The Land of the Castanet 
 
The 
 
 Land of the Castanet 
 
 Spanish Sketches 
 
 H. C. Chatfield- Taylor 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1906 
 
^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO. 
 
 This edition published July, l()ob, by 
 Duffield & Company 
 
 \ 
 
 THE TROW PRESS, N. Y. 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 I. THE SPANIARD, I 
 
 II. THE CAPITAL OF SPAIN, 26 
 
 III. SPANISH SOCIETY, 6 1 
 
 IV. SEVILLE THE FAIR, 83- 
 
 V. SPANISH SPORTS, 114 
 
 VI. CORDOVA THE MAGNIFICENT, 136 
 
 VII. GRANADA THE FALLEN, 159 
 
 VIII. PROVINCIAL TOWNS, 1 86 
 
 IX. THE COMMON PEOPLE, ill 
 Jt. GIBRALTAR, 2j6 
 
 281608 
 
Note 
 
 Several of these papers have already ap- 
 peared in "The Cosmopolitan;" the others 
 have been written simply as sketches of Spanish 
 scenes and character. Being originally intended 
 for a magazine they do not possess the continuity 
 demanded of the chapters of a book. The apology 
 for their publication in the present form is the 
 hope that their perusal may awaken in the reader 
 an interest in a country somewhat removed 
 from the beaten track of travel, whose history 
 is closely allied with our own, but whose people 
 we little understand. There has been no attempt 
 to make the volume exhaustive ; it is merely a 
 collection of sketches, and as such it should be 
 considered. 
 
 Chicago, September, 1896. 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 The Spaniard 
 
 IN the evolution of that proud, sensi- 
 tive, indolent, sometimes cruel, but 
 more often chivalrous race whom we call 
 the Spaniards, the elements of history 
 have been so clearly defined, so varied in 
 their effect, that each era has left its 
 indelible imprint upon the national 
 character. 
 
 One often wonders why Spain, the 
 former mistress of the world, a land of 
 such delightful climate and such fertile 
 soil, surrounded by the sea and an almost 
 impassable rampart of mountains, and 
 seemingly possessed of every blessing 
 which nature can bestow, should, after 
 eighteen centuries of glorious history, 
 have fallen to the second rank among the 
 
'The 'Land of the Castanet 
 
 powers of the world, and be the last 
 among the nations of Europe to respond 
 to the influences of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The answer is to be read in the pages 
 of her history. There is a limit to the 
 endurance of a nation, and Spain has 
 suffered more than any other land. For 
 that reason she presents the spectacle 
 of a proud-spirited warrior who has 
 struggled bravely against overwhelming 
 odds and has fallen from sheer exhaus- 
 tion. Other nations have fought and 
 bled and have won their freedom. The 
 Spaniards have fought and bled as freely 
 as the proudest of them, but their efforts 
 have been frustrated. They have never, 
 until within a decade or so, known the 
 blessings of freedom, and since they have 
 been a united nation have not even been 
 ruled by a despot of a Spanish house. 
 They have had despots without number, 
 and they might have endured them had 
 they been of Spanish blood. It is a com- 
 mon saying in Spain that the first Span- 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 ish king was the late Alfonzo XII. At 
 least, he was the first Spanish king 
 whose sympathies were Spanish, and 
 whose reign strengthened Spain. Philip 
 II. was morbidly Spanish in his feelings, 
 but his rule hastened the ruin of his 
 country, a ruin from which it has never 
 recovered. 
 
 In talking with Spaniards not of the 
 ruling classes, one hears continually that 
 the people are good but that the govern- 
 ment is bad. It is always the same 
 story: the woes of the land are laid to 
 the government; and certainly if the 
 successive governments of Spain from 
 the time of Ferdinand and Isabella to the 
 present day could be tried before an 
 impartial jury, no verdict too severe 
 could be rendered. 
 
 The people of Spain are good ; none but 
 a good people could have been loyal to 
 such rulers, but mere loyalty, pride, 
 or even daring, does not make a people 
 great. There must be energy and activ- 
 ity ; there must be commercial enterprise, 
 3 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 and these the Spaniards do not possess. 
 Again it is the fault of the rulers. A 
 middle class is the backbone and sinew 
 of a successful nation, and Spain, except 
 in Catalonia, does not possess a middle 
 class. If the Spanish rulers wish to 
 know the effect of a middle class upon a 
 nation, they need look no further than 
 Catalonia; the object lesson is com- 
 plete. Barcelona, the Chicago of Spain, 
 is as active, bustling, and energetic as 
 its American prototype, and does nearly 
 one-third of the entire importing and 
 exporting business of the Peninsula. 
 But the Catalans are mere shop-keepers, 
 and the Spaniard, if he is not a peasant, 
 must be a gentleman. The middle class 
 has been killed and stultified by legisla- 
 tion and sentiment. 
 
 Before condemning or condoning the 
 Spaniard of to-day, it is worth while to 
 review his history and study the effect 
 of each successive era on his character. 
 
 The earliest Spaniards of whom we 
 possess any knowledge were the Celts 
 4 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 and Iberians, known collectively as the 
 Celtiberians. Their history, or its frag- 
 ments, as told by their enemies, is the 
 history of the true Spaniards, a history 
 of Yalor and generosity, of restless vigor 
 and almost heroic endurance. These 
 have been the qualities of Spaniards in 
 all ages. In the course of time the trad- 
 ing Phoenician established himself along 
 the whole south coast of the Peninsula, 
 and after the Phoenicians came the 
 Greeks. But the Greeks and Phoenicians 
 were merchants rather than soldiers. 
 For years they made no attempt to ex- 
 tend their possessions beyond the coast. 
 About four hundred and eighty years 
 before Christ, some eager spirits met at 
 Gadeira and undertook an expedition 
 into southern Celtiberia. The bold 
 tribesmen there not only repulsed the 
 invaders, but they invaded in return. 
 Gadeira was threatened with assault, 
 and the frightened Phoenicians applied for 
 assistance to the Carthaginians. 
 
 At that moment the real history of 
 5 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Spain began, a history repeated with 
 recurring fatality during the ages. The 
 Carthaginians, like all subsequent for- 
 eigners called to aid tottering power in 
 the Peninsula, possessed themselves of 
 Spain. For two hundred and fifty years 
 they ruled the coast; then Hamilcar 
 Barca and his greater son Hannibal 
 overran the Peninsula. Saguntum alone 
 held out. The marvelous resistance of 
 this city marked the first of the glorious 
 Spanish sieges, lasting to the heroic de- 
 fense of Saragossa against the arms of 
 Napoleon. In those wars against the 
 Carthaginians, the Romans became the 
 allies of the Spaniards, and again the ally 
 became the conqueror. But the con- 
 querors discovered the heroic spirit of 
 the nation they had betrayed in the per- 
 son of Viriathus, a Lusitanian shepherd, 
 who seven times in the open field routed 
 the Roman legions, and again in the 
 defense of Numantia against the over- 
 powering armies of the republic. This 
 was carried to such an extremity that 
 6 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 the few survivors men, women and 
 children resolved to die by their own 
 hand rather than that a single Numan- 
 tian should grace a Roman triumph. 
 
 It only remained for Caesar to com- 
 plete the work of conquest, and Spain 
 became, in Hispania Romana, a Roman 
 province. The effect on the Spaniard 
 of this foreign rule was so complete that 
 it survives to-day in his language, his 
 laws and many of his customs. The 
 province became completely Roman, 
 giving emperors and poets to the empire, 
 and so thoroughly united to its mistress 
 that it is to-day, more completely than 
 France, a Latin country. 
 
 In the disintegration of the Roman 
 Empire Spain fell to the lot of the Visi- 
 goths; but the final death struggle was 
 delayed for a time by a typical Span- 
 iard, the devout, passionate, noble- 
 minded emperor, Theodosius, the first 
 inquisitor, the precursor at once of Isa- 
 bella the Catholic and of Philip II. 
 Theodosius died in 395 A. D., and in 
 7 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 five years Alaric was in Italy. While 
 the sturdy Goth conquered Italy, the 
 Vandals and their savage companions 
 devastated Spain. The barbarian host 
 marched unchecked across the Peninsula. 
 What had the Romanizing of the Penin- 
 sula accomplished? Where were the 
 Celtiberians and the Lusitanians who for 
 nearly two centuries had resisted the 
 forces of republican Rome? The con- 
 quest was more complete, more easily 
 accomplished than that of the Moors 
 three centuries later. The reason for 
 the two conquests is to be found in the 
 system of domestic slavery of the Romans 
 and the Visigoths. A change of masters 
 was a matter of indifference to the down- 
 trodden people ; those who were not slaves 
 or paupers were decayed into moral 
 pauperism by luxury. 
 
 The history of the Visigothic kingdom 
 embraces three hundred years of de- 
 bauchery, intrigue and murder. Roman 
 Spain wrought a marvelous change in 
 her masters. They adopted the veneer 
 8 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 of civilization in its vices and luxury, and 
 ceased to be warriors. But in those 
 Visigothic days one great question was 
 fought out and settled, seemingly forever 
 the question between Church and 
 State. Spain was now a hierarchy, in 
 which ecclesiastical influence became all 
 powerful. One great man struggled 
 against this usurpation ; but Wamba, the 
 best among the miserable line of Gothic 
 kings, fell a prey to ecclesiastical treach- 
 ery, and Spain passed under the control 
 of ecclesiasticism, a control cemented 
 by seven centuries of Moorish warfare. 
 Although scarcely a trace of Visigoths 
 remains in Spain beyond a few ruins and 
 some of their multitudinous laws en- 
 grafted into the "Siete Partidas" of 
 Alfonso the Wise, their policy carried 
 on through generations has in more 
 ways than one been the ruin of Spain. 
 Besides developing ecclesiastical power 
 in the affairs of state, they inaugurated 
 the persecution of the Jews, and the 
 Visigothic Metropolitans became the 
 9 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 forerunners of Torquemada and his in- 
 quisitorial host. 
 
 But enough of Gothic rule. It was a 
 decayed exotic which withered before 
 the Arab blast. The enervated Goth 
 fell a prey to his own treachery, and the 
 Arab overran his land. The few rem- 
 nants gathered in the far Asturias, and 
 raising Pelayo, a relative of the con- 
 quered Roderic, upon their shields, 
 proclaimed the first king of a line des- 
 tined to reconquer, step by step, the 
 fair land of Spain. When Pelayo and his 
 little band of refugees drove back the 
 Moors by hurling stones from their rock- 
 cut cave at Covadonga, upon the strug- 
 gling hosts below, they inaugurated those 
 seven centuries of incessant warfare 
 which were to be at once the making 
 and the marring of the Spanish nation. 
 
 Of the Moors in Spain little need be 
 said. Theirs is a history apart, ro- 
 mantic, fascinating, and seemingly in- 
 credible; marvelous in its development, 
 miserable in its decay. They vanished as 
 
 10 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 they came, leaving scarcely a trace be- 
 yond the graceful arches and shady 
 courts of their palaces and mosques. 
 But the effect of Moorish wars upon the 
 Spanish character is seemingly indelible. 
 They were seven centuries of crusades ; 
 seven centuries of warfare for the Catho- 
 lic faith. The crusader is a fanatic, and 
 a nation of crusaders developed by hun- 
 dreds of years of religious wars, must, 
 perforce, become a nation of fanatics. 
 The cross was the national standard; 
 the Church became truly a church mili- 
 tant, for bishops rode at the head of 
 armies, and religion was the dominant 
 sentiment of the nation hatred of in- 
 fidels and heretics its dominant passion. 
 In the mountain fastnesses of the As- 
 turias the banner of the cross was un- 
 furled, and step by step it advanced, 
 sometimes wavering but always facing 
 the foe, until it floated triumphant from 
 the walls of Granada. Except when 
 Charles Martel repulsed the Moor at 
 Tours, the rest of Europe was never 
 ii 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 threatened by the Crescent. Fanatics 
 and adventurers went forth from Eng- 
 land, France and Germany to fight and 
 squabble in the Holy Land, but that 
 was not religious warfare as the Span- 
 . iards knew it. In fighting for his faith, 
 he was fighting for his home; to him 
 religion meant existence. Is it any won- 
 der that he became a fanatic, and his 
 land the stronghold of the Church? 
 There could be but one religion for such 
 a people. It was his faith, for which the 
 Spaniard fought, and in consequence the 
 ecclesiastic obtained a power which he 
 has never attained elsewhere even in 
 Italy itself. The fall of Granada took 
 place but four hundred years ago. Is 
 it any wonder that the religious impetus 
 of those seven centuries should have 
 lasted even to our day? The religious 
 fervor which was excited to inspire the 
 armies has endured, and with it the ab- 
 horrence for all that is Mohammedan. 
 It is declared that because bathing was 
 a religious ceremony of the Moor, it, 
 12 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 perforce, became an unholy act for the 
 Spaniard. 
 
 With the fall of Granada Spain be- 
 came a nation. For the first time the 
 many petty kingdoms which had arisen 
 from the remnants of Gothic rule were 
 united in the persons of Ferdinand of 
 Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Only 
 Portugal held aloof, and there was every 
 promise that she too might be brought 
 within the national fold. But the Catho- 
 lic kings, the creators of United Spain, 
 sowed the seeds of her ruin. Isabella, 
 the sterling womanly queen, whose love 
 for her people and zeal for her Church 
 carried her to the point of fanaticism, 
 and Ferdinand, the crafty, grasping 
 politician, combined those qualities 
 which, intensified in the persons of 
 Charles I. and his son Philip, were to 
 complete the ruin of Spain. 
 
 The moment the Spanish Empire was 
 
 fully created, it began to disintegrate. 
 
 A century of victories followed, but they 
 
 were ruinous to Spain. Isabella the zeal- 
 
 13 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 ous, Ferdinand the crafty, each played a 
 characteristic part in the ruin of their 
 country, a ruin they could not foresee, 
 but one which was sure to follow the 
 mistaken policy they inaugurated. The 
 same hand which sent Columbus forth 
 to add a new world to Castile signed the 
 edict for the expulsion of the Jews, and 
 sent two hundred thousand Spaniards, 
 men, women and children, rich and 
 poor, able and infirm, forth from their 
 homes to suffer and die in exile. 
 
 Sisenand, the Goth, had nine hundred 
 years before promulgated a similar de- 
 cree, but he had been too tender-hearted 
 to enforce it. Seven centuries of reli- 
 gious warfare had hardened the heart of 
 even the best of Spanish rulers. The 
 persecution of the Moors, and their final 
 expulsion by one of the weak-minded 
 Philips, was merely a corollary to this 
 act, and finally, beyond these cruelties, 
 came the dreadful engine of the Inquisi- 
 tion. Torquemada, the queen's confes- 
 sor, whose name is synonymous with 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 cruelty and persecution, was placed in 
 charge, with orders to stamp out heresy, 
 of whatever trifling shade of opinion, 
 and over ten thousand persons were 
 burned alive during the eighteen years 
 of his supremacy. The Inquisition of 
 Torquemada's day was merely directed 
 against the Jews. Yet the sufferings of 
 the Jew and the Moor were but a part of 
 the injury which Isabella's zeal brought 
 to her land. The Jews and the Moors 
 were traders and artisans in a word, 
 they were the middle class. The Span- 
 iard, on the contrary, was always either 
 a warrior, a priest, or a peasant. The 
 land when bereft of the Jew and the 
 Moor lost that commercial element 
 which is the leaven of every prosperous 
 country. A nation all warriors, priests 
 and peasants can never thrive. One 
 useful class, however, remained the 
 thinkers. 
 
 But Spain was still to suffer a severer 
 blow. Presently the fires of the Inquisi- 
 tion were lighted for the thinkers. 
 15 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Free thought was refused a place in 
 Spanish counsels, and with it went the 
 philosopher, the scientist, and the in- 
 ventor. Then the soldier, the priest, 
 and the peasant alone remained. There 
 were painters and writers, to be sure, 
 but they painted and wrote to please the 
 court; they dared not think. That they 
 were great in spite of the Inquisition 
 and its horrors was a tribute to their 
 capability. 
 
 All this was the miserable outcome of 
 Isabella's zeal for her faith. Philip II. 
 but continued to the bitter end the pol- 
 icy she had inaugurated. But Isabella 
 was not alone in sowing the seeds of her 
 country's downfall. Ferdinand, crafty 
 and grasping, saw in the broad field of 
 European politics a goal for his ambi- 
 tion. He schemed, and while he plotted 
 his soldiers fought, until Italy and Sicily 
 were under his sway. The Austrian 
 marriage of his daughter brought the 
 half of Europe under the scepter of his 
 grandson, Charles I. 
 16 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 While Isabella with her Ximenes and 
 her Torquemada were cementing the 
 already overweening ecclesiastical power, 
 the Spanish soldiers of Gonzalo de Cor- 
 dova "The Great Captain" trained in 
 Moorish warfare, were revolutionizing 
 tactics on the plains of Italy, and making 
 the Spanish infantry the terror of Eu- 
 rope. A new world, too, was being 
 added to the Spanish crown, in order 
 that its gold might defray the expense 
 of conquest. 
 
 The warlike spirit and the fanaticism 
 engendered by the Moorish wars sought 
 new outlets on the battle-fields of Europe 
 and in the Auto de Fe". It was an age 
 of martial glory for the Spaniard, but 
 won at what a price ! Conquest for the 
 love of conquest; persecution in the 
 name of religion. The warrior and the 
 cleric were all dominant: the peasant 
 paid the price. Charles I. and Philip II. 
 were but a repetition of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, save that the one was a greater 
 soldier and the other a more relentless 
 17 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 bigot. The one was a foreigner who 
 saw in Spain merely a means to satisfy 
 his ambition ; the other a Spaniard who 
 saw in his foreign subjects a means to 
 satisfy his fanaticism. Both continued 
 the ruin of Spain which the Catholic 
 kings had commenced. 
 
 When their reigns were over, Spain 
 was exhausted; the soldier and eccle- 
 siastic had held full sway, but there were 
 no more soldiers to fight, and no here- 
 tics were left to burn; there was no 
 commercial and artisan class to recoup 
 the resources of the realm. Those 
 whom persecution had spared, finan- 
 cial laws had ruined, so there was 
 nothing for the soldier and religious to 
 do but squabble, and plot, and quarrel. 
 Nothing for the peasant but to toil and 
 suffer. The country was in the un- 
 healthy ferment of stagnation. A good 
 king might have saved the land even 
 then; but instead there came a sequence 
 of three imbeciles from the House of 
 Austria, and a line of foreign Bourbons 
 18 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 thrust on Spain through the war of the 
 Spanish succession. One court favorite 
 after another ruled the unhappy land. 
 One province after another fell away, 
 until only the mother-country, Cuba, and 
 a few scattered islands remained. 
 
 The Spaniard bore misrule more pa- 
 tiently than his treatment warranted. 
 What good government might have 
 done for Spain was exemplified by the 
 wise internal policy of Charles III. 
 Had his successors been of his own stamp, 
 instead of that of the miserable Charles 
 IV., and the yet more unfortunate Fer- 
 dinand VII., Spain might still stand 
 among the great powers of the world. 
 But in those days of her deepest adver- 
 sity, when her monarch and his son were 
 quarreling, and after seven kings in 
 succession had wasted what few re- 
 sources the aggressive policy of Charles 
 I. and Philip II. had left untouched, 
 unhappy Spain fought for her worthless 
 royal house against the power of Napo- 
 leon as no country in Europe fought. 
 19 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 The French could not conquer the 
 Spaniard, and in the siege of Saragossa 
 the heroism of Saguntum and Numantia 
 was reenacted. It is difficult, however, 
 to judge correctly the history of the 
 Peninsula war. The English authorities 
 scarcely consider the Spaniard, the 
 Spanish writers begrudgingly acknowl- 
 edge the help rendered by the Briton in 
 driving the French from their land. 
 But of Saragossa there can be but one 
 opinion : there were no British there, and 
 the annals of that siege are among the 
 most heroic in history. 
 
 The reward of the Spaniard for his 
 noble resistance was a king, if possible 
 more pernicious than any who had gone 
 before. In the person of Ferdinand VII. 
 were united the worst qualities a mon- 
 arch could possess, and those he did not 
 have he found in his queen. The latter 
 was the disturbing spirit of the reign of 
 the young Queen Isabella II. She plot- 
 ted and intrigued, and by her example 
 and teaching made possible the unhappy 
 20 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 ending of that queen's reign. Isabella 
 was not at heart as bad as she has been 
 painted, but she was capricious and 
 passionate, and between Espartero, 
 O'Donnell, Serrano, and the Carlist pre- 
 tenders, the wretched country was drag- 
 ged on a steadily downward career. Yet 
 Isabella conferred one blessing upon her 
 country: she founded the Guardia Civil, 
 a gendarmerie modeled after the Holy 
 Brotherhood of her great namesake, an 
 exemplary police, who have made travel- 
 ing in Spain as safe as in any country of 
 Europe. 
 
 The revolution which drove Isabella 
 from her throne, the provisional govern- 
 ment of General Prim, the short-lived 
 monarchy of Amadeus, the equally 
 short-lived republic of Castelar, were 
 but the desperation of a people who 
 could endure no more. Ground down 
 by oppression, they struggled to free 
 themselves from their miserable rulers, 
 but the governments thus created so 
 passionately were too quickly formed, 
 
 21 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 though out of them grew a monarchy 
 more liberal, more tolerant than any 
 which had gone before. Alfonso XII. 
 was not an exemplary king, but he was 
 good as kings go in Spain. He was 
 Spanish in his sympathies, and he ac- 
 complished as much as could be ex- 
 pected of a monarch whose throne was 
 so unstable. In his wife, Queen Maria 
 Christina, the present regent, Spain has 
 the first requisite of a happy land, a ruler 
 whom .the people not only respect but 
 truly love. 
 
 Twenty years of peace have been of 
 inestimable benefit to the people of the 
 Peninsula; but the country was in too 
 exhausted a condition immediately to 
 resume its place among the nations of 
 vthe world . And now comes this wretched 
 Cuban war to arrest again the hand of 
 progress. The Spaniard had not learned 
 in the school of adversity the lesson 
 which should have stood him in stead at 
 this crisis. Had he seen in his own 
 struggles against the Roman and the 
 22 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 Moor, in the revolt of the Netherlands, 
 in his own fight against Napoleon, and 
 in the fight for freedom of his American 
 colonies, the futility of forcing a foreign 
 rule upon a people determined to 
 achieve their independence, this war 
 might have been prevented. 
 
 He undoubtedly realizes his error now, 
 but his pride is at stake. Cuba is all 
 that remains to Spain of an empire upon 
 which it was once the boast that the sun 
 never set. Spanish statesmen declared 
 that Cuba must be conquered, no matter 
 what the sacrifices may be. It will be 
 time to talk of needed reform after the 
 greater Antille has been brought back 
 into the national fold. There is a ring 
 of fatalism in this sentiment; it is the 
 cry of a proud but desperate warrior. 
 
 The modern Spaniard is the logical"") 
 outcome of his history. He is proud, 
 sentimental, fanatical even, but not pro- 
 gressive as we understand progression. 
 His courtliness is admirable, but exces- 
 sive. He dwells too much upon the 
 23 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 glories of Pavia and San Quintin, with- 
 out realizing that those very victories 
 hastened the downfall of Spanish power. 
 He dreams of the splendid empire which 
 Columbus and his successors gave to 
 Castile and Leon ; but he forgets that 
 there was but one Las Casas, and too 
 many of the stamp of Cortez Pizarro, and 
 Ovando ; he forgets that there was but 
 one Talavera, Bishop of Granada, and 
 too many uncompromising prelates like 
 Ximenes and Torquemada. The Span- 
 iard's character has been formed by 
 seven centuries of crusading and a 
 century of conquest. The exigencies of 
 history have made him a warrior, but 
 the incapacity of fourteen bad kings has 
 lost him the power to conquer. 
 
 Yet in spite of the influence of past 
 traditions and present sentiment the 
 Spaniard is [awakening. Twenty years 
 have wrought marvelous changes in the 
 Peninsula, and though the spirit of the 
 past still hovers over the land, the 
 spirit which exiled the Jew and the 
 24 
 
The Spaniard 
 
 Moor, there are many signs which 
 inspire the lover of Spain with the hope 
 that under a more democratic rule she 
 may find the dawn of a new civilization, 
 where victories will be acquired in the 
 realms of art, science, and philosophy, 
 instead of in the clash of arms. 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 SPAIN'S capital might be roughly 
 described as a composite photo- 
 graph of Paris and Washington with two 
 distinctive features of its own the Court 
 and the Puerta del Sol. There is noth- 
 ing Spanish about Madrid except a few 
 Spaniards lounging in the sun with 
 shoulders enveloped in the national capa, 
 or long, graceful cloak, once so univer- 
 sal but now fast disappearing, or the 
 devout maidens and demure duenas 
 dressed in sombre black, their glossy 
 hair wrapped in the graceful folds of 
 lace mantillas, picking their way through 
 the crowded streets at the hour of morn- 
 ing mass. Except for these and an 
 occasional Spanish cart with its string 
 of awkward mules, there is little to 
 remind one of romantic Spain. There 
 26 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 are, to be sure, the beggars, but the 
 beggars are not picturesque like those 
 of Andalusia; they are merely repulsive 
 and clamorous. The houses, the streets, 
 the life of Madrid, are essentially Pari- 
 sian on a somewhat reduced scale, while 
 the general aspect of the city is that of 
 Washington. 
 
 Like Washington, too, it is a capital 
 of deliberate creation, not of circum- 
 stance, and it is merely a capital. 
 Although in the number of its inhabi- 
 tants Madrid is the largest city of Spain, 
 it is in no sense the commercial metro- 
 polis. Indeed, without the Court, the 
 host of governmental officials, and idle 
 people with money to spend whom the 
 Court attracts, it could not exist a day. 
 It is essentially a city of government and 
 pleasure, and the business is mostly 
 confined to purveying to the wants of the 
 functionary and the frivolous. 
 
 As a capital, the city owes its existence 
 to the vagaries of two men. Charles V. 
 found that the dry climate agreed with 
 27 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 his gout, and his son, Philip II., could 
 discover no more dreary spot for the 
 building of his monastic palace, the 
 Escorial, than the point where the bar- 
 ren wind-swept plain of Madrid verges 
 into the bleak, rugged mountains of the 
 Guadarrama. So the cities of Toledo, 
 Seville, and Valladolid, naturally fitted 
 to be capitals of Spain, were deserted, 
 and the new city sprang into being. 
 
 To-day this brightest and gayest of 
 Spanish towns rises crisp and new in the 
 centre of a plain almost as barren as the 
 great American desert. The sun scorches 
 in summer, the wind chills in winter, yet 
 for three centuries, in obedience to the 
 whims of two capricious kings, this city 
 has grown and thriven in the desolate 
 centre of a fertile land. 
 
 As has been said, the distinctive 
 features of Madrid are the Court and 
 the Puerta del Sol. The Court is indi- 
 vidual, because it represents the last of 
 Bourbon power and is swayed by all the 
 Bourbon etiquette of Louis XIV. The 
 28 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 Puerta del Sol is the centre of Madrid, 
 an oval plaza whence the principal 
 streets radiate in all directions, a sort 
 of Place de 1' Opera without the opera, 
 but with more life and movement, for 
 nowhere do idlers congregate as they 
 do in the Puerta del Sol. The name 
 signifies "Gate of the Sun." There is 
 no gate, but there is plenty of sun, and 
 that is the secret of its popularity as a 
 lounging place. The Spaniard of the 
 middle and the lower classes is never so 
 happy as when "tomando el sol," taking 
 a sun bath. It is indeed a necessity to 
 his well-being in winter, for his house 
 is so damp and frigid, with no appliance 
 for heating except the miserable charcoal 
 brazier, that the only place he can warm 
 himself is in the sun. In fact, the sun is 
 called the poor man's brazier. 
 
 Judging by the crowds which swarm 
 the Puerta del Sol and the adjoining 
 streets, the population of Madrid seems 
 composed principally of idlers. This in 
 the American sense is partly true. The 
 29 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 people do not work as we do. The 
 shops are opened at nine or even ten 
 o'clock. The government offices keep 
 short hours, and the people when not at 
 work are always in the streets, standing 
 in 'groups about the Puerta del Sol or 
 sauntering leisurely through the Alcala 
 and the Carrera San Geronimo the 
 principal shopping streets. 
 
 In the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, 
 the Spaniard never walks (except in 
 Barcelona where everyone is busy), he 
 merely loiters, and it is amazing to see 
 how much satisfaction he seems to find 
 in this innocent amusement. 
 
 There are Anglomaniacs in the smart 
 society of Madrid, as there are wherever 
 smart society exists, and they wear Lon- 
 don clothes, and walk, and play polo 
 because Englishmen do, but they are no 
 more real Spaniards than their proto- 
 types of New York are real Americans. 
 The daily life of the "Madrilefio" does 
 not begin until noon, and from then until 
 the early morning hours, unless he is one 
 30 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 of the unfortunates whom necessity 
 drives to work, he is ever in the streets, 
 the cafe, or the theatre. Life is made 
 cheap enough for him, too, as for the 
 price of a cup of coffee he can spend half 
 the day in a cafe", and the theatres 
 except the opera are so moderate in 
 their charges that one wonders how they 
 exist. 
 
 The theatres of Madrid are unique in 
 their way. You do not buy your ticket 
 for an entire play or an evening but for 
 one act (or function), or as many acts or 
 functions as you desire to see. Thus, 
 to go at the beginning and sit to the 
 bitter end, at half past one in the morn- 
 ing, requires a handful of tickets, from 
 which one is collected at the beginning 
 of each act. 
 
 The most popular playhouses are those 
 where they give Zarzuelas, the national 
 opera bouffe. These pieces are in one 
 act or in two short acts with an entr'acte, 
 in which latter case an intermezzo is 
 played and the audience retain their 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 seats. In subjects they vary from the 
 stately court of Philip II. to popular 
 sketches of the Edward Harrigan variety. 
 The music is usually attractive, the book 
 often dull, with too little of the comedy 
 element. The actors are not up to 
 French or English standards, and the 
 actresses are sadly deficient in the mat- 
 ter of make-up, a commendable habit 
 enough for the streets, but not for the 
 boards, where they all look like corpses. 
 At a Zarzuela theatre four distinct 
 pieces are usually given in the same even- 
 ing the house being the most crowded 
 during the last. No country is richer in 
 dramatic works than Spain. It has a 
 national drama which is truly great, but 
 as with us in America, the drama is at 
 a rather low ebb owing to the frivolous 
 taste of the public. The Teatro Espanol 
 is the home of the ligitimate drama and 
 is modeled to some extent after the 
 Theatre Franais, and there one evening 
 a week is devoted to the old dramatists ; 
 but the company is only passable, and 
 32 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 little attention is given to the mise-en- 
 scene. The theatre itself is charming, 
 and on Monday, the fashionable night, 
 society is always present in force. 
 
 One of the many charms of Madrid is 
 its compactness. You can drive from 
 one end to the other in half an hour; 
 the streets in the main are broad, ex- 
 cept in the old parts where there is still 
 a dash of local color in the shape of 
 tortuous lanes and hanging balconies; 
 but the greater part of the town is new 
 and French, with straight boulevards 
 well-built houses, modern and monoton- 
 ous. 
 
 The government buildings are situated 
 here and there as they are in Washing- 
 ton huge modern piles of brick and 
 stone with pseudo-classical outlines, 
 commonplace most of them, in contrast 
 with the noble monuments of the older 
 Spanish cities. The Senate Chamber is 
 an old monastery rebuilt and modernized 
 since 1835, but so completely transformed 
 that one looks in vain for signs of the 
 33 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 former cloister. The hall is small but 
 comfortable, and reminds one somewhat 
 of the Supreme Court Chamber at 
 Washington. There are several modern 
 paintings of historical subjects scattered 
 through the buildings, and surrounding 
 the hall is a series of bright and cozy 
 committee rooms. 
 
 It is the irony of fate to find the mod- 
 ern Spanish Senate domiciled in the 
 former house of Augustinian friars. 
 Spain has changed since the days of the 
 Inquisition, though one doubts whether 
 the fact is recognized in America. 
 Motley and Prescott wrote of a period 
 covering nearly a century of Spanish 
 greatness and Spanish cruelty; and the 
 Spain of to-day is judged in America by 
 that period, but the judges forget that 
 the contemporaneous sovereigns in Eng- 
 land were Henry VIII., Bloody Mary, 
 and Elizabeth, with whom Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, Charles V., and even Philip 
 II. , do not lose entirely by comparison, 
 judged from the standpoint of cruelty. 
 34 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 But that is a digression, and there are 
 features of the Spanish Senate worthy 
 of notice, as it is a happy compromise 
 between the English, French and Ameri- 
 can upper houses. The senators are of 
 three classes: grandees with an annual 
 rental from land of $10,000, sitting by 
 right of inheritance; senators for life 
 appointed by the crown, and lastly, 
 senators elected by the Church, the royal 
 academies, the universities, and each 
 province, for the term of the Parliament. 
 The two former classes make up one half 
 of the House, and the elected senators 
 the remainder. The total number of 
 senators is three hundred and seventy- 
 two. The House of Deputies Con- 
 greso de los Diputados is in a modern 
 building begun in 1843, during the reign 
 of Isabel II. Like the senate, it is taste- 
 fully furnished. The facade has a clas- 
 sical portico, and the general outline is 
 much like the White House in Washing- 
 ton. There are four hundred and fifty 
 deputies, representing the forty-nine pro- 
 35 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 vinces of Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico. 
 The Cuban delegation consists of thirty 
 representatives, while Puerto Rico has 
 sixteen, which is the proportion its 
 population bears to that of the Peninsula. 
 One curious fact in relation to the present 
 Cortez is, that while the president of 
 the upper house is untitled, the speaker 
 of the Chamber, the Marquis de la Vega 
 de Armijo, is a grandee with several 
 titles dating back to 1679. The latter 
 prefers the more active field of the lower 
 house to the Senate, a seat in which he 
 is entitled to by birth. 
 
 Among the other public buildings are 
 the offices of the nine different ministries 
 into which the government is divided, 
 most of them imposing enough but 
 modern and uninteresting. Apropos 
 of the ministry of war, and in view, of 
 the numerous generals one reads of in 
 connection with the Cuban war, it is 
 amusing to note that while the peace 
 footing of the Spanish army is about 
 one hundred thousand men, there are 
 36 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 on the active list six captain-generals, 
 thirty-nine lieutenant-generals, sixty 
 generals of division, and one hundred 
 and sixty brigadier-generals, making an 
 average of one general to every three 
 hundred and seventy soldiers. No 
 wonder the Spanish arms have not yet 
 proved successful. This preponderance 
 of generals is due in part to the fact that 
 in making peace with the Carlists the 
 officers of the Carlist army were taken 
 into the official fold and given their 
 relative rank in the regular establish- 
 ment. But the curse of Spain is official- 
 dom. If two-thirds of the governmental 
 positions could be done away with, 
 Spain might to-day be prosperous. But 
 the moment a butcher, baker, or candle- 
 stick-maker acquires a competence, his 
 son must be in the government service, 
 in order that he may be a gentleman. 
 
 In talking of the government one is in 
 danger of forgetting the sights of Mad- 
 rid : the museums, the picture gallery, 
 the royal armory, the palace, the royal 
 37 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 stables, the churches, libraries, hospitals, 
 and the hundred and one institutions 
 which go to make up a European capital. 
 Madrid has them all in abundance, and 
 the tourist sees them in the hurried 
 manner of the tourist. A description of 
 such sights falls more within the pro- 
 vince of a guide-book than this book of 
 sketches, and after the last word has 
 been written, the sights must still be 
 seen to be appreciated. What descrip- 
 tion could do justice to the royal picture 
 gallery in the Prado? One can say that 
 this collection is considered the finest in 
 the world, but that it is rather a collection 
 of splendid gems than a complete chrono- 
 logical series of schools. One can say 
 that there are sixty-two Rubens, fifty- 
 three Teniers, ten Raphaels, forty-six 
 Murillos, sixty-four Velasquez, twenty- 
 two Vandykes, forty-three Titians, 
 thirty-four Tintorettos, twenty-five Ve- 
 roneses, fifty-eight Riberas, and ten 
 Claudes hanging on the walls of that 
 gallery, not to mention the Wouver- 
 38 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 mans, the Snyders, the Goyas, etc. ; but 
 when it has been said, what idea does 
 it convey of that marvelous collection 
 of paintings? 
 
 A week, a month, a year would be too 
 short a time to study the gallery of 
 the Prado, and yet the passing tourist 
 rushes through its halls in a morning, or 
 at most, in a day. 
 
 The royal armory, too, contains a 
 unique collection of arms and armor. 
 The nucleus was collected by Charles 
 V, and has been added to since. The 
 French have pilfered it as they have 
 everything else in Spain on which they 
 could lay their hands, and it has suf- 
 fered from fire, but in spite of all, the 
 collection is ^still probably the finest in 
 the world. 
 
 Yet after all has been said the real 
 sights of Madrid are not many. The 
 Cook's tourist does them all in three 
 days. Madrid is essentially a social 
 city, and it is the people that attract 
 one most. But not the common people 
 39 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 as in the provinces; for in this sense 
 there is little of the national life to be 
 seen. The common people are merely 
 the shop-keepers and workmen bour- 
 geois and ouvriers, as they are the world 
 over. It is in the social life of Madrid 
 that one finds much that is interesting. 
 One meets there the governing classes 
 of the country the people who stand 
 for Spain before the world. Madrid is 
 so out of the beaten track that its 
 society has not been flooded with for- 
 eigners. Strangers are somewhat of a 
 rarity, and are looked on askance. 
 
 The Spaniard is reserved, and unlike 
 the American does not throw open his 
 arms to the foreign Tom, Dick and 
 Harry. Even the diplomats are not 
 social idols in Madrid as they are in 
 Washington and Newport, and but a 
 limited few are received into the inner 
 circle of the smart set. But if the 
 Spaniard knows you, and is assured that 
 you are a reputable member of society, 
 and above all, if he likes you, he will 
 40 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 become the most charming of hosts, the 
 best of friends. One has known many 
 foreigners but none whose friendship is 
 so warm and sincere as that of the 
 well-bred Spaniards. But of well-bred 
 Spaniards, as of well-bred people of 
 every country, there is only a limited 
 number. They are not all in the smart 
 set, however, for a veneer of manners 
 and mannerisms does not always make 
 a true man. The smart set of Madrid 
 is but a reproduction of the smart set 
 of New York on a somewhat smaller 
 scale. There are the same "dudes" 
 dressed in London clothes lounging in 
 the clubs, and the same silly women 
 craving admiration and thirsting for 
 excitement, the same heart-burnings, the 
 same scandals, the same assumption of 
 superiority to the rest of mankind, the 
 same frittering away of time and money, 
 with the sole difference that the people 
 are talking pure Spanish instead of imi- 
 tation English. That is, most of them 
 are talking pure Spanish; but even in 
 4' 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Madrid one or two of the smartest of the 
 smart go to the extent of speaking 
 Spanish with an English accent. Anglo- 
 mania is not confined to Manhattan 
 Island. The people of this smart set are 
 extremely intimate and clannish, but on 
 the whole they are preferable to those 
 at home, for there is much more basis 
 for their pretention and much less pre- 
 sumption in their manner. 
 
 Spaniards do not eat and drink as 
 much as Anglo-Saxons and this is a point 
 in their favor. Dinners are not as fre- 
 quent as with us except at the foreign 
 embassies, and those that are given are 
 rather informal, and among intimate 
 friends, and the diplomats complain 
 bitterly of this as a lack of hospitality. 
 There are of course some houses where 
 you dine, as you would in London, but 
 as a general rule the Spaniard is not 
 given to table hospitality. He has his 
 carriage, his box at the opera, his palace 
 always with an imposing staircase but 
 last of all a French cook. To show 
 42 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 what a small part eating plays in the life 
 of the Spaniard, it is only necessary to 
 state that Madrid does not possess a 
 single restaurant up to the French or 
 American standard. Even at balls and 
 receptions, the refreshments are usually 
 of a meagre nature: some cakes, some 
 lemonade, probably a decanter or so of 
 sherry ; but a hot supper served in courses 
 and with unlimited champagne, would 
 not appeal to the Spaniards, and the 
 diplomats are left to mourn its absence, 
 except when an embassy entertains. 
 How the Anglo-Saxon overfeeds! It is 
 a pity this simplicity could not be 
 adopted elsewhere. However, one must 
 confess that simplicity in the manner of 
 Spanish eating is not universal. 
 
 No Spaniard is more widely known 
 than Don Emilio Castelar, late president 
 of the short-lived Spanish Republic, the 
 most famous of Spanish contemporary 
 writers, the most sincere of her states- 
 men; for, regardless of personal conse- 
 quences, he has ever maintained a con- 
 43 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 sistent course, upholding the principles 
 he deems to be right even to the extent 
 of alienating himself from the Republican 
 party of his own creation, when that 
 party began to verge toward socialism. 
 He is a Spaniard first, last, and always, 
 and he lives as a Spaniard, in a modest 
 bachelor apartment, surrounded by rare 
 art objects and the books of his choice. 
 Being a Republican he has never put foot 
 inside the palace, yet he has accepted the 
 monarchy as for the best interests of 
 Spain, but only because the monarchy 
 has accepted religious and political lib- 
 erty, the principles for which he has 
 always struggled. Don Emilio's pride 
 is his cuisine, but even here his patriot- 
 ism reigns as in everything. His cook is 
 Spanish, every dish which finds its way 
 to his table is Spanish, and his wines are 
 of the choicest Spanish vintages. One 
 recalls a luncheon at his hospitable 
 board, which was certainly not open to 
 the charge of scantiness. Seventeen 
 dishes, all Spanish, washed down with 
 44 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 > 
 
 the choicest of the Peninsula's wines. 
 One cannot begin to remember the 
 sequence of these viands, but all were 
 unique and each had a flavor which was 
 truly of the country. And what a 
 charming host ! How earnestly he talked, 
 his words flowing with the rhythm of the 
 born orator in the most sonorous of Cas- 
 tillian. He spoke with bitterness of the 
 American attitude toward Cuba his 
 face coloring with indignation, his words 
 emphasized with impatient gestures. 
 "How is it possible," he asked, "that 
 the United States can be so ungrateful to 
 the land which gave it birth? Spain is the 
 mother of America, and this is the base 
 ingratitude of her child. You do not 
 know us there. We have more liberty 
 than England. What did we do in Spain 
 at the time of the Republic? We de- 
 clared universal suffrage, religious and 
 political freedom, and manumitted the 
 slaves of Cuba. All these blessings and 
 more remain to us. It is a shame, a 
 slander, that the people of America 
 45 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 should call us cruel and unenlightened. 
 Spain will fight for Cuba until the last 
 drop of her blood is spilt; her honor 
 demands it." He talked so fast and so 
 earnestly that one could scarcely follow 
 him, but his heart was in his words. It 
 was a patriot speaking, a man whose soul 
 was in his country. 
 
 But all the public men of Spain have a 
 charming manner which some of our own 
 politicians would do well to cultivate. 
 Spaniards from the highest to the lowest 
 are invariably gracious. Some of the 
 Spanish leaders, however, affect a certain 
 Jeffersonian simplicity which seems 
 familiar. Don Praxedes Sagasta, for 
 instance, the leader of the Liberal party, 
 several times premier, Knight of the 
 Golden Fleece, and one of the great men 
 of Spain, lives most modestly in a second- 
 floor apartment in the Carrera San Gero- 
 nimo. Calling one afternoon with a 
 friend, we found him in a conference 
 with some of his political lieutenants. 
 The impression he produces is that of a 
 46 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 strong man who thoroughly understands 
 the game of politics. The lines of his 
 face are deep and well defined; he has 
 thick, determined lips, and his shaggy 
 gray hair and beard are almost Ibsen- 
 esque. Rather careless in the matter of 
 dress, and decidedly democratic in his 
 surroundings, he has all the politeness of 
 the true Spaniard. His manner of 
 speaking is quiet and precise, and he 
 seems to have the same wonderful 
 knowledge of men and their ways which 
 characterized the late Mr. Elaine. Seftor 
 Sagasta is an adroit political leader with 
 a strong following and one felt, in 
 talking with him, the forcible charm of 
 the successful man of state. He was 
 more guarded, too, than Castelar, and 
 seemed less guided by sentiment; in 
 short, more cautious. 
 
 Senor Canovas, the present prime 
 minister, has been so much before the 
 American public of late that he needs no 
 mention. His clear statement of Spain's 
 attitude in the Cuban difficulty, and his 
 47 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 earnest but dignified efforts to avert 
 hostilities should recommend him to all 
 Americans but jingoes. But the states- 
 man who seems to have the most 
 thorough knowledge of the politics of 
 the world is Sefior Moret y Prendergast, 
 deputy for Zaragoza, and minister of 
 foreign affairs in the late Liberal cabi- 
 net, a distinguished writer and an orator 
 of rare ability. He speaks English 
 fluently, and understands the Anglo- 
 Saxon character thoroughly, even to a 
 keen appreciation of the jokes in 
 "Puck." Sefior Moret is president of 
 the Athenaeum, a literary and artistic 
 club of seven hundred members, owning 
 an imposing building supplied with a 
 capital library and a large conference 
 hall, where from time to time distin- 
 guished speakers address the members 
 on political and literary subjects. On 
 the evening we visited the Athenaeum, 
 Sefior Silvela delivered an address on 
 parliamentary government. This speaker 
 is one of the famous men of Spain law- 
 4 8 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 yer, writer and statesman ; a conservative, 
 but one who is not at present in sym- 
 pathy with his party leader. His de- 
 livery was charming. He spoke for 
 one hour without a single note, each 
 sentence perfectly rounded, each word 
 distinctly pronounced, and all accen- 
 tuated with easy, graceful gestures. His 
 manner in conversation was so cordial 
 and simple, and he seemed so pleased 
 with our expressions of appreciation, 
 that even in a few moments' chat he 
 gave the impression of being what the 
 Spaniards call "muy simpatico. " 
 
 But it is impossible within the limits 
 of this chapter to speak of the many 
 interesting people you meet during a 
 visit to Madrid. There is a group of 
 Spanish writers, represented by Eche- 
 garay, the Spanish Ibsen, and Perez 
 Galdos, the novelist. They mix but 
 little with the social world; but Don 
 Juan Valera, the author of such charm- 
 ing stories as "Pepita Ximenez," and 
 "Dona Luz," is to be met occasionally 
 49 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 at the foreign embassies, for besides 
 being distinguished as a novelist and 
 historian, he has had a successful 
 diplomatic career. Senor Valera, in his 
 own study surrounded by his books, 
 seems the perfect type of the man of 
 letters. He has a keen interest in the 
 work of American writers, as he was at 
 one time minister at Washington. He 
 speaks English but little, yet his knowl- 
 edge of our literature is very extended. 
 Progressive womanhood, too, has its 
 representative in Senora Emilia Pardo 
 Bazan, a clever and prolific novelist of 
 the French school, whose works have 
 been translated into English, and who 
 has a distinct place in Spanish contem- 
 poraneous literature. She stands some- 
 what alone, however, as the new woman 
 has not found her way to Spain, and 
 Spanish women are content to remain 
 in the useful sphere for which nature cre- 
 ated them. The life of Madrid, how- 
 ever, centres in the Court. Men of let- 
 ters are merely a side issue. 
 50 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 Spain has been cursed by generations 
 of bad kings and queens, each adding to 
 the ruin of the country ; but at last the 
 Peninsula has a ruler who commands 
 admiration and respect. Her Majesty 
 Queen Maria Christina, the regent, is a 
 true woman, dignified and tactful, and 
 when one is presented to her he feels the 
 force of the word queenly, that being 
 exactly the word which describes her in 
 manner, in figure, and in bearing. 
 
 At the private audiences occasionally 
 granted at the request of an ambassador 
 or minister, after passing through the 
 antechamber and the chamber, you are 
 ushered into the royal presence by the 
 introducer of ambassadors. The queen 
 receives you in a small room not unlike 
 the reception-room of an American 
 house. Except for the bowing low and 
 backing out of the royal presence every- 
 thing is most informal. You are invited 
 to -sit down, and permitted an interview 
 of a few minutes. Her Majesty asks 
 questions about various topics she thinks 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of interest, and then to signify that the 
 audience is over, she rises and you retire, 
 with numerous low bows, careful that 
 your back is ever toward the door. 
 Then the dapper little introducer of am- 
 bassadors, radiant in blue and gold, silk 
 stockings and breeches, takes you 
 through a series of gorgeous rooms, 
 where the walls are resplendent with 
 tapestries and the portraits of Bourbons, 
 to the apartments of the Infanta Isabel. 
 This princess is the elder sister of the 
 Infanta Eulalia whose name is so famil- 
 iar to Americans. The latter of recent 
 years has passed little of her time in 
 Madrid, or even in Spain, so her elder 
 sister is perhaps the most popular of 
 Spanish royalties, because she is not only 
 Spanish in her tastes, but has the mar- 
 velous faculty of never forgetting a 
 face. Those whom the Infanta Isabel 
 has once met she never forgets, and in 
 the park, the opera, or wherever it is, if 
 she sees you she greets you with a charm- 
 ing bow which makes one feel that he 
 52 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 has a recognized place in her memory. 
 She is a thorough sportswoman, too, 
 inured to the saddle, and in the moun- 
 tains around La Granja, where she 
 passes the summer, often rides so hard 
 that her suite are tempted to cry mercy. 
 The Infanta Isabel receives in the same 
 informal manner as the queen, but one 
 feels perhaps a little more like talking 
 freely here than in the more constrain- 
 ing presence of the regent. 
 
 Yet all the ceremonies of the Spanish 
 court are not so simple. On the gala 
 days, such as the Day of His Majesty, 
 the twenty-third of January, the queen 
 holds a levee, with all the ceremony the 
 most exacting could demand. The pal- 
 ace of Madrid is one of the most magnifi- 
 cent in the world, and is in every sense 
 a royal residence. It was built by Philip 
 V. after the burning of the old Alcazar 
 in 1734, with the intention of rivalling 
 Versailles. How well this attempt suc- 
 ceeded may be judged by Napoleon's 
 remarking to his brother Joseph, as the 
 53 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 two Corsican usurpers mounted the 
 grand staircase for the first time : * ' Vous 
 serez mieux loge's que moi. " That lodg- 
 ing was but temporary and never se- 
 cure, for the Spaniard is not an easy 
 creature, even for a Napoleon, to trample 
 on. No more imposing sight could be 
 imagined than that grand staircase on a 
 gala day, when it is lined with a double 
 row of halberdiers in their Louis XIV. 
 uniforms, and the great dignitaries of 
 the country are ascending the steps, 
 gorgeous in red and blue and gold and 
 waving plumes, their breasts weighted 
 with the glittering baubles foreigners 
 love so well. But the deputations from 
 the senate and the house, each preceded 
 by four mace-bearers, form a strange 
 contrast in their evening dress, to the 
 glittering officials of the royal household, 
 and it is amusing to watch the swagger- 
 ing, democratic air of some of the depu- 
 ties of the Left, as they stride up the 
 stairs with a boorish attempt to show 
 their contempt for royalty. It is cus- 
 54 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 ternary to uncover at the first landing of 
 the stairs, but these deputies of demo- 
 cratic tendencies swagger up to the door 
 of the throne-room itself with their hats 
 on the back of their heads, in a manner 
 which would do credit to a Tammany 
 politician. And this is courtly Spain. 
 The government and the different em- 
 bassies and legations enter before the 
 others and take their places in the 
 throne-room. Following come the pro- 
 vincial deputations: Ayuntamiento, the 
 clergy, the Consejo de Estado, or 
 supreme court, the Maestranzas, mili- 
 tary orders, the officers of the army 
 and navy, and everyone who has an 
 official position at court. It is a brilliant 
 kaleidoscope of gorgeousness long to be 
 remembered. 
 
 The damas and gentiles hombres y or 
 ladies and gentlemen in waiting, await 
 the queen in the Ante-"Camara. " The 
 Infanta Isabel comes from her rooms to 
 the "Camara," as do the other members 
 of the royal family who are in Madrid. 
 55 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Then the queen and the little king appear, 
 and the court makes obeisance. The 
 cortege is formed, the gentil hombre de 
 servicio, the guard of halberdiers, the 
 mayor domo de semana, the grandees, the 
 king and queen, the Infanta Isabel, and 
 the damas, and then the whole procession 
 proceeds to the throne-room. There the 
 little king, dressed on this particular 
 occasion in the uniform of a private sol- 
 dier with the collar of the Golden Fleece, 
 to do honor to the army, sits on the 
 right, the queen regent on his left. 
 Standing on the dais of the throne, but 
 behind, are the jefe superior del palacio, 
 the mayor domo mayor, and the gentil 
 hombre de servicio. Opposite the throne 
 are the government and diplomatic 
 corps, to the right the grandees, headed 
 by the Duke of Sessa, to the left the 
 damas, but the wives of the diplomats 
 are gathered in an anteroom. When all 
 are in their places, the deputation of the 
 senate enters, and the president makes 
 an address, to which the queen replies. 
 56 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 The delegation of the deputies do the 
 same, and then all the various bodies we 
 have seen coming up the stairs file 
 through and make obeisance. 
 
 When all have passed, the cortege is 
 formed as before, and the queen enters 
 the Ante-Camara to greet the ladies of 
 the diplomatic corps. They are stand- 
 ing in two lines, and the queen passes 
 slowly by while they curtesy. She stops 
 occasionally to speak to those she wishes 
 particularly to favor. Then, when that 
 ceremony is over, she passes on into the 
 Camara and receives the private house- 
 hold which means the ladies' maids, 
 the jefe de alabarderos, and the Mon- 
 teros de Espinosas, a privileged corps 
 who have the special duty of guarding 
 the king while he sleeps. They all kiss 
 her hand, and she then retires for a short 
 rest before the state banquet. 
 
 None but the ministry, the grandees, 
 
 the gentiles hombres, the Knights of the 
 
 Golden Fleece, the president of the 
 
 Consejo de Estado, the presidents of 
 
 57 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 the two chambers, the governor of the 
 province, the alcaide of Madrid, the arch- 
 bishop of Toledo, the archbishop of Ma- 
 drid, and the wives of these dignitaries, 
 are bidden to this feast. Formerly the 
 foreign ambassadors and ministers were 
 invited, but they have quarreled with the 
 grandees about precedence, and now 
 they are invited to a separate banquet 
 held in their honor. The scene, judging 
 by a view obtained of the banquet hall a 
 few moments before the arrival of the 
 guests, must be of unusual brilliance. 
 The room was ablaze with the light of 
 six crystal chandeliers and a hundred 
 silver candelabra. There was a profu- 
 sion of orchids and violets and lilies of 
 the valley, and garlands of pink and yel- 
 low roses; there were ferns and plants, 
 and glass and plate in dazzling array. 
 The ceiling glistened with white and 
 gold, the walls were hung with tapes- 
 tries, an army of powdered flunkeys with 
 coats of blue and gold and stockings of 
 crimson silk, awaited the coming of the 
 58 
 
The Capital of Spain 
 
 guests, and strangest of all, two tooth- 
 picks were arranged at each place, for 
 the Spaniard must pick his teeth, even in 
 the presence of his sovereign. 
 
 On that night a double row of ser- 
 vants lined the grand stairs, and halber- 
 diers pounded the staffs of their halberds 
 on the stone floor as each grandee of 
 Spain passed up. One viewed it all 
 from a neighboring balcony, the glitter- 
 ing uniforms, the tinsel and the pomp, 
 and thought of another event of which 
 those stairs had been the scene. It was 
 in the early years of the troublous reign 
 of Queen Isabel II. Two generals, 
 Diego Leon, and Concha instigated by 
 Queen Christina, had concerted a plot 
 to carry off the young sovereign. Con- 
 cha presented himself at the palace and 
 gained an entrance for himself and a 
 troop of soldiers by the connivance of an 
 officer of the outer guard who was in the 
 plot. There were but eighteen halberd- 
 iers on guard, but under their leader 
 Don Domingo Dulce, they advanced and 
 59 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 tried to parley. They were answered by 
 bullets. A struggle ensued, the halberd- 
 iers fighting on the stairs held their 
 ground. Concha was repulsed. Leon 
 arrived too late. The conspirators fled; 
 but Leon was captured and shot for his 
 treachery. He was young and hand- 
 some, and the queen who heard it all 
 too late to stay the execution, has ever 
 kept his cross of Saint Hermergildo 
 pierced by three bullets. It was but one 
 of the many romances of her romantic 
 life. The times have changed, but who 
 can tell how soon those palace stairs 
 may again run red with blood? The 
 times have changed, but as long as 
 there are kings and queens there must 
 be palace plots and intrigues. 
 
Spanish Society. 
 
 SPANIARDS are probably less under- 
 stood in America than any people 
 of Europe. In fact, the popular concep- 
 tion of the Spaniard is of a sinister 
 scoundrel wrapped in a cloak, who 
 smokes cigarettes and commits dark 
 deeds a sort of comic opera villain 
 whose passion is cruelty. This absurd- 
 ity is fully equalled by the Spanish im- 
 pression of Americans or "Los Yan- 
 kees," as they call us. They look 
 npon us as a species of plutocratic bar- 
 barians, whose sole merit lies in our dol- 
 lars, whose manners are boorish, and 
 whose government is the most corrupt 
 and most overbearing in the world. It 
 is not always pleasant to see ourselves as 
 others see us, and when one reads in 
 Spanish papers that the United States 
 61 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 is a country without principle or relig- 
 ion, without manliness or bravery, where 
 negroes are roasted alive and Italians 
 lynched in the public streets, where 
 Chinamen are persecuted and strikes are 
 prevalent, where anarchists are govern- 
 ors of states, and personal liberty is 
 unknown, one resents the tirade and 
 feels the jingo spirit surging in one's 
 heart. 
 
 As a matter of fact the Spanish con- 
 ception of the American is merely an ex- 
 aggeration of the national faults; just 
 as our idea of the Spaniard is a miscon- 
 ception of his character formed by mag- 
 nifying his vices at the expense of his 
 virtues. Human nature is much the 
 same the world over, and the Spaniard is 
 very much like other men, save that he 
 is down on his luck. Like most people 
 who have known prosperity, he finds it 
 difficult to appreciate his circumscribed 
 position, and is wont to survey himself 
 from the magnificent standpoint of his 
 former achievements. 
 62 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 The most pitiful person in the world, 
 the one who most excites our sympa- 
 thies, is the poor but proud aristocrat, 
 the decayed gentleman who has seen 
 better days, and having fallen dwells on 
 the glories of his past instead of strug- 
 gling to rise again. Spain is a nation of 
 poor but proud aristocrats, and its gov- 
 ernment, like its people, has been strug- 
 gling for years to keep up appearances, 
 and retain the haughty position it once 
 held in the society of nations. To retain 
 its prominence it has been living beyond 
 its means, and as in the case of many a 
 patrician who has struggled to the same 
 end, bankruptcy and ruin are the result. 
 
 If the Spaniards had had the moral 
 courage to retire quietly from the "smart 
 society" of nations and live within their 
 means, they might long since have been 
 able to regain the prominence they 
 covet. But nations, like individuals, do 
 not foresee disaster in time ; they are car- 
 ried on in the feverish current of ambi- 
 tion until ruined by extravagance. A 
 63 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 man may know his faults, may realize 
 his mistakes, yet lack the moral courage 
 to reform ; he may be carried by his pas- 
 sions to the bittter end of destiny, real- 
 izing meanwhile the ruin which awaits 
 him. That is the position of Spain. 
 Let us pity rather than condemn. 
 
 The Spaniards are not comic opera 
 villains, they are a chivalrous, warm- 
 blooded people, having their faults as 
 we have ours, and their chief fault is 
 overweening pride. This pride is the 
 prevailing passion of the individual as 
 of the nation ; it dominates society as it 
 does the land. Pride is so thoroughly 
 the ruling passion of the Spaniard 
 that Spanish society is to a great extent 
 a game of innocent deception. To keep 
 up appearances a Spanish family will 
 make any sacrifice, and the consequence 
 is that social life becomes an outward 
 show, intended to disguise financial em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 There are two things absolutely neces- 
 sary to the maintenance of social posi- 
 6 4 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 tion in Spain, a carriage and an opera 
 box, and it is extraordinary how much 
 satisfaction a Spanish family derives 
 from these luxuries. The first necessi- 
 ties of an Anglo-Saxon are a comfortable 
 house and a good cook; in Spain only 
 the very rich have either, but the dis- 
 play of equipages in the Retire excels 
 the similar show in Central Park; the 
 opera in Madrid is as fine a sight 
 as the opera in New York. An Anglo- 
 Saxon invites a stranger to dine; a 
 Spaniard takes him to drive, or to 
 the opera. The hospitality is none the 
 less though in a different form. 
 
 The society of a capital is always cos- 
 mopolitan. There are the diplomatic 
 corps, the visiting foreigners, and the 
 host of government officials to annul in 
 a measure the national characteristics. 
 The society of Madrid is no exception to 
 the rule. It is cosmopolitan, but not to 
 so great an extent as that of London or 
 Paris. Nearly all the Spaniards of 
 wealth live in Madrid, or visit there 
 
 65 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 during a portion of the year. The city, 
 except in the summer months, wears a 
 holiday aspect; there is a continuous 
 roll of carriages along the street of Al- 
 cala and the Carrera San Geronimo ; the 
 shops are filled with French and English 
 novelties, and the smartly dressed peo- 
 ple who come and go wear French gowns 
 or London made clothes. It is fre- 
 quently said that Paris is not France; 
 Madrid is certainly not Spain. The peo- 
 ple one meets in society are of the class 
 found in every capital. They are states- 
 men, soldiers, diplomats, or what are 
 vulgarly termed " smart people." Au- 
 thors, painters, and especially actors, play 
 minor parts, for the Spaniard still re- 
 gards the Bohemian in the light of an 
 outcast. 
 
 The society of Madrid is small com- 
 paratively, but it is extremely active. 
 The people are ever on the go, and they 
 are intimate to a degree unknown in 
 London. They are very clannish too, 
 and do not receive foreigners with the 
 66 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 open arms of a New Yorker. If Madrid 
 were bereft of the foreign embassies and 
 the entertainments given by the diplo- 
 mats, there would be a marvelous de- 
 preciation in the gaiety of the city; but 
 in spite of all the foreigners do, only a 
 limited few seem to be received within 
 the esoteric temples of the " smart set." 
 It is interesting to note how different 
 are the faces at an official entertainment 
 and at a private dance, where people are 
 invited for themselves and not for their 
 positions ; but after all the same pertains 
 to Washington. 
 
 Dances are the joy of the Madrilenas 
 and to their credit be it said that they 
 dance more like Americans than any 
 other people of Europe. They go at it 
 with a dash and a vim not at all in keep- 
 ing with their supposed dignity. The first 
 dance one attended in Madrid was a small 
 informal affair, with not more than fifty 
 or sixty people present, all intimate 
 friends. A single pianist supplied the 
 music, and as one entered the room the 
 67 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 familiar notes of " Daisy Bell" rolled 
 from the keys. The people were waltzing 
 in the American way that is to say, re- 
 versing; they were romping too, and 
 many of them were singing the words of 
 the song it seemed like home. Some- 
 times the levity of the Spaniards takes a 
 childish form, as on that occasion three 
 young swells amused themselves by pur- 
 loining a couple of dozen hats belonging 
 to the guests, which they proceeded to 
 throw from a theatre box to a popular 
 opera bouffe artist. The guests were 
 left to go home in shooting caps, paper 
 caps, mufflers, or even bareheaded, and 
 as some of them did not relish the humor 
 of the joke a series of duels was but 
 narrowly averted. 
 
 The few houses where dinners are 
 given might well be in London or Paris. 
 The appointments are the same, the 
 guests look, dress and talk the same, 
 the only difference being that the gossip 
 and scandalous stories are about differ- 
 ent people. If one knew the people by 
 68 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 name the same stories would be appli- 
 cable, as the Madrilenas, judging by 
 the gossip, are evidently no better or no 
 worse than Londoners or Parisians. 
 There is great familiarity in the use of 
 the Christian name, and men and women 
 of all ages call each other Pepita, Car- 
 men, Maria, Pepe, Gonzalo, or whatever 
 their prenomens may be, with an inti- 
 macy scarcely equalled in our American 
 country towns. 
 
 A society will be dazzling, witty or 
 corrupt, according to the beauty, intelli- 
 gence and morality of its women. 
 Judged by this standard the society of 
 Madrid, though one hesitates to say it 
 boldly, appears somewhat mediocre. 
 The women of Spain are often extremely 
 beautiful, but it is among the lower classes 
 rather than the upper, that real beauty 
 is most often found. A Spanish woman 
 reaches her prime at fifteen or sixteen, 
 but she ages quickly, and usually devel- 
 ops a tendency to corpulency. Her edu- 
 cation is not of a character tending to 
 69 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 develop her mental powers. She is 
 brought up to be a wife and a mother, 
 and her studies are of the most rudimen- 
 tary nature. In religion, however, her 
 instruction is most careful, but she is not 
 permitted to think for herself. The 
 priest is the supreme guardian of her 
 conscience, and she is so thoroughly 
 grounded in the tenets of Romanism that 
 she usually becomes a devotionist. The 
 Spanish women have delightful manners ; 
 they are thoroughly feminine and charm- 
 ing, but they read very little, and seem 
 quite incapable of discussing the affairs 
 of the world as do their Anglo-Saxon 
 sisters. The women of Madrid, how- 
 ever, seem to be deeply interested in 
 court intrigue and are violent political 
 partisans; but the new woman is an un- 
 known quantity, and such societies as 
 the Sorosis are undreamt of. 
 
 Of home life among the Spaniards, there 
 
 seems to be quite as much as, if not more 
 
 than, with us. The family ties are very 
 
 strong, and there is more parental rever- 
 
 70 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 ence than among Americans. The Span- 
 ish families are perhaps more comparable 
 to the French, with this exception: filial 
 love and parental affection are not the 
 all-absorbing passions. Spanish young 
 men and girls are permitted more lati- 
 tude in the matter of love-making than 
 the French, though they are hampered 
 by conventionalities unknown in Saxon 
 lands. Love matches are common, but 
 the lovers are not allowed the privilege 
 of seclusion from the eyes of the world. 
 They meet at the theatre, at dances, in 
 the park, or wherever society congre- 
 gates, but they must be ever under the 
 eye of a duefia. The wishes of contract- 
 ing parties to marriages are, however, 
 more generally consulted than in France, 
 and engagements are frequently of very 
 long duration. Spanish girls are rather 
 sentimental in their ideas of love. Mar- 
 riage is a favorite topic of their conver- 
 sation. It is the one event of their 
 lives, to which they look forward for 
 it means to a great extent emancipation. 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 But the married women do not have the 
 liberty of American wives; they must 
 be much more guarded in their actions, 
 and the husband is the ruler of the 
 household. Spaniards say that the lib- 
 erty accorded American women would 
 be impossible in Spain the blood flows 
 too warmly there scandal would surely 
 ensue. 
 
 The traditions of Spain are all mon- 
 archical ; the nobility have great power 
 and influence, and the possession of a 
 title is almost a sine qua non of social 
 distinction. The Spanish nobility is 
 more comparable to that of England 
 than to the nobility of other European 
 countries, but it has a distinctive feature 
 of its own in the "Grandees of Spain." 
 Grandees are nobles to whom special 
 hereditary privileges have been granted. 
 Those having an annual rental from 
 land of $10,000 sit in the senate, and all 
 grandees have the curious privilege of 
 remaining covered in the presence of the 
 sovereign. As "cousins" of the king 
 72 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 they take precedence of the diplomatic 
 corps, but this has given rise to such 
 vigorous protest on the part of the diplo- 
 mats that separate state banquets are 
 given for the ambassadors and the 
 grandees. A grandee in uniform wears 
 a gold key over the right hip, as a sign 
 that he may enter the palace and confer 
 with his sovereign at any time. It is his 
 most cherished privilege, and one which 
 the monarch is bound to regard. When a 
 grandee passes a palace guard, he is 
 saluted by a sharp pound of the halberd 
 upon the marble floor. These special 
 privileges date from the reign of the em- 
 peror Charles V. who created twelve 
 grandees. The number, having been in- 
 creased by successive monarchs, is now 
 much larger, although but a small por- 
 tion of the nobility are grandees. The 
 privileges of grandees are confined to 
 the higher nobility, as none of the vis- 
 counts or barons are grandees (except 
 in the case of the Duke of Infantado, 
 who has two baronial titles with gran- 
 73 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 deza privileges), and but one in ten of 
 the thousand marquises, and seven hun- 
 dred odd counts wear the coveted gold- 
 en key; while all of the hundred and 
 nine ducal titles carry with them the 
 privileges and honors of a Grandee of 
 Spain. Spanish titles, like the English, 
 descend to the eldest son, and the heir 
 to a grandeeship has no especial appella- 
 tion beyond that of excellency. The 
 Spaniards regard their nobility as second 
 to none in lineage, but although a few 
 of the titles date to the early part of the 
 fifteenth century, and one or two to the 
 fourteenth, it is nevertheless a fact that 
 about one-third of the Spanish titles 
 have been created in the present century. 
 There is a curious fact in relation to 
 Spanish titles which may be of great in- 
 terest to unmarried American million- 
 aires anxious to emulate the example set 
 by our heiresses. Titles not only de- 
 scend through the female line, but a 
 man upon marrying a titled woman im- 
 mediately assumes his wife's title. There 
 74 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 is at least one unmarried duchess in 
 Spain and several marchionesses. An 
 American upon marrying a duchess 
 would be created a duke and a grandee, 
 and by purchasing a property with an 
 annual rental of ten thousand dollars 
 would have a seat for life in the senate 
 what an opportunity for some New 
 Yorker. 
 
 There is probably no court in Europe 
 where there is more etiquette than at the 
 court of Spain. To an American who 
 views ""the bowings and scrapings, and 
 endless red tape, it all seems such a 
 waste of valuable time, such a sham and 
 mockery, that republican institutions, in 
 spite of their faults, stand out in honor- 
 able contrast. Yet a monarchy is suited 
 to the Spanish character. One doubts 
 if a republic could thrive among a peo- 
 ple so proud, so excitable, and withal, 
 so ignorant. 
 
 Spaniards are not what Dr. Johnson 
 termed "clubable" men; they have 
 their clubs, but in most instances they 
 75 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 are like those of France, that is to say, 
 gambling houses, with restricted mem- 
 bership. Roulette and baccarat flourish, 
 and the place most frequented is the 
 gaming-room. However, the most ex- 
 clusive club in Madrid does not permit 
 games of chance. In the matter of build- 
 ings, the clubs of Madrid are inferior 
 to those of the provinces, as the pride 
 of a provincial city is its casino, or club. 
 In Cordova, for instance, the casino is a 
 most elaborate affair, covering a large 
 area, and supplied with accommodations 
 ample for a city of twice the size. In 
 Seville, too, there are several clubs in 
 the Sierpes with creditable buildings, 
 while the most exclusive club in Madrid 
 occupies a small portion of an apartment 
 house, and is in no way remarkable for 
 its equipment. There are a few large 
 clubs in the capital, with handsome build- 
 ings, but the membership of such insti- 
 tutions is selected rather casually, and 
 the social standing is not high. There is 
 a "Fine Arts" club, composed princi- 
 76 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 pally of artists and literary men, and 
 several military casinos, but only one 
 club in Madrid seemed at all comparable 
 to the best clubs of London, Paris or New 
 York. It is frequented by the most 
 fashionable young men and the best 
 known diplomats. But it was in no way 
 Spanish; in fact French and English 
 were spoken there more frequently than 
 the language of the country. Another 
 club is more thoroughly typical of the 
 country. It is fashionable to a great 
 extent, but there is a free and easy 
 air about the place which is rather re- 
 freshing. Strange caricatures of the 
 prominent members have been drawn 
 upon the walls, and the habitues seem 
 thoroughly at home. It also occupies 
 but a portion of an apartment building, 
 but there is much originality in the dec- 
 oration and furnishing of the rooms. 
 Unfortunately gambling is permitted 
 and the green tables are surrounded by 
 flushed and anxious faces. 
 
 As has been said, Madrid is not Spain. 
 77 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 In the provinces society is typical of the 
 country; it is more dignified, and neces- 
 sarily more dull. The provincial nobil- 
 ity are abnormally proud, and it is in the 
 smaller cities that one meets Spaniards 
 whose bearing is that of the hidalgo of 
 romance. In Seville, for instance, the 
 third city of Spain, and socially the sec- 
 ond, there is a dullness in the social life 
 that is apparent even to the casual visi- 
 tor. The people drive in state in the 
 afternoon, they go to the opera jiight 
 after night, but that is all. On fete 
 days they visit each other, but dances 
 and dinners are so rare that a supper 
 party given during the time of one's visit 
 was discussed with the interest that a 
 state ball would have created in Madrid. 
 In the provinces, too, the desire to keep 
 up appearances is more noticeable. Peo- 
 ple economize in the household expenses 
 to the smallest item, in order that their 
 names may appear among the box hold- 
 ers at the opera. It is even said that 
 the women driving in the park are some- 
 78 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 times fashionably dressed above the 
 waist, while a carriage-rug covers well- 
 worn apparel. Such stories are told by 
 Spaniards themselves; their reliability 
 one does not vouch for, but one cannot 
 fail to notice the elaborate excuses of- 
 fered for not extending dinner invita- 
 tions. But withal there are no people 
 more courteous and hospitable than the 
 Spaniards. They will go to infinite 
 pains to pay the smallest attention to a 
 stranger; will even tramp from church 
 to church, and gallery to gallery, in en- 
 deavoring to show one the sights; they 
 will take you shopping, call at your 
 hotel twice a day to offer their services, 
 and in short, do a thousand and one 
 things no Anglo-Saxon would ever dream 
 of. 
 
 The Spaniard may be overweening 
 in his pride, but he is overpowering 
 in his courtesy. An Englishman or an 
 American will dismiss a stranger with a 
 dinner, and feel that he has done his 
 duty; a Spaniard will avoid giving such 
 79 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 an invitation by every possible excuse, 
 because his pride prevents his extending 
 hospitality for which his means are inad- 
 equate ; but he will send you flowers and 
 take you to drive each day of your visit; 
 he will bestow countless little attentions, 
 and show a real interest in your welfare, 
 and a desire to please, which make you 
 feel that his hospitality is not perfunc- 
 tory. When you part from him you feel 
 that you have parted from a friend. 
 There are little courtesies of ordinary 
 occurrence in Spain which contrast forci- 
 bly with Anglo-Saxon boorishness. For 
 instance, no one enters a railway car- 
 riage without bowing to every occupant, 
 and on leaving the same ceremony is 
 gone through with. On taking one's 
 seat at a hotel table it is customary to 
 salute each of the guests, and on leav- 
 ing one does the same. Upon enter- 
 ing a shop you greet the shopkeeper, and 
 when leaving "God be with you," or 
 "May all be well with you," are the 
 words he utters, even if you have failed 
 80 
 
Spanish Society 
 
 to make a purchase. It is only in com- 
 mercial Barcelona that anything com- 
 parable to incivility is apparent, and 
 Barcelona is the home of socialism and 
 anarchy; its society is composed of the 
 class of people the French call the 
 bourgeoisie. 
 
 The Spaniard is proud and apathetic 
 to a degree, but he has commendable 
 qualities as well. It is difficult to excuse 
 him to Americans because his character- 
 istics are the reverse of those most uni- 
 versally admired in this country. He is 
 not a * ' hustler" nor a money getter, and 
 he is open to the charge of cruelty in his 
 national sport; but even that is a matter 
 of education. One remembers distinctly 
 a young Spanish officer who had just 
 witnessed a Yale-Princeton football 
 game, saying that he considered the 
 sport barbarous and cruel, and totally 
 unfit for gentlemen. That same man 
 was an ardent "aficionado" of bull-fight- 
 ing. 
 
 There are no more enthusiastic patrons 
 81 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of the bull-ring in Madrid than many of 
 the foreign diplomats, and one remem- 
 bers clearly the secretary of the United 
 States legation stationed in Madrid at 
 the time of a former visit, saying that 
 he was an annual subscriber and had 
 not missed a '* Corrida" during his entire 
 term of office. After all the Spaniard is 
 what heaven has created him a proud, 
 sensitive and courteous creature, sincere 
 in his fidelity to his church, his country, 
 and his family; insincere perhaps in his 
 dealings with others; cruel as we under- 
 stand cruelty, indolent too; but never- 
 theless an average man, who has suffered 
 much in the school of adversity, and 
 whose future depends upon his ability to 
 profit by the lessons of the past. 
 
Seville the Fair. 
 
 FAIR and delicate as a maiden, a 
 city for delightful fancies, where 
 fountains trickle in shady courts and 
 oranges bloom, where the sun is ever 
 shining and the lover ever whispering at 
 the lattice of his mistress. That is Se- 
 ville, the gem of Andalusia, and Andalu- 
 sia means all that is fairest in Spain. It 
 is a city where white-walled houses with 
 hanging balconies and sloping roofs are 
 scattered gracefully about in bewildering 
 streets and lanes, with no more apparent 
 purpose than to be picturesque. 
 
 There are brilliant highways, where 
 the roll of carriages is heard and the 
 mules of tram cars clatter over the 
 stones. There are sleepy byways too, 
 with rows of dingy little shops, where 
 artisans are working and their wares are 
 83 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 displayed for sale, while mingled with 
 the hovels of the poor are the imposing 
 entrances of patrician houses where the 
 passer-by peers enviously through courts 
 with growing palms and marble columns 
 glistening in the sunlight. 
 
 He who has not seen Seville has not 
 seen a marvel (Quien no ha visto Sevilla 
 no ha visto maravilla) runs an Andalusian 
 proverb, but there is nothing marvelous 
 in Seville. It is dainty and graceful 
 with the delicacy of a piece of old lace, 
 or a rare bit of Dresden. Wherever one 
 turns there is color and beauty and grace 
 in outline; nothing seems inharmonious 
 unless it be the beggars, and even they 
 are picturesque. Only the cathedral, ris- 
 ing massive and grand in the centre of 
 the city, recalls the vicissitudes of his- 
 tory, and makes one remember that the 
 Phoenician and the Roman, the Visigoth 
 and Moor were each in turn masters of 
 Seville before the fires of the Inquisition 
 blazed in the public squares, or the 
 tramp of Napoleon's soldiers echoed 
 8 4 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 through the streets. On the site of this 
 cathedral a pagan temple and a Gothic 
 basilica, a Moorish mosque and another 
 Christian church have stood, and now in 
 the splendid pile of to-day the Moorish 
 and the Gothic, the Graeco-Roman and 
 the plateresque are blended, each in the 
 zenith of its strength. 
 
 This ponderous church stands sombre 
 and grey among the delicate houses of 
 Seville like an altar of death in the midst 
 of revelry. It is mighty and magnificent, 
 yet so unlike the gay cheerful city, that 
 one pauses to wonder whence it came. 
 Only the beautiful Giralda, with its 
 slender belfry and graceful Moorish 
 arches rising against the pale blue sky 
 seems to be of Seville; the rest is 
 solemn, one might even say repulsive, 
 were it not for its grandeur. Yet one 
 pauses to admire the splendid Gothic 
 portals with their sculptured saints and 
 patriarchs, or the light flying buttresses 
 which spring from nave to nave with the 
 profusion of pinnacles and domes above. 
 85 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Only when one enters does one appreci- 
 ate the harmony and unity of that edi- 
 fice. Other churches are chaste and 
 magnificent, and even grand, but the first 
 impression of the cathedral of Seville is 
 one of solemn reverence. There is a 
 severity and simplicity in those vast pro- 
 portions which is awe-inspiring, and 
 wandering through the lofty nave and 
 splendid chapels, with their gorgeous 
 gilt retablos and priceless works of art, 
 where sombre figures kneel in prayer, and 
 the chanting of priests echoes from the 
 walls, where candles glimmer and the 
 odor of incense fills the air, one knows 
 that it is the House of God. But that 
 is the impression of another visit. Part 
 of the roof fell in some ten years since, 
 and now huge scaffolding fills in the 
 greater portion of the church, and the 
 click of hammer and chisel is heard. 
 The work of restoration seems nearly 
 complete, but the slowness of Spanish 
 labor is such that four years must elapse 
 before the scaffolding can be removed. 
 86 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 This cathedral has its quota of the bones 
 of saints and pieces of the true cross ; 
 there are jewels and gold embroidered 
 vestments, the tombs of kings and the 
 mistresses of kings, and noble paintings 
 by the master hand of Murillo; but 
 churches grow gloomy and cold, and 
 sunlight fills the streets of Seville. 
 
 There is an old friend outside, one 
 you cannot exactly recall, but whose form 
 seems familiar. It is the Moorish 
 Giralda, once a watch tower, but now 
 the belfry of the cathedral. Somehow 
 your thoughts turn towards America and 
 you think of Madison Square, and the 
 Garden tower, and then you see a family 
 likeness in towers, not one that is objec- 
 tionable, however, or in the least dis- 
 creditable, for what grander inspiration 
 could an artist have than this tower of 
 Seville? 
 
 The bells above are clanging the hour 
 
 of vespers, and slowly climbing the gentle 
 
 incline which leads round and round 
 
 within the Giralda walls, you reach the 
 
 87 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 top in time to see the setting of the sun. 
 Below are the moss-grown domes and 
 countless pinnacles of the cathedral, and 
 then the white-walled houses of the city, 
 with their quaint tile roofs, lie in con- 
 fusion as though some child had over- 
 turned a box of play houses and left them 
 there as they had fallen. No streets are 
 visible except directly below, for the 
 streets are so narrow and irregular as to 
 be lost in the jumble of walls and roofs; 
 but rising above the tiles and whitewash 
 are the sombre belfries of churches, the 
 Plaza de Toros, the huge square tobacco 
 factory, and the Alcazar with its red Moor- 
 ish towers, and gardens where the Cyprus 
 and orange grow, and slender palms are 
 scattered in profusion. Then the Gua- 
 dalquivir winds like a silver serpent past 
 the wooded promenade they call "Las 
 Delicias," and the Torre del Oro now 
 truly golden in the fading sunlight. 
 Across the river, with its shipping and its 
 graceful bridges, lies Triana, the suburb 
 of gypsies and porcelain factories, where 
 88 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 Trajan is said to have been born, and 
 the worst spirits of the city congregate, 
 and beyond all, the green plain of Seville 
 rolls towards Cadiz and the sea, dotted 
 here and there with olive groves and 
 white pueblos. To the west, towards the 
 ancient port of Palos, the sun is setting 
 behind the foothills of the Sierra Morena. 
 The floating clouds above are golden, the 
 river glistens, deep shadows fall upon the 
 plain, and then, as the crimson sun sinks 
 behind the line of purple hills, the night 
 creeps chilly and dark across the Vega. 
 The bells above cease clanging, the 
 noises of the streets grow still, lights 
 twinkle here and there and everywhere, 
 and in the court below the black-robed 
 priests come and go in the twilight like 
 spirits of the dead. One might dream 
 there forever, but the blind guardian of 
 the tower jingles his bunch of keys 
 impatiently; the hour for closing has ar- 
 rived. Then you grope your way to the 
 earth again and stroll through the town. 
 The little shops are lighted, the narrow 
 89 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 streets are crowded, for it is the time of 
 the evening promenade, when all Seville 
 turns out to wander through the Sierpes; 
 all Seville wrapped in its capa or its 
 mantilla. 
 
 The Sierpes is a curious street, or lane, 
 or whatever it be, for it is narrow and 
 crooked, and it is closed to carriages. 
 The clubs and cafe's are there, and the 
 fashionable shops. People saunter there 
 in the daytime and they saunter there at 
 night. They lounge in the windows of 
 the clubs, and sip black coffee at the 
 marble tables of the cafe's, or they stroll 
 to and fro gazing at the trinkets from 
 Paris and London displayed in the shops. 
 Spaniards are never in a hurry. There 
 is a charming lack of energy about 
 them which, from an artistic standpoint, 
 is delightful. A man in a hurry is never 
 picturesque, whatever else he may be, 
 and to one accustomed to the bustling 
 streets of America it is a real pleasure 
 to mingle with a sauntering Spanish 
 crowd and watch the apparent indiffer- 
 90 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 ence with which they treat the affairs of 
 the world. From the grand seftor to the 
 beggar they walk with the same loitering 
 step, their graceful capas thrown about 
 their shoulders, their broad brimmed 
 hats poised easily upon their heads, a 
 cigarillo ever burning between their lips. 
 And the olive-skinned women, so beauti- 
 ful, but alas! so fat, amble by like 
 palfreys, and look at one with their dark, 
 soulful eyes, coquettishly perhaps, or 
 more often scornful. 
 
 But if you want to see lithe, quick 
 movements, you must drop into the 
 "Burero" and watch the dancing girls as 
 they dance the "baile flamenco" to the 
 twanging of guitars and the clapping of 
 hands. It is the resort of the people, 
 where crowds sit at the rough wooden 
 tables and sip their copas of manzanilla, 
 or aguardiente. From the gallery above 
 you look down upon the stage and 
 the people. It is like a picture by For- 
 tuny. Such strong effects of lights and 
 shadows such brilliant colors; there 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 are the bright shawls of the women, the 
 sashes of the men, the uniforms of the 
 soldiers; the walls are striped in blue 
 and yellow, and the lights shine dimly 
 through the smoke. The dark faces are 
 so brutish, and the scene so Spanish, you 
 wish you were an artist and could paint 
 it all. Otero, the Parisian favorite, be- 
 gan her career in such a place, and the 
 girl who is dancing (Lorlita they call 
 her), a lithe, young creature, slender 
 and beautiful, with the dark languishing 
 beauty of the south, perhaps she will 
 have princes and American millionaires 
 at her feet some day. She is worthy of 
 it, if such creatures ever are. Her eyes 
 glisten in the light of lamps, a crimson 
 rose is in her hair. "Eh, Lorlita! nina!" 
 shout the other dancing girls, who sit 
 upon the stage clapping their hands, as 
 with stamping feet and snapping fingers, 
 her head thrown back imperiously, her 
 body writhing like a serpent, she dances 
 the dance of the Gitanas, with the sensu- 
 ous abandon of her race. Three impas- 
 92 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 sive Spaniards, with bloated faces and 
 little beastly eyes, twang their guitars; 
 one of them sings in a high-pitched key a 
 quaint accompanying refrain with words 
 not always the purest, while, strang- 
 est of all, a group of children, offspring 
 of the dancing girls, play in the room 
 behind the stage. As Lorlita, the favor- 
 ite, finishes her wild dance, a storm of 
 applause breaks forth, men get upon the 
 benches and shout, a dozen or more hats 
 are thrown upon the stage. That is the 
 Burero, but in time it palls, for the other 
 girls are plain and fat, and the air is not 
 of the best. 
 
 Wandering home through the dark 
 winding byways, you pass cloaked figures 
 whispering at iron-barred windows. 
 They are the lovers of Seville, pelando 
 la pava (plucking the turkey), as they 
 call it. With the lattice slightly open 
 the fair Sevilliana sits in her darkened 
 chamber talking in whispered tones to 
 the gallant without. The "old folks," 
 to borrow a homely phrase, being weary 
 93 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of the task of chaperonage, after locking 
 the daughter in a room barred like a 
 prison cell, have gone to bed, and for 
 hours, sometimes the entire night, the 
 affianced lovers look through the grating 
 into each others* eyes, and whisper the 
 nothings of love. It would seem cold 
 comfort to a northern swain, but the 
 Spaniards say the iron bars are a neces- 
 sary evil there in the south where the 
 blood runs warm. 
 
 In the early morning, when the air is 
 chilly and streets are still in shadow, 
 you loiter towards the market; that is, if 
 you are fond of life and character. The 
 market of Seville, like the people, is 
 picturesque. The old stone arcade, 
 which forms a quadrangle about the 
 booths, has a charm which is quaint and 
 Spanish. Its walls rise white against the 
 blue sky, and deep shadows of its grace- 
 ful arches are cast upon the flagstones. 
 The striped awnings of the stalls blend 
 with the multi-colored shawls of the mar- 
 ket women ; piles of oranges and lemons 
 94 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 glisten in the sunlight; there are festoons 
 of grapes, and strings of garlic dangling 
 from the arches; citrons and grape fruit 
 hang in hempen slings, while apples and 
 radishes, onions and cabbages, lie heaped 
 in artistic confusion upon the pavement. 
 The hum of voices, the shrill cries of 
 venders fill the air, but the people loiter 
 and gossip, and sun themselves. No one 
 is in a hurry. Old stooping men in 
 capas slink among the crowded market 
 stalls, puffing the ever present cigarillo; 
 olive-skinned women in faded cotton 
 gowns and brilliant colored shawls wad- 
 dle along with babes and baskets in their 
 arms, or stop to prattle and bargain with 
 the fat and greasy butchers, who stand 
 enshrined like sacrificial priests behind 
 their altars of beef and mutton and 
 their bowers of sausages. Blue smocked 
 porters with cords and mantas slung 
 across their shoulders lounge in the sun- 
 light. Pretty girls, with roses in their 
 hair and roguish eyes, flirt with the 
 slender, black-haired youths who loiter 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 in groups; the dogs bark, the children 
 play, but they play in the listless, lazy 
 way of Spain. There is life and color 
 everywhere, and you think the Spaniard 
 was born to be an artist's model, for 
 Seville is the painters' paradise. 
 
 But in the maze of tortuous streets 
 about the market one sees more of the life 
 of the people. There the whitewashed 
 houses are outlined against the brilliant 
 sky in rambling perspective, and the 
 graceful tower of some parish church, 
 its brown walls moss grown, its bright 
 tiles shining, rises sharp and clear into the 
 blue above. Dark maidens, with glossy 
 hair and warm color in their cheeks, 
 gaze idly from the miradores above 
 upon the countless people in the nar- 
 row street below. The cobbler ham- 
 mers and stitches in his smoky little shop 
 without window or door, glasses clink in 
 the taberna, sleek cows with mournful 
 eyes and tinkling bells stand silently 
 chewing their cuds in the milkman's 
 stall, and the dainty feet of shaggy don- 
 96 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 keys patter on the cobble stones, as the 
 patient little beasts thread their way 
 through the street, only their huge sway- 
 ing ears and little tails visible beneath 
 their bulging panniers of straw or char- 
 coal. Then you wander along, picking 
 your way through the good-natured 
 crowds until you reach some little plaza, 
 with its quaint parish church where beg- 
 gars sun themselves upon the flagstones, 
 and the puestos, or booths of street ped- 
 dlers, with graceful colored awnings are 
 scattered picturesquely about the pave- 
 ment. There the dazzling sunlight casts 
 fantastic shadows on the yellow and blue 
 walls of the houses, multi-colored pots, 
 or festoons of cotton prints hang in the 
 dingy shops, gallardos dandies of the 
 street gossip in groups, or ogle the 
 passing maidens; dogs snooze in sunny 
 spots, and crowds of idlers cluster about 
 some barrel organ or blind guitarist. 
 There is a booth near by where a bronze- 
 skinned gipsy is cooking molletes calen- 
 titos, a sort of greasy flour cake fried 
 97 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 in oil, and a wine puesto with its earthen 
 jars and huge bottles of red and yellow 
 wine, and there vagos loiter to eat and 
 drink. 
 
 One can stroll for hours in the streets 
 of Seville, watching the people and talk- 
 ing with them, too, for the Andalusian 
 of the lower classes is the best of fel- 
 lows. There is a democratic freedom in 
 his manner, at once respectful and cor- 
 dial, which is unlike the obsequiousness 
 or the boorishness of the common people 
 of other countries. He is slow and even 
 lazy, but he commands respect, and 
 nowhere can one meet such civility and 
 heartiness as is shown by the Andalu- 
 sian peasant. But you must unbend and 
 meet him half way. He does not like 
 Saxon stiffness, and a cordial word or 
 the offer of a cigarette will accomplish 
 more than a handful of silver. When 
 you go into a taberna of the people 
 where aguardiente and manzanilla are 
 sold at a cent a glass, the habitues all 
 greet you with a word of welcome, and 
 98 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 the barkeeper serves his liquor with a 
 courtliness which is Chesterfieldian. 
 
 They are rough places, those common 
 taverns. There is one in particular, 
 across the river in Triana, where the 
 "Bowery toughs" of Seville, the matones 
 they are called, gather to drink and 
 quarrel. They say that every Sevillian 
 who is spoiling for a fight goes there, 
 and many are the cutting affrays when 
 navajos are drawn, and with mantas 
 wrapped about the left arm, the duellists 
 crouch and slowly follow each other 
 around watching the opportunity for 
 the fatal spring, just as they do in Car- 
 men. This taberna of the bullies is a 
 low dingy place, spanned by high beams 
 smoked black by ages of cigarettes and 
 dirt. It is open to the street on two 
 sides, and supporting the corner beams 
 is an old Roman column which looks as 
 though it may have .been standing since 
 the time of Trajan. The floor is of dirt, 
 and in one corner is a low table and 
 three or four well-worn cane-seat chairs. 
 99 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 There are dirty bottles on the shelves 
 and coarse prints of bull fighters hang 
 upon the walls, while behind the bar is 
 the keeper of the resort, a low browed 
 ruffian, with little weazel eyes set close 
 together, and a knife slash across his 
 unshaven cheek. He looks a prince of 
 cut-throats, but even he has a kindly 
 greeting, and a civil word, as do the 
 group of "sports" who lean upon the bar. 
 Those "toughs" of Seville are not unlike 
 their Bowery prototypes. They have 
 the same hangdog features and swagger- 
 ing manner, and their heads hang for- 
 ward and their elbows are thrown out as 
 they are in New York. Their hats are 
 tipped over their eyes too, and were it 
 not for the short braided jackets and 
 the gaudy sashes, the tight corduroy 
 trousers, and the array of coster-like 
 buttons, one might expect to hear them 
 exclaim, in the language of Chimmie 
 Fadden, "What t' ell." 
 
 But the Sevillian of a more respect- 
 able class is more entertaining. The 
 
 IOO 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 honest workman, out for a holiday with 
 his best girl, or the bourgeois and his 
 friends picnicking in the environs under 
 the shade of olive tree these true An- 
 dalusians will always welcome a stran- 
 ger; they will share their sour wine and 
 sweet cakes, and the bright-eyed girls of 
 the party will dance the graceful Sevil- 
 lana to the time of castanets, and if you 
 speak Spanish you may chat with them 
 all, and feel when you leave that you 
 have met real friends. No, there are no 
 people as friendly and witty and gracious 
 as the Andalusians. And all that re- 
 minds one that perhaps the most delight- 
 ful of Sevillian days are those when one 
 takes a carriage and drives into the 
 country, say to Italica, where there are 
 the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. 
 The horses are harnessed in the Anda- 
 lusian fashion, with jangling bells and 
 streaming ribbons; the little driver sits 
 erect upon his box, his broad brimmed 
 hat a-tilt, not a crease in his short Anda- 
 lusian jacket. Over the hard, tree-lined 
 
 101 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 road the tough little beasts scamper, 
 and you lean back against the cushion, 
 and breathe in the perfect air. And 
 what a succession of charming scenes. 
 Quaint villages of a single street, and 
 houses of a single story, the walls of white- 
 washed stone, or mud and brick, thatched 
 with faggots, with cool shady porches 
 where skinny men doze in low chairs, and 
 sunny spots where groups of loafers are 
 playing cards. Women are washing in the 
 streams, strings of donkeys come and go, 
 their little backs bending under the 
 weight of panniers of pottery; meek 
 horses amble by bearing a man astride 
 and a woman sidewise ; goats, pigs, gypsy 
 girls dancing by the wayside; soldiers, 
 beggars, a drunkard sleeping in the sun, 
 and beyond it all the green rolling fields 
 tufted with brown olive trees, the silvery 
 river, and graceful Seville outlined against 
 the blue sky, with her Giralda and her 
 fifty church towers, her lanky chimneys 
 and her shining walls of white. 
 
 Before you know it an hour has 
 
 102 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 passed, and you have reached the amphi- 
 theatre. It is like other ruins of the 
 kind, grey rocks crumbling and moss- 
 grown, rising in tiers of seats, with 
 the arena and the cages for the beasts 
 below. Donkeys browse upon the hill- 
 side, peasants bask in the sun and 
 in the shade, just under the walls of 
 what may have been the podium where 
 the Roman magistrates sat, a party of 
 picnickers are dancing the Sevillana to 
 the time of Castanet and tambourine, 
 and the echo of the accompanying song 
 swells across the amphitheatre. Some 
 of the men come forward to offer glasses 
 of manzanilla, and exchange the day's 
 greetings. It is not a tip they are after; 
 to offer one would be an insult; they are 
 prompted purely by the spirit of goodfel- 
 lowship. You laugh and talk with them 
 and exchange a cigarillo for the drink, 
 and then picking some wayside flowers 
 you offer them to the girls. They smile 
 and show their pretty teeth, and dance 
 again, not the vulgar flamenco or tango, 
 103 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 but the charming dance of the province, 
 with its agile movements and graceful 
 poses. It is hard to realize that in that 
 peaceful arena some two thousand years 
 ago, wild beasts fought and the blood 
 of gladiators stained the sand. 
 
 That is one of the excursions into the 
 country, and there are many others. 
 The daily drive, however, is to Las 
 Delicias, the tree-lined promenade along 
 the river bank, where society turns out 
 in French built carriages and gazes 
 enviously at each other for an hour or so 
 each afternoon. Driving along the 
 river front, with its stone quays and rail- 
 ways, its shipping and its stevedores, 
 one passes the orange-colored Torre del 
 Oro (Tower of Gold), where the Moors 
 stood guard, and Peter the Cruel con- 
 fined his fallen favorites, and then on 
 the left the red palace of San Telmo, 
 with its delightful gardens of oranges 
 and citrons, palms and tropical plants, 
 where the Infanta Maria Luisa lives. 
 This princess is mother of the Countess 
 104 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 of Paris, and of Don Antonio, who fig- 
 ured in America as the husband of the 
 Infanta Eulalia. She is better known, 
 perhaps, as the widowed Duchess of 
 Montpensier. Her life is quiet enough 
 now, but it must have been different when 
 her husband was alive, for he was the 
 arch intriguer, only excelled by his 
 mother-in-law, Maria Christina, the 
 queen of Ferdinand Seventh, and 
 mother of Isabella Second. But if one 
 begins talking of the palace intriguers 
 in the age of the Camarillas there will 
 be no end. This widowed duchess, and 
 old Queen Isabella, living away off in 
 Paris, are about all that are left from 
 the disgraceful days of Espartero and 
 O'Donnell, Serrano and Marvaez, when 
 palace favorites were overturning minis- 
 tries at will, and the country was going 
 to the dogs. The government of to-day 
 has much to learn, but the improvement 
 that some twenty years have brought is 
 marvelous. 
 
 But to return to the palace of San 
 105 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Telmo. It marks the beginning of Las 
 Delicias, and there the "quality" of 
 Seville drive, ride and walk. Las Deli- 
 cias is not a park; it is merely a long 
 straight drive, skirted by gardens and 
 villas on the one hand, by the river and 
 a narrow strip of land, laid out with 
 trees and walks, upon the other. There 
 is but little of the national life to be seen 
 there; mostly Parisian bonnets and 
 Parisian gowns, artificial complexions 
 and artificial smiles, a very minute pro- 
 duction of the Bois. But occasionally 
 a family of the older Spanish school rum- 
 bles by, their lumbering coach drawn by 
 mules, their dark Spanish faces adorned 
 with mantillas; the mother fat and 
 greasy, the daughters slim and demure, 
 and all with incipient mustaches. There 
 are the four-in-hands from the country, 
 too, with jangling bells, gaily padded 
 collars and bobbing tassels on the 
 bridles, which roll through the drive at a 
 swinging gait, and some of the splendid 
 saddle-horses, with their arched necks and 
 1 06 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 well turned limbs, are ridden in Andalu- 
 sian style, with light padded saddles and 
 Moorish stirrups, and the bridle orna- 
 mented by a network of braided tassels. 
 The men who ride them are Spanish too, 
 with their broad brimmed hats and 
 smart braided jackets, and perhaps you 
 meet a high break with a load of bull 
 fighters, their hair braided in short cues, 
 or some women of rapid tendencies, 
 dressed a la bolera, and driving a trap in 
 Spanish style ; but most of the carriages 
 are those of Paris, and there is a sprink- 
 ling of smart hussars and gunners, in 
 their uniforms of blue and gold. 
 
 But the society of Seville is provincial 
 and dull ; there are very few balls, and 
 dinners, except amongst intimate friends 
 in a quiet way, are almost unknown; in 
 fact, but few houses possess the neces- 
 sary paraphernalia for the giving of a 
 dinner, and in the event of such an enter- 
 tainment being necessary, the resources 
 of the Hotel de Madrid are called into 
 service. The Sevillians drive in the 
 107 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 park, and they go to the opera; they 
 visit each other on feast days, and they 
 call after a death in the family; but they 
 have very little of the social life which 
 characterizes an American city, or even 
 Madrid. The nobility of the provinces 
 are intensely proud, so they live with a 
 great deal of outward pretense; their 
 carriages are superb, they have enor- 
 mous palaces, with numerous liveried 
 flunkies to usher one in ; they all have 
 their boxes at the opera, but they live 
 most simply. The last extravagance 
 in which an American indulges is an 
 opera box, it is the first necessity of a 
 Sevillian; the conditions of life are re- 
 versed. To a stranger the Sevillian 
 nobleman is very courteous, he invites 
 you to drive in the park, he takes you 
 to his club and to his box at the opera, 
 he sends you flowers, but a dinner, that 
 universal courtesy of the Anglo-Saxon, is 
 not forthcoming until you know him ex- 
 tremely well, and then you dine en fam- 
 ille. Once only during the year does 
 108 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 the society of Seville throw aside its 
 sombre aspect and indulge in frivolity. 
 That is during Holy Week and the fair 
 which follows. Then Seville is en fete^ 
 the society of Madrid are its guests, 
 and people flock there from all of Spain 
 and Europe. There is a round of enter- 
 tainments, the ladies of Seville have 
 booths at the fair for the amusement of 
 their friends, they even assume the na- 
 tional costumes and dance the national 
 dances; but when it is over they drop 
 back to their prosaic life with its daily 
 drive in Las Delicias. 
 
 The houses of the nobility of Seville 
 are veritable palaces. They are all built 
 on much the same plan. There is a 
 cool, delightful patio, or central court 
 open to the blue sky and sunlight, with 
 marble columns and Moorish arches, 
 playing fountains and groups of palms 
 and foliage plants. Divans, easy chairs, 
 and rugs are scattered about invit- 
 ingly, and during the hot summer 
 days the family live there mostly, and 
 109 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 sleep in the lower rooms away from the 
 heat, while in winter they retire to the 
 floor above. The staircase is always 
 imposing. The steps are of marble, 
 and the walls of shining tiles, while the 
 family arms are usually emblazoned 
 on the ceiling. There are but two 
 stories, and on the floor above, surround- 
 ing the court, or series of courts, for 
 there are often several, are the drawing 
 room with its satin and gold furniture, 
 the library, the dining room, with carved 
 oak wainscoting and high back chairs, 
 the family chapel, with its little altar 
 and its cushioned prie-dieu, its pictures 
 of saints and burning candles, and then 
 the sleeping rooms of the family and 
 domestic offices. Some of these houses 
 possess rare art treasures, and walking 
 about with the host, it is no unusual 
 thing to have him call attention in a 
 careless way to some rare Murillo or 
 Van Dyke. 
 
 All this, however, is of the town and 
 people. One forgets the glorious monu- 
 
 110 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 ments of Seville, the scores of churches, 
 the picture gallery, where are many of 
 Murillo's masterpieces, the plateresque 
 Town Hall from the time of Charles V., 
 rich in medallions, pilasters, archivaults, 
 and friezes of superb design ; the Casa de 
 Pilatus, the Lonja; the huge tobacco 
 factory, where five thousand ugly, dirty 
 women, vaunted as beautiful, roll cigars 
 and cigarettes and nurse their sickly 
 babies. All these and many others are 
 the sights of Seville, where crowds of 
 tourists flock to gape and wonder. 
 Each, perhaps, is worthy of a chapter by 
 itself, of the guide book sort, with dates 
 and details ; but one who loves the pictur- 
 esque cares more for the people and the 
 streets, the donkeys and the beggars. 
 There is one monument, however, 
 which is unique. It is the Moorish 
 Alcazar, with its castellated walls, red 
 and moss-grown, its portal blazoned 
 with the arms of Castile and Leon, re- 
 plete with historical memories of the 
 Moorish kings of Seville; Saint Ferdi- 
 iii 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 nand, the conqueror ; Peter, "the Cruel" 
 or "the Just," according to one's sym- 
 pathies; and Maria de Padilla, his dark- 
 eyed mistress. There one can wander 
 by the hour through the maze of Moorish 
 rooms, gorgeous with ivory and gold, 
 brilliant with color. The palace has 
 been restored and one sees the Moorish 
 architecture glittering and vivid as it 
 was in former days. The repairs have 
 been done in a paltry manner, however, 
 and paint too often takes the place of 
 porcelain, but the palace with its pil- 
 larets of precious marble, its arches 
 and azulejos, its stalactite ceilings and 
 intricate stucco work, delicate as a pat- 
 tern of finest lace, is beautiful and 
 splendid. When the sunlight streams 
 through the miradores there is a dazzling 
 profusion of color; green, red, brown 
 and gold, but one prefers the delicate 
 Alhambra, where time has faded the 
 colors and the harsh hand of the restorer 
 has left the walls untouched. 
 
 It is in the charming gardens of the 
 
Seville the Fair 
 
 Alcazar that one tarries longest. There 
 the orange and the citron grow and the 
 air is sweet with the odor of flowers; 
 the sunlight casts cool shadows upon 
 the moss-grown pavements and the 
 stuccoed walls; while surrounding one in 
 maze-like confusion are close-cropped 
 hedges of myrtle, and cypresses cut in 
 fantastic forms. There are magnolias 
 and sweet lemons, and the towering 
 forms of graceful palms ; there are Moor- 
 ish kiosks and moss-grown fountains 
 where water trickles from the mouths of 
 lions and gold fish glitter. The air is 
 balmy and soft, and soothed by the gentle 
 stirring of the leaves, one dreams the 
 hours away, thinking of Seville the Fair, 
 and its departed glory of the days of 
 Peter and Charles the Great, when 
 cavaliers and courtiers wandered in 
 those gardens and the laughter of dark- 
 eyed favorites echoed through the leaves. 
 
Spanish Sports. 
 
 IT is impossible to defend the national 
 sport of Spain. Undeniably cruel, 
 it is at the same time fascinating, excit- 
 ing and alluring; in short, the finest 
 spectacle of modern days, comparable 
 only to gladiatorial shows of ancient 
 Rome. The sandy arena, with its array 
 of glittering toreadors, the tier upon tier 
 of seats, crowded with excited faces; the 
 beautiful women with their graceful 
 white mantillas; the uniforms of sol- 
 diers, the glaring sunlight, the blue 
 canopy of sky above the amphitheatre, 
 combine in forming a picture never to 
 be forgotten. The tragedy, too, where 
 the skill and daring of man is matched 
 against the most ferocious brute in the 
 world, fascinates while it disgusts, and 
 appeals in quick succession to one's pity, 
 anger and inborn love of contest. 
 114 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 While condemning the sport from the 
 moralist's standpoint, it is easy to under- 
 stand its hold upon the populace. A 
 liberal Spaniard once said to the writer 
 that so long as there were priests and 
 bull-fights in Spain, the country could 
 not progress. There is much truth in 
 the remark, although generalizations are 
 usually too sweeping. However, so far 
 as bull-fights are concerned, the country 
 would unquestionably be better without 
 them. But from the picturesque stand- 
 point Spain without corridas de toros 
 would not be Spain. 
 
 No country in the world has a national 
 sport so typical or so thoroughly a part 
 of the national life. Yet, like American 
 base-ball, bull-fighting has degenerated. 
 It is no longer a sport for gentlemen 
 alone, but a hippodrome performance 
 in which the actors are hired ruffians. 
 In that, too, it resembles the gladiator- 
 ial sports of Rome ; but although Hispa- 
 nia Romana was the most Roman of all 
 the provinces, and the Spaniard is the 
 "5 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 most Latin of modern Europeans, it is 
 questionable whether bull-fighting has 
 any connection with the sports of Rome 
 beyond an undoubted similarity. 
 
 On the contrary there is much evi- 
 dence to prove that corridas de toros 
 were unknown in Spain until the coming 
 of the Moors. Suetonius, Pliny and 
 other Latin writers who described in 
 detail Spanish games in the arena, 
 make no mention of combats between 
 bulls and men, and most authorities 
 agree in stating that bull-baiting is a 
 survival of the African and Moorish 
 custom of hunting live boars. There is 
 frequent mention in the early Spanish 
 chronicles of the public baiting of cer- 
 dos, and with the spread of agriculture, 
 the bull undoubtedly formed a more ac- 
 cessible and more formidable adversary. 
 But if bull-fighting is not of Roman 
 origin it is decidedly of Roman charac- 
 ter, and the Spanish people, for centu- 
 ries the most Latin of Roman provin- 
 cials, still possess enough of Roman 
 116 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 character to take kindly to a sport so 
 thoroughly, in sentiment at least, a 
 heritage from imperial Rome. 
 
 Bull-fighting was probably well estab- 
 lished in the peninsula as early as the 
 eleventh century, but the first Fiesta de 
 Toros recorded was the one which took 
 place at Avila in 1107 on the occasion of 
 the marriage of Blasco Munoz. There 
 Moors and Christians vied with each 
 other in prowess, and in succeeding ages 
 Fiestas became part of the national festi- 
 vities. In the early days of bull-fight- 
 ing the sport was confined to knights and 
 gentlemen. Like the tourney it became 
 the means of testing knightly prowess. 
 There was no fighting on foot, and the 
 horses used were splendid chargers, 
 trained to move quickly and avoid the 
 onslaught of the savage beast. It was 
 in every sense a magnificent sport, test- 
 ing the skill of both horse and rider. 
 
 Peter the Cruel, as his name implies, 
 was a lover of the sport, and carried his 
 ferocity so far that at Burgos, in 1351, 
 117 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 he had the murdered body of Garcilazo 
 de la Vega thrown from his palace win- 
 dow into the great public square to be 
 trampled upon by the bulls. But the 
 great patron of bull-fighting in the middle 
 ages was King John II., or rather his 
 clever minister and master, Alvaro de 
 Luna, the best lance, the most accom- 
 plished courtier of Spain. During this 
 reign a bull-ring was established at Mad- 
 rid, the shows became more costly, the 
 flower of the nobility vied with Moorish 
 cavaliers, and torear a cavallo was con- 
 sidered an indispensable accomplishment 
 of every knight. 
 
 Be it said to the credit of Isabella the 
 Catholic, that she would never witness a 
 bull-fight, and was only induced to aban- 
 don her intention of prohibiting the sport 
 by a promise on the part of the noble 
 bull -fighters that the horns of the bull 
 should be blunted and rendered harmless 
 by encasing them in leather shields, as 
 is done in Portugal to-day. 
 
 Bull - fighting flourished under the 
 1x8 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 house of Austria, and the Fiesta given 
 by Philip IV. on the occasion of the visit 
 of Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1623, was 
 one of unusual brilliance. With the 
 arrival of the Bourbons, however, French 
 tastes and fashions took possession of 
 the court, and bull -fighting like every- 
 thing else that was Spanish fell into dis- 
 favor at court, and was abandoned to 
 the common people. It was then that 
 the art of fighting on foot supplanted the 
 braver sport of torear a cavallo. 
 
 There were a few Fiestas given by the 
 Bourbons to appease the popular appe- 
 tite, but bull -fighting degenerated and 
 became a rough and tumble scramble or 
 mere bull -baiting. Then the class of 
 professional matadors sprang up, first 
 among whom were Francisco de Romero 
 and the brothers Juan and Pedro Palomo, 
 living in the early part of the eighteenth 
 century. But the master spirit who es- 
 tablished the code of tauromachian 
 honor, practically as it exists to-day, and 
 reorganized the sport on popular lines, 
 119 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 was Jose" Delgado Candido, known to the 
 populace as Pepe Illo, who died in the 
 plaza at Port St. Mary on the 24th of 
 June, 1771. 
 
 It was reserved, however, for that de- 
 generate despot Ferdinand VII. to re- 
 generate the national sport by inducing 
 the dissipated nobles of his court to 
 enter the arena in emulation of the 
 knights of Alvaro de Luna. But Ferdi- 
 nand did not stop there. The very day 
 that he abolished the University of 
 Seville he granted a royal charter for 
 the establishment of a tauromachian 
 academy in the Andalusian capital. 
 That academy exists to-day, and Seville 
 is the centre of the bull-fighting world. 
 The bull-fighting academy is situated in 
 the suburbs of Seville, near the quarter of 
 the tobacco girls, a wise situation from 
 the standpoint of affiliation. It is sup- 
 plied with a miniature bull-ring where the 
 students may practice the tauromachian 
 art, and in addition there are stables, 
 sleeping rooms, a restaurant and other 
 
 120 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 appliances for rendering this "Univer- 
 sity" perfect of its kind. 
 
 Bull-fights are expensive luxuries, cost- 
 ing in the neighborhood of $2,000, so 
 that, except on rare occasions, they are 
 given only in Madrid and the provincial 
 capitals. The season commences after 
 Lent and closes in the autumn, Sunday 
 being the day usually chosen for the 
 sport. The profits of the bull fight are 
 often destined for the support of hos- 
 pitals, and with unintentional irony a 
 fight was once held in Madrid for the 
 benefit of the society for the prevention 
 of cruelty to animals. The larger plazas 
 are under the superintendence of a society 
 of noblemen and gentlemen called maes- 
 tranzas, established by Philip II. in 1562 
 for the purpose of improving the breed 
 of Spanish horses. The king is the her- 
 mano mayor, or elder brother of these 
 tauromachian societies. They are known 
 as the maestranzas of Ronda, Seville, 
 Granada, Valencia and Saragossa, the 
 latter having been established by Ferdi- 
 
 121 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 nand VII. as the city's reward for its 
 heroic defense against the French. The 
 maestrantes of each city are distin- 
 guished by striking uniforms, and as the 
 members must be of 'gentle blood, the 
 honor of membership is much sought. 
 
 The breeding of bulls for the ring is a 
 great industry, and so ca'refully have the 
 savage traits of the Spanish bull been 
 cultivated that the animal is undoubt- 
 edly the most courageous beast in the 
 world. There have been several fights 
 in Madrid in which bulls were pitted 
 against lions, tigers, panthers and even 
 elephants. The bulls were invariably 
 the victors, except in the case of one 
 famous elephant who developed a mar- 
 velous adroitness in defending himself 
 with his tusks. The best breed of bulls 
 are those of the Duke of Veragua. His 
 ganadero is situated near Toledo and it 
 is said that when the railway was first 
 built there, the bulls attacked the loco- 
 motive without the slightest hesitation. 
 The operation of driving the bulls se- 
 
 122 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 lected for the ring from the country to 
 the plaza is almost as exciting as the 
 fight itself. The bulls are enticed by 
 tame oxen, * * cabestros, ' ' into a road 
 barricaded on both sides and driven at 
 full speed to the plaza by mounted con- 
 ocedores. The horsemen are armed with 
 long lance -like poles, and the bulls are 
 encouraged by shouts and cries. Crowds 
 are out to welcome the toros, and many 
 a beggar who cannot afford the entrance 
 price to the arena, struggles for a front 
 place at the encierro, and vents his hos- 
 tility to the bull by taking a sly poke at 
 one of the doomed animals. 
 
 Bull-baiting seems irresistible to the 
 Spaniard of all classes, and even the 
 children play at the national sport in 
 imitation of their elders. 
 
 The bull-fight is to Madrid what the 
 Grand Prix is to Paris or the Derby to 
 London. No gayer, sprightlier crowd 
 could be imagined than Spaniards on 
 the way to the plaza de toros; women 
 with their white mantillas and large 
 123 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 combs, their fans and their gay gar- 
 ments; men with broad-brimmed hats 
 and short braided jackets; bull fighters 
 in carriages, cheered by the crowd as 
 they pass along; picadors on horseback; 
 soldiers, guardia civiles, street urchins, 
 beggars, mules, donkeys and^everything 
 characteristic of the peninsula, are there 
 hurrying merrily towards the arena, all 
 happy, good natured and keenly inter- 
 ested in the national sport. 
 
 Inside the amphitheatre the scene is 
 even more spectacular. The crowds of 
 aficionados, or " rooters" as they 
 would be called in America, are seating 
 themselves on the stone benches, argu- 
 ing, betting and discussing the sport in 
 the peculiar vernacular of the bull-ring. 
 Peddlers are selling oranges, shrimps 
 and aguardiente; the band is playing; 
 beautiful women survey the scene from 
 the upper tier of boxes, their black eyes 
 flashing with enthusisam. The effect of 
 color and light, the animation of the 
 scene, are incomparable. 
 124 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 But the pageant is at its height when 
 the trumpets blare and the toreadors in 
 all their glittering gorgeousness march 
 solemnly across the arena and salute the 
 president. There are matadors, chulos, 
 banderilleros and picadors, the dramatis 
 personae of the bull ring, headed by 
 the alguazil or constable, whose sombre 
 black garments are in funereal contrast 
 to the bright costumes of the gladiators. 
 The trumpet sounds again, the president 
 throws the key of the toril, which the 
 alguazil catches in his hat, unless he be 
 unskillful, when he calls forth the hisses 
 and scoffs of the crowd. The door of 
 the den is opened, the bull dashes 
 amazed and startled into the sandy 
 arena. 
 
 Then the tragedy commences; a 
 tragedy calling forth agility, skill, dar- 
 ing, patient suffering, brutal cruelty, 
 unflinching courage, wild enthusiasm. 
 But alas, pity is unknown. The poor 
 miserable horses, faithful servitors of 
 man, meet the ferocious onslaught of the 
 125 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 bull with a patience which is heartrend- 
 ing; their bloody entrails cover the 
 sand; they fall and rise again, bearing 
 their brutal riders until the last breath 
 has left them, without calling forth the 
 slightest sign of pity from the Spanish 
 throng. It is ''bravo toro, viva toro," or 
 "tunante, cobardo, picaro," according as 
 the bull is brave or poltroon. 
 
 When the slaughter of the horses is 
 over and the skillful play of the bander- 
 illos commences, one shares the enthu- 
 siasm of the sport. The agility with 
 which the darts are placed in the bull's 
 neck is so astonishing that one forgets 
 to pity the bull as he writhes in torture, 
 and like the rest one applauds the mata- 
 dor or killer as he solemnly salutes the 
 president and swears to do his duty. 
 
 The duel which follows is actually 
 worthy of the name of sport. It is skill 
 against force; intelligence against pas- 
 sion, and the deliberate play with which 
 the executioner studies the characteris- 
 tics of his victim before making the final 
 126 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 lunge is marvelously fascinating. If the 
 horses could be banished ; if the man in 
 the first instance could face the bull 
 alone and vanquish him as he does after 
 the animal's energy is expended and the 
 poor creature only fights with the des- 
 peration of the dying, then bull-fighting 
 would be worthy to be classed as sport. 
 But the baiting which precedes the final 
 contest, the torture for the sake of tor- 
 ture, the bloodshed for the sake of blood- 
 shed, is so loathsome that one is dis- 
 gusted with one's self for succumbing to 
 the excitement and the fascination of 
 the final duel. 
 
 Bull-fighting, however, is not the only 
 blood-thirsty sport of the Spaniard, as 
 cocking mains are held every Sunday 
 morning in the Andalusian cities in the 
 Renidero de Gallos or cockpit. The 
 crowds, however, are small and the sport 
 is confined to a few aficionados who are 
 mostly annual subscribers. Cock-fight- 
 ing, however, is a Saxon sport which the 
 Spaniards have transplanted, and as the 
 127 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Spanish cocks fight without artificial 
 spurs the Spaniards maintain that in this 
 respect at least they are less cruel than 
 the English. 
 
 The Renidero is a miniature amphi- 
 theatre, covered with a roof. The seats 
 are arranged in tiers, those nearest the 
 ring being reserved for annual subscrib- 
 ers. In the centre there is a low circular 
 platform covered with a coarse matting 
 and surrounded by an iron paling. It is 
 there that the fighting takes place. 
 Suspended from the roof are a pair of 
 crude scales for weighing in the cocks, 
 and in a neighboring room are a number 
 of darkened coops where the birds are 
 kept preparatory to the contest. 
 
 The habitues of the cockpit are an 
 interesting lot, sharing the characteris- 
 tics of the "sporting class" at home; 
 low-browed ruffians, most of them, with 
 brutal faces, and much addicted to loud 
 clothes and brilliant jewelry. One, in 
 particular, would have made a Chicago 
 alderman jealous. He was attired in a 
 128 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 suit of grey plaid with broad black braid. 
 He wore a frilled shirt ornamented with 
 an enormous diamond, and his jeweled 
 watch chain was large enough for a ship's 
 cable; his trousers were skin tight, with 
 a broad black stripe along the seam, 
 and his grey felt hat with enormous brim 
 was ornamented with a wide black band. 
 He was fat, and his greasy jowls fell in 
 folds over his rakish collar; a cigar was 
 cocked between his lips, and as a typical 
 "sport" it would be hard to find his 
 equal. Upon inquiring his calling one 
 learned that he was a contractor for the 
 meat of bulls killed in the arena. There 
 were several bull fighters, too, among 
 the crowd at the time of one's visit, and 
 it is doubtful if an American prize fight 
 could collect a more representative gath- 
 ering of the sporting fraternity. 
 
 The first proceeding in the order of 
 ceremonies was the weighing in of the 
 cocks, a function performed with punctil- 
 ious solemnity. Then the cocks, a white 
 youngster full of dash, but lacking in 
 129 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 experience, and an old red veteran, who 
 had already lost part of his comb and an 
 eye in previous duels, were placed in the 
 pit. A few preliminary flutters and a 
 dash or two at each other's heads aroused 
 the excitement of the aficionados, who 
 stood up in their seats and made bets 
 freely, the veteran cock being the favor- 
 ite. 
 
 At every onslaught of the cocks new 
 bets were made and the enthusiasts grew 
 more excited. The scene resembled the 
 Chicago wheat pit, everyone shouting at 
 once, each trying to find takers for bets 
 without missing a single incident of the 
 contest. Meanwhile the cocks attacked 
 with renewed vigor; feathers flew, blood 
 flowed freely. The tactics adopted by 
 the veteran bird were worthy of a higher 
 intelligence. He let the youngster make 
 the fighting and dodged his onslaughts, 
 then when the fury was spent he attacked 
 his retreating foe vigorously, adminis- 
 tering deadly pecks about the head and 
 neck. Finally the younger bird fell ex- 
 130 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 hausted; the scarred veteran uttered an 
 exultant cackle and jumping upon his 
 prostrate foe proceeded to peck out the 
 remaining spark of his life. 
 
 After a knock-out a bird is allowed two 
 minutes in which to rise. If he fails to 
 do so within the alloted time, or if at 
 any time the bird refuses to fight and 
 runs away, his rival wins the main. 
 Sometimes the birds are killed outright; 
 sometimes they are temporarily injured. 
 
 In an adjoining room is the hospital 
 where the birds are doctored after the 
 fight. Their heads are bathed in arnica 
 and a long feather is shoved down the 
 throat to remove the clotted blood, 
 then the invalid is placed in a darkened 
 coop to recover as best he may. 
 
 Cock-fighting is a brutal sport without 
 the pageantry and the deeds of daring 
 which make one forget at moments the 
 brutality of the bull fight. 
 
 There is one Spanish sport, however, 
 which is manly and vigorous, a sport 
 comparable to the best of Anglo-Saxon 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 games. Pelota de Cesta, or basket ball, 
 though unlike its Saxon namesake, is 
 the game of the Basque provinces, but is 
 now played in the principal cities of 
 Spain, where elaborate buildings have 
 been erected for the accommodation of 
 the players and spectators. 
 
 Pelota is a game which in some respect 
 resembles racquets. It is played in a 
 three-sided court about four times the 
 length of a racquet court; the ball used 
 is similar to a racquet ball, but instead of 
 a bat the player has a basket-work scoop 
 which fits tightly on his hand and fore- 
 arm. The game is played with two, 
 or sometimes more, on a side. The 
 court is oblong and enclosed on three 
 sides. Along the open space seats and 
 boxes for the spectators are arranged. 
 The players station themselves in pairs 
 consisting of opponents. The lighter 
 men are about half way up the court and 
 the stronger near the end. The ball is 
 played the long way of the court. When 
 play commences one of the first pair of 
 132 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 players serves the ball against the op- 
 posite wall, the other side endeavors to 
 return it, and the ball remains in play 
 until a miss is scored for one of the con- 
 tending sides. Should the side serving 
 fail to return the ball the service passes 
 to the opponents. A miss scores one for 
 the opponents and the game usually con- 
 sists of fifty points. 
 
 This, in brief, is an outline of the 
 game. There are the usual number of 
 rules about false strokes, fouls, off-side 
 play, etc., which accompany games of 
 the sort, but the fundamental principle 
 of pelota consists in receiving the ball in 
 the scoop and whacking it against the 
 opposite wall. In that it is very simple, 
 but the Spanish players display a mar- 
 velous amount of agility, and one does 
 not remember to have seen tennis or 
 racquets more skillfully played than pe- 
 lota as done by the best Spanish players. 
 It is a game which calls for great agility 
 and extreme endurance. Play is so rapid 
 that from the spectator's point of view 
 i33 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 it is an extremely interesting perform- 
 ance. 
 
 There are occasional periods of rest 
 during which the players seat themselves 
 to catch their breath. They wear a sort 
 of sandal on their feet which they often 
 change several times during the game. 
 The Spaniards are great gamblers, and 
 bets are freely exchanged at pelota 
 matches. Book-makers walk along in 
 front of the spectators offering and tak- 
 ing r wagers, and at interesting periods 
 of the game there is much excitement. 
 
 Unfortunately pelota is played by pro- 
 fessionals, although there are some ama- 
 teur contests. The games which calls 
 forth crowds are those where the contest- 
 ants are paid for their services. As the 
 game is of northern origin the best play- 
 ers are from Navarre and the Basque 
 provinces, and the "boina," a cap some- 
 what resembling a tam-o-shanter, but 
 made of soft felt and without the tuft, 
 the typical head dress of the Carlist 
 
 134 
 
Spanish Sports 
 
 armies, is invariably worn by the pelota 
 players. 
 
 Pelota is the only manly game the 
 Spaniards have. It certainly compares 
 favorably with the most athletic of our 
 own sports, but like base ball it is robbed 
 of its charm by professionalism and 
 betting. However, after witnessing a 
 pelota match one feels it is a game the 
 Spaniards may well be proud of. It is 
 a genuine sport, and one's hope is that 
 its growth may eventually redeem the 
 country from the curse of bull-fights and 
 cocking mains. A nation's sports are 
 largely typical of its character, and a 
 people capable of tolerating bull fighting 
 is incapable of civilization in its highest 
 sense. 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 /CORDOVA the Magnificent, the seat 
 \^s of Arab learning, the birthplace 
 of Seneca, Lucan and Averroes, the 
 splendid capital of the Omeyan Khali- 
 fate, with her six hundred mosques and 
 thousand baths, her eight hundred pub- 
 lic schools and library of over half a 
 million volumes; Cordova the single 
 shrine where the light of learning glowed 
 during the dark Middle Ages, is to-day 
 a sluggish sun-baked remnant of all that 
 has gone before. Christian bells clang 
 in the Muezzin tower of Islam's fairest 
 mosque, Christian priests mumble their 
 prayers where the Moslem once turned 
 his face to Mecca ; but the city is a city 
 of the dead, and the inhabitants are 
 ghouls, if ghouls can be sluggish and 
 ambitionless, for the little vitality they 
 136 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 have is drawn from the souls of the de- 
 parted. 
 
 The city is, to be sure, the capital of 
 a province, and one of the eight military 
 centers of the kingdom. There are, to 
 be sure, some fifty thousand inhabitants, 
 most of them dark skinned, ragged loit- 
 erers, born only for the artist's brush, 
 but in Cordova, more perhaps than any- 
 where else in Spain, one is impressed 
 with the ruin which has almost over- 
 come the land. 
 
 Toledo was the capital of the Goth, 
 but there is little to mourn for in the 
 Goth. Granada, so often associated 
 with Moorish Spain, was merely the last 
 splendid effort of a decaying race; but 
 Cordova, in its prime, was the vigorous 
 epitome of all that was strong and good 
 in Islam. When Cordova fell Islam fell, 
 for no other city of the Mohammedan 
 world has even attained the intellectual 
 standard set by this capital of the Ome- 
 yan Khalifs. 
 
 The mosque of Cordova, one begrudges 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 the name cathedral, is one of the mar- 
 vels of the world ; the city, one of its 
 mockeries. One might dismiss the city 
 with a word were it not that in spite of 
 its dirt and slothfulness it is, in a cer- 
 tain sense, fascinating. One enjoys wan- 
 dering through the narrow tortuous 
 streets, with their low whitewashed 
 houses and dingy little shops, where the 
 cobbler or the coppersmith are at work 
 shops that are a relic of Moorish days, 
 for they are but the booths of an Orien- 
 tal bazaar, Christianized by an occasional 
 picture of a saint or the Virgin. There 
 is a delight, too, in flattening one's self 
 against a wall to let a string of meek- 
 faced donkeys amble by, even if one 
 falls a prey to the nearest beggar, who, 
 taking you thus at a disadvantage, 
 thrusts some festered wound or handless 
 arm under your very nose. 
 
 The beggars of Spain ! They deserve 
 a passing tribute, not to their filth, or 
 their persistency, but to their courtli- 
 ness, for each one, if he were washed 
 138 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 and dressed in silks and satins, and 
 given a wand of office, might fill the post 
 of royal chamberlain. 
 
 There is a charm, however, to the 
 streets of Cordova in spite of the beg- 
 gars, which almost makes you forget 
 the glories of the Khalifate. The older 
 portion of the town presents that strange 
 blending of the Oriental and the Occi- 
 dental which is so typical of the cities of 
 southern Spain. There are the narrow 
 ill-paved streets, the low flat -roofed 
 houses with their hanging balconies and 
 white-washed walls you see to-day in 
 Morocco, but instead of mosque and 
 minaret, there is the cold, stern fa9ade 
 of the parish church; instead of the 
 white burnoose of the Arab the black 
 robe of the priest. There is scarcely a 
 straight street in Cordova, and very few 
 wide enough for two carriages to pass. 
 The plan of the city is like one of those 
 mazes where you wander about for hours 
 unable to find your way out, and always 
 returning to the starting point. In 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 roaming through the old town you stum- 
 ble upon many relics of Roman or 
 Moor, many a graceful archway with 
 its iron grill where a glimpse is caught 
 of some cool shady patio with palms and 
 oranges, and a fountain splashing lazily 
 in its alabaster basin. Here and there 
 in the maze of streets are the imposing 
 facades of patrician houses with carved 
 escutcheons and sombre warriors of 
 stone, standing guard in pillared niches. 
 The most impressive of these portals is 
 that of the Casa de los Paez, now a poly- 
 thenic school and a station of the electric 
 lighting company. It is the irony of fate 
 to find a network of wires spanning the 
 court of this relic of an ancient family. 
 Perhaps by chance you may extricate 
 yourself from the network of crooked 
 streets and enter the Calle del Gran 
 Capitan, a broad, dusty boulevard lined 
 with theatres and modern buildings. It 
 is straight and new, and like all things 
 x new in Spain, it is ugly ; but the Cordo- 
 van points with pride to this street and 
 140 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 the Paseo beyond as an evidence that 
 his city is progressive. It is progress- 
 ive, if a few straight streets lined with 
 stuccoed houses and ateliers painted 
 purple and pink constitute progress. 
 There is a park, too, laid out with op- 
 pressive regularity, where the municipal 
 band plays on Sundays with fifteen min- 
 ute intervals between the pieces for the 
 musicians to loiter about and smoke. 
 Soldiers and housemaids gather there, 
 and perhaps a carriage or two of the 
 nobility, with an attempt at style in the 
 form of tarnished gold lace and well-worn 
 liveries; but you turn in disgust from 
 this modern Cordova, and hailing a cab 
 drive away from all those signs of pro- 
 gress back to the old town, where the 
 streets are paved with cobbles and the 
 white Moorish houses are outlined against 
 the blue sky. In your heart you wish 
 that Spain might sleep on forever, the 
 awakening is so harsh and material, so 
 ill-suited to a land of memories. 
 
 The streets are so narrow that the 
 141 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 cabman takes a circuitous route around 
 the walls, past gates of tapia and castel- 
 lated turrets, square or octagon, where 
 the Moorish sentry once paced his 
 weary beat. The Moor is gone, but 
 there are barrack yards, where Christian 
 recruits, undersized and awkward, are 
 drilling for the battle-fields of Cuba. It 
 is pitiful to watch them, they are so ig- 
 norant, so docile, mere boys, whipped 
 into shape by their brutish officers, and 
 then packed off to Cuba like so many 
 sheep. 
 
 There is a chapel in the suburbs 
 erected to a virgin of supposed healing 
 powers. It is a place typical of Spanish 
 superstition. Locks of hair, crutches, 
 bandages, babies' clothes and every con- 
 ceivable emblem of the cures effected by 
 the miraculous virgin, have been hung 
 upon the outer walls by grateful conval- 
 escents. There are scores of crude 
 paintings, too, representing the Virgin 
 appearing to bedridden sufferers and 
 bidding them rise and walk. Such 
 142 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 places make one understand more read- 
 ily the power of the priestcraft and the 
 seemingly hopeless superstition of the 
 common people. But the Virgin of the 
 Holy Fountain is charmingly domiciled. 
 There is a garden surrounding her 
 chapel with oranges and roses in abund- 
 ance, and the old crone in attendance 
 gives one a bouquet and readily accepts 
 a propina in spite of the fact that one 
 is a heretic. Passing out of the gate 
 one notices a crude painting of a soul in 
 purgatory, and fancies the grateful 
 crone buying masses for the salvation 
 of her relatives. To what better use 
 could the coppers of unbelievers be put? 
 A few minutes drive, however, leaves 
 the miraculous virgin and her chapel 
 far behind, and you are back in the old 
 town again, where wheeling is difficult 
 and walking is preferable. In fact, 
 walking is preferable nearly everywhere 
 in Spain, for there are so many odd 
 nooks to be explored, so many old shops 
 to peep into, that a cab is a nuisance. 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Instinctively one wanders towards 
 the river and over the old Roman 
 bridge to the opposite bank, where the 
 best view of Cordova is to be obtained. 
 This bridge over the Guadalquivir is 
 said by the Arab writers to have been 
 originally erected by Octavius Caeser, 
 but it was rebuilt by the Khalifs of 
 Cordova. Its sixteen arches are crum- 
 bled and moss-grown now, and instead 
 of the tramp of Roman legions or the 
 clatter of Arab horses, there is the deli- 
 cate tread of patient donkeys wending 
 their way to the market stall. The 
 Calahorra tower of the Moors, with its 
 polygonal barbican and buttresses stands 
 guard, as it [did when St. Ferdinand be- 
 sieged the town, and when, later, the 
 knights of Peter the Cruel were halted 
 by that river [bank ; but all that is past 
 and Cordova is sleeping 'now, lulled by 
 the rush of the river as it "flows swiftly 
 by the line of the Arab mills stretching 
 from shore to shore. The white town 
 beyond rises sharp against the blue sky, 
 144 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 with its prison and its bishop's palace, 
 the domes of its many churches and the 
 mighty cathedral choir towering huge 
 and ugly above the graceful walls of the 
 Moorish mosque, a lasting monument 
 to the shame of Christian vandals. 
 The plain of Cordova stretches flat and 
 barren towards the mountains of Gra- 
 nada, with here and there the crumbling 
 brown walls of a Moorish watch-tower, 
 and beyond the town to the west are the 
 line of blue hills where the absentee 
 nobility have their gardens and their 
 villas. 
 
 There is little more of the town that 
 is worth seeing, unless it be the Alcazar, 
 or Khalif's palace. Its remains are now 
 a prison, where some three hundred 
 poor wretches loll in idleness about the 
 foul courts, while the sentry stands 
 guard on the moss-grown towers. The 
 gardens beyond, where the Moorish 
 kings wandered with their harem favor- 
 ites, are rank with weeds; a few basins 
 of sluggish water remain to mark the 
 MS 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Moorish baths, but the Alcazar is little 
 more than a memory. 
 
 The one sight of Cordova, however, 
 the one point of surpassing interest, is 
 the great mosque of Abdur-Rahmin I., 
 the Zecca of the west, with its mihrab, 
 or holy of holies, equivalent in the eyes 
 of the ancient Moslem pilgrim to the 
 caaba of the prophet at Mecca. This 
 mosque is the most perfect example of 
 Moorish religious architecture in exist- 
 ence or ever erected. It was built in 
 the most powerful period of Mohamme- 
 dan rule, and it is typical of its builders; 
 for its style, unlike the Alhambra, is 
 simple but vigorous, its proportions 
 grand. There is none of the effeminate 
 minuteness and delicate, almost lace-like 
 stucco work, so redolent of dark-eyed 
 beauties and soft perfumes found in the 
 later Grenadine work. On the contrary 
 the mosque of Cordova is severe, mas- 
 sive and vast, with simple curves, and 
 impressive vistas. One is bewildered 
 by the seemingly interminable forest 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 of pillars spanned by countless arches. 
 What the interior must have been when 
 the roof was glistening with vivid colors, 
 and thousands of gold and silver lamps, 
 when its arches were studded with emer- 
 alds and rubies, is beyond conception. 
 Now the rude whitewash brush of the 
 Christian vandal has marred the delicate 
 walls and a Christian choir, magnificent 
 to be sure, but destroying the simplicity 
 of the plan, has been reared in the cen- 
 ter of the edifice, where Christian priests 
 may chant the glories of the conqueror. 
 One spot only, the mihrab or sanctuary 
 of the Moslem, gives one a partial im- 
 pression of the former glories of this 
 mosque. The walls of this mihrab form 
 a heptagon, the pavement is of marble, 
 and the shell-shaped roof, also of marble, 
 is hewn from a single block; the walls 
 are decorated with three lobed arches 
 resting on marble pillarets, and the 
 mosaic ornamentation of the cupola, the 
 work of Greek artists from Constantino- 
 ple, surpasses the finest examples of 
 H7 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Byzantine art in Italy or the east. The 
 flint glass and metals of this work ac- 
 tually have the appearance of velvet 
 and gold brocade. In the mihrab the 
 unparalleled pulpit of Al Haken II. was 
 kept. It was of ivory and precious 
 wood and stones, fastened with gold and 
 silver nails. It contained the Koran 
 made by Othman and stained with his 
 blood. A box covered with gold tissue 
 and embroidered with pearls enclosed 
 this precious relic. But the feet of Mos- 
 lem pilgrims no longer tread the pave- 
 ment of this shrine; Christian incense 
 burns before the high altar and the 
 chant of priests echoes from the choir. 
 
 When St. Ferdinand the Conqueror 
 entered the captured city of Cordova 
 his first act was to purify the mosque 
 and dedicate it to the Virgin. Several 
 chapels and altars were added, but it 
 was not until later, in 1521, that the great 
 transept and choir were begun. This 
 latter work was designed by Hernan 
 Ruiz and finished by his son Diego de 
 148 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 Praves. It is in style morisco, gothic 
 and plateresque. The high chapel and 
 the choir form a cathedral in themselves, 
 but the huge retablo of bronze and 
 jasper, and the sixty-three choir-stalls, 
 minutely carved from mahogany, by 
 Pedro Cornejo, though unexcelled, are 
 all out of place. This work is merely a 
 conventional cathedral reared in the 
 centre of the grandest of Moslem edi- 
 fices by prelates who felt that in chris- 
 tianizing the great mosque they were 
 glorifying God. It was an act of six- 
 teenth century bigotry, but even in 
 those days there were protests against 
 this desecration. The municipal corpo- 
 ration, with a judgment rare in such 
 bodies, cried out against the prelates 
 whose bigotry led to such a profanation, 
 but the emperor, Charles V., unac- 
 quainted with the nature of the work 
 contemplated, gave his acquiescence, so 
 the centre of that noble forest of pillars 
 was hewn away to give place for Hernan 
 Ruiz' monument of intolerance. Charles 
 149 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 lived to regret the sacrilege he had 
 permitted, for, on passing through Cor- 
 dova a few years later, he reproved the 
 chapter by exclaiming: "You have 
 built here what you or anyone might 
 have built anywhere else; but you have 
 destroyed what was unique in the world. ' ' 
 An open court is the essential feature 
 of Andalusian architecture, and even the 
 mosque is not without its patio. Said 
 Ben Ayub added the Patio de Los Naran- 
 jos (Court of the orange trees) to the 
 mosque of Cordova in 937, and its rows 
 of trees originally corresponded with the 
 lines of columns in the mosque. One 
 likes to tarry there under the shade of 
 the Moorish walls and watch the groups 
 of idlers loitering about the moss-grown 
 fountain, the scene is so semi-Moor- 
 ish, so characteristic of southern Spain. 
 Dark-haired girls wrapped in the bright- 
 colored shawls so dear to the Andalu- 
 sian lean upon their earthen water jars 
 and gossip; bright-eyed urchins play in 
 the listless way of Spain, and beggars 
 150 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 loll in the sun while the water trickles 
 into the old stone basin and the wind 
 soughs through the leaves of palms and 
 orange trees. It is a place to while the 
 hours away and dream of the departed 
 glories of Cordova the great, the most 
 luxurious, the most civilized city of 
 mediaeval Europe. 
 
 An Arab poet has written on Cordova 
 the following distich: "Do not talk of 
 the court of Baghdad and its glittering 
 magnificence; do not praise Persia and 
 China and their manifold advantages; 
 for there is no spot on earth like Cor- 
 dova, nor in the whole world men like 
 the Beni Hamdin." 
 
 One believes in the truthfulness of 
 this poet when one reads what the old 
 Moorish authorities say of Cordova in 
 the days of its glory. The city at one 
 time covered a space of ground ten 
 miles in length, all lighted at night by 
 lamps; the walls around the Alcazar of 
 the Khalif were two leagues and three 
 quarters long; the city was divided into 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 five large districts separated from one 
 another by high and well fortified walls, 
 while the suburbs are said to have been 
 twenty-one in number, each provided 
 with mosques, markets and baths. The 
 traveler, before arriving, had some 
 foretaste of the luxury awaiting him, 
 for manzils, or rest houses, were provided 
 on the principal highways for the gra- 
 tuitous entertainment of travelers. The 
 gates of Cordova were seven in number, 
 and in the midst of the city stood the 
 Kassabah, or citadel. But all the edi- 
 fices were not of a warlike nature, for 
 the Khalif had his palace of content- 
 ment, his palace of flowers, his palace of 
 lovers, and fairest of all, his palace of 
 Damascus; while the humble Moslem 
 spent his leisure hours in the Golden 
 Meadow, the Garden of the Waterwheel, 
 or the Meadow of Murmuring Waters. 
 Without the city was a palace built over 
 the Guadalquivir on arches, and a palace 
 called Dimashk, of which a poet said : 
 " All palaces in the world are nothing 
 152 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 when compared to that of Dimashk, for 
 not only has it gardens filled with the 
 most delicious fruits and sweet-smelling 
 flowers, beautiful prospects and limpid 
 running waters, clouds fragrant with 
 aromatic dew, and lofty buildings, 
 
 "But its earth is always perfumed, for 
 morning pours on it her grey amber and 
 night her black musk." 
 
 Oriental extravagance, to be sure, but 
 extravagant only in metaphor. 
 
 More marvelous even than Cordova 
 was the suburb and palace of Az Zahra. 
 One third of the revenues of the state 
 were devoted to the building of this royal 
 whim by Abdur Rahman the Great, for a 
 period of twenty-five years, and for fif- 
 teen years more the work was continued 
 by his son. But not a vestige of this 
 marvelous creation remains, not one 
 stone upon another to mark the site of 
 a fairy edifice, of which it is said no 
 words could paint the magnificence. 
 The enclosing wall was four thousand 
 feet in length, from east to west, and two 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 thousand two hundred from north to 
 south. Four thousand three hundred 
 columns of rarest marble from Africa, 
 Rome and Constantinople, supported 
 the roof of this palace; the halls were 
 paved with marble laid in a thousand 
 various patterns; the cedar ceilings 
 were ornamented with gilding on azure 
 ground, with damask work and inter- 
 lacing designs; while the surrounding 
 gardens were filled with marble foun- 
 tains and kiosks, where the sultanas 
 passed their idle hours. 
 
 The greatest triumph of Cordova, 
 however, was not in its palaces and 
 mosques, but in its learning and lib- 
 erality. When Christian Europe was 
 imbrued in barbarian ignorance and 
 superstition, the arts, philosophy and 
 literature, medicine, surgery and chem- 
 istry flourished at the capital of the 
 Omeyan Khalif ; when the Christian world 
 was steeped in bigotry, Christian wor- 
 ship was tolerated and even encouraged 
 by the Moorish rulers. Christian Spain 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 has never attained the preeminence in 
 learning and liberality of Moorish Cor- 
 dova. The Khalifs encouraged writers 
 and men of science, and the researches 
 of Hisham, the munificence of Abdur 
 Rahman, the well -endowed universities 
 of Moorish Spain, made Cordova the re- 
 sort of students and philosophers: thus 
 learning thrived even in the blackest 
 moments of Italian ignorance and papal 
 oppression. 
 
 Within fifty years after Hildebrand 
 triumphed at Canossa, Abn'l Walid Mo- 
 hammed Ibn Ahnad Ibn Mohammed 
 Ibn Rosht was born at Cordova. This 
 man, known to the European world as 
 Averroes, the preserver of Aristotle, 
 was but one among many learned doc- 
 tors in the schools of Cordova. He en- 
 joyed but little reputation among his 
 compeers save as a clever physician, for 
 he founded no school in Islam, and his 
 fame is due to Christian doctors, who 
 discussed and misunderstood his com- 
 mentaries, rather than to his fellow 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 countrymen. The works of Averroes had 
 the misfortune or good luck to incur the 
 deadly hatred of the ^followers of the 
 Spanish Dominic, and thus this Arab 
 student stands before the world as the 
 greatest doctor and most learned phil- 
 osopher of Moorish Spain ; a prophet not 
 without honor save in his own country, 
 while the names of Abubacer, Abenzoor 
 and the scores of other philosophers, 
 scientists and poets who made the name 
 of Cordova great, have been forgotten. 
 Even the fame of Avenpace would have 
 perished had not the great Averroes 
 criticised his philosophy. 
 
 In those days of Cordova's glory, 
 when the bigotry of the Spaniard was 
 rife, as it has been in all ages, the 
 Spanish priests, tolerated, even encour- 
 aged by the Khalifs, despised the culture 
 of Cordova, and alone among the subject 
 population hated the Moors with bitter 
 and undying hatred. Unwilling to 
 accept even toleration, they publicly 
 reviled the prophet, and courted death 
 156 
 
Cordova the Magnificent 
 
 rather live under the liberal government 
 of the Khalifs. Perfectus and Eulogius 
 and the other so-called martyrs of Cor- 
 dova were intolerant fanatics, who cried 
 aloud in the great mosque [of Cordova 
 that the "Kingdom of Heaven is reser- 
 ved for the Christians; for the Moslem 
 miscreants is prepared the fires of Hell. " 
 That spirit is not dead in Spain. It 
 is too lasting, too time-honored to die, 
 and to-day the natural heirs of Eulogius 
 dwell in the hills near Cordova, and turn 
 their bigoted eyes on the fair plain below. 
 There is a hermitage in those hills of 
 ascetic monks where the tonsured, bare- 
 footed brothers, some fifteen in number, 
 follow the austere rules of Peter the 
 hermit. The view from their retreat is 
 one to be remembered. Below is the 
 flat, treeless plain of Cordova, with the 
 silvery river and the white city gleaming 
 in the sunlight, and beyond, the snow- 
 capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada 
 are outlined against the blue sky. There, 
 stretched beneath an olive tree, one 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 gazes at the charming panorama, and 
 wonders at the mutability of all worldly 
 things. Cordova the great is merely a 
 memory; but there are those droning 
 friars, the relics of that intolerance and 
 bigotry which have been the curse of 
 Spain. The Moorish civilization is gone, 
 and the Spanish power which succeeded 
 has waned ; but the voice of the chant- 
 ing monk is still raised as in the days of 
 Eulogius. However, it is fainter now, 
 and the world heeds it less. Perhaps it 
 will soon be hushed forever, and with its 
 silence a new era will begin for Spain 
 an era of liberty, prosperity and en- 
 lightenment. 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 THERE are views one can never 
 forget, scenes which have an im- 
 perishable memory. There can be, how- 
 ever, no impression more lasting than 
 one's recollection of the view from the 
 Vela tower of the Alhambra. Below 
 are the red battlements of the Moorish 
 fortress, and across the rushing Darro 
 the grey-white town is piled high on 
 the hill tops. Beyond the jumble of tile 
 roofs and hanging balconies, the green 
 Vega of Granada, dotted with olives 
 and poplars and the glinting walls of 
 villages, stretches like a carpet of plush 
 towards the purple mountains of Malaga. 
 To the north the rugged Sierra Nevada 
 raise their snow-capped peaks above the 
 clouds, and high on the hillside beyond 
 the towers of the Alhambra, the white 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 arcades of the Generalife glisten in the 
 sunlight. Myrtles and oranges grow 
 amid the crumbling ruins at one's feet; 
 across the river a Carthusian monastery, 
 perched like a sentinel of Christ upon a 
 hilltop, proudly overlooks the troublous 
 Albeicin quarter and recalls stern Ximi- 
 nes and his unrelenting treatment of the 
 conquered Moor. But wherever one 
 turns there are memories. There is a 
 gate where the hapless Boabdil's lance 
 was shattered as he went forth to disas- 
 ter, and across the Vega the grey towers 
 of the Santa Fe, reared by the invading 
 host of the Catholic kings, rise dimly 
 from the plain. In fancy one sees the 
 smoke of the conqueror's torch or the 
 dust of Moorish cavalry. 
 
 But those days are over; Granada the 
 beautiful sleeps. There in the town 
 below mice-like donkeys tread their 
 patient way beside the rumbling] Darro, 
 while ghost-like Spaniards in flowing 
 cloaks silently come and go. Bells toll, 
 the mournful cries of street venders 
 160 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 mingle with the ripple of waters, the air 
 has the soft stillness of summer, and the 
 lazy beggars dozing in the sun make one 
 know that the Granada of long ago is 
 only a glorious dream. 
 
 To speak of Granada is to speak of the 
 Alhambra, but one falters at describing 
 the vastness and the delicacy of that last 
 effort of the Spanish Moor; one falters 
 at treading in Irving's footsteps even in 
 the humblest way, for he made the place 
 and all its memories so thoroughly his 
 own. The hotel beneath the walls bears 
 his name; his "Tales" are sold by im- 
 portunate venders; the guide shows the 
 rooms in which he slept with an air of 
 mysterious reverence, and wherever one 
 turns one feels the presence of the 
 American writer who, more than any 
 man, has preserved the memory" of the 
 Moor. But all the world does not read 
 Irving to-day ; his style lacks the crisp- 
 ness and smartness of the up-to-date 
 novelist, and there may be some to whom 
 the "Conquest of Granada" and "Tales 
 161 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of the Alhambra" are merely the names 
 of unread books. That is one's only 
 excuse for writing of Granada. 
 
 The Alhambra has been called a pal- 
 ace-fortress, and such it certainly was in 
 the days of its prime. It was almost a 
 city as well, and so numerous were the 
 buildings clustered upon the long pro- 
 montory, or ridge, raising between the 
 rivers Darro and Genii, that the place 
 was called by the Arabs, Medinah Al- 
 hamra, or Alhambra City. The name 
 has been usually considered to mean 
 "red castle," from the reddish color of 
 the ferruginous tapia work of the walls. 
 It is, however, more probably derived 
 from Kasru-1-hamra, meaning the sul- 
 tan's palace (Kasr being a corruption 
 of Caesar), but whatever be the origin 
 of the name, the Alhambra of to-day is 
 of far more recent workmanship than 
 most of the Moorish ruins of Spain. Al- 
 though the promontory where the palace 
 stands was long fortified as a stronghold, 
 the Alhambra is practically the creation 
 162 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 of Ibn 1 Ahmar, the founder of the Mas- 
 rite dynasty, and dates from about 1248 
 A.D. 
 
 The kingdom of Granada was the last 
 stronghold of the Moors in the Peninsula; 
 Cordova was the capital of Moorish 
 Spain in its prime, and on the breaking 
 up of the Omeyan Khalifate after the 
 death of Almanzor in 1002, into numer- 
 ous petty kingdoms, Seville rose to the 
 greatest prominence. The feuds be- 
 tween these petty kingdoms were nearly 
 successful in destroying the Arab power 
 entirely. And had not the Almoravides 
 and the Almohades, two fanatical sects 
 from Africa, invaded Spain successively 
 in the interests of the Crescent, the end 
 of Moslem rule might have been ante- 
 dated some four centuries. But the 
 semi-barbarous tribes from Africa infused 
 new vigor into the declining Moor and 
 prolonged the Mohammedan power. It 
 was not until the great Christian victory 
 of Navas de Tolosa, in 1212, that the 
 power of the Almohades was crushed. 
 163 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 The fall of Cordova and Seville was but 
 a question of a few years. Granada, 
 one of the petty Arab kingdoms, became 
 the last refuge of the Moor. The Mos- 
 lem, driven from Cordova, Seville and 
 the other cities of Spain, sought shelter 
 in this little mountain kingdom, and 
 there for two centuries the decadent 
 Moors, by wisely acknowleding the suze- 
 rainty of the kings of Castile, were en- 
 abled to govern themselves and prolong 
 their final downfall. 
 
 The Grenadine, like all decadents, was 
 luxurious, effeminate and contentious. 
 His history is a history of palace in- 
 trigues, rebellions and civil wars; when 
 he was not fighting the Christian he was 
 plotting, and his idle moments were 
 spent with the women of his harem, sur- 
 rounded by all the luxury his ingenuity 
 could devise. His art was delicate and 
 refined, but it lacked the vigor shown in 
 the works of the Cordovans. Its very 
 effeminacy, however, gives it a charm 
 which has made the Alhambra rank first 
 164 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 in interest among the Moorish ruins. 
 One pities a fallen race, one has sympathy 
 for a people who, like the Grenadines, 
 were the remnant of a mighty power. 
 That is, perhaps, why the two centuries 
 of Granada's history have almost over- 
 shadowed the five centuries of Moorish 
 grandeur at Cordova. The last struggle 
 of the Moors against the power of the 
 Catholic kings has been the topic of 
 many a romance and poem, and Boabdil 
 the miserable rebel, the tool of women, 
 the traitor, has become a hero at the ex- 
 pense of his brave father and still braver 
 uncle, merely because it was he who sur- 
 rendered the keys of Granada to Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella, and because as he 
 looked for the last time upon the towers 
 of the Alhambra, he stood "crying like 
 a woman for the kingdom he could not 
 defend like a man." What a pitiful suc- 
 cessor to the great Abdur Rahman Al- 
 manzor, or even Al Ahmar, the founder 
 of Boabdil's house! Yet the average 
 reader, if he knows of the Moors at all, 
 165 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 knows of Boabdil. The great names of 
 Moorish history have been forgotten that 
 the name of the rebel and traitor may 
 live. Likewise the Alhambra has at- 
 tained a preeminence perhaps unde- 
 served in point of grandeur, but certainly 
 not in point of beauty; for this fairy pal- 
 ace of the declining Moor stands unique 
 among the world's monuments. 
 
 The earlier phase of Moorish art, ex- 
 emplified by the mosque of Cordova, 
 was the outcome of a stern, almost 
 ascetic spirit, which avoided frivolous 
 ornamentation, and reflected the vigor- 
 ous character of the times. The Alham- 
 bra belongs to the last period of Moorish 
 architecture, a degenerate period want- 
 ing in lofty inspiration, and expressing 
 the effeminacy and luxury of the age. 
 It is almost excessive in ornamentation, 
 the proportions are even paltry, and 
 there is exaggeration in the outline; but 
 no other Moorish monument possesses 
 the delicate refinement, the almost inex- 
 
 166 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 pressible charm of this palace of the 
 Grenadine kings. 
 
 How many times has the Alhambra 
 been described minutely? As often as a 
 traveler with a pencil and a note book 
 has wandered within its walls. It has 
 been called a fortress, a castle, a palace, 
 a city, a ruin, a monument, and one 
 knows not what else; each stone, each 
 azulejo, has received its share of atten- 
 tion, and the end is not yet. One pre- 
 fers to saunter quietly through the shady 
 courts, tarrying for a moment here and 
 there, and leaving minute description to 
 the architect or the antiquary. 
 
 In the Plaza de los Algibes (Place of 
 the Cisterns) for instance, you may rest 
 for a while in the shade of a crumbling 
 wall and study the history of Spain ob- 
 jectively. Surrounding you are the 
 irregular walls and square castellated 
 towers of the fortress, the entrance to 
 the Moorish palace, the church of San 
 Nicolas, the unfinished Tuscan palace 
 
 167 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of Charles V., and the houses of the 
 Alhambra leeches, who thrive on travel- 
 ers. One sees at a glance the vestiges 
 of Roman rule and Arab dominion, side 
 by side with the monumental evidence of 
 Spanish fanaticism and Austrian conceit ; 
 while lolling in the sun are the slothful 
 Spaniards of to-day, typical of a great- 
 ness which has waned. 
 
 But it is impossible to tarry unmo- 
 lested in the Plaza, de los Algibes. Just 
 when one's fancy is turning to the ro- 
 mantic period of Moorish rule and pic- 
 turing that palace yard filled with 
 bearded Moors, resplendent with colored 
 silks and jeweled cimeters, white turbans 
 and glistening lances, the self-styled 
 "Prince of The Gypsies" thrusts his 
 smirking countenance before one's face 
 and begs for a copper to keep his royal 
 highness in aguardiente. This pictur- 
 esque ruffian was once a model for For- 
 tuny, and he now attires himself in 
 fantastic garb and preys upon the un- 
 wary tourist He is but one of a host 
 1 68 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 of miscreants haunting the Alhambra, 
 and dogging one's footsteps. To escape 
 one must enter the palace itself, where 
 the employes are civil and one is left 
 unmolested to enjoy the delights of 
 Moorish art. 
 
 Of all the courts of the Alhambra that 
 of the Lions is most universally known. 
 It is a perfect model of the Moorish 
 patio, and the light, graceful columns, 
 the open filagree work, the colored tiles, 
 the stalactite arches, are so admirably 
 blended that criticism seems futile. The 
 fountain, too, with its huge alabaster 
 basin, supported by twelve heraldic 
 lions, is a familiar friend one has known 
 in story and picture from childhood. 
 There is a view across this court which for 
 its delicacy and charm is unrivalled. 
 You must make friends with the em- 
 pleado who paces to and fro on the mar- 
 ble pavement, eyeing the visitors who 
 come and go. It is his duty to protect 
 the court from defacement, and the relic- 
 hunting tourist is his enemy; but with a 
 169 
 
The Land of the Castanet- 
 word or two of greeting, and the offer of 
 a cigarillo, he becomes your friend, and 
 with rare attention he fishes out an old 
 chair from behind some column and 
 places it for you in the cool shady en- 
 trance to the Hall of the Abencerrages. 
 Not only does he thus provide for your 
 comfort, but he discreetly retires to a 
 neighboring hall and leaves you to un- 
 molested enjoyment of the place. 
 
 One looks across the court, where grif- 
 fin-like lions gaze heavenward, to the 
 Hall of the Two Sisters. Broad marble 
 steps descend gently, lace-like arches 
 are grouped in bewildering perspective, 
 some white, some delicate flesh color, 
 with here and there pale tints of pink 
 and blue. Behind the fountain a net- 
 work of stalactite archways, deep in 
 shadow, converge to the double mirador 
 of the " Favorite," where alabaster 
 columns glisten in the sunlight, and 
 orange and cypress trees spread their 
 brilliant green branches in the Lindaraja 
 garden beyond. 
 
 170 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 In the hall where one is sitting, the 
 dark ferruginous blotches on the pave- 
 ment are said to be the blood stains of 
 the Abencerrages, a powerful family of 
 Granada, murdered by the miserable 
 Boabdil as the tyrant's reward for their 
 assistance in placing him upon his 
 father's throne. It is one of the legends 
 of the Alhambra, more reliable than 
 the stains upon the floor. But one 
 dislikes to examine the fables of the 
 Moor under the cold light of history. 
 One prefers rather the romantic tales 
 of Irving; tales of fair sultanas and their 
 Christian captive lovers, of cruel khalifs 
 and plotting viziers. One listens in 
 fancy to the rattle of the cimeter and the 
 tramp of bearded warriors, and pictures 
 in imagination the dark eyes of harem 
 favorites glancing from the miradores 
 above upon lithe dancing girls moving to 
 the sonorous lute and the clash of cym- 
 bals in the court below; while luxurious 
 Moors, reclining on silken divans, sip 
 fragrant sherbet from golden cups, and 
 171 
 
. The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Nubian slaves slowly fan the summer 
 air. 
 
 The Alhambra is bewilderment. Every- 
 where one turns there is grace in out- 
 line and charm in color. One wanders 
 through halls and galleries with maze-like 
 arches and myriad columns, where Ara- 
 bic legends are intricately interwoven 
 in countless designs. There are shady 
 courts where goldfish play in marble 
 basins, and the shadows of myrtle 
 hedges are cast upon the green water; 
 there are delicate balconies set in the 
 outer walls, where one gazes from dizzy 
 heights upon the rushing Darro and the 
 white town sprinkled on the hillside; 
 there are crumbling towers with fairy 
 chambers, where sultanas dwelt, and 
 mosques and baths, and halls of justice. 
 One confesses an inability even to enu- 
 merate the delights of the Alhambra, for 
 there is fascination everywhere. 
 
 Those Grenadine kings, however, 
 were not content with their palace fort- 
 ress. In the hot summer months they 
 172 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 retired to the hillside above, where the 
 white villa of the Generalife looks down 
 upon the Alhambra. The name General- 
 ife is said to signify "Garden of the 
 Dance." The Grenadine kings took 
 care that the place should not belie its 
 name. It was used for festival occasions 
 and to pass the idle moments; a villa of 
 revelry and pleasure, where the sensuous 
 Moor might indulge in his favorite pleas- 
 ures. Neglect and the whitewash brush 
 have marred the delicate stucco work, 
 but the many fountains and the gardens 
 with their orange and lemon trees, 
 their evergreen arches and yews twisted 
 into fantastic patterns, give partial evi- 
 dence of the charms of the Generalife in 
 the days of its prime. One understands 
 the flowery praise of Arab poets. It is a 
 pleasure to tarry in those gardens. The 
 fountains murmur, and the leaves or 
 oranges are vivid in the sunlight. The 
 tall forms of cypresses cast cool shadows 
 on the pavement, and the odor of roses 
 scents the air. One's thoughts turn to 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 long ago, and in fancy the hosts of the 
 Catholic kings are marshalled in the 
 plain below; pennons flutter, the armor 
 of Christian knights glistens as their 
 restless chargers paw the ground. Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella are there, and Gon- 
 zalo de Cordova, "the great captain," 
 whose fame is soon to resound through 
 Europe ; stern Mendoza, too, and all the 
 Christian soldiers and prelates, who for 
 ten long years have been waging relent- 
 less war upon the Moor. It is the hour 
 of triumph for the cross, for hapless 
 Boabdil comes forth from the city gates 
 to surrender the keys of Granada to the 
 conqueror. The story of the Moor is 
 ended, and the banner of Castile, hoisted 
 by the hand of Cardinal Mendoza, flut- 
 ters from the Vela tower. Spain becomes 
 a Christian nation. 
 
 It was a marvelous period in her his- 
 tory, for Columbus went forth that year 
 from Palos. He was present in the be- 
 sieging camp of Santa Fe" pleading his 
 cause. Weary and disgusted by tempo- 
 174 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 rizing, he turned his face toward France, 
 and was on his way across the Vega, 
 when a messenger from the queen over- 
 took him, and he came back to add 
 another world to Castile-Leon. 
 
 Spain was given a glorious chance, 
 but the Spanish Christian, like the Moor, 
 was unequal to the task. Four hundred 
 years have passed, and the world looks 
 on to-day at Spain's desperate struggle 
 to retain the last possessions of her 
 mighty empire. "There is no conqueror 
 but God." That is the sentiment chis- 
 elled in a hundred places on the walls of 
 the Alhambra. It was the sentiment of 
 the fatalistic Moor, but the lazy Span- 
 iard who lolls there in the sun to-day, if 
 he thinks at all, should realize its truth, 
 as exemplified over and over again in 
 the history of his country. 
 
 The Granada of to-day is a sluggish 
 Spanish city, with narrow winding 
 streets where idlers congregate. The 
 houses are taller than those of Seville, 
 with more balconies, but the walls are 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 not so white, and there are few of those 
 delightful courts with fountains and flow- 
 ers which lend a holiday air to the rival 
 city. Granada is more like a Castilian 
 than an Andalusian city, and there is 
 little to attract the visitor who wanders 
 down the steep Alhambra hill into the 
 town below. Curiosity shops are there 
 to entrap the unwary traveler, and in 
 some of the narrower streets there are 
 attractive dashes of local color in the 
 shape of dingy booths, and donkeys, and 
 tattered beggars. There are pretty girls, 
 too, leaning on the balconies, their spir- 
 ited eyes flashing defiance at cloaked 
 gallants lounging in the sun; but the 
 town has a forlorn air of "decayed gen- 
 tility." 
 
 The women, however, almost redeem 
 the city, for nowhere in Spain are there 
 such marvelous complexions as one sees 
 in Granada. There is a delicate soft- 
 ness to the skin, and a rich flush of 
 color, which combined with the glossy 
 hair and piercing black eyes, form the 
 176 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 perfect Spanish type of beauty. The 
 beauty is facial, however, as few Spanish 
 women have good figures, and they wad- 
 dle rather than walk. In the simple 
 black dresses and lace mantillas which 
 they wear going to mass, they are the 
 Spanish women of one's imagination; 
 but in French bonnets and gowns they 
 are fat and awkward. In Granada, how- 
 ever, one sees them even to better ad- 
 vantage than in Seville. 
 
 Some ten or fifteen years ago, at the 
 time of a former visit, national costumes 
 were almost universal in Andalusia the 
 manola dress, with short skirt and silken 
 shawl wrapped about the shoulders, the 
 high comb and lace mantilla; but now 
 even the dancing girls wear clothes of 
 modern pattern. The men, too, used 
 to wear the bolero jacket and skin-tight 
 breeches, the palainas or leggins, the 
 faja or broad sash, and the calanes , or 
 round hat, with two balls or ponpons, 
 one sees so often in Carmen; but now 
 that costume is only found in the coun- 
 177 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 try far from the larger cities; and of 
 national garments only the capa or 
 cloak remains ; that, too, is disappearing. 
 The Spaniard, like the Japanese, when 
 modernized loses his character. What 
 a pity he does not realize it. 
 
 Granada, like all the cities of Spain, 
 has its cathedral, a Grseco-Roman pile, 
 built in 1529, on the site of the great 
 mosque. It was intended by the archi- 
 tect to be second to no church in the 
 world, except perhaps St. Peter's, but 
 it is second to many in Spain. The pro- 
 portions are good, but the building is 
 crowded among the surrounding houses 
 so that it is not seen to advantage, and 
 the interior, though simple, one might al- 
 most say grand, has been too thoroughly 
 renovated to possess the sombre charm 
 of such edifices as the cathedrals of Se- 
 ville, Toledo and Burgos. There is 
 much that is gaudy, too, in the coloring, 
 and the general effect is disappointing. 
 
 One's interest in the cathedral centres 
 in the royal chapel where Ferdinand and 
 178 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 Isabella are buried. This chapel is 
 really independent of the cathedral, as it 
 has its own chapter and chaplains. The 
 interior has the impressive gloom absent 
 in the larger church; there are slender 
 palm-like pillars of unusual charm, and 
 the bassi relievi of the retablo, represen- 
 ting the surrender of Granada and the 
 conversion of infidels, recalls the stir- 
 ring times when the Moor was con- 
 quered. Effigies of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella kneel beside the altar, and in 
 the centre of the chapel are the alabas- 
 ter sepulchres of the Catholic kings, 
 with those of Phillip I. and crazy Jane 
 at either side. On the walls are sculp- 
 tured the words: "This chapel was 
 founded by the most Catholic Don Fer- 
 nando and Dona Isabel, King and Queen 
 of Spain, of Naples, of Sicily and Jerusa- 
 lem, who conquered this kingdom and 
 brought it back to our faith; who ac- 
 quired the Canary Isles and Indies, as 
 well as the cities of Oran, Tripoli and 
 Bugia, who crushed heresy, expelled the 
 179 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Moors and Jews from these realms and 
 reformed religion." 
 
 One stops to ponder on the lifework 
 of those Catholic kings, a work that 
 should have made of Spain a nation such 
 as England is to-day, and as one pond- 
 ers, the words "who crushed heresy, ex- 
 pelled the Moors and Jews from these 
 realms and reformed religion," stand 
 out preeminent. There is the secret of 
 the failure of Spain. 
 
 Wherever one turns in Granada there 
 are historical lessons. In the church of 
 San Geronimo, one of the many interest- 
 ing sacred edifices which are scattered 
 through the city, Gonzalo de Cordova 
 lies buried. He was the greatest soldier 
 Spain ever produced, a man who more 
 than any other created the European 
 Empire of the Spaniard, who revolution- 
 ized the art of war, who over and over 
 again defeated the best troops of France 
 with greatly inferior numbers, and main- 
 tained the Spanish power in Italy with- 
 out money and without men, only to be 
 180 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 rewarded by the base ingratitude of his 
 master, the miserly and crafty Ferdi- 
 nand. The two men who created the 
 magnificent empire of the Catholic Kings 
 were Columbus and Gonzalo de Cordova, 
 "The Great Captain." Each died of a 
 broken heart. Ingratitude is the reward 
 of kings. 
 
 One of the sights of Granada which 
 the tourist invariably sees is the gypsy 
 quarter. It is the stock in trade of 
 the guides, and the dances organized 
 there at exorbitant rates, are usually 
 successful in entrapping the unwary trav- 
 eler. Among the filthy, miserable, un- 
 principled vagabonds of Christendom, 
 the Grenadine gypsies hold preeminence. 
 They live in a series of caves, dug in 
 the hillside across the Darro, and their 
 sole means of livelihood is fleecing the 
 strangers. The moment a traveler ap- 
 pears within sight of the gypsy quarter 
 he is surrounded by a clamorous, yelling 
 mob of filthy urchins, who dog his foot- 
 steps with appalling persistency. The 
 181 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 dance he is to witness takes place in a 
 dingy, foul smelling hut, with dirt floor 
 and smoky walls. You are seated in 
 state in a rickety chair, and told that the 
 price agreed upon is not sufficient to 
 insure the full performance. The guitar- 
 ist needs a larger share, four girls cannot 
 do all the dances, for a few dollars more 
 you can see the entire show. After a 
 great deal of squabbling and gesticulat- 
 ing the bargain is finally comsummated. 
 Then the imposition begins. The danc- 
 ing girls are fat, ugly creatures in gaudy 
 cotton gowns, whose vulgarity excels 
 anything seen in the Midway during the 
 World's Fair, and as the performance 
 progresses their movements become more 
 and more objectionable. The leader 
 who plays the guitar is a clever per- 
 former and executes some really excellent 
 music between the dances, but the foul 
 place, the vulgar dancers, the gaping 
 crowd of beggars in the doorway,'all make 
 one thankful to flee from the gypsy 
 quarter and its disgusting inhabitants. 
 182 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 Escaping from the gypsies you walk 
 back through the old Moorish section of 
 tjje-city known as the Albeicin quarter. 
 The Arab houses are still there, and you 
 can roam leisurely through the narrow 
 streets peeping into the little shops and 
 the quaint old courts, with their Moorish 
 arches and their fountains, their white- 
 washed walls and cool balconies, where 
 vines are growing and dark-skinned girls 
 are leaning on the railings. 
 
 There are many excursions to be made 
 about Granada, drives across the Vega 
 to Santa Fe*, drives along the gorge of 
 the Darro to the Colegiata del Sacro 
 Monte, with its subterranean chapels 
 erected to commemorate numberless 
 miracles and treasure trove. If you 
 have the time there are excursions to 
 the Alpuxarra mountains, so historic- 
 ally interesting as being the last home 
 of the Moors, and the scene of that 
 frightful series of wars succeeding the 
 fall of Granada, where Don John of 
 Austria won his spurs, and the remnants 
 183 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of the Moors, known as the Moriscos, 
 defied the power of Spain. The great 
 rebellion of the Alpuxarras lasted for two 
 years, and its records of assassination, 
 treachery, brutality and reckless deeds 
 of daring are among the most horrible 
 and fascinating of history. But wher- 
 ever one turns there is historical associa- 
 tion, interesting and sorrowful. 
 
 Some six miles from Granada there is 
 a hamlet called Zubia, deserving a spe- 
 cial commendation as being the only 
 place in Spain where one did not meet a 
 beggar. But Zubia has another interest. 
 During the siege of Granada, Isabella 
 rode there from the camp at Santa Fe 
 to obtain a view of the Alhambra and 
 the promised land of the Moor. A sally 
 was made from the city and the queen 
 escaped capture miraculously, of 
 course. 
 
 A shrine to the virgin who appeared 
 
 visibly for the queen's protection was 
 
 erected by Isabella to commemorate the 
 
 escape, and its ruins still remain among 
 
 184 
 
Granada the Fallen 
 
 the laurels and the cypress trees. One 
 tarries there for a last view of white 
 Granada scattered over its four hills, 
 and the red Alhambra outlined against 
 the purple mountains beyond. The 
 snow caps of the Sierra Nevada sparkle 
 in the sunlight, the green Vega stretches 
 towards Malaga and the sea, fleecy 
 clouds hang motionless in the hazy sky. 
 The air is balmy, and loitering there one 
 breathes a last sigh for the Moor, who 
 made of Spain the centre of arts and 
 sciences, the seat of learning and refine- 
 ment. Spain, during the brief brilliancy 
 of the Catholic kings and the Hapsburg 
 Empire was a mighty nation, but it 
 shone with the borrowed light of the 
 Moor. The Moor was banished, but his 
 best memorial lies in the desolate tracts 
 of land where his vines and. olives once 
 grew; in the sleepy, ignorant cities 
 where his art and learning once flour- 
 ished. 
 
 185 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 IN a provincial town away from the 
 beaten tracks of travel, one sees 
 Spanish life as it has existed untainted 
 for centuries. A hundred years at least 
 behind the world, the town sleeps on, 
 undisturbed by modern unrest. Even 
 the railway with its one crawling train 
 per day, skirts along the suburbs a mile 
 or more away as though fearful to dis- 
 turb the quiet by its pretence of activity. 
 About the little stuccoed station a 
 group of vagos loiter in the sun, their 
 bronzed faces animated by idle curiosity, 
 their gay mantas slung carelessly across 
 their tattered coats. There is a buffet, 
 too, with its huge bottles of red and 
 yellow wine, its piles of oranges and 
 sour bread. Perchance the train bears 
 a contingent of recruits for Cuba, and 
 186 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 the poor fellows hurriedly crowd around 
 the wine puesto, and exhaust the 
 meagre stock of liquids. They are 
 apparently happy, singing and laughing 
 to keep their courage up, but the tearful 
 faces of the peasant women, and the 
 stoical old men who are there to take a 
 last farewell of the poor boys, betray the 
 suffering that war is causing. The inevit- 
 able pair of civil guards, with neat black 
 uniforms and glistening equipments, are 
 there to scrutinize the crowd with the 
 authoritative[air of the trained policeman. 
 Spanish trains do not worry much 
 about time. When the engine driver has 
 finished his cigarette and the station 
 master has sufficiently discussed political 
 gossip with the guard, someone rings a 
 bell, a whistle is blown, a bell is rung 
 again, and finally after much gesticula- 
 tion and waving of hands, with perhaps a 
 faint attempt at a cheer on the part of 
 the recruits, the train draws slowly away 
 and you are left standing on the platform 
 admiring the temerity of the men who 
 187 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 invaded such a land with locomotives 
 and iron rails. 
 
 Outside the station two or three crude 
 omnibuses are waiting. There is a dusty 
 line of road with a double row of trees, 
 and beyond is the brown mass of the 
 town with the inevitable cathedral spires 
 towering against the sky. Seating your- 
 self in one of the omnibuses amid a 
 crowd of Spanish provincials, you are 
 hurried away over the hard road towards 
 the sleepy town. Bells jangle, hoofs 
 click, the bus sways like a ship at sea, 
 but the stoical Spaniards about you 
 smoke on unmoved. The air is crisp and 
 chill, and their faces are half hidden in 
 their muffled cloaks; they utter a few 
 guttural sounds about the weather, and 
 perhaps give their cloaks an extra twist. 
 Finally the walled town is reached, and 
 the omnibus is halted by the octroi 
 officials, who proceed to examine the 
 remotest corners of the vehicle in their 
 search for dutiable merchandise. The 
 driver of the mixed team of mules and 
 188 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 horses is a wag, and makes sarcastic 
 remarks about bread contained in his hat 
 and aguardiente in his stomach which 
 he supposes is dutiable, but unmindful 
 of his wit the customs officers proceed 
 in their search until they are satisfied. 
 Then the bus rattles on over the cobbles 
 of the narrow street, scattering goats 
 and chickens to right and left, crowd- 
 ing donkeys and wayfarers against the 
 walls. 
 
 The driver is an artist in his line, and 
 he swings his mules and horses about 
 the corners and grazes the walls in a 
 hair-breadth manner which is fairly 
 startling. 
 
 Finally the bus enters a street, straight- 
 er and wider than the rest, with arcades 
 and a few shops, with colored calicos 
 hanging in the windows. There is even 
 an advertisement of Singer Sewing 
 Machines placarded on a stucco wall, 
 but before you have had time to recover 
 from astonishment at this incongruous 
 evidence of modernism, the huge vehicle 
 189 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 stops before a door, where you read the 
 sign "Fonda de Europa" painted dingily 
 over the door. The smirking fondista is 
 there to greet you, and hungry and 
 shivering you descend in the hope of 
 finding warmth and comfort. But alas, 
 it is colder within doors than outside, 
 where the sun tempers the chilly air. 
 There is a cheerless caf6 downstairs 
 where a few of the "quality" of the 
 town are hidden behind copies of "El 
 Imparcial" and "El Liberal." The 
 pavement is stone, and the wind whis- 
 tles through every crack and crevice of 
 the squeaky old door and windows. The 
 fumes of a single charcoal brazier as- 
 phyxiate the air without adding one 
 degree to the warmth. In self defense 
 you are driven to strong drink, but 
 even the aguardiente which the cigarette 
 smoking waiter brings you fails to warm 
 your shivering body. There is no cold 
 which penetrates like Castilian cold. 
 In the sun when walking it is possible 
 to keep warm, but indoors, no matter 
 190 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 how warmly one may be clothed, it 
 penetrates to the marrow. 
 
 At the breakfast hour you wander into 
 the cheerless dining room and take your 
 seat at the long table, bowing in Spanish 
 fashion to each of the guests. The 
 assemblage is composed of the Spanish 
 bourgeoisie, and it would be difficult to 
 find persons more unattractive. A fat 
 old man with a forbidding scowl occupies 
 the head of the table, his skin is oily and 
 his head is bald ; he is talking vocifer- 
 ously and shoveling in food with his 
 knife between the words. He is evident- 
 ly a guest of importance in the commer- 
 cial sense, for the waiter serves him 
 obsequiously. Next him is a bride from 
 Bilboa, with her shop-keeper husband. 
 Like most young Spanish women, she 
 has the olive skin blended with dark red, 
 which is so attractive a feature of Span- 
 ish beauty. Her abundant hair has a 
 rare gloss, and her large black eyes are 
 soulful, but alas, she eats with her knife 
 and picks her teeth. She is dull, too, 
 191 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 and has little intelligence beyond animal 
 instincts. Her husband has keen little 
 eyes which twitch excitedly. His napkin 
 covers the greater portion of his bosom, 
 and he seems to live to eat, judging by 
 the way he consumes his gazpacho. 
 There is a drummer from Madrid who 
 shows his metropolitan superiority in his 
 contemptuous manner, and a little 
 sallow-faced fellow with sunken features, 
 who in America one would take for a 
 second-rate actor, but as he never says a 
 word, and slinks away with a half fright- 
 ened manner before the repast is finished, 
 one is at a loss to decipher his calling. 
 It will be strange if there be not at that 
 table a portly matron with bulging jowls 
 and an incipient moustache, who sternly 
 eyes her meek - faced daughter and 
 replies in guttural monosyllables to the 
 occasional remarks of her diminutive 
 husband. The conversation is not gen- 
 eral, occasional remarks are addressed at 
 random by the man of importance at the 
 head of the table. The drummer from 
 192 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 Madrid tries to talk to the bride from 
 Bilboa, but the eyes of the bridegroom 
 twitch so excitedly that he desists and 
 addresses a remark to the sallow-faced 
 unknown, who replies with a sickly smile 
 and steals away. Finally the fat old 
 man at the head of the table discovers 
 that you are an American, and enters 
 into a violent discussion about American 
 interference in Cuba. It is far from 
 pleasant, but it makes you forget the cold 
 and the bad food, and for a time you 
 feel less lonesome. After all, the people 
 are no more vulgar nor the food worse 
 than one would find at a hotel in a 
 western town. 
 
 Sometimes in those provincial inns you 
 are the only guest. The waiter then 
 beomes your companion, and when the 
 meal is finished you have learned the 
 gossip of the village, the names of the 
 people of importance, the woes of the 
 land, the peccadillos of the parish priest, 
 and all that is of interest in the prosaic 
 lives of the people. 
 
 193 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 There is little to be seen in most pro- 
 vincial towns beyond the streets and the 
 people, but one who has a fondness for 
 life and color and graceful outline, finds 
 much to interest him at every step. 
 There is the narrow street rambling 
 away before you, with no apparent regard 
 for rectilinear! ty, its white-walled houses 
 shining in the sunlight, or dark in 
 shadow, its smooth cobble stones undu- 
 lated and time-worn by the tread of 
 generations of villagers. Street urchins 
 play in the sun, housewives loll in the 
 doorways, patient donkeys amble by, 
 their little bodies almost hidden by huge 
 straw panniers filled with charcoal or 
 shining pottery. As you saunter along 
 you pass the door of the parish church 
 with its inevitable coterie of beggars. 
 The chanting of priests attracts you 
 within, and standing there uncovered 
 you view for a while the impressive 
 religious scene. The church is dismal 
 and cold, and the ghost -like figures 
 kneeling in prayer seem not of this 
 194 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 world. Candles glimmer on the altar, 
 and little lamps burn dimly before the 
 shrines of saints; the distant chapels are 
 lost in gloom, and the air you breathe is 
 of the tomb. From the choir comes the 
 sombre droning of the priests, and the 
 kneeling women mumble and cross 
 themselves in reverence. 
 
 But the sun is shining in the street 
 outside and the white houses and blue 
 Spanish sky make you forget the sombre 
 religious gloom. There is a taberna at 
 the corner, too, and your bones have 
 been chilled in that cold church, so you 
 wander in and bow to the landlord and his 
 patrons. * * Una copita de aguardiente, ' ' 
 the drink of the country, is the order 
 you give, and while sipping the distilled 
 anise seed, you have time to gaze about 
 and examine the place. The room is low 
 and dingy. There is a long counter on 
 which the fat proprietor is leaning, and 
 behind him are a row of casks and shelves 
 with huge bottles of red wine. A couple 
 of tables and some rough chairs complete 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 the furniture, and under the tables char- 
 coal braziers are smouldering. Some 
 smooth - faced Spaniards, with broad 
 brimmed felt hats and graceful capas, are 
 huddled about the braziers drinking. You 
 praise the aguardiente and the garrulous 
 landlord proudly states that it is his own 
 distilling. Nothing will do but you must 
 see his still, so meekly following his lead 
 you walk through intricate byways for 
 perhaps half a mile to a deserted con- 
 vent. There in an old court, moss- 
 grown .and crumbling, he has installed 
 his apparatus. It is characteristic of 
 laggard Spain. A charcoal fire smould- 
 ers under a huge earthen retort, where 
 the wine is boiled, and the distilling 
 process is completed by passing the 
 liquid through three coils of pipe chilled 
 in a tub of water. In another corner of 
 the court stands a primitive wine press, 
 worked by a huge wooden screw and a 
 long wooden lever weighted at one end 
 by stones. The proprietor is as proud 
 of this simple "plant" as though it were 
 196 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 an enormous industry with all the con- 
 trivances of modern skill. 
 
 On the way back to the taberna he 
 regales you with minute details of his 
 profits and business prospects, and not 
 satisfied with this, he must show you his 
 house, and the vaults where his wine is 
 stored. It is worth seeing, for it is typi- 
 cal of the country. There is a stone 
 paved patio or court, where the women 
 of the family are grinding corn, just as 
 the women did in the days of Moorish 
 Spain, and in the living rooms above you 
 get an idea of how a Spanish family 
 lives. The bedrooms are small but neat, 
 with red counterpanes upon the beds 
 and lithographs of saints upon the walls, 
 but space is begrudged, and in the living 
 room and kitchen, casks and bottles and 
 bunches of grapes and raisins are stored. 
 There is a smell of garlic and oil, and a 
 feeling of dampness everywhere, and 
 although the patio, with its graceful 
 arches and crumbling stairways where 
 clothes are drying and the women are 
 197 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 squatting before their corn, would at- 
 tract a painter, it is not what we call 
 homelike. One is glad to leave the odor 
 of garlic and the dampness, and reach 
 the street again where the sun is shin- 
 ing. 
 
 There is the market place, too, with 
 its graceful Moorish colonnade and its 
 canopied booths, its piles of yellow oran- 
 ges, and festoons of garlic. Color and 
 life are there, although the life is rather 
 indolent, for the market men are mostly 
 sleeping in the sun, and the donkeys 
 blink their eyes as they stand patiently 
 awaiting the cry of arrht borrico, which 
 summons them to toil. 
 
 The hours passed in a provincial town 
 are lazy and dreamy, and you care not 
 for time ; but they are hours to be long 
 remembered, for time seems to have 
 been turned back a century at least. 
 
 You wonder, too, if the nineteenth 
 century, with all its bustle and activity, 
 has brought more contentment and hap- 
 piness to mankind. Is not the listless 
 198 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 Spaniard sleeping in the sun as happy 
 and contented as man ever is? But the 
 philosophy of indolence is difficult to 
 defend even from the standpoint of epi- 
 cureanism, while even in those provincial 
 towns there are monuments of activity 
 and greatness side by side with the evi- 
 dence of modern sloth. If the town be 
 Ronda, for instance, you may lean upon 
 the iron paling of the Alameda, and, 
 gazing over the valley of the Guadale- 
 vin, be reminded of the prowess of the 
 Moor, and the energy of the Spaniard 
 in days gone by. The purple mountains 
 stand out bold and clear against the sky, 
 and the river dashes through the famous 
 gorge a thousand feet below. Ancient 
 Ronda perched upon a spur of rocks looks 
 down upon the rushing waters; the 
 Moorish mills are grinding corn as in the 
 days of Hamet El Zegri, the last alcaide 
 of Arab rule. The black river flows 
 swiftly past the caves where Christian 
 captives dwelt, and surges under the 
 noble bridge above only to dash angrily 
 199 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 against the walls of the rocky chasm and 
 then subside into a meek and submissive 
 stream beyond. 
 
 Unconsciously do you think of the 
 stirring days of Moorish warfare. The 
 alcaide Hamet El Zegri is returning with 
 his gomeres from a raid in the vast cam- 
 pifias of the duke of Medina Sidonia, 
 Spurring his horse up a craggy height he 
 expects to behold his fair Ronda repos- 
 ing safely as when he left, but what is his 
 consternation at seeing the white tents 
 of a besieging army dotting the hillside, 
 and the royal standard of Ferdinand 
 flapping gently in the breeze. Impotent 
 to assail such a force he smites his 
 breast with rage, while the cannons and 
 lombards of the royal army batter down 
 the towers and ramparts of his beloved 
 city. Such are the fortunes of war. 
 And Ronda, the impregnable, falls an 
 easy prey to the science of gunnery, 
 then in the experimental stage of its 
 development. 
 
 Perhaps the provincial town where you 
 
 200 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 are tarrying is stern Segovia, all ruin, all 
 poverty, massive and austere. An 
 aqueduct of Trajan spans the town with 
 its three hundred granite arches, a mar- 
 velous monument of Roman skill, but an 
 old beggar dozing beneath its walls, tells 
 you that the devil built it in a single 
 night to save a fair Segoviana with whom 
 he was in love, the trouble of going down 
 to the river for water. Of course the 
 maiden was touched by the attention 
 and listened to his jardbe de pico y or 
 honeyed words. But Segovia, the proud 
 hidalgo of Old Castile, did not always 
 sleep quietly in the sun. Its silent 
 streets once resounded with the cries of 
 an excited mob. It was in the early 
 days of the reign of the Emperor Charles, 
 when the people, ever jealous of their 
 rights, became infuriated at a submissive 
 cortes for voting imperial grants without 
 obtaining redress for popular grievances. 
 Tordesillas, the representative of Sego- 
 via, being a bold and haughty man, re- 
 turned to his native city to defend his 
 
 201 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 conduct, and according to custom sum- 
 moned his fellow townsmen to the church 
 that he might give an account of his 
 actions in the cortes. But the multitude, 
 infuriated at his insolence in attempting 
 to justify conduct they deemed inexcus- 
 able, burst open the doors of the church, 
 and seizing Tordesillas dragged him 
 through the streets with curses and 
 insults towards the place of public exe- 
 cution. The dean and canons came 
 forth with the holy sacrament to awe the 
 mob; the monks in the monasteries, by 
 which the luckless deputy was dragged 
 prayed on their knees, that his life be 
 spared, or ^at least, that he be allowed 
 time for absolution, but without regard 
 for humanity or religion, they hung their 
 victim up head downwards on the com- 
 mon gibbet. That was the beginning of 
 the revolt of the comuneros, an impotent 
 attempt of the common people to over- 
 come their masters, the nobility. It 
 called forth one patriot and one brave 
 unselfish woman in the persons of Juan 
 202 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 de Padilla and his courageous wife, but 
 they fell prey to treachery, and the 
 result was a tightening of the screws of 
 oppression. 
 
 An instructive story might be written 
 on the different struggles of Spaniards for 
 the preservation of their fueros, or rights, 
 for political liberty was known in Spain 
 before it was in England, and the cortes 
 antedates parliament, but in Spain during 
 the Middle Ages, the king usurped the 
 rights of the people, whereas in England, 
 the people curtailed the rights of the 
 king. But all that is mere digression, 
 suggested by the deserted streets of 
 Segovia, deserted except for the occa- 
 sional passing of a peasant and his 
 donkey, or the tread of a group of artil- 
 lery cadets. 
 
 The royal artillery school, like most 
 schools and prisons of Spain, is situated 
 in one of the sequestrated convents. The 
 cadets are dapper little fellows, in smart 
 uniforms, who live as they please in 
 quarters about the town, and attend the 
 203 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 lectures and drills. The artillery vies 
 with a few cavalry regiments as crack 
 corps of the Spanish army, and perhaps 
 some of your friends in Madrid have 
 given you a line of introduction to some 
 son or cousin, who is pursuing his studies 
 in Segovia. You find your cadet friend 
 living with one or two chums in one of 
 the old houses of the town. He has his 
 family nurse with him, who has brought 
 him up from childhood, and who now 
 looks tenderly after her ward during his 
 cadet days, by brewing his coffee, mend- 
 ing his clothes, and making his bed. 
 Fancy a West Point cadet with a nurse. 
 But these young gunners are good fel- 
 lows, and they invite you to luncheon, 
 and try to amuse you to the best of their 
 ability, by showing the school with its 
 usual complement of desks and black- 
 boards and physical apparatus, not to 
 mention a museum of guns and military 
 appliances, and they are no doubt glad 
 when you are gone, and amuse them- 
 selves by making fun of you behind your 
 204 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 back, as students in all lands are very 
 much the same. 
 
 At Toledo the royal infantry school 
 is situated, but you visit that with the 
 governor; the drum beats, the boys 
 stand in ranks and salute, and inwardly 
 vote you an intruder for causing unnec- 
 essary duty. There is a lack of smartness, 
 however, about the Spanish cadets, a 
 laxity of discipline, which must have its 
 effect upon the Spanish army. One 
 would like to say much of Toledo, be- 
 cause it is the most typical of Spanish 
 cities, with its Moorish walls and sombre 
 Spanish houses piled high on a hill top, 
 its mighty cathedral, its churches, and 
 its ancient synagogues. No finer view 
 is to be had in Spain than that of 
 Toledo, cold and grey against the blue 
 sky, with the dark Tagus rushing be- 
 neath the graceful arches of its bridges. 
 But Toledo is the see of an archbishop 
 and the seat of the governor of a pro- 
 vince, so it is scarcely a provincial 
 town, and would deserve a chapter by 
 205 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 itself, if it were to be done even partial 
 justice. 
 
 Perhaps the saddest provincial town 
 one may visit is Alcala" de Henares, the 
 birth place of Cervantes, and seat of the 
 great university established by Cardinal 
 Ximenes. There is not even an omni- 
 bus at the station to meet you, and you 
 are obliged to walk along the dusty, 
 tree-lined road which leads to the town, 
 and find the way as best you may to the 
 dirty Fonda del Hidalgo, where you are 
 probably the only guest. The guide 
 book says that the immortal Cervantes 
 was born in a street north of the Calle 
 Mayor, and that the site of the house is 
 marked by an inscription let into a wall, 
 but neither the innkeeper, the parish 
 priest, the shopkeepers, nor the army 
 officers strutting in the streets are able 
 to indicate the spot. There is a miser- 
 able theatre bearing the name Cervantes 
 and some of the inhabitants maintain 
 that it is erected on the spot of Cervan- 
 tes' house, but certainly the great humor- 
 206 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 ist'is as unhonored by his fellow townsmen 
 after death as during his sad life, While 
 a slave in Algiers he was a man of impor- 
 tance both feared and respected, a leader 
 among men; but in his native Spain, 
 merely a prophet without honor and 
 without competence. 
 
 The great university of Alcald, the 
 pride of its founder, is but a ruin. A 
 few primary scholars mumble their 
 alphabets to a priest in its sacred halls, 
 but the arcades are crumbling and the 
 stones are moss-grown. There is little 
 to recall the flourishing days of an in- 
 stitution which within twenty-five years 
 of its founding sent seven thousand stu- 
 dents forth to greet King Francis I. of 
 France, the royal prisoner of Emperor 
 Charles, and caused him to exclaim: 
 "Your Ximenes has executed more than 
 I should have dared to conceive; he has 
 done with his single hand what in France 
 it has taken a line of kings to accom- 
 plish." 
 
 Ximenes was a man of resources and 
 207 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 modern ideas. Two provisions of his 
 university charter might bear emulation 
 to-day. The salary of a professor was 
 regulated by the number of his students, 
 and his tenure of office was only for four 
 years, when he became eligible for reap- 
 pointment. There were no sinecures 
 where stern Ximenes was master. 
 
 As Spanish trains run at unseasonable 
 hours, sometimes starting just before 
 dawn, when you leave a provincial town 
 it is usually at night. But a Spanish 
 town by night is perhaps more attractive 
 than by day. Lamps flicker at the 
 street corners, weird figures in flowing 
 cloaks saunter idly by, or stand in groups 
 discussing the events of the day. The 
 little shops are lighted, and the articles 
 displayed for sale assume fantastic 
 forms, while from time to time the sere- 
 no, or night watchman, trudges by with 
 his pike and lantern, calling forth the 
 hour and the state of the weather. The 
 omnibus which takes you from the fonda 
 to the station is driven by a loquacious 
 208 
 
Provincial Towns 
 
 fellow, who prattles away to his mules 
 and you, seemingly without distinction. 
 The streets are filled with people, for 
 above all things the Spaniard delights in 
 strolling. All classes are there, old 
 men with stooping shoulders and halting 
 step; young gallants, matones or town 
 bullies, priests, soldiers and beggars, 
 passing and repassing. Smart young 
 officers strut by with clanking swords 
 and rattling spurs, eying the dark-eyed 
 girls, who saunter past in groups, and 
 from the taberna comes the hum of 
 voices and the click of the Castanet. 
 Then as the team of mules swings into a 
 more deserted by-way, you pass the 
 cloaked figure of a lover earnestly whis- 
 pering at some window, and hearing the 
 half suppressed ripple of a woman's 
 laugh, you know that the damsel behind 
 the bars has been the recipient of extra- 
 vagant words of love. Perhaps the 
 clatter of the mules disturbs the song of 
 a solitary guitarist who is gazing upwards 
 toward a balcony, for at night the Anda- 
 209 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 lusian swain of whatever degree is 
 pelando el pavo, plucking the turkey, as 
 they call their window love-making 
 there in the south. Then silent streets 
 with darkened houses are reached and 
 the lumbering omnibus rattles on into 
 the night. In the distance down the 
 long straight roadway where poplars 
 rise against the black sky, the lights of 
 the railway station glimmer faintly. 
 
 The provincial town has been left be- 
 hind, sleeping as it has slept for a full 
 century, unmindful of time, caring 
 naught for the onward march of progress, 
 but above all, seemingly content with its 
 humble lot. 
 
The Common People 
 
 r I "*HE redeeming feature of the Span- 
 A ish nation is the common people. 
 Howsoever much one may condemn the 
 rulers or despise the priesthood, the 
 lowly Spaniard, in spite of his many 
 faults, commands respect. He has a 
 democratic air about him, a sort of 
 mingling of civility with a sense of 
 equality which is very fascinating, and 
 the more one sees of him the more diffi- 
 cult it is to understand how a people 
 with such a peasantry should occupy so 
 secondary a place among the nations. 
 The Spaniard is certainly a patient crea- 
 ture, else he would not have endured so 
 much. Perhaps he is a philosopher and 
 realizes that in poverty lies the true solu- 
 tion of happiness. To have nothing, 
 and to want nothing, certainly robs life 
 
 211 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 of the greater portion of its worries. 
 Evidently the lowly Spaniard believes 
 thoroughly in the maxim that sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof, for he 
 goes through life with a patience and a 
 cheerfulness which are refreshing. Only 
 in Barcelona, where he has been tainted 
 with modern unrest, does he seem to 
 fret, and with rare irony he throws aside 
 his air of contented humility to become 
 an anarchist. But the Catalan has never 
 been a true Spaniard. 
 
 One must turn to the wind-swept 
 plains of Castile, or better still, to sunny 
 Andalusia, to find the true son of the 
 soil. The Castilian, like his land, is 
 sombre and cold. He is self-contained 
 and proud, and although he walks 
 abroad with an air of equality, not to 
 say superiority to his fellowmen, he is 
 apt to be morose and unbending. He 
 does not open up his heart, and when he 
 smiles it is with a forbidding air of re- 
 serve. The Galician, or even the 
 Navarrese, is a far better fellow ; but to 
 
 212 
 
The Common People 
 
 find the Spaniard at his best one must 
 turn to fair Andalusia. There all is 
 cheerful and bright ; the sun is" ever 
 shining and the Castanet is clicking, the 
 girls are ever smiling, and the gallants 
 under the balconies sigh and whisper 
 words of love with an ardor which is 
 truly of the south. The Andalusian is a 
 child of nature, who breathes the free air 
 of heaven as though it belonged to him. 
 He is impulsive and natural, and he 
 walks with a careless swing which is at 
 once jaunty and self-respecting. His 
 morals may not be all that one might 
 ask, but his manners are the best in the 
 , world. He has just enough of courtli- 
 ness not to be oppressive, and just 
 enough of familiarity not to breed con- 
 tempt. He respects himself, and conse- 
 quently other people respect him. Un- 
 like the Castilian, he unburdens his 
 heart to a stranger and makes you feel 
 at once at your ease. All that he asks 
 is to be treated as a man. Offer him a 
 cigarette and be he the humblest of beg- 
 213 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 gars, he will receive it in a manner that 
 assures you of friendliness tempered by 
 respect, but brush him aside with an 
 air of contempt and he will leave no 
 means untried to make your life uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 English travelers whose manner to- 
 ward servants is invariably overbearing, 
 do not find themselves well served in 
 Spain ; but no servants in the world are 
 more considerate of your wishes, more 
 attentive to your wants, than those of 
 the Peninsula, if they are treated as 
 though they are human. A friendly 
 word or a smile goes further than a 
 handful of silver. 
 
 It may seem rather familiar, even to 
 an American, to have the waiter who 
 serves you in a restaurant, stand behind 
 your chainsmoking a cigarette, but that 
 is purely a matter of custom. It might 
 also appear objectionable to have the 
 waiter at your hotel enter into the con- 
 versation while he is serving you, but he 
 does this rarely, and then only with a 
 214 
 
The Common People 
 
 desire to impart some bit of information 
 or correct an erroneous impression he 
 chances to overhear. He realizes that 
 he is human, but unlike some of his 
 American prototypes, he does not be- 
 come obtrusive^with an overbearing man- 
 ner of equality, not to say superiority. 
 
 The Spaniard has been misgoverned 
 for so many centuries that he has grown 
 to look upon the government as a legiti- 
 mate prey. The government defrauds 
 him ; therefore he will defraud the gov- 
 ernment when the opportunity presents 
 itself. He is consequently by nature a 
 smuggler. In addition to the national 
 custom house at all seaports, and the 
 frontier, each city has its own octroi, so 
 that the temptation and the opportunity 
 to smuggle are unusually great. To- 
 bacco, being a government monopoly, 
 is the popular contraband, and in spite 
 of the carbineers who swarm along the 
 coast, and the fleet of coast guard ships, 
 the inhabitants of the seaport towns do 
 not appear to have much difficulty in 
 215 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 evading the authorities. Their methods 
 are at times rather brazen. For in- 
 stance, on leaving Algeciras which, 
 owing to its proximity to free trade 
 Gibraltar, is a nest of smugglers, the 
 conductor of the train entered the com- 
 partment, and after glancing about with 
 a mysterious air, he lifted the cushions 
 of the seats and proceeded to fill his 
 pockets with packages of tobacco, which 
 had been put in a first-class carriage as 
 the place least likely to be investigated 
 by the authorities. On being asked if 
 he was not afraid of detection he said 
 that he was perfectly safe at the hands 
 of first-class travelers, because they 
 were invariably gentlemen. The offer of 
 a contraband Egyptian cigarette doubly 
 reassured him, and as fellow smugglers 
 we sat down and smoked together. He 
 had been a conductor of the line since 
 its opening a few years ago, and had 
 carried on quite a thriving contraband 
 trade. At each station he disappeared, 
 only to return again to refill his pockets. 
 216 
 
The Common People 
 
 In this manner his stock was disposed 
 of to confederates all along the line 
 from Algeciras to Ronda. 
 
 The carbineers, too, judging by the 
 avidity with which they pass one's bag- 
 gage when no one is looking, must share 
 the profits of many a contraband trans- 
 action. Such peculation, however, is 
 not confined to Spain. There are some 
 Spanish officials who are incorruptible 
 and those in places where their example 
 should prove most salutary; that is to 
 say in the prisons. One remembers 
 visiting some half dozen prisons in dif- 
 ferent Spanish cities, and each time the 
 accompanying guard, though his salary 
 was but a pittance, politely though reluc- 
 tantly refused a fee for his trouble, by 
 saying that receiving gratuities was 
 absolutely prohibited. 
 
 It is the custom for the waiters in the 
 hotels to pool their tips. All the fees 
 are turned into a common fund and 
 shared at the end of the month. You 
 therefore do not tip individual waiters, but 
 217 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 on leaving the hotel you give the head 
 waiter a sum to be divided among them 
 all. At the hotel in Granada there was 
 a waiter who remembered the writer 
 from a former visit fourteen years be- 
 fore, and who was at the same time un- 
 usually attentive. Desiring to give the 
 man a special reward which should not 
 be shared with the others, he was pre- 
 sented with a separate sum and requested 
 not to divide it with his fellow servants. 
 At the time of leaving the hotel, when 
 the waiters were gathered together to 
 receive their conventional tip, this over- 
 honest servant told the others that he had 
 already received a sum apart, which he 
 felt in duty bound to contribute to the 
 general fund. It might be added that he 
 was a widower with seven young children. 
 Spain is probably the most conservative 
 nation in Europe. Outside the larger 
 cities the country has been at a standstill 
 for centuries. The ploughing is still 
 done with wooden plows, the wheat is 
 threshed with flails, the wine is preserved 
 218 
 
The Common People 
 
 in goat skins. The arriero still trudges 
 beside his string of mules, livening his 
 weary way with song as he did in the 
 days of Don Quixote, and the ventero 
 greets the traveler at the wayside inn 
 and regales him with the gossip of the 
 neighborhood just as his sires have done 
 for centuries. The court of the posada is 
 still crowded with huge high carts, and 
 the muleteers, huddled about a charcoal 
 brazier, sip their aguardiente, while the 
 sereno trudges past with his lantern and 
 pike calling forth the hour and the state 
 of the weather. 
 
 The common people of Spain are so 
 unlike those of other nations; they are 
 so thoroughly the children of the soil, 
 untainted by contact with the world, 
 that a lover of the picturesque is apt to 
 overlook, in his enthusiasm for their ar- 
 tistic qualities, the fact that they must 
 be slothful and ambitionless to be con- 
 tented with their stagnate existence. It 
 is perhaps unfair to call them slothful, 
 for they work faithfully and long, but 
 219 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 they eschew machinery, and ask no bet- 
 ter lot than that of their fathers. 
 
 The laboring classes in other countries 
 are apt to look askance upon their supe- 
 riors and treat them with suspicion, but 
 the Spanish artizan will invite you to 
 share his sour wine or coarse bread with- 
 out the slightest hesitation. He will 
 talk with you as man to man, and yet 
 without a semblance of disrespect. 
 Chancing to enter a Sevillian pottery on 
 New Year's morning one heard the sound 
 of voices and the click of castanets in 
 the court beyond. The proprietor ex- 
 plained that he was giving his workmen 
 a little entertainment in honor of the 
 day, and extended an invitation to par- 
 ticipate in the festivities. Gathered in 
 the court were some thirty potters 
 dressed in holiday attire. The proprie- 
 tor's daughter was dancing the graceful 
 Sevillana with one of her father's work- 
 men, and her mother was dispensing 
 cakes and aguardiente to the gathering. 
 The employees were singing and keep- 
 
 220 
 
The Common People 
 
 ing time to the dancing by clapping their 
 hands, and one has never seen more 
 happy and contented faces than those 
 Sevillian workmen presented that New 
 Year's morning. 
 
 The entrance of a strange foreigner 
 might appear a source of embarrass- 
 ment, but on the contrary each person 
 present greeted one with a friendly smile 
 and a word of welcome. Aguardiente 
 was offered, and we all clicked glasses 
 and drank each other's healths as though 
 we had been life-long friends. Dances 
 and songs followed in quick succession. 
 There were some clever comedians 
 among those humble potters. One in 
 particular, a fat little chap with a face 
 like Coquelin's, might have won fame 
 on any stage. His grimaces were con- 
 vulsing, and he had a quaint humor which 
 was irresistible. He was the popular 
 favorite, and his songs were greeted 
 with great applause. A glass of aguar- 
 diente handed by the pretty daughter of 
 the house was sufficient to produce an 
 
 221 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 encore, and as each song had the addi- 
 tional inspiration of another glass they 
 grew more amusing and more ribald as 
 the performance progressed. 
 
 One song, called La Monjita, or little 
 nun, he prefaced with an address deliv- 
 ered in solemn, priest-like tones, running 
 somewhat as follows: "Ladies, gentle- 
 men and distinguished Yankees, I will 
 now sing you a song which I alone am 
 capable of rendering. Others may whis- 
 tle the refrain but no one else can re- 
 member the words. In fact I do not 
 remember them myself, but having a 
 ready wit I am able to supply the defi- 
 ciency at a moment's notice. The like 
 of this song has never been heard in 
 Triana, or even Seville, and no singer 
 of the Cervantes theatre can compete 
 with my vocal talent. Were I not too 
 serious and virtuous a person to sing 
 upon the stage my pockets would to-day 
 be overflowing with dollars, and the pub- 
 lic upon their knees before me. This song 
 I will sing in the language of old Anda- 
 
 222 
 
The Common People 
 
 lusia, which no one here can understand 
 but in order that its rare humor may 
 not escape the audience entirely I will 
 sing each alternate verse in English." 
 
 Then he began singing a humorous 
 but indelicate account of the adventures 
 of a young nun, seemingly without the 
 least regard for the presence of the pro- 
 prietor's wife and daughter. At the 
 end of each stanza he solemnly an- 
 nounced that the next verse would be 
 sung in English. 
 
 There were others, too, who added to 
 the merriment. One little old weazen- 
 faced Celtiberian, with an Irish cast of 
 countenance, who had been lulled to 
 sleep in the corner by the fumes of aguar- 
 diente, suddenly awoke and insisted 
 upon dancing the tango. His slow, pre- 
 cise movements, to a dance requiring 
 unusual agility, were most comical. 
 
 When the entertainment was over we 
 
 drank again, and shook hands all 
 
 around, calling each other friend and 
 
 brother, all in a feeling of pure good 
 
 223 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 fellowship. But wherever you chance 
 to meet a party of merrymakers in Anda- 
 lusia the reception is the same ; you are 
 invited to share their food and drink, 
 and if you unbend and meet them half 
 way your reception is so cordial and sin- 
 cere that you are tempted to believe 
 that nowhere is the spirit of thorough 
 good fellowship so rife as among the 
 common people of Spain. 
 
 The women of the people, too, are more 
 attractive than those of the aristocracy. 
 There is a piquancy and dash about 
 them which is refreshing. Their voices 
 are harsh, but their black eyes are filled 
 with fire, and the poise of their heads 
 gives them an air of coquettish defiance. 
 They are fond of color and seldom fail 
 to wear a red rose caught in their glossy 
 hair. The hair and the feet of Spanish 
 girls of the lower classes are invariably 
 neat. They wear dainty shoes, and their 
 meager wages are squandered on elabor- 
 ate coiffures. They are contented with a 
 calico gown and a gay colored shawl 
 224 
 
The Common People 
 
 about their shoulders, but they are al- 
 ways well booted, and their hair is ar- 
 ranged in the latest French mode. 
 
 Dancing is the favorite pastime of the 
 Andalusian, and the dancing girls of Se- 
 ville, Cadiz and Malaga are found all over 
 Spain. There are the gypsies, too, but 
 their dancing is but a vulgar variety of 
 the movements of their Gwazee proto- 
 types of Egypt. The Sevillana, how- 
 ever, is lithe and graceful, and the dance 
 which bears her name is free from the 
 sensuous movements of other dances, 
 such as the tango, so popular in the 
 lower class of cafes chantants. Each 
 city in the south of Spain has its 
 particular dance, such as the baile de 
 Malaga, etc. There are special dances, 
 too, like the baile Manchera, the So- 
 leada, the Fandango, etc. Some for 
 one person, some in which two (a man 
 and a girl) face each other and dance a 
 paso doble, or others like the Fandango, 
 in which a number take part. In none 
 of them, however, do the dancers join 
 225 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 arms as in waltzing, and invariably the 
 movements of the arms play as import- 
 ant a part as those of the feet. 
 
 The girls who dance in the cafes are 
 professionals, paid for their work, but 
 they enter into the spirit of the dancing 
 as though they enjoyed it. Between the 
 dances they leave the stage and mix with 
 the audience. When they see a stranger 
 they come and take a seat at your table 
 and ask for a glass of manzanilla. They 
 are very naive and artless, and full of 
 life, and talk of nothing but their art. 
 Their morality, though not unimpeach- 
 able, is not open to the charge of sordid- 
 ness. Spaniards say that although each 
 one has her "querido," he is always a 
 man of the people, and that the advan- 
 ces of wealthy libertines are almost in- 
 variably repelled. 
 
 Dancing, however, is not confined to 
 the women of Spain ; the men are often 
 their equals, if not their superiors. They 
 are lighter on their feet, more agile in 
 their movements. Without exception 
 226 
 
The Common People 
 
 the best dancing one saw in Spain 
 an unpremeditated baile arranged on 
 the spur of the moment. A party of us 
 were breakfasting on Christmas morning 
 at a suburban cafe in Seville; a couple 
 of clever guitarists had been called in to 
 play the national music. When break- 
 fast was over and we were smoking our 
 cigarettes, one of the musicians sug- 
 gested a dance, and said that the waiter 
 was no mean performer. The waiter, 
 a typical Andalusian, with clean cut 
 features and a slight agile figure, who per- 
 formed his labor in his shirt sleeves and 
 with a cigarette between his lips, pro- 
 tested with becoming modesty, that he 
 was only a tyro, but that our cabman 
 waiting outside was a ** Bailarin " of 
 great prowess. So cabby was summoned 
 from his perch on the box, and after be- 
 ing well fortified with a glass or two of 
 the wine of Jerez, he and the waiter pro- 
 ceeded to dance the whole gamut of An- 
 dalusian dances, the rest of us keeping 
 time with our hands in true Spanish fash- 
 227 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 ion. The cabman was indeed a marvel. 
 Never has one seen better dancing; he 
 was graceful and lithe, and his move- 
 ments had the finish of a professional 
 ballet dancer. He threw his whole heart 
 into his work, and seemed ready to con- 
 tinue indefinitely. The waiter, too, was 
 a good foil, as he had much of the dry 
 humor of Andalusia. He interpolated 
 droll remarks, and between the dances 
 regaled us with characteristic songs of 
 the people. The whole affair was so im- 
 promptu, so thoroughly typical of the 
 country, that as a performance it was su- 
 perior to the best efforts of paid profes- 
 sionals. 
 
 / To one familiar with the tenements 
 of the larger American cities, a Spanish 
 tenement house, or "casa de vecinos," 
 (house of neighbors) as it is called, 
 seems a veritable paradise. Not that 
 there are no evidences of squalor and 
 poverty, for dirt is plentiful, and the 
 Spanish poor are poorer than our own, 
 but the corral, as these tenements are 
 228 
 
The Common People 
 
 sometimes called, has plenty of good air 
 and sunshine, and the surroundings are 
 attractive to the eye. The corral has 
 the usual open court surrounded by a 
 double arcade. The tenements open 
 onto this court, and the Andalusian poor 
 man, instead of gazing down a narrow 
 filthy city street, looks from his doorway 
 upon clean white-washed walls and grow- 
 ing palms. There is the blue sky above 
 to cheer him, and a fountain trickles in 
 the courtyard. Birds chirp in their 
 cages, and bright-eyed girls loiter by the 
 fountain. From an artistic standpoint 
 the casa de vecinos leaves little to be 
 desired. Who would think of painting 
 a New York tenement? However, the 
 quarters are small, and the smells are 
 not of the sweetest, and after all, the life 
 of the poor the world over is much the 
 same. But if any choice is to be made 
 the poor Spaniard's lot has much to com- 
 mend. His wants are little and his 
 diversions many; his eye is ever glad- 
 dened by green trees and graceful out- 
 229 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 lines, and his heart is not disturbed by 
 wild political theories. His religion is 
 the best religion for the poor man, be- 
 cause it holds out hope and commands 
 fear, and by its church organization and 
 tenets teaches obedience and respect for 
 organized society. 
 
 But if one wants to come face to face 
 with misery, the prison is the place to 
 find it. The lot of the Spanish prisoner 
 is miserable in the extreme. The writer 
 visited six or seven prisons in different 
 cities, and with the exception of the 
 carcel modelo, or model prison, in Ma- 
 drid, and the women's prison at Alcala, 
 found them loathsome dens, where the 
 miserable prisoners are huddled together 
 in filth. A description of the Seville 
 prison will suffice, as that institution is 
 typical of the rest. The building is an 
 old monastery, converted to its present 
 use by placing iron bars on the windows 
 and sentry boxes about the walls. There 
 are not more than half a dozen em- 
 ployees to look after five hundred male- 
 230 
 
The Common People 
 
 factors, so the prisoners are left very 
 much to their own resources. The only 
 labor which is compulsory is the domes- 
 tic labor of the establishment, and that 
 is poorly performed. The cloisters reek 
 with filth, and the prisoners themselves 
 are a ragged dirty lot, who huddle to- 
 gether in the sun without even the solace 
 of hard work. They sleep on straw 
 mattresses spread on the stone floors, 
 and their two daily meals consist of rice 
 and beans, and a small loaf of bread. 
 They are permitted to smoke if fortunate 
 enough to possess friends on the outside 
 willing to supply the necessary tobacco. 
 Clothes are not provided, although in the 
 penitentiaries, for longer term sentences, 
 a coarse brown uniform is furnished the 
 inmates. In the Sevillian prison, how- 
 ever, the prisoners are arrayed in any 
 form of tattered garment they can obtain. 
 Looking down from an upper window 
 upon the throng of prisoners eating their 
 morning meal in the open court yard, 
 one could not help thinking that no 
 231 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 matter what his surroundings may be, 
 the Spaniard is attractive to the eye. 
 The poor creatures were squatting on 
 the floor in groups of from ten to twelve. 
 In the centre of each group was an 
 earthen pot filled with the routine mix- 
 ture of rice and beans. They had no 
 plates or forks, and only a very few were 
 fortunate enough to possess a spoon. 
 All were hurriedly reaching into the 
 common pot, and gobbling their food at 
 a pace which betrayed the natural fear 
 that the faster eaters might obtain an un- 
 due proportion of the miserable repast. 
 But in spite of the misery and filth the 
 grouping was picturesque, the costuming 
 attractive, and above the white prison 
 walls was the blue Andalusian sky. 
 
 The prisoners are allowed to receive 
 gifts of food and clothes, and to converse 
 with their friends through an iron grille. 
 Liquor of course is forbidden, and many 
 are the devices adopted by solicitous 
 friends for smuggling aguardiente beyond 
 the bars. The civil director of the insti- 
 232 
 
The Common People 
 
 tution presented the writer with an inter- 
 esting collection of double-bottomed 
 pots and cans, which, ostensibly filled 
 with food, had contained the precious 
 liquor in their concealed compartments. 
 Some of them were very ingeniously con- 
 structed ; likewise some knives made from 
 the handles of spoons, and other objects 
 turned to illegitimate use. The great 
 fault of Spanish prisons is that the pris- 
 oners are not compelled to work, and 
 are given free intercourse among them- 
 selves; thus criminals of all sorts are 
 thrown together, and the better elements 
 are dragged down to the level of the 
 worst. That the Spanish authorities 
 realize this is evidenced by the model 
 prison of Madrid, where each prisoner 
 has his cell and silence is imposed during 
 the first period of the incarceration. 
 The model prison is well named, for it 
 is a model of its kind, admirably con- 
 structed and scrupulously clean; but 
 even there labor is not enforced, al- 
 though permitted. 
 
 233 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Sociology, however, is far from the 
 purpose of this little book, and crime 
 and its devotees are repulsive, even 
 when attired in the graceful garb of the 
 Spaniard. 
 
 It is an unfortunate thing for Spain, 
 and perhaps the secret of its misfortunes, 
 that it does not possess a middle class. 
 Between the patrician and the peasant 
 there is only the petty shopkeeper. 
 Even he is not thrifty and frugal like the 
 French bourgeois. If he is fortunate 
 enough to acquire a competence, his son, 
 instead of continuing the family busi- 
 ness, must be a soldier or a government 
 clerk, in order that he may purge the 
 family of the taint of trade. 
 
 The Spanish bourgeois is certainly re- 
 pulsive. Lacking the courtliness of the 
 nobility, and the easy grace of the peas- 
 ant, he is in every sense a coarse, boor- 
 ish fellow, slovenly and uncleanly, whose 
 manners are execrable, and whose char- 
 acter has not even the redeeming feature 
 of thrift. He is ignorant, bigoted and 
 234 
 
The Common People 
 
 lazy, and the more one sees of Spain the 
 more strongly one feels convinced that 
 the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, 
 the thrifty and producing classes, laid 
 the foundation of nineteenth century 
 poverty. Spain has never had a true 
 middle class since the Moor and the Jew 
 were banished. The gulf between the 
 nobility and the peasantry is too great. 
 The poor are hopelessly poor, with no 
 chance to rise. The nobility are too 
 closely bound by pride and tradition to 
 descend to work ; and there is no ener- 
 getic middle class to develop the splen- 
 did resources of the land. The bigoted 
 Isabella and the imbecile Philip little 
 knew the injury they were doing their 
 beloved land when in the name of relig- 
 ion they banished hundreds of thousands 
 of the most useful of their subjects. 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 LIKE a lion couchant, slumbering 
 with his shaggy head between his 
 paws, lies ponderous Gibraltar. Waves 
 splash lazily at its feet, fleecy clouds 
 drift peacefully above its scraggy form, 
 the warships of Europe ride pigmy-like 
 at anchor beneath its towering sides; 
 while puffing launches and swarms of 
 white-winged feluccas dart to and fro 
 between the rocky monster and the 
 Spanish shore. Ships pass and repass, 
 men of many nations come and go, the 
 world moves on ; yet silently this lion 
 of England watches, the ever ready, ever 
 alert, guardian of the Mediterranean. 
 
 That is one's first impression of Gib- 
 raltar, when approaching from the sea; 
 but as the ship draws nearer, and the 
 cable rattles in the hawse-hole, the scene 
 236 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 is changed to one of life and action. 
 Boats crowd about the steamer, ruffianly 
 watermen jabber and gesticulate, whis- 
 tles screech, and the faint notes of a 
 bugle, or the roll of drums come from 
 distant barrack yards. Perched in clus- 
 ters along the water-front are the stuc- 
 coed houses of the Spanisrf town; be- 
 yond and stretching far out into the 
 Mediterranean, the dull grey walls of 
 ramparts and batteries, with here and 
 there, and almost everywhere, little 
 specks of red, marking the sentries on 
 their beats. 
 
 Gibraltar is no longer a lion, but a 
 monster hive of humanity, with its rocky 
 sides honeycombed with galleries and 
 casemates, where scarlet bees swarm, 
 and dull drones toK. Through the years 
 they have labored with chisel and blast; 
 patiently and wisely they have built 
 their hive, and woe to the bear who at- 
 tempts to crush them ; he will feel their 
 sting. 
 
 How alien, how cosmopolitan is this 
 237 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 Gibraltar, a mere spur of rock, sticking 
 like a thorn in the side of Spain, and yet 
 not Spanish, or Moorish, or British, 
 but rather a sourish leaven of Spaniard 
 and Moor, with red English plums, 
 dotted here and there, to give it a zest 
 and flavor not its own. One forgets 
 what a thoroughly detestable fellow the 
 "rock scorpion" is, what an off scouring, 
 without nationality, individuality or 
 friend. The Spaniard despises the na- 
 tives of " Gib," the Englishman scorns 
 them, the stranger distrusts them, yet 
 there are some twenty thousand of them, 
 living there under martial rule, their ac- 
 tions regulated, their laws made and 
 executed by a foreign power. A very good 
 thing for them, too, as they are made to 
 behave themselves, and keep themselves 
 or at least their streets clean in a way 
 that is unknown in neighboring Spain. 
 
 But the "rock scorpion" in all his en- 
 tirety, is not to be seen from a steamer's 
 deck. One must land at the water port 
 and patiently await the arrival of one's 
 238 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 luggage to realize what a thorough 
 blending of the east and west, time and 
 foreign conquest have made of the Rock 
 of Tarik. 
 
 No more cosmopolitan scene is to be 
 witnessed in Europe than that presented 
 at the water port. It is an ever-shifting 
 panorama of strange humanity. 
 
 Olive-skinned watermen, with half- 
 burned cigarettes between their lips, doze 
 on the thwarts of their high-prowed boats, 
 while swarthy peasants from Algeciras or 
 Linea, with brilliant sashes and broad- 
 brimmed hats, skin-tight trousers, and 
 short braided jackets, come and go with 
 the lazy air of Spain. Low-wheeled 
 vans freighted with English beer or Chi- 
 cago beef, rattle over the cobbles of the 
 quay, while mules with jangling bells 
 and gaily embroidered headstalls, strug- 
 gle in the shafts of high-wheeled Spanish 
 carts, and patient donkeys, their little 
 bodies smothered beneath bulging pan- 
 niers of straw, trot by unmindful of 
 the shrill cries of their masters. 
 239 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 What color; what variety! There are 
 stately Moors with flowing robes of 
 white, and high-bound turbans; thin 
 savage Riffians, sleek padres with shovel 
 hats and sombre gowns, dark-eyed 
 women from Andalusia, their oily hair 
 gracefully adorned with lace mantillas; 
 barefooted urchins, tourists, stevedores, 
 policemen, sailors of all nations, and 
 soldiers of Spain, with smart Tommy 
 Atkins, sturdy and erect, as only the 
 British soldiers can be, standing guard 
 over all. 
 
 The morning is calm and misty, not 
 a ripple on the water, not a breath on 
 the folds of the drying sails. Behind the 
 gates and ramparts of the town the huge 
 rock rises against the sky like the 
 painted curtain of a theatre, its grey 
 side studded with little houses, square 
 and white as the toy houses of children, 
 with here and there upon the hillsides 
 tufts of scrubby foliage, cold and gaunt 
 as the rock itself. Then, as the sun 
 breaks through the mist, dew sparkles 
 240 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 on the green grass of the ramparts, 
 the bayonets of the sentries glisten, 
 smoke curls from the chimneys of the 
 town, flags flutter, the colors on the 
 hillside grow warm and brilliant, and the 
 stirring notes of the fifes and drums 
 break on the morning air. 
 
 But that is only the landing stage, 
 where the boats land from the ships at 
 anchor in the bay. The town itself 
 stretches along the western side of the 
 rock for a mile or more in a series of 
 narrow streets, where English signs and 
 Spanish houses are mixed incongruously; 
 where Englishmen and Spaniards meet, 
 but do not affiliate. 
 
 There are the same stuccoed houses 
 that one sees in Spain, white or delicate 
 blue and yellow; the same graceful bal- 
 conies and sloping roofs of tile, the same 
 dingy little shops open to the street, the 
 same bodegas at the corner, where 
 groups of loiterers are gathered, drink- 
 ing valdepefias or aguardiente, and all 
 without the filth and many of the smells. 
 241 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 The English keep the town clean; they 
 place English names upon the street cor- 
 ners; English signs and English goods 
 are seen on every hand; red-coated 
 English soldiers and red-faced English 
 matrons mingle with the crowds which 
 throng the streets ; but the town and the 
 people are as Spanish to-day as they 
 were when the Prince of Darmstadt and 
 Sir George Rooke attacked the rock by 
 land and sea, and added another fort- 
 ress to the spoils of England. 
 
 That was in 1704, during the war of 
 the Spanish succession, when Spain was 
 weak and imbecile, and all Europe was 
 fighting for her crown. The garrison 
 scarcely mustered a hundred men, but 
 even this handful might have held out 
 had it not been for some patron saint, 
 whose festival happened to fall on the 
 second day of the bombardment. The 
 garrison thinking devotion the better 
 part of valor, went to pray, and the place 
 was surprised by scaling the eastern 
 portion of the rock and attacking the 
 242 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 fortress from above. When the captors 
 entered the town Darmstadt hoisted the 
 Spanish standard, and proclaimed King 
 Charles, but the admiral, with the 
 voracity of the true Englishman, took 
 possession in the name of the Queen of 
 England. 
 
 It was a game of grab, not the only one 
 nor the last which England has played, 
 but it was successful, and there the red- 
 coats have remained for nearly two 
 centuries, by no other right than that of 
 possession. In the meantime the Span- 
 ish officers at Linea date their letters 
 from Gibraltar, with the parenthetical 
 remark, that it is temporarily in the 
 possession of the English, and Tommy 
 Atkins, pacing his beat, gazes disdain- 
 fully across the barren strip of neutral 
 ground at the dark-skinned sentries who 
 guard the Spanish lines. 
 
 It was somewhere near this neutral 
 ground, that Tarik, the one-eyed Moor, 
 landed at the foot of the rock of Calpe, as 
 the "Gib" was then called, when he came 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 in the year 711, with his little army of 
 Arabs and Berbers to reconnoitre Gothic 
 Spain. Tarik's master, Mousa, the vali 
 of Arab Tingitana, across the straits, 
 had sent his one-eyed general, with an 
 army of light horsemen, to burn and pil- 
 lage, and then return to Africa, but the 
 wily veteran saw the defenceless state 
 of the enervated kingdom. Advancing 
 boldly into Andalusia, he met King 
 Roderic on the banks of the Guadalete 
 near Jerez, and in spite of every disad- 
 vantage in numbers, position and sup- 
 plies, he routed the effeminate army of 
 the Goth and overran Spain. Tarik 
 incurred the jealousy of Mousa, his chief. 
 Conquest after conquest followed. The 
 Moor in Spain is but a memory, but the 
 name of the one-eyed victor still remains, 
 where the conqueror of a later day looks 
 down from the rock of Calpe upon the 
 sunny plains and snow-capped siena of 
 Andalusia. Gibel Tarik, meaning hill of 
 Tarik, has been corrupted by successive 
 ages and tongues into Gibraltar. 
 244 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 All that is history, and of history there 
 is a surfeit at the "Gib." There have 
 been sieges and stormings galore, but 
 the one the English most revere is the 
 defense of "Old Eliot' in 1779, when for 
 four years the rock held out against the 
 united arms of France and Spain, and in 
 spite of the floating batteries of d'Arcon, 
 which "could neither be burnt, sunk 
 nor taken," it still remains a British 
 possession, garrisoned by a British force 
 of six thousand men. 
 
 One confesses to a fondness for this 
 British force. Wherever the English 
 soldier finds his home there is color, life 
 and smartness. With his forage cap 
 perched aslant upon his close cropped 
 head, his brilliant tunic buttoned to the 
 chin with shining buttons of brass, his 
 pipe clayed belt, and his * * swagger stick, ' ' 
 he walks the street with a mingled 
 sturdiness and dash quite his own. 
 His face is bronzed, and his hair is 
 flaxen, his shoulders are broad and his 
 eyes are keen, and seeing him one un- 
 245 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 derstands the remark of Napoleon, that 
 4 'the British infantry is the best in the 
 world; thank God there are so few of 
 them." 
 
 Gibraltar might be said to be in a con- 
 tinuous state of siege. The vigorous 
 rules of a military post are never relaxed. 
 The fact that it is a foreign post, held 
 by force in a foreign country, is never 
 forgotten. At retreat the gates are 
 closed; at reveille they are opened. 
 None but Englishmen are allowed to 
 enter without a pass, and none but resi- 
 dents permitted to spend the night. The 
 Spanish laborers from San Roque who 
 come for the day are forced to leave 
 at nightfall. A bell of warning clangs 
 like an alarm of fire before retreat is 
 sounded, and then the streets are 
 thronged with grimy workmen from 
 Spain men, women, even children, hur- 
 rying to get beyond the gates before the 
 closing of the town. 
 
 At sunset the warden bearing the keys, 
 marches through the streets to the stir- 
 246 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 ring strains of the fifes and drums or the 
 braying notes of Highland pipes, and 
 locks the gates for the night. Again 
 at the hour of taps, martial music 
 echoes through the town, as the pipers 
 of the Black watch or the drummers of 
 some regiment of the line, swing through 
 the narrow streets, their red coats glinting 
 in the lights which glare from shop or 
 tavern, their feet falling in measured 
 time upon the glistening cobbles of the 
 pavement. 
 
 At night a city is at its best or worst 
 according to one's point of view. Then 
 the noises of the day are gone, the dirt 
 is invisible, and harsh outlines or inhar- 
 monious colors are lost in sombre 
 shadow. Gibraltar at night becomes 
 completely Spanish. Men wrapped in 
 the folds of graceful capas fill the 
 streets, saunter idly in pairs or groups, 
 unmindful of the existence of side- 
 walks; women and girls, with colored 
 shawls of brilliant hues and mantillas on 
 their comely heads, chatter and laugh in 
 247 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 the tones of Andalusia, while glasses 
 chink in the bodegas, and from behind 
 closed doors comes the click of casta- 
 nets, the twang of a guitar. There are 
 dingy highways, too, winding upward 
 into the night, where paupers skulk, or 
 dark skinned Cyprians squat in their 
 doorways and cast languishing glances 
 at stalwart Tommy Atkins, as he loiters 
 toward the barrack yard. 
 
 In the main street is the "Cafe" Uni- 
 versal, "where at night the soldiers of the 
 garrison and sailors of the fleets gather 
 to drink their English beer; and natives 
 of the town who ape their English mas- 
 ters assemble about the marble tables 
 to chat and talk and pretend to be Eng- 
 lish. These anglomaniacs of the "Gib" 
 are a curious type, they must be de- 
 spised by both Spaniard and Briton, but 
 they persevere in wearing covert coats, 
 and English caps, in carrying bamboo 
 sticks, and talking English with a soft 
 lisp which is unmistakable. They are 
 fond of fox terriers' and brilliant ties, 
 248 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 and the Caf Universal seems to be their 
 lounging place. This caf6 is well named. 
 It is the universal meeting ground of all 
 classes of "Gib" society. The arms of 
 many nations are painted on the walls 
 where mirrors glisten, and the adver- 
 tisements of Bass's Ale .and Canadian 
 whiskey, American hotels, or Spanish 
 wines, mingle in cosmopolite confusion. 
 There is a din of voices, the air is dense 
 with smoke, canary birds chirp in their 
 gilded cages, waiters of Spanish cast 
 come and go or loiter by the tables, 
 smoking their cigarillos with a familiar- 
 ity which is truly Spanish; while here 
 and there, mingling, with the dull black 
 of civilian dress, are the dashing uni- 
 forms of the British soldiers, and at a 
 table by themselves, a group of blue 
 jackets from a Yankee cruiser, now half 
 seas over, to remind one of the land 
 across the ocean. Above the hum of 
 voices rise the notes of a piano, while 
 upon a platform placed to one side, dark 
 girls from Malaga, dressed a la manola, 
 249 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 with brilliant scarfs of silk and roses in 
 their hair, dance to the time of casta- 
 nets, the sensuous dances of Southern 
 Spain. 
 
 But all that is of the town and people, 
 and the guide book says the town is 
 uninteresting and dull. One forgets the 
 mighty rock which towers above, frown- 
 ing and grey, with its old Moorish castle 
 perched like an eagle on a crag, with its 
 chilly galleries chiseled and blasted in 
 the limestone, where the mouths of can- 
 nons glare yawning from behind the 
 cactus or palmetto, and the steps of the 
 sentry echo. Scrambling through a 
 rocky port one gazes down for full a 
 thousand feet upon the harbor and the 
 plain below. Dwarfish ships ride at 
 anchor on the bay; a battalion, at ex- 
 tended order drill, is spread over the 
 parade like little tufts of red upon a 
 carpet of green velvet. Beyond are the 
 race course and polo grounds where little 
 ponies scramble like mice at play, and 
 then the narrow strip of neutral land 
 250 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 stretches between the sea and the bay, 
 where sentries pace and the sturdy 
 Briton gazes defiantly at the sunburnt 
 child of Spain. In the distance, across 
 the blue water, the white walls of Al- 
 geciras and San Roque shine in the 
 sunlight, and the green sloping hills 
 and snow-capped mountains of Andalusia 
 rise sharp against the fleecy sky. It is a 
 view to be remembered. 
 
 The batteries of ponderous modern 
 guns, and El Hacho, the signal tower, 
 are now closed to visitors, so one no 
 longer gazes, as at a former visit, across 
 the straits to the misty hills of Morocco 
 where the Moorish cities of Tangier and 
 Ceuta nestle by the sea. You used to 
 scramble on donkeys over the crest of 
 the rock, and visit St. Michael's cave 
 below ; cockney gunners used to point the 
 great guns at Africa, and detail their 
 carrying power and caliber, but the 
 authorities have grown suspicious, and 
 now but half the "Gib" is shown to the 
 foreign visitor, while even the where- 
 251 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 abouts of the newest batteries is kept a 
 secret. 
 
 After a visit to the galleries tunneled 
 in the northern face of the rock, where 
 antiquated cannon point in mere bravado 
 toward the Spanish lines, you drive 
 along the ledge-like road which runs a 
 zig-zag way to the Alameda. Beside 
 this road are perched the dainty little 
 villas of the officers; trim Spanish 
 houses, with English garden spots, be- 
 hind grey walls of stone, where roses 
 bloom and there is a sweet smell of 
 jasmine. Neat English maids and 
 ruddy English babies, smart pony carts 
 and basket phaetons with Spanish ser- 
 vants in London liveries, remind one of 
 foggy England. Here healthy girls with 
 flat-soled boots and pink-faced officers 
 in "mufti" stride along with a swinging 
 step in striking contrast to the saunter- 
 ing Spaniard. But there are the strings 
 of meek-eyed donkeys with their sway- 
 ing ears and the tinkling goat bells to 
 
 252 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 recall the south, and then the Alameda 
 with its palms and cactus plants is 
 reached. A park with geraniums and 
 bowers, and tropical trees laid out with 
 the precision of the English landscape 
 gardener, this Alameda is the pride of 
 Gibraltar. But there is only time for a 
 glance at the shady paths and green 
 waters for the spry Gibraltar pony is 
 scrambling over the ground, and soon 
 the little phaeton-like cab is whirling 
 through the streets of the town again. 
 Huge bastions with frowning guns 
 barrack yards, where soldiers lounge 
 upon the balconies military storehouses 
 the governor's mansion, and tortuous 
 lines of narrow street way, with quaint 
 smoky houses and sloping roofs, pass in 
 review. You meet Spanish "bobbies" 
 in English clothes, and Spanish boys in 
 Eton jackets, diminutive car-like 'buses 
 with jangling bells upon the horses 
 necks, huge carts drawn by oxen or 
 mules, smart officers astride their Eng- 
 
 253 
 
The Land of the Castanet 
 
 lish mounts, and countless other sights, 
 and then the show is over; the hotel is 
 reached. 
 
 From a former visit of much longer 
 duration, there are memories to add of 
 officers' messes and clubs, tennis par- 
 ties, dinners and visits, for an English 
 garrison always makes a charming 
 society. But all that is no more typi- 
 cal of the "Gib" than it is of Halifax, of 
 Malta, or wherever the Union Jack is- 
 unfurled. 
 
 The last glimpse of Gibraltar was 
 from Algeciras across the bay. From 
 there the rock looks as peaceful and 
 sleepy as the fishermen who dozed in 
 their boats. 
 
 A Carabinero, mounting guard, march- 
 ed lazily to and fro upon the quay. His 
 timeworn uniform was ill-fitting, his beard 
 unshaven, but he was picturesque and 
 typical of sunny Spain. He blended 
 with the feluccas and the brigantines 
 the beggars and the white washed 
 
 254 
 
Gibraltar 
 
 houses, and made it difficult to realize 
 that across that stretch of water, where 
 the white sails glared in the sun-light 
 was a mighty fortress, with bastions and 
 guns, with galleries and batteries, where 
 the flag of England fluttered and the 
 Highlander was piping the war-songs 
 of his island home. 
 
 rr* r 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Dec&'SOPM 
 
 18 Apr'5l 
 
 lNov'56PW 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 JAN 1 5 1957 
 
 Kl 
 
 n 
 
 LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 
 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY