar. But I would not ignore +the homelike charm of the vast court by which you enter from the street +outside to the palace beyond. It is planted casually about with rather +shabby orange trees that children were playing under, and was decorated +with the week's wash of the low, simple dwellings which may be hired +at a rental moderate even for Seville, where a handsome and commodious +house in a good quarter rents for sixty dollars a year. One of those +two-story cottages, as we should call them, in the ante-court of the +Alcazar had for the student of Spanish life the special advantage of +a lover close to a ground-floor window dropping tender nothings down +through the slats of the shutter to some maiden lurking within. The +nothings were so tender that you could not hear them drop, and, besides, +they were Spanish nothings, and it would not have served any purpose +for the stranger to listen for them. Once afterward we saw the national +courtship going on at another casement, but that was at night, and +here the precious first sight of it was offered at ten o'clock in the +morning. Nobody seemed to mind the lover stationed outside the shutter +with which the iron bars forbade him the closest contact; and it is +only fair to say that he minded nobody; he was there when we went in +and there when we came out, and it appears that when it is a question +of love-making time is no more an object in Spain than in the United +States. The scene would have been better by moonlight, but you cannot +always have it moonlight, and the sun did very well; at least, the lover +did not seem to miss the moon. + +He was only an incident, and I hope the most romantic reader will let me +revert from him to the Alcazar gardens. We were always reverting to them +on any pretext or occasion, and we mostly had them to ourselves in the +gentle afternoons when we strayed or sat about at will in them. The +first day we were somewhat molested by the instruction of our patriotic +Granadan guide, who had a whopper-jaw and grayish blue eyes, but +coal-black hair for all his other blondness. He smoked incessant +cigarettes, and he showed us especially the pavilion of Charles the +Fifth, whom, after that use of all English-speaking Spanish guides, +he called Charley Fift. It appeared that the great emperor used this +pavilion for purposes of meditation; but he could not always have +meditated there, though the frame of a brazier standing in the center +intimated that it was tempered for reflection. The first day we found +a small bird in possession, flying from one bit of the carved wooden +ceiling to another, and then, taking our presence in dudgeon, out into +the sun. Another day there was a nursery-girl there with a baby that +cried; on another, still more distractingly, a fashionable young +French bride who went kodaking round while her husband talked with an +archaeological official, evidently Spanish. In his own time, Charley +probably had the place more to himself, though even then his thoughts +could not have been altogether cheerful, whether he recalled what he had +vainly done to keep out of Spain and yet to take the worst of Spain with +him into the Netherlands, where he tried to plant the Inquisition among +his Flemings; he was already much soured with a world that had cloyed +him, and was perhaps considering even then how he might make his escape +from it to the cloister. + + + +III + + +We did not know as yet how almost entirely dramatic the palace of the +Alcazar was, how largely it was representative of what the Spanish +successors of the Moorish kings thought those kings would have made it +if they had made it; and it was probably through an instinct for the +genuine that we preferred the gardens after our first cries of wonder. +What remains to me of our many visits is the mass of high borders of +box, with roses, jasmine, and orange trees, palms, and cypresses. The +fountains dribbled rather than gushed, and everywhere were ranks and +rows of plants in large, high earthen pots beside or upon the tiled +benching that faced the fountains and would have been easier to sit on +if you had not had to supply the back yourself. The flowers were not in +great profusion, and chiefly we rejoiced in the familiar quaintness of +clumps of massive blood-red coxcombs and strange yellow ones. The walks +were bordered with box, and there remains distinctly the impression +of marble steps and mosaic seats inlaid with tiles; all Seville seems +inlaid with tiles. One afternoon we lingered longer than usual because +the day was so sunnily warm in the garden paths and spaces, without +being hot. A gardener whom we saw oftenest hung about his flowers in a +sort of vegetable calm, and not very different from theirs except that +they were not smoking cigarettes. He did not move a muscle or falter in +his apparently unseeing gaze; but when one of us picked a seed from the +ground and wondered what it was he said it was a magnolia seed, and as +if he could bear no more went away. In one wilding place which seemed +set apart for a nursery several men were idly working with many pauses, +but not so many as to make the spectator nervous. As the afternoon waned +and the sun sank, its level rays dwelt on the galleries of the palace +which Peter the Cruel built himself and made so ugly with harsh brown +stucco ornament that it set your teeth on edge, and with gigantic +frescos exaggerated from the Italian, and very coarse and rank. + +It was this savage prince who invented much of the Alcazar in the soft +Moorish taste; but in those hideous galleries he let his terrible nature +loose, though as for that some say he was no crueler than certain other +Spanish kings of that period. This is the notion of my unadvertised +_Encyclopaedia Britannica,_ and perhaps we ought to think of him +leniently as Peter the Ferocious. He was kind to some people and was +popularly known as the Justiciary; he especially liked the Moors and +Jews, who were gratefully glad, poor things, of being liked by any one +under the new Christian rule. But he certainly killed several of his +half-brothers, and notably he killed his half-brother Don Fadrique in +the Alcazar. That is, if he had no hand in the butchery himself he had +him killed after luring him to Seville for the tournaments and forgiving +him for all their mutual injuries with every caressing circumstance. One +reads that after the king has kissed him he sits down again to his +game of backgammon and Don Fadrique goes into the next room to Maria do +Padilla, the lovely and gentle lady whom Don Pedro has married as much +as he can with a wedded wife shut up in Toledo. She sits there in terror +with her damsels and tries with looks and signs to make Don Fadrique +aware of his danger. But he imagines no harm till the king and his +companions, with their daggers drawn, come to the curtains, which the +king parts, commanding, "Seize the Master of Santiago!" Don Fadrique +tries to draw his sword, and then he turns and flies through the halls +of the Alcazar, where he finds every door bolted and barred. The king's +men are at his heels, and at last one of them fells him with a blow of +his mace. The king goes back with a face of sympathy to Maria, who has +fallen to the floor. + +The treacherous keeping is all rather in the taste of the Italian +Renaissance, but the murder itself is more Roman, as the Spanish +atrocities and amusements are apt to be. Murray says it was in the +beautiful Hall of the Ambassadors that Don Fadrique was killed, but +the other manuals are not so specific. Wherever it was, there is a +blood-stain in the pavement which our Granadan guide failed to show us, +possibly from a patriotic pique that there are no blood-stains in the +Alhambra with personal associations. I cannot say that much is to be +made of the vaulted tunnel where poor Maria de Padilla used to bathe, +probably not much comforted by the courtiers afterward drinking the +water from the tank; she must have thought the compliment rather nasty, +and no doubt it was paid her to please Don Pedro. + +We found it pleasanter going and coming through the corridor leading to +the gardens from the public court. This was kept at the outer end by an +"old rancid Christian" smoking incessant cigarettes and not explicitly +refusing to sell us picture postals after taking our entrance fee; the +other end was held by a young, blond, sickly-looking girl, who made us +take small nosegays at our own price and whom it became a game to see if +we could escape. I have left saying to the last that the king and queen +of Spain have a residence in the Alcazar, and that when they come in +the early spring they do not mind corning to it through that plebeian +quadrangle. I should not mind it myself if I could go back there next +spring. + + + +IV + + +We had refused with loathing the offer of those gipsy jades to dance for +us in their noisome purlieu at Triana, but we were not proof against +the chance of seeing some gipsy dancing in a cafe-theater one night in +Seville. The decent place was filled with the "plain people," who sat +with their hats on at rude tables smoking and drinking coffee from tall +glasses. They were apparently nearly all working-men who had left nearly +all their wives to keep on working at home, though a few of these +also had come. On a small stage four gipsy girls, in unfashionably and +untheatrically decent gowns of white, blue, or red, with flowers in +their hair, sat in a semicircle with one subtle, silent, darkling man +among them. One after another they got up and did the same twisting and +posturing, without dancing, and while one posed and contorted the rest +unenviously joined the spectators in their clapping and their hoarse +cries of "Ole!" It was all perfectly proper except for one high moment +of indecency thrown in at the end of each turn, as if to give the house +its money's worth. But the real, overflowing compensation came when that +little, lithe, hipless man in black jumped to his feet and stormed the +audience with a dance of hands and arms, feet and legs, head, neck, +and the whole body, which Mordkin in his finest frenzy could not have +equaled or approached. Whatever was fiercest and wildest in nature +and boldest in art was there, and now the house went mad with its +hand-clappings and table-hammerings and deep-throated "Oles!" + +Another night we went to the academy of the world-renowned Otero and +saw the instruction of Sevillian youth in native dances of the _haute +ecole._ The academy used to be free to a select public, but now the +chosen, who are nearly always people from the hotels, must pay ten +pesetas each for their pleasure, and it is not too much for a pleasure +so innocent and charming. The academy is on the ground floor of the +_maestro's_ unpretentious house, and in a waiting-room beyond the +shoemaker's shop which filled the vestibule sat, patient in their black +mantillas, the mothers and nurses of the pupils. These were mostly quite +small children in their every-day clothes, but there were two or three +older girls in the conventional dancing costume which a lady from one of +the hotels had emulated. Everything was very simple and friendly; Otero +found good seats among the _aficionados_ for the guests presented to +him, and then began calling his pupils to the floor of the long, narrow +room with quick commands of "_Venga_!" A piano was tucked away in a +corner, but the dancers kept time now with castanets and now by snapping +their fingers. Two of the oldest girls, who were apparently graduates, +were "differently beautiful" in their darkness and fairness, but +alike picturesquely Spanish in their vivid dresses and the black veils +fluttering from their high combs. A youth in green velvet jacket and +orange trousers, whose wonderful dancing did him credit as Otero's prize +pupil, took part with them; he had the square-jawed, high-cheek-boned +face of the lower-class Spaniard, and they the oval of all Spanish +women. Here there was no mere posturing and contortioning among the +girls as with the gipsies; they sprang like flames and stamped the floor +with joyous detonations of their slippers. It was their convention to +catch the hat from the head of some young spectator and wear it in a +figure and then toss it back to him. One of them enacted the part of a +_torero_ at a bull-fight, stamping round first in a green satin cloak +which she then waved before a man's felt hat thrown on the ground to +represent the bull hemmed about with _banderillas_ stuck quivering into +the floor. But the prettiest thing was the dancing of two little girl +pupils, one fair and thin and of an angelic gracefulness, and the other +plump and dark, who was as dramatic as the blond was lyrical. They +accompanied themselves with castanets, and, though the little fatling +toed in and wore a common dress of blue-striped gingham, I am afraid she +won our hearts from her graceful rival. Both were very serious and +gave their whole souls to the dance, but they were not more childishly +earnest than an older girl in black who danced with one of the gaudy +graduates, panting in her anxious zeal and stopping at last with her +image of the Virgin she resembled flung wildly down her back from the +place where it had hung over her heart. + + + +V + + +We preferred walking home from Senor Otero's house through the bright, +quiescing street, because in driving there we had met with an adventure +which we did not care to repeat. We were driving most unaggressively +across a small plaza, with a driver and a friend on the box beside him +to help keep us from harm, when a trolley-car came wildly round a corner +at the speed of at least two miles an hour and crossed our track. Our +own speed was such that we could not help striking the trolley in a +collision which was the fault of no one apparently. The front of the +car was severely banged, one mud-guard of our victoria was bent, and +our conversation was interrupted. Immediately a crowd assembled from the +earth or the air, but after a single exchange of reproaches between +the two drivers nothing was said by any one. No policeman arrived to +_constater_ the facts, and after the crowd had silently satisfied or +dissatisfied itself that no one was hurt it silently dispersed. The car +ambled grumbling off and we drove on with some vague murmurs from our +driver, whose nerves seemed shaken, but who was supported in a somewhat +lurching and devious progress by the caressing arm of the friend on the +seat beside him. + +All this was in Seville, where the popular emotions are painted in +travel and romance as volcanic as at Naples, where no one would have +slept the night of our accident and the spectators would be debating it +still. In our own surprise and alarm we partook of the taciturnity of +the witnesses, which I think was rather fine and was much decenter than +any sort of utterance. On our way home we had occasion to practise a +like forbearance toward the lover whom we passed as he stood courting +through the casement of a ground floor. The soft air was full of the +sweet of jasmine and orange blossoms from the open _patios._ Many people +besides ourselves were passing, but in a well-bred avoidance of the dark +figure pressed to the grating and scarcely more recognizable than the +invisible figure within. I confess I thought it charming, and if at some +period of their lives people must make love I do not believe there is a +more inoffensive way of doing it. + +By the sort of echo notable in life's experience we had a reverberation +of the orange-flower perfume of that night in the orange-flower honey at +breakfast next morning. We lived to learn that our own bees gather +the same honey from the orange flowers of Florida; but at the time we +believed that only the bees of Seville did it, and I still doubt whether +anywhere in America the morning wakes to anything like the long, rich, +sad calls of the Sevillian street hucksters. It is true that you do not +get this plaintive music without the accompanying note of the hucksters' +donkeys, which, if they were better advised, would not close with the +sort of inefficient sifflication which they now use in spoiling an +otherwise most noble, most leonine roar. But when were donkeys of any +sort ever well advised in all respects? Those of Seville, where donkeys +abound, were otherwise of the superior intelligence which throughout +Spain leaves the horse and even the mule far behind, and constitutes the +donkeys, far beyond the idle and useless dogs, the friends of man. They +indefinitely outnumber the dogs, and the cats are of course nowhere +in the count. Yet I would not misprize the cats of Seville, which +apparently have their money price. We stopped to admire a beautiful +white one, on our way to see the market one day, praising it as +intelligibly as we could, and the owner caught it up, when we had passed +and ran after us, and offered to sell it to us. + +That might have been because it was near the market where we experienced +almost the only mercantile zeal we had known in Spain. Women with ropes +and garlands of onions round their necks invited us to buy, and we had +hopeful advances from the stalls of salads and fruits, where there was +a brave and beautiful show of lettuces and endives, grapes, medlars, and +heaps of melons, but no oranges; I do not know why, though there were +shining masses of red peppers and green, peppers, and vast earthen bowls +with yellow peas soaking in them. The flowers were every gay autumnal +sort, especially dahlias, sometimes made into stiff bouquets, perhaps +for church offerings. There were mounds of chestnuts, four or five feet +high and wide; and these flowers and fruits filled the interior of the +market, while the stalls for the flesh and fish were on the outside. +There seemed more sellers than buyers; here and there were ladies +buying, but it is said that the mistresses commonly send their maids for +the daily provision. + +Ordinarily I should say you could not go amiss for your profit and +pleasure in Seville, but there are certain imperative objects of +interest like the Casa de Pilatos which you really have to do. Strangely +enough, it is very well worth doing, for, though it is even more +factitiously Moorish than the Alcazar, it is of almost as great beauty +and of greater dignity. Gardens, galleries, staircases, statues, +paintings, all are interesting, with a mingled air of care and neglect +which is peculiarly charming, though perhaps the keener sensibilities, +the morbider nerves may suffer from the glare and hardness of the tiling +which render the place so wonderful and so exquisite. One must complain +of something, and I complain of the tiling; I do not mind the house +being supposed like the house of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. + +It belongs to the Duke of Medina-Celi, who no more comes to it from +Madrid than the Duke of Alva comes to his house, which I somehow +perversely preferred. For one thing, the Alva palace has eleven +_patios,_ all far more forgotten than the four in the House of Pilate, +and I could fully glut my love of _patios_ without seeing half of them. +Besides, it was in the charge of a typical Spanish family: a lean, +leathery, sallow father, a fat, immovable mother, and a tall, silent +daughter. The girl showed us darkly about the dreary place, with its +fountains and orange trees and palms, its damp, Moresque, moldy +walls, its damp, moldy, beautiful wooden ceilings, and its damp, moldy +staircase leading to the family rooms overhead, which we could not see. +The family stays for a little time only in the spring and fall, but if +ever they stay so late as we had come the sunlight lying so soft and +warm in the _patio_ and the garden out of it must have made them as +sorry to leave it as we were. + +I am not sure but I valued the House of Alva somewhat for the chance my +visit to it gave me of seeing a Sevillian tenement-house such as I had +hoped I might see. One hears that such houses are very scrupulously +kept by the janitors who compel the tenants to a cleanliness not perhaps +always their nature. At any rate, this one, just across the way from +the Alva House, was of a surprising neatness. It was built three stories +high, with galleries looking into an open court and doors giving from +these into the several tenements. As fortune, which does not continually +smile on travel, would have it that morning, two ladies of the house +were having a vivid difference of opinion on an upper gallery. Or at +least one was, for the other remained almost as silent as the spectators +who grouped themselves about her or put their heads out of the windows +to see, as well as hear, what it was about. I wish I knew and I would +tell the reader. The injured party, and I am sure she must have been +deeply injured, showered her enemy with reproaches, and each time when +she had emptied the vials of her wrath with much shaking of her hands in +the wrong-doer's face she went away a few yards and filled them up again +and then returned for a fresh discharge. It was perfectly like a scene +of Goldoni and like many a passage of real life in his native city, and +I was rapt in it across fifty years to the Venice I used to know. But +the difference in Seville was that there was actively only one combatant +in the strife, and the witnesses took no more part in it than the +passive resistant. + + + +VI + + +As a contrast to this violent scene which was not so wholly violent +but that it was relieved by a boy teasing a cat with his cap in the +foreground, and the sweet singing of canaries in the windows of the +houses near, I may commend the Casa de los Venerables, ecclesiastics +somehow related to the cathedral and having their tranquil dwelling not +far from it. The street we took from the Duke of Alva's palace was so +narrow and crooked that we scraped the walls in passing, and we should +never have got by one heavily laden donkey if he had not politely pushed +the side of his pannier into a doorway to make room for us. When we did +get to the Casa de los Venerables we found it mildly yellow-washed and +as beautifully serene and sweet as the house of venerable men should be. +Its distinction in a world of _patios_ was a _patio_ where the central +fountain was sunk half a story below the entrance floor, and encircled +by a stairway by which the humble neighbor folk freely descended to fill +their water jars. I suppose that gentle mansion has other merits, but +the fine staircase that ended under a baroque dome left us facing a +bolted door, so that we had to guess at those attractions, which I leave +the reader to imagine in turn. + +I have kept the unique wonder of Seville waiting too long already for +my recognition, though in its eight hundred years it should have learned +patience enough for worse things. From its great antiquity alone, if +from nothing else, it is plain that the Giralda at Seville could not +have been studied from the tower of the Madison Square Garden in New +York, which the American will recall when he sees it. If the case must +be reversed and we must allow that the Madison Square tower was studied +from the Giralda, we must still recognize that it is no servile copy, +but in its frank imitation has a grace and beauty which achieves +originality. Still, the Giralda is always the Giralda, and, though there +had been no Saint-Gaudens to tip its summit with such a flying-footed +nymph as poises on our own tower, the figure of Faith which crowns it is +at least a good weather-vane, and from its office of turning gives the +mighty bell-tower its name. Long centuries before the tower was a belfry +it served the mosque, which the cathedral now replaces, as a minaret +for the muezzin to call the faithful to prayer, but it was then only +two-thirds as high. The Christian belfry which continues it is not in +offensive discord with the structure below; its other difference in form +and spirit achieves an impossible harmony. The Giralda, however, chiefly +works its enchantment by its color, but here I must leave the proof of +this to the picture postal which now everywhere takes the bread out +of the word-painter's mouth. The time was when with a palette full +of tinted adjectives one might hope to do an unrivaled picture of the +Giralda; but that time is gone; and if the reader has not a colored +postal by him he should lose no time in going to Seville and seeing the +original. For the best view of it I must advise a certain beautifully +irregular small court in the neighborhood, with simple houses so low +that you can easily look up over their roofs and see the mighty bells of +the Giralda rioting far aloof, flinging themselves beyond the openings +of the belfry and deafeningly making believe to leap out into space. If +the traveler fails to find this court (for it seems now and then to be +taken in and put away), he need not despair of seeing the Giralda fitly. +He cannot see Seville at all without seeing it, and from every point, +far or near, he sees it grand and glorious. + +[Illustration: 26 THE COURT OF FLAGS AND TOWER OF THE GIRALDA] + +I remember it especially from beyond the Guadalquivir in the drive +we took through Triana to the village of Italica, where three Roman +emperors were born, as the guide-books will officiously hasten to tell, +and steal away your chance of treating your reader with any effect +of learned research. These emperors (I will not be stopped by any +guide-book from saying) were Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius; and Triana +is named for the first of them. Fortunately, we turned to the right +after crossing the bridge and so escaped the gipsy quarter, but we +paused through a long street so swarming with children that we wondered +to hear whole schoolrooms full of them humming and droning their lessons +as we made our way among the tenants. Fortunately, they played mostly in +the gutters, the larger looking after the smaller when their years +and riches were so few more, with that beautiful care which childhood +bestows on babyhood everywhere in Europe. To say that those Spanish +children were as tenderly watchful of these Spanish babies as English +children is to say everything. Now and then a mother cared for a babe as +only a mother can in an office which the pictures and images of the Most +Holy Virgin consecrate and endear in lands where the sterilized bottle +is unknown, but oftenest it was a little sister that held it in her arms +and crooned whatever was the Spanish of-- + + Rack back, baby, daddy shot a b'ar; + Rack back, baby, see it hangin' thar. + +For there are no rocking-chairs in Triana, as there were none in our +backwoods, and the little maids tilted to and fro on the fore legs and +hind legs of their chairs and lulled their charges to sleep with seismic +joltings. When the street turned into a road it turned into a road a +hundred feet wide; one of those roads which Charles III., when he came +to the Spanish throne from Naples, full of beneficent projects and +ideals, bestowed upon his unwilling and ungrateful subjects. These roads +were made about the middle of the eighteenth century, and they have been +gathering dust ever since, so that the white powder now lies in the +one beyond Triana five or six inches deep. Along the sides occasional +shade-trees stifled, and beyond these gaunt, verdureless fields widened +away, though we were told that in the spring the fields were red with +flowers and green with young wheat. There were no market-gardens, +and the chief crop seemed brown pigs and black goats. In some of the +foregrounds, as well as the backgrounds, were olive orchards with +olives heaped under them and peasants still resting from their midday +breakfast. A mauve bell-shaped flower plentifully fringed the wayside; +our driver said it had no name, and later an old peasant said it was +"bad." + + + +VII + + +We passed a convent turned into a prosperous-looking manufactory and we +met a troop of merry priests talking gayly and laughing together, and +very effective in their black robes against the white road. When we came +to the village that was a _municipium_ under Augustus and a _colonia_ +under Hadrian, we found it indeed scanty and poor, but very neat and +self-respectful-looking, and not unworthy to have been founded by Scipio +Africanus two hundred years before Christ. Such cottage interiors as +we glimpsed seemed cleaner and cozier than some in Wales; men in wide +flat-brimmed hats sat like statues at the doors, absolutely motionless, +but there were women bustling in and out in their work, and at one place +a little girl of ten had been left to do the family wash, and was doing +it joyously and spreading the clothes in the dooryard to dry. We did not +meet with universal favor as we drove by; some groups of girls mocked +our driver; when we said one of them was pretty he answered that he had +seen prettier. + +At the entrance to the ruins of the amphitheater which forms the +tourist's chief excuse for visiting Italica the popular manners softened +toward us; the village children offered to sell us wild narcissus +flowers and were even willing to take money in charity. They followed us +into the ruins, much forbidden by the fine, toothless old custodian +who took possession of us as his proper prey and led us through +the moldering caverns and crumbling tiers of seats which form the +amphitheater. Vast blocks, vast hunks, of the masonry are broken off +from the mass and lie detached, but the mass keeps the form and dignity +of the original design; and in the lonely fields there it had something +august and proud beyond any quality of the Arena at Verona or the +Colosseum at Rome. It is mostly stripped of the marble that once faced +the interior, and is like some monstrous oval shaped out of the earth, +but near the imperial box lay some white slabs with initials cut in them +which restored the vision of the "grandeur that was Rome" pretty +well over the known world when this great work was in its prime. Our +custodian was qualified by his toothlessness to lisp like any old +Castilian the letters that other Andalusians hiss, but my own Spanish +was so slight and his _patois_ was so dense that the best we could do +was to establish a polite misunderstanding. On this his one word of +English, repeated as we passed through the subterranean doors, "Lion, +lion, lion," cast a gleam of intelligence which brightened into a vivid +community of ideas when we ended in his cottage, and he prepared to sell +us some of the small Roman coins which formed his stock in trade. The +poor place was beautifully neat, and from his window he made us free +of a sight of Seville, signally the cathedral and the Giralda, such as +could not be bought for money in New York. + +Then we set out on our return, leaving unvisited to the left the church +of San Isidore de Campo, with its tombs of Guzman the Good and that +Better Lady Dona Urraca Osorio, whom Peter the Cruel had burned. I say +better, because I hold it nobler in Urraca to have rejected the love of +a wicked king than in Guzman to have let the Moors slay his son rather +than surrender a city to them. But I could only pay honor to her +pathetic memory and the memory of that nameless handmaid of hers who +rushed into the flames to right the garments on the form which the wind +had blown them away from, and so perished with her. We had to take on +trust from the guide-books all trace of the Roman town where the three +emperors were born, and whose "palaces, aqueducts, and temples and +circus were magnificent." We had bought some of the "coins daily dug +up," but we intrusted to the elements those "vestiges of vestiges" left +of Trajan's palaces after an envious earthquake destroyed them so lately +as 1755. + +The one incident of our return worthy of literature was the dramatic +triumph of a woman over a man and a mule as we saw it exhibited on the +parapet of a culvert over a dry torrent's bed. It was the purpose of +this woman, standing on the coping in statuesque relief and showing +against the sky the comfortable proportions of the Spanish housewife, to +mount the mule behind the man. She waited patiently while the man slowly +and as we thought faithlessly urged the mule to the parapet; then, when +she put out her hands and leaned forward to take her seat, the mule +inched softly away and left her to recover her balance at the risk of a +fall on the other side. We were too far for anything but the dumb show, +but there were, no doubt, words which conveyed her opinions unmistakably +to both man and mule. With our hearts in our mouths we witnessed the +scene and its repetitions till we could bear it no longer, and we had +bidden our cabman drive on when with a sudden spring the brave woman +launched herself semicircularly forward and descended upon the exact +spot which she had been aiming at. There solidly established on the +mule, with her arms fast round the man, she rode off; and I do not think +any reader of mine would like to have been that mule or that man for the +rest of the way home. + +We met many other mules, much more exemplary, in teams of two, three, +and four, covered with bells and drawing every kind of carryall and +stage and omnibus. These vehicles were built when the road was, about +1750, and were, like the road, left to the natural forces for keeping +themselves in repair. The natural forces were not wholly adequate in +either case, but the vehicles were not so thick with dust as the road, +because they could shake it off. They had each two or four passengers +seated with the driver; passengers clustered over the top and packed the +inside, but every one was in the joyous mood of people going home for +the day. In a plaza not far from the Triana bridge you may see these +decrepit conveyances assembling every afternoon for their suburban +journeys, and there is no more picturesque sight in Seville, more +homelike, more endearing. Of course, when I say this I leave out of the +count the bridge over the Guadalquivir at the morning or evening hour +when it is covered with brightly caparisoned donkeys, themselves covered +with men needing a shave, and gay-kerchiefed women of every age, with +boys and dogs underfoot, and pedestrians of every kind, and hucksters +selling sea-fruit and land-fruit and whatever else the stranger would +rather see than eat. Very little outcry was needed for the sale of these +things, which in Naples or even in Venice would have been attended by +such vociferation as would have sufficed to proclaim a city in flames. + +On a day not long after our expedition to Italica we went a drive with a +young American friend living in Seville, whom I look to for a book about +that famous city such as I should like to write myself if I had the time +to live it as he has done. He promised that he would show us a piece of +the old Roman wall, but he showed us ever so much more, beginning with +the fore court of the conventual church of Santa Paula, where we found +the afternoon light waiting to illumine for us with its tender caress +the Luca della Robbia-like colored porcelain figures of the portal and +the beautiful octagon tower staying a moment before taking flight for +heaven: the most exquisite moment of our whole fortnight in Seville. +Tall pots of flowers stood round, and the grass came green through the +crevices of the old foot-worn pavement. When we passed out a small boy +scuffled for our copper with the little girl who opened the gate for us, +but was brought to justice by us, and joined cheerfully in the chorus of +children chanting "Mo-ney, mo-ney!" round us, but no more expecting an +answer to their prayer than if we had been saints off the church door. + +We passed out of the city by a gate where in a little coign of vantage +a cobbler was thoughtfully hammering away in the tumult at a shoe-sole, +and then suddenly on our right we had the Julian wall: not a mere +fragment, but a good long stretch of it. The Moors had built upon it +and characterized it, but had not so masked it as to hide the perdurable +physiognomy of the Roman work. It was vastly more Roman wall than you +see at Rome; but far better than this heroic image of war and waste was +the beautiful old aqueduct, perfectly Roman still, with no visible touch +from Moor, or from Christian, before or after the Moor, and performing +its beneficent use after two thousand years as effectively as in the +years before Christ came to bless the peacemakers. Nine miles from its +mountain source the graceful arches bring the water on their shoulders; +and though there is now an English company that pipes other streams to +the city through its underground mains, the Roman aqueduct, eternally +sublime in its usefulness, is constant to the purpose of the forgotten +men who imagined it. The outer surfaces of the channel which it lifted +to the light and air were tagged with weeds and immemorial mosses, and +dripped as with the sweat of its twenty-centuried toil. + +We followed it as far as it went on our way to a modern work of peace +and use which the ancient friend and servant of man would feel no +unworthy rival. Beyond the drives and gardens of the Delicias, where we +lingered our last to look at the pleasurers haunting them, we drove far +across the wheat-fields where a ship-canal five miles long is cutting +to rectify the curve of the Guadalquivir and bring Seville many miles +nearer the sea than it has ever been before; hitherto the tramp steamers +have had to follow the course of the ships of Tarshish in their winding +approach. The canal is the notion of the young king of Spain, and the +work on it goes forward night and day. The electric lights were +shedding their blinding glare on the deafening clatter of the excavating +machinery, and it was an unworthy relief to escape from the intense +modernity of the scene to that medieval retreat nearer the city where +the _aficionados_ night-long watch the bulls coming up from their +pastures for the fight or the feast, whichever you choose to call it, of +the morrow. These amateurs, whom it would be rude to call sports, lurk +in the wayside cafe over their cups of chocolate and wait till in that +darkest hour before dawn, with irregular trampling and deep bellowing, +these hapless heroes of the arena pass on to their doom. It is a great +thing for the _aficionados_ who may imagine in that bellowing the the +gladiator's hail of _Morituri salutant._ At any rate, it is very chic; +it gives a man standing in Seville, which disputes with Madrid the +primacy in bull-feasting. If the national capital has bull-feasting +every Sunday of the year, all the famous _torreros_ come from Andalusia, +with the bulls, their brave antagonists, and in the great provincial +capital there are bull-feasts of insurpassable, if not incomparable, +splendor. + +Before our pleasant drive ended we passed, as we had already passed +several times, the scene of the famous Feria of Seville, the cattle show +which draws tens of thousands to the city every springtime for business +and pleasure, but mostly pleasure. The Feria focuses in its greatest +intensity at one of the entrances to the Delicias, where the street is +then so dense with every sort of vehicle that people can cross it only +by the branching viaduct, which rises in two several ascents from each +footway, intersecting at top and delivering their endless multitudes on +the opposite sidewalk. Along the street are gay pavilions and cottages +where the nobility live through the Feria with their families and +welcome the public to the sight of their revelry through the open doors +and windows. Then, if ever, the stranger may see the dancing, and hear +the singing and playing which all the other year in Seville disappoints +him of. + + + +VIII + + +On the eve of All Saints, after we had driven over the worst road in +the world outside of Spain or America, we arrived at the entrance of +the cemetery where Baedeker had mysteriously said "some sort of fair was +held." Then we perceived that we were present at the preparations for +celebrating one of the most affecting events of the Spanish year. This +was the visit of kindred and friends bringing tokens of remembrance and +affection to the dead. The whole long, rough way we had passed them on +foot, and at the cemetery gate we found them arriving in public cabs, +as well as in private carriages, with the dignity and gravity of +smooth-shaven footmen and coachmen. In Spain these functionaries look +their office more solemnly even than in England and affect you as +peculiarly correct and eighteenth-century. But apart from their looks +the occasion seemed more a festivity than a solemnity. The people bore +flowers, mostly artificial, as well as lanterns, and within the cemetery +they were furbishing up the monuments with every appliance according +to the material, scrubbing the marble, whitewashing the stucco, and +repainting the galvanized iron. The lanterns were made to match the +monuments and fences architecturally, and the mourners were attaching +them with a gentle satisfaction in their fitness; I suppose they were to +be lighted at dark and to burn through the night. There were men among +the mourners, but most of them were women and children; some were +weeping, like a father leading his two little ones, and an old woman +grieving for her dead with tears. But what prevailed was a community of +quiet resignation, almost to the sort of cheerfulness which bereavement +sometimes knows. The scene was tenderly affecting, but it had a +tremendous touch of tragic setting in the long, straight avenue of black +cypresses which slimly climbed the upward slope from the entrance to the +farther bound of the cemetery. Otherwise there was only the patience of +entire faith in this annually recurring visit of the living to the dead: +the fixed belief that these should rise from the places where they lay. +and they who survived them for yet a little more of time should join +them from whatever end of the earth in the morning of the Last Day. + +All along I have been shirking what any right-minded traveler would feel +almost his duty, but I now own that there is a museum in Seville, +the Museo Provincial, which was of course once a convent and is now a +gallery, with the best, but not the very best, Murillos in it, not to +speak of the best Zurburans. I will not speak at all of those pictures, +because I could in no wise say what they were, or were like, and because +I would not have the reader come to them with any opinions of mine which +he might bring away with him in the belief that they were his own. Let +him not fail to go to the museum, however; he will be the poorer beyond +calculation if he does not; but he will be a beggar if he does not go +to the Hospital de la Caridad, where in the church he will find six +Murillos out-Murilloing any others excepting always the incomparable +"Vision of St. Anthony" in the cathedral. We did not think of those six +Murillos when we went to the hospital; we knew nothing of the peculiar +beauty and dignity of the church; but we came because we wished to see +what the repentance of a man could do for others after a youth spent in +wicked riot. The gentle, pensive little Mother who received us carefully +said at once that the hospital was not for the sick, but only for the +superannuated and the poor and friendless who came to pass a night or +an indefinite time in it, according to the pressure of their need; and +after showing us the rich little church, she led us through long, clean +corridors where old men lay in their white beds or sat beside them +eating their breakfasts, very savory-looking, out of ample white bowls. +Some of them saluted us, but the others we excused because they were so +preoccupied. In a special room set apart for them were what we brutally +call tramps, but who doubtless are known in Spain for indigent brethren +overtaken on their wayfaring without a lodging for the night. Here +they could come for it and cook their supper and breakfast at the large +circular fireplace which filled one end of their room. They rose at our +entrance and bowed; and how I wish I could have asked them, every one, +about their lives! + +There was nothing more except the doubt of that dear little Mother when +I gave her a silver dollar for her kindness. She seemed surprised and +worried, and asked, "Is it for the charity or for me?" What could I do +but answer, "Oh, for your Grace," and add another for the charity. +She still looked perplexed, but there was no way out of our +misunderstanding, if it was one, and we left her with her sweet, +troubled face between the white wings of her cap, like angel's wings +mounting to it from her shoulders. Then we went to look at the statue of +the founder bearing a hapless stranger in his arms in a space of flowers +before the hospital, where a gardener kept watch that no visitor should +escape without a bunch worth at least a peseta. He had no belief that +the peseta could possibly be for the charity, and the poverty of the +poor neighborhood was so much relieved by the mere presence of the +hospital that it begged of us very little as we passed through. + + + +IX + + +We had expected to go to Granada after a week in Seville, but man is +always proposing beyond his disposing in strange lands as well as at +home, and we were fully a fortnight in the far lovelier capital. In +the mean time we had changed from our rooms in the rear of the hotel to +others in the front, where we entered intimately into the life of the +Plaza San Fernando as far as we might share it from our windows. It was +not very active life; even the cabmen whose neat victorias bordered +the place on three sides were not eager for custom; they invited the +stranger, but they did not urge; there was a continual but not a rapid +passing through the ample oblong; there was a good deal of still life on +the benches where leisure enjoyed the feathery shadow of the palms, +for the sun was apt to be too hot at the hour of noon, though later it +conduced to the slumber which in Spain accompanies the digestion of the +midday meal in all classes. As the afternoon advanced numbers of little +girls came into the plaza and played children's games which seemed a +translation of games familiar to our own country. One evening a small +boy was playing with them, but after a while he seemed to be found +unequal to the sport; he was ejected from the group and went off +gloomily to grieve apart with his little thumb in his mouth. The sight +of his dignified desolation was insupportable, and we tried what a +copper of the big-dog value would do to comfort him. He took it without +looking up and ran away to the peanut-stand which is always steaming +at the first corner all over Christendom. Late in the evening--in fact, +after the night had fairly fallen--we saw him making his way into a +house fronting on the plaza. He tried at the door with one hand and in +the other he held an unexhausted bag of peanuts. He had wasted no word +of thanks on us, and he did not now. When he got the door open he backed +into the interior still facing us and so fading from our sight and +knowledge. + +He had the touch of comedy which makes pathos endurable, but another +incident was wholly pathetic. As we came out of an antiquity shop near +the cathedral one afternoon we found on the elevated footway near the +Gate of Pardon a mother and daughter, both of the same second youth, who +gently and jointly pronounced to us the magical word _encajes._ Rather, +they questioned us with it, and they only suggested, very forbearingly, +that we should come to their house with them to see those laces, which +of course were old laces; their house was quite near. But that one of +us twain who was singly concerned in _encajes_ had fatigued and perhaps +overbought herself at the antiquity shop, and she signified a regret +which they divined too well was dissent. They looked rather than +expressed a keen little disappointment; the mother began a faint +insistence, but the daughter would not suffer it. Here was the pride of +poverty, if not poverty itself, and it was with a pang that we parted +from these mutely appealing ladies. We could not have borne it if we had +not instantly promised ourselves to come the next day and meet them and +go home with them and buy all their _encajes_ that we had money for. We +kept our promise, and we came the next day and the next and every day +we remained in Seville, and lingered so long that we implanted in the +cabmen beside the curbing the inextinguishable belief that we were in +need of a cab; but we never saw those dear ladies again. + +These are some of the cruel memories which the happiest travel leaves, +and I gratefully recall that in the case of a custodian of the Columbian +Museum, which adjoins the cathedral, we did not inflict a pang that +rankled in our hearts for long. I gave him a handful of copper coins +which I thought made up a peseta, but his eyes were keener, and a sorrow +gloomed his brow which projected its shadow so darkly over us when we +went into the cathedral for one of our daily looks that we hastened to +return and make up the full peseta with another heap of coppers; a whole +sunburst of smiles illumined his face, and a rainbow of the brightest +colors arched our sky and still arches it whenever we think of that +custodian and his rehabilitated trust in man. + +This seems the crevice where I can crowd in the fact that bits of family +wash hung from the rail of the old pulpit in the Court of Oranges beside +the cathedral, and a pumpkin vine lavishly decorated an arcade near a +doorway which perhaps gave into the dwelling of that very custodian. At +the same time I must not fail to urge the reader's seeing the Columbian +Museum, which is richly interesting and chiefly for those Latin and +Italian authors annotated by the immortal admiral's own hand. These give +the American a sense of him as the discoverer of our hemisphere which +nothing else could, and insurpassably render the New World credible. +At the same time they somehow bring a lump of pity and piety into the +throat at the thought of the things he did and suffered. They bring him +from history and make him at home in the beholder's heart, and there +seems a mystical significance in the fact that the volume most abounding +in marginalia should be _Seneca's Prophecies._ + +The frequent passing of men as well as women and children through our +Plaza San Fernando and the prevalence of men asleep on the benches; the +immense majority of boys everywhere; the moralized _abattoir_ outside +the walls where the humanity dormant at the bull-feast wakes to hide +every detail of slaughter for the market; a large family of cats basking +at their ease in a sunny doorway; trains of milch goats with wicker +muzzles, led by a milch cow from door to door through the streets; the +sudden solemn beauty of the high altar in the cathedral, seen by chance +on a brilliant day; the bright, inspiriting air of Seville; a glorious +glimpse of the Giralda coming home from a drive; the figure of a girl +outlined in a lofty window; a middle-aged Finnish pair trying to give +themselves in murmured talk to the colored stucco of the Hall of the +Ambassadors in what seems their wedding journey; two artists working +near with sketches tilted against the wall; a large American lady who +arrives one forenoon in traveling dress and goes out after luncheon in +a mantilla with a fan and high comb; another American lady who appears +after dinner in the costume of a Spanish dancing-girl; the fact that +there is no Spanish butter and that the only good butter comes from +France and the passable butter from Denmark; the soft long veils of +pink cloud that trail themselves in the sky across our Plaza, and then +dissolve in the silvery radiance of the gibbous moon; the yellowish-red +electric Brush lights swinging from palm to palm as in the decoration +of some vast ballroom; a second drive through Triana, and a failure to +reach the church we set out for; the droves of brown pigs and flocks of +brown sheep; the goatherds unloading olive boughs in the fields for +the goats to browse; a dirty, kind, peaceful village, with an English +factory in it, and a mansion of galvanized iron with an automobile +before it; a pink villa on a hillside and a family group on the shoulder +of a high-walled garden; a girl looking down from the wall, and a young +man resting his hand on the masonry and looking up at her; the good +faces of the people, men and women; boys wrestling and frolicking in the +village streets; the wide dust-heap of a road, full of sudden holes; the +heat of the sun in the first November week after touches of cold; the +tram-cars that wander from one side of the city street to the other, and +then barely miss scraping the house walls; in our drive home from our +failure for that church, men with trains of oxen plowing and showing +against the round red rayless sun; a stretch of the river with the +crimson-hulled steamers, and a distant sail-boat seen across the fields; +the gray moon that burnishes itself and rides bright and high for our +return; people in balconies, and the air full of golden dust shot +with bluish electric lights; here is a handful of suggestions from my +note-book which each and every one would expand into a chapter or a +small volume under the intensive culture which the reader may well have +come to dread. But I fling them all down here for him to do what he +likes with, and turn to speak at more length of the University, or, +rather the University Church, which I would not have any reader of mine +fail to visit. + + + +X + + +With my desire to find likeness rather than difference in strange +peoples, I was glad to have two of the students loitering in the _patio_ +play just such a trick on a carter at the gate as school-boys might play +in our own land. While his back was turned they took his whip and hid it +and duly triumphed in his mystification and dismay. We did not wait +for the catastrophe, but by the politeness of another student found +the booth of the custodian, who showed us to the library. A noise +of recitation from the windows looking into the _patio_ followed us +up-stairs; but maturer students were reading at tables in the hushed +library, and at a large central table a circle of grave authorities +of some sort were smoking the air blue with their cigarettes. One, +who seemed chief among them, rose and bowed us into the freedom of the +place, and again rose and bowed when we went out. We did not stay long, +for a library is of the repellent interest of a wine-cellar; unless the +books or bottles are broached it is useless to linger. There are eighty +thousand volumes in that library, but we had to come away without +examining half of them. The church was more appreciable, and its value +was enhanced to us by the reluctance of the stiff old sacristan to +unlock it. We found it rich in a most wonderful _retablo_ carved in wood +and painted. Besides the excellent pictures at the high altar, there +are two portrait brasses which were meant to be recumbent, but which are +stood up against the wall, perhaps to their surprise, without loss of +impressiveness. Most notable of all is the mural tomb of Pedro Enriquez +de Ribera and his wife: he who built the Casa de Pilatos, and as he had +visited the Holy Land was naturally fabled to have copied it from the +House of Pilate. Now, as if still continuing his travels, he reposes +with his wife in a sort of double-decker monument, where the Evil One +would have them suggest to the beholder the notion of passengers in the +upper and lower berths of a Pullman sleeper. + +Of all the Spanish cities that I saw, Seville was the most charming, +not for those attributive blandishments of the song and dance which the +tourist is supposed to find it, but which we quite failed of, but for +the simpler and less conventional amiabilities which she was so rich +in. I have tried to hint at these, but really one must go to Seville for +them and let them happen as they will. Many happened in our hotel where +we liked everybody, from the kindly, most capable Catalonian head waiter +to the fine-headed little Napoleonic-looking waiter who had identified +us at San Sebastian as Americans, because we spoke "quicklier" than the +English, and who ran to us when we came into the hotel and shook hands +with its as if we were his oldest and dearest friends. There was a Swiss +concierge who could not be bought for money, and the manager was the +mirror of managers. Fancy the landlord of the Waldorf-Astoria, or the +St. Regis, coming out on the sidewalk and beating down a taxicabman +from a charge of fifteen pesetas to six for a certain drive! It is not +thinkable, and yet the like of it happened to xis in Seville from our +manager. It was not his fault, when our rear apartment became a little +too chill, and we took a parlor in the front and came back on the first +day hoping to find it stored full of the afternoon sun's warmth, but +found that the _camerera_ had opened the windows and closed the shutters +in our absence so that our parlor was of a frigidity which no glitter of +the electric light could temper. The halls and public rooms were chill +in anticipation and remembrance of any cold outside, but in otir parlor +there was a hole for the sort of stove which we saw in the reading-room, +twice as large as an average teakettle, with a pipe as big around as +the average rain-pipe. I am sure this apparatus would have heated us +admirably, but the weather grew milder and milder and we never had +occasion to make the successful experiment. Meanwhile the moral +atmosphere of the hotel was of a blandness which would have gone far to +content us with any meteorological perversity. When we left it we were +on those human terms with every one who ruled or served in it which one +never attains in an American hotel, and rarely in an English one. + +At noon on the 4th of November the sun was really hot in our plaza; but +we were instructed that before the winter was over there would be cold +enough, not of great frosty severity, of course, but nasty and hard to +bear in the summer conditions which prevail through the year. I wish I +could tell how the people live then in their beautiful, cool houses, but +I do not know, and I do not know how they live at any season except from +the scantiest hearsay. The women remain at home except when they go +to church or to drive in the Delicias--that is to say, the women of +society, of the nobility. There is no society in our sense among people +of the middle classes; the men when they are not at business are at the +cafe; the women when they are not at mass are at home. That is what we +were told, and yet at a moving-picture show we saw many women of the +middle as well as the lower classes. The frequent holidays afford them +an outlet, and indoors they constantly see their friends and kindred at +their _tertulias._ + +The land is in large holdings which are managed by the factors or agents +of the noble proprietors. These, when they are not at Madrid, are to be +found at their clubs, where their business men bring them papers to be +signed, often unread. This sounds a little romantic, and perhaps it is +not true. Some gentlemen take a great interest in the bull-feasts and +breed the bulls and cultivate the bull-fighters; what other esthetic +interests they have I do not know. All classes are said to be of an +Oriental philosophy of life; they hold that the English striving and +running to and fro and seeing strange countries comes in the end to +the same thing as sitting still; and why should they bother? There is +something in that, but one may sit still too much; the Spanish ladies, +as I many times heard, do overdo it. Not only they do not walk abroad; +they do not walk at home; everything is carried to and from them; they +do not lift hand or foot. The consequence is that they have very small +hands and feet; Gautier, who seems to have grown tired when he reached +Seville, and has comparatively little to say of it, says that a child +may hold a Sevillian lady's foot in its hand; he does not say he saw it +done. What is true is that no child could begin to clasp with both hands +the waist of an average Sevillian lady. But here again the rule has +its exceptions and will probably have more. Not only is the English +queen-consort stimulating the Andalusian girls to play tennis by her +example when she comes to Seville, but it has somehow become the fashion +for ladies of all ages to leave their carriages in the Delicias and walk +up and down; we saw at least a dozen doing it. + +Whatever flirting and intriguing goes on, the public sees nothing of +it. In the street there is no gleam of sheep's-eying or any manner of +indecorum. The women look sensible and good, and I should say the same +of the men; the stranger's experience must have been more unfortunate +than mine if he has had any unkindness from them. One heard that Spanish +women do not smoke, unless they are _cigarreras_ and work in the large +tobacco factory, where the "Carmen" tradition has given place to the +mother-of-a-family type, with her baby on the floor beside her. Even +these may prefer not to set the baby a bad example and have her grow +up and smoke like those English and American women. The strength of +the Church is, of course, in the women's faith, and its strength is +unquestionable, if not quite unquestioned. In Seville, as I have said, +there are two Spanish Protestant churches, and their worship, is not +molested. Society does not receive their members; but we heard that with +most Spanish people Protestantism is a puzzle rather than offense. They +know we are not Jews, but Christians; yet we are not Catholics; and +what, then, are we? With the Protestants, as with the Catholics, there +is always religious marriage. There is civil marriage for all, but +without the religious rite the pair are not well seen by either sect. + +It is said that the editor of the ablest paper in Madrid, which +publishes a local edition at Seville, is a Protestant. The queen mother +is extremely clerical, though one of the wisest and best women who ever +ruled; the king and queen consort are as liberal as possible, and the +king is notoriously a democrat, with a dash of Haroun al Rashid, he +likes to take his governmental subordinates unawares, and a story is +told of his dropping in at the post-office on a late visit to Seville, +and asking for the chief. He was out, and so were all the subordinate +officials down to the lowest, whom the king found at his work. The +others have since been diligent at theirs. The story is characteristic +of the king, if not of the post-office people. + +Political freedom is almost grotesquely unrestricted. In our American +republic we should scarcely tolerate a party in favor of a monarchy, +but in the Spanish monarchy a republican party is recognized and +represented. It holds public meetings and counts among its members many +able and distinguished men, such as the novelist Perez Galdos, one of +the most brilliant novelists not only in Spain but in Europe. With this +unbounded liberty in Andalusia, it is said that the Spaniards of the +north are still more radical. + +Though the climate is most favorable for consumptives, the habits of the +people are so unwholesome that tuberculosis prevails, and there are +two or three deaths a day from it in Seville. There is no avoidance of +tuberculous suspects; they cough, and the men spit everywhere in the +streets and on the floors and carpets of the clubs. The women suffer +for want of fresh air, though now with the example of the English queen +before them and the young girls who used to lie abed till noon getting +up early ta play tennis, it will be different. Their mothers and aunts +still drive to the Delicias to prove that they have carriages, but when +there they alight and walk up and down by their doctor's advice. + +I only know that during our fortnight in Seville I suffered no wound to +a sensibility which has been kept in full repair for literary, if not +for humanitarian purposes. The climate was as kind as the people. It is +notorious that in summer the heat is that of a furnace, but even then it +is bearable because it is a dry heat, like that of our indoor furnaces. +The 5th of November was our last day, and then it was too hot for +comfort in the sun, but one is willing to find the November sun too hot; +it is an agreeable solecism; and I only wish that we could have found +the sun too hot during the next three days in Granada. If the 5th of +November had been worse for heat than it was it must still remain dear +in our memory, because in the afternoon we met once more these Chilians +of our hearts whom we had met in San Sebastian and Burgos and Valladolid +and Madrid. We knew we should meet them in Seville and were not the +least surprised. They were as glad and gay as ever, and in our common +polyglot they possessed us of the fact that they had just completed +the eastern hemicycle of their Peninsular tour. They were latest from +Malaga, and now they were going northward. It was our last meeting, but +better friends I could not hope to meet again, whether in the Old +World or the New, or that Other World which we hope will somehow be the +summation of all that is best in both. + + + + +XI. TO AND IN GRANADA + + +The train which leaves Seville at ten of a sunny morning is supposed to +arrive in Granada at seven of a moonlight evening. This is a mistake; +the moonlight is on time, but the train arrives at a quarter of nine. +Still, if the day has been sunny the whole way and the moonlight is +there at the end, no harm has really been done; and measurably the +promise of the train has been kept. + + + +I + + +There was not a moment of the long journey over the levels of Andahisia +which was not charming; when it began to be over the uplands of the last +Moorish kingdom, it was richly impressive. The only thing that I can +remember against the landscape is the prevalence of olive orchards. I +hailed as a relief the stubble-fields immeasurably spread at times, +and I did not always resent the roadside planting of some sort of tall +hedges which now and then hid the olives. But olive orchards may vary +their monotony by the spectacle of peasants on ladders gathering +their fruit into wide-mouthed sacks, and occasionally their ranks of +symmetrical green may be broken by the yellow and red of poplars and +pomegranates around the pleasant farmsteads. The nearer we drew to +Granada the pleasanter these grew, till in the famous Vega they thickly +dotted the landscape with their brown roofs and white walls. + +We had not this effect till we had climbed the first barrier of hills +and began to descend on the thither side; but we had incident enough to +keep us engaged without the picturesqueness. The beggars alone, who +did not fail us at any station, were enough; for what could the most +exacting tourist ask more than to be eating his luncheon under the eyes +of the children who besieged his car windows and protested their famine +in accents which would have melted a heart of stone or of anything +less obdurate than travel? We had always our brace of Civil Guards, +who preserved us from bandits, but they left the beggars unmolested by +getting out on the train next the station and pacing the platform, while +the rabble of hunger thronged us on the other side. There was especially +a hoy who, after being compassionated in money for his misfortune, +continued to fling his wooden leg into the air and wave it at our +window by some masterly gymnastics; and there was another boy who kept +lamenting that he had no mother, till, having duly feed and fed him, I +suggested, "But you have a father?" Then, as if he had never seen +the case in that light before, he was silent, and presently went away +without further insistence on his bereavement. + +The laconic fidelity of my note-book enables me to recall here that +the last we saw of Seville was the Cathedral and the Giralda, which the +guide-books had promised us we should see first; that we passed some +fields of alfalfa which the Moors had brought from Africa and the +Spanish have carried to America; that in places men were plowing and +that the plowed land was red; that the towns on the uplands in the +distance were white and not gray, or mud-colored, as in Castile; that +the morning sky was blue, with thin, pale clouds; that the first station +out was charmingly called Two Brothers, and that the loungers about it +were plain, but kind-looking men-folk with good faces, some actually +clean-shaven, and a woman with a white rose in her hair; that Two +Brothers is a suburb of Seville, frequented in the winter, and has +orange orchards about it; that farther on at one place the green of +the fields spread up to the walls of a white farm with a fine sense of +color; that there were hawks sailing in the blue air; that there were +grotesque hedges of cactus and piles of crooked cactus logs; that there +were many eucalyptus trees; that there were plantations of young olives, +as if never to let that all-pervading industry perish; that there were +irregular mountain ranges on the right, but never the same kind of +scenery on both sides of the track; that there was once a white cottage +on a yellow hill and a pink villa with two towers; that there was a +solitary fig tree near the road, and that there were vast lonely fields +when there were not olive orchards. + +Taking breath after one o'clock, much restored by our luncheon, my +note-book remembers a gray-roofed, yellow-walled town, very suitable +for a water-color, and just beyond it the first vineyard we had come +to. Then there were pomegranate trees, golden-leaved, and tall poplars +pollarded plume fashion as in southern France; and in a field a herd of +brown pigs feeding, which commended itself to observance, doubtless, as +color in some possible word-painting. There now abounded pomegranates, +figs, young corn, and more and more olives; and as if the old olives and +young olives were not enough, the earth began to be pitted with holes +dug for the olives which had not yet been planted. + + + +II + + +At Bobadilla, the junction where an English railway company begins +to get in its work and to animate the Spanish environment to unwonted +enterprise, there was a varied luncheon far past our capacity. But when +a Cockney voice asked over my shoulder, "Tea, sir?" I gladly closed with +the proposition. "But you've put hot milk into it!" I protested. "I know +it, sir. We 'ave no cold milk at Bobadilla," and instantly a baleful +suspicion implanted itself which has since grown into a upas tree of +poisonous conviction: goat's milk does not keep well, and it was not +only hot milk, but hot _goat's_ milk which they were serving us at +Bobadilla. However, there were admirable ham sandwiches, not of goat's +flesh, at the other end of the room, and with these one could console +oneself. There was also a commendable pancake whose honored name I never +knew, but whose acquaintance I should be sorry not to have made; and all +about Bobadilla there was an agreeable bustle, which we enjoyed the +more when we had made sure that we had changed into the right train for +Granada and found in our compartment the charming young Swedish couple +who had come with us from Seville. + +Thoroughly refreshed by the tea with hot goat's milk in it, by the +genuine ham sandwiches and the pancakes, my note-book takes up the tale +once more. It dwells upon the rich look of the land and the comfort of +the farms contrasting with the wild irregularity of the mountain ranges +which now began to serrate the horizon; and I have no doubt that if +I had then read that most charming of all Washington Irving's Spanish +studies, the story, namely, of his journey over quite the same way we +had come seventy-five years later, my note-book would abound in lively +comment on the changed aspect of the whole landscape. Even as it is, I +find it exclamatory over the wonder of the mountain coloring which it +professes to have found green, brown, red, gray, and blue, but whether +all at once or not it does not say. It is more definite as to the +plain we were traversing, with its increasing number of white cottages, +cheerfully testifying to the distribution of the land in small holdings, +so different from the vast estates abandoned to homeless expanses of +wheat-fields and olive orchards which we had been passing through. +It did not appear on later inquiry that these small holdings were of +peasant ownership, as I could have wished; they were tenant farms, but +their neatness testified to the prosperity of the tenants, and their +frequency cheered our way as the evening waned and the lamps began to +twinkle from their windows. At a certain station, I am reminded by my +careful mentor, the craggy mountain-tops were softened by the sunset +pink, and that then the warm afternoon air began to grow cooler, and the +dying day to empurple the uplands everywhere, without abating the charm +of the blithe cottages. It seems to have been mostly a very homelike +scene, and where there was a certain stretch of woodland its loneliness +was relieved by the antic feat of a goat lifting itself on its hind legs +to browse the olive leaves on their native bough. The air was thinner +and cooler, but never damp, and at times it relented and blew lullingly +in at our window. We made such long stops that the lights began to fade +out of the farm-windows, but kept bright in the villages, when at a +station which we were so long in coming to that we thought it must be +next to Granada, a Spanish gentleman got in with us; and though the +prohibitory notice of _No Fumadores_ stared him in the face, it did +not stare him out of countenance; for he continued to smoke like a +locomotive the whole way to our journey's end. From time to time I +meditated a severe rebuke, but in the end I made him none, and I am now +convinced that this was wise, for he probably would not have minded it, +and as it was, when I addressed him some commonplace as to the probable +time of our arrival he answered in the same spirit, and then presently +grew very courteously communicative. He told me for one thing, after we +had passed the mountain gates of the famous Vega and were making our way +under the moonlight over the storied expanse, drenched with the blood of +battles long ago, that the tall chimneys we began to see blackening the +air with their volumed fumes were the chimneys of fourteen beet-root +sugar factories belonging to the Duke of Wellington. Then I divined, as +afterward I learned, that the lands devoted to this industry were part +of the rich gift which Spain bestowed upon the Great Duke in gratitude +for his services against the Napoleonic invasion. His present heir has +imagined a benevolent use of his heritage by inviting the peasantry of +the Vega to the culture of the sugar-beet; but whether the enterprise +was prospering I could not say; and I do not suppose any reader of mine +will care so much for it as I did in the pour of the moonlight over the +roofs and towers that were now becoming Granada, and quickening my slow +old emotions to a youthful glow. At the station, which, in spite of +Boabdil el Chico and Ferdinand and Isabel, was quite like every other +railway station of southern Europe, we parted friends with our Spanish +fellow-traveler, whom we left smoking and who is probably smoking still. +Then we mounted with our Swedish friends into the omnibus of the hotel +we had chosen and which began, after discreet delays, to climb the hill +town toward the Alhambra through a commonplace-looking town gay with +the lights of cafes and shops, and to lose itself in the more congenial +darkness of narrower streets barred with moonlight. It was drawn by four +mules, covered with bells and constantly coaxed and cursed by at least +two drivers on the box, while a vigorous boy ran alongside and lashed +their legs without ceasing till we reached the shelf where our hotel +perched. + + + +III + + +I had taken the precaution to write for rooms, and we got the best in +the house, or if not that then the best we could wish at a price which +I could have wished much less, till we stepped out upon our balcony, and +looked down and over the most beautiful, the most magnificent scene that +eyes, or at least my eyes, ever dwelt on. Beside us and before us +the silver cup of the Sierra Nevada, which held the city in its tiled +hollow, poured it out over the immeasurable Vega washed with moonshine +which brightened and darkened its spread in a thousand radiances +and obscurities of windows and walls and roofs and trees and lurking +gardens. Because it was unspeakable we could not speak, but I may say +now that this was our supreme moment of Granada. There were other fine +moments, but none unmixed with the reservations which truth obliges +honest travel to own. Now, when from some secret spot there rose the +wild cry of a sentinel, and prolonged itself to another who caught it +dying up and breathed new life into it and sent it echoing on till it +had made the round of the whole fairy city, the heart shut with a pang +of pure ecstasy. One could bear no more; we stepped within, and closed +the window behind us. That is, we tried to close it, but it would not +latch, and we were obliged to ring for a _camerero_ to come and see what +ailed it. + +[Illustration: 27 TO THE ALHAMBRA] + +The infirmity of the door-latch was emblematic of a temperamental +infirmity in the whole hotel. The promises were those of Madrid, but the +performances were those of Segovia. There was a glitter, almost a glare, +of Ritz-like splendor, and the rates were Ritz-like, but there the +resemblance ceased. The porter followed us to our rooms on our +arrival and told us in excellent English (which excelled less and less +throughout our stay) that he was the hall porter and that we could +confidently refer all our wants to him; but their reference seemed +always to close the incident. There was a secretary who assured us that +our rooms were not dear, and who could not out of regard to our honor +and comfort consider cheaper ones; and then ceased to be until he +receipted our bill when we went away. There was a splendid dining-room +with waiters of such beauty and dignity, and so purple from clean +shaving, that we scarcely dared face them, and there were luncheons +and dinners of rich and delicate superabundance in the menu, but of an +exquisite insipidity on the palate, and of a swiftly vanishing Barmecide +insubstantiality, as if they were banquets from the _Arabian Nights_ +imagined under the rule of the Moors. Everywhere shone silver-bright +radiators, such as we had not seen since we left their like freezing +in Burgos; but though the weather presently changed from an Andalusian +softness to a Castilian severity after a snowfall in the Sierra, the +radiators remained insensible to the difference and the air nipped the +nose and fingers wherever one went in the hotel. The hall porter, who +knew everything, said the boilers were out of order, and a traveler who +had been there the winter before confirmed him with the testimony that +they were out of order even in January. There may not have been any fire +under them then, as there was none now; but if they needed repairing now +it was clearly because they needed repairing then. In the corner of one +of our rooms the frescoed plastering had scaled off, and we knew that +if we came back a year later the same spot would offer us a familiar +welcome. + +But why do I gird at that hotel in Granada as if I knew of no faults in +American hotels? I know of many and like faults, and I do not know of a +single hotel of ours with such a glorious outlook and downlook as that +hotel in Granada. The details which the sunlight of the morrow revealed +to us when we had mastered the mystery of our window-catch and stood +again on our balcony took nothing from the loveliness of the moonlight +picture, but rather added to it, and, besides a more incredible scene of +mountain and plain and city, it gave us one particular tree in a garden +almost under us which my heart clings to still with a rapture changing +to a fond regret. At first the tree, of what name or nature I cannot +tell, stood full and perfect, a mass of foliage all yellow as if made +up of "patines of bright gold." Then day by day, almost hour by hour, it +darkened and the tree shrank as if huddling its leaves closer about it +in the cold that fell from the ever-snowier Sierra. On the last morning +we left its boughs shaking in the rain against the cold, + + Bare, ruined choir where late the sweet birds sang. + + + +IV + + +But we anticipate, as I should say if I were still a romantic novelist. +Many other trees in and about Granada were yellower than that one, and +the air hung dim with a thin haze as of Indian summer when we left our +hotel in eager haste to see the Alhambra such as travelers use when they +do not want some wonder of the world to escape them. Of course there was +really no need of haste, and we had to wait till our guide could borrow +a match to light the first of the cigarettes which he never ceased to +smoke. He was commended to us by the hall porter, who said he could +speak French, and so he could, to the extreme of constantly saying, +with a wave of his cigarette, "_N'est ce pas?"_ For the rest he helped +himself out willingly with my small Spanish. At the end he would have +delivered us over to a dealer in antiquities hard by the gate of the +palace if I had not prevented him, as it were, by main force; he did +not repine, but we were not sorry that he should be engaged for the next +day. + +Our way to the gate, which was the famous Gate of Justice and was lovely +enough to be the Gate of Mercy, lay through the beautiful woods, mostly +elms, planted there by the English early in the last century. The birds +sang in their tops, and the waters warbled at their feet, and it was +somewhat thrillingly cold in their dense shade, so that we were glad to +get out of it, and into the sunshine where the old Moorish palace lay +basking and dreaming. At once let me confide to the impatient reader +that the whole Alhambra, by which he must understand a citadel, and +almost a city, since it could, if it never did, hold twenty thousand +people within its walls, is only historically and not artistically more +Moorish than the Alcazar at Seville. Far nobler and more beautiful +than its Arabic decorativeness in tinted stucco is the palace begun +by Charles V., after a design in the spirit of the supreme hour of the +Italian Renaissance. It is not a ruin in its long arrest, and one hears +with hopeful sympathy that the Spanish king means some day to complete +it. To be sure, the world is, perhaps, already full enough of royal +palaces, but since they return sooner or later to the people whose +pockets they come out of, one must be willing to have this palace +completed as the architect imagined it. + +We were followed into the Moorish palace by the music of three blind +minstrels who began to tune their guitars as soon as they felt us: see +us they could not. Then presently we were in the famous Court of the +Lions, where a group of those beasts, at once archaic and puerile in +conception, sustained the basin of a fountain in the midst of a graveled +court arabesqued and honeycombed round with the wonted ornamentation of +the Moors. + +The place was disappointing to the boy in me who had once passed so much +of his leisure there, and had made it all marble and gold. The floor +is not only gravel, and the lions are not only more like sheep, but the +environing architecture and decoration are of a faded prettiness which +cannot bear comparison with the fresh rougeing, equally Moorish, of the +Alcazar at Seville. Was this indeed the place where the Abencerrages +were brought in from supper one by one and beheaded into the fountain at +the behest of their royal host? Was it here that the haughty Don Juan de +Vera, coming to demand for the Catholic kings the arrears of tribute due +them from the Moor, "paused to regard its celebrated fountain" and "fell +into discourse with the Moorish courtiers on certain mysteries of the +Christian faith"? So Washington Irving says, and so I once believed, +with glowing heart and throbbing brow as I read how "this most Christian +knight and discreet ambassador restrained himself within the limits of +lofty gravity, leaning on the pommel of his sword and looking down with +ineffable scorn upon the weak casuists around him. The quick and subtle +Arabian witlings redoubled their light attacks on the stately Spaniard, +but when one of them, of the race of the Abencerrages dared to question, +with a sneer, the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, the +Catholic knight could no longer restrain his ire. Elevating his voice of +a sudden, he told the infidel he lied, and raising his arm at the same +time he smote him on the head with his sheathed sword. In an instant +the Court of Lions glistened with the flash of arms," insomuch that the +American lady whom we saw writing a letter beside a friend sketching +there must have been startled from her opening words, "I am sitting here +with my portfolio on my knees in the beautiful Court of the Lions," +and if Muley Aben Hassan had not "overheard the tumult and forbade all +appeal to force, pronouncing the person of the ambassador sacred," she +never could have gone on. + + + +V + +[Illustration: 28 THE COURT OF THE LIONS] + +I did not doubt the fact when I read of it under the level boughs of the +beechen tree with J. W., sixty years ago, by the green woodland light +of the primeval forest which hemmed our village in, and since I am well +away from the Alhambra again I do not doubt it now. I doubt nothing that +Irving says of the Alhambra; he is the gentle genius of the place, and +I could almost wish that I had paid the ten pesetas extra which the +custodian demanded for showing his apartment in the palace. On the +ground the demand of two dollars seemed a gross extortion; yet it was +not too much for a devotion so rich as mine to have paid, and I advise +other travelers to buy themselves off from a vain regret by giving it. +If ever a memory merited the right to levy tribute on all comers to the +place it haunts, Washington Irving's is that memory. His _Conquest of +Granada_ is still the history which one would wish to read; his _Tales +of the Alhambra_ embody fable and fact in just the right measure for the +heart's desire in the presence of the monuments they verify or falsify. +They belong to that strange age of romance which is now so almost +pathetic and to which one cannot refuse his sympathy without sensible +loss. But for the eager make-believe of that time we should still have +to hoard up much rubbish which we can now leave aside, or accept without +bothering to assay for the few grains of gold in it. Washington Irving +had just the playful kindness which sufficed best to deal with the +accumulations of his age; if he does not forbid you to believe, he does +not oblige you to disbelieve, and he has always a tolerant civility +in his humor which comports best with the duty of taking leniently a +history impossible to take altogether seriously. Till the Spaniards +had put an end to the Moorish misrule, with its ruthless despotism and +bloody civil brawls, the Moors deserved to be conquered; it was not till +their power was broken forever that they became truly heroic in their +vain struggles and their unavailing sorrows. Then their pathetic +resignation to persecution and exile lent dignity even to their +ridiculous religion; but it was of the first and not the second period +that Irving had to treat. + + + +VI + + +The Alhambra is not so impressive by its glory or grandeur as by the +unparalleled beauty of its place. If it is not very noble as an effect +of art, the inspiration of its founders is affirmed by their choice of +an outlook which commands one of the most magnificent panoramas in the +whole world. It would be useless to rehearse the proofs by name. Think +of far-off silver-crested summits and of a peopled plain stretching away +from them out of eye-shot, dense first with roofs and domes and towers, +and then freeing itself within fields and vineyards and orchards and +forests to the vanishing-point of the perspective; think of steep and +sudden plunges into chasms at the foot of the palace walls, and one +crooked stream stealing snakelike in their depths; think of whatever +splendid impossible dramas of topography that you will, of a tremendous +map outstretched in colored relief, and you will perhaps have some +notion of the prospect from the giddy windows of the Alhambra; and +perhaps not. Of one thing we made memorably sure beyond the gulf of the +Darro, and that was the famous gipsy quarter which the traveler visits +at the risk of his life in order to have his fortune told. At the same +moment we made sure that we should not go nearer it, for though we knew +that it was insurpassably dirty as well as dangerous, we remembered so +distinctly the loathsomeness of the gipsy quarter at Seville that we +felt no desire to put it to the comparison. + +We preferred rather the bird's-eye study of the beautiful Generalife +which our outlook enabled us to make, and which we supplemented by +a visit the next day. We preferred, after the Barmecide lunch at our +hotel, taking the tram-car that noisily and more noisily clambers up and +down, and descending into the town by it. The ascent is so steep that +at a certain point the electric current no longer suffices, and the car +bites into the line of cogs with its sort of powerful under-jaw and +so arrives. Yet it is a kindly little vehicle, with a conductor so +affectionately careful in transporting the stranger that I felt after +a single day we should soon become brothers, or at least step-brothers. +Whenever we left or took his car, after the beginning or ending of the +cogway, he was alert to see that we made the right change to or from +it, and that we no more overpaid than underpaid him. Such homely natures +console the traveler for the thousand inhospitalities of travel, and +bind races and religions together in spite of patriotism and piety. + +We were going first to the Cartuja, and in the city, which we found +curiously much more modern, after the Latin notion, than Seville, with +freshly built apartment-houses and business blocks, we took a cab, not +so modern as to be a taxicab, and drove through the quarter said to have +been assigned to the Moors after the fall of Granada. The dust lay thick +in the roadway where filthy children played, but in the sunny doorways +good mothers of families crouched taking away the popular reproach of +vermin by searching one another's heads. Men bestriding their donkeys +rode fearlessly through the dust, and one cleanly-looking old peasant +woman, who sat hers plumply cushioned and framed in with a chair-back +and arms, showed a patience with the young trees planted for future +shade along the desperate avenue which I could wish we had emulated. +When we reached the entrance of the old Carthusian Convent, long since +suppressed and its brothers exiled, a strong force of beggarmen waited +for us, but a modest beggar-woman, old and sad, had withdrawn to the +church door, where she shared in our impartial alms. We were admitted +to the cloister, rather oddly, by a young girl, who went for one of the +remaining monks to show us the church. He came with a newspaper (I hope +of clerical politics) in his hand, and distracted himself from it only +long enough to draw a curtain, or turn on a light, and point out a +picture or statue from time to time. But he was visibly anxious to get +back to it, and sped us more eagerly than he welcomed us in a church +which upon the whole is richer in its peculiar treasures of painting, +sculpture, especially in wood, costly marble, and precious stones +than any other I remember. According to my custom, I leave it to the +guide-books to name these, and to the abounding critics of Spanish art +to celebrate the pictures and statues; it is enough for me that I have +now forgotten them all except those scenes of the martyrdom inflicted by +certain Protestants on members of the Carthusian brotherhood at the time +when all sorts of Christians felt bound to correct the opinions of all +other sorts by the cruelest tortures they could invent. When the monk +had put us to shame by the sight of these paintings (bad as their +subjects), he put us out, letting his eyes fall back upon his newspaper +before the door had well closed upon us. + +The beggarmen had waited in their places to give us another chance +of meriting heaven; and at the church door still crouched the old +beggarwoman. I saw now that the imploring eyes she lifted were +sightless, and I could not forbear another alms, and as I put my copper +big-dog in her leathern palm I said, _"Adios, madre."_ Then happened +something that I had long desired. I had heard and read that in Spain +people always said at parting, "Go with God," but up to that moment +nobody had said it to me, though I had lingeringly given many the +opportunity. Now, at my words and at the touch of my coin this old +beggarwoman smiled beneficently and said, "Go with God," or, as she put +it in her Spanish, "_Vaya vested con Dios."_ Immediately I ought to +have pressed another coin in her palm, with a _"Gracias, madre; muchas +gracias,"_ out of regard to the literary climax; but whether I really +did so I cannot now remember; I can only hope I did. + + + +VII + + +I think that it was while I was still in this high satisfaction that +we went a drive in the promenade, which in all Spanish cities is the +Alameda, except Seville, where it so deservedly is the Delicias. It was +in every way a contrast to the road we had come from the Cartuja: an +avenue of gardened paths and embowered driveways, where we hoped to join +the rank and fashion of Granada in their afternoon's outing. But there +was only one carriage besides our own with people in it, who looked no +greater world than ourselves, and a little girl riding with her groom. +On one hand were pretty villas, new-looking and neat, which I heard +could sometimes be taken for the summer at rents so low that I am glad +I have forgotten the exact figures lest the reader should doubt my word. +Nothing but the fact that the winter was then hanging over us from the +Sierras prevented my taking one of them for the summer that had passed, +the Granadan summer being notoriously the most delightful in the world. +On the other hand stretched the wonderful Vega, which covers so many +acres in history and romance, and there, so near that we look down into +them at times were "the silvery windings of the Xenil," which glides +through so many descriptive passages of Irving's page; only now, on +account of recent rain, its windings were rather coppery. + +At the hotel on the terrace under our balcony we found on our return +a party of Spanish ladies and gentlemen taking tea, or whatever drink +stood for it in their custom: no doubt chocolate; but it was at least +the afternoon-tea hour. The women's clothes were just from Paris, and +the men's from London, but their customs, I suppose, were national; +the women sat on one side of the table and talked across it to the men, +while they ate and drank, and then each sex grouped itself apart and +talked to its kind, the women in those hardened vowels of a dialect from +which the Andalusians for conversational purposes have eliminated all +consonants. The sun was setting red and rayless, with a play of many +lights and tints, over the landscape up to the snow-line on the Sierra. +The town lay a stretch of gray roofs and white walls, intermixed with +yellow poplars and black cypresses, and misted over with smoke from the +chimneys of the sugar factories. The mountains stood flat against the +sky, purple with wide stretches of brown, and dark, slanting furrows. +The light became lemon-yellow before nightfall, and then a dull crimson +under pale violet. + +The twitter of the Spanish women was overborne at times by the voices +of an American party whose presence I was rather proud of as another +American. They were all young men, and they were making an educational +tour of the world in the charge of a professor who saw to it that +they learned as much of its languages and history and civilization as +possible on the way. They ranged in their years from about fifteen to +twenty and even more, and they were preparing for college, or doing what +they could to repair the loss of university training before they took +up the work of life. It seemed to me a charming notion, and charming the +seriousness with which they were fulfilling it. They were not so serious +in everything as to miss any incidental pleasure; they had a large table +to themselves in our Barmecide banquet-hall, where they seemed always +to be having a good time, and where once they celebrated the birthday +of one of them with a gaiety which would have penetrated, if anything +could, the shining chill of the hostelry. In the evening we heard them +in the billiard-room below lifting their voices in the lays of our +college muse, and waking to ecstasy the living piano in the strains of +our national ragtime. They were never intrusively cheerful; one might +remain, in spite of them, as dispirited as the place would have one; but +as far as the _genius loci_ would let me, I liked them; and so far as +I made their acquaintance I thought that they were very intelligently +carrying out the enterprise imagined for them. + + + +VIII + + +I wish now that I had known them well enough to ask them what they +candidly thought of the city of which I felt the witchery under the +dying day I have left celebrating for the moment in order to speak of +them. It seems to me at this distance of time and space that I did not +duly reflect that in places it was a city which smelled very badly and +was almost as dirty as New York in others, and very ill paved. The worst +places are in the older quarters, where the streets are very crooked and +very narrow, so narrow that the tram-car can barely scrape through them. +They are old enough to be streets belonging to the Moorish city, like +many streets in Cordova and Seville, but no fond inquiry of our guides +could identify this lane or that alley as of Moorish origin. There is +indeed a group of picturesque shops clearly faked to look Moorish, which +the lover of that period may pin his faith to, and for a moment I did +so, but upon second thought I unpinned it. + +We visited this plated fragment of the old Moorish capital when +we descended from our hotel with a new guide to see the great, the +stupendous cathedral, where the Catholic kings lie triumphantly entombed +in the heart of their conquest. It is altogether unlike the other +Spanish cathedrals of my knowledge; for though the cathedral of +Valladolid is of Renaissance architecture in its austere simplicity, +it is somehow even less like that of Granada than the Gothic fanes of +Burgos or Toledo or Seville. All the detail at Granada is classicistic, +but the whole is often of Gothic effect, especially in the mass of +those clustered Corinthian columns that lift its domes aloof on their +prodigious bulk, huge as that of the grouped pillars in the York +Minster. The white of the marble walls, the gold of altars, the colors +of painted wooden sculpture form the tones of the place, subdued to one +bizarre richness which I may as well leave first as last to the reader's +fancy; though, let his fancy riot as it will, it never can picture that +gorgeousness. Mass was saying at a side altar as we entered, and the +music of stringed instruments and the shrill voices of choir-boys +pierced the spaces here and there, but no more filled them than the +immemorable plastic and pictorial facts: than a certain very lively +bishop kneeling on his tomb and looking like George Washington; or +than a St. Jerome in the Desert, outwrinkling age, with his lion curled +cozily up in his mantle; or than the colossal busts of Adam and Eve +and the praying figures of Ferdinand and Isabel, richly gilded in +the exquisite temple forming the high altar; or than the St. James on +horseback, with his horse's hoof planted on the throat of a Moor; or +than the Blessed Virgins in jeweled crowns and stomachers and brocaded +skirts; or than that unsparing decapitation of John the Baptist bloodily +falling forward with his severed gullet thrusting at the spectator. +Nothing has ever been too terrible in life for Spanish art to represent; +it is as ruthlessly veracious as Russian literature; and of all the +painters and sculptors who have portrayed the story of Christianity as +a tale of torture and slaughter, the Spaniards seem to have studied it +closest from the fact; perhaps because for centuries the Inquisition +lavished the fact upon them. + +The supreme interest of the cathedral is, of course, the Royal Chapel, +where in a sunken level Ferdinand and Isabel lie, with their poor mad +daughter Joan and her idolized unfaithful husband Philip the Fair, whose +body she bore about with her while she lived. The picture postal has +these monuments in its keeping and can show them better than my pen, +which falters also from the tremendous _retablo_ of the chapel dense +with the agonies of martyrdom and serene with the piety of the Catholic +Kings kneeling placidly amid the horrors. If the picture postal will not +supply these, or reproduce the many and many relics and memorials which +abound there and in the sacristy--jewels and vestments and banners and +draperies of the royal camp-altar--there is nothing for the reader but +to go himself and see. It is richly worth his while, and if he cannot +believe in a box which will be shown him as the box Isabel gave Columbus +her jewels in merely because he has been shown a reliquary as her +hand-glass, so much the worse for him. He will not then merit the +company of a small choir-boy who efficiently opens the iron gate to +the crypt and gives the custodian as good as he sends in back-talk and +defiantly pockets the coppers he has earned. Much less will he deserve +to witness the homely scene in an area outside of the Royal Chapel, +where many milch goats are assembled, and when a customer comes, +preferably a little girl with a tin cup, one of the mothers of the flock +is pinioned much against her will by a street boy volunteering for the +office, and her head held tight while the goatherdess milks the measure +full at the other end. + + + +IX + + +Everywhere about the cathedral beggars lay in wait, and the neighboring +streets were lively with bargains of prickly pears spread open on the +ground by old women who did not care whether any one bought or not. +There were also bargains in palmistry; and at one place a delightful +humorist was selling clothing at auction. He allured the bidders +by having his left hand dressed as a puppet and holding a sparkling +dialogue with it; when it did not respond to his liking he beat it with +his right hand, and every now and then he rang a little bell. He had a +pleased crowd about him in the sunny square; but it seemed to me +that all the newer part of Granada was lively with commerce in ample, +tram-trodden streets which gave the shops, larger than any we had seen +out of Madrid, a chance uncommon in the narrow ways of other Spanish +cities. Yet when I went to get money on my letter of credit, I found +the bank withdrawn from the modernity in a seclusion reached through a +lovely _patio._ We were seated in old-fashioned welcome, such as used to +honor a banker's customers in Venice, and all comers bowed and bade us +good day. The bankers had no such question of the different signatures +as vexed those of Valladolid, and after no more delay than due ceremony +demanded, I went away with both my money and my letter, courteously seen +to the door. + +The guide, to whom we had fallen in the absence of our French-speaking +guide of the day before, spoke a little English, and he seemed to +grow in sympathetic intelligence as the morning passed. He made our +sightseeing include visits to the church of St. John of God, and the +church of San Geronimo, which was built by Gonsalvo de Cordova, the +Great Captain, and remains now a memorial to him. We rang at the door, +and after long delay a woman came and let us into an interior stranger +ever than her being there as custodian. It was frescoed from floor to +ceiling everywhere, except the places of the altars now kept by the +painted _retablos_ and the tombs and the statues of the various saints +and heroes. The _retablo_ of the high altar is almost more beautiful +than wonderful, but the chief glory of the place is in the kneeling +figures of the Great Captain and his wife, one on either side of the +altar, and farther away the effigies of his famous companions-in-arms, +and on the walls above their heraldic blazons and his. The church +Was unfinished when the Great Captain died in the displeasure of his +ungrateful king, and its sumptuous completion testifies to the devotion +of his wife and her taste in choosing the best artists for the work. + +I have still the sense of a noonday quiet that lingered with us after we +left this church and which seemed to go with us to the Hospital of St. +John of God, founded, with other hospitals, by the pious Portuguese, +who, after a life of good works, took this name on his well-merited +canonization. The hospital is the monument of his devotion to good +works, and is full of every manner of religious curio. I cannot remember +to have seen so many relics under one roof, bones of both holy men and +women, with idols of the heathen brought from Portuguese possessions in +the East which are now faded from the map, as well as the body of St. +John of God shrined in silver in the midst of all. + +[Illustration: 29 LOOKING NORTHWEST FROM THE GENERALIFE OVER GRANADA] + +I do not know why I should have brought away from these two places a +peacefulness of mind such as seldom follows a visit to show-places, but +the fact is so; perhaps it was because we drove to and from them, and +were not so tired as footworn sight-seers are, or so rebellious. One +who had seen not only the body of St. John of God, but his cane with +a whistle in it to warn the charitable of his coming and attune their +minds to alms-giving, and the straw basket in which he collected food +for the poor, now preserved under an embroidered satin covering, and an +autograph letter of his framed in glass and silver, might even have been +refreshed by his experience. At any rate, we were so far from tired +that after luncheon we walked to the Garden of the Generalife, and then +walked all over it. The afternoon was of the very mood for such a visit, +and we passed it there in these walks and bowers, and the black cypress +aisles, and the trees and vines yellowing to the fall of their leaves. +The melancholy laugh of water chasing down the steep channels and +gurgling through the stone rails of stairways was everywhere, and its +dim smile gleamed from pools and tanks. In the court where it stretched +in a long basin an English girl was painting and another girl was +sewing, to whom I now tardily offer my thanks for adding to the charm of +the place. Not many other people were there to dispute our afternoon's +ownership. I count a peasant family, the women in black shawls and the +men wearing wide, black sashes, rather as our guests than as strangers; +and I am often there still with no sense of molestation. Even the reader +who does not conceive of a garden being less flowers and shrubs than +fountains and pavilions and porches and borders of box and walls of +clipped evergreens, will scarcely follow me to the Generalife or outstay +me there. + +The place is probably dense with history and suffocating with +association, but I prefer to leave all that to the imagination where +my own ignorance found it. A painter had told me once of his spending a +summer in it, and he showed some beautiful pieces of color in proof, but +otherwise I came to it with a blank surface on which it might photograph +itself without blurring any earlier record. This, perhaps, is why I love +so much to dwell there on that never-ending afternoon of late October. +It was long past the hour of its summer bloom, but the autumnal air was +enriching it beyond the dreams of avarice with the gold which prevails +in the Spanish landscape wherever the green is gone, and we could look +out of its yellowing bowers over a landscape immeasurable in beauty. Of +course, we tried to master the facts of the Generalife's past, but we +really did not care for them and scarcely believed that Charles V. had +doubted the sincerity of the converted Moor who had it from Ferdinand +of Aragon, and so withheld it from his heirs for four generations +until they could ripen to a genuine Christianity at Genoa, whither they +withdrew and became the patrician family now its proprietors. The arms +of this family decorate the roof and walls of the colonnaded belvedere +from which you look out over the city and the plain and the mountains; +and there are remnants of Moorish decoration in many places, but +otherwise the Generalife is now as Christian as the noble Pallavicini +who possess it. There were plenty of flower-beds, box-bordered, but +there were no flowers in them; the flowers preferred standing about +in tall pots. There was an arbor overhung with black forgotten grapes +before the keeper's door and in the corner of it dangled ropes of +fire-red peppers. + +This detail is what, with written help, I remember of the Generalife, +but no loveliness of it shall fade from, my soul. From its embowered and +many-fountained height it looks over to the Alhambra, dull red, and the +city wall climbing the opposite slope across the Darro to a church on +the hilltop which was once a mosque. The precipice to which the garden +clings plunges sheer to the river-bed with a downlook insurpassably +thrilling; but the best view of the city is from the flowery walk that +runs along the side of the Alcazaba, which was once a fortress and is +now a garden, long forgetful of its office of defending the Alhambra +palace. From this terrace Granada looks worthy of her place in history +and romance. We visited the Alcazaba after the Generalife, and were very +critical, but I must own the supremacy of this prospect. I should not +mind owning its supremacy among all the prospects in the world. + + + +XI + + +Meanwhile our shining hotel had begun to thrill with something besides +the cold which nightly pierced it from the snowy Sierra. This was the +excitement pending from an event promised the next day, which was the +production of a drama in verse, of peculiar and intense interest for +Granada, where the scene of it was laid in the Alhambra at one of the +highest moments of its history, and the persons were some of those +dearest to its romance. Not only the company to perform it (of course +the first company in Spain) had been in the hotel overnight, and the +ladies of it had gleamed and gloomed through the cold corridors, but the +poet had been conspicuous at dinner, with his wife, young and beautiful +and blond, and powdered so white that her blondness was of quite a +violet cast. There was not so much a question of whether we should +take tickets as whether we could get them, but for this the powerful +influence of our guide availed, and he got tickets providentially given +up in the morning for a price so exorbitant I should be ashamed to +confess it. They were for the afternoon performance, and at three +o'clock we went with the rest of the gay and great world of Granada to +the principal theater. + +The Latin conception of a theater is of something rather more barnlike +than ours, but this theater was of a sufficiently handsome presence, and +when we had been carried into it by the physical pressure exerted upon +us by the crowd at the entrance we found its vastness already thronged. +The seats in the orchestra were mostly taken; the gallery under the +roof was loud with the impatience for the play which the auditors +there testified by cries and whistlings and stampings until the curtain +lifted; the tiers of boxes rising all round the theater were filled with +family parties. The fathers and mothers sat in front with the children +between them of all ages down to babies in their nurses' arms. These +made themselves perfectly at home, in one case reaching over the edge +of the box and clawing the hair of a gentleman standing below and openly +enjoying the joke. The friendly equality of the prevailing spirit was +expressed in the presence of the family servants at the back of the +family boxes, from which the latest fashions showed themselves here and +there, as well as the belated local versions of them. In the orchestra +the men had promptly lighted their cigars and the air was blue with +smoke. Friends found one another, to their joyful amaze, not having met +since morning; and especially young girls were enraptured to recognize +young men; one girl shook hands twice with a young man, and gurgled with +laughter as long as he stood near her. + +As a lifelong lover of the drama and a boyish friend of Granadan +romance, I ought to have cared more for the play than the people who had +come to it, but I did not. The play was unintentionally amusing enough; +but after listening for two hours to the monotonous cadences of the +speeches which the persons of it recited to one another, while the +ladies of the Moorish world took as public a part in its events as if +they had been so many American Christians, we came away. We had already +enjoyed the first entr'acte, when the men all rose and went out, or +lighted fresh cigars and went to talk with the Paris hats and plumes +or the Spanish mantillas and high combs in the boxes. The curtain had +scarcely fallen when the author of the play was called before it and +applauded by the generous, the madly generous, spectators. He stood +bowing and bowing on tiptoe, as if the wings of his rapture lifted him +to them and would presently fly away with him. He could not drink deep +enough of the delicious draught, put brimming to his lips, and the +divine intoxication must have lasted him through the night, for after +breakfast the next morning I met him in our common corridor at the hotel +smiling to himself, and when I could not forbear smiling in return he +smiled more; he beamed, he glowed upon me as if I were a crowded house +still cheering him to the echo. It was a beautiful moment and I realized +even better than the afternoon before what it was to be a young poet and +a young Spanish poet, and to have had a first play given for the first +time in the city of Granada, where the morning papers glowed with praise +so ardent that the print all but smoked with it. We were alone in the +corridor where we met, and our eyes confessed us kindred spirits, and +I hope he understood me better than if I had taken him in my arms and +kissed him on both cheeks. + +I really had no time for that; I was on my way down-stairs to witness +the farewell scene between the leading lady and the large group of +young Granadans who had come up to see her off. When she came out to +the carriage with her husband, by a delicate refinement of homage they +cheered him, and left him to deliver their devotion to her, which +she acknowledged only with a smile. But not so the leading lady's +lady's-maid, when her turn came to bid good-by from our omnibus window +to the assembled upper servants of the hotel. She put her head out and +said in a voice hoarse with excitement and good-fellowship, _"Adios, +hombres!"_ ("Good-by, men!"), and vanished with us from their applausive +presence. + +With us, I say, for we, too, were leaving Granada in rain which was +snow on the Sierra and so cold that we might well have seemed leaving +Greenland. The brave mules which had so gallantly, under the lash of +the running foot-boy beside them, galloped uphill with us the moonlight +night of our coming, now felt their anxious way down in the dismal +drizzle of that last morning, and brought us at last to the plaza before +the station. It was a wide puddle where I thought our craft should have +floundered, but it made its way to the door, and left us dry shod within +and glad to be quitting the city of my young dreams. + + + + +XII. THE SURPRISES OF RONDA + + +The rain that pelted sharply into the puddle before the station at +Granada was snow on the Sierra, and the snow that fell farther and +farther down the mountainsides resolved itself over the Vega into a +fog as white and almost as cold. Half-way across the storied and fabled +plain the rain stopped and the fog lifted, and then we saw by day, as +we had already seen by night, how the Vega was plentifully dotted with +white cottages amid breadths of wheat-land where the peasants were +plowing. Here and there were fields of Indian corn, and in a certain +place there was a small vineyard; in one of the middle distances there +spread a forest of Lombardy poplars, yellow as gold, and there was +abundance of this autumn coloring in the landscape, which grew lonelier +as we began to mount from the level. Olives, of course, abounded, and +there were oak woods and clumps of wild cherry trees. The towns were far +from the stations, which we reached at the rate of perhaps two miles an +hour as we approached the top of the hills; and we might have got out +and walked without fear of being left behind by our train, which made +long stops, as if to get its breath for another climb. Before this the +sole companion of our journey, whom we decided to be a landed proprietor +coming out in his riding-gear to inspect his possessions, had left us, +but at the first station after our descent began other passengers got +in, with a captain of Civil Guards among them, very loquacious and very +courteous, and much deferred to by the rest of us. At Bobadilla, where +again we had tea with hot goat's milk in it, we changed cars, and +from that on we had the company of a Rock-Scorpion pair whose name was +beautifully Italian and whose speech was beautifully English, as the +speech of those born at Gibraltar should rightfully be. + + + +I + + +It was quite dark at Ronda when our omnibus drove into the gardened +grounds of one of those admirable inns which an English company is +building in Spain, and put us down at the door of the office, where a +typical English manageress and her assistant appointed us pleasant rooms +and had fires kindled in them while we dined. There were already fires +in the pleasant reading-room, which did not diffuse a heat too great +for health but imparted to the eye a sense of warmth such as we had +experienced nowhere else in Spain. Over all was spread a quiet and +quieting British influence; outside of the office the nature of the +service was Spanish, but the character of it was English; the Spanish +waiters spoke English, and they looked English in dress and manner; +superficially the chambermaid was as English as one could have found her +in the United Kingdom, but at heart you could see she was as absolutely +and instinctively a Spanish _camerera_ as any in a hotel of Madrid or +Seville. In the atmosphere of insularity the few Spanish guests +were scarcely distinguishable from Anglo-Saxons, though a group +of magnificent girls at a middle table, quelled by the duenna-like +correctness of their mother, looked with their exaggerated hair and eyes +like Spanish ladies made up for English parts in a play. + +We had our breakfast in the reading-room where all the rest were +breakfasting and trying not to see that they were keeping one another +from the fire. It was very cold, for Ronda is high in the mountains +which hem it round and tower far above it. We had already had our first +glimpse of their summits from our own windows, but it was from the +terrace outside the reading-room that we felt their grandeur most after +we had drunk our coffee: we could scarcely have borne it before. In +their presence, we could not realize at once that Ronda itself was +a mountain, a mere mighty mass of rock, cleft in twain, with chasmal +depths where we saw pygmy men and mules creeping out upon the valley +that stretched upward to the foot of the Sierra. Why there should ever +have been a town built there in the prehistoric beginning, except that +the rock was so impossible to take, and why it should have therefore +been taken by that series of invaders who pervaded all Spain--by the +Phoenicians, by the Carthaginians, by the Romans, by the Goths, by the +Moors, by the Christians, and after many centuries by the French, and +finally by the Spaniards again--it would not be easy to say. Among its +many conquerors, the Moors left their impress upon it, though here +as often as elsewhere in Spain their impress is sometimes merely a +decoration of earlier Roman work. There remains a Roman bridge which +the Moors did not make over into the likeness of their architecture, but +built a bridge of their own which also remains and may be seen from the +magnificent structure with which the Spaniards have arched the abyss +where the river rushes writhing and foaming through the gorge three +hundred feet below. There on the steps that lead from the brink, the eye +of pity may still see the files of Christian captives bringing water up +to their Moslem masters; but as one cannot help them now, even by the +wildest throe, it is as well to give a vain regret to the architect of +the Spanish bridge, who fell to his death from its parapet, and then +push on to the market hard by. + + + +II + + +You have probably come to see that market because you have read in your +guide-books that the region round about Ronda is one of the richest in +Spain for grapes and peaches and medlars and melons and other fruits +whose names melt in the mouth. If you do not find in the market the +abundance you expect of its picturesqueness you must blame the lateness +of the season, and go visit the bull-ring, one of the most famous in the +world, for Ronda is not less noted for its _toreros_ and _aficionados_ +than for its vineyards and orchards. But here again the season will have +been before you with the glory of those _corridas_ which you have still +hoped not to witness but to turn from as an example to the natives +before the first horse is disemboweled or the first bull slain, or even +the first _banderillero_ tossed over the barrier. + +The bull-ring seemed fast shut to the public when we approached it, +but we found ourselves smilingly welcomed to the interior by the kindly +mother in charge. She made us free of the whole vast place, where eight +thousand people could witness in perfect comfort the dying agonies of +beasts and men, but especially she showed us the chamber over the gate, +full of bullfighting properties: the pikes, the little barbed pennons, +the long sword by which the bull suffers and dies, as well as the +cumbrous saddles and bridles and spears for the unhappy horses and their +riders. She was especially compassionate of the horses, and she had +apparently no pleasure in any of the cruel things, though she was not +critical of the sport. The King of Spain is president of the Ronda +bull-fighting association, and she took us into the royal box, which +is the worthier to be seen because under it the bulls are shunted and +shouted into the ring from the pen where they have been kept in the +dark. Before we escaped her husband sold us some very vivid postal +cards representing the sport; so that with the help of a large black cat +holding the center of the ring, we felt that we had seen as much of a +bull-fight as we could reasonably wish. + +We were seeing the wonders of the city in the guidance of a charming boy +whom we had found in wait for us at the gate of the hotel garden when we +came out. He offered his services in the best English he had, and he had +enough of it to match my Spanish word for word throughout the morning. +He led us from the bull-ring to the church known to few visitors, I +believe, where the last male descendant of Montezuma lies entombed, +under a fit inscription, and then through the Plaza past the college of +Montezuma, probably named for this heir of the Aztec empire. I do not +know why the poor prince should have come to die in Ronda, but there are +many things in Ronda which I could not explain: especially why a certain +fruit is sold by an old woman on the bridge. Its berries are threaded +on a straw and look like the most luscious strawberries but taste like +turpentine, though they may be avoided under the name of _madrones._ But +on no account would I have the reader avoid the Church of Santa Maria +Mayor. It is so dark within that he will not see the finely carved choir +seats without the help of matches, or the pictures at all; but it is +worth realizing, as one presently may, that the hither part of the +church is a tolerably perfect mosque of Moorish architecture, through +which you must pass to the Renaissance temple of the Christian faith. + +Near by is the Casa de Mondragon which he should as little miss if he +has any pleasure in houses with two _patios_ perching on the gardened +brink of a precipice and overlooking one of the most beautiful valleys +in the whole world, with donkey-trains climbing up from it over the +face of the cliff. The garden is as charming as red geraniums and blue +cabbages can make a garden, and the house is fascinatingly quaint and +unutterably Spanish, with the inner _patio_ furnished in bright-colored +cushions and wicker chairs, and looked into by a brown wooden gallery. A +stately lemon-colored elderly woman followed us silently about, and the +whole place was pervaded by a smell that was impossible at the time and +now seems incredible. + + + +III + + +I here hesitate before a little adventure which I would not make too +much of nor yet minify: it seems to me so gentle and winning. I had long +meant to buy a donkey, and I thought I could make no fitter beginning +to this end than by buying a donkey's head-stall in the country where +donkeys are more respected and more brilliantly accoutred than anywhere +else in the whole earth. When I ventured to suggest my notion, or call +it dream, to our young guide, he instantly imagined it in its full +beauty, and he led us directly to a shop in the principal street which +for the richness and variety of the coloring in its display might +have been a florist's shop. Donkeys' trappings in brilliant yellow, +vermillion, and magenta hung from the walls, and head-stalls, gorgeously +woven and embroidered, dangled from the roof. Among them and under them +the donkeys' harness-maker sat at his work, a short, brown, handsome +man with eyes that seemed the more prominent because of his close-shaven +head. We chose a headstall of such splendor that no heart could have +resisted it, and while he sewed to it the twine muzzle which Spanish +donkeys wear on their noses for the protection of the public, our guide +expatiated upon us, and said, among other things to our credit, that we +were from America and were going to take the head-stall back with us. + +The harness-maker lifted his head alertly. "Where, in America?" and we +answered for ourselves, "From New York." + +Then the harness-maker rose and went to an inner doorway and called +through it something that brought out a comely, motherly woman as alert +as himself. She verified our statement for herself, and having paved +the way firmly for her next question she asked, "Do you know the Escuela +Mann?" + +As well as our surprise would let us, we said that we knew the Mann +School, both where and what it was. + +She waited with a sort of rapturous patience before saying, "My son, our +eldest son, was educated at the Escuela Mann, to be a teacher, and now +he is a professor in the Commercial College in Puerto Rico." + +If our joint interest in this did not satisfy her expectation I for my +part can never forgive myself; certainly I tried to put as much passion +into my interest as I could, when she added that his education at the +Escuela Mann was without cost to him. By this time, in fact, I was so +proud of the Escuela Mann that I could not forbear proclaiming that a +member of my own family, no less than the father of the grandson for +whose potential donkey I was buying that headstall, was one of the +architects of the Escuela Mann building. + +She now vanished within, and when she came out she brought her daughter, +a gentle young girl who sat down and smiled upon us through the rest of +the interview. She brought also an armful of books, the Spanish-English +Ollendorff which her son had used in studying our language, his +dictionary, and the copy-book where he had written his exercises, with +two photographs of him, not yet too Americanized; and she showed us not +only how correctly but how beautifully his exercises were done. If I did +not admire these enough, again I cannot forgive myself, but she +seemed satisfied with what I did, and she talked on about him, not too +loquaciously, but lovingly and lovably as a mother should, and proudly +as the mother of such a boy should, though without vainglory; I have +forgotten to say that she had a certain distinction of face, and was +appropriately dressed in black. By this time we felt that a head-stall +for such a donkey as I was going to buy was not enough to get of such +people, and I added a piece of embroidered leather such as goes in Spain +on the front of a donkey's saddle; if we could not use it so, in final +defect of the donkey, we could put it on a veranda chair. The saddler +gave it at so low a price that we perceived he must have tacitly abated +something from the visual demand, and when we did not try to beat him +down, his wife went again into that inner room and came out with an +iron-holder of scarlet flannel backed with canvas, and fringed with +magenta, and richly inwrought with a Moorish design, in white, yellow, +green, and purple. I say Moorish, because one must say something, but +if it was a pattern of her own invention the gift was the more precious +when she bestowed it on the sister of one of the architects of the +Escuela Mann. That led to more conversation about the Escuela Mann, and +about the graduate of it who was now a professor in Puerto Rico, and we +all grew such friends, and so proud of one another, and of the country +so wide open to the talents without cost to them, that when I asked +her if she would not sometime be going to America, her husband answered +almost fiercely in his determination, "I am going when I have learned +English!" and to prove that this was no idle boast, he pronounced some +words of our language at random, but very well. We parted in a glow of +reciprocal esteem and I still think of that quarter-hour as one of my +happiest; and whatever others may say, I say that to have done such a +favor to one Spanish family as the Escuela Mann had been the means of +our nation doing this one was a greater thing than to have taken Cuba +from Spain and bought the Philippines when we had seized them already +and had led the Filipinos to believe that we meant to give their islands +to them. + + + +IV + +[Illustration: 30 LOOKING ACROSS THE NEW BRIDGE (300 FEET HIGH) OVER THE GUADA-LAVIAR GORGE, RONDA + +Suddenly, on the way home to our very English hotel, the air of Ronda +seemed charged with English. We were already used to the English of our +young guide, which so far as it went, went firmly and courageously after +forethought and reflection for each sentence, but we were not quite +prepared for the English of two polite youths who lifted their hats as +they passed us and said, "Good afternoon." The general English lasted +quite overnight and far into the next day when we found several natives +prepared to try it on us in the pretty Alameda, and learned from one, +who proved to be the teacher of it in the public school, that there were +some twenty boys studying it there: heaven knows why, but the English +hotel and its success may have suggested it to them as a means of +prosperity. The students seem each prepared to guide strangers through +Ronda, but sometimes they fail of strangers. That was the case with the +pathetic young hunchback whom we met in Alameda, and who owned that he +had guided none that day. In view of this and as a prophylactic against +a course of bad luck, I made so bold as to ask if I might venture to +repair the loss of the peseta which he would otherwise have earned. He +smiled wanly, and then with the countenance of the teacher, he submitted +and thanked me in English which I can cordially recommend to strangers +knowing no Spanish. + +All this was at the end of another morning when we had set out with +the purpose of seeing the rest of Ronda for ourselves. We chose a back +street parallel to the great thoroughfare leading to the new bridge, and +of a squalor which we might have imagined but had not. The dwellers in +the decent-looking houses did not seem to mind the sights and scents of +their street, but these revolted us, and we made haste out of it into +the avenue where the greater world of Ronda was strolling or standing +about, but preferably standing about. In the midst of it, at the +entrance of the new bridge we heard ourselves civilly saluted and +recognized with some hesitation the donkey's harness-maker who, in his +Sunday dress and with his hat on, was not just the work-day presence +we knew. He held by the hand a pretty boy of eleven years, whom he +introduced as his second son, self-destined to follow the elder brother +to America, and duly take up the profession of teaching in Puerto Rico +after experiencing the advantages of the Escuela Mann. His father said +that he already knew some English, and he proposed that the boy should +go about with us and practise it, and after polite demur and insistence +the child came with us, to our great pleasure. He bore himself with fit +gravity, in his cap and long linen pinafore as he went before us, and we +were personally proud of his fine, long face and his serious eyes, dark +and darkened yet more by their long lashes. He knew the way to just such +a book store as we wanted, where the lady behind the desk knew him and +willingly promised to get me some books in the Andalusian dialect, and +send them to our hotel by him at half past twelve. Naturally she did not +do so, but he came to report her failure to get them. We had offered to +pay him for his trouble, but he forbade us, and when we had overcome his +scruple he brought the money back, and we had our trouble over again +to make him keep it. To this hour I do not know how we ever brought +ourselves to part with him; perhaps it was his promise of coming to +America next year that prevailed with us; his brother was returning on a +visit and then they were going back together. + + + +V + + +Our search for literature in Ronda was not wholly a failure. At another +bookstore, I found one of those local histories which I was always +vainly trying for in other Spanish towns, and I can praise the _Historia +de Ronda par Federico Lozano Gutierrez_ as well done, and telling all +that one would ask to know about that famous city. The author's picture +is on the cover, and with his charming letter dedicating the book to his +father goes far to win the reader's heart. Outside the bookseller's a +blind minstrel was playing the guitar in the care of a small boy who was +selling, not singing, the ballads. They celebrated the prowess of Spain +in recent wars, and it would not be praising them too highly to say that +they seemed such as might have been written by a drum-major. Not that I +think less of them for that reason, or that I think I need humble myself +greatly to the historian of Ronda for associating their purchase with +that of his excellent little book. If I had bought some of the blind +minstrel's almanacs and jest-books I might indeed apologize, but ballads +are another thing. + +After we left the bookseller's, our little guide asked us if we would +like to see a church, and we said that we would, and he took us into a +white and gold interior, with altar splendors out of proportion to its +simplicity, all in the charge of a boy no older than himself, who was +presently joined by two other contemporaries. They followed us gravely +about, and we felt that it was an even thing between ourselves and +the church as objects of interest equally ignored by Baedeker. Then we +thought we would go home and proposed going by the Alameda. + +That is a beautiful place, where one may walk a good deal, and drive, +rather less, but not sit down much unless indeed one likes being swarmed +upon by the beggars who have a just priority of the benches. There +seemed at first to be nobody walking in the Alameda except a gentleman +pacing to and from the handsome modern house at the first corner, which +our guide said was this cavalier's house. He interested me beyond any +reason I could give; he looked as if he might represent the highest +society in Ronda, but did not find it an adequate occupation, and might +well have interests and ambitions beyond it. I make him my excuses for +intruding my print upon him, but I would give untold gold if I had it to +know all about such a man in such a city, walking up and down under +the embrowning trees and shrinking flowers of its Alameda, on a Sunday +morning like that. + +Our guide led us to the back gate of our hotel garden, where we found +ourselves in the company of several other students of English. There +was our charming young guide of the day before and there was that sad +hunchback already mentioned, and there was their teacher who seemed so +few years older and master of so little more English. Together we looked +into the valley into which the vision makes its prodigious plunge at +Ronda before lifting again over the fertile plain to the amphitheater of +its mighty mountains; and there we took leave of that nice boy who would +not follow us into our garden because, as he showed us by the sign, it +was forbidden to any but guests. He said he was going into the country +with his family for the afternoon, and with some difficulty he owned +that he expected to play there; it was truly an admission hard to make +for a boy of his gravity. We shook hands at parting with him, and with +our yesterday's guide, and with the teacher and with the hunchback; they +all offered it in the bond of our common English; and then we felt that +we had parted with much, very much of what was sweetest and best in +Ronda. + + + +VI + + +The day had been so lovely till now that we said we would stay many +days in Ronda, and we loitered in the sun admiring the garden; the young +landlady among her flowers said that all the soil had to be brought for +it in carts and panniers, and this made us admire its autumn blaze the +more. That afternoon we had planned taking our tea on the terrace for +the advantage of looking at the sunset light on the mountains, but +suddenly great black clouds blotted it out. Then we lost courage; it +appeared to us that it would be both brighter and, warmer by the sea and +that near Gibraltar we could more effectually prevent our steamer from +getting away to New York without us. We called for our bill, and after +luncheon the head waiter who brought it said that the large black cat +which had just made friends with us always woke him if he slept late +in the morning and followed him into the town like a dog when he walked +there. + +It was hard to part with a cat like that, but it was hard to part with +anything in Ronda. Yet we made the break, and instead of ruining over +the precipitous face of the rock where the city stands, as we might have +expected, we glided smoothly down the long grade into the storm-swept +lowlands sloping to the sea. They grew more fertile as we descended +and after we had left a mountain valley where the mist hung grayest and +chillest, we suddenly burst into a region of mellow fruitfulness, where +the haze was all luminous, and where the oranges hung gold and green +upon the trees, and the women brought grapes and peaches and apples to +the train. The towns seemed to welcome us southward and the woods we +knew instantly to be of cork trees, with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza +under their branches anywhere we chose to look. + +Otherwise, the journey was without those incidents which have so often +rendered these pages thrilling. Just before we left Ronda a couple, +self-evidently the domestics of a good family, got into our first-class +carriage though they had unquestionably only third-class tickets. They +had the good family's dog with them, and after an unintelligible appeal +to us and to the young English couple in the other corner, they remained +and banished any misgivings they had by cheerful dialogue. The dog +coiled himself down at my feet and put his nose close to my ankles, so +that without rousing his resentment I could not express in Spanish my +indignation at what I felt to be an outrageous intrusion: servants, we +all are, but in traveling first class one must draw the line at dogs, I +said as much to the English couple, but they silently refused any part +in the demonstration. Presently the conductor came out to the window +for our fares, and he made the Spanish pair observe that they had +third-class tickets and their dog had none. He told them they must get +out, but they noted to him the fact that none of us had objected +to their company, or their dog's, and they all remained, referring +themselves to us for sympathy when the conductor left. After the next +station the same thing happened with little change; the conductor was +perhaps firmer and they rather more yielding in their disobedience. Once +more after a stop the conductor appeared and told them that when the +train halted again, they and their dog must certainly get out. Then +something surprising happened: they really got out, and very amiably; +perhaps it was the place where they had always meant to get out; but it +was a great triumph for the railway company, which owed nothing in the +way of countenance to the young English couple; they had done nothing +but lunch from their basket and bottle. We ourselves arrived safely soon +after nightfall at Algeciras, just in time for dinner in the comfortable +mother-hotel whose pretty daughter had made us so much at home in Ronda. + + + + +XIII. ALGECIRAS AND TARIFA + + +When we walked out on the terrace of our hotel at Algeciras after +breakfast, the first morning, we were greeted by the familiar form of +the Rock of Gibraltar still advertising, as we had seen it three years +before, a well-known American insurance company. It rose beyond five +miles of land-locked water, which we were to cross every other day for +three weeks on many idle and anxious errands, until we sailed from it at +last for New York. + +Meanwhile Algeciras was altogether delightful not only because of our +Kate-Greenaway hotel, embowered in ten or twelve acres of gardened +ground, with walks going and coming under its palms and eucalyptuses, +beside beds of geraniums and past trellises of roses and jasmines, all +in the keeping of a captive stork which was apt unexpectedly to meet +the stranger and clap its formidable mandibles at him, and then hop away +with half-lifted wings. Algeciras had other claims which it urged day +after day more winningly upon us as the last place where we should feel +the charm of Spain unbroken in the tradition which reaches from modern +fact far back into antique fable. I will not follow it beyond the +historic clue, for I think the reader ought to be satisfied with knowing +that the Moors held it as early as the seven hundreds and as late as the +thirteen hundreds, when the Christians definitively recaptured it and +their kings became kings of Algeciras as well as kings of Spain, and +remain so to this day. At the end of the eighteenth century one of these +kings made it his lookout for watching the movements of the inimical +English fleets, and then Algeciras slumbered again, haunted only by "a +deep dream of peace" till the European diplomats, rather unexpectedly +assisted by an American envoy, made it the scene of their famous +conference for settling the Morocco question in. 1906. + +[Illustration: 31 VIEW OF ALGECIRAS] + +I think this is my whole duty to the political interest of Algeciras, +and until I come to our excursion to Tarifa I am going to give myself +altogether to our pleasure in the place unvexed by any event of history. +I disdain even to note that the Moors took the city again from the +Christians, after twenty-five years, and demolished it, for I prefer to +remember it as it has been rebuilt and lies white by its bay, a series +of red-tiled levels of roof with a few church-towers topping them. It is +a pretty place, and remarkably clean, inhabited mostly by beggars, with +a minority of industrial, commercial, and professional citizens, who +live in agreeable little houses, with _patios_ open to the passer, and +with balconies overhanging him. It has of course a bull-ring, enviously +closed during our stay, and it has one of the pleasantest Alamedas +and the best swept in Spain, where some nice boys are playing in +the afternoon sun, and a gentleman, coming out of one of the villas +bordering on it, is courteously interested in the two strangers whom he +sees sitting on a bench beside the walk, with the leaves of the plane +trees dropping round them in the still air. + +The Alameda is quite at the thither end of Algeciras. At the end next +our hotel, but with the intervention of a space of cliff, topped and +faced by summer cottages and gardens, is the station with a train +usually ready to start from it for Ronda or Seville or Malaga, I do not +know which, and with the usual company of freight-cars idling about, +empty or laden with sheets of cork, as indifferent to them as if +they were so much mere pine or spruce lumber. There is a sufficiently +attractive hotel here for transients, and as an allurement to the marine +and military leisure of Gibraltar, "The Picnic Restaurant," and "The +Cabin Tea Room," where no doubt there is something to be had beside +sandwiches and tea. Here also is the pier for the Gibraltar boats, with +the Spanish custom-house which their passengers must pass through and +have their packages and persons searched for contraband. One heard of +wild caprices on the part of the inspectors in levying duties which +were sometimes made to pass the prime cost of the goods in Gibraltar. I +myself only carried in books which after the first few declarations were +recognized as of no imaginable value and passed with a genial tolerance, +as a sort of joke, by officers whom I saw feeling the persons of their +fellow-Spaniards unsparingly over. + +We had, if anything, less business really in Algeciras than in +Gibraltar, but we went into the town nearly every afternoon, and +wantonly bought things. By this means we proved that the Andalusian +shopmen had not the proud phlegm of the Castilians across their +counters. In the principal dry-goods store two salesmen rivaled each +other in showing us politeness, and sent home our small purchases as +promptly as if we had done them a favor in buying. We were indeed the +wonder of our fellow-customers who were not buying; but our pride was +brought down in the little shop where the proprietress was too much +concerned in cooking her dinner (it smelled delicious) to mind our wish +for a very cheap green vase, inestimably Spanish after we got it home. +However, in another shop where the lady was ironing her week's wash on +the counter, a lady friend who was making her an afternoon call got such +a vase down for us and transacted the negotiation out of pure good will +for both parties to it. + +Parallel with the railway was a channel where small fishing-craft lay, +and where a leisurely dredging-machine was stirring up the depths in +a stench so dire that I wonder we do not smell it across the Atlantic. +Over this channel a bridge led into the town, and offered the convenient +support of its parapet to the crowd of spectators who wished to inhale +that powerful odor at their ease, and who hung there throughout the +working-day; the working-day of the dredging-machine, that is. The +population was so much absorbed in this that when we first crossed into +the town, we found no beggar children even, though there were a few +blind beggarmen, but so few that a boy who had one of them in charge was +obliged to leave off smelling the river and run and hunt him up for us. +Other boys were busy in street-sweeping and b-r-r-r-r-ing to the donkeys +that carried off the sweepings in panniers; and in the fine large plaza +before the principal church of Algeciras there was a boy who had plainly +nothing but mischief to do, though he did not molest us farther than +to ask in English, "Want to see the cathedral?" Then he went his way +swiftly and we went into the church, which we found very whitewashed and +very Moorish in architecture, but very Spanish in the Blessed Virgins +on most of the altars, dressed in brocades and jewels. A sacristan was +brushing and dusting the place, but he did not bother us, and we went +freely about among the tall candles standing on the floor as well as on +the altars, and bearing each a placard attached with black ribbon, and +dedicated in black letters on silver "To the Repose of This or That" one +among the dead. + +The meaning was evident enough, but we sought something further of the +druggist at the corner, who did his best for us in such English as he +had. It was not quite the English of Ronda; but he praised his grammar +while he owned that his vocabulary was in decay from want of practise. +In fact, he well-nigh committed us to the purchase of one of those +votive candles, which he understood we wished to buy; he all but sent to +the sacristan to get one. There were several onlookers, as there always +are in Latin pharmacies, and there was a sad young mother waiting for +medicine with a sick baby in her arms. The druggist said it had fever of +the stomach; he seemed proud of the fact, and some talk passed between +him and the bystanders which related to it. We asked if he had any of +the quince jelly which we had learned to like in Seville, but he could +only refer us to the confectioner's on the other corner. Here was not +indeed quince jelly, but we compromised on quince cheese, as the English +call it; and we bought several boxes of it to take to America, which I +am sorry to say moulded before our voyage began, and had to be thrown +away. Near this confectioner's was a booth where boiled sweet-potatoes +were sold, with oranges and joints of sugar-cane, and, spitted on +straws, that terrible fruit of the strawberry tree which we had tasted +at Honda without wishing to taste it ever again. Yet there was a boy +boldly buying several straws of it and chancing the intoxication which +over-indulgence in it is said to cause. Whether the excitement of these +events was too great or not, we found ourselves suddenly unwilling, if +not unable, to walk back to our hotel, and we took a cab of the three +standing in the plaza. One was without a horse, another without a +driver, but the third had both, as in some sort of riddle, and we had no +sooner taken it than a horse was put into the first and a driver ran +out and got on the box of the second, as if that was the answer to the +riddle. + + + +II + + +It was then too late for them to share our custom, but I am not sure +that it was not one of these very horses or drivers whom we got another +day for our drive about the town and its suburbs, and an excursion to +a section of the Moorish aqueduct which remains after a thousand years. +You can see it at a distance, but no horse or driver in our employ could +ever find the way to it; in fact, it seemed to vanish on approach, and +we were always bringing up in our hotel gardens without having got to +it; I do not know what we should have done with it if we had. We were +not able to do anything definite with the new villas built or building +around Algeciras, though they looked very livable, and seemed proof of a +prosperity in the place for which I can give no reason except the great +natural beauty of the nearer neighborhood, and the magnificence of +the farther, mountain-walled and skyed over with a September blue in +November. I think it would be a good place to spend the winter if one +liked each day to be exactly like every other. I do not know whether it +is inhabited by English people from Gibraltar, where there are of course +those resources of sport and society which an English colony always +carries with it. + +The popular amusements of Algeciras in the off season for bull-feasts +did not readily lend themselves to observance. Chiefly we noted two +young men with a graphophone on wheels which, being pushed about, +wheezed out the latest songs to the acceptance of large crowds. We +ourselves amused a large crowd when one of us attempted to sketch +the yellow facade of a church so small that it seemed all facade; and +another day when that one of us who held the coppers, commonly +kept sacred to blind beggars, delighted an innumerable multitude of +mendicants having their eyesight perfect. They were most of them in +the vigor of youth, and they were waiting on a certain street for the +monthly dole with which a resident of Algeciras may buy immunity for all +the other days of the month. They instantly recognized in the stranger +a fraudulent tax-dodger, and when he attempted tardily to purchase +immunity they poured upon him; in front, behind, on both sides, all +round, they boiled up and bubbled about him; and the exhaustion of his +riches alone saved him alive. It must have been a wonderful spectacle, +and I do not suppose the like of it was ever seen in Algeciras before. +It was a triumph over charity, and left quite out of comparison the +organized onsets of the infant gang which always beset the way to the +hotel under a leader whose battle-cry, at once a demand and a promise, +was "Penny-go-way, Penny-go-way!" + +Along that pleasant shore bare-legged fishermen spread their nets, and +going and coming by the Gibraltar boats were sometimes white-hosed, +brown-cloaked, white-turbaned Moors, who occasionally wore Christian +boots, but otherwise looked just such Moslems as landed at Algeciras +in the eighth century; people do not change much in Africa. They were +probably hucksters from the Moorish market in Gibraltar, where they had +given their geese and turkeys the holiday they were taking themselves. +They were handsome men, tall and vigorous, but they did not win me to +sympathy with their architecture or religion, and I am not sure but, +if there had been any concerted movement against them on the landing at +Algeciras, I should have joined in driving them out of Spain. As it +was I made as much Africa as I could of them in defect of crossing to +Tangier, which we had firmly meant to do, but which we forbore doing +till the plague had ceased to rage there. By this time the boat which +touched at Tangier on the way to Cadiz stopped going to Cadiz, and if +we could not go to Cadiz we did not care for going to Tangier. It was +something like this, if not quite like it, and it ended in our seeing +Africa only from the southernmost verge of Europe at Tarifa. At that +little distance across it looked dazzlingly white, like the cotton +vestments of those Moorish marketmen, but probably would have been no +cleaner on closer approach. + + + +III + + +As a matter of fact, we were very near not going even to Tarifa, though +we had promised ourselves going from the first. But it was very charming +to linger in the civilization of that hotel; to wander through its +garden paths in the afternoon after a forenoon's writing and inhale the +keen aromatic odors of the eucalyptus, and when the day waned to have +tea at an iron table on the seaward terrace. Or if we went to Gibraltar, +it was interesting to wonder why we had gone, and to be so glad of +getting back, and after dinner joining a pleasant international group in +the long reading-room with the hearth-fires at either end which, if you +got near them, were so comforting against the evening chill. Sometimes +the pleasure of the time was heightened by the rain pattering on the +glass roof of the _patio,_ where in the afternoon a bulky Spanish mother +sat mute beside her basket of laces which you could buy if you would, +but need not if you would rather not; in either case she smiled +placidly. + +At last we did get together courage enough to drive twelve miles over +the hills to Tarifa, but this courage was pieced out of the fragments +of the courage we had lost for going to Cadiz by the public automobile +which runs daily from Algeciras. The road after you passed Tarifa was +so bad that those who had endured it said nobody could endure it, and +in such a case I was sure I could not, but now I am sorry I did not +venture, for since then I have motored over some of the roads in the +state of Maine and lived. If people in Maine had that Spanish road as +far as Tarifa they would think it the superb Massachusetts state road +gone astray, and it would be thought a good road anywhere, with the +promise of being better when the young eucalyptus trees planted every +few yards along it grew big enough to shade it. But we were glad of as +much sun as we could get on the brisk November morning when we drove out +of the hotel garden and began the long climb, with little intervals of +level and even of lapse. We started at ten o'clock, and it was not too +late in that land of anomalous hours to meet peasants on their mules and +donkeys bringing loads of stuff to market in Algeciras. Men were plowing +with many yoke of oxen in the wheat-fields; elsewhere there were green +pastures with herds of horses grazing in them, an abundance of brown +pigs, and flocks of sheep with small lambs plaintively bleating. +The pretty white farmhouses, named each after a favorite saint, and +gathering at times into villages, had grapes and figs and pomegranates +in their gardens; and when we left them and climbed higher, we began +passing through long stretches of cork woods. + +The trees grew wild, sometimes sturdily like our oaks, and sometimes +gnarled and twisted like our seaside cedars, and in every state of +excoriation. The bark is taken from them each seventh year, and it +begins to be taken long before the first seventh. The tender saplings +and the superannuated shell wasting to its fall yield alike their bark, +which is stripped from the roots to the highest boughs. Where they have +been flayed recently they look literally as if they were left bleeding, +for the sap turns a red color; but with time this changes to brown, and +the bark begins to renew itself and grows again till the next seventh +year. Upon the whole the cork-wood forest is not cheerful, and I would +rather frequent it in the pages of _Don Quixote_ than out; though if the +trees do not mind being barked it is mere sentimentality in me to pity +them. + +The country grew lonelier and drearier as we mounted, and the wind blew +colder over the fields blotched with that sort of ground-palm, which +lays waste so much land in southern Spain. When we descended the winding +road from the summit we came in sight of the sea with Africa clearly +visible beyond, and we did not lose sight of it again. Sometimes we +met soldiers possibly looking out for smugglers but, let us hope, not +molesting them; and once we met a brace of the all-respected Civil +Guards, marching shoulder to shoulder, with their cloaks swinging free +and their carbines on their arms, severe, serene, silent. Now and then a +mounted wayfarer came toward us looking like a landed proprietor in +his own equipment and that of his steed, and there were peasant women +solidly perched on donkeys, and draped in long black cloaks and hooded +in white kerchiefs. + + + +IV + + +The landscape softened again, with tilled fields and gardened spaces +around the cottages, and now we had Tarifa always in sight, a stretch of +white walls beside the blue sea with an effect of vicinity which it was +very long in realizing. We had meant when we reached the town at last to +choose which _fonda_ we should stop at for our luncheon, but our driver +chose the Fonda de Villanueva outside the town wall, and I do not +believe we could have chosen better if he had let us. He really put +us down across the way at the _venta_ where he was going to bait his +horses; and in what might well have seemed the custody of a little +policeman with a sword at his side, we were conducted to the _fonda_ and +shown up into the very neat icy cold parlor where a young girl with a +yellow flower in her hair received us. We were chill and stiff from our +drive and we hoped for something warmer from the dining-room, which we +perceived must face southward, and must be full of sun. But we reckoned +without the ideal of the girl with the yellow flower in her hair: in +the little saloon, shining round with glazed tiles where we next found +ourselves, the sun had been carefully screened and scarcely pierced the +scrim shades. But this was the worst, this was all that was bad, in that +_fonda._ When the breakfast or the luncheon, or whatever corresponds in +our usage to the Spanish _almuerzo,_ began to come, it seemed as if it +never would stop. An original but admirable omelette with potatoes and +bacon in it was followed by fried fish flavored with saffron. Then there +was brought in fried kid with a dish of kidneys; more fried fish came +after, and then boiled beef, with a dessert of small cakes. Of course +there was wine, as much as you would, such as it was, and several sorts +of fruit. I am sorry to have forgotten how little all this cost, but at +a venture I will say forty cents, or fifty at the outside; and so great +kindness and good will went with it from the family who cooked it in the +next room and served it with such cordial insistence that I think it was +worth quite the larger sum. It would not have been polite to note how +much of this superabundance was consumed by the three Spanish gentlemen +who had so courteously saluted us in sitting down at table with us. I +only know that they made us the conventional acknowledgment in refusing +our conventional offer of some things we had brought with us from our +hotel to eat in the event of famine at Tarifa. + +When we had come at last to the last course, we turned our thoughts +somewhat anxiously to the question of a guide for the town which we felt +so little able to explore without one; and it seemed to me that I had +better ask the policeman who had brought us to our _fonda._ He was +sitting at the head of the stairs where we had left him, and so far from +being baffled by my problem, he instantly solved it by offering himself +to be our guide. Perhaps it was a profession which he merely joined to +his civic function, but it was as if we were taken into custody when he +put himself in charge of us and led us to the objects of interest which +I cannot say Tarifa abounds in. That is, if you leave out of the count +the irregular, to and fro, up and down, narrow lanes, passing the blank +walls of low houses, and glimpsing leafy and flowery _patios_ through +open gates, and suddenly expanding into broader streets and unexpected +plazas, with shops and cafes and churches in them. + +Tarifa is perhaps the quaintest town left in the world, either in or +out of Spain, but whether it is more Moorish than parts of Cordova or +Seville I could not say. It is at least pre-eminent in a feature of +the women's costume which you are promised at the first mention of the +place, and which is said to be a survival of the Moslem civilization. +Of course we were eager for it, and when we came into the first wide +street, there at the principal corner three women were standing, just +as advertised, with black skirts caught up from their waists over their +heads and held before their faces so that only one eye could look out +at the strangers. It was like the women's costume at Chiozza on the +Venetian lagoon, but there it is not claimed for Moorish and here it +was authenticated by being black. "Moorish ladies," our guide proudly +proclaimed them in his scanty English, but I suspect they were Spanish; +if they were really Orientals, they followed us with those eyes single +as daringly as if they had been of our own Christian Occident. + +The event was so perfect in its way that it seemed as if our guiding +policeman might have especially ordered it; but this could not have +really been, and was no such effect of his office as the immunity from +beggars which we enjoyed in his charge. The worst boy in Tarifa (we did +not identify him) dared not approach for a big-dog or a little, and +we were safe from the boldest blind man, the hardiest hag, however +pockmarked. The lanes and the streets and the plazas were clean as +though our guide had them newly swept for us, and the plaza of the +principal church (no guide-book remembers its name) is perhaps the +cleanest in all Spain. + + + +VI + + +The church itself we found very clean, and of an interest quite beyond +the promise of the rather bare outside. A painted window above the +door cast a glare of fresh red and blue over the interior, and over +the comfortably matted floor; and there was a quite freshly carved and +gilded chapel which the pleasant youth supplementing our policeman for +the time said was done by artists still living in Tarifa. The edifice +was of a very flamboyant Gothic, with clusters of slender columns and a +vault brilliantly swirled over with decorations of the effect of peacock +feathers. But above all there was on a small side altar a figure of +the Child Jesus dressed in the corduroy suit and felt hat of a Spanish +shepherd, with a silver crook in one hand and leading a toy lamb by a +string in the other. Our young guide took the image down for us to look +at, and showed its shepherd's dress with peculiar satisfaction; and then +he left it on the ground while he went to show us something else. When +we came back we found two small boys playing with the Child, putting its +hat off and on, and feeling of its clothes. Our guide took it from them, +not unkindly, and put it back on the altar; and whether the reader +will agree with me or not, I must own that I did not find the incident +irreverent or without a certain touchingness, as if those children and +He were all of one family and they were at home with Him there. + +Rather suddenly, after we left the church, by way of one of those +unexpectedly expanding lanes, we found ourselves on the shore of the +purple sea where the Moors first triumphed over the Goths twelve hundred +years before, and five centuries later the Spaniards heat them back from +their attempt to reconquer the city. There were barracks, empty of the +Spanish soldiers gone to fight the same old battle of the Moors on their +own ground in Africa, and there was the castle which Alfonso Perez de +Guzman held against them in 1292, and made the scene of one of those +acts of self-devotion which the heart of this time has scarcely strength +for. The Moors when they had vainly summoned him to yield brought out +his son whom they held captive, and threatened to kill him. Guzman drew +his knife and flung it down to them, and they slew the boy, but Tarif a +was saved. His king decreed that thereafter the father should be known +as Guzman the Good, and the fact has gone into a ballad, but the name +somehow does not seem quite to fit, and one wishes that the father had +not won it that way. + +We were glad to go away from the dreadful place, though Tangier was so +plain across the strait, and we were almost in Africa there, and hard +by, in the waters tossing free, the great battle of Trafalgar was +fought. From the fountains of my far youth, when I first heard of +Guzman's dreadful heroism, I endeavored to pump up an adequate emotion; +I succeeded somewhat better with Nelson and his pathetic prayer of +"Kiss me, Hardy," as he lay dying on his bloody deck; but I did not much +triumph with either, and I was grateful when our good little policeman +comfortably questioned the deed of Guzman which he said some doubted, +though he took us to the very spot where the Moors had parleyed with +Guzman, and showed us the tablet over the castle gate affirming the +fact. + +We liked far better the pretty Alameda rising in terraces from it with +beds of flowers beside the promenade, and boys playing up and down, and +old men sitting in the sun, and trying to ignore the wind that blew over +them too freshly for us. Our policeman confessed that there was nothing +more worth seeing in Tarifa, and we entreated of him the favor of +showing us a shop where we could buy a Cordovese hat; a hat which we +had seen nourishing on the heads of all men in Cordova and Seville and +Granada and Ronda, and had always forborne to buy because we could get +it anywhere; and now we were almost leaving Spain without it. We wanted +one brown in color, as well as stiff and flat of brim, and slightly +conical in form; and our policeman promptly imagined it, and took us +to a shop abounding solely in hats, and especially in Cordoveses. The +proprietor came out wiping his mouth from an inner room, where he had +left his family visibly at their _almuerzo;_ and then we were desolated +together that he should only have Cordoveses that were black. But +passing a _patio_ where there was a poinsettia in brilliant bloom +against the wall, we found ourselves in a variety store where there were +Cordoveses of all colors; and we chose one of the right brown, with the +picture of a beautiful Spanish girl, wearing a pink shawl, inside the +crown which was fluted round in green and red ribbon. Seven pesetas was +the monstrous asking price, but we beat it down to five and a half, +and then came a trying moment: we could not carry a Cordovese in +tissue-paper through the streets of Tarifa, but could we ask our guide, +who was also our armed escort, to carry it? He simplified the situation +by taking it himself and bearing it back to the _fonda_ as proudly as +if he had not also worn a sword at his side; and we parted there in a +kindness which I should like to think he shared equally with us. + +He was practically the last of those Spaniards who were always +winning my heart (save in the bank at Valladolid where they must +have misunderstood me), and whom I remember with tenderness for their +courtesy and amiability. In little things and large, I found the +Spaniards everywhere what I heard a Piedmontese commercial traveler say +of them in Venice fifty years ago: "They are the honestest people in +Europe." In Italy I never began to see the cruelty to animals which +English tourists report, and in Spain I saw none at all. If the +reader asks how with this gentleness, this civility and integrity, +the Spaniards have contrived to build up their repute for cruelty, +treachery, mendacity, and every atrocity; how with their love of +bull-feasts and the suffering to man and brute which these involve, they +should yet seem so kind to both, I answer frankly, I do not know. I do +not know how the Americans are reputed good and just and law-abiding, +although they often shoot one another, and upon mere suspicion rather +often burn negroes alive. + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Familiar Spanish Travels, by W. D. 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