GAZPACHO: 
 
 OR, 
 
 SUMMER MONTHS IN SPAIN. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM GEORGE CLARK, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF TftllflTY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN W. PAEKEE, WEST STKAND. 
 
 MDCCCL. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 PBEFACE T 
 
 CHAP. I. FRANCE 1 
 
 II. To BUEGOS 10 
 
 III. BUEGOS 18 
 
 IV. To MADEID 29 
 
 V. THE G-ALLEBY 38 
 
 VI. THE BULL-FIGHT 49 
 
 VII. MADEID 60 
 
 VIII. LA GBANJA AND SEGOVIA 71 
 
 IX. THE ESCORIAL 80 
 
 X. TOLEDO 88 
 
 XI. To GEANADA 102 
 
 XII. THE ALHAMBEA, &c 110 
 
 Xni. GEANADA . . . 120 
 
 XIV. GBANADA 128 
 
 XV. THE ALPUJABBEZ 139 
 
 XVI. THE SIEBBA 154 
 
 XVII. To MALAGA 164 
 
 XVHI. MALAGA 172 
 
 XIX. To GlBEALTAB . . 175 
 
 15140547 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER Page 
 
 XX. GlBBALTAB 183 
 
 XXI. TO RONDA . . . 189 
 
 XXII. KONDA 197 
 
 XXIII. To SEVILLE 205 
 
 XXTV. THE CATHEDBAL 213 
 
 XXV. SEVILLE 223 
 
 XXVI. SEVILLE 235 
 
 XXVII. COBDOVA 249 
 
 XXVIII. CADIZ AND XEBEZ 251 
 
 XXIX. THE. BAT OF VIGO AND THE BAY OF 
 
 BISCAY 257 
 
 APPENDIX (LETTEB FBOM G. H. A.) 261 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T AM going to make, at the beginning of my book, 
 certain apologies and explanations, which would 
 have come more appropriately at the end. But 
 custom, which prescribes a Preface, proscribes an 
 Epilogue, thus leaving me no alternative but to cry 
 * peccabo,' and impudently demand absolution for a 
 prospective offence. Nevertheless, I hope that my 
 preliminary confessions may take the wind out of my 
 critics' sails. 
 
 First, as to the title : Gazpacho is the name of a 
 dish universal in, and peculiar to, Spain. It is a sort 
 of cold soup, made of bread, pot-herbs, oil, and water. 
 Its materials are easily come by, and its concoction 
 requires no skill. Many a time have I seen a whole 
 family, old and young, provided each with a long 
 wooden spoon, sitting round the bowl, and devouring 
 its contents with infinite zest. My Gazpacho has 
 been prepared after a similar recipe ; I know not how 
 it may please the more refined and fastidious palates 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 to which it will be submitted ; indeed, amid the 
 multitude of dainties wherewith the table is loaded, 
 it may well remain untasted. 
 
 If Mr. Ford should chance to dip into it, he may 
 find that some of the ingredients have been filched 
 from his pantry, and, possibly, spoilt in the cooking. 
 When one takes as a companion an author so 
 racy and vigorous, one cannot but appropriate and 
 * assimilate' his thoughts, and afterwards, uncon- 
 sciously, reproduce some of them as original. Once 
 for all, I beg his pardon for any unwitting plagiarisms. 
 I shall be more than content if he relishes the meta- 
 phorical Gazpacho half as much as he is said to relish 
 the reality. 
 
 My readers may possibly be offended by the fre- 
 quent recurrence of ' I,' < I,' ' I.' In a record of 
 personal experiences, in fact, a passage of auto- 
 biography, it is hard to see how this could have 
 been avoided, since the gods and Lindley Murray 
 have not provided us with any less objectionable 
 form for the nominative singular of the first personal 
 pronoun. 
 
 Lastly, I have to apologize for writing a book at 
 all. In my visit I enjoyed no particular facilities, 
 and I went with no definite purpose such as circu- 
 lating the Scriptures, or surveying for a railroad; 
 consequently, I was exempt from the persecutions 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 and obstructions which a person engaged in either 
 would have had to encounter. From the Pyrenees 
 to the Pillars of Hercules (that is, I think, the correct 
 phrase), my journey was deplorably void of misad- 
 venture. So there is nothing in the subject-matter 
 to distinguish my little book from a hundred other 
 little books Tours, Ramblings, Letterings, Danglings, 
 and what not. Yet there will be a difference in the 
 result. I tell you, not what Spain is, but what it 
 looked like to me ; the other Tourists and Ramblers 
 tell you what it looked like to them, and my Spain 
 may differ from their Spain as much as a view (of 
 Hastings, say) by De Wint differs from the same 
 view by Fielding or Turner. 
 
 Besides, it may be said, if the public are sick of 
 trifles, and want solid information, they have now the 
 Red Book before mentioned to go to, which is as 
 copious as any Blue Book, and readable into the 
 bargain. 
 
 After all, in so wide and rich a field, however 
 skilfully it may have been reaped, however diligently 
 gleaned it will go hard if there be not a few ears 
 left to reward the latest comer. All that I have to 
 offer is a mere handful not a sheaf. Whatever be 
 its destiny to be thrashed out by merciless critics, to 
 be trodden under foot by the unconscious crowds, or 
 to be laid up in cedar by a few indulgent admirers 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 I, at all events, have had no little pleasure in the 
 gathering and tying together. An author on a small 
 scale (if he be happy enough not to be writing for his 
 daily bread) risks little by his venture; in case of 
 success, there is his modicum of dear fame ; in case 
 of failure, the worst he need fear is to share in the 
 quick oblivion which befals all but the lucky * one in 
 a thousand.' 
 
GAZPACHO; 
 
 OB, 
 
 SUMMER MONTHS IN SPAIN. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 47, line 2, for Philip II. read Philip IV. 
 
 Page 78: The Cathedral of Segovia, I find, is of the 16th, 
 not 17th century. My guide misled me. 
 
 one ; ( you'll be roasted alive !' ' By the Inquisition ?' 
 ' No ! by the sun !' ' At all events,' said another, 
 'don't go by Paris you'll get the Asiatic cholera.' 
 And a third, pointing to the 'alarming news!!' 
 placarded in sesquipedalian letters on the walls, said 
 ' you'll get the Red Republic !' But being resolved 
 to go, and preferring the hypothetical dangers at 
 Paris to the certainty of quarantine at Gibraltar, I 
 left the evil prophets in their own country, and 
 started that same evening for Folkestone. Early the 
 
 GAZ. B 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 I, at all events, have had no little pleasure in the 
 gathering and tying together. An author on a small 
 scale (if he be happy enough not to be writing for his 
 daily bread) risks little by his venture; in case of 
 success, there is his modicum of dear fame ; in case 
 of failure, the worst he need fear is to share in the 
 nuick oblivion which befals all but the lucky t one in 
 
GAZPACHO; 
 
 OB, 
 
 SUMMER MONTHS IN SPAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ONE necessary preliminary to the tour of Spain 
 is the tour of London, which I performed on 
 the 14th and 15th of June, 1849, from Kensington 
 to King William-street, collecting by the way pass- 
 ports and ( Pratts,' letters of introduction and circular 
 notes. 
 
 As usual at that season in London, an acquaintance 
 turned up at every corner. ' Going to Spain ?' said 
 one ; ' you'll be roasted alive !' ' By the Inquisition ?' 
 ' No ! by the sun !' ( At all events,' said another, 
 'don't go by Paris you'll get the Asiatic cholera.' 
 And a third, pointing to the 'alarming news!!' 
 placarded in sesquipedalian letters on the walls, said 
 ' you'll get the Red Republic !' But being resolved 
 to go, and preferring the hypothetical dangers at 
 Paris to the certainty of quarantine at Gibraltar, I 
 left the evil prophets in their own country, and 
 started that same evening for Folkestone. Early the 
 
 GAZ. B 
 
CHANGES IN FRENCH SENTIMENT. 
 
 next morning \ve set sail (metaphorically) for France. 
 The passengers, thanks to the attempted gmeute, 
 were only four in number. There were two little 
 French milliners, who, having come to London to 
 see the fashions a proud tribute to our advancing 
 civilization had been suddenly recalled 'by the 
 alarming news' aforesaid. One was going back for 
 the lave..of jher husband, the other for company. 
 V ifosi 31 Vtf/ said Adele, tearfully ; < il se battra dans 
 
 , : ; .; r -:lc/fti6s & ooup^sur.' 'How old is he?' I asked. 
 
 * ** *' *J[ a virigt'ans/monsieur.' ' Et le mien, au contraire,' 
 said Louise, coldly, ' est tres prudent ; il restera 
 chez soi.' ' And how old is he ?' ' II a soixante ans, 
 monsieur.' Poor Louise ! The weather was so fine, 
 that if Adele was sick at heart, she was at least free 
 from the mal-au-coeur, and La Manche, smooth as 
 satin, floated us in two hours into the harbour of 
 Boulogne. On landing, the gens-d'armes saluted me 
 as ' Monsieur.' We were not under a Red Republic ! 
 Nor, if I might judge from the sentiments of my 
 fellow-travellers to Paris, were we likely to be. They 
 purchased chiefly the Assemblee Nationale, and ap- 
 plied more epithets to Ledru Rollin than I care to 
 record or remember. True it is, I travelled in the 
 first-class ; but subsequent experience convinced me 
 that reactionary views were very generally enter- 
 tained by the lower classes too, by cabmen, &c., 
 whose vehicles had been confiscated for barricades, 
 and bakers, who had suffered from the fraternal visits 
 of the sovereign mob, breaking bread and windows 
 
PARIS. 3 
 
 from house to house. The minds of coachmen were 
 no longer unsettled ; the very postillions had forsaken 
 the movement party. One of them, after exhausting 
 his rich national vocabulary of abuse on a lazy horse, 
 ground his teeth, and shrieked out, as a final maledic- 
 tion * Bribon de Raspail, va!' 
 
 But I am travelling faster than the railway-train. 
 
 At four P.M. I found myself at Paris. The city 
 was, in many respects, changed since < the days 
 when good King Philip reigned.' The place of the 
 Boulevard trees was ill supplied by the sickly saplings, 
 whose French leaves might be taken at will by any 
 passing gamin. By the way, you may always estimate 
 the time which has elapsed since the last revolution, 
 by the age of the trees on the Boulevard. The former 
 lot had attained astonishing longevity seventeen 
 years and seven months. Will the present planta- 
 tion last as long? Jpoubtless the old king, (for he 
 had once been a schoolmaster,) in planting his trees, 
 recalled complacently that touching passage in the 
 Delectus c Serit arbores quae alteri sseculo prosint.' 
 But he reckoned (as he acted) without his host, and 
 the row he himself had planted in the streets, helped 
 at ' the barring-out.' 
 
 Every here and there one saw closed shops and 
 empty houses, showing like the scars of revolution. 
 The arcades of the Rue Rivoli and the walls of the 
 Tuileries were covered with parti-coloured placards 
 a deformity which would not have been tolerated 
 under the tasteful regime of either Bourbon. At the 
 
 B2 
 
4 EXHIBITION AT THE TUILERIES. 
 
 Varietes, there was less variety than before, and the 
 Vaudeville had become a sort of evening lecture on 
 political economy for the working classes. The Place 
 Vendome was marred by two unsightly trees of liberty, 
 which, in spite of holy water and priests' blessings, 
 had not taken kindly to the soil. Each had been 
 decorated with a tricolor flag ; but fifteen months of 
 stormy weather had rent the red stripe into tatters, 
 and washed the rest into a uniform dirty white, which 
 thing may, for aught I know, be an allegory as well 
 as a fact. 
 
 I could not get admission to the Chamber. Up to 
 the 13th of June, certain illustrious members had 
 turned an honest penny by selling tickets of admis- 
 sion, to be had at Meurice's and elsewhere, for four 
 or five francs; but since that affair they were no 
 longer to be had for love or money. En revanche, 
 I went to the exhibition of pictures, just opened in 
 the state-rooms of the Tuileries. The crowd was 
 dense, but it was good-humoured, and averaged five 
 feet high, so that a middle-sized Englishman could get 
 a fair view. Of the acres of canvass on which my eye 
 rested that day, I only remember Muller's * Lady 
 Macbeth in her sleep,' which attracted many gazers, 
 and gave rise to many ingenious conjectures. The 
 walls were scrawled over with inscriptions 'Jean 
 this,' or * Pierre that,' ' entra le vingt-quatre Fevrier, 
 1848.' 
 
 I have heard that the culinary art of Paris rises 
 and falls with monarchical institutions. For my part, 
 
POICTIERS. 5 
 
 I did not detect the least smack of democracy in 
 the cutlets at the Trois Freres or the Cafe Anglais. 
 But cooks, as a body, have very reactionary consti- 
 tutions, and have not caught the Republic. Indeed, 
 nine-tenths of France have either escaped infection, 
 or have had a speedy recovery. A friend of mine, 
 walking through the Exposition des Arts, saw a 
 crowd following an individual through the rooms: 
 Who is that ? he inquired of an attendant. ( Mais,' 
 said the man, quite simply, * c'est Sa MajesteV It 
 was the President. The habit of centuries will sur- 
 vive a few months of revolution. 
 
 On Monday evening (June 18) I left Paris, 
 perched up in the banquette of the diligence, for 
 Bordeaux. One wearies of the same monotonous 
 panorama presented to the eye from sunrise to sun- 
 set. It is change, without variety. Yet everything 
 was in itself green and cheerful. La Belle France ! 
 In the gracious month of June, what country on 
 earth would not deserve the epithet ? At Poictiers, 
 I was willing to forego my breakfast in order to visit 
 the field ;' but no one there had ever heard of such 
 a battle. Our lively friends have a convenient trick 
 of forgetting the dark half of their history. So I 
 breakfasted, and * carried a toast' (as their phrase is) 
 to the memory of the Black Prince in solemn silence. 
 
 Well, we reached Bordeaux at last stateliest of 
 provincial capitals ! The citizens are very proud of 
 their cathedral (which the English built for them, 
 on the ( vos-non-vobis' principle of bees and other 
 
6 BORDEAUX. 
 
 industrious classes); of the Palace of Cardinal de 
 Rohan, the hero of the ' diamond necklace ;' of the 
 theatre, which is one of the finest in the world, but, 
 above all, they glory in a subterraneous collection of 
 mummies, which are so supremely revolting, that 
 they would cut a respectable figure in the chamber 
 of horrors in Baker-street. The ghastly sacristan 
 vvho precedes you with his flambeau, tells you, with 
 a chuckle of satisfaction, that you are standing upon 
 a conglomerate of human bones, ten feet in depth. 
 It was like a scene in Rookwood. 
 
 I went to the Opera Comique, to charm away the 
 recollection before bed-time. The play was, Ne 
 touchez pas a la Reine' quite a needless injunction, 
 for her scenic majesty was very plain unlike the 
 Bordelaises generally: let me do them this justice in 
 passing. 
 
 Before daylight on Friday, I embarked in the 
 malle poste for Bayonne. I might descant on 
 the Landes, which have a grandeur of their own 
 a vast breadth or" fern, bounded by a horizon of 
 pines; on the picturesque Mont Marsan, with its 
 vine-covered ravine and stately bridge : I might 
 recount the details of an accident, whereby we were 
 more frightened than hurt ; but in the far distance I 
 can discern the faint blue outline of the Pyrenees, 
 and beyond the Pyrenees lies Spain. The thought 
 lengthens out that eternity of poplars, at the end of 
 which, says the conductor, we shall find Bayonne. 
 I did not believe him till we got there. 
 
The hotel (or fonda) St. Etienne, semi-Spanish in 
 name, is thoroughly French in its good cheer. But 
 the table-d'hote was spoiled by those everlasting 
 politics, which had formed the sole subject of converse 
 from Boulogne to Bayonne. And most unprofitable 
 chat too! They 'pooh pooh' the President; don't 
 want Louis Philippe; consider Henri V. a chimera; 
 dissatisfied with all that is or has been, and unable to 
 provide for what shall be. Like people -in sea sick- 
 ness, they nauseate all food while dying of hunger. 
 Everybody sets up a little theory of government for 
 himself, and proves from incontestable premises, by 
 irrefragable logic, that everybody else's little theory 
 is untenable and absurd. Like the particles of a gas, 
 they have a mutual repulsion ; and if confined in the 
 completest and soundest constitution in the world, it 
 will go hard but they will find some loophole to 
 explode by. The Abbe Sieyes said one day at 
 dinner (and a Frenchman is always wisest in his table- 
 talk), ' avec un peuple qui pense, on n'est jamais sur.' 
 
 Who was it that said, ( the traditions of the past 
 are the ballast of the state-vessel, and the hopes of 
 the future its sails'? Well, the French crew have 
 pitched their ballast overboard, don't know how to 
 set their sails, and wont let any one take the rudder. 
 And so they are drifting on over an untraversed sea 
 to an undiscovered coast. How many years will 
 elapse before a new Columbus shall seize the helm 
 and guide the ship to port ? 
 
 Meanwhile, France is paying the penalty that 
 
BIARRITZ. 
 
 every nation must pay when it breaks with its 
 history. 
 
 But a truce to metaphors. If France could have 
 been helped out of her troubles by metaphors, the 
 journalists and M. de Montalembert would have 
 done it long ago. Unfortunately, figures of speech 
 will not pay 300 millions of debt, keep 500,000 
 soldiers in soup and shoes, or extract sixty millions 
 per annum from the pockets of an unwilling people. 
 
 I find I have caught the prevalent infection, 
 and am discussing politics instead of my dinner. 
 Return'we to our mutton. I found myself seated next 
 
 M. H n, a celebrated violinist, still remembered 
 
 by the subscribers to the Philharmonic Concerts. 
 He, with his wife and a young lady, who accompanied 
 him on the piano and harp respectively, had just 
 returned from a professional expedition to Madrid. 
 The adventure had been ill-starred in many ways, 
 and they came back in no good humour with Spain 
 and the things thereof. The climate was ' d'une 
 chaleur-r-r ...!!' and the public, on the other hand, 
 'd'une froideur-r-r ...!!' and not one amiable person 
 in Madrid, except La Vizcaina, at whose hotel 
 Madame earnestly conjured me to stop. Next day 
 I accompanied my new friends to Biarritz, a gaunt, 
 straggling watering-place, built about a quarter of a 
 mile from the rocky coast. There is a little recess 
 in the cliffs, called the Vieuxport, where both sexes 
 bathe together the men in a Robinson Crusoe-like 
 costume, and the women dressed like Lady Macbeth 
 
PUBLIC BUILDINGS AT BAYONNE. 9 
 
 in the fifth act. In spite of the multitudinous ablu- 
 tions, the deep remained of the same flashing green 
 and blue as before ; and a glorious sight it was to see 
 it from a high rock, breaking along the coast in a 
 wavy line of white foam. Somebody compared it to 
 a shot silk mantle for Nature's wear, trimmed with 
 swan's-down a simile which the two ladies rewarded 
 with the epithet of e ravissant.' A day or two passed 
 very pleasantly at Bayonne, sight-seeing on a small 
 scale. There is the cathedral, with its fine flam- 
 boyant cloisters ; the citadel, to which your passport 
 is the never-failing courtesy of French officers, and 
 which a civilian should visit for the view ; and the 
 pine-dotted sand-hills below the town, famous for 
 some murderous work in 1814, when the Eagle, 
 beaten home, clutched her nest with such strong 
 gripe. But my pleasantest recollection is a balcony of 
 the Hotel St. Etienne, filled with flowers, where I 
 
 sat one fine morning listening to M. H n's violin, 
 
 as it was discoursing some of those strange wild 
 merry-pathetic German pieces, which leave one in 
 doubt whether to get up and dance, or lie down and 
 cry. A fresh breeze from the Atlantic was coming 
 in, and stirring the rich languid odours of the 
 southern blossoms. We shall bid farewell to-morrow 
 both to sea and breeze for some time to come. 
 
 B3 
 
10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JUST before my arrival at Bayonne, the old Dili- 
 gence Company for the north of Spain had been 
 routed from their drowsy monopoly by a brisk new 
 vehicle a la Franqaise ; and at that time the two 
 companies were contending for the public favour, 
 by successive reductions of fare and accelerations of 
 pace. So it resulted that the public might be whirled 
 from the frontier to the capital in fifty hours, for 
 twenty-five francs, instead of spending, as of old, 
 thrice the money and twice the time. 
 
 I chose the banquette in the French diligence: an 
 airy perch, from which one gets a bird's-eye view of 
 the earth, and may practise for a prospective scramble 
 after wild goats or waterfalls in the Sierra Nevada. 
 At half-past five, A. M., a prudent old gentleman had 
 commenced the ascent; by half-past -six the con- 
 ductor bounded to the summit, and the mountain 
 began laboriously to move. However, once off the 
 rugged pavement, (a truly pre-Macadamite forma- 
 tion,) the pace was not to be complained of. My 
 companions were 1st, a French bagman, some- 
 what vinous and scorbutic, who occupied the corner; 
 2nd, a Spanish cura, going to St. Sebastian, who was 
 dressed in a suit of dilapidated black, such as is worn 
 
THE BIDASSOA. 11 
 
 in England by nonconformist divines; 3rdly, the 
 conductor; and, 4thly, a merry little Gascon, coiled 
 up among the baggage behind, who was being im- 
 ported into Spain as a gardener; for in Spain the 
 gardeners are as surely French, as in England they 
 are Scotch. I suspect the poor fellow was striving to 
 hide an uneasy regret for La Belle France, or some 
 belle Franchise, by a forced gaiety. At all events, his 
 hilarity was so stupendous that it cannot be expressed 
 without a bull: he talked and laughed incessantly, 
 and sung between whiles. His ditties, however, one 
 and all died away in an indescribably dolorous twang, 
 and the word * amour-r-r.' 
 
 We had need of all Jean's powers of being jolly 
 under creditable circumstances, for the weather was 
 wretched, as bad as if I had brought* it with me from 
 home. The rain pattered on the roof, and the wind 
 blew in misty gusts; and the Atlantic, by the side 
 of which we were passing, was chequered between 
 sullen black and angry foam. (Mem: Let no one 
 about to travel in a hot country, even at Midsummer, 
 come unprovided against cold; you will need the 
 plaid as well as the blouse.) About seven we 
 reached the frontier stream the Bidassoa, which, 
 with its Isle of Pheasants, would have recalled many 
 passages of Hispano-French history, if I had ever 
 read them. It would seem as if the famous fiat of 
 Louis XIV. had taken a partial effect hereabouts: 
 'II n'y a plus de Pyrenees.' The only division between 
 the two nations, is a deep hatred and the Bidassoa, 
 
12 IRUN ST. SEBASTIAN. 
 
 which an active French dancing-master might almost 
 skip over, and which would not drown him if he 
 didn't. On the one side of the bridge we had to get 
 permission to go out on the other, permission to go 
 in. After the passports had received the requisite 
 endorsement, we were suffered to proceed to Irun, 
 where the luggage was examined for the first time. 
 In my case, it was rather I stand than I-run, for 
 there was no chair in the room, and we were detained 
 at least an hour. I must do the officials the justice 
 to say, that they treated me with a distant politeness, 
 for which I felt duly and humbly grateful. We 
 stopped at St. Sebastian to breakfast, and very ill I 
 fared ; but I felt that the good folks had wrongs to 
 avenge, and so forbore to complain. The less an 
 Englishman says of St. Sebastian the better. On 
 some ruined houses outside the town, I could still 
 trace the marks of balls memorials, as the cura said, 
 of the siege of 1813. Between this and Vergara the 
 country improves ; corn and vines below, the woods 
 above, and, over all, the green * Alps. 7 It is Switzer- 
 land on a small scale, and the exigencies of the 
 Basque climate have dictated a similar domestic 
 architecture. Every traveller makes the same re- 
 mark. Theophile Gautier, who, like a true French- 
 man, has the drop-curtain always before his eves, 
 says ( I expected to see Ketlys and Gretleys 
 coming out of every cottage, mais heureusement 
 PEspagne ne porte pas 1'opera comique jusqu'a ce 
 point-la.' 
 
A DILIGENCE RACE. 13 
 
 It is only after penetrating some distance into the 
 interior of Spain, that one discerns any Peninsular 
 peculiarity in the costume, manners, or features of the 
 natives. Vascon and Gascon are physically and 
 morally, as well as etymologically, identical on either 
 side of the Bidassoa. A bull-fight was just going to 
 begin as we arrived at Tolosa, and the sight of the 
 picadors riding in state to the arena was cruelly tanta- 
 lizing. In the evening we had some long and steep 
 hills to climb, which was effected by the aid of two 
 huge oxen, whose docility and resignation formed a 
 truly edifying contrast to the savage yells and ferocious 
 gestures of two animals (believed to belong to the 
 genus man species, peasant,) who goaded them on. 
 Just as we commenced the descent on the other side, 
 the rival diligence came in sight. The consequence 
 was, a race to the bottom, conducted with the same 
 disregard for the limbs and feelings of the passengers 
 as was shown in the palmy days of the road in old 
 England. Our top-heavy vehicle swayed fearfully as 
 we dashed round each sharp tourniquet, and a super- 
 stitious reverence for the powers of centrifugal force 
 led me to expect that every turn would be a turn 
 over. I am still convinced that we ought to have 
 been upset, on strict mathematical principles, and am 
 truly grateful to the unknown disturbing forces which 
 interposed, and brought us safe to Vergara. This is 
 the place illustrious for the final triumph of the Duke 
 of Victory. We supped, for aught I know, in the 
 very room where his grace definitively routed the 
 
14 VITORIA. 
 
 Carlist forces, by giving their leader a check for a 
 few million reals. The gallant generals met hand to 
 hand, and struck a bargain ! 
 
 Shall I confess that I passed through Vitoria at 
 night, and spent but one quarter of an hour there ? 
 I own it is not what England has a right to expect. 
 However, for a sensitive patriot there are other asso- 
 ciations, less agreeable, connected with Vitoria. There 
 it was that those poor devils, whose collective name 
 was ' legion,' died by hundreds of disease and want 
 (as may be read in the simple and pathetic narrative 
 of ' a working-man'). Now the Spaniards, who have 
 cheated them out of the pay promised, ease their 
 consciences by depreciating the services rendered 
 adding insult to injury making light of deeds which 
 they could not emulate, and sufferings which they 
 would not alleviate. 
 
 Meanwhile, the poor fellows f sleep on, little reck- 
 ing,' a few thousands more, added to the long list of 
 their countrymen who lie below the battle-plains of 
 the Peninsula, at Montiel, Almanza, or Albuera, 
 having lost their lives in a foreign land for a stranger's 
 quarrel, fighting for a Peter or a Ferdinand. Even 
 rtow, if a Protestant Englishman has the misfortune to 
 die in Spain, his body is an unclean thing, and must 
 be buried like a dead dog. Truly, intervention is 
 a profitless and thankless task. 
 
 Day dawned, and I woke just as we rattled into 
 Miranda-on-the-Ebro, where our luggage was hauled 
 down, and inspected for the third time. Yet, in spite 
 
THE DEFILE OF PANCORBO. 15 
 
 of the Argus eyes which insisted upon peering into my 
 dressing-case, Spain is deluged with prohibited manu- 
 factures. If they are not belied, the carabineros 
 invariably speed the smuggler for a share of his gains, 
 and make a show of activity by pestering the tourist : 
 Dat veniam corvis, &c. A whole hour passed before 
 the doves in question, with ruffled plumes and tem- 
 pers, again ascended to their respective perches, and 
 crossed the bridge into Old Castile. Another hour or 
 so brought us to the Defile of Pancorbo, a narrow 
 gorge, through which the stream, scanty and inter- 
 mittent, of traffic and travel flows into the Castilian 
 plains. It reminded me of the Pass of Llanberris (all 
 passes have, by the nature of the case, a strong resem- 
 blance) ; but whether the Iberian rocks are 500 feet 
 higher or lower than the Celtic, I have no notion : 
 some people (and I envy them) have an eye for 
 measurements. 
 
 It is only on emerging from the Defile of Pancorbo 
 that the traveller feels himself to be indeed in Spain. 
 Nowhere else will he have seen a prospect such as 
 the one before him. To left and right spreads a 
 plain, with gentle undulations, covered with alternate 
 patches of corn and fallow-land, fallow and corn-land, 
 changing insensibly, from the hard yellows and 
 browns of the foreground, to the soft blue distance, 
 and then blending with the summer haze on the low 
 and far horizon. Directly in front, at a vast distance, 
 rises the next of those successive sierras, which divide 
 Spain like so many ribs. Divisions these, not merely 
 
16 TILLAGE AND POPULATION. 
 
 geo- but ethno-graphical, and justifying the official 
 designation of the country, namely 'Las Espanas,' 
 'The Spains.' One peculiarity, however, I have 
 remarked as common to most of the Spains Old 
 and New Castile, La Mancha, &c. viz., the apparent 
 scantiness of the population as compared with the 
 amount of tillage. In traversing this same plain 
 which leads to Burgos, you see the ripening corn 
 and the new-turned furrow, but where do the 
 labourers live ? There are no isolated cottages as in 
 England, and the villages are few and far between. 
 One would think the quantity of corn on the ground 
 would suffice ten times over for any mouths there are 
 to eat it. The Spaniards, to be sure, eat much more 
 bread and much less meat than we carnivorous 
 northerns. Whatever the cause, a Spanish plain 
 presents the aspect of a cultivated desert Elsewhere, 
 the traveller may see cultivation and may see deserts, 
 but Spain is the only country where he will see them 
 united. In truth, it is a land of jumbled antitheses. 
 
 Not one picturesque tower, not one green dell, 
 relieves the dreary monotony of the way from Pan- 
 corbo to Burgos. The sun climbed higher and higher 
 through a cloudless sky, till we were almost suffocated 
 in the flood of heat which poured unrelentingly on 
 our heads. What a contrast to the cold mountain 
 mists and sea breezes of yesterday I But in these 
 central plains, all summer long, that irresponsible 
 tyrant rules the Spanish day, without a cloud to limit 
 his prerogative. Let me vent my spleen, now that I 
 
BURGOS. 17 
 
 am safe under the shelter of an English November. 
 Whether it was that I became somewhat acclimatized 
 in course of time, but I certainly never afterwards 
 suffered so much from heat as in that ride to Burgos. 
 I was fain to refresh myself by dipping into ' Ford,' 
 who, unlike his namesakes in Spain, is never, dry. 
 ' Sir,' once said a table-d'hote acquaintance ' Sir, he 
 is the traveller's vadum mecum.' The pun was unin- 
 tentional, for the speaker was a Scotch gentleman in 
 the muslin trade. 
 
 Right glad I was, an hour before noon, to see the 
 twin towers of Burgos rising over the plain, and 
 doubly long seemed the leagues as we neared the 
 city. A league off we came upon the shrunk river, 
 winding its way between a double row of alders and 
 poplars, which feebly attempted to be green. Just at 
 the entrance of Burgos were a vast number of soldiers, 
 in their auto-da-fe-coloured jackets, engaged in wash- 
 ing the greatest possible number of indescribable 
 garments in the smallest possible quantity of water. 
 Had they been washerwomen, they could not have 
 made more noise about it. Excepting the soldiers at 
 wash, Burgos was as still and quiet as fifteen thousand 
 grave Castilians can make it, and that, let me tell 
 you, is very still indeed. You will hardly match it 
 westward of Palmyra, unless it be Ferrara, or Phila- 
 delphia, U. S., which, I understand, is brim-full of 
 Quakers. 
 
18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 T MUST confess that I experienced a sensation of 
 loneliness as the diligence moved off on its way 
 to Madrid. Sitting on a portmanteau, ' warranted 
 solid,' under an archway, I watched the vehicle till it 
 turned the corner, as Ariadne may have watched the 
 sails of Theseus 
 
 Sinking with all she loved beneath the verge. 
 Nor did I find the same consolation, for the wine of 
 Burgos is detestable to a northern palate. There I 
 was, a stranger, blundering over the first rudiments 
 of Spanish conversation, in the very heart of the 
 pride and prejudice of old Castile, in Burgos, which 
 is no city of the interpreter, where no laquais-de- 
 place proffers his services in Biscayan-French or 
 Maltese -English. If the traveller cannot speak 
 Spanish enough to ask for a bed-room, or cannot 
 muster impudence enough to occupy one without 
 asking, he runs great chance of having to take up his 
 quarters with the other dumb animals in the stable 
 or kennel. Just at that time the silent city was 
 doubly silent, for it was taking its siesta. I resolved 
 to follow so good an example, and accordingly pro- 
 ceeded to seize and possess myself of a room, followed 
 by a casual boy from the streets, whom I had bribed 
 
THE POSADA. 19 
 
 to carry my luggage upstairs, no waiter or 'boots' 
 being forthcoming. But, in respect of the anticipated 
 nap, I had reckoned without my host. The posada 
 in which I was lodged was infested by diligences, 
 which came lumbering in at intervals all that after- 
 noon, with a cargo of hungry 'insides.' Conse- 
 quently, this was precisely the one noisy place in 
 Burgos. Stairs creaked, doors banged, knives clat- 
 tered, women screamed, and, worse than all, an 
 incense-smoke of fried oil and garlic spread into 
 every nook and corner. Your true Castilian never 
 does anything quickly and quietly. He knows no 
 medium between apathy and fuss ; and the tumult of 
 the one (when he is roused) equals the quietude of 
 the other. When the ( he ' is a ' she,' the same holds 
 true, a fortiori. Now, in this establishment, the entire 
 personnel was female. Sleep was impossible, so I 
 resolved to dine with the Santander diligence, at two. 
 The waitresses, with a ferocity quite appalling, flung 
 on the table a profusion of strong meats, entirely 
 unknown to the Cis-pyrenean cuisine. Every kind 
 of meat was brought to a horrid uniformity by a thick 
 disguise of garlic. But (as I afterwards discovered) 
 even garlic is nothing when you're used to it. The 
 passengers contrived to eat enormously, maintaining 
 the while a stately and dignified reserve. As for me, 
 if I did not satisfy my appetite, I at least received a 
 lesson in manners: I had dined with half-a-dozen 
 Dukes Humphrey and their duchesses. 
 
 The feast over, I sallied out; for the scanty strip 
 
20 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 of shadow in the street had now widened to a com- 
 fortable breadth, and the town was waking, after its 
 own drowsy fashion. Here and there I saw a dame 
 or damsel, wearing a mantilla, and that awful, don't- 
 speak-to-me countenance which ladies generally 
 assume on their way to church. I followed one of 
 these black angels accordingly, for my first object 
 was the cathedral ; and I was not mistaken, in two 
 minutes I stood before the gate of the south transept. 
 
 Enter ; and what a change ' from glow to gloom !' 
 from the common glare of day to a charmed 
 twilight ! from prose to poetry ! Then you can feel 
 the joy with which the weary traveller in the desert 
 flings himself down to rest on the far-seen, long- 
 wished-for oasis, by the fountain beneath the palms. 
 And those vast pillars, with that arched roof, are 
 more impervious to the sun than the trunks and 
 leaves of any banana, and those streams of gentle 
 music flow sweeter than falling water. 
 
 In a southern climate the exigencies of nature aid 
 the endeavours of art, and endue the cathedral with 
 a new significance. The fierce sun and fiercer 
 sirocco, against which no common dwelling is proof, 
 are not felt in the house of God. It is the shadow 
 of a great rock in a weary land. 
 
 The superstition which in England consigned the 
 north side of the church, with its dank mould and 
 green lichens, to the evil one, is unknown in other 
 and sunnier lands. f On the north side,' says the 
 great poet-prophet (as true to nature in the one 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 21 
 
 capacity, as he is true to God in the other) f On 
 the north side lieth the city of the Great King.' The 
 north side is ever the chosen place for beggars, the 
 halt and the blind, who, else homeless, gather under 
 the shelter of its liberal shadow. 
 
 For a moment after you enter the church all is 
 night, but gradually its glories dawn upon you one 
 by one. Round the massive pillars are clustered 
 niches and canopies, rich in fantastic tracery, and 
 from each an Evangelist with a book, or bishop with 
 pastoral staff, looks down on the few worshippers 
 who kneel below, almost as motionless. The grand 
 old Gothic that catholic mould in which all Christian 
 Europe has striven best to express its devotion is 
 varied here by details which epitomize the character 
 and the history of Spain. The stern, grave figures 
 cut in the white stone represent well the patricians 
 of Old Castile, proud of their unblemished honour 
 and unconquerable resolve ; the costly and varied 
 marbles, and graceful foliage enwreathing many a 
 tomb, and the altar-screens blazing with gold, recal 
 the days when Spain had at her command the 
 quarries of Carrara, the pliant fancy of Genoa, and 
 the untold treasures of the New World. 
 
 You will be roused from your day-dream by the 
 cessation of the music and the pattering feet of the 
 departing worshippers, or probably by some hobbling 
 old verger, who taps you on the shoulder with his 
 wand, and intimates that, vespers over, he is now at 
 liberty to serve Mammon in a small way, by showing 
 
22 PICTURES. 
 
 you the chapels. Let us go with him by all means 
 we shall not grudge the fee. 
 
 He will take you first to the Capella del Con- 
 destabile, a gorgeous specimen of florid Gothic in full 
 bloom. In the centre, on separate tombs, lie the 
 effigies of the said Constable and his wife, all in 
 white marble, in their habit as they lived. A long 
 inscription records the titles of the founder, whose 
 only title to posthumous fame, after all, is the splen- 
 did mausoleum which preserves his memory and 
 name. Pedro Hernandez de Velasco was wiser in 
 his generation than all the Pharaohs of Egypt 
 
 Let us go on, and look at a picture attributed to 
 Leonardo da Vinci, and quite in his manner. It is a 
 Magdalen, calm, yet full of sorrow, with all her 
 golden hair hanging in wavy tresses about her face. 
 You can see the fair smooth skin gleaming through. 
 
 There is yet another picture, attached to a still 
 greater name, to Michael Angelo himself. A Virgin, 
 robed in red and blue, holds the child in her arms. 
 Two little angels, with palm-branches, hover above. 
 In the distance is a green landscape. The child is 
 exquisite, like one of Raphael's happiest creations. 
 The sweet face of the Virgin has something Spanish 
 in its character, but the picture is Italian beyond 
 doubt. Is it Michael Angelo's? It appears to me 
 (speaking with the diffidence which becomes a lay- 
 man in art,) that in hardness of outline, and strongly- 
 contrasted colours, this picture has a decided resem- 
 blance to that which bears the name of Michael 
 Angelo in the tribune of the Uffizii, at Florence. 
 
PLAZA MAYOR. 23 
 
 But the genuineness even of that is questioned. Nay, 
 I believe it is a moot point whether he ever painted 
 an easel picture at all. But the good verger is show- 
 ing signs of impatience. Let us permit him to draw 
 the curtain over the picture and the discussion. 
 
 Let us now turn down to the great square, the 
 Plaza Mayor, of late re-baptized ' de la Constitucion ;' 
 it is quite empty, excepting the grim statue of some 
 dead king or other in the centre. All round is an 
 arcade, in that ragged tumble-down state that artists 
 love ; and underneath are a number of diminutive 
 shops, in which the smallest possible amount of busi- 
 ness is transacted. Business ! there is no business in 
 Castile, except the barber's. Elsewhere custom is 
 most unfrequent, saving ' the custom always of an 
 afternoon.' These little shops are so still and quiet, 
 that they might be Columbaria or Egyptian tombs, 
 and the master, stretched motionless on the counter, 
 might be the mummy smoking a cigarett. 
 
 When abroad, I always read the names over the 
 shop-doors. It's so improving. In the course of this 
 interesting investigation, my eye fell upon the inscrip- 
 tion e Don Pedro Smith' over a haberdasher's. I 
 started, like Robinson Crusoe when he discerned the 
 foot-print of a fellow-man in the desert island. I 
 entered, for I hoped to get some useful information, 
 in English, from Mr. Peter Smith. He was a little 
 fat man, lolling on his counter as lazily as any Castilian 
 of them all. This was discouraging, yet I ventured to 
 address him in English. But, no ! though he did not 
 deny his father, and had not forsaken his name, he 
 
21: SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 had forgotten the ancestral language of all the Smiths, 
 and was merged in the Don Pedro. So I left him, 
 with the usual blessing, which was all I took by the 
 motion. 
 
 It is a marvel to me how Don Pedro and his 
 fellows get their bread. They toil not, neither do 
 they spin. They are so supremely indifferent, that I 
 am sure two hundred of a trade might live together 
 in the most perfect agreement They pass their lives 
 in the same dull routine, varied, at far intervals, by 
 some such scene as this: 
 
 Let C stand for customer, D for dealer (be the 
 wares what they may). D is discovered lying at 
 full length on the counter, smoking. 
 
 Enter C. Ave Maria purissima. 
 
 D. Sin pecado concebida, (without disturbing 
 himself. ) 
 
 C. Have you got such-and-such a thing ? 
 
 D. God knows. Does your worship want to buy 
 it? (A pause.) Well, I'll look by-and-by. (He 
 finishes his cigarett, and proceeds slowly to examine 
 his stores. Then, somewhat surprised,) Holy Mary, 
 here it is ! we have got it. 
 
 C. What's the price ? 
 
 D. God knows! Will your worship call again 
 to-morrow, or next day, and I'll tell you ? 
 
 C.andD. G Usted con Dios. Exit C. 
 
 D lies down again in his former position, and rolls 
 another cigarett. 
 
 By and bye I was corisoled for my first disappoint- 
 
SWISS CAFE. 25 
 
 merit by discovering a cafe, under the management of 
 a communicative Swiss. If I had known more of 
 Spain, I might have been sure of finding a Swiss cafe 
 in the town. These Swiss turn up everywhere, in the 
 most out-of-the-way corners. Couriers, valets, body- 
 guards, and pastry-cooks, nothing comes amiss to 
 them. Like other children of the mist, Asturians 
 and Scotch Highlanders, they care not how far they 
 wander to make a livelihood, but always cherish the 
 hope of returning to their native hills to die. 
 
 A little before sunset the good folks cheered up 
 wonderfully, and turned out en masse to the Alameda, 
 in the highest state of satisfaction and contentment. 
 The Alameda affords a singular combination of scents 
 and sounds, proceeding from stagnant pools and blow- 
 ing roses, croaking frogs and chattering women. 
 This night, however, the innocent gaieties of the 
 promenade were cut short by a thunder- shower, 
 scaring a whole flock of mantillas to the cafe, where 
 they devoured huge mers-de-glace and mountains of 
 pastry, to the detriment of their own digestions and 
 the purses of attendant cavaliers. 
 
 Early next morning I stormed the castle, which 
 enjoys a military reputation quite unique for having 
 repulsed Lord Wellington. It opened its gates to 
 me on the first summons, or rather, I found them 
 open and walked in. 
 
 A few soldiers were lounging or lying about in the 
 shade, keeping up a constant fire of paper-cigars to 
 kill time withal. I found, however, no stores of in- 
 
 GAZ. c 
 
26 MIRAFLORES. 
 
 terest to reward my pains, so I evacuated the fortress, 
 and divided the rest of the day between the cathedral 
 and the cafe. 
 
 The morning after, I made an excursion to Mira- 
 flores, in a vehicle peculiar to the country called a 
 calesa, in which you are carried at a slow trot, at4the 
 imminent risk of dislocating every joint, over a track 
 termed by that extravagant Spanish courtesy a road, 
 which, in winter, is a slough of despond and mud, and, 
 in summer, is hardened into something that resembles 
 a raised map of Switzerland. 
 
 However, Miraflores will repay you for the trouble 
 of going there. The church, as you approach, looks 
 so like Eton Chapel, that one involuntarily begins 
 
 Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, 
 That crown 
 
 but here the applicability ceases, for at Miraflores, alas! 
 there is no watery glade, nor science, nor gratitude, to 
 adore the holy shade of Isabel. 
 
 We drove into a deserted court, where, after sundry 
 shoutings and knockings, we were joined by a dilapi- 
 dated attendant, quite in keeping with the place, who 
 conducted me, through hollow-sounding corridors and 
 cloisters, to the church, now silent as the tombs it 
 covers. Here are the sepulchres of Juan II. and his 
 wife, and their son Alphonso, unrivalled memorials of 
 what filial and sisterly love can accomplish when it 
 wields the wealth of a kingdom. In the centre of the 
 church, just before the high altar, lie the effigies of 
 the king and queen, and round the sides of the 
 
CHURCH OF MIRAFLORES. 27 
 
 tomb are clustered saints and evangelists, personified 
 virtues and heraldic monsters, with a profusion of 
 flower-wreaths, carved in the boldest alto relievo and 
 of the whitest Carrara marble. The artist's design 
 was, doubtless, to typify their regal grandeur, their 
 moVal worth, and the faith whereby they looked for 
 unfading crowns. Isabel was peculiarly happy in her 
 artist. His work displays a teeming fancy, guided 
 by a pure taste, and executed with surpassing skill 
 and delicacy. Unhappily, the beauty of the work 
 pleaded in vain with the invaders of 1808. It spoke 
 a language they did not understand. The flower- 
 tracery was mutilated, and many of the statuettes 
 have been pocketed for relics. Over the altar is a 
 magnificent skreen of carved wood. In the centre 
 stands Jesus with the cross, and round him the prin- 
 cipal events of his life, the whole encircled by a 
 wreath of cherubs ; and outside that, figures of Saints, 
 full-size, each under his gilt canopy. Here, there is 
 none of that ghastly reality which so often disturbs 
 the pleasure of examining these gorgeous ' things of 
 Spain;' all is artistic and in tasteful keeping, down 
 to the minutest details, one lingers long, loth to 
 look for the last time on so much beauty. 
 
 At length I left the church, and followed my guide 
 through the convent. There used to be twenty-one 
 monks at Miraflores, whose occupation was singing 
 masses for the repose of the royal dead ; but Espar- 
 tero ' broke into the spence and turned the cowls adrift.' 
 Three only are left, old men, who will not cumber the 
 c 2 
 
28 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 ground long. I saw one of them, wandering like a 
 melancholy ghost among the once pleasant places, fast 
 becoming a wilderness of weeds and ruin. I visited 
 the kitchen, now fire-less ; the cellars, innocent of 
 wine ; the refectory, which has been robbed even of 
 its picture of a supper. In the sala capitular, nearly 
 a hundred freshly-gathered roses were arranged in the 
 form of a cross on the floor, the pious morning's work 
 of one of the old fathers. The fountain in the middle 
 of the garden has ceased to play, but the water wells 
 through the disjointed stones, and keeps the life in a 
 few straggling garden shrubs. Close by is the cemetry, 
 covered with rank weeds, a tall cross marking, as 
 usual, the place where the last brother was buried. 
 It will be shifted three times more. The whole 
 scene forcibly brought to my mind the description of 
 the monastery of Kennaquhair, after the Reformation. 
 One cannot help feeling some sympathy with any 
 reverent and time-sanctioned custom, just swept away 
 for ever ; but I do not consider the late dissolution of 
 the monasteries a matter for real regret. The appro- 
 priated revenues may have been misapplied and 
 wasted ; solemn promises may have been broken on 
 the part of the government, and thousands of un- 
 offending men driven out to face the hardships of a 
 world where they were as strangers ; but, withal, it 
 is a happy thing for Spain that some hundred thou- 
 sand pairs of stalwart arms, formerly employed in 
 telling beads or swinging censers, will now be at their 
 country's service, to fight her battles and to till her 
 fields. 
 
29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HHHAT same day, at 2 P.M. I set out for Madrid. 
 The diligencia differs from the diligence in 
 having no banquette. The coupee was full, so I was 
 compelled to go in the interior. I took my place for 
 the south, with much the same feelings that a Scotch 
 covenanter may have had when seating himself in the 
 chair of torture ; in each case, it is a painful and 
 necessary transit to a land of palms. If I were to 
 speak from recollection of the tract between Burgos 
 and Lerma, I should say that it was a region where 
 fire had usurped the place of all the other elements, 
 licking up the water, and crumbling the earth into an 
 impalpable powder, which, in its turn, rose and ousted 
 the air. That day's experience has corrected my 
 notion as to the indispensable necessity of Oxygen, 
 Hydrogen, and Co. as a Life Insurance; I then 
 found that the lungs could perform their functions for 
 several successive hours, while inhaling and expiring 
 equal portions of dust and tobacco-smoke. The tra- 
 veller will generally find that his mental powers and 
 spirits are elevated or depressed in exactly inverse 
 proportion to the altitude of the sun ; accordingly, as 
 it was towards evening when we passed Lerma, I had 
 sufficient life in me to look out upon the huge factory- 
 
30 DESOLATION. 
 
 like old palace of the famous Duke of that ilk, to call 
 up faint recollections of Gil Bias, and to listen to a 
 long story from one of my travelling companions 
 about a troop of bandits, who, in this unromantic nine- 
 teenth century, had taken up their abode in the vaults 
 of the said palace, and pillaged, with long impunity, 
 all who passed by that road. The whole story was 
 merely one of those pleasant extemporary fictions with 
 which these semi-orientals beguile the time, quite 
 content if you listen in patience, and not making the 
 smallest claim on your credulity. Before we reached 
 Aranda, I remember crossing enormous plains, covered 
 for the most part with cistus and lavender, the 
 flowers of the latter deepening the rich purple of the 
 distance, and contrasting gloriously with the trans- 
 parent yellow and crimson of the sunset. 
 
 Besides the diligence and its team, creeping like a 
 long snake over the white road, there was not a living 
 thing to be seen not a trace of man's handiwork. 
 The shrieks of the driver, and the crack of his whip, 
 were the only sounds which broke the stillness. The 
 desolation of a plain is always more awful than the 
 desolation of a mountain. In the latter case it is 
 natural, and a thing of course, in the former, it seems 
 the result of a curse on the place. The existence of 
 such vast deserts, within half-a-day's journey of the 
 capital, points to something rotten in the state of 
 Spain. And yet this is the country which once peopled 
 a continent with its overplus. The Spanish monarchy 
 is a tree which has decayed from the core outwards ; 
 
A SPANISH FAMILY. 31 
 
 the leaves, meanwhile, flutter out their season gaily 
 enough, caring little for the old trunk. 
 
 At Aranda, we were allowed half-an-hour to 
 regale ourselves with the never-failing, ever-excellent 
 chocolate. With a Spanish diligence, half-an-hour 
 means half-an-hour and something more. You are 
 not liable, as in France, to be bustled out of your last 
 ten minutes by the conducteur's noisy summons, < En 
 voiture, messieurs les voyageurs;' so I had time to 
 observe my companions. The rotonde was occupied 
 by a father, mother, and some half-dozen children. 
 The father was a little, timid, small-voiced man, 
 implicitly obedient to his better-half, a lady of 
 herculean proportions and stentorian voice, who took 
 advantage of her palpably interesting situation to 
 be unusually exacting. The children regarded the 
 mother with awful reverence, and the father with 
 contemptuous pity. I mention this because, doubt- 
 less, such a state of things is quite unheard of in our 
 well-regulated English homes. 
 
 From the roof of the diligence descended a well- 
 made, ill-conditioned fellow, who called lustily for 
 aguardiente to keep the cold out. Like certain 
 other persons, he made all the world participators of 
 his 'confidences' unasked. He had served under 
 Cavaignac in Algeria, (on whom he vented, by the 
 way, sundry military oaths,) had deserted, and earned 
 a scanty pittance by sitting to the artists at Seville as a 
 model for bandits, &c. &c. I dare say, on a fitting occa- 
 sion, he would have acted the character to perfection. 
 
32 THE SOMO SIERRA. 
 
 Next morning, as the day broke, we were climbing 
 the first slopes of the Somo Sierra, the pass which 
 leads over the Guadarrama chain to Madrid. I got 
 out, and walked for some miles ahead of the diligence, 
 drinking deep draughts of the keen air, and storing 
 up a famous appetite for breakfast, which we found 
 prepared for us at a mountain venta. In so lonely a 
 district, one may eat of dubious dishes with compara- 
 tive security ; cats thereabouts must be considerably 
 scarcer than hares. Here our deserter made himself 
 very obnoxious. He had been repeating his draughts 
 of aguardiente at every stage, till he became unable 
 to take care of himself, and decidedly unfit to be 
 intrusted with a carving-knife. He was at last, by 
 dint of force and fraud, hoisted back on to his perch, 
 where he fell fast asleep, and lay there with the 
 burning sun full upon him all the way to Madrid. 
 It would have killed anybody but a chasseur d'Afrique. 
 Whether it killed him or not nobody cared to inquire. 
 As we descended the southern slopes of the mountain, 
 the breeze grew fainter and fainter at every turn, and 
 at last died of sheer exhaustion, leaving us to repeat 
 the same vitally interesting series of experiments on 
 the organs of respiration, and, I am happy to add, 
 with the same result. 
 
 The vast plain which surrounds Madrid presents 
 almost universally traces of the plough, though the 
 land lying idle bears an enormous disproportion 
 to that actually productive. It is, in fact, an 
 ocean of grey fallow, dotted with sporades of 
 
PLAIN OF MADRID. 33 
 
 yellow stubble. Here and there you see a glaring 
 village of white-washed mud; and as the vehicle 
 stops at each of these to change horses (mules, I 
 should say), it is surrounded by a swarm of maimed 
 and decrepit old folks and preternaturally active 
 urchins, with or without rags, who solicit your 
 charity and make liberal promises of repayment in 
 the name of the blessed Virgin Mary. I did not see 
 Madrid till we were close to the walls, for the simple 
 reason that I was not equal to the exertion of putting 
 my head out of the window to look for it. I was 
 then strongly reminded of exterior views which I 
 have seen of certain Oriental cities, a mud wall, 
 surmounted by paltry minarets and towers, with a 
 desert all round and touching the very gates. What 
 a contrast to the environs of London, where the 
 country melts into the town by insensible gradations, 
 Wimbledon Common, parks, gardens, villas, bough- 
 pots, and Bow-bells ! The citizen of Madrid does 
 not go beyond its walls twice in a year, and he is 
 quite right Once enter Madrid, and all traces of 
 Orientalism vanish. It is the least Spanish of all Spanish 
 towns. The Gallo-mania, which is universally, and 
 the Anglo-mania, which is partially, prevalent in the 
 capital, have destroyed all that was characteristic and 
 national in architecture, customs, and costume, except 
 the Plaza Mayor, bull-fights, and Isabel the Second. 
 After my luggage had undergone a polite pro forma 
 examination, I proceeded in quest of La Vizcaina, 
 who occupies the second floor of the Casa Cordero 
 c 3 
 
34 SPANISH TABLE-D'HOTE. 
 
 an enormous house in the very centre of the town. 
 I was received at the door by the lady herself, a 
 beaming, bustling housewife, still so fat and fair that 
 I should have pronounced her forty. I have since 
 learnt that, (to use the language of mediaeval romance,) 
 she has numbered sixty winters. May she double the 
 reckoning, for the benefit of travellers yet unborn ! 
 A delicious warm bath washed away the memory of 
 fatigue, and prepared me for the olla, promised at 
 five o'clock precisely. The company at the * round 
 table ' (so a table-d'hote is termed in Spain), some 
 twenty persons, formed a little quadruple alliance, 
 for it contained representatives of each of the four 
 powers, and of none other. In this case, the French 
 had it all their own way. They carried on a 
 clamorous discussion on the politics of Europe ; and 
 if any slow-spoken Englishman or Spaniard ventured 
 upon a deprecatory mais,' he was immediately borne 
 down by a dashing, reckless Polish-lancer-like charge 
 of assertions and inferences, so rapid that you had no 
 time to comprehend, much less reply to them. 
 
 After dinner, sundry silver or pseudo-silver dishes, 
 with handles to them, filled with glowing charcoal, 
 were placed on the table, whereat every one lighted 
 his cigar. A lull ensued, and the discussion ended, 
 as usual, in smoke. 
 
 By this time, it was becoming what is called by a 
 pleasant irony ' cool,' so every one sallied out to 
 commence the real life of the day. I did the same, 
 with the more eagerness, as I was anxious to cultivate 
 
THE CALLE DR ALCALA. 35 
 
 my new acquaintance, Madrid. The eastern part of 
 the city, the quarter in which all the world lives, 
 except the queen, the people, and the British am- 
 bassador, is like an outstretched hand, of which the 
 Puerta del Sol is the palm, and the Calle de Alcala 
 the middle finger, being the broadest and longest of 
 all the streets which centre in the Puerta. The 
 * Gate of the Sun,' by the way, is now as mythical as 
 Aid Gate or Bishop's Gate. This street of Alcala is 
 affirmed by the people of Madrid to be the finest 
 street in Europe, and I am not sure that the boast is 
 wrong ; I will maintain its claims against Regent- 
 street or the Unter den Linden. The Rue de 
 Rivoli is out of the question, because there is only 
 one row of houses ; and nobody calls the Boulevards 
 'a street.' I never saw St. Petersburg or New 
 York, nor, in all probability, has 'the gentle reader' 
 either. As the street begins to sink towards the 
 Prado, it is bordered by double rows of acacias, 
 planted by Espartero, and watered by Narvaez. 
 The principal cafes are in this quarter; as, for 
 instance, the Suizo, long established and unpretend- 
 ing ; and that yclept ' del Espejo,' which, in cheap 
 magnificence, outshines all its Parisian prototypes. 
 There you find ices, orgeat, and lemonade; and 
 (besides the usual temperance beverages) wines 
 and liqueurs innumerable. Upstairs is a suite of 
 rooms devoted to various games; billiards, played 
 with a set of dwarf nine-pins, and cards with strange 
 out-Englandish devices (observe the players they are 
 
36 THE PRADO. 
 
 performing a tableau-vivant after Caravaggio). In 
 another place you see a fierce Don, knitting his 
 brows and twisting his moustache over a perplexity 
 at dominoes. 
 
 It is a pleasant lounge for a new comer to sit at 
 one of these windows about sunset, and watch the 
 stream of pedestrians, carriages and horses, flowing 
 down towards the Prado. Let us by all means go thither 
 with the stream. The most frequented part is that 
 which extends about five hundred paces south of the 
 Calle de Alcala, with a broad carriage drive, and a 
 still broader space for the promenaders. Here all 
 the able-bodied population of Madrid circulate of an 
 evening, from the queen down to whatever may be 
 the other extremity of the social scale. Except her 
 majesty, who looks best in a mantilla, and knows it, 
 the ladies chiefly wear bonnets of the last Parisian 
 fashion but ten a dreadful disenchantment. Thou- 
 sands of rush-bottomed chairs may be hired for a 
 cuarto a-piece, to accommodate the wives, mothers, 
 and daughters of the people, as they watch the gay 
 world prancing by. The saddle-horses are mostly 
 Andalucians, trained to paw the air and make a great 
 show of going but it's all pretence. Besides the 
 bit in their mouths, the poor animals have often a 
 band fastened across the nose, provided internally 
 with a small saw, by means of which they may be 
 brought down on their haunches any time, without 
 any unseemly exertion of strength on the rider's 
 part. The carriages are built after the Long Acre 
 
THE PRADO. 37 
 
 mould, and are got up generally in what is conceived 
 to be the English style i. e. the footmen are in top- 
 boots. After the daylight is gone, the fair (I mean, 
 dark) occupants descend, and promenade till ten or 
 eleven o'clock. 
 
 Altogether, the Prado at that time is very like what 
 Hyde Park might be by gas-light. Fashion, truly, is 
 a sad leveller of oddities, national or individual. For 
 myself, I confess this treadmill- like mode ceases to 
 be amusing after a time, whether in London, Paris, 
 or Madrid. Vamos. 
 
 
38 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 first impulse of every stranger on waking, the 
 first morning after his arrival at Madrid, is, or 
 ought to be, to visit the Gallery. Indeed, but for 
 that magnet, few would encounter the slow torture 
 of diligence-travelling through the interior, when 
 they might go by steam from port to port all round 
 the coast (cholera-time excepted). Let the stranger, 
 then, having duly fortified himself with chocolate, 
 sally forth, pass intrepidly through the midst of the 
 soldiers who are lounging about the post-office door 
 (fierce as they look, they wont harm you), and then 
 take the Carrera San Geronimo, carefully hugging 
 the shady side till you come to the Prado. The 
 scene you left so full of life, and fans, and flirtation, 
 last night, is now abandoned to sunshine and solitude 
 two synonymes at this time of year. You must, 
 however, endure the glare for a minute or two, cross 
 right over ' the dust that once was love/ and before 
 you stands a large, massive, but not inelegant building 
 of red stone, with white facings and pillars (in the 
 British infantry style). That is the Gallery. Unless 
 your object be the sculptures (which I can't for a 
 moment conceive), go to the door at the north end ; 
 enter, present your passport to the old doorkeeper, 
 
THE MADRID GALLERY. 39 
 
 who returns it to your worship with a grave bow ; 
 write your name and occupation (' proprietor' of 
 course, even if you are conscious that the only thing 
 you hold in fee-simple is your portmanteau), buy a 
 catalogue, and then go in and look at it. * What do 
 you mean by 'it'?' Why the Pearl, of course; 
 what else could it be ? It is placed on the left 
 hand, half-way up the long gallery 9 which faces you 
 on entering (No. 726 in the catalogue). Its title 
 was conferred by Philip the Fourth, who bought it 
 at the sale of our Charles the First's pictures, through 
 the medium of his ambassador in London, D. Alonso 
 de Cardenas, for two thousand pounds sterling. I dare 
 say old Noli chuckled over the great price. But 
 that the gallery was saleable, it would probably have 
 been burnt as idolatrous, for pictures to the Puritans 
 were, indeed, as pearls before swine. The first view 
 of this precious jewel is disappointing. It has been 
 repolished in Paris, and thereby lost that venerable 
 mellowness, which from habit we associate with all 
 great pictures. One might take it for a first-rate 
 copy turned out yesterday. Its harmony has been 
 marred by some rude northern hand. The purple 
 and gold of the evening sky are contrasted in a 
 savage manner, quite unlike Raphael, whose landscapes 
 and skies always seem to retire, and fade, and wane, in 
 the presence of the Infant God and the Blessed 
 Mother. The faces, however, are uninjured. The 
 child John is offering flowers to Jesus, who looks up 
 to his mother's face, as if to ask for the smile of 
 
40 THE MADRID GALLERY. 
 
 permission. The whole group is conceived in that 
 spirit of gentle humanity which reveals the glories 
 of Raphael even to babes in art, and which has 
 made his creations the household-gods of every 
 hearth. A little further on (No. 741) is the ' Virgin 
 of the Fish/ where the painter seems studiously to have 
 rejected all accessory decorations, unless the wide 
 green curtain behind can be so called. The maid- 
 mother, babe in arm, sits, not * beneath branch work 
 of costly sardonyx/ but on a chair of plain deal, 
 with foot-stool to match. The face of Tobit, who, 
 kneeling, makes his humble offering, is full of 
 mingled love and awe. 
 
 It is but justice to state, that if the French have 
 damaged some pictures by over-care, we are also 
 indebted to them for the preservation of others. 
 This very picture, which was rapidly peeling off the 
 wood when taken to Paris, was there transferred to 
 canvas with consummate skill, and preserved for the 
 admiration of many centuries to come. 
 
 On the other side of the Gallery is the famous 
 Spasimo di Sicilia, whose chief merit is its magni- 
 ficent colouring. It is swathed in sunshine, and all 
 a-glow with that mellow brilliance which distinguishes 
 the master and (in a less degree) the master's master, 
 Perugino. This quality takes off in the painting 
 from the defect so obvious in the engravings 
 namely, the prominence given to the ruffianly mus- 
 cular fellow who is holding the cross in such a con- 
 strained and unnatural attitude. The prancing horse, 
 
THE MADRID GALLERY. 41 
 
 too, with his rider bearing the proud standard, are 
 too conspicuous, and divert the attention from the 
 fallen Saviour, on whom, as the interest centers, the 
 eye should rest. How seldom, in Raphael's easel- 
 pictures, do we meet with the Saviour except as a 
 child ! Besides this picture, there is the * Entomb- 
 ment,' in the Borghese palace at Rome, and the 
 ( Transfiguration.' It would seem that Perugino also, 
 to whom Raphael owed so much, loved to contemplate 
 the Saviour as an infant rather than a man. On 
 the whole, the Spasimo, splendid as it is, lacks the 
 profound and tender devotion which prevails in the 
 earlier works, and reminds me of a saying of Over- 
 bech (whom I saw in his studio in the Cenci palace 
 in 1847), 'When Raphael left Perugino, God left 
 him.' 
 
 On turning away from these ' world-famous' 
 pictures of Raphael, one is perfectly embarrassed by 
 riches. Names only less celebrated than his solicit 
 your attention on every side. The eye is puzzled by 
 profusion. It is only after a second or third visit 
 that one can commence anything like a systematic 
 examination of this vast treasure-house of art. 
 Scarcely any kind of classification has been at- 
 tempted in arranging the pictures. It is true, the 
 two first rooms to the left and right of the Rotunda 
 are devoted to the Spanish school; but then you 
 find Murillos and Riberas scattered about in all the 
 other rooms. In truth, any system of arrangement 
 which should show the history of the various schools, 
 
42 THE MADRID GALLERY. 
 
 as at Berlin, would in this case expose the poverty 
 amidst wealth which marks the gallery at Madrid. 
 For instance, while there are hundreds of master- 
 pieces of the Venetian school, there is not a single 
 picture of the Tuscan previous to the time of 
 Leonardo da Vinci not even one of Fra Beato. This 
 profusion on the one hand, and dearth on the other, 
 is, however, easily accounted for, by considering the 
 circumstances under which the collection was made. 
 It was made chiefly by the Austrian princes, 
 Charles V. and his three immediate successors, 
 who selected the pictures with a view to furnishing 
 palaces for their own pleasure not fitting up a 
 gallery for the instruction of their people. Hence, 
 they followed their own individual likings. 
 
 It would have been natural to suppose that Philip 
 the Second, stern and bigoted monk that he was, 
 would have preferred the purely devotional pictures 
 of Perugino or the Gaddis to the warm and worldly 
 creations of the Venetian school. But, at the time 
 of his accession, Titian had witched the world with 
 noble colouring, and the noontide blaze of his fame 
 had for a time blotted out the fixed stars of art. In 
 sublunary language, Titian was in fashion; and to 
 imperious fashion even the monk-king, in his lonely 
 palace on the Guadarrama, was constrained to bow. 
 Besides, Titian had been a favourite with Charles, 
 so, for a two-fold reason, he was chosen to be the 
 king's art-purveyor-in-chief; and his less celebrated 
 countrymen and scholars picked up the crumbs 
 
THE MADRID GALLERY. 43 
 
 which fell from the royal table. And very pretty 
 pickings doubtless they had of it, if one may judge 
 by the number of paintings by Venetian hands now 
 in the galleries and palaces of Spain. In the Madrid 
 collection, there are fifteen by that cattle-jobber 
 Jacopo Bassano. As the glory of the Venetian 
 school declined, that of the Flemish school arose. 
 Rubens borrowed the free pencil and glowing tints 
 of Titian, and infused new life into art by adopting, 
 in place of the hacknied conventionalisms of Italy, 
 the novel types suggested by northern life and 
 manners. These pictures were congenial to the 
 hereditary tastes of the Spanish sovereigns, who, 
 moreover, would naturally feel nattered at the pro- 
 ficiency of their subjects, as reflecting a glory upon 
 themselves. The Flemings, too, by their alternate 
 fits of implicit obedience and unsuccessful rebellion, 
 afforded golden opportunities to any viceroy who 
 might wish to make a picture-gallery without paying 
 for it (a la Fra^aise). The vast accumulation of 
 Flemish and Venetian pictures in Spain so similar 
 in their grand characteristics undoubtedly con- 
 tributed to impress upon rising Spanish art the 
 character which it developed in its culmination and 
 preserved in its decline. Doubtless, the visit of 
 Rubens (1628) was not without its influence, though 
 he did come as ' Sir Peter,' and plenipotentiary for 
 Great Britain. He was probably closeted many 
 more hours with Velazquez in his studio than with 
 the Conde Duque in the premier's office. 
 
44 THE MADRID GALLERY. 
 
 Thus, the three great schools of Venice, Flanders, 
 and Spain, which are so amply represented in the 
 Madrid Gallery, have a close historical connexion. 
 The Bolognese school, of which there are also many 
 specimens here, is in reality as great a misnomer as 
 the Lake school of poetry. It is merely a collective 
 local name for a number of clever eclectics. 
 
 The other three each deserve the name of school, 
 because, while they developed the naturalism of the 
 later Romans (Michael Angelo, &c.), they preserved a 
 distinctive difference, by engrafting their respective 
 nationalities on the common stock. In the first, we 
 discern the gorgeous magnificence of the semi- 
 oriental Queen of the Adriatic, in the second, the 
 rude joviality and boisterous merriment of the Fleming, 
 under his grey northern sky, in the third, the gay 
 sunshine of Andalucia, half eclipsed by the cold 
 shadow of the Inquisition, where a central oppression 
 forced all into extremes, where men durst not be 
 serious without being austere, and could not be light 
 of heart without being also light of head. 
 
 Spain may be thankful that this blighting curse 
 was powerless in the palaces oOjdr kings, else many 
 a fair picture would have been marked for destruction, 
 on the ground of its displaying the Virgin's foot, 
 or some such twaddling reason. Indeed, one is 
 tempted to suppose that these monarchs, being them- 
 selves a Pabri, took a pleasure in possessing such 
 pictures as were forbidden to their subjects. All the 
 maniacs want to have what nobody else has. 
 
THE MADRID GALLERY. 45 
 
 This love for the arts is a golden thread, running 
 through the dark history of the Austrian house. The 
 memory of Philip IV. is rescued from utter contempt by 
 his patronage of the genius of Velazquez a genius 
 which can be estimated at Madrid, and at Madrid only, 
 for, as he painted almost entirely for the palace, his 
 works have not been subject to dispersion, and have 
 made no longer migration than from one end of the 
 capital to the other. Hence, till lately, the painter was 
 honoured solely in his own country a fortunate 
 circumstance, since his works may be seen without 
 the external polish acquired by so many others during 
 a recent trip to Paris. The earliest specimen of the 
 master is the portrait of Gongora (No. 527), which 
 he painted in his first visit to Madrid in the year 
 1622, when the poet was sixty-one, and the artist 
 twenty-three years old. The famous ' Forge of 
 Vulcan' was painted at Rome in the year 1630. If, 
 instead of Phoebus, who stands simpering on the 
 threshold with his good-natured message, there had 
 been a donkey waiting to be shod, it would have 
 made a capital representation of a common every-day 
 blacksmith's shop. 
 
 The series of landscapes (118, 128, 132, &c.), 
 evidently studies from the scenery of Rome, were 
 probably done about the same time. 
 
 In 1639 he painted the Crucifixion (No. 51). Ob- 
 serve how carefully he has represented even the grain 
 and knots in the wood. The Saviour's hair hangs 
 dishevelled over one side of his face, a peculiarity to 
 
46 THE MADRID GALLERY. 
 
 be noticed in the Christ of ( La Coronacion,' also by 
 Velazquez. 
 
 The equestrian portrait of Isabel de Bourbon is of 
 the year 1643. By the way, there is a curious mis- 
 take in Bermudez as to the second visit of Velazquez 
 to Italy. He says that Velazquez left Madrid in 
 November, 1648, remained one year away, and re- 
 turned in June, 1651. On his return, according to 
 this same authority, generally trustworthy and accu- 
 rate, he painted the portrait of Philip with his gun. 
 The king had ordained that no one but Velazquez 
 should take his likeness, * nequis se praeter Apellem 
 pingeret ;' and, as he seems to have had a passion for 
 ' sitting,' could therefore not bear with patience the 
 painter's absence. 
 
 One of his last and greatest works is ' Las 
 Meninas' (No. 155), painted in 1656, four years 
 before his death. It is especially interesting to us, as 
 it contains the portrait of the artist himself. The 
 pretty story about the red cross of Santiago on the 
 breast, told by Cean Bermudez, and repeated by every- 
 body, is horribly spoilt in the version of that dull 
 pedant Palomino. The versatility of Velazquez is 
 admirably illustrated by those two glorious pictures of 
 ' the Taking of Breda, 1 and ' the Drinkers.' The much- 
 vaunted ' Coronation of the Virgin' appeared to me 
 cold and flat, and unaerial, unworthy, not merely of 
 the subject, but even of the painter. It is only when 
 he confines himself to man that he is divine. 
 
 It would seem that the manner of Velazquez was 
 
THE MADRID GALLERY. 47 
 
 not in the least affected by his studies in Italy. He 
 painted Philip II., when he was sixty, precisely in the 
 same style that he had painted Gongora at three-and- 
 twenty ' nee imitator nee imitabilis.' 
 
 The gallery contains sixty-two pictures of Velaz- 
 quez, and forty-six of Murillo. We would counsel a 
 visitor, after blunting the edge of his curiosity by 
 looking at some of the grandest things of these two 
 masters, to commence an examination of the Spanish 
 school in chronological order, and trace its progress, 
 from the first feeble imitations of Italian art, to the 
 glorious burst of national genius in which it finally 
 exhausted itself, though there are some gaps even in 
 the Spanish department, we find only one specimen 
 of Roelas, and none at all of Luis de Vargas. The 
 pieces by Juanes, Morales, Pantoja, and others, look 
 like productions of a much earlier date than they 
 really are. The * Ecce Homos' of Morales look like 
 those of Correggio reflected lengthwise in a spoon ; 
 in fact, for a long time Spanish art trod in the steps 
 of Italian a considerable way behind. They were 
 at once slow in adoption and blind in imitation, just 
 as they are at the present day with respect to French 
 bonnets and English harness. But, to make up for 
 it, Spanish art was enjoying its golden age when 
 Italian was fast sinking into leaden mediocrity. A 
 stranger generally comes pre-occupied with the notion, 
 that, with the exception of the works of the two great 
 masters, the predominant character of the school is 
 moroseness and gloom. The pictures of Ribera, com- 
 
48 THE MADRID GALLERY. 
 
 bined with his nick-name of Spagnoletto, have con- 
 tributed to foster this idea. Yet they were produced 
 at ' Soft Parthenope,' away from all national in- 
 fluence. The Spanish gallery at the Louvre also 
 leaves this impression. But one should not judge 
 from that collection. The lively Baron who was 
 Louis Philippe's agent in the affair does not seem to 
 have been endowed with the most catholic of tastes, 
 and often gave a great deal of money for a few square 
 feet of rubbish, with a sounding name. Most assuredly, 
 the works of the genuinely Spanish masters, such as 
 Navarrete, Cano, and Roelas, are conspicuous for 
 healthy cheerfulness of tone and manly vigour of 
 execution. We must remember, too, that the artists 
 of Spain had not a fair chance their hands were tied 
 by the Inquisition. If the hands of the modern 
 artists, Aparicio and others, had been tied, too, by 
 somebody, many acres of unoffending canvas would 
 have been spared. As it is, their great daubs, 
 Brobdignag teaboards, are hung up in most con- 
 spicuous places, and attract a crowd of astonished 
 natives, especially the * Famine at Madrid/ It has 
 that pseudo-classic air which is peculiar to one time 
 and place to the Theatre Francais and the French 
 Empire, le plus bas empire de tons. The poor 
 imitator has exaggerated the faults of his master, and 
 diluted his strength. It is the school of David ( break- 
 ing up.' We can only wish that school a long holiday. 
 
49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE first questions a traveller will be asked on his 
 return from Spain are, Have you seen a bull- 
 fight ? and have you encountered a bandit ? Some- 
 times a country clergyman will inquire across the 
 table whether you have seen an auto-da-fe ? As the 
 two latter are out of fashion just now, a bullfight is, 
 par excellence, the thing of Spain. Accordingly, as 
 a professed student of national manners, I was on the 
 look out for the first opportunity of witnessing one, 
 just as an inquiring Spaniard would, on his arrival in 
 London, spell over the advertisements in the Times, 
 expecting to find an announcement of the next prize- 
 fight, under the immediate patronage of H. R. H. 
 
 In Spain, these things are not done in a corner. In 
 my first stroll through the city, I observed placards 
 stuck up in prominent places in the streets, each 
 making a nucleus for a crowd of idlers, informing ' the 
 loyal inhabitants of this court,' that a bull-fight would 
 take place on the following Monday at 5 P.M. pre- 
 cisely, 'weather permitting' (it was piously added). 
 It happened that I was invited to join a party of 
 natives, who kindly undertook to procure me a ticket, 
 and I gladly accepted the invitation, in order that I 
 might have some one at my elbow to refer to for ex- 
 
 GAZ. D 
 
50 BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 planations, such as my barbarous ignorance needed. 
 And very useful I found them. The day came, big 
 with the fate of six bulls and an indefinite number of 
 men. The weather, too, permitted; indeed, during 
 the whole course of the summer, I never knew it 
 do otherwise. Half-an-hour before the appointed 
 time we left the Casa Cordero, all in a flutter of ex- 
 pectation. The whole city was a-foot, those who 
 could afford to pay for places going to the arena 
 those who could not afford it watching the lucky 
 people that could. Omnibuses were rushing to and 
 fro, depositing one cargo and returning for another. 
 We hailed one of them, were allowed five seconds 
 to tumble in, which we effected, to the imminent 
 risk of life and limb, and were immediately whirled 
 off at full gallop, too happy in getting a place at all to 
 inquire how many insides the vehicle was licensed to 
 carry. We were put down just outside the Puerta de 
 Alcala, a fine arch, celebrating the triumphs of 
 Charles III., which, but for this their monument, 
 might have escaped the recollection of posterity. 
 Close by stands the Plaza de Toros, to which we 
 made our way through six inches of dust and 
 two rows of cavalry on guard. There is no 
 attempt at external decoration in the building. 
 Alexander Dumas (greater as a cook than a dra- 
 matist, since I am credibly informed that he can 
 make a very edible salmi without collaborateurs,) 
 compares it to a standing pie. Certainly the best part 
 of the feast is to be found inside, so we wont stand 
 
BULL-FIGHT. 51 
 
 gaping, but enter with the crowd. By dint of great 
 patience and a little pushing, we squeeze our way 
 up the thronged staircase and passages, and finally 
 emerge into the arena. We have capital places front 
 seats in the balcony; on the shady side. The tickets 
 bear three prices, according as they are in shade, in sun, 
 or half-and-half. None but a native, well seasoned 
 to Iberian summers and protected by a twopenny fan, 
 could stand the sun. Yet almost every place is 
 filled, for the coming fight is expected to be first-rate. 
 Altogether there are about 15,000 people present, 
 including a fair sprinkling of the softer sex in the 
 balconies. In the centre is a box for the queen, gay 
 with crimson velvet and gold tinsel (for her majesty 
 loves the sports of the people, and the people love 
 her majesty all the better for that). Close by is the 
 chair of the president, who gives the word of com- 
 mand all through. As the bull-fight is a purely 
 Andalusian invention, it is considered the correct 
 thing to appear in Andalusian costume, so one sees 
 tier upon tier sparkling with crimson sashes and 
 parti-coloured jackets, like dahlias at a Chiswick 
 show. But the metaphorical dahlias in question 
 belong not to the silent vegetable kingdom; and if 
 they steal and give odour, it is through the medium 
 of paper cigars. Each individual shrieks, doubtless, 
 the purest Castilian, but they produce in the aggre- 
 gate such a Babel of sound as was never heard, except 
 at Exeter Change or Exeter Hall. 
 
 But stay, the gate is opened, and an alguazil, in 
 
 D2 
 
52 BULLFIGHT. 
 
 his official cloak of inky black, prances in on an 
 Andaltisian horse, or rather the horse prances in with 
 him. This functionary is always received with a 
 shout of derision, for an alguazil is supposed to be as 
 remote from a centaur as an English alderman, and, 
 by profession, quite incapable of sitting a horse. 
 However, in spite of the shouts doubtless made 
 with the kind intention of frightening the animal 
 the official man rides up in safety to the front of the 
 president's box, doffs his cap, and catches in it a key 
 which the president flings to him. If he misses the 
 catch, which may sometimes happen, the shouts are 
 more hideous than ever. The key is supposed to 
 belong to the door by which the bulls are to enter, 
 and, having received it, the alguazil makes his bow 
 and exit. Then enter the biped heroes of the day 
 the three matadors, attended by a dozen subordinates, 
 called ' Chulos ' or * Banderilleros,' each dressed 
 in a spangled jacket, tight knee-breeches, and silk 
 stockings, the hair plaited and tied behind in a 
 knot of ribbon, and each carrying a cloak of some 
 gay colour. Next ride in the picadors, padded 
 out to an enormous bulk, armed with long lances, 
 and wearing great slouched hats. As soon as they 
 have doffed these to the president, they take their 
 stations at one side of the arena, and the vast crowd 
 is stilled at once into the hush of breathless expecta- 
 tion. It is not an ordinary silence, not the mere 
 negation of sound, but something positive, intense, 
 almost appalling, the silence which 15,000 people 
 
BULL-FIGHT. 53 
 
 make together. All eyes are fixed on yonder opening 
 gate, there is yet a pause of a few moments, that 
 seem an age, and then forth rushes the expected of all 
 expectants EL TORO and earth shakes with a shout 
 such as it hears nowhere else, except where it has 
 the luck to be the site of a bull-ring. The six * bulls 
 of death,' as the bills term them, destined for the 
 day's sport, have been driven over-night into a small 
 court-yard attached to the arena, and have been kept 
 all day without food, that the pangs of hunger may 
 be brought to aid their natural ferocity. As they 
 pass in one by one to the arena, a practised hand 
 hooks on to their shoulders a knot of ribbon, the 
 colours of which indicate to the initiated the breeding 
 establishment from which each animal comes. The 
 smart of the hook gives him the first foretaste of the 
 death-struggle he is about to engage in. As soon 
 as he has reached the middle of the ring, he pauses, 
 and looks wildly round, as if frightened by the yells 
 of the spectators ; then he lowers his head, and rushes 
 at the picador, who awaits his coming, lance in rest. 
 The brave beast ( receives but recks not of a wound,' 
 flings the lance aside as if it were a reed, and, 
 plunging his horn into the flank of the horse, repeats, 
 with frantic rage, thrust upon thrust. For a moment 
 horse and rider are lifted in air, and then down they 
 fall crashing on the sand ; then sally forth the foot- 
 men, some with their cloaks teazing the bull away 
 from the fallen foe, while others extricate the picador 
 and help him to his legs (no easy matter to rise 
 
54 BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 * 
 
 unaided, with all that padding). The poor horse, 
 too, if the horn has reached no vital part, staggers 
 up, and is again mounted, and spurred on to a second 
 encounter. Meanwhile the bull, his head all crimson 
 with its baptism of blood, has received another lance- 
 thrust, and overthrown another enemy. The same 
 process is repeated, till the president considers a 
 sufficient number of horses have been killed, and 
 then the trumpet sounds, and one of the chulos 
 advances with the banderillas. The banderillas are 
 sticks of three feet long, decorated with fluttering 
 coloured paper, (such as economical housewives put 
 in their grates horresco referens ! as an excellent 
 substitute for fire during the summer months,) and 
 terminated by a barbed dart The thing is to stick 
 a couple of these banderillas into the animal's 
 shoulders, one on each side. To do this, of course 
 the chulo has to stand in front of the bull for a 
 moment, so it is a service of some danger. Each 
 successive pair of wounds stir him up to a display of 
 vain rage, though it is evident that his strength is 
 becoming exhausted. Then the trumpet sounds 
 again, and the last act of the drama begins. The 
 matador whose turn it is to kill the bull advances, 
 with a crimson cloak and sword, he bows to the 
 president, and solicits permission to do his office. 
 This being accorded, the matador flings his cap, with 
 a semi-burlesque air of determined resolution, to the 
 further part of the ring, marshals his men, and directs 
 them to entice the bull to the place fixed on for the 
 
BULL-FIGHT. 55 
 
 deed, and then confronts him alone. It is a moment 
 in which the world seems to have rolled back upon 
 its youth, and man is again to contend for the 
 mastery with the brute. Calm intelligence and 
 furious strength are brought face to face, to do battle 
 for victory and life. 
 
 For a few seconds, the two adversaries stand mo- 
 tionless within a yard of each other, the man with 
 quiet mien, and lip curled in affectation of contempt, 
 the beast with bloodshot eyes, wildly rolling in their 
 sockets. Then he makes a charge ; the crimson cloak 
 is flashed like blinding lightning before his sight, and 
 he spends his fury on the empty air. Again he re- 
 turns to the attack, and again is foiled. Again and 
 again, till the wished-for opportunity is presented 
 the sword flashes above his lowered head, and then is 
 buried hilt-deep between the shoulder-blades. A 
 moment more there is a gush of blood from 
 mouth and nostrils he sinks slowly on his knees, and 
 then falls prostrate, his great flanks heaving laboriously 
 as the life- tide ebbs, wave by wave, away. A burst of 
 martial music and thunders of applause greet the con- 
 quering hero of the hour. Then an underling, armed 
 with a pointed knife, creeps stealthily behind, and 
 cuts short the death agonies of the still struggling 
 bull. Four mules, gaily caparisoned, and harnessed 
 together in a line with ropes, are driven in, the bull 
 is taken by the horns (any one may do that now), 
 and hooked on behind ; the mules wheel round to 
 that end of the arena which is directly opposite to 
 
56 BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 the gate of exit, and then, lashed to a furious gallop, 
 drag after them the ponderous carcass, which, as it 
 goes, ploughs a long straight furrow in the sand : 
 Et Ionium media sulcum diducit arena. 
 
 In Juvenal's time, Christian folks were not mere 
 spectators. And what are the feelings of a Christian 
 man when he sees, for the first time, a combat in this 
 modern amphitheatre ? At first, the predominant 
 sensation is a sickening disgust at sight of trickling 
 blood and protruding entrails ; but this is soon over ; 
 and as it decays, one becomes conscious of a kind of 
 savage joy a fierce beating of the heart indicative 
 of the wakening of the wild beast within, which we 
 bridle with texts of religion, and cram with scraps of 
 morality; which we may lull, but cannot kill; which, 
 if it sleep, sleeps lightly. 
 
 Moreover, the contemplation of another's danger 
 and toil enhances the sense of personal ease and 
 security. A stranger's sympathies are with the bull. 
 He is overmatched, and yet faces the heavy odds so 
 gallantly. I was delighted to see him scatter, at one 
 charge, a whole flock of jaunty chulos (who fly in 
 all directions, like a scared aviary of gay Indian 
 birds), and I must confess to a wicked half-wish that 
 he might catch some of them. 
 
 The horses are such wretched anatomies, that they 
 hardly deserve the name. When a horse is strong and 
 useful, we love him better than our neighbour, and 
 only less than our dog. When he is old and worn out, 
 we consign him unpitied to a more inglorious fate. 
 
BULL-FIGHT. 57 
 
 Again, when the matador stands so fearlessly single- 
 handed before the infuriated beast, our sympathies 
 change sides, and we are as ready as the rest to give 
 all our hands to hail the victor, 
 
 It must be added that a man's emotions are swayed, 
 in his own despite, in unison with those of his fellows. 
 A crowd earnestly bent on one point, and unanimous 
 in expression, is like a torrent that sweeps all obstacles 
 along with it. Accordingly, before you have been 
 half-an-hour in the arena, you watch the various 
 chances of the fight with as much pitiless enthu- 
 siasm as if the northern star had never shone on your 
 cradle. Now what is the moral effect of these spec- 
 tacles ? The masses, already predisposed, like their 
 brethren of the East, to hold life cheap, are fami- 
 liarized with the sight of blood, and this, I cannot doubt, 
 contributes to the frequency of assassinations. The 
 sight of a streaming wound, so far from chilling an 
 Andaluz with horror, recals the hours of intense 
 enjoyment he has spent in the bull-ring. And since, 
 as we have said, a selfish sense of security is a large 
 ingredient in that draught of pleasure, a man is not 
 likely to be thereby made more ready to expose him- 
 self to danger. 
 
 So the people become neither the better nor the 
 braver for these diversions. On the other hand, in the 
 case of what are called the upper classes, I question 
 whether the evil be altogether unmixed. A bull-fight 
 may be to the grandee of Spain what deer-stalking 
 or fox-hunting is to an English gentleman. It may 
 
 D3 
 
58 BULL-FIGHT. 
 
 tend to restore a healthy tone to the mind, by giving 
 rude shocks to the crotchety tastes and false delicacy 
 naturally engendered by high education and the 
 habits of artificial society. A man of any rank may 
 be over ' neat and trimly dressed,' and be none the 
 less truly gentle for seeing a 'slovenly,' unhandsome 
 sight now and then. 
 
 I would give a piece of advice to travellers in 
 Spain : However barbarous they may think a bull- 
 fight, if they wish to keep on good terms with the 
 natives, they had better not say so ; there is no point 
 on which the patriotism of a Spaniard is so sensitive. 
 Only constitute yourself the apologist of the national 
 sports, your Spanish friend is highly flattered, and 
 out of politeness affects to take a foreigner's view of 
 the matter, says something about ' relics of barba- 
 'rism,' 'advancing civilization,' and such like trans- 
 parent cant. On the contrary, once begin to attack 
 them, this same friend is up in arms to the rescue, 
 and, by way of a tu quoque, will accuse you of having 
 killed a man in a pugilistic encounter in Regent's 
 Park, or having sold your wife, with a halter round 
 her neck, in Smithfield Market. 
 
 It must not be supposed that I had time to make 
 these reflections in the bull-ring. No sooner has one 
 gate closed upon the dead than another is opened for 
 the living, and so on till the whole six have fallen. 
 If any bull is apathetic and insensible to the insults 
 he receives, a cry is raised for 'fire, fire,' and the 
 banderillas have squibs and crackers attached to 
 
BULL-FIGHT. 59 
 
 them, which explode about the animal's ears, to his 
 great annoyance. If this will not suffice, the specta- 
 tors begin to call for ' los perros,' (the dogs,) in a kind 
 of monotonous Red Indian-like chant, laying a savage 
 stress on the litera canina. The bull-ring is a pure 
 democracy. The will of the multitude is supreme, 
 so the obedient president orders the dogs to be 
 brought, and then, for once, you may witness an 
 amusement which the descendants of good Queen 
 Bess's lieges have forgotten, as well as some better 
 things. In this way, some three hours have stolen 
 over us unnoticed three crowded hours of glorious 
 life, or death. In all the vast circle nothing is still, 
 but here and there a beast's stiffening carcass, nothing 
 silent but the creeping shadow, which has at last 
 embraced in its grateful coolness three-fourths of the 
 spectators. And now that all is over, we have to 
 elbow our way out with more trouble than we had to 
 get in. I must repeat to my countrymen the caution 
 given by my Spanish friends, ' Cuidado, seiiores, d 
 las faltriqueras,' (Anglice, ' Take care of your pockets, 
 gentlemen.') 
 
 That night, 'wearied' (as the novelists say) 'with 
 conflicting emotions,' I went early to bed, and slept 
 as soundly as if my conscience were being lulled by a 
 sermon from the dear old rector of Muddlecombe 
 Parva. 
 
60 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN any foreign country, the traveller ought to adopt 
 the habits of the natives (as a general rule), being 
 such as the climate dictates, and the continuous ex- 
 perience of centuries has sanctioned. This is a truth 
 so obvious that it is almost a truism, and yet many 
 of our wandering countrymen perpetually belie it in 
 practice, and, with obstinate Bullism, persist in trans- 
 planting the manners and usages of the temperate into 
 the torrid zone. What wonder if the result is frequent 
 coups-de-soleil and gastric fevers ? Now, for my part, 
 as I dread such contingencies more than I love my bed, 
 I gave the ' mozo' (or waiter) orders to call me at five 
 A.M. punctually. At half-past five I made him bring 
 my worship's chocolate, with a plate of sweet biscuits. 
 The chocolate in Spain is invariably excellent, the 
 coffee generally indifferent, and the tea bad. The 
 two latter are foreign luxuries the first is a neces- 
 sary of life. It is also the most wholesome, for it 
 soothes the nervous irritation to which we children of 
 the mist are liable in these hot and arid climes. Im- 
 mediately afterwards I sallied out, generally without 
 any definite purpose, visiting first one part of the 
 town, and then another. In this way I left, I sup- 
 pose, scarcely a street in Madrid which I did not 
 
GENERAL SURVEY OF MADRID. 61 
 
 traverse, or a church which I did not enter. The 
 result is hardly worth the trouble. One street and 
 church are exactly like another street and church. 
 In the latter, one always finds the same profusion of 
 wooden Christs, and Madonnas in real petticoats, on 
 the walls, and the same scanty sprinkling of wor- 
 shippers, also in petticoats, on the floor. The images 
 out-number the devotees here, as in all other Roman- 
 catholic countries (except Ireland, which is an excep- 
 tion to every rule). To a stranger, the markets are 
 always the most interesting haunts. A Spaniard, he 
 or she, talks more while making the daily bargain than 
 in all the rest of the twenty-four hours. The fruit and 
 vegetable market was my especial lounge. There is 
 such a fresh, sweet smell of the country, and the groups 
 throw themselves, or are thrown, into such pretty 
 tableaux after the Rubens and Snyders fashion. The 
 shambles one avoids instinctively, and fish market there 
 is none, for Madrid is fifty-hours' journey from the 
 nearest sea, and the Manzanares has every requisite for 
 a fine trout stream, but water. The stroll over, I re- 
 turned at eight to take a Spanish lesson. My instructor 
 was an old cura, who, after saying mass every morning, 
 came to me for an hour, and talked the most irrational 
 and irreverent Rationalism. Not content with saying 
 the severest things of the Tower of Babel and 
 Balaam's Ass, he proceeded to assail the miracles of 
 the New Testament, and professed his surprise at 
 hearing that f persons of illustration' in England (so 
 the Spanish phrase runs) either believed, or were 
 
62 THE MORNING PAPERS. 
 
 loth to disbelieve lightly. I have since had reason 
 to think that these opinions are frequently assumed, 
 from a false politeness, out of deference to the sup- 
 posed creed of heretical nations, and from a desire of 
 vaunting the complete emancipation of thought in 
 Spain. With this exception, my cura was a very 
 worthy man, and honest, for he charged me, on 
 leaving Madrid, a ridiculously small sum for his 
 services. 
 
 After the lesson came the dejeuner, for which each 
 of the Biscayan's guests chose his own time. The 
 bill of fare comprised cutlets, bifsteks (which, in de- 
 fiance of etymology, consisted occasionally of mutton), 
 eggs, cooked in the various forms of which that ver- 
 satile production is susceptible, cherries, wine, and the 
 morning papers. These last are clearly no indigenous 
 growth. In form, size, price, and arrangement, they 
 betray the prevailing weakness of Madrid, ' un faux 
 air Parisien.' The average price is about twelve 
 reals a month, about one penny sterling per diem. 
 They are scarcely one-fifth of the size of a London 
 paper; and the editors are obviously put to no trouble 
 or expense in collecting authentic intelligence. It 
 is, therefore, a grievous wrong to compare their cost 
 invidiously with that of our journals. Taking all 
 things into consideration, the Times is the cheapest 
 article going cheaper than your quartern loaf even 
 since the free-trade tariff. The bottom of each 
 of these papers is cut off from the rest, and called 
 the ' folletin' (a manifest Gallicism), devoted to light 
 
THE HUNGARIAN WAR. 63 
 
 literature, translations of Sue, and the great Alexander 
 of modern fiction. The political articles appeared to 
 me to be as inferior to their French prototypes in 
 vigour and spirit, as to our ' English leaders' in know- 
 ledge and good sense. Fortunately for them, the 
 polysyllabic and pleonastic gorgeousness of the Cas- 
 tilian idiom covers the poverty of meaning, just as the 
 manifold Castilian cloak covers a threadbare coat, or a 
 too literal sans-culottism. The grand topic of the day 
 was the Hungarian war, on which ground both parties 
 joined battle, and lied furiously. The Moderados 
 were not a whit behind the Progressistas in that. 
 Every day the Heraldo detailed grandiloquently the 
 defeats of the rebels, and the Clamor Publico the 
 triumphs of the patriots. To judge from the articles 
 to which they give insertion, these journals must 
 count largely on the ignorance and credulity of their 
 readers. The Heraldo was then publishing a series 
 of verbose epistles from Italy, the writer of which 
 illustrated the marches and operations of the Spanish 
 forces by a profusion of passages, parallel or divergent, 
 from the Latin classics, showing at every step his own 
 consummate ignorance and assurance. I remember, 
 in one letter, he invoked our old friend Soracte in 
 feigned rapture, as * Mount Socrates beloved of Ovid 
 and Prospertius /' In the Clamor I read another 
 series of letters, written by a Spaniard from London, 
 in which facts and inferences were equally false. The 
 intelligent traveller gave a glowing description of 
 Regents Park, crowded every afternoon with the 
 
64 TEMPERATURE. 
 
 carriages of the nobility, each drawn by four horses; 
 of the Opera, where brass buttons and applause were 
 strictly forbidden ; of the placards in the streets, an- 
 nouncing that ' the Reverend Wilkinson would repeat, 
 for the fourth time, his favourite sermon on Justifica- 
 tion by Faith,' &c. Among his statistical facts he 
 mentioned that 3500 persons had committed suicide 
 in London alone, during the year 1848, and pro- 
 ceeded to account for it after his fashion. In con- 
 clusion, he proved to his own satisfaction, that * the 
 English are far from being so advanced in poli- 
 tical and social progress as Nosotros " I always 
 thought La Patria the calmest and most rational of 
 all these prints. I had a good opportunity of forming 
 a judgment, for nobody read it except myself. 
 
 After breakfast I generally adjourned to the gallery 
 for some hours during the heat of the day. It is 
 the only cool spot within ten leagues of Madrid. 
 The delightful temperature makes the body so com- 
 fortable, that it leaves the mind free to revel in the 
 * sunshine of picture,' on the walls. Indeed, it re- 
 quired no slight effort to tear oneself away and pass 
 through the fiery purgatory of the streets, where a 
 thermometer, on the shady side, sometimes marked 
 35 Reaumur. Multiply by nine, divide by four, 
 and add thirty-two, and you find that you are 
 immersed in a fluid whose temperature is 110 Fah- 
 renheit : that is to say, 10 hotter than a hot warm- 
 bath. About that time (as I saw from the papers 
 afterwards,) all London was groaning under the 
 
HOSPITALITIES. 65 
 
 insupportable heat of 85. God clothes the lamb 
 against the untempered wind; and a man can bear 
 much more than what is insufferable. In this case, 
 too, sweet thoughts of dinner would recur diurnally 
 about four p. M., and emboldened one to go through 
 the ordeal of fire. The only way of getting to the 
 roast, was to run the chance of being roasted one- 
 self. Nothing venture, nothing have. 
 
 After dinner came the same round of lazy amuse- 
 ments, in the Cafe, and the Prado, and the * tertulia.' 
 Anglice, (I dread the inevitable bull,) Anglice, 
 * soiree.' A letter of introduction will always pro- 
 cure for the stranger admission to these very agree- 
 able, because unceremonious, entertainments. I was 
 furnished with letters to all kinds of people ; French, 
 English, German, and Spanish ; and by almost all, I 
 was received with that genuine kindness and hos- 
 pitality, which I am glad to think are not peculiar 
 to any nation, only displayed in a different fashion. 
 With an Englishman, the types of hospitality are 
 roast beef and brown sherry ; with a Spaniard, cho- 
 colate and sweet cakes; with a Frenchman, coffee 
 and cognac ; with a German, pipes and Riidesheimer. 
 There were a good many of our countrymen resident 
 at Madrid, unwillingly tarrying to watch the progress 
 (if I may use such a law-term) of a suit, instituted 
 for the recovery of debts due to them from the 
 Spanish government, or some Spanish company ; the 
 money having been advanced years ago, for the 
 sinking of impossible mines, or the construction of 
 
66 THE THEATRE. 
 
 improbable railways. They could not comprehend 
 how it was that their adversaries did not acknow- 
 ledge the force of their syllogism ' You owe the 
 money you've got the money why don't you pay 
 the money?' Somehow or other, the Spaniards did 
 not see things in that light. I met, also, sundry 
 Frenchmen who indulged in vehement abuse of 
 Madrid, and all that it contained. If you asked 
 them why they stayed there so long, it was easy to 
 anticipate the shrug of resignation and the wry face 
 which accompanied the lachrymose response ' Mon- 
 sieur, j'ai un proces !' However, after sunset, their 
 cares were forgotten ; and at tertulias these melan- 
 choly victims of hope delayed, sang, if they could, 
 and chattered if they couldn't sing, very gaily and 
 pleasantly. In default of a soiree, there was always 
 the theatre to go to. There was only one company 
 then playing, of inferior actors, (for all the stars at 
 that season wander about to enlighten the provincial 
 darkness). Be the acting never so bad, it is always 
 a good lesson in Spanish. This company had ad- 
 journed during the summer, for coolness, to the 
 Circa del Barquillo the Astley's of Madrid; an 
 edifice with wooden walls and canvas roof. All the 
 arrangements are decidedly veterinary. Stalls and 
 loose boxes are fitted up as dressing-rooms for the 
 nonce, and there is a very pervading odour of saw- 
 dust. The entree behind the scenes (that hopeless 
 ambition of the London youth,) is here accorded to 
 the whole audience; and between the acts the kings 
 
SIGHTS. 67 
 
 and queens of the stage walk about in their royal 
 robes in the adjoining yard, sipping lemonade or 
 smoking cigarettes, utterly regardless of dramatic 
 effect. The comedy in Castilian is generally followed 
 by a dance, and that by an Andalucian farce, then 
 another dance and another farce, to conclude. As 
 fresh pieces are produced every night, the actors have 
 no time to learn their parts, and thus they repeat, 
 like so many parrots, after the prompter, whose sug- 
 gestions are audible to the whole house. Apparently 
 the spectators are not critical, and seem to care very 
 little what is done on the stage, except during the 
 ballet. The chief attraction at that time was La 
 Senorita Vargas, a stately southern beauty, with a 
 latent ferocity in her dark eyes, that made her look 
 rather like a queen of tragedy than a dancer. Who 
 knows whether she may not become a queen in 
 reality some day ? Germany has a few thrones left 
 still. 
 
 Madrid has one peculiarity which conduces very 
 much to the visitor's comfort namely, that there are 
 very few inevitable 'sights' to be gone through. 
 The armoury, said to be the finest in the world ; the 
 palace, ditto (which people who are addicted to up- 
 holstering may go and see, if they don't mind break- 
 ing the tenth commandment) ; the museum of natural 
 history, where is the largest loadstone in active 
 operation between this and Medina ; and the 
 Academia, nearly complete the list. Everybody 
 should devote a morning to the last-named, were it 
 
68 CHAMBER OF PEERS. 
 
 only for the sake of the Murillos. The famous 
 picture of * St. Isabel giving alms to the sick' has been 
 arrested at Madrid on its return from Paris to 
 Seville. As the Sevilians have instituted a ' process* 
 for its recovery, it is likely to stay where it is some 
 time longer. ' The Patrician's Dream ' is quite 
 cheering to look upon, so rich and glowing it is. 
 Shut your eyes to the semi-ludicrous effect of husband, 
 wife, and dog, in a decreasing series, like the three 
 genders in Lindley Murray, all asleep. 
 
 The gardens of the queen, sunk in a deep hollow 
 below the palace, deserve a visit The head-gardener, 
 of course a Frenchman, struggles gallantly against all 
 kinds of difficulties of soil, climate, and lack of water. 
 By a series of ingenious artifices he has concocted a 
 plot of grass, some ten feet square, to the great 
 astonishment of all natives. 
 
 One day my kind friend, Colonel S., took me to 
 hear a debate in the Senado, the Spanish Chamber 
 of Peers, which holds its sittings in the chapel of a 
 suppressed convent near the palace. By dint of 
 paint, gilding, and carpets, the room has been divested 
 of its sanctified aspect, and made to look like a hand- 
 some modern room. They have not thought it neces- 
 sary that a place in which a hundred gentlemen in 
 surtouts meet to discuss secular matters in this nine- 
 teenth century should be made to resemble a chapel 
 of the fifteenth. Antiquity is here represented in the 
 persons of two halberdiers, who stand to guard the 
 door, dressed in extravagant costume, like Beef- 
 
NAVAEZ, DUKE OF VALENCIA. 69 
 
 eaters in fuller bloom. Rows of raised seats extend 
 on each side of the room ; in the centre, facing the 
 beefeaters, are the chair and desk of the president, 
 and on each side a little tribune from which the 
 clerks read out documents from time to time. The 
 spectators are accommodated in niches round the 
 walls. Each member speaks from his place, and the 
 voting is by ballot. First a footman hands round a 
 tray of beans, and then each advances, when his name 
 is called, to a table in the centre, where he drops his 
 bean into the box. The beans are then counted, and 
 the result proclaimed by the president. On the right 
 of the chair, in front, is the bench assigned to the 
 ministers; and there I had the good luck to see 
 Narvaez, otherwise called Duke of Valencia, and a 
 great many fine names besides, and in reality, abso- 
 lute Master of all the Spains. His face wears a fixed 
 expression of inflexible resolve, very effective, and is 
 garnished with a fierce dyed moustache, and a some- 
 what palpable wig to match. His style of dress was 
 what, in an inferior man, one would have called 
 ' dandified.' An unexceptionable surtout opened to 
 display a white waistcoat with sundry chains, and the 
 extremities terminated, respectively, in patent leather 
 and primrose kid. During the discussion he alter- 
 nately fondled a neat riding-whip and aired a snowy 
 pocket handkerchief. Those who know him give him 
 credit for good intentions and great courage, but do 
 not expect that he will ever set the Thames on fire, 
 whatever he may do to the Manzanares. He is a 
 
70 CHAMBER OF PEERS. 
 
 mixture, they say, of the chivalric and the asinine, a 
 kind of moral mule. His personal weakness is a wish 
 to be thought young, and hence he was naturally 
 angry when Lord Palmerston wanted to give him 
 ' a wrinkle.' I saw, likewise, Mon, the Minister of 
 Finance, smiling complacently, like a shopkeeper on 
 his customers ; and the venerable Castaiios, Duke of 
 Bailen, who, as he tottered in, stooping under the 
 weight of ninety years, was affectionately greeted by 
 Narvaez and others. On the whole, the debate 
 seemed to be languid, and to be listened to with little 
 interest; but that is the general fate of debates in 
 July. 
 
71 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AT eight o'clock on the evening of Thursday, 
 July 13, there was a great crowd assembled 
 round the diligence, which was on the point of start- 
 ing for La Granja. Some had come 'to see their 
 friends off,' but the great mass were there out of pure 
 idleness. I was one of the few who had any real 
 business to be there at all, having engaged a place in 
 the ' Interior,' the only place vacant. When I had 
 elbowed my way up to the vehicle, I found that (the 
 luggage having been packed) it was now taking in 
 its live stores. The ' Interior' is privileged to contain 
 six persons, and I found, to my dismay, that it was 
 already occupied by a family consisting of three ladies, 
 two children, a nurse with a baby in arms, and 
 several enormous dolls. The latter and myself were the 
 most uncomplaining sufferers of the party. I must do 
 the ladies the justice to say, that they supplied the 
 clamorous wants of the children most bountifully from 
 a large reticule, and larger bottle, thus producing a 
 temporary calm ; and that they bore throughout their 
 own inconveniences (and mine,) with unfailing 
 equanimity. 
 
 The day was just dawning as we stopped to change 
 mules at Nabacerada, a lonely post-house half way up 
 
72 THE ESCORIAL. 
 
 the mountain. It is surrounded on all sides by cheer- 
 less, treeless moorland, which looked bleak and deso- 
 late, in spite of the gilding of a summer's morning. 
 On one of the mountain slopes, some four leagues off 
 to the left, I could see a huge building, with vanes 
 and roofs sparkling in the sun. From its position I 
 of course knew it to be the Escorial. My fair com- 
 panions, born and bred at Madrid, and in the habit 
 of going to La Granja once a year, had not the least 
 idea what it could be. The children, by this time 
 satiate with sponge cake, had lapsed into a dormant 
 state ; I availed myself of their tacit permission to do 
 likewise, with the less reluctance, as I intended to 
 return by the same road, on horseback, in a few days. 
 I was half-wakened by the stopping of the diligence 
 at an iron gate, and a simultaneous demand for pass- 
 ports ; but a few minutes after I was thoroughly 
 roused by a rude shock, the women shrieked dire- 
 fully, and I found myself entangled in a ruinous heap 
 of children and dolls. It seems that in turning a 
 corner in the ill paved street of La Granja we had 
 run over a great stone, and had recovered our equi- 
 librium by mere miracle. Loud and long was the 
 recrimination which ensued between the conductor 
 and the postillion, as soon as we came to a final halt, 
 in the midst of which I went off to the Fonda de los 
 Ynfantes, where I was lodged in a huge bare room, 
 at the cost of six francs per day, (nothing included). 
 As La Granja is crowded to excess during two 
 months of the year, and abandoned to solitude for the 
 
LA GRAN J A QUEEN ISABEL'S GARDENS. 73 
 
 other ten, everything is very dear, as in all places in 
 a similarly abnormal state ; but I suppose I, a mere 
 passing stranger, was ' taken in' by more than the due 
 proportion. A two hours' sleep, by way of supple- 
 ment to the broken night, and a good breakfast, in- 
 vigorated me for the long wandering I had in view. 
 The inn where I was lodging is a great gloomy build- 
 ing, surrounding a dank, mouldy courtyard. It for- 
 merly belonged to Don Carlos, and is the only large 
 house in the village. The whole place has a comfort- 
 less, half-ruinous appearance, excepting always the 
 palace, which is trim and neat enough. It is a long, 
 low building, in that Gallo-Italian style which the 
 Bourbons introduced into Spain. Next to it is the 
 house of the Queen-Mother, who has not forsaken La 
 Granja, in spite of. its humiliating associations. The 
 great open space in front is flanked by huge barracks, 
 containing accommodation for above a thousand 
 troops, who do guardsmen's duty without the name. 
 In spite of these traditional precautions, Queen Isabel 
 is by no means an exclusive sovereign. She permits all 
 classes of her people to wander at their pleasure through 
 her gardens, and to promenade close to the windows 
 of her palace. The gardens are of immense extent, 
 and present boundless variety, from the geometrical 
 patterns and clipped hedges on the Versailles model, 
 to the shaggy copsewood, with serpentine paths, over- 
 grown and nearly impassable, which is here christened 
 by the name of ' English garden.' A large artificial lake, 
 which reflects overhanging natural woods, itself being 
 
 GAZ. E 
 
74 LA GRANJA. 
 
 on a level considerably higher than the palace, is the 
 reservoir which supplies the cascades, and the numer- 
 ous fountains of bronze and marble, which, however, 
 play only on special holidays. I have been assured 
 that these royal gewgaws cost five hundred millions 
 of reals, (i. e., more than five millions sterling,) but a 
 Spaniard is always reckless of facts and figures. 
 After many successful attempts to lose myself, I finally 
 climbed over a stone wall which separates the garden 
 from the moor, and set off towards an isolated pin- 
 nacle of rock which tempted me to ascend it, looking 
 deceitfully near in the bright atmosphere. My path 
 lay among low oaks, along sheep tracks, or through 
 thick grass and aromatic shrubs, where every variety 
 of insect life was expressing its intense enjoyment of 
 the sunshine by humming, buzzing, and chirruping, 
 each after the fashion of its kind. 
 
 The summit gained at last, I had a fine view of 
 the white village, half girdled by its sweet succession 
 of garden, grove, and wilderness, and nestling beneath 
 the dark pine-woods of the Guadarrama. I descended 
 by the side of a stream, which, being small by nature, 
 seemed determined to display itself to the utmost by 
 taking extraordinary steps and making a great noise 
 about them. The sun was almost setting as I arrived 
 at La Granja. I lingered outside the gate, to watch 
 a review on a small scale which was going on under 
 the avenue. There were about a thousand men in 
 all, making a very gallant show, for, however other 
 departments of the public service may be neglected 
 
LA GRAN J A. 75 
 
 under the present regime, the army at least is well 
 cared for. All at once the trumpet sounded, as a 
 shabby fly, drawn by a spavined horse, came out of 
 the gate. It contained a priest, who was carrying the 
 sacrament to some sick man. As it passed, all the 
 soldiers sank on one knee and presented arms. There 
 was something very impressive in seeing the pomp 
 and circumstance of war thus doing homage to 
 religion in such humble guise, 
 
 At sunset all the world turns out, those who have 
 carriages, to drive ; those who have none, to walk. I 
 saw the queen in a carriage by herself, and the king 
 in a carriage by himself, after the most approved 
 fashion for married people. Then came the queen- 
 mother, side by side with her husband, (but then, she 
 is not required to set an example,) and afterwards 
 various i infants of Spain,' adult and adolescent. 
 
 After the promenade I went to tea with one of the 
 ambassadors, who generally follow the court in its 
 summer peregrinations. I found his excellency, 
 family, and suite, crowded together in a house which, 
 they said, afforded a minimum of accommodation at 
 a maximum of cost. Not a floor was horizontal, nor 
 a wall vertical. The tables obstinately refused to 
 stand, and the chairs warned you not to sit down on 
 them. However, the whole party enjoyed greatly 
 the novelties of discomfort. For the rich, it is a new 
 pleasure to be put to shifts in pleasure's pursuit. 
 That is the charm of a pic-nic. 
 
 The next day was consecrated to Segovia. Segovia, 
 
 E2 
 
76 SEGOVIA. 
 
 that city of immemorial antiquity, christened by 
 Iberians, and walled by Phoenicians, which the 
 Romans furnished with its aqueduct, the Moors 
 defended with its castle, and which the Spaniards of 
 later days crowned with its cathedral ; that epitome 
 of Peninsular history is now, I grieve to say, accessible 
 by means of an omnibus, an every-day omnibus !- 
 which leaves La Granja at nine A.M., and returns at 
 four P.M. My only companion in this omnibus was 
 an old gentleman of the most mild and pacific 
 manners, who had, however, as he told me, served 
 through the Peninsular war under the Duke (Wel- 
 lington, not Bailen). He spoke with great admira- 
 tion of his old commander, and especially praised 
 his intuitive sagacity in discerning the military capa- 
 bilities of a district at the first glance. We had 
 plenty of time for conversation, as nearly two hours 
 are required to traverse the two leagues. 
 
 Segovia is built on and about a salient angle of 
 rock, formed by the junction of two deep ravines, a 
 site exactly resembling that of old Veii, of the modern 
 Civita Castellana, and several other towns in the 
 vicinity of Rome. Rome is forced on one's remem- 
 brance in an especial manner at Segovia by the 
 aqueduct, which bestrides the lower town like a 
 colossal polyped, a most characteristic memorial of 
 the strong practical people, whose works were never 
 purposeless and never mean. It is still in active 
 operation, employed on the beneficent work for which 
 it was first destined that of conveying water in 
 
SEGOVIA. 77 
 
 purity and plenty into the middle of a thirsty city. 
 The houses which cluster round its base, compara- 
 tively things of yesterday, are already toppling to 
 their fall, and clutching, as it were, to its pillars for 
 support, like many generations of houses before them. 
 Meanwhile, the masonry of old Rome stands un- 
 moved, bidding fair to defy 'the tooth of time' 
 almost as long as her poetry. 
 
 Ascending, you pass through a narrow gate into 
 the old town Segovia proper, as the geographies 
 say: go straight on till you come to the prison. 
 This prison, like most prisons in Spain, is easily 
 discoverable, by its being the noisiest place in the 
 whole town. What would the advocates of the silent 
 system say to it? , I know what it would say to them. 
 It would stretch out its many hands from, the lower 
 windows, and supplicate alms, in dolorous tones, for 
 the sake of the blessed St. Peter, once similarly 
 afflicted; while from the upper windows too high 
 for hope of charity it would salute them with 
 derisive laughter, and a chorus of that peculiar har- 
 monization commonly termed ' Dutch.' (The student 
 of history need scarcely be reminded of the connexion 
 between Spain and the Low Countries.) I have been 
 particular in pointing out the prison, because directly 
 behind it is the best inn in Segovia, a very respect- 
 able inn too, according to the Spanish standard, 
 the Parador de las Diligencias, set up since the last 
 edition of the Hand-book. It is a large square 
 house, with pillared galleries surrounding a court- 
 
78 SEGOVIA. 
 
 yard, and a tower at one corner, with machicolated 
 battlements, once the mansion of a noble family. 
 Many palaces in this and other countries have, by a 
 similar revolution, lapsed to the public use. After 
 making the proper amount of reflections on the insta- 
 bility of human things, a prudent man will order 
 dinner, and then visit the prescribed lions of the 
 place. First, he will come to the Plaza Mayor, whose 
 tall white houses have a most artistic aversion to 
 straight lines. Close by stands the cathedral, a 
 specimen of seventeenth-century Gothic, crowded 
 with pinnacles and stinted of buttresses, looking 
 like the pictures of our grandmothers in the prime of 
 life, with scanty gowns and over-gay caps. Bat we 
 ought not to be too severe on the cathedral of 
 Segovia, for in the rest of Europe, at the time of its 
 erection, Gothic had been dead and buried a hun- 
 dred years at least. Besides, the tower is magnificent, 
 from its height The trouble of ascending will be 
 well repaid by the grand and strange view of the 
 mountains, with their thick woods and deep shadows, 
 frowning over the bare plain as it basks in unbroken 
 sunlight. (Mem. Always go up towers, there is no 
 exercise so elevating.) As I was wandering about 
 the streets, looking, I suppose, as Sir Walter says, 
 ' like a cow in a fremd loaning,' I was hailed by a 
 voice in broken English, or, rather, English a little 
 bent. The owner of the voice then introduced him- 
 self as the Marquis del A , lately attached to 
 
 the Spanish Embassy in London, and ' anxious,' he 
 
SEGOVIA. 79 
 
 said, e to repay his obligations to English hospitality 
 by befriending any individual of the country.' He 
 accordingly took me to the Alcazar, and introduced 
 me to the commanding officer, by whom I was con- 
 ducted over the whole building. Some rooms still 
 retain the old Moorish ceilings; otherwise, there 
 remain scarcely any traces of its builders, externally 
 or internally, except the name. The place now 
 serves as a school for military engineers. My new 
 friend then took me to his house, an edifice of the 
 sixteenth century, where capitals have degenerated 
 into the wildest forms, and arches support them- 
 selves at the most fantastic pitch. None of the seven 
 lamps have shone upon its conception ; it is mere 
 Gothic run mad, the embodiment of an architect's 
 sick dream. On parting, we expressed a mutual 
 hope that the speedy renewal of diplomatic relations 
 might enable our individual selves to shake hands in 
 Pall Mall. 
 
80 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IF the ' entertainment for man' at La Granja 
 is dear, that 'for horse' and groom must be 
 remarkably cheap, judging from the price I paid for 
 two of the former animals, and one of the latter, to 
 convey me and my luggage to the Escorial. The 
 distance is eight and a half leagues, (thirty-odd miles,) 
 and the price fifty reals (ten shillings") not half what 
 I afterwards paid in Andalucia. We set off at noon, 
 and reached the summit of the pass in three hours. 
 There I paused to take breath and give it, and to 
 look at the view, which here would really merit that 
 much abused word panorama. The north side of 
 the mountain is, as I have said, covered with pines; 
 the south side is merely dotted with shrubs, which 
 have tried to be trees and failed, from scarcity of 
 water and plethora of sun. North and south from 
 the mountains' bases stretch identical yellow plains, 
 bounded in the far distance by a circular belt of 
 azure, which one might fancy to be Homer's ' River 
 Ocean' girdling the earth. 
 
 At Nava Cerada our road turned off to the right. 
 Thence to the Escorial it is four short leagues, or 
 three long ones (for the Spaniards are as lax in their 
 measurement as the Scotch). In a large field near 
 
THE BLIND GUIDE. 81 
 
 the village of Guadarrama we saw several thrashing 
 floors, with oxen, not muzzled, treading out the corn 
 in truly oriental style. This Guadarrama was pro- 
 bably, in the Arab time, a place of greater importance, 
 at least relatively, than at present, and so it gave its 
 name to the whole Sierra. The word signifies ( lofty 
 valley,' (as Ab-ram signifies * Lofty Father,') and 
 precisely describes the locality. We arrived at our 
 destination just as the sun set to us was reddening 
 the highest rocky peaks of the mountains. A ride of 
 eight hours, performed for the first time on a Spanish 
 saddle and at a Spanish pace, (that pace which, in 
 reference to Abbots' palfreys in the middle ages, is 
 called ambling, and known to beneficed clergymen in 
 modern times as fidge-fadge,') left me in no mood 
 to criticise the supper or the bed pro\ 7 ided at the 
 Fonda de Correos. The former I devoured greedily, 
 and on the latter slept refreshingly, notwithstanding 
 that, all night long, I was riding an old familiar horse 
 among well-known green lanes, and under the shadow 
 of well-known elms, in that dear dream-land which is 
 so like home. 
 
 It was still early morning when I was recalled to 
 Spain by a knock at the door, and an announcement 
 that, according to order, my chocolate and ' Cornelio' 
 were awaiting my pleasure. Cornelio is a blind man, 
 who acts as guide to the Escorial. I had become 
 acquainted with him through the Hand-book. He 
 had been blind, he told me, since nine years old. 
 By a happy compensation his other senses, from 
 
 E3 
 
82 THE ESCORIAL: 
 
 increased acuteness, in some degree supply the place 
 of the sense lost. It is curious to watch him feeling 
 his way along the wall without touching it, and sud- 
 denly stopping at the best point of view before a 
 picture or statue, and describing it in detail with 
 unerring memory, though without the dreary sing- 
 song tone peculiar to ciceroni. Among other great 
 men, he said he had shown the Escorial to Mr. Cob- 
 den and Alexander Dumas at the same time. If 
 this is true, Mr. Cobden was doubtless one of the 
 Englishmen whom the prolific novelist robbed so 
 ingeniously of their supper. Our Manchester friends 
 will do well to observe, that even Mr. Cobden may 
 be taken in sometimes, and on a food question, too. 
 
 The Escorial, being one of the numerous eighth 
 wonders of the world, ought to console anybody for 
 the loss of a supper. Its outward form naturally calls 
 to mind the inspirations of the cook, not the archi- 
 tect. Here, then, is a recipe for this chef-d'oeuvre of 
 Philip II. take a score of Manchester factories, with 
 an acre of dead wall ; mix well, and arrange in the 
 form of a gridiron ; put St. Paul's cathedral (slightly 
 compressed) into the centre ; serve up the whole on 
 the side of the barrenest Ben in all Scotland, and 
 garnish with a scanty sprinkling of ruinous houses 
 and dwarfed trees. The concoction of the dish will 
 cost the wealth of a kingdom, and it will neither be 
 palatable nor palatial when done. 
 
 The palace itself stands isolated on a wide platform, 
 round two sides of which run the offices destined for 
 
ITS GLOOMY ASPECT. 83 
 
 the accommodation of the royal horses and suite, 
 These, with the village, are fast going to decay, for 
 the present queen rarely visits, and never resides in, 
 this gloomy old abode of her ancestors. She does 
 not like, it is said, to live so near to her future tomb, 
 and prefers the cheerful woods and waters of La 
 Granja or Aranjuez, to the now doubly dreary 
 Escorial. The place was more lively when tenanted 
 by monks than now, when it is not tenanted at all. 
 There is something (as the Scotch say) ' eerie' about 
 the loneliness of those innumerable chambers and 
 interminable corridors. The place is curst,' not 
 that it was ever very ' merry' in its best days. In- 
 deed, a troop of noisy children, who accompanied us, 
 taught the echoes to repeat sounds such as they never 
 heard in the good old times of the founder and his 
 successors. 
 
 We were first conducted to the church, the centre, 
 and, as it were, nucleus, of the whole mass. I have 
 already compared it to St. Paul's ; but the resemblance 
 is only external. Inside, the characteristic of St. 
 Paul's is blank dreariness that of S. Lorenzo is 
 oppressive solemnity, for the one is all whitewash, 
 the other grey granite. Here you see few or none 
 of the tawdry decorations which, in most Spanish 
 churches, mar the general tone of the building. 
 Navarrete's colossal saints on the wall, and the effigies 
 of the founder and his family gravely kneeling before 
 the high altar, are the fittest tenants of the place. 
 The sound of a human voice, or a human step, seems 
 
84 THE ROYAL VAULT. 
 
 almost like a profanation. The vault, or c pantheon,' 
 into which we next descended, is scarcely more still 
 and gloomy, though the horror of the vault is in- 
 creased by its cost and magnificence, so unseemly in 
 a charnel-house. The monarchs of Spain have left 
 few good or great deeds to gild their memory, and, 
 by encasing their bodies in marble and granite, have 
 succeeded in suspending the execution of the decree, 
 * dust to dust.' By the light of a wax candle, we could 
 just discern the marble sarcophagi, ranged in niches 
 round the wall, some inscribed with the names of the 
 royal dead contained therein, others still unappro- 
 priated. None but kings, queens, and heirs-apparent, 
 are permitted to rest here, for the etiquette of old 
 Spain relaxed not in its exclusiveness even after 
 death. The ' infants' are consigned to another tomb, 
 less elegantly, Jbut more truly, named the podridero, 
 or 'rottery.' As may be supposed, I declined my 
 guide's proposition to visit that, and was right glad to 
 breathe the upper air once more. In the sacristy is 
 a picture by Claudio Coello, worth notice in the history 
 of art, as being the last great work of the Spanish 
 school. When I afterwards saw the masterpiece of 
 Zurbaran in the museum at Seville, it struck me that 
 Coello must have had that picture before his eyes, or 
 in his mind, when painting this. It contains fifty 
 portraits; but very little interest attaches to the 
 courtiers of Charles II. a monarch whose annals 
 could furnish no grander subject for the painter than 
 the presentation of a pyx to S. Lorenzo. In the 
 
APARTMENTS OF PHILIP II. 85 
 
 ante-sacristy is a fine Descent from the Cross by 
 Albert Durer. Indeed, drained as the Escorial has 
 been for the supply of the museum at Madrid, it still 
 contains many treasures of art. The great Titian, 
 the Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, is still suffered to 
 remain, from the religio loci. There is also, in the 
 sala capitular, or chapter-room, a beautiful picture by 
 him of St. Jerome, kneeling,- the sunshine is stream- 
 ing through the trees full upon a crucifix. I can 
 hardly understand how it was that this picture was 
 not one of ( the hundred best' removed to Madrid from 
 fear of the Carlists. 
 
 Any one who fancies second-rate frescoes will find 
 allegories by the acre, and apotheoses by the score, 
 described in the Spanish guide-book with appropriate 
 prolixity. 
 
 The most interesting portion of the whole palace 
 are the rooms occupied by Philip II. There remain 
 still a few chairs which belonged to him, and his 
 writing-desk, still visibly stained with ink. In a 
 corner of the little oratory he was brought to die. A 
 narrow window close by looks out upon the high altar 
 in the church, and the king could see, as he lay, the 
 host lifted daily. There is something almost heroic 
 in the unyielding and undoubting bigotry of Philip, 
 and as a hero his countrymen are agreed to regard 
 him. The Escorial is his temple, which should never 
 have been profaned by the cabinet-making and up- 
 holstery of Charles IV. and Ferdinand. 
 
 There is nothing in the whole world more unsatis- 
 
86 THE LIBRARY. 
 
 factory than a brief visit to a great library. You 
 come hungry to the banqueting-room your appetite 
 is whetted by the sight of an abundant feast, duly 
 spread you look over the bill of fare (the catalogue), 
 which offers you dainties without end but time 
 presses, and your guide, equally inexorable, waits for 
 no man, and you must rise from table without having 
 tasted a morsel. Notwithstanding all this, the tra- 
 veller, whose mission it is to see all sights, however 
 unprofitable, will scarcely leave the Escorial without 
 peeping into its famous library. He will see a hand- 
 some room painted in fresco, with many thousands of 
 books turned with their backs to the wall At a table 
 will be seated a bearded, blear-eyed man, with his 
 head below his shoulders, diligently copying a manu- 
 script. He is, it is needless to say, a German. In 
 the middle of the room, with his hands in his pockets, 
 stands the stupidest or sulkiest of underlings, whose 
 business it is to show the books, and therefore pro- 
 fesses, perhaps truly, the most profound ignorance of 
 everything. With him, ignorance is bliss, for it saves 
 a world of trouble. I asked in vain to look at some 
 of the MSS. obtained from Mount Athos by Hurtado 
 de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, 
 whose collection was the nucleus of the whole library. 
 Circumstances never presented a more favourable 
 combination for a book-collector than in the case of 
 Mendoza. He was an ardent bibliomaniac, resident 
 in Italy, with almost imperial power delegated to him, 
 and without any scruples as to the exercise thereof; 
 
RETURN TO MADRID. 87 
 
 and the result was, a store of literary treasure fit to 
 present to a king. I could not but wish that Men- 
 doza were alive again, that he might, as his manner 
 was when angry, pitch the stupid custode out of the 
 window. 
 
 Two sides of the building look on to a terrace- 
 garden, full of formal gravel-walks, flower-beds shut 
 in with clipped box, and here and there a fountain, 
 very diminutive and inefficient. The tree under 
 which Gil Bias sat, in his famous conference with the 
 Count-duke, must have been in the orchard below. 
 
 I wandered about half the day, unchallenged, 
 startling innumerable lizards from their sunny day- 
 dreams, till the long shadows warned me that it was 
 time to return. I found the diligence, with its long 
 straggling team, or rather troop, just ready to start for 
 Madrid. Two huge Andalucians had left me an apology 
 for a place in the coupee, which I had no alternative 
 but to accept. Our road lay at first through shaggy, 
 ill-conditioned woods, then over undulating ground 
 sprinkled with shrubs, and last over a flat waste, clothed 
 only by such shadowy forms as a dusky night and an 
 idle fancy create between them. A four hours' ride 
 brought us safely to the capital, while the streets were 
 yet busy with crowds of promenaders. 
 
88 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SPEND a few weeks at Madrid in the height of 
 summer, and you will realize in your own 
 person the fable of the Lotus Eaters. The exhaust- 
 ing heat, and the influence of example, produce an 
 intense laziness, both of mind and body, and you 
 remain day after day, without knowing why, from 
 sheer disinclination to move. In these circumstances, 
 my advice would be, take a cold bath, to string the 
 nerves to the necessary pitch, and engage a place in 
 some diligence or other. The plan, in my own case, 
 was completely successful, and I accordingly found 
 myself, one fine evening towards the end of July, 
 seated in the vehicle which was on the point of start- 
 ing for Toledo. The archway was filled with the 
 usual crowd of leave-takers ; a little troop of my own 
 accompanied me, to protest for the last time the 
 eternity of a friendship, which had already lasted a 
 fortnight or more : but the clock struck seven, the 
 postillion cracked his whip, there was a vehement 
 agitation of hats and fans, and then we turned the 
 corner. 
 
 For some hours, our course was smooth and our 
 slumber deep, but at last a series of terrific jolts 
 recalled us to the hard realities of time and place. 
 
TOLEDO. 89 
 
 The time was three in the morning, and the place 
 half-way between Aranjuez and Toledo. We could 
 see a grim, unlovely desert, bisected by a road, of 
 which the stones were rocks and the ruts chasms. 
 Glad I was when they pointed out to me a grey mass 
 in the distance, which, as the light grew stronger and 
 we approached more nearly, developed into the 
 Alcazar and church spires of Toledo. But two hours 
 elapsed before we crossed the bridge, crept up the 
 narrowest and steepest of streets, and finally came to 
 a halt in the court-yard of the Fonda del Lino. 
 
 I was fortunate enough to have a letter pf intro- 
 duction to Colonel Alva, who^ holds a responsible 
 post under government, which 1 hastened to present. 
 I found him truly Spanish in kindness and courtesy, 
 and truly un- Spanish in his love for books and 
 antiquities. I told him my object in visiting Toledo, 
 which was simply to see the sights, and was glad to 
 hear that he had both the will and the power to 
 further my wishes. He accompanied me indefatigably 
 up and down to all the chief sights, no easy task, 
 for nothing is level at Toledo. The city stands on a 
 rocky eminence, nearly surrounded by a deep and 
 narrow gorge, into which the river Tagus (or Tajo) 
 squeezes itself, not without pain. (Hence I suppose 
 it is, that every gorge is called a Tajo ; just as, in the 
 Roman States, every river is called by the peasants a 
 Tevere, or Tiber. In both cases, the metropolitan 
 proper name has been transformed into a generic 
 name.) On the land side, it is defended by double or 
 
90 TOLEDO. 
 
 treble walls, very useless and picturesque. Two fine 
 bridges span the stream. This peculiarity, together 
 with the semi-insular position of the town, first 
 brought old Shrewsbury to my mind ; and as I wan- 
 dered about, I kept, in my own despite, drawing out 
 in detail an elaborate parallel between the two places, 
 finding or making for every feature of the one place 
 a counterpart in the other. A lonely traveller in a 
 foreign country is especially prone to these unprofit- 
 able reveries ; memory will anchor fast by the haunts 
 of boyhood ; and hence it was that in the Zocodover, 
 and on J;he Puente de Alcdntara, I was thinking of 
 ' Market-hill' and the Welsh Bridge.' But I would 
 not wrong the fair and fertile hills and plains of 
 Shropshire by likening them to the unlovely vicinage 
 of Toledo, nor would I pollute the glassy, cool, trans- 
 lucent wave of Severn with so much as a thought 
 of the muddy Tagus. Toledo, moreover, is fast 
 crumbling into ruin, but floreat Salopia. The 
 bridge of Alcantara, on the Madrid side, is in itself a 
 grand object, with its lofty arch and antique gates, and 
 commands a fine view of the river shining far below, 
 and the castle frowning far above. It is a pleasant, 
 airy lounge at sunset. It is worth while to make 
 acquaintance with the fat, jolly gatekeeper, for he 
 possesses a store of most curious information, which 
 the gift of a cigar will place at your disposal. He told 
 me some strange stories of the cave of Hercules, ' a 
 famous enchanter who once lived in these parts, who 
 spirited away the daughter of the king of Granada, 
 
THE ALCAZAR. 91 
 
 and so it came to pass that the Moors made war upon 
 the Christians and conquered Toledo.' 
 
 A specimen this of historical tradition in that 
 lowest stage of degradation, when not only has truth 
 been disguised in fable, but also fable itself corrupted 
 into foolishness. The mythology, too, is startling to 
 those who have held from early youth the orthodox 
 creed, wherein the voracious hero is anjnhing but a 
 conjuror. 
 
 The cave in question is, or is said to be, two 
 miles up the river, and at present under water. I 
 acquiesced in the statement, for it was too hot to go 
 a-foot, and a hired vehicle is hardly to be met with at 
 Toledo. I beg pardon of the shade of Southey for 
 the omission. 
 
 Seen from a distance, Toledo is like a throned 
 queen, seen from the inside, a widow sitting in sack- 
 cloth and ashes. It contains scarcely a tenth part of 
 its ancient population, and the shrunk city is girdled 
 by a belt of ruin. 
 
 The Alcazar, which puts so bold a front on the 
 matter, is, within, mere desolation and decay. It is 
 like a good Castilian fallen on evil days, from whose 
 proud bearing you would never guess the raggedness 
 concealed beneath the ample cloak. The oldest por- 
 tion is Moorish, attached to which is a magnificent 
 incongruity of Charles the Fifth's time. The noble 
 court, with its pillars, the vaulted corridors, and the 
 spacious double staircase, are now in the filthiest 
 state ; but once ascend the rickety steps which lead 
 
92 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 to the top story, and all disgust will be merged in 
 delight at the glorious prospect around and beneath. 
 At your feet lies the city, clustering in many a pic- 
 turesque mass, and beyond it the river, half encircling 
 it, like a silver zone unclasped. Eastward and west- 
 ward, a fringe of green marks the course of the Tagus; 
 all else is a tawny, reddish waste of low hills, stretch- 
 ing away to the distant Sierra, scarcely visible on the 
 horizon. 
 
 Of the three days which I spent at Toledo, 
 many hours of each were passed in the cathedral. 
 There only the walls were thick enough to exclude the 
 heat, and there the painted windows tempered the 
 glare of noon to a soft dream-light. Within is 
 matter of observation for a year, and of meditation 
 for ever. This cathedral is longer and narrower than 
 that of Burgos; it is also of earlier and purer Gothic. 
 Every window is filled with painted glass of the 
 richest colours, and the double clerestories give an air 
 of singular lightness and elegance. An altar in the 
 nave marks the spot where the Virgin alighted when 
 she paid her much celebrated visit to St. Ildefonso. 
 The precise slab touched by her feet is carefully pre- 
 served under an iron grating; a small piece of it, 
 however, is let into a pillar behind the high altar 
 without any such defence, and it is now nearly worn 
 away by the osculations of the faithful. I watched 
 an old man a long time as he was kneeling before it 
 and muttering prayers, between each of which he 
 rubbed the stone hard, and then licked his thumb. 
 When he had concluded I accosted him, and he told 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 93 
 
 me the whole story: how 'her Majesty' the Queen 
 of Heaven had come down to honour Toledo above 
 all the cities of the earth. He repeated all the 
 circumstances with great earnestness of manner, and 
 a volubility of utterance which made it difficult for 
 me to catch his meaning. He kept perpetually 
 repeating the words ' Su Majestad,' and bowing 
 humbly as he said them. As usual in this country, 
 a number of chapels have gathered, like parasites, 
 round the sides of the great church; and the details 
 of these, being more minute, demand even closer 
 observation. As at Burgos, there is a * Chapel of the 
 Constable.' The constable was the unfortunate 
 Alvaro de Luna, a king's favourite, and, by natural 
 consequence, a people's detestation. He and his 
 wife are represented reclining each on a separate 
 tomb, the doughty knight and the devout dame, 
 he clasping his sword, she her rosary. Four knights 
 kneel at the corners of the husband's tomb ; two 
 monks and two nuns at the corners of the other. 
 An inscription round each records that the Constable 
 was killed in 1453, and his wife supported her dis- 
 consolate widowhood till 1488. 
 
 Of course I went to see the dresses, crowns, &c., 
 with which the Virgin is adorned on great festivals 
 the pride of Toledo, and the marvel of all Spain, 
 If the pearls and precious stones be all real, as I was 
 assured they were, there is not a queen in the world 
 who possesses so costly a wardrobe as ' Su Majestad' 
 of Toledo. In the sacristy over the altar is a 
 
94 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 magnificent picture by El Greco ' Christ clothed 
 with the scarlet robe.' At his right is a man in 
 armour, said to be a portrait of the painter. At his 
 feet is laid the cross, on which they are nailing the 
 inscription. In the foreground is the Virgin and 
 behind, a crowd of heads. The face of the Virgin 
 appeared to be wanting in expression ; but there 
 never was a more worthy representation of the 
 Saviour, as he looks upward with glistening eyes, 
 triumphant in suffering. In front of this picture 
 stands a small figure of St. Francis, by Alonzo Cano. 
 The face, shaded by the cowl, is marked with all the 
 ecstasy of ascetic devotion ; but, accustomed as we 
 are to the colossal and colourless in statuary, it is 
 hard to go into raptures at a doll (for the figure is 
 only two feet high, and painted). The verger, how- 
 ever, told me that, when M. Thiers visited Toledo, 
 he insisted upon kissing this image, being moved, as 
 he explained, not by religious, but artistic enthusiasm. 
 Being a little man, he was accordingly lifted up in 
 the arms of the attendants to perform the ceremony. 
 M. Thiers is so small, that no single step can lift him 
 from the ridiculous to the sublime. 
 
 In the vestry I was shown a small Holy Family, 
 attributed to Raphael. One of the canons assured 
 me that it had been brought from Italy by an arch- 
 bishop of Toledo, before the end of the sixteenth 
 century. It resembles a Perugino in everything 
 except a certain hardness of outline. If it be 
 Raphael's at all, it must be one of his very earliest 
 
TARASCA. 95 
 
 works. My faith in it was rather shaken, by hearing 
 the name of Michael Angelo given to two heads on 
 copper of the Virgin, and a boy Christ. I began to 
 suspect my informant of a reckless use of great 
 names. 
 
 In a room over the cloisters I saw a collection of 
 gigantic grotesque figures, used in processions and 
 mummeries. I was told that the country people, 
 when they entered the room, generally dropped down 
 reverently on their knees, supposing these to be 
 saints, and the greatest, because the biggest, they had 
 seen. The most remarkable of all is a monster un- 
 known to Buffon, but more like an exaggerated turtle 
 than anything else in nature, the body of which is 
 big enough to contain a man, whose duty it is to 
 open and shut its jaws, for the edification of the popu- 
 lace on Corpus Christi day. This ' snapping turtle' 
 is called Tarasca. On its back rides, or rode, a 
 woman clad in scarlet, yclept 'of Babylon,' and 
 otherwise christened * Anna Boleyna,' after the un- 
 fortunate lady who was the cause of the insult offered 
 by Henry VIII. to Spain and the Roman church in 
 the divorce of Catherine of Arragon, and who was 
 also the mother of her who foiled the Armada and 
 upheld Protestantism ' the she-wolf (as Gongora 
 terms her), Elizabeth of England. 
 
 The Archbishop's Library contains some very 
 curious manuscripts, which the good old curator 
 seemed never tired of producing for my inspection. 
 Among the rest was a code of laws in Castilian, 
 
96 STREETS OF TOLEDO. 
 
 given to the city of Valladolid by Alphonso VII. in 
 the eleventh century. This is one of the earliest 
 specimens of f romance,' but the sense can be made 
 out with great ease. I remember one law, for- 
 bidding any Moor or Jew to take sacred property in 
 pledge for a loan. There was also a curious Hebrew 
 roll, and a book of papyrus written in Syriac, both 
 of which were ' Greek' to me. 
 
 The calle ancha, or Broad Street of Toledo, is 
 about fifteen feet across, so it may be conceived \vhat 
 the other streets are. Indeed, when I essayed to tra- 
 verse the town alone, I was perpetually losing myself 
 in their tortuous labyrinths, and turning up in some 
 unanticipated quarter. I was, therefore, compelled 
 to put myself under the protection of a laquais-de- 
 place, for, to my surprise, even this lonely city can 
 boast a few specimens of the genus. It is probable, 
 however, that this is a recent development, as my 
 man was not by any means a master of his craft. 
 
 The church of S. Juan de los Reyes stands at the 
 north-western corner of the city, towering among 
 ruins. The Franciscan monastery, of which it formed 
 a part, was nearly destroyed by the French. As the 
 name imports, it was one of the truly royal thank- 
 offerings of the Catholic sovereigns. The outside, 
 which is somewhat devoid of architectural ornament, 
 is garnished by festoons of chains, more or less rusty 
 and broken. These are the chains which were used 
 to bind Christian captives in the dungeons of Ronda, 
 
THE CHURCH OF S. JUAN. 97 
 
 and (after the old pagan fashion) were hung round 
 the newly-erected church as a trophy of the faith's 
 triumph. There is a strong resemblance, in their 
 main features, between the buildings of Isabella and 
 those of her kinsman and contemporary, Henry VII. 
 of England. In these, however, as in more recent 
 erections in Spain, we may observe a tendency to 
 neglect the outside, and to lavish all the resources 
 of art upon the inside ; hence, the church of S. 
 Juan, externally, seems bald when compared with 
 the chapel at Westminster, while, internally, no 
 other church, either in England or elsewhere, can 
 rival it for prodigality of ornament. The architec- 
 ture is the same in its germ, but beneath the warmer 
 clime it has expanded, and developed into more 
 luxuriant forms. The walls are covered with fabu- 
 lous animals rampant, couchant, and passant 
 amid bowers of impossible foliage, while no occasion 
 is lost to introduce the device of the royal pair, a 
 yoke and sheaf of arrows, tied in a true-love knot. 
 The church of S. Juan de los Reyes used to be 
 familiar to the readers of Gil Bias, but recent editions 
 have misprinted it * Royes,' and a commentator, mis- 
 taking it for Royos, gravely explains it to mean * the 
 church of the red friars,' an order, I apprehend, till 
 now unheard of in ecclesiastical history. One would 
 have thought that the unfortunate place had suffered 
 enough at the hands of Gallic mutilators already. 
 The church of S. Tome is celebrated for the pic- 
 OAZ. F 
 
98 EL GRECO'S PICTURE. 
 
 ture by El Greco, * The Burial of the Conde Orgaz,' 
 which, in spite of what Sir E. Head and Mrs. Jame- 
 son assert, has not been removed to Madrid. 
 
 This is generally considered the masterpiece of the 
 painter ; but much as I respect the high authorities 
 which have pronounced it to be so, I must hold that 
 it is inferior to the great picture by the same artist in 
 the sala capitular. The upper part, containing the 
 heavenly host, is, to my mind, very poor in concep- 
 tion, and worse in colouring. A dull leaden hue per- 
 vades the whole. But the lower part is indisputably 
 grand and solemn. Saints Stephen and Augustine, 
 in rich episcopal robes, are depositing the body of 
 the good count in his tomb; the relatives of the de- 
 ceased look on, grave and dignified, not expressing 
 the slightest surprise at being relieved of their duty 
 by such unwonted intervention. The picture is all 
 the more effective by being free from the expression 
 of ordinary human passions. The atmosphere which 
 surrounds it is not that of every-day life ; the truth 
 represented is a higher and deeper truth than the 
 truth of fact ; and the spectator feels that he has no 
 business to call in question the probability of the 
 actual occurrence. I should, doubtless, have worked 
 myself into the proper frame of mind, and felt all 
 this, but for an impertinent suggestion, that the grave 
 relations, with their trim beards, were like Rip Van 
 Winkle's mysterious Dutchmen. 
 
 I spent a long hour in this church, partly examining 
 the picture, and partly listening to a sermon, which 
 
DESERTION OF CHURCHES. 99 
 
 the slow, distinct enunciation of the preacher enabled 
 me to follow with ease. I could understand it all the 
 better as it was entirely declamatory and ww-logical, 
 not a syllogism from beginning to end. Whenever 
 the name of Christ or the Virgin was mentioned, the 
 congregation turned towards the high altar, crossed 
 themselves, and muttered a short prayer about the 
 length of a ' grace' in England. This must be a very 
 convenient custom for orators who are liable to stick 
 fast. The ladies, who composed nine-tenths of the 
 audience, were squatting in the Turkish fashion on 
 the floor, each in the same posture, with the head 
 bent down, and the face nearly concealed by the 
 mantilla of black silk, while the incessant agitation 
 of fans was like the fluttering of birds* wings in an 
 aviary. Two of the old churches of Toledo have 
 been synagogues, and several mosques. Some of them 
 are now shut up for lack of priests and worshippers. 
 Espartero ejected the former, and a stealthier, surer 
 revolutionist has filched away the latter. Into Sta. 
 Maria I endeavoured to effect an entrance, but in 
 vain; none of the neighbours knew who kept the 
 key. At Sta. Ursula's I was more fortunate. A good 
 woman opposite begged me to sit down in her house, 
 supplied me with a bowl of the coldest and purest 
 water, and then set off herself in quest of the key. 
 The church communicates with a nunnery, and be- 
 hind the 'grilla' I could see a nun kneeling, with 
 neck and throat closely bandaged, like Fleur de Marie. 
 In the vestry is a fine wooden roof, with pendent 
 F 2 
 
100 THE ZOCODOVER. 
 
 ornaments, evidently Moorish. I fancied that my kind 
 sextoness cooled somewhat in her manner towards me, 
 when she found that I had not come into the church 
 to say my prayers like a Christian. 
 
 All day long a solemn stillness broods over Toledo. 
 Rarely does the sound of wheels or the crack df whip 
 wake its old echoes ; there are no ' cries' inviting one 
 to buy fresh fish or sell old clothes ; the shopkeepers 
 doze over their wares, seldom disturbed by a pur- 
 chaser, except, indeed, the fat, comely dame who pre- 
 sides over the estanco, or tobacco-shop, for she drives 
 a thriving trade, thriving herself marvellously. In 
 the doorways of the humbler dwellings sit old men 
 and women, platting long coarse grass into ' socas,' or 
 mats, to hang before the windows and keep the heat 
 out ; and through the iron gates of the better sort 
 you may see a family of daughters at work with the 
 needle, a sea of white linen spread before them. But 
 at sunset all is over with work, and sleep, and silence ; 
 all the life left to Toledo is astir, crowding to the Zoco- 
 dover and the avenues leading thereto. This Zoco- 
 dover, or chief square of Toledo, though deserted by 
 the traffickers who once thronged it by day, is busy 
 as it well can be by night. Planted with many trees, 
 set with many seats, lit by few lamps, the very 
 genius of flirtation has presided over its ordering. 
 Of a summer's night, it hums and buzzes like any 
 hive. On every side, a broken outline of high roofs 
 shuts out sky and stars ; in a niche above the Moorish 
 gateway stands an image of the Virgin, lighted by a 
 
POPULAR EXHIBITION. 10l 
 
 wakeful lamp; and looking through* tne'old arch you 
 may see the distant country, grey and pale in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 One night I went, in default of a theatre, to an 
 exhibition of gymnastics in the court-yard of a deserted 
 palace. The affair was a decided failure ; but the 
 spectators, who paid 2d. for their admission, bore it 
 all with as much patience and decorum as any < dress 
 circle ' could have done ; only when the three fiddlers 
 composing the promised ( magnificent band ' played 
 unusually ill, they called good-humouredly for los 
 perros 'the dogs' a metaphor from their favourite 
 bull-ring. 
 
102 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A KIND of omnibus runs between Toledo and 
 Aranjuez every alternate night To this I 
 committed my person and effects at 10 o'clock, p. M., 
 on Monday, July 23rd. The vehicle was crammed 
 full, and it was my misfortune to be seated next an 
 elderly gentleman of corpulent bulk, whom the rest 
 of the company, perhaps on account of his dimensions, 
 treated with profound respect Don Diego (that was 
 his name) speedily lapsed into a state of somnolence, 
 and at every jolt (that is, about three times a minute) 
 he came rolling upon me, and as often recovered his 
 equilibrium, with something between a snort and a 
 groan. This peine forte et dure lasted till half-past 
 four in the morning, and terminated by my disembar- 
 cation at Aranjuez, in a state of semi-dislocation and 
 entire weariness. 
 
 I walked through the wide, silent streets just as 
 the morning was giving its first grey and grim prelude 
 to a blazing day. A series of vigorous kicks ad- 
 ministered to the door of the Four Nations' Hotel 
 roused a waiter, who conducted me to a comfortable 
 bed, where I forgot the ruthless ruts, and that most 
 real of night-mares, Don Diego. Indeed, I forgot 
 more than that. I had engaged a place in the Gra- 
 
OCANA. 103 
 
 nada diligence, passing through Aranjuez at 11 A.M., 
 and had intended to devote an hour or two, before 
 starting, to the palace and gardens; but such was my 
 fatigue that I did not awake till 10, and ( Castile has 
 something still to show.' The omission was a thorn 
 in my side ever after, for Aranjuez is the pride of 
 every Spaniard's heart, and whenever I confessed in 
 society that I had not seen the gardens or the Casa 
 del Labrador, I was saluted with an universal 
 ' hombre !' (' man alive !') in tones of contempt and 
 pity. Well ! Don Diego will have to answer for it. 
 
 Punctual to its time, the diligence arrived. I found 
 that I had to share the berlina, or coupee, with two 
 persons the one, a young fellow with light com- 
 plexion and flaxen hair, whom I took for an English- 
 man, and the other a dark man, whose nation I could 
 not guess. The former proved to be a son of Malaga, 
 returning from the College of Military Engineers at 
 Alcala, and the other was a native of Guatemala^ he 
 told me. I might have guessed long. The body of 
 the vehicle was almost full of young engineers, whose 
 merriment neither heat nor dust could stifle. 
 
 At Ocana, where we stopped to ' disjune, 1 the 
 Coupee fraternized with the Interieur, by the inter- 
 change of cigars (for a cigar is now, what salt used 
 to be, the pledge and symbol of amicable relations). 
 In the courtyard of the inn a little Murillesque boy 
 was sitting cross-legged ; he had got a marten, which 
 he was putting to a graduated death, by first plucking 
 a few feathers, and then breaking a wing, &c., as if he 
 
104 PUERTO LAPTCHE MANZANARE9. 
 
 had been training for an Inquisitor. I remonstrated 
 with him on the cruelty of the proceeding, but the 
 little urchin went on with his work, merely replying, 
 in a cold tone, ' Hay muchos ' (There are plenty of 
 'em). The same plea would have justified me in 
 administering the lex talionis to the lad himself, for 
 Ocaiia was swarming with brats. The country over 
 which we were now passing consists of bare and brown 
 plains, seamed at rare intervals by low chalk hills. 
 On one of these (or rather in it) is the village of La 
 Guardia, where the people live chiefly like rabbits, 
 burrowing instead of building. Here the children, 
 as usual, ran along by the diligence, throwing sum- 
 mersets, and begging clamorously for a cuartito. One 
 of them got among the mules and was trodden upon, 
 but he screamed so lustily as he was being carried off, 
 that we felt sure he was not much hurt. * Hay 
 muchos.' 
 
 At 9 o'clock we halted for the night at Puerto 
 Lapiche, a place famous only as having been men- 
 tioned in Don Quixote, where, after a hasty supper, \ve 
 all went to bed, anxious to make the most of the few 
 precious hours allowed for sleep. At one in the 
 morning we were again en route. About day-break 
 we were rattling over the pavement of Manzanares. 
 No sooner had we come to a stand-still, than the face 
 of a blind woman was thrust in at the window. My 
 companions immediately recognised ' the blind woman 
 of Manzanares,' famous, they said, throughout all 
 Spain for her powers of improvization. Some one 
 
A. SPANISH MINSTREL. 105 
 
 told her that there was an Englishman in the carriage, 
 so, apropos of my humble self, she began to recite a 
 string of quatrains, each of which was received with 
 loud laughter and applause by the crowd gathered 
 round to listen. As she made a pause after each 
 stanza, to collect her thoughts and let the noise sub- 
 side, I managed to note down the first and two last, 
 which, done into corresponding English, run thus : 
 
 The noble English nation 
 
 Is famous near and far 
 For faithfulness in time of peace 
 
 And bravery in war. 
 
 Tis true about Sir Bulwer 
 
 There's lately been a fuss ; 
 But which was right and which was wrong 
 
 We cannot now discuss. 
 
 But let us hope that cause of strife 
 
 May never happen again, 
 And that a pair of such old friends 
 
 Will always friends remain. 
 
 The gifted minstrel was quite content with a 
 guerdon of a real, or twopence-halfpenny sterling. 
 This is probably the same person whom Borrow saw 
 here, and whom he calls the Manchegan Prophetess. 
 Since that time she has turned her talents to sub- 
 stantial account, for her ( rags' have been replaced by 
 decent clothing, and her ( Mulatto complexion' seems 
 to have yielded to repeated applications of soap-and- 
 water. 
 
 La Mancha is a great corn-growing district. The 
 vast yellow plain is broken at intervals by the huge 
 bulk of a village church, big enough, if it were a barn, 
 
 F3 
 
106 DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS. 
 
 to house all the corn of the parish, wide and fertile 
 as it is. It was harvest-time, and we saw frequent 
 teams of oxen labouring on with a huge load of 
 sheaves, piled on the waggon in the shape of a 
 truncated pyramid, and surmounted by a contented 
 peasantry, lolling, singing, and smoking. We were 
 to halt at Valde Penas, and we had been pleasing our- 
 selves with anticipating * a bottle of the very best 
 wine ;' but our hopes were cruelly frustrated, for more 
 execrable stuff was never tasted than that presented 
 to us at the inn. We sent for some more, and, if any 
 worse could have been, that would. The people, too, 
 were ferocious and uncivil ; and so we shook off the 
 dust not of our feet only, but also of our coats and 
 hats, which was no trifle against the town of Valde 
 Perias. At Santa Cruz, a good woman thrust a pair 
 of garters (the staple manufacture of the place) upon 
 me ; I bought them, thinking they might be useful in 
 case I should weary of life before the end of the 
 journey. However, there was no occasion for them 
 just then, for we were approaching the Sierra Morena, 
 and the monotonous plain was giving way to broken 
 and wooded ground. I was on the look out, too, for 
 the Venta de Cardenas, which is the scene and title 
 of a very boisterous and very popular farce. Not but 
 that many a tragedy in real life has been acted in 
 these robber-haunted mountains. Thanks, however, 
 to the institution of the Guardia Civil (the rural 
 police of Spain), a traveller at the present day may 
 
A MODERN PILGRIM. 107 
 
 enjoy the magnificent scenery of Desperia Perros, 
 without being disturbed by fears for his own safety. 
 This defile, through which the road winds, is rough 
 and rugged as its name. The rocks, splintered verti- 
 cally, stand out like fragments of some ruined castle 
 of the giants. Plenty of oaks and chesnuts have 
 found root in the fissures and clefts, and, far below, 
 the bright pink flowers of the oleander mark the 
 course of the torrent Every turn of the road exhibits 
 a fresh combination of rock and wood ; and as soon as 
 the highest point is attained, the background of the 
 prospect is filled with a wide expanse of plain and far 
 sweep of mountain the Vegas and the Sierras of 
 Andalucia. 
 
 We trotted merrily down the hills to a little village 
 (Sta. Elena, I think), which we found all astir, by 
 reason of a rustic bull-fight just going to begin. 
 Among the spectators attracted thither was an old 
 pilgrim (the first and only specimen of the class I 
 ever saw off the stage). He wore a large coarse 
 brown cloak, garnished with the scallop-shell of S. 
 Jago, and a broad-brimmed hat looped up, with a 
 sprig of rosemary in front, which I suppose he wore 
 to advertise his calling, for Romero, in Spanish, means 
 both rosemary and pilgrim. He also carried a long 
 stick, and altogether quite looked the character. 
 
 The road between La Carolina and Bailen is the worst 
 part of the whole line ; and the shaking made us 
 anticipate with the more impatience our promised 
 
108 JAEX. 
 
 rest of seven hours at the latter place. We arrived 
 at six o'clock in the evening, and after a good supper 
 strolled out en masse, to convince ourselves that there 
 were no sights at Bailen ; then we went to bed. This 
 day, the 24th of July, 1849, will be memorable to me, 
 as the date of my first seeing a pilgrim and a palm- 
 tree in their natural state. 
 
 We started agaip, as before, at one in the morning, 
 guarded by a couple of men with blunderbusses, who 
 hung on somewhere outside. I soon relapsed into 
 slumber, and did not wake till near six. e What a 
 thousand pities it is,' said the Guatemalan, ' that you 
 did not see Jaen ! Caramba ! que lastima! Mag- 
 nificent beautiful towers on the side of a hill- 
 antiquities tiempo de los Moros.' ' Why didn't you 
 wake me ?' I said, ' Caramba que lastima !' So I 
 missed seeing Jaen, and grumbled about it till break- 
 fast time. We stopped at a mountain-inn, and found 
 a better meal prepared than the appearance of the 
 place warranted one in expecting. A Manchegan, 
 one of the passengers, got into a furious rage in 
 endeavouring to convince the Andalucians that La 
 Mancha was the finest province in Spain. The rest 
 received his declamation with scornful laughter, 
 and, having the best of the argument, kept their 
 temper. 
 
 A tunnel cut through an opposing rock let us into 
 the kingdom of Granada; soon after, as the road 
 wound among the hills, I caught a glimpse of the 
 
THE SIERRA NEVADA. 109 
 
 snow-flecked sides of a ridge of mountains, towering 
 above all the rest. I needed no one to tell me that 
 this was the Sierra Nevada. As little did I need to 
 be informed that the white town which (on emerging 
 from a grove of olives,) we saw in the distance, lying 
 on the hill-side, crowned with red towers and belted 
 with green woods, was Granada. 
 
no 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AS we were all waiting in the diligence-bureau, 
 till the custom-house officer had gone through 
 the ceremony of unlocking and locking the trunks, 1 
 was accosted by a dapper young fellow in Andalucian 
 costume: 'Seiior! your worship is a stranger? an 
 Englishman? Ah, I knew it! Milor, (these laquais- 
 de-place think that every Englishman likes to be so 
 addressed, and they are right,) I am at your feet 
 I am Mateo Ximenez, son of old Mateo honest 
 Mateo, the Mateo of Vasindon Eerveen, the son of 
 the Alhambra, who will show you every stone in 
 Granada,' On the other side, an elderly person 
 introduced himself as Seiior Vigarai, landlord of the 
 adjacent hotel, where he entreated me to stay, vaunt- 
 ing its superior cheapness, &c. But as I prefer being 
 fed for two dollars per diem to being poisoned for 
 one, I shook off the touting landlord, (a character 
 very rare in Spain,) and trudged off to the Fonda de 
 Minerva, closely followed by the officious Mateo. I 
 was shown to a spacious apartment on the first floor, 
 where I proceeded to instal myself, Mateo aiding 
 unbidden. We had not been there five minutes 
 before a dark, keen-eyed man, with a fierce mous- 
 tache, appeared at the open door, cap in hand, and 
 
BATTLE OF THE GUIDES. Ill 
 
 addressed me in English ' Good bye, Sare ! how 
 you do? I am Immanuel Bensaken, of Gibraltar, 
 British-born ; much commended in dat red book 
 you wear in your hand, page 129, Give me leave, 
 Sare ?' He proceeded to find the place, but Mateo, 
 high in wrath, broke in with a torrent of vituperation, 
 speaking Spanish, the substance of which seemed to 
 be that I belonged to the Ximenez family by right 
 of prior discovery. Bensaken, on the other hand, 
 claimed me by right of conquest, because the English 
 were masters of Gibraltar. ' Milor,' said Mateo to 
 me, in a tone of solemn warning, ' this man is a Jew, 
 a thief, a runaway, a renegade Jew.' 
 
 Bensaken, upon this, assured me that old Mateo 
 had helped one of his sons to murder a man, holding 
 him down while the son despatched him with a knife. 
 The dispute lasted some time, and I was at last 
 obliged to request the two to fight it out in the 
 corral below, promising myself as the prize of the 
 survivor. 
 
 At five o'clock next morning I was awakened from 
 a sound sleep by the entrance of a small, demure, 
 elderly man, wearing on his face the stereotyped grin 
 of servility, who introduced himself as the original 
 Mateo Ximenez the Mateo of Vasindon Eerveen ; 
 1 and I come,' said he, ' in obedience to your wor- 
 ship's commands to conduct you to the Alhambra.' 
 He had got up early, and stolen a march upon the 
 Jew. Under the guidance, therefore, of Mateo, I paid 
 my first visit to the Alhambra a visit of three hours' 
 
112 MATEO XIMENEZ, THE GUIDE. 
 
 duration, my guide, meanwhile, keeping up a run- 
 ning commentary of the very smallest talk, recklessly 
 confounding dates and facts, nations and personages; 
 and for any special absurdity, audaciously appealing 
 to the authority of ' Vasindon Eerveen.' What a 
 lucky moment it was when the twaddling old fool 
 first met the illustrious man whose name and mean- 
 ing he constantly perverts. The glowing fancy of 
 Washington Irving has blazoned * honest Mateo' to 
 the English half of the world as a little hero of 
 romance, handing him down to posterity, besides 
 enabling him to make a pretty penny out of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 He showed me a book of encomiums on himself 
 by American travellers, full of exaggerated phrase, 
 written, indeed, in that 'tall' style which distin- 
 guishes U. S. from us. The old fox took me to 
 his own den, where he has on sale (sub rosa) many 
 squares of stucco ornament, and other relics pur- 
 loined from the Alhambra. Knowing that I had 
 been informed of * the murder' in which he had 
 been compromised, he volunteered a version of it, 
 which I think is characteristic, not only of the man, 
 but the people. I give it in his own words. Like 
 the lower orders in Andalucia, when addressing their 
 superiors, he spoke of himself in the third person 
 (as Mateo'). 
 
 ( There was,' he said, c a Serjeant who used to be on 
 duty up here in the Alhambra. One day Mateo and 
 he were drinking together, and they fell to disputing 
 
ASSASSINATIONS. 113 
 
 about politics. Now the serjeant was a 'Royalist,' 
 and Mateo and his family have always been Progres- 
 istas, like your worships the English. At last the 
 serjeant knocked Mateo down, and left him. Now, 
 as he was going out of the door, it was the will of the 
 devil that he should meet my son. ' What have you 
 done to my father ?' said mi chico (my little one), 
 
 and he answered, ' I have served him like a !' 
 
 Then mi chico, being beside himself with anger, drew 
 his knife and stabbed him in the belly. It did not 
 go deeper than that? (showing two joints of his fore- 
 finger,) ' and the man lived four hours ! And it was 
 for that, just killing a man in a quarrel when his 
 blood was up, that they put mi chico in prison, where 
 he is to this day, pobrecito.' 
 
 I listened with some interest to the details of his 
 story ; and Mateo must have thought me curious in 
 murders, for as we were leaving the Alhambra we 
 met a dark-eyed, buxom dame, and Mateo introduced 
 us in form : c Senora, this is an English gentleman 
 travelling for amusement, and, Serior, this is a lady 
 whose husband was assassinated two years ago ;' 
 whereupon the widow, nothing loth, told me all 
 about it. As soon as her back was turned, Mateo 
 gave me an entirely different version, much less to 
 the credit of the unfortunate deceased. 
 
 My first visit to the Alhambra gave me very little 
 pleasure. All thought was scared by the continuous 
 chatter of my guide, and I felt all the while that I 
 was * doing' the Alhambra, not seeing it. There was 
 
114 THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 hardly even the charm of novelty, for I had seen 
 Owen Jones's pictures. They are more than like, 
 they are the very place itself, projected on a plane. 
 As Mercator's chart is to a globe, so are those pictures 
 to the Alhambra, which, indeed, is more like a 
 painting, or a stage scene, than a real building. I 
 speak of the interior only, for, from without, it looks 
 as grim and solid as the rocky hill on which it stands. 
 
 If I forbear giving an elaborate description of the 
 whole place palace, fortress, convent, village, groves, 
 and gardens, it is because I wish to spare my readers 
 the repetition of a thrice-told tale. (Why do over 
 again what has been done already so often and so 
 well ?) Not but that I could fill half a volume about 
 it, for there was hardly a corner which I did not 
 explore during the month when I had my head- 
 quarters at Granada. 
 
 It is true one's senses are occasionally more offended 
 than gratified in the course of such researches, and a 
 day-dream about, the Past is often rudely interrupted 
 by some incongruity belonging to the unromantic 
 Present ; but, according to the happy constitution of 
 nature, all unpleasant associations fade away from the 
 mind, and leave the pleasures of memory pure and 
 unmixed. 
 
 The Alhambra should be seen from all points of 
 view, and in all lights. It is a place for all hours. 
 There, the morning breeze is freshest; there is the 
 thickest shade ; there are the coolest waters to temper 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 115 
 
 the fierce noon ; and there, at evening, the finest 
 view over that famous landscape, lovely always, but 
 loveliest then. And often would we linger, long 
 after sunset, watching till that flood of purple and 
 gold had ebbed quite away from plain and hill and 
 sky ; and just below us the lamps of the town came 
 out, one by one, like the stars of another heaven ; and 
 further away, the burning stubble flashed in long 
 lines of fire, as bright, and almost as rapid, as summer- 
 lightning. 
 
 Eastward, one might see the clear, sharp outline of 
 the Sierra, dwarfed in the gloom, and looming darker 
 by contrast with the light of the moon rising behind 
 it ; so we stayed to watch the flow of the new tide as 
 we had watched the ebb of the old, to see how the 
 gracious beams fell, first, upon the rocky pinnacles of 
 the Sierra of Alhama, and then upon many a white 
 tower and hamlet in the plain below ; last of all, upon 
 the town and woods just at our feet, half revealing the 
 various tints of day, for the colours of moonlight 
 are to the colours of sunlight as dreams are to life, 
 rather a reminiscence than a reality. 
 
 And then we would descend, my companions and 
 I, half ashamed of having quoted poetry, or otherwise 
 indulged the sentimental vein, and finish the even- 
 ing by a game of billiards in the English way, the 
 natives looking on with much contempt. 
 
 Up in the Alhambra is a little inn, called the 
 Carmen de los Siete Suelos, besides a rival establish- 
 
116 THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 ment (whose name I forget) just opposite. Each of 
 these has a kind of tea-garden attached, where you 
 may be supplied, al fresco, with those creature 
 comforts indispensable even to persons of the most 
 romantic turn, such as fresh milk, eggs, chocolate, or 
 wine. Thus, with a book or pencil, one may spend 
 a long day in the Alhambra with much ease and 
 comfort, and not without profit. Strange contrasts 
 meet one's observation. Above, in the branches, are 
 the uncaged birds singing with all their might (a 
 singing-bird is a rarity in Spain) ; below, a gang of 
 convicts (no rarity) are at work, clanking in their 
 chains. Take the path to the left, and you find a 
 Spanish soldier, of the th line regiment, keeping 
 guard under the Moorish arch, and an image of the 
 Virgin Mary, under a sentence from the Koran. Pass 
 on, and you stand before the heavy, unfinished palace 
 of Charles V., with its stupid unideal plan, (a circle 
 inscribed in a square, like a figure out of Euclid,) and 
 its recurrence of unvarying ornament. A little side 
 door admits you to the Court of Myrtles and a new 
 world. You have trod on the magic carpet of Hassan, 
 and have been transported eastward through space, 
 and backward through time, to the city and the reign 
 of Haroun Alraschid! You pass on through the 
 Court of Lions, the Hall of the Abencerrages, &c., 
 names familiar to you from childhood : the whole 
 place, the realization of many a dream, appears itself 
 scarcely less unsubstantial so delicate and fragile, 
 
THE GENERALIFE. 117 
 
 that it seems fitted only for the charmed atmosphere 
 of fairy-land; the fierce storms of this earth will 
 surely crush it to atoms ; the fierce heat crumble it 
 into dust. Indeed, the Court of Lions has suffered 
 from an earthquake, and is rudely enough supported 
 by beams, and held together by cramps. May man 
 and time deal tenderly with the remnant ! 
 
 You leave the place, and, sitting down on a stone 
 seat under the trees, are thinking of the wealth and 
 glories of the Caliphs, and the lavish splendours of 
 Oriental royalty, when an old man in rags accosts 
 you. He is a veteran who has fought in the war 
 of Independence one of two hundred pensioners 
 quartered here in the Alhambra, and he is forced to 
 beg of the stranger, because he cannot live on the 
 daily pittance which his grateful country owes him. 
 You are recalled to the present time : Isabel II. sits 
 on the throne of Abderrahman the Magnificent. 
 
 A narrow, dank cleft, green with ferns and creeping 
 plants, and spanned by the single arch of an aque- 
 duct, divides the Alhambra from the Generalife. At 
 the entrance to the latter, stands a cottage with 
 trellised vines, and a plot of cool shade beside it. 
 There, each day as I passed, were a knot of women 
 spinning and chattering incessantly, mixing the 
 useful with the sweet just looking up to give the 
 kindly salute Vaya Usted con Dios. The Generalife, 
 once the Moor's garden of delights, still shows signs 
 of being cared for, and still produces hazel-nuts and 
 
118 THE GENERALIFE. 
 
 plums. The grapes were sour and the figs hard 
 at that time. You may help yourself without let 
 oy hindrance as you walk up to the house. Sitting 
 before the door, a black -eyed, sharp-looking little 
 boy was making dirt-pies. He jumped up at my 
 summons, and took me in. There was the court, 
 with its pond and flowers, and at the end an arcade, 
 leading into cool and airy rooms for summer dwelling 
 all just as their Moorish master had left them, 
 only looking a little forlorn and neglected, for all 
 the sunshine. If people would always be content 
 with neglecting! That turbid stream which rushes 
 through the court contains, potentially, all the fer- 
 tility of the Alhambra and Generalife. Separated, 
 some miles higher up, from its parent Darro, it is 
 brought along the hill-side in an artificial channel, and 
 then distributed into a thousand runlets to feed the 
 fountains and the flowers. At times it is turned into 
 an enormous tank, hollowed out in the rock, and 
 containing I forget how many hundred thousand 
 gallons (the work of the Moors, cela s'entend). The 
 dirt filters to the bottom, and leaves the coldest 
 and purest of water, which, by means of a well, 
 supplies all the dwellers in the Alhambra. My little 
 guide took me next to a kind of summer-house at 
 the top of the garden, which, like all elevated spots 
 hereabouts, commands a grand view over hill and 
 plain. He then let me out at a door which opens 
 on the hill, and at parting was made happy with a 
 
THE GENERALIFE. 119 
 
 pesata. Ever afterwards he showed all his white 
 teeth when he saw me, and, diving among the trees, 
 reappeared with his dirty hands full of ripe plums. 
 A single step divides the garden from the desert 
 abundance from sterility. It reminds one of the 
 rude social contrasts of London Belgravia and 
 Bethnal Green. In Andalucia, the w r aters are scanty 
 and the land is wide. What remedy, G ye philo- 
 icrs? 
 
120 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE town of Granada stands at the confluence of 
 two streams famous in history and romance 
 the Darro and the Xenil. There is also a third 
 stream, called the Duero, whose existence rests on 
 the mute testimony of a bridge, which you cross be- 
 fore entering the town. During the summer months 
 the bridge has a sinecure, and the river is converted 
 into that useful article 'a spare bed.' The Darro, 
 emerging from a narrow woody glen, turns abruptly 
 to the south, and, dividing the city in two, joins the 
 Xenil at the south-west corner of the hill. This hill, 
 abrupt and rocky towards the north, slopes to west 
 and south. On its two sides lies the city, dazzlingly 
 white, but sprinkled here and there with the dark 
 green of trellised vines and domestic fig-trees ; and 
 above all rise the heavy red walls and towers of 
 the Alhambra. One might fancy that the city, 
 emulous of safety, in close ranks, wherever a foot 
 could be set, had climbed the hill, and in gratitude 
 had crowned it with a crown a mural crown ' ob 
 cives servatos.' Westward lies the level plain, streaked 
 here and there with dark woods, and on the other 
 side rises the sierra, ridge above ridge, to the snowy 
 peak of Veleta. The banks of the Xenil near the 
 
THE ALBAEZIN. 121 
 
 town are fringed with trees, chiefly poplar, and 
 brushwood, among which wind many tangled by- 
 paths, as lonely as lovers or cut-throats could desire. 
 Not far off is the Alameda a pleasant place, with 
 its thick shade and abounding fountains, and about 
 sunset crowded with both the sexes and all the ranks. 
 As the twilight gives place to night, the throng 
 gradually adjourns to the open promenade, which 
 occupies the centre of the wide street close by. The 
 lamps are lit ; the vendors of water, sugar-cakes, and 
 cigars, place their stands on each side, and thereupon 
 is repeated the never-failing scene of fans, flutter, 
 and flirtation. 
 
 Opposite the Alhambra, on the other side of the 
 Darro, lies the Albaezin, which is less altered than 
 any other quarter of the city, and will well repay the 
 trouble of threading its steep and perplexed streets. 
 Most of the churches are mosques transmuted, and 
 frequently retain their original ceiling. Many a 
 house, now the abode of poverty and squalor, shows 
 signs of better days, and in many a corner one sees 
 some fragment of a palace set incongruously in a 
 hovel. Near the church of San Miguel el Bajo is a 
 Moorish well, full of clear water and drooping ferns, 
 which pleads earnestly to be sketched. Not far off 
 is the church of San Nicolas, before which is a kind 
 of platform with a few trees. Here, I think, is the 
 best point of view for the Alhambra and Generalife, 
 with the Sierra for background. A more glorious, 
 soul-stirring scene could not be conceived than this, 
 
 OAZ. G 
 
122 THE CARTUJA. 
 
 as it was when I saw it trees, towers, and far 
 mountain tops, all sparkling in the clear morning 
 sun, and canopied by a cloudless sky. 
 
 I entered the little dimly-lit church; there was 
 one miserable-looking man on his knees, creeping 
 round to each altar in succession, muttering unin- 
 telligible prayers, and between each rubbing the 
 floor with his forehead. * O curvse in terras animae !' 
 
 To do the Spaniards justice, I never saw any 
 young man performing these ceremonies of mortifi- 
 cation ; penance is all that is left to those who are 
 too old and hardened for repentance. 
 
 Another early morning may be devoted to visiting 
 the Cartuja. This once superb convent has shared the 
 fate of all similar institutions: one thin and melancholy, 
 because ill-paid, priest is left to minister at the altar, 
 the church has been stripped of its splendid pictures, 
 and the buildings adjacent are secularized into 
 granaries. The place, however, ( curst' as it is, has 
 something still to show. Behind the high altar is 
 a sort of sanctum-sanctorum, lined with rich marbles, 
 all of Spain. Nothing can be more gorgeous than 
 the Baldacchino which stands in the centre. Round 
 the walls of the sacristy are the presses for vestments, 
 lined with cedar and faced with ebony, ivory, silver, 
 and tortoiseshell a marvel of skill and industry. 
 The Carthusians seem to have had as strong a pre- 
 dilection for upholstery as the Benedictines for 
 literature. Go where you will, the Cartuja (or 
 Certosa, as the case may be,) surpasses all beside it 
 
GRANADA CATHEDRAL. 123 
 
 in elaborate and costly finery. The cathedral of 
 Granada is a ponderous building, in a pseudo- 
 classical style, which is happily unknown out of the 
 peninsula. If you run your eye up one of the 
 pillars, you see that it has plinth, column, capital, and 
 pediment, all right; but above all is an angular 
 nameless mass, half the length of the column, 
 from which springs the arch. This gives the interior 
 an oppressive, top-heavy look. Moreover, the side 
 aisles are cut prematurely short at the transepts, 
 and the great blank wall which fronts you on enter- 
 ing makes you say involuntarily * Is this all ?' 
 Nevertheless I often visited it, for it contains many 
 pictures by Cano, and is a pleasant, cool place, with 
 few worshippers to be disturbed by heretical foot- 
 steps. 
 
 Indeed, I hardly ever entered it without finding as 
 many dogs as men in it. Either the men of Granada 
 must be much worse, or the dogs much better, than 
 their respective species elsewhere. It is seldom, 
 indeed, that the latter enjoy such toleration, such 
 opportunities of frequenting a place of worship, and 
 even sitting under a popular minister. 
 
 Men too frequently play the part of dogs in the 
 manger neither going themselves, nor permitting 
 the others. 
 
 In the cathedral and its precincts are pretty nearly 
 all the works of art which fate and the French have 
 left to Granada. The most remarkable pictures are 
 a Conception and an Assumption ; and in the oratory 
 
 G2 
 
124 GRANADA CATHEDRAL. 
 
 a Suffering Christ and Mourning Mother, all by 
 Alonso Cano. The 'Virgins' of this artist are 
 always exquisite, displaying sweetness and gentleness 
 refined almost to divinity. In looking on the Assump- 
 tion, I could not help recalling Bowring's beautiful 
 lines (paraphrased from a Spanish poet) 
 
 Lady thou mountest slowly 
 O'er the bright cloud, while music sweetly plays, 
 
 Blest, who thy mantle holy 
 
 With outstretched hand may seize, 
 
 And rise with thee to the infinite of days. 
 
 His ' Christs,' on the contrary, are often threatening, 
 strong, and terrible. He thinks more of the charac- 
 teristic distinctions of sex than of Christian doctrine. 
 The ' Virgin Mother,' with him, is an Intercessor 
 and Saviour. The ' Crucified Son ' is a Destroyer 
 and Avenger. 
 
 There are also several small figures, carved and 
 painted by the same artist in particular, a Virgin 
 crowned, with the Infant Jesus in her arms, which a 
 properly disciplined mind would admire rapturously. 
 I could not help thinking it fitter for a toy-shop than 
 for a shrine or a gallery. The artist was a minor 
 canon of this cathedral, and spent his time in painting 
 and graving Madonnas, &c., so that, if he was not 
 devout himself, he has at least been the cause of 
 devotion in others. His best works are, as I have 
 said, characterized by the utmost delicacy and tefMer- 
 ness, and it is hard to believe that the man who could 
 conceive them actually paved the way to ecclesiastical 
 preferment by the murder of his wife. 
 
GRANADA CATHEDRAL. 125 
 
 Attached to the cathedral is the Royal Chapel. It 
 is divided across by a high iron railing, within which 
 are two richly ornamented tombs of white marble. 
 Upon the one lie the effigies of Ferdinand and Isabel, 
 upon the other those of Juana and her handsome, 
 faithless husband. Underneath is a little vault, well 
 lighted, and as cheerful as such a place can be, con- 
 taining the leaden coffins of the illustrious dead. A 
 simple initial distinguishes one from the other. 
 
 Among the rest is a little coffin containing the 
 remains of a Prince Miguel, who was killed by a fall 
 from his pony when a mere child. The spot is still 
 marked by a stone cross in the square called, from 
 the accident, ' del Principe.' On the retablo above 
 the altar are some quaint wood-carvings in bas-relief. 
 One of these represents Boabdil in front of the Tower 
 of Justice, offering the keys of the Alhambra to the 
 catholic sovereigns, and the grand cardinal who rides 
 by their side. The vergers have several curious 
 memorials of the ' Reyes Catolicos' to show, preserved 
 as reverently as if they were relics of saints. There 
 are the standards of embroidered silk used in the war, 
 now much frayed by time and tourists, who can never 
 keep their hands from picking ; a curious and minia- 
 ture-like Flemish painting, with a silver frame, which 
 once belonged to king Ferdinand's travelling oratory, 
 an<i^ above all, the silver cross which was raised on 
 the highest tower of the Alhambra on that famous 
 second of January, A.D. 1492, a year for ever me- 
 morable for the conquest of Granada and the discovery 
 
126 PRINCIPAL LOCALITIES AND 
 
 of America. These two events were hailed with 
 enthusiastic joy by the whole people of Spain. Little 
 did they know that, in subjugating the Moor, they 
 were riveting on their own necks a more galling 
 chain, and that, in extending the Spanish empire 
 over unknown nations and mountains teeming with 
 gold, they were preparing the way for the ruin and 
 depopulation and impoverishment of Spain. * When 
 fortune wills our doom, she grants our prayers.' 
 
 The most famous localities of the city are clustered 
 together within a stone's throw of the cathedral ; the 
 Vivarrambla, or Great Square, scene of many a faction- 
 fight and holiday tournament ; the Zacatin, with its 
 oriental-looking shops; the Bazaar which, injured as 
 it is by fire, still retains many traces of its former 
 self; the Casa de Carbon, a palace desecrated to 
 poverty ; an artist might visit this quarter every day 
 for a month, and every day find some new subject for 
 his pencil. 
 
 But more frequently a love for the pure morning 
 air tempted me out into the open country up 
 the hill that overhangs the Albaezin, or along the 
 Darro side to the ci-devant convent, now college, 
 of Monte Sagro, which, rising upon a platform above 
 the ilex woods, commands one of the grandest and 
 completest views of the Alhambra. Another cool and 
 pleasant walk lies along the left bank of the Darn* to 
 the Fountain of Hazels, well trodden by donkeys and 
 their attendant men, the aquarii of the city. The 
 earthenware jars containing the water are slung in 
 
SUBURBS OF GRANADA. 127 
 
 panniers over the donkey's back, and protected from 
 the heat by thick tendrils of ivy. Sometimes I would 
 strike up the hill through tangled brushwood, or a 
 scarcely less tangled orchard, to the summit of the 
 hill which overhangs the Generalife, marked by the 
 half ruined (or perhaps half finished) fortifications of 
 Sebastiani, and descend thence to the burial-ground 
 (Campo Santo it is called), a rectangular space walled 
 off from the surrounding waste, a most unlovely spot, 
 treeless, herbless, waterless, where bones and frag- 
 ments of coffins and shreds of grave-clothes are piled 
 in heaps together. Leaving this, and keeping on the 
 south of the Alhambra, you descend through aloes 
 and cactus to the town. On each side, the hill is 
 perforated like a rabbit-warren the holes bearing 
 the same proportion to the holes in a warren that a 
 man does to a rabbit and swarms with a population 
 whose features and complexion proclaim them to be 
 ' Children of Egypt.' I have been told that these 
 Egyptians would not scruple to spoil a Busne, when 
 alone, of his watch or purse ; but in my case * it was 
 not so written.' 
 
128 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 "VTOT that I was always alone in my peregrinations. 
 T-' On my first coming, I found three Englishmen 
 already established at the same inn, with whom I 
 immediately formed a close alliance (for John Bull, 
 so repellent at home, is gregarious enough abroad), 
 and cemented it by joining their mess in the after- 
 noon. 
 
 One of them was a major who had served under 
 Wellington, and was now making a peace-campaign 
 in Andalucia. He naturally took the command of the 
 party, and, having a passion for sunsets, led us up this 
 hill and that hill, just after dinner, with a resolution 
 worthy of one who had stood the hottest fires of 
 Badajoz and elsewhere. 
 
 We, though often on the verge of mutiny, still 
 followed with persevering obedience, and were, I 
 must own, always rewarded for the labour. I think 
 I see the gallant dapper major, with his coat buttoned 
 in defiance of temperature, flourishing his stick as he 
 marched up the steepest path, never pausing till he 
 reached the summit, and then drawing a long breath, 
 looking round in triumph, and crying, as he struck 
 his stick hard on the ground, ' Now, 'gad, sir, this is 
 what I call beautiful.' Another of these gentlemen 
 
THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE. 129 
 
 had a rather unpleasant adventure one day. He was 
 wandering about the outskirts of the town, and came 
 upon some men who were drinking at the door of a 
 ventorilla (a public-house of the ' drunk-on-the-pre- 
 mises' class). He had scarcely passed when three of 
 them ran after him, and drawing their knives de- 
 manded his watch and his money. These he surren- 
 dered, after taking note of their persons, and they let 
 him go. He immediately went to the police at 
 Granada ; two of the men, whom he identified, were 
 taken, and within a fortnight after the robbery were 
 condemned to twelve years' imprisonment, an instance 
 of summary justice which astonished the good folks 
 of Granada, who complained, perhaps with reason, 
 that a native would not have met with such speedy 
 redress. 
 
 Our little colony was further augmented by the 
 arrival of Mr. S., a gentleman whose beautiful and 
 elaborate work on Spanish art bears testimony alike 
 to his taste, his industry, and his liberality. He and 
 I went one day to see the archbishop's palace, moved 
 partly by recollections of Gil Bias and partly by a 
 report of pictures to be seen there. It is a rambling 
 dilapidated old place, full of pictures indeed, but the 
 veriest trash, one and all. Every available space from 
 cellar to garret is covered with framed daubs. The 
 collection has not suffered from any spoiler, foreign 
 or domestic, and is not likely to suffer. During our 
 visit the archbishop himself joined us. He is an old 
 man, fast approaching that state of dotage for which 
 G 3 
 
130 THE ARCHBISHOP OF GRANADA. 
 
 Archbishops of Granada have been proverbial since 
 Le Sage's time, but retained withal kindly and 
 courteous manners. He was dressed in a merino gown 
 of purple, with a velvet cap on his head, and a gold 
 crucifix hanging round his neck. He talked French, 
 which he had probably learnt only from books, for he 
 pronounced every word as if it were Spanish. He 
 inquired if we were catholics. * No, raonseigneur, 
 of the English church.' ' Ah, well,' he said, ' there 
 is not much difference ; pity that we should have 
 quarrelled so long ; you will soon be reconciled to 
 us ; yes ; Dr. Poosey, Dr. Poosey ; yes, &c.' And 
 then the good old man insisted on explaining his 
 pictures. There was one of the infant Bacchus and 
 his attendants. Pointing to the principal satyr, the 
 archbishop said, ' I don't know what that is exactly ; 
 it is either a saint or an Indian, I think/ At parting, 
 we bent one knee and kissed his hand, and received, 
 what can harm no one, an old man's blessing. 
 
 This prelate, I was told, had been banished to a 
 see in the Canary Islands on account of his Carlist 
 tendencies, and his recent appointment to Granada 
 was in accordance with the conciliatory policy adopted 
 by the present government The archbishop's 
 revenues, however, have been absorbed in the great 
 vortex of ecclesiastical ruin, and even the small 
 nominal income allotted by the state is not regularly 
 paid him. I saw him, one day afterwards, taking the 
 air, in what looked like a dilapidated hack cab. Not 
 a hat was raised nor a head bent among the bystanders, 
 
A GIPSY FESTIVAL. 131 
 
 though I dare say they went down on their knees 
 before the gilded coach of his predecessors. 
 
 During my abode at Granada, I made acquaintance 
 with a less dignified but probably more influential 
 personage, Pepe, captain of the Gipsies. He was 
 an old man, with a skin resembling that of a mummy 
 from the Sandwich Islands brown, dry, and withered 
 strangely contrasting with his lively black eyes. 
 He was dressed in the gayest Andalucian costume, 
 and wore large ear-rings. On one of their holidays 
 he came to tell me of a gipsy ' funcion,' which I 
 might witness, if I pleased to treat the performers 
 with wine. I found a considerable number of the 
 tribe assembled in the upper room of a venta, half-a- 
 mile outside the gates. Old Pepe was master of the 
 ceremonies, and led off in a strange, wild, yet mea- 
 sured chant, which reminded me of the songs of the 
 Ojibbeways. An ill-looking young man accompanied 
 him with voice and guitar, all the people about 
 joining at intervals in a savage chorus. Four 
 young women, each with a partner, danced to the 
 music. They were dressed in short gowns of gay but 
 coarse cotton, and wore some bright flowers in their 
 hair. With one exception they were singularly ugly. 
 The same features were conspicuous in all. A long 
 thin nose, high cheek bones, wide mouths, with the 
 corners tending downwards, and showing rows of 
 white teeth, long and narrow eyes, like the figures in 
 hieroglyphics, a complexion like burnt umber, and 
 jet-black shining hair. The dance was at first a mere 
 
132 A GIPSY FESTIVAL. 
 
 twisting of the arms and body, the feet remaining 
 still, but gradually, as the music grew louder and 
 louder, the paces of the dancers became fast and 
 furious, till at last they might well have rivalled even 
 the witches of Kirk Alloway. Then they stopped of 
 a sudden, and the men refreshed themselves with deep 
 draughts from the jars of wine, the women hardly 
 tasting it. As the fun9ion went on, more and more 
 swarthy faces crowded round the door and glided into 
 the room ; all, dancers or not, passing round the wine 
 jars with great alacrity. At last, after an uncon- 
 scionable quantity had been drunk, I took my leave, 
 and, to my great surprise, found the charge to be 
 about three shillings. The London monopolists 
 would hardly have supplied water at the same price. 
 Other travellers have since told me that they had 
 paid as much as a doubloon for the privilege of wit- 
 nessing a similar entertainment. Doubtless the Com- 
 missionaire, whom they employed as negotiator, inter- 
 cepted a lion's share of the price. I think Bensaken, 
 the Jew, an exception to the general rule of his craft ; 
 he seems a convert, at least, to Christian practice, 
 whatever be the justice of the aspersions thrown by 
 the Ximenez family on his orthodoxy in matters of 
 faith. 
 
 He was one day nearly overreached by a cunning 
 believer, a small well-dressed young man, with a 
 rather prepossessing countenance, who arrived by the 
 diligence from Malaga, and established himself in 
 our Fonda, He told his family and personal history 
 with charming frankness. His father was a Swiss, 
 
A SWISS ADVENTURER. 133 
 
 but by the mother's side he was the nephew of an 
 English baronet, at whose seat in Hertfordshire he 
 stayed annually for the shooting season. The morn- 
 ing after his arrival he visited the Alhambra, and on 
 returning found, to his despair, that he had lost his 
 pocket-book, containing all his cash, and what he 
 more regretted, his memoranda. He must go to 
 Madrid and see his banker. Would Bensaken lend 
 him a doubloon? The unsuspecting Jew complied. 
 Fortunately, that afternoon arrived a letter from a 
 landlord at Malaga, warning our host against trusting 
 a young Swiss, who, by dint of losing his pocket- 
 book, had succeeded in escaping from Seville, Cadiz, 
 and Malaga, without paying his bill. The heroic 
 Bensaken twisted up his moustache, assumed a cast- 
 iron expression, entered the small man's room and 
 extorted his money, in spite of tears and protesta- 
 tions. Next morning the bird was flown. How he 
 had obtained his ' viaticum' we did not know till ten 
 days after, when two ladies called upon me and 
 begged my advice. * We belong,' they said, ' to a 
 Carlist family, and had just taken advantage of the 
 amnesty to come back from England. On our way 
 from Malaga to Granada, we travelled with a short 
 young gentleman, an English Milord, he told us. 
 Next morning he called in great distress, and said he 
 had lost his pocket-book. We were softened by his 
 t ears W e had received kindness in England we 
 lent him forty dollars, which he promised to send 
 back from Madrid, and has not done so." 
 
 The scoundrel had been trading upon our national 
 
H4 AN ANGLICISED CASTILIAN. 
 
 character for honourable dealing. I assured the 
 Senoras that he was no Englishman, but, on the faint 
 chance that part of his tale might be true, I indited a 
 letter for them to the Baronet whom the fellow called 
 his uncle. Since my return to England I have heard 
 of him. 'Milor 1 is a clerk in the bureau of the 
 Hotel des Princes, Paris. 
 
 Let me say a few words about an honest man, (by 
 way of contrast,) one Senor Vazquez, who, during 
 those burning mid-day hours, when prudent people 
 stay in-doors and only fools rush out, came to teach 
 me Spanish. He was a native of Castile, and had 
 spent twenty years in England, so he was able both 
 to speak his own language and interpret it a rare 
 combination in the South of Spain. The worthy 
 man, in conjunction with a buxom Andalucian help- 
 mate, was just organizing an English boarding- 
 house in the Calle San Anton, which I cordially 
 recommend to my countrymen. He had become 
 thoroughly Protestantised and Anglicised, and had 
 imbibed some of that contempt for his own country, 
 and the things thereof, which is so observable in 
 travelled Spaniards. 
 
 He told me some quaint stories illustrative of the 
 ignorance and prejudice still lingering in the land : 
 for instance ; one day he was in company with 
 some respectable persons of the middle class, when 
 the conversation turned on an event which had just 
 occurred at Granada. A young man of the Jewish 
 persuasion had avenged the cause of Shy lock, by 
 
IGNORANCE AND PREJUDICE. 135 
 
 running off with the daughter of a Christian. 'What 
 a shame,' said one ; s very likely the poor innocent 
 children will have tails.' Some sceptic present inter- 
 posed with a doubt as to whether Jews had tails 
 really or not. The majority held that it was unques- 
 tionable; but as one or two still questioned it, the 
 dispute was referred to Seiior Vazquez, a travelled 
 man. He quietly decided the matter in the affirma- 
 tive; 'for,' said he, 'when I was in London, I saw 
 Baron Rothschild, who is a Jew of a very high caste, 
 and he had a tail as long as my arm.' So the sceptics 
 were silenced, and smoked the cigar of acquiescence. 
 
 Seiior Vazquez, however, on more important 
 points, does his best to dispel the popular ignorance. 
 He had circulated many copies of the New Testa- 
 ment in the vernacular, and had got the Lancasterian 
 System introduced into the primary school. There 
 is only one such school at Granada, attended by five 
 hundred boys, and managed, in a way, by three 
 under-paid masters. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight I was deprived of the 
 services of my instructor by a sickness very prevalent 
 during the hot months, and to which, after much 
 resistance, I also succumbed so far as to keep my bed 
 for two or three days. My notions respecting f the 
 faculty' in Spain were based upon Gil Bias ; so it was 
 with great reluctance that I consented to send for a 
 doctor, resolved, at the same time, to resist all 
 attempts at bleeding or dosing with warm water, for 
 I expected a hungry-eyed Sangrado to come in, ogre- 
 
136 AN IRISH EMIGRANT: 
 
 like, with open lancet, and a '/^-fo-fum, I smell the 
 blood of an Englishman ' However, my ^Esculapius 
 turned out the gentlest of practitioners, for he merely 
 prescribed starch and milk of almonds. Thus soothed 
 and encouraged, nature exerted her vis medicatrix, 
 and the doctor pocketed his { fee,' without having the 
 blood of an Englishman on his conscience, or lancet. 
 Seriously, it is a dreary thing to be ill in a strange 
 land, without the quiet ministrations of household 
 angels (whose visits to the sick room are neither few 
 nor far between) without even the occasional inroad 
 of a man friend, full of contagious health and spirits, 
 with a cheery ' Hollo ! old fellow,' and a hearty laugh, 
 as tonic as bark. Without these, how wearily the 
 hours go by ! One grows tired of the watching the 
 creeping shadow on the floor ; tired of listening to 
 Dolores's or Carmen's doleful ditties over the way : 
 tired even of reading about Sancho and his proverbial 
 philosophy. So it was a pleasant change to me when 
 a waiter came to say that a poor Englishman below 
 wanted to speak to me. He was requested to walk 
 up, and thereupon entered a gaunt, bony body, almost 
 in rags, and a face ugly, weather-beaten, good 
 humoured, fringed with shaggy locks, and crowned 
 by a worse hat than ever shocked the baker-boys of 
 the Strand. Yet there was an appearance of cheer- 
 ful content in the midst of dilapidation and decay. I 
 was sure he was an Irishman before he spoke ; he was 
 so like one of the unthatched, un-everythinged hovels 
 of his country, which, neglected by man, have still 
 
HIS TALE OF DISTRESS. 137 
 
 their share of the blessed sunshine. ' I beg yer 
 honour's pardon, but hearing that ye were an English- 
 man, and as I'm from Ireland and a counthryman, I 
 
 may say, of yer honour's, Imadebould ' (Bravo ! 
 
 Patrick, I'll back your instincts against Lord Lynd- 
 hurst's reasoning you're not aliens at heart.) So I 
 made Patrick sit down and tell me how he had wan- 
 dered to Granada. 
 
 His story was a long and sad story, but told cheer- 
 fully and manfully, without the least of that whine 
 which hardens one's heart against the mendicant. 
 He had come to Barcelona to work in a projected 
 railway, which is a project still ; so finding no work 
 forthcoming there, he wandered to Madrid, where he 
 arrived in time to see the attempted revolution of 
 March, 1848. He found a poor girl lying in the 
 street, her ankle shattered by a musket-ball. She 
 addressed him in English, told him she was lady's- 
 maid to Mrs. S., a lady then living in Madrid. So, 
 at considerable risk to himself, he carried her home. 
 [It happened, oddly enough, that I was acquainted 
 with this very family at Madrid, (most kind and ex- 
 cellent people) and had heard from Mrs. S. the whole 
 story. The poor girl's foot was amputated. She had 
 been wantonly and deliberately fired at by the troops 
 of the government, and had received no compensa- 
 tion, although the Duke of Valencia had given his 
 palabra (Anglice, ( palaver,') that she should. On the 
 morning of the revolt she had walked out, innocent of 
 any coming disturbance, carrying her mistress's little 
 
138 PATRICK'S CHANGE OF FORTUNE. 
 
 dog in her arms, and her first words on being brought 
 home were, ' Thank God ! ma'am, they haven't shot 
 Fido.' To return to my Milesian friend.] Colonel 
 S. got him a situation in the quicksilver mines of 
 Almaden. There, by inhaling metal instead of air, 
 all his teeth dropped out, and he became so ill that 
 he could work no more. So he wandered to Cadiz, 
 hoping to find a ship in which he could work his pas- 
 sage back to England, but, failing, walked to Gibraltar, 
 thence to Malaga, and finally to Granada. To crown 
 his misfortunes, some one had robbed him of his only 
 dollar, and he arrived with nothing in his pockets but 
 a tattered Testament (Patrick happened to be a Pro- 
 testant). He intended to walk to Madrid and try * if 
 anything would turn up.' I sent him with a note to 
 
 the Condesa de R (an English lady, married to a 
 
 Spanish nobleman at Granada). 'Dear me, Sir,' 
 said the poor fellow, deprecatingly, ' I never saw a 
 Countess in my life. I daren't go.' However, I told 
 him she was an Englishwoman, and a very kind 
 woman too, and at last he went. Next day he came 
 back, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, blessing the 
 day and the hour when he first saw a Countess. He 
 had been a groom in his youth, and the Condesa had 
 permitted him to stay and help in the stable, till she 
 could find him a permanent place with some of her 
 friends. So I hope Patrick's wanderings are over for 
 awhile. 
 
139 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WHEN I first unrolled the map of Spain at home, 
 and projected my future tour, there was one 
 portion of it which, above all, attracted my imagina- 
 tion the district lying between the Sierra Nevada 
 and the Mediterranean. It was plentifully seamed 
 with those skeletons of sprats which are the geogra- 
 phical symbols for mountain ridges, the round dots 
 which indicate towns were labelled with unheard-of 
 names, and it was intersected by nojie of those double 
 lines which betoken carriageable roads, and, by con- 
 sequence, coaching-inns and a modicum of civiliza- 
 tion. Finally, the title ' Alpujarrez,' bestriding the 
 whole tract in capital letters, had something oriental 
 in the very sound, and, accordingly, one of my first 
 cares after arriving at Granada was to inquire, not 
 whether a tour in the Alpujarrez were possible, 
 (nothing out of the way is ever possible,) but how the 
 impossibility might be done best, and most com- 
 fortably. 
 
 Now my friend Mr. S. had to go to Almeria, so we 
 agreed to journey together as far as Ujihar. 
 
 Up to this time I had been sailing down the main 
 stream of travel, bespeaking many little crafts by the 
 way, most of them bearing * London' legible in the 
 
140 TOUR IN TIIE ALPUJARREZ. 
 
 cut of their sails, but now I was to adventure myself 
 up a by-creek, rarely seen by a trans-Pyrenean, 
 ' Never comes the trader, never floats an European 
 flag.' So it was naturally with high glee that I set 
 about getting in stores and pilot for the voyage. 
 
 To drop metaphor: I looked out for a pony, 
 saddlebags, and servant. I was recommended to one 
 Miguel, who had quadrupeds and bipeds of the 
 requisite kind to let This Miguel was otherwise 
 called 'Napoleon,' and, indeed, his small stature, 
 plump figure, and metallic countenance, gave him 
 some resemblance to his hero eponymus. He made 
 loud professions of incorruptible honesty, but I after- 
 wards had reason to think him no better than the rest 
 of his craft. He deluded me, though born in the far 
 north, and a Yorkshireman into the bargain. 
 
 Our horses were ordered to be ready at 12 o'clock 
 P.M. punctually, as the stroke of the chimes separated 
 the 31st of July from the 1st of August. It takes 
 long to rouse a man from his first sleep, and of course 
 longer to rouse two men ; then there were multifarious 
 arrangements to transact respecting saddlebags and 
 stirrups, and it was one in the morning before the 
 cavalcade defiled out of Granada on to the plain. 
 The moon had set, and the starlight would have 
 hardly sufficed to indicate the road (for hedges are 
 rare in Spain), had we not been guided by the songs 
 of our three attendants. Your Spaniard always sings 
 incessantly when he is not smoking, and fitfully when 
 he is. So we followed leisurely in the wake of the 
 
A TRICK OF TBADE. 141 
 
 music, talking neither of Boabdil nor Pulgar, but of 
 old Cambridge men, as famous in their way Jack 
 This and Tom That just as if we had been riding to 
 Trumpington, and as if the Gog-Magogs and not the 
 Sierra Nevada had been looming on our left. 
 
 It was still dark when we reached the summit of 
 the hill called ' the Sigh of the Moor,' where Boabdil, 
 just discrowned, looked back, for the last time, on the 
 towers of the Alhambra, over which gleamed the 
 silver cross that had replaced the waning crescent. 
 We looked back too, and could trace a dim outline, 
 whether of crumbling ruin or jagged hill we could 
 not tell, and just over it the bright stars that never 
 wane. 
 
 At last day dawned, and with it a somewhat un- 
 pleasant discovery. In my negotiations with ' Napo- 
 leon,' I had expressly stipulated that my attendant 
 squire should be young and active and cheerful, 
 able to cook an omelette, or fight a bandit, or tell a 
 story, according to order. The imperial word had 
 been pledged to that effect; but lo! when I first 
 beheld my man by the light of day, I found him old, 
 toothless, and dirty, with a scrubby stubble of a 
 beard, resembling that grown by Mr. Macready in the 
 interval between the third and fourth acts of Macbeth, 
 when remorse for the murder of Duncan has made 
 him neglectful of his person. The fellow proved to be 
 sulky, and a knave into the bargain like master like 
 man. However, there was no remedy, so, as the 
 habit of our nation is. I grumbled, and rode quietly 
 
142 THE RAVINE OF TABI ETE. 
 
 on my way. We were skirting the extreme south- 
 western bases of the Sierra, and our path now lay 
 along the breast of a hill, now dipped into the bed 
 of a torrent, by which the mountain waters had 
 found a way to the valley lying below on our 
 right. The bounteous husbandry of nature had been 
 repaid by a luxuriant growth of maize and flax, and 
 poplars and mulberries. The hill-sides are plentifully 
 sprinkled with white villages, each nestling in its 
 own green orchards, from the midst of which rises 
 the church spire, crowned with a vane, that glittered 
 in the morning sun like a star above the holy 
 place. 
 
 This same morning sun, however, begins to beat 
 so fiercely on our heads, that we must make all speed 
 to Lanjaron. We halt, nevertheless, for a lew 
 minutes to survey the ravine of Tablete, which is 
 deeper, wider, and more precipitous than any we 
 have yet seen. It is crossed by a lofty bridge of one 
 single arch, and was the scene of a desperate 
 struggle between the Spaniards and the Moors during 
 the revolt of the Alpujarrez. My companion had 
 brought a copy of Marmol in his saddle-bags, so we 
 read the account of it at our first resting place. It 
 was past nine before we came in sight of Lanjaron. 
 The place lying in a hollow, is concealed till you are 
 close upon it. The prospect which then burst upon 
 us, cheering from its own exquisite beauty, was 
 rendered still more cheering to us by the promise it 
 afforded of rest and shade and breakfast. In the 
 
LANJARON. 143 
 
 centre of a deep ravine rises a rock, steep and abrupt 
 towards the valley, and crowned with a ruined 
 castle, but connected by a natural causeway with the 
 sloping hill behind, where cluster the white terraces 
 of Lanjaron. As the place is much resorted to by 
 the rank and fashion of the Alpujarrez for its mineral 
 waters, we had expected to find a fonda (or hotel), 
 but we were deceived. There was only a posada, 
 and that very primitive and oriental. The room to 
 which we were conducted was furnished with four 
 walls, bare but for whitewash ; to these were subse- 
 quently added a rude table and a couple of stools, by 
 the aid of which we managed to eat our own provisions 
 and drink our own wine. The table being removed, 
 two straw mattrasses were laid on the floor, covered, 
 to do them justice, with snowy sheets (indeed, the 
 linen is always beautifully white), and on these we 
 slept off our weariness, and rose refreshed to dinner 
 at three. By four we were again in the saddle. On 
 emerging from the narrow streets, we crept in single 
 file up a narrow and rugged bridle-path which skirts 
 the opposite hill. 
 
 Our necessarily slow progress gave us an oppor- 
 tunity of contemplating the slopes we were leaving 
 behind us a sight not soon to be forgotten, lit as 
 they were by the evening sun, and rich in the deep 
 sheeny foliage of chesnut, walnut, and fig-tree. In 
 about an hour we came to the olive-groves of Orgiba. 
 Before entering the village we made a digression to 
 the right, in order to see a famous old olive-tree, 
 
144 THE OLIVE-GROVES OF ORGIRA. 
 
 which had been specially commended to us before 
 leaving Granada, as the pride of the Alpujarrez 
 and the wonder of all the Spains. It is, indeed, a 
 monster, fourteen yards round the trunk (they told 
 us), and believed by the natives to be about two 
 thousand years old. It may have yielded its fruit to 
 Iberian, Carthaginian, and Roman masters, as well 
 as to the Goth, the Moor, and the Spaniard. 
 
 Well might proud tales be told of tlieo, 
 Last of the solemn wood ! 
 
 But the quotation is not quite applicable, for hard by is 
 another monster, scarcely less, and probably quite as 
 old. They are the most picturesque trees of the kind 
 I ever saw. An olive in its prime has neither beauty 
 nor grace ; it is only tolerable when, gnarled and con- 
 torted by time, it has reached a fantastic antiquity. 
 
 Thence we made a short cut by certain water- 
 courses, which, being constructed on hydrostatical 
 principles, were decidedly ill adapted for equestrian 
 travel. However, the animals walked over stepping- 
 stones and scrambled down mimic cascades quite 
 naturally, and we finally found our level in the 
 sandy bed of what must be a great river in winter 
 time. We had now to make choice of two roads, 
 one continuing along the river bed as it wound 
 among the rocks, and the other climbing the hill by 
 the puerto. We chose the latter, for the path on the 
 bare mountain side was full in the moonlight, while 
 the other was sunk in black shadow. As we rode on, 
 we saw to our left the great bluff rocks, which almost 
 
VENTA DE TORISCON. 145 
 
 kiss over the stream, and form what is called the An- 
 gostura del Rio. These rocks, blanched in the bright 
 moonlight, contrasted strangely with the intense 
 gloom of the cleft between them. On the top of the 
 pass we came upon a kind of wigwam, where two or 
 three of the guardia, or rural police, were lodged. 
 We gave them a few reals and a draught of wine, 
 receiving in return the usual ( Vaya listed con Dios.' 
 We soon began to descend by a path so steep 
 and rugged, that it resembled a staircase with the 
 stairs omitted ; however, we got down safely, 
 thanks to the nimbleness of our steeds. It is 
 not like the nimbleness we are accustomed to in 
 horses bold, rushing, and impetuous, but a crafty 
 and wary nimbleness, resembling that of a cat. 
 Indeed, so like are their ways to the ways of cats, 
 that in urging them to leap, one almost involuntarily 
 addresses them with, ' Puss, puss !' At the bottom 
 is a very picturesque mill, where the tendrils of a 
 thick vine dip and sway in the mimic waterfall. We 
 followed, as before, the bed of a stream, fringed with 
 willows and oleanders ; and finally, about ten o'clock, 
 reached the rude Venta de Toriscon, where we were 
 to halt for the night, or part of it. All the good 
 folks, host and guests, had retired already to rest ; 
 that is to say, some half dozen were lying in the 
 archway, with their saddles for pillows, and half-a- 
 dozen more were stretched on the stones outside the 
 door, with no pillow at all. We supped outside, 
 under extraordinary difficulties as regarded table 
 CAZ. H 
 
146 RAVINE OF THE MASSACRE. 
 
 and chairs. Of course the meal was furnished from 
 the contents of our own saddlebags. Contrary to 
 our expectation, there was a vacant upper chamber, 
 on the floor of which two beds were speedily laid, 
 and two bodies as speedily laid upon them. The 
 window was unglazed, and the doorway was unpro- 
 vided with a door but what did that matter to 
 men too sleepy to fear actual draughts or possible 
 daggers ? 
 
 Having six leagues to ride to breakfast, we were 
 off at least an hour before dawn. Our road, as before, 
 lay along the dry, gravelly beds of rivers, very good 
 smooth roads indeed, but liable to interruption. 
 How the good folks of the Alpujarrez journey in 
 winter Sabe Dios! The whole ride to Ujihar is 
 exceedingly uninteresting. On each side, the travel- 
 ler's view is bounded by a steep bank of earth, and 
 the road generally resembles a railway-cutting. 
 About ten o'clock we came to the Barranco de la 
 Matanza, * Ravine of the Massacre,' so called from 
 the disastrous rout of the brave Marquis of Cadiz 
 and the flower of Andalucian chivalry, bemoaned in 
 many a patriotic ballad. Even my stupid old guide 
 roused himself to an unwonted effort, and told me 
 the story. Immediate after, we came upon Ujihar, a 
 truly Moorish village, with flat roofs and latticed 
 windows, with green plots of garden scattered among 
 
 the gleaming white walls. S said it reminded 
 
 him of Nazareth. I have never since heard the word 
 ' Nazareth,' even at church God forgive me ! with- 
 
DEFECTIVE LARDER. 147 
 
 out thinking of Ujihar, as it lay basking, so still and 
 quiet, in the glare of that August sunshine. 
 
 While breakfast was getting ready, we strolled up 
 to the church, a gaunt, unattractive edifice, with 
 nothing to show, except, indeed, some daubs in the 
 vestry, representing conflagrations and massacres, and 
 a variety of atrocities said to have been committed 
 by the Moors upon the Christians, during their 
 famous revolt. I dare say the Moors have a long 
 per contra account, if one only knew. 
 
 At five o'clock I separated, with great regret, from 
 my companion, he, with his two attendants, taking 
 the road to Almeria, while I, followed by my dilapi- 
 dated esquire, turned inland towards Mairena, a little 
 village visible on the mountain side about a league 
 off, where I had determined to stay for the night. 
 
 The posada presented the most wretched arid 
 forlorn aspect, and the accommodation inside did 
 not belie the promise of its exterior. To my in- 
 quiries respecting supper (my readers must pardon 
 my perpetual references to the victualling depart- 
 ment, for really these mountain rides develop an 
 appetite unknown to persons engaged in the more 
 usual sedentary occupations of life) I say, then, to 
 my inquiries respecting supper I received most dis- 
 heartening replies. I ran through the whole gamut 
 of larder and pantry in a descending scale, lessening 
 my demands as I went on. ' Had they any mutton ?' 
 I asked <No.' 'Chicken?' < No.' 'Bacon?' -< No.' 
 Eggs ?' < No.' Wine ?' No.* < Bread ?' < No.' 
 
 H2 
 
148 PRIMITIVE POPULATION. 
 
 Here was a predicament ! and my saddlebags were 
 emptied (chiefly, I believe, by the surreptitious 
 nibbling of my Sancho.) However, they promised 
 to send out and buy some bread and wine ; and I 
 also stipulated for some mulberries, for I had seen 
 many trees by the wayside jewelled with rich purple 
 fruit. While this primitive repast was being pro- 
 vided, I wandered about the environs of the hamlet. 
 Some of the women, sitting at their open doors, were 
 singularly beautiful, Medoras or Gulnares all, in 
 striking contrast with the women of Ujihar or Lan- 
 jaron. Just out of the village I saw several families, 
 each on its own 'era,* or thrashing-floor, busily 
 engaged in beating out the corn. The dress of the 
 men was exceedingly primitive, consisting of a shirt, 
 and wide drawers reaching to the knee, which were, 
 or had been, white. My appearance and northern 
 complexion seemed to excite their wonder: long 
 after I had gone by, on turning round I could see 
 them still pausing in their work to gaze after me. A 
 passing stranger is a sight passing strange at Mairena. 
 On returning to the posada I was shown into a 
 kind of loft, with a square aperture for window, 
 which seemed by its appearance to have been in 
 quiet possession of the hens from time immemorial, 
 and was, besides, insufferably close. I tried to con- 
 vince the good hostess that eggs and chickens were 
 the logical sequence of hens, but in vain; so I was 
 obliged to content myself with bread and fruit and 
 wine, as aforesaid. I had a table and chair set out 
 
A MIDNIGHT GUEST. 149 
 
 upon the flat roof, which commanded a grand view 
 of the whole wild district, ridge upon ridge, and 
 valley beyond valley. Here and there, high up in 
 the lap of some great, grim, brown and grey moun- 
 tain, was perched a white hamlet, with its own green 
 fringe of orchard, and through a gap in the ridge 
 towards the south-east, I could see the deep blue 
 Mediterranean, and I could even make out some sails 
 upon it, as they glittered against the rising moon. 
 Meanwhile, I was rather pestered with three old 
 women, who surrounded the table, taking huge 
 delight in seeing me eat, and asking various ques- 
 tions, such as, whether England was in France? 
 and what I had done to my hair to make it brown ? 
 
 About an hour after nightfall, the various members 
 of the family disposed themselves to sleep upon the 
 roof; and I, thinking men's company better than 
 hens', followed their example, and lay down close to 
 the table, on which remained some relics of supper. 
 In the middle of the night I was awakened by a 
 stealthy step close by me, and, looking up, I saw a 
 strange, wild figure of a man, all in rags. He was 
 walking to and fro beside the table, evidently han- 
 kering after the viands thereon. At last he pounced 
 upon them, and began coolly to break the bread and 
 dip it in the wine. Before devouring each morsel, 
 he held it up towards the moon, at arm's length, and, 
 waving it to and fro, muttered, 'Thanks be unto 
 thee, O Madonna, most holy.' I was amused at his 
 thus breaking two commandments, and thanking the 
 
150 NOCTURNAL DISTURBANCES. 
 
 Virgin Mary or the moon, whichever it might be by 
 whose countenance he was stealing ; but as he looked 
 very lean and poor, I did not interrupt his feast by 
 any sign of wakefulness. 
 
 I had scarcely dropt to sleep again, before I was 
 roused by a loud shriek ; then there was a scuffle ; 
 all the family started to their feet ; the men swore, 
 the women screamed, and then ensued such a be- 
 wildered Babel of chattering, that I in vain tried to 
 make myself heard, and discover the cause of the 
 disturbance. As it was past three, 1 rose, and or- 
 dered the horses out. My guide (save the mark !) 
 now acknowledged to me that he had only once 
 travelled that way twenty-five years ago, so the 
 landlord, anxious, as I thought, to escape from the 
 still screaming womankind, volunteered to accom- 
 pany me till daybreak. On the way he told me 
 the cause of the tumult. Some ill-conditioned ad- 
 mirer of his daughter's had clambered in at the 
 window of the loft where she was sleeping. It was 
 her shriek which brought the father to the summary 
 expulsion of the intruder. ' But for your worship's 
 presence,' he said, ' I would have stabbed the villain 
 then and there.' 
 
 Deeds of blood are not unfamiliar in the Alpu- 
 jarrez, to judge from the number of mortuary 
 crosses we passed about half-a-league from Mairena. 
 Mine host could not, or would not, give me any 
 information respecting them. All he would say 
 was, ' Tiempo de los Moros.' Some looked' as if 
 
SPANISH STOICISM. 151 
 
 they had been erected in the year 1849. We fol- 
 lowed a rugged path over the side of a bleak wild 
 hill, until, after crossing the rocky bed of a torrent, 
 it merged in a more beaten track, and by-and-bye 
 we overtook a fine bright-eyed lad, riding on a mule. 
 He came, he told me, from Arolles (one of the moun- 
 tain hamlets I had, seen from Mairena), and he was 
 very communicative with respect to the place and all 
 it contained. He was just telling me how, the day 
 before, the only child of an arriero had been drowned 
 in a well, his father being absent at Calahorra (the 
 place I was bound for), when we descried in the dis- 
 tance a train of mules. On nearer approach we 
 could see a man riding on the last mule, with arms 
 folded and head bent, neither smoking nor singing. 
 ' That,' said the boy, ' is the poor father.' ' Ah, Don 
 Diego,' he cried, when we met him, ' sad news from 
 Arolles.' ' Ya lo se,' replied the father quietly, and 
 rode on. The ill news had 'flown fast. There was 
 not a trace of emotion on the father's face ; the 
 wound, doubtless, as deep wounds do, was bleeding 
 inwardly. After leaving the boy, whose heavily- 
 laden beast could not keep pace with ours, my pre- 
 cious guide lost his way and mine, so we had at last 
 to dismount, and scramble down the side of a hill 
 so steep, that I was compelled to clutch the shrubs 
 which grew here and there among the stones and 
 shale. I expected every moment to see our horses 
 roll neck-over-heels down, as their fore-feet are not 
 adapted for clutching ; but no, they managed to 
 
152 GUAD1X. 
 
 scramble safe and sound (at least as sound as ever) 
 to the bottom, and so did Sancho, whose neck, I sup- 
 pose, is reserved for another fate. We were now 
 descending the north-eastern slopes of the Sierra, 
 and looking over a wide plain, dotted at intervals 
 with natural mounds. One of these, almost at our 
 feet, was crowned with a castle, evidently Moorish, 
 but showing traces of recent repairs. At its base 
 was the little village of Calahorra, which we reached 
 at last, an hour before noon. 
 
 The posada was a great improvement on the last, 
 and furnished me with plenty of ham and eggs. I 
 should have enjoyed the soundest siesta, but for im- 
 pertinent interruptions from martens, whose mud- 
 nests formed a novel kind of cornice to the chamber. 
 
 A pleasant evening ride of three hours brought 
 me to Guadix, where I lodged in a large and, com- 
 paratively speaking, comfortable posada outside the 
 gates. This town (I beg its pardon), this city, boasts 
 of a cathedral, an alameda, and last, not least, a 
 neveria, or ice -shop. Its narrow streets, hemmed in 
 by mediaeval walls and towers, present some very 
 striking and artistic combinations. There was a fair 
 going on, and it was all alive with bustle down to a 
 late hour of the night, and the ways, strait enough 
 already, were further blocked up with rude booths, 
 lit with many lanterns, and frequented by crowds of 
 customers. 
 
 We resumed our journey at dawn. The road from 
 Diesma leads through a picturesque defile. I re- 
 
MOLINILLO. 153 
 
 marked the great earth banks, seamed and rent by 
 winter rains ; here and there occurred a large stone, 
 which, having protected the earth beneath from the 
 water, stood out isolated upon a pillar of its own, 
 like those on the Mer-de- Glace, which are formed 
 by an analogous process. About ten I reached Moli- 
 nillo, a little mill, as the name imports, situated in a 
 shady place, in a deep quiet glen, over which looks 
 down the snow-streaked peak of Muleyhacen. The 
 drowsy sound of the mill-wheel accompanied my 
 siesta a superfluous lullaby. 
 
 In the afternoon there arrived a spruce gentleman, 
 an architect, he told me, of Granada, who proposed 
 to join me in my ride thither. I gladly complied, 
 because, in the first place, I was tired of the society 
 of my ( guide ;' and, secondly, the road we had to 
 traverse bears an evil repute for robberies and assas- 
 sinations. We, ' thanks to our good luck or the 
 guardia civil, came to no harm, and admired at our 
 ease the fantastic ridges of grey rock that rose around 
 our path at every turn. After sunset, the whole earth 
 and air seemed alive with the shrill chirp of the 
 grilles (or crickets), which take up by night the 
 chorus of the cicalas by day. And we, chatting 
 almost as continuously as the grillos chirped, rode 
 by moonlight back to Granada. 
 
 H3 
 
154 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 I HAVE a great passion for hill-climbing, and 
 never see peak or ridge, however remote, without 
 feeling an insane longing to be on the top of it. This 
 is a weakness no one need be ashamed to confess, as 
 it is shared by Mr. Justice Talfourd, and others of 
 the wisest and best of our time. I remember, at my 
 first school (whither I was sent at a tender age, in 
 compliance with the national principle, that a mother's 
 kisses may spoil a child, but a big boy's kicks cannot,) 
 that I had a certain copy-book, on the outside of 
 which was depicted Aurora in her aerial car, with a 
 range of blue mountains in the distance, and I never 
 could look at this picture without feeling ready to cry 
 for spite, that I was condemned to slave at pothooks 
 instead of being free to rove about hills like those. 
 At another school, when a big boy myself, I have 
 incurred the penalties of truantry, and risked my 
 chance of being ' at the top of the tree,' solely for the 
 pleasure of spending a long, hungry summer's day on 
 the tops of the hills. This passion has since been 
 fostered by Wordsworth, piqued by those gigantesque 
 failures the Gog-Magogs, and not extinguished by 
 long indulgence among Apennines and Alps. So 
 that when I saw the Peak of Veleta rising deep 
 
EXPEDITION TO THE PEAK OF VELETA. 155 
 
 purple, with a fringe of gold, against the morning sky, 
 receding at mid-day into misty distance, and then, as 
 evening came on, approaching once more with a rosy 
 smile, I felt that I should leave a want unsatisfied if 
 I departed from Granada without attempting the 
 ascent. Not that the feat involves any danger, or 
 much difficulty. High as its elevation is (nearly 
 thirteen thousand feet), from the absence of glaciers it 
 does not present the same obstacles as many lower 
 peaks and passes of the Alps. This time, warned by 
 experience, I assured myself of a trusty guide (worthy 
 the name) in the person of Jose Villegas, who had, 
 when a boy, tended goats on the Sierra, and was 
 well acquainted with all its recesses. The saddlebags 
 were loaded with provisions for three days (as if we 
 had been ancient Greeks going on an expedition), 
 consisting of cold fowl, ham, cheese, and bread, 
 besides two great leathern scriptural bottles (filled 
 with wine), and I am ashamed to say how many 
 cigars. 
 
 Thus equipped, we started at three o'clock one fine 
 afternoon in the middle of August. Our path lay, at 
 first, over a bare, brown tract, then along steep hill- 
 sides, occasionally skirting abrupt precipices of earth. 
 Then, as we dipped down towards a stream, we came 
 upon patches of cultivation, and passed more than 
 one cortijo, or farm-house. We made all haste, but 
 night had fallen some time before we descended the 
 rugged way which leads to the Cortijo San Geronimo, 
 where we were to rest ourselves and horses. Jose 
 
156 LOCAL LEGENDS. 
 
 beguiled the way by repeating a number of legends, 
 which he had heard in his youth from the shep- 
 herds of the Sierra. Several of these related to the 
 * Laguna de Vacaras,' a small deep lake, embosomed 
 high in the mountains. One ran thus : A shepherd 
 was tending his flock by the side of the lake, and 
 there came two men in strange dress, one holding an 
 open book, and the other a fishing-net. And the 
 man read from his book, and said, ' Cast the net.' 
 And he cast it, and drew up a black horse. And he 
 with the book said, * This is not it; cast again.' And 
 he cast and drew up a pied horse. And he with the 
 book said, This is not it ; cast again.' And he cast 
 and drew up a white horse. And he with the book 
 said, * This is it.' And they both mounted on the 
 white horse and rode away, and the shepherd saw 
 them no more. 
 
 These shepherds believe that some day the lake 
 will burst through the mountain and destroy Granada. 
 One night a shepherd, standing by the lake, heard a 
 voice say, 
 
 Shall I strike and break the dike? 
 Shall I drown Granada Town? 
 
 And another voice answered, * Not yet.' Another 
 tale was about a friar, and how he met the devil by 
 the lake side. These legends, Jose said, he had heard 
 the shepherds tell of an evening when sitting in 
 their huts together. In their vague and purpose- 
 less character, they resemble rather the fictions of 
 Northern than those of Southern Europe. It may be, 
 
FRUITLESS COMPLAINT. .157 
 
 however, that they have 'hung round the mountains' 
 since the Moorish days. 
 
 The cortijo was so full that it was with difficulty 
 that Jose found a place to lay out the contents of the 
 saddlebags for supper. 
 
 Besides women and children without number, there 
 were a lot of soldiers, who lived there, during the 
 summer months, to take care of several hundred 
 horses, and with a non-commissioned officer to take 
 care of them. It seems that these dehesas, or moun- 
 tain pastures, formerly monastic property, have now 
 been resumed by the crown, and of late years the 
 government have sent the young horses intended for 
 cavalry service to the Sierra to escape the summer 
 heats, and find the herbage which the scorched 
 central plains do not afford. An English trainer 
 would stare if he saw the rugged pastures to which 
 they are consigned. It is here, doubtless, that they 
 acquire those cat-like qualities which I have before 
 mentioned as characteristic of Spanish horses. I was 
 provided with a clean-looking bed, but, alas, I had 
 scarcely laid down, when I was assailed by myriads of 
 chinches (known to English ears by an unsavoury 
 monosyllable), whose continued attacks, in the guerilla 
 style, made me repent a thousand times that I had not 
 made my bed upon the stones outside, like Jose. 
 When I complained to the master of the house of my 
 fellow-lodgers, he replied quietly, ' Yes ! it's the 
 season for them.' So I was glad to get on horseback 
 at midnight, followed by Jose and one of the soldiers, 
 
ASCENT OF THE PEAK OF VELETA I 
 
 of whose services we should stand in need by-and- 
 bye. 
 
 There was no moonlight, and the mountain pre- 
 sented to the eye a vast black mass, only starred here 
 and there by the ruddy gleam of the shepherds' fires. 
 As we ascended, the cold grew more and more in- 
 tense, and the stars above shone sharp and clear (as 
 on a frosty winter's night), unmellowed by any inter- 
 vening mist We had occasionally to dismount, and 
 let our horses follow us over some unusually rough 
 and stony tract, where Nature seemed to have carted 
 her rubbish ; our progress was, therefore, slow, and 
 the dawn had already begun to break when we reached 
 the furthest point accessible, even to Spanish horses, 
 perhaps a thousand feet below the summit of the 
 peak. We left our animals in the soldier's care, with 
 directions to meet us in a valley lower down to the 
 left, and commenced the ascent on foot. I made 
 great efforts to reach the top before sunrise, efforts 
 painful enough in that rarefied atmosphere, and per- 
 haps somewhat dangerous withal, for during several 
 days after I continued partially deaf, my ears being 
 swollen internally. I succeeded, however, in reaching 
 the top just as the sun was rising out of the waters. 
 It was a sight worth any effort, short of breaking a 
 blood-vessel. The mountain up whose steep slopes 
 we had been climbing breaks away towards the east 
 in sheer precipices, at the foot of which is a deep 
 gorge, choked with never-melting snow. The cliffs 
 fronting the sun were bathed in a greenish light. At 
 
VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT. 159 
 
 our feet lay the Alpujarrez, a very jumble of moun- 
 tains, as if in full revolt still ; and beyond that the 
 great sea. A thin haze brooded over its surface, and 
 prevented any reflection of the morning light, so that 
 it looked, not like water, but a nether heaven star- 
 less, colourless, and void ; not boundless, however, 
 for we could see the coast of Africa stretching away 
 beyond, in a dim, wavy line. 
 
 Gibraltar was hidden by a dark cloud, which the 
 most ardently patriotic eyes would have striven in 
 vain to penetrate ; but the mountains beyond Malaga 
 were clearly visible. 
 
 Looking westward, the shadow of the mountain 
 was projected in a dark purple cone, and far to the 
 north we could see over successive Sierras into La 
 Mancha and Castile; while, just below, the whole 
 vega of Granada, with its towns and woods, was spread 
 as distinct as a model. 
 
 Very near the summit are some rude stone build- 
 ings in ruins, doubtless the remnant of the watch- 
 tower from which the peak derives its name. Jose, 
 however, had his legend ready for them : * Once upon 
 a time,' he said, there was a Moor, very old and very 
 wise, and he brought his people up to the Picacho, 
 and they dwelt here in these houses for seven years 
 and a day. And during all that time there was no 
 rain nor storm. And at the end of the seven years 
 and a day the old Moor looked out over the sea, and 
 he saw rising up a little cloud, like a man's hand, and 
 he said, ( My children, let us go, for there is a storm 
 
160 A GERMAN BOTANIST. 
 
 coming.' So they went, and the storm came and 
 scattered their houses into ruins, as you see them 
 now.' 
 
 Near the top of the peak nothing grows, except a 
 kind of cushion-grass and the dwarf manzanilla, which 
 is much prized by the cullers of simples. The Sierra, 
 however, is rich in botanical treasures. Two years 
 ago, a German established himself in a cave on the 
 mountain side, for the purpose of collecting plants. 
 He had hired an attendant from Granada, but the 
 man soon ran away, thinking his master uncanny, 
 Nevertheless, the indefatigable botanist lived on alone 
 for some months in his cave, too bold to care for 
 wolves, too poor to fear robbers, and too much of a 
 philosopher to be scared at goblins. Several persons 
 at Granada mentioned the fact, but no one could 
 remember his name. 
 
 Jose, my myth-loving guide, assured me that 
 Moorish doctors frequently came over from Africa to 
 gather certain e med'cinable' herbs, found only here. 
 The story is in some degree accredited by the fact, 
 that Granada, before the conquest, used to be a 
 favourite place of resort for invalids from the neigh- 
 bouring continent, insomuch that a part of the city 
 especially frequented was called the Hospital of 
 Africa. So the Sierra may enjoy a traditionary repu- 
 tation among the Moors, for we have all heard with 
 what fond regret they remember the fair kingdom 
 which has been ravished from them. 
 
 After walking some time by the edge of the 
 
AN ARCADIAN SHEPHERD. 161 
 
 precipice we descended to the appointed hollow, and 
 found our horses enjoying themselves mightily on 
 the short green grass a rare luxury. 
 
 We lost no time in following their example, with 
 appetites sharper than the mountain peaks and keener 
 than the morning air. A large flat stone served for 
 table, and a little pure stream close by, still fringed 
 with ice of last night's freezing, served to cool our 
 wine. After the feast we all slept for three hours in 
 the warm sunshine, which, at an elevation of ten 
 thousand feet, does not bake the baskers. 
 
 Shortly after recommencing our descent, I dis- 
 missed the soldier, happy with a fortnight's pay, 
 and then we went on by the Perias Resbaladizas, or 
 'slippery rocks,' in some places well deserving the 
 name. Passing a pretty little cascade, we rode for a 
 mile or two down an artificial water- course, made to 
 fertilize, or rather create pasturage, where the hills 
 slope down to the bed (I should say cradle) of the 
 new-born Xenil. Here we found a large flock of 
 milk-white goats, under the charge of a solitary goat- 
 herd, who was encased in leather of a picturesque 
 cut, and was leaning on his crook, just like the frontis- 
 piece to a Pastoral. I offered him a draught from 
 my bottle, which one may always do without fastidious 
 qualms, for the poor men, with instinctive politeness, 
 do not touch it with their lips, but drink in the 
 Catalan fashion that is, they hold the bottle up 
 some distance from their mouths, and let the wine 
 flow at its own sweet will down their throats. 
 
162 THE RAVINE OF SAN JUAN. 
 
 Here we diverged a little to the right to have a 
 peep into the wild ravine of Guarnon, and about 
 four in the afternoon came upon a cluster of shep- 
 herds' tents, pitched in gipsy fashion close by a little 
 runlet of water, husbanded with great care, and made 
 to trickle through hollow reeds. The occupants were 
 old acquaintances of Jose, who thereupon made the 
 opportune discovery that our horses wanted half-an- 
 hour's rest. We accordingly complied with their 
 hospitable invitation to enter, and I was forthwith 
 comfortably installed on a pile of fleeces. The men 
 were all engaged in occupations more useful than 
 ornamental. One was sewing a pair of sheep- skin 
 breeches for his little boy. What would Lope or 
 Montemayor say to the degenerate descendants of 
 their shepherds, who never condescended to make 
 anything humbler than a sonnet? However, our 
 friends seemed quite happy and contented, unskilled 
 as they appeared to be in the refinements of love 
 and the metaphysics of despair ' Arcadiens sans le 
 savoir.' Leaving the huts, we passed the ravine of 
 San Juan, rich in green marble, says the Hand- 
 book, though I saw no quarries, and could not con- 
 ceive how that unmanageable material is transported 
 to the plains ; for there seemed to be no better road 
 than the narrow bridle-path which leads along the 
 steep hills overhanging the Xenil, so narrow, indeed, 
 that it was impossible to escape the embraces of the 
 too-affectionate briars without leaving many shreds 
 of my garments for relics. At last we descended to 
 
HUESCAR. 163 
 
 the stream, and crossed it by a wooden bridge (which 
 probably disappears every winter), at the little hamlet 
 of Tablete. An artist would infallibly fall in love 
 with a little mill that stands close by. Of all human 
 inventions a water-mill is the most picturesque, and 
 the dilapidated mill of Tablete, with its accessories 
 of rocks, bridge, and poplars, would have been 
 sketched a hundred times, had there been any land- 
 scape-painters in Spain. Leaving the hamlet, we 
 climbed up the path on the right bank of the river, 
 and reached Huescar the oliviferous at nightfall. 
 Crossing the little plaza, where, beside the fountain 
 under the trees, all the fathers of the village were 
 assembled in a pipe conspiracy, we dismounted at 
 the house of an elderly man, known by the name of 
 El Tio Pardo, f Nunky Gray,' who has a bed at the 
 disposal of travellers. 
 
 I have to thank his good bustling wife, La Tia, for 
 a cup of excellent chocolate and a clean bed. 
 
 Next day a ride of three hours brought us back to 
 Granada. Both banks of the river are plentifully 
 sprinkled with olive-grounds and orchards ; here and 
 there on a rocky point stand the ruins of an old castle 
 and far below, the Xenil, now chafing into angry foam 
 against its rocks, now lingering in many a green, still 
 pool, greets you with a murmur, the rarest and 
 sweetest of all music in this southern land. 
 
164 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 the 22nd of August, an hour before day-break, 
 I left Granada ' for good,' much to the regret of 
 landlord and waiters inuitd Minerva; for during 
 several days past I had been the only guest in the 
 house, and with me the whole hotel's occupation was 
 gone. This melancholy state of things was owing to 
 a combination between the various diligence inns on 
 the great roads, which was like to ruin the Minerva. 
 I hope not, for it is one of the best fondas in all Spain. 
 We passed, about a quarter of a mile from the town, 
 the little hermitage of St. Sebastian, whither Ferdi- 
 nand accompanied poor Boabdil, to bow him out of 
 his kingdom. This reminded me to turn round, and 
 have my < ultimo sospiro' too, for one cannot help 
 feeling a little melancholy at saying good-bye, for the 
 last time, to any place, person, or thing how much 
 more when that place is Granada. I shall never see 
 it again. To me, the hill which finally hid it from 
 my sight is its grave, and all that remains with me is 
 the unbodied image which haunts the corridors of me- 
 mory, thronged already with ghosts. This, however, 
 is a very pleasant, cheerful spirit, which I take delight 
 in evoking. But ghosts are apt to be too garrulous, 
 as witness Darius, and Hamlet senior; so we will 
 
A MILITARY IMPROVISATORS. 165 
 
 bid ours back to his corridors, and trot on after the 
 mayoral. As this functionary was to be my sole com- 
 panion for two long days, I made it my first care to 
 conciliate his goodwill, by showing an interest in his 
 life past, present, and to come. Nothing loth, he 
 told me all about it. For the last fifteen years he 
 had served as a soldier in Cuba and elsewhere, and 
 had now returned home, to serve, perhaps, a harder 
 master without the livery. The pay of a Spanish 
 infantry soldier, so he told me, is twelve cuartos, 
 about fourpence a-day that of a cavalry soldier, two 
 reals, fivepence and a fraction. Out of this they have 
 to find their food no easy matter one would suppose 
 and yet all the soldiers I saw in Spain were any- 
 thing but starvelings. My ex-hero was a very cheer- 
 ful, jolly personage, who took things easily, and burst 
 out into song on the slightest provocation. When 
 any one passed us with the usual salutation, he ex- 
 temporized stanzas apropos, of which the following 
 
 is a sample, 
 
 Vaya listed con Dios ! 
 Vaya listed con Dios ! 
 Pero no se morira nadie 
 Si no lo quiere Dios. 
 
 That is, in English, 
 
 Go with the blessing of God ! * 
 Go with the blessing of God ! 
 Nobody never would die 
 If it wasn't the will of God. 
 
 By which it may be seen, that the iinprovisatores of 
 Spain are not subjected to many hard conditions, 
 metrical or otherwise. 
 
166 AGRICULTURE AT A LOW EBB. 
 
 All along the level plain the land seems fertile and 
 productive enough, but with the hill begins the desert. 
 We saw, indeed, traces of former culture furrows 
 abandoned to perpetual fallow, and ruined algibes or 
 water-tanks, lying like the wrecks of an ebbing pros- 
 perity, as perhaps they have lain since the expulsion 
 of the Moors. The truth is, that cultivation, or irri- 
 gation (an equivalent term in these climates), is facile 
 enough on the low grounds, but on the hills is only 
 to be effected by skill, cost, and labour, as great desi- 
 derata in Andalucia as water itself. It may be, more- 
 ever, that from the diminution of population, the 
 higher lands can no longer be cultivated to a profit. 
 Will the repeal of our Corn Laws bring any of these 
 wastes under plough again ? Can corn be grown, 
 shipped, and sold in Mark-lane, and leave a profit to 
 the Andalucian farmer ? I think not The absence 
 of rail-roads, the scarcity of other roads, the want of 
 water communication, not to mention the oppressive 
 and aggressive taxation, offer insuperable obstacles to 
 a free-trade, and will effectually protect the ^British 
 farmer from Spanish competition. 
 
 The white little village of La Mala (I hope it does 
 not merit its name) was fast asleep as we passed 
 through, all 'except one man, who was awake, and 
 that wide he was catching birds by a process novel 
 to me. He had a rod about ten feet long, at the end 
 of which was a kind of cup, and by means of this he 
 lifted a ferret up to the eaves of the houses. The 
 little animal wriggled itself under the tiles, and inva- 
 
ALHAMA. 167 
 
 riably reappeared in about a minute with a swallow 
 in its mouth. The man told me that the swallows 
 were destined for the table. I suppose they will be 
 served up under a more piquant name. A dreary 
 desert, full of ups and downs (in which the former 
 preponderate), and speckled with unhappy dwarfs of 
 shrubs, leads to Alhama. The distance from Granada 
 is eight long leagues. We did not meet a soul all the 
 way till we got within a mile of Alhama, when we 
 encountered a lady of extraordinary dimensions sit- 
 ting on the back of a mule, in a kind of half-saddle, 
 half-litter, and protecting her complexion with a 
 huge red umbrella. She inquired with great anxiety 
 whether we had seen or heard of any robbers by the 
 way. I thought the red umbrella decidedly impru- 
 dent, as it would be visible for miles, and might, 
 moreover, render the bearer liable to be mistaken 
 by a sportsman for a flamingo, or by a bull for a ma- 
 tador. 
 
 The first view of Alhama disappointed me griev- 
 ously. I had pictured to myself a grim fortress, 
 perched on an isolated pinnacle of rock, and, lo ! 
 there it lay on the slope of a bare hill, its castle 
 scarcely distinguished from the surrounding houses. 
 Ay de mi Alhama ! Alas, for my ideal ! Alhama at 
 first sight seemed, indeed, a mere 6 dwarf of presage ;' 
 yet, on near approach, ' there grew' (as the poet 
 goes on to say) ' another kind of beauty in detail, 
 that made it worth the knowing.' Just under the 
 castle walls runs a narrow glen, splitting the hill, so 
 
168 THE POSADA IN ALHAMA. 
 
 narrow that it is scarcely seen till you are close upon 
 it; and then, as you look down, it seems like a little 
 strip of paradise, with its clear water, green leaves, and 
 cool shadows. There is an aqueduct too, with low 
 stone arches, spanning the market-place, and the 
 whole town smacks of another people and another 
 time. Not the least of its curiosities is the posada, 
 which, by-the-bye, has been whitewashed, and has 
 otherwise amended its ways since (perhaps in conse- 
 quence of) Mr. Ford's anathema. 
 
 There was a fair impending, and the place was in 
 consequence so full that I had to wait some time till 
 a heap of corn had been dislodged to make room for 
 my bed and me. In the interval I visited the stables, 
 a low, rambling structure, with massive pillars like a 
 crypt. When I asked about their date, I received the 
 usual careless answer, ' Tiempo de los Moros,' for in 
 Spain every erection is set down to the credit of the 
 Moors, as surely as in England all destruction is de- 
 bited to Oliver Cromwell (who, poor man, has a toler- 
 ably long score of authentic sins to answer for). 
 
 We left Alhama at four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 an hour too late, as it proved. After topping the hill, 
 we traversed a very narrow stony pass, then came 
 upon some level pasture-ground, with a cottage here 
 and there, each having its trellised vine, its nest of 
 trees, and plot of tillage. The sun was just setting 
 as we reached the puerto, a gap in the hills, through 
 which the road winds down to the shore ; here \ve 
 caught the first glimpse of the sea. The short twi- 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE VENTAS. 169 
 
 light scarcely enabled us to see our way down the 
 rugged and steep descent, and in a little while it be- 
 came pitch dark, for the night was cloudy and threat- 
 ening. A few drops, precursors of a storm, determined 
 me to halt for the night at a roadside hostel, called 
 the ' Venta Nueva,' about a league on the hither side 
 of Vinuela. These ventas are always built on the 
 same plan, so that one description will suffice for all. 
 The outer door, like that of a barn, admits the tra- 
 veller and his horse into a kind of passage paved with 
 round stones, leading directly to the stable behind. 
 On one side, but not divided from it by screen or 
 door, is a large low room, with a fire-place at the 
 further end, which serves the family for pantry, larder, 
 kitchen, dormitory, and what not. On the other side 
 of the passage is a small room, with a door of its own, 
 and a square hole in the wall by way of window, re- 
 served for any guests too dainty to share the general 
 floor. In this case, the small chamber was appro- 
 priated to me ; and the good woman of the house set 
 herself most indefatigably to clear away a lot of po- 
 tatoes, which had occupied the corner destined for my 
 bed. The host, meanwhile, never rose from his seat; 
 but, graciously accepting a cigar from me, began to 
 assure me that in his house I need fear no robber 
 (not that I had mentioned the subject), that he was a 
 man of honour, and muy caballero, * very much the 
 gentleman;' from all which I charitably concluded 
 that he was a rogue. Happily I had no practical 
 proof of the fact. I should have slept very well had 
 
 GAZ. I 
 
170 VELEZ. 
 
 it not been for a foraging party of ants. However, 
 preferring vegetable to animal food, they rather 
 frightened than hurt me, and were probably griev- 
 ously disappointed at finding a John Bull instead of 
 their customary potatoes. I would not have answered 
 for an Irishman in my place. 
 
 Next morning we started betimes, and our sure- 
 footed animals groped their way safely to Viiiuela in 
 the dark. The dawn revealed to me that we had 
 come into a new climate. 
 
 Not to mention the vines which covered every hill, 
 the carob tree, with its strange leaves and pods, hung 
 over the path ; and below, in some well watered place, 
 might be seen a plot of bright green sugar-canes. Some- 
 times we descended into the dry bed of the stream, at 
 other times kept the zig-zag path on the hill-side. As 
 we neared Velez, we saw the raisins laid out to dry, in 
 frames resembling hot-beds ; and many a fig-tree, with 
 gigantic purple fruit, tempted me, and I did eat. 
 Almost the only plant which I recognised for an old 
 acquaintance was the catholic bramble, which spread 
 itself over every hedge and bush, laden with unheeded 
 and superfluous fruit. Indeed, I think the black- 
 berries were as plenty as raisins. 
 
 Velez, both in colour and form, is an extremely 
 pictorial town. Its houses are of a dingy white, 
 somewhat dilapidated ; it is crowned by a Moorish 
 castle, in ruins, and is backed by a jagged grey sierra. 
 "What more could an artist want ? Unhappily, man 
 is not a camera lucida, and has an eye to creature 
 
ARRIVAL AT MALAGA. 171 
 
 comforts, so, deterred by the bad repute of the posadas, 
 I determined to breakfast on the sea-shore, which we 
 reached by a road bordered with cactus and tall reeds. 
 Velez was once a port, but the sea has receded. 
 Hence to Malaga, for some twenty miles, the road 
 lay along the shore ; the vine-clad hills on the right 
 hand, the calm blue sea on the left. We passed innu- 
 merable trains of mules and donkeys, conveying piles 
 of raisins in white boxes to Malaga (some of which 
 the gentle reader doubtless eat in his Christmas pud- 
 ding). At frequent intervals stood huts of wattled 
 reeds, houses of call for the thirsty traveller, and 
 what traveller would not be thirsty under the circum- 
 stances ? The floor was piled with water-melons, and 
 on a table were ranged bottles of aguardiente ; these, 
 with the never-failing pipkins of water, formed all the 
 store. 
 
 The morning had been cloudy and cool, but at last 
 the sun shone out with all his August fervour. I was 
 glad to discern, on rounding a headland, the tall 
 factory-chimneys of Malaga, and still more glad when 
 I at last drew rein at the door of the magnificent 
 Fonda de la Alameda. It was past one o'clock, and I 
 had been ten hours in the saddle. 
 
 i2 
 
172 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE situation of Malaga is charming, and it is well 
 worth while to climb the tower of the cathedral 
 for the sake of the prospect Shutting your eyes to 
 the incongruous factory -chimneys, look at the two 
 Moorish ruins linked together by a ragged curtain- 
 wall at the palm-trees scattered about the edges of 
 the town at the blue sea and winding coast-line on 
 one side, and the bold bare hills on the other. The 
 cathedral itself is built, like the mother-church of 
 Granada, in a false classical style, which resembles a 
 true classical style about as much as the hymns of a 
 rhyming monk resemble the Odes of Horace. Nor 
 is it rich in works of art. There is a * Virgin of 
 the Rosary,' by Cano, and in the sacristy a 'Holy 
 Family' said to be an early Murillo, and a small 
 ' Madonna with dead Christ,' by Morales. After all, 
 it is a clean, cool, pleasant place, and there is a very 
 sweet-toned organ, which plays at vespers every after- 
 noon. The streets are full of the bustle of business, 
 and one meets, not unfrequently, with sailors drunk 
 and riotous at mid-day chiefly, I am sorry to say, 
 English or American. 
 
 There are many foreign merchants resident in the 
 town, who seem to have infected the natives with an 
 
BULL-FIGHT AT MALAGA. 173 
 
 industrial mania ; at least, the paucity of promenaders 
 on the Alameda was attributed to the busy season. At 
 the table-d'hote, English was the chief vehicle of con- 
 versation; you could have Harvey's sauce, pale ale, 
 and Stilton cheese, for the asking. In the town are 
 reading rooms and savings-banks, with other modern 
 Trari spy re n can inventions. 
 
 No infusion, however, of foreign elements can 
 banish the bull-fight. There was one of these enter- 
 tainments the day after my arrival, and for one day 
 all Malaga forgot its raisins. 
 
 The occupants of the lower seats were exceedingly 
 noisy and boisterous. Before the fight began, they 
 amused themselves by singling out any man in the 
 reserved seats unfortunate enough to be the wearer of 
 a very glossy hat, or a pair of light kid gloves, and 
 then they directed at him a discordant cry of ( Hat ! 
 hat !' or ' Gloves ! gloves !' till the person in question 
 removed the obnoxious article, and saluted the many- 
 headed tyrant with bare head or bare hand. Even a 
 lady with a bouquet was not exempted from persecu- 
 tion. The first three bulls happened to be very tame, 
 or very sulky, and the ill-humour of the crowd rose 
 to such a pitch, that they began to tear up the benches 
 and fling them into the arena. Some of the most 
 obstreperous were taken into custody and removed by 
 the soldiers. An accident, however, restored them to 
 perfect good humour. One of the chulos was just 
 going to stick his banderillas into the fourth bull's 
 shoulders, when, at that moment, the trumpet, which 
 
174 BULL-FIGHT A FATAL RESULT. 
 
 was the signal for the matador to advance, sounded ; 
 the chulo hesitated, the hesitation was fatal. In a 
 moment he was on the ground, and the bull's horn 
 deep in his body. He writhed himself free, rose to 
 his feet all streaming with blood, leaped the barrier at 
 a bound, and fell on the other side to rise no more ! 
 He died that same afternoon. Shocking as it may 
 seem, the crowd at once became cheerful, the show 
 could no longer be called a failure which had resulted 
 in the death of a man. That same week there was a 
 picador killed at Antequera. Indeed, these accidents 
 are by no means so rare as the defenders of bull- 
 fighting affirm. The managers of the ring conceal 
 as much as possible the fatal results, fearful that the 
 amusement may be suppressed by authority. Mr. 
 Hodgson, who keeps the hotel, told me that, once on 
 a time, he actually saw a chulo die of wounds received 
 in the arena, and yet the man's complete recovery 
 was afterwards announced in an official bulletin. 
 
175 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 T HAD intended to go from Malaga to Gibraltar in 
 one of the steamers, but the quarantine imposed 
 on all vessels from France had put their times out of 
 joint, so I determined upon riding thither along the 
 coast. Some good-natured people at the hotel tried 
 to deter me by narrating banditti stories. Among 
 the rest, how a rich merchant of Gibraltar had been 
 carried off to the mountains; and when his family 
 were rather tardy in paying his ransom the brigands 
 sent first a toe, and then a leg, by way of instalments 
 on their side. However, I was not a rich merchant, 
 and had little to lose except time : 4 Cantabit vacuus 
 corara latrone viator.' That is to say ' If you meet 
 with a thief put your hands in your pockets and 
 whistle.' Not that I should have objected to losing a 
 few dollars for the sake of an adventure, provided I 
 could have insured my life against lead and steel. 
 
 I engaged for my mayoral a round little dumpling 
 of a fellow, known by the nick-name of Manuelito 
 (when I asked for him by his real name at the house 
 where he lodged, they did not know whom I meant). 
 Fat as he now is, he was once the best-girt horseman 
 of his day. When the poor Count Torrijos and his 
 confederates were entrapped at Malaga, in the days 
 
176 NEW COMPAQ NONS-DE- VOYAGE. 
 
 of Ferdinand the Bloody, the authorities wanted to 
 have them put out of the way as soon as possible, so 
 Manuelito was sent off to Madrid, with orders to ride, 
 ride, ride, not ' for life,' but for death. In four days 
 and a half he returned with the death warrant, signed 
 by the king. 
 
 Just as we were going to start, on the afternoon of 
 August 27, I received a message from two French 
 gentlemen at another hotel, begging to join < my party.' 
 I dare say they expected to find a more formidable 
 escort than little Manuel. I consented of course, 
 devoutly hoping that they might not be commis- 
 voyageurs, a class of people from whom I have 
 suffered much in France. Happily, they turned out 
 to be tourists, with frank and lively manners, like all 
 the gentlemen of their country. We had not ridden 
 many leagues, before I was acquainted with both, as 
 well as if I had known them for years. They were 
 great friends, and of course of opposite characters. 
 One took a romantic and sentimental view of things, 
 like Victor Hugo ; the other, a prosaic and common- 
 sense view, like Paul de Kock. As it imports little 
 to know their real names, I shall call them, for short- 
 ness, Mons. Victor and Mons. Paul respectively. 
 
 We jogged on together very comfortably along the 
 dusty road, bordered with gigantic reeds, to the 
 village of Torremolinos, where every garden has its 
 palm-tree. They say that the palm cannot flourish 
 except within sight of another palm, which touching 
 
FUENGIROLA MARBELLA. 177 
 
 fact, or fiction, I recommend to any young poet want- 
 ing to try his hand at a sonnet. 
 
 Night came on before we reached Benalmedina, 
 but we could see, as we passed, the grey walls of the 
 old Moorish castle gleaming in the light of the young 
 moon the only crescent that shines there now. 
 Then we followed a narrow glen (chine they would 
 call it in the Isle of Wight,) down to the shore, along 
 which our road lay to Fuengirola. 
 
 As we rounded one jutting point of rock, the waves 
 wet us up to the knees. At ten o'clock at night we 
 reached Fuengirola, and were lodged in a posada, 
 very clean and commendable, as posadas go. Not 
 that we had much enjoyment of its comforts, for the 
 inexorable little man roused us at one A.M. This riding 
 by night was no hardship to him, as he had acquired, 
 from long habit, the power of sleeping in the saddle, 
 or even, as in the present case, when perched cross- 
 legged on a carpet-bag. We, on the other hand, 
 found it hard to doze in equilibrium, so we beguiled 
 the long leagues of monotonous shore by vigorous and 
 well sustained chat Monsieur Paul bursting out now 
 and then, and astounding the grave Spanish echoes 
 with fragmentary recollections of the * Opera Comique.' 
 We got to Marbella at seven A.M., and were provided 
 with decent and comfortable beds, and with a dinner 
 on which, if not decent or comfortable, we at all events 
 contrived to dine. At three we prepared again for a 
 start. ' Be sure/ I said to our silent, somnolent little 
 
 i3 
 
178 SUPPOSED ROMAN RUINS. 
 
 man, e be sure you point out the Rio Verde' (which 
 lies between Marbella and Estepona). This is the 
 * gentle river' of the ballad known to all Englishmen 
 (though the original spirit is somewhat diluted) in 
 the version of Bishop Percy, the only bishop, by the 
 way, who is remembered for his 'translations,' and 
 whose 'relics' are still venerated by the stanchest 
 protestants. 
 
 On the outskirts of the town we noticed the silk- 
 like fibres of the aloe hung up to dry in the sun. A 
 sort of cloth is made from them. The path here leav- 
 ing the sea-side, crosses a wide flat, dotted with low 
 green shrubs and intersected by streams, now shrunk 
 into threads, whose sinuous courses are marked by a 
 double fringe of oleanders. In the evening, we passed 
 the remnants of what must have been a considerable 
 town, from the extent of the walls still traceable. To 
 the left, we saw the ruins of a building with massive 
 arches. In answer to a question, Manuelito just 
 grunted out, ' Cosa de los Moros,' and went to sleep 
 again. In spite of such authority, I felt little doubt 
 that it was the remnant of Roman baths. There was 
 something very impressive in those nameless ruins, 
 standing in that lonely desert between the mountains 
 and the sea. 
 
 By-and-bye I began to be impatient for the Rio 
 Verde, and wakened Manuelito : ' Passed it an hour 
 since,' he replied. So, to this day, I am doubtful 
 which of three or four streams is the ' gentle river ;' 
 and I could not, as the manner of travellers is, c drop 
 
ESTEPONA. 179 
 
 a tear over the fate of Alonso de Aguilar' at the right 
 place. 
 
 At eight in the evening we reached Estepona, a 
 straggling village on the sea-shore, which is, or rather 
 used to be, a nest of smugglers, for that athletic and 
 interesting race has of late been much reduced by 
 the oppressive vigilance of the Spanish authorities. 
 Gibraltar may be blockaded, commercially, by a very 
 small force, so the only effective business now done in 
 that line is on the frontiers of Portugal, and the boards 
 of the Surrey and Adelphi theatres. 
 
 The posada at which we dismounted was full of 
 bustle ; but if the first comers had calculated on the 
 best rooms, they were disappointed. Probably they 
 had arrived a-foot, or on donkeys, and so were 
 naturally displaced to make room for us true cabal- 
 leros, who came on horseback. Man, in Spain, takes 
 rank from the beast he rides, just as, in old Greece, the 
 horseman took precedence of the 'hop-lite.' The 
 mistress of the house was stone-blind, but, neverthe- 
 less, she directed and superintended her domestic 
 arrangements with wonderful activity and precision. 
 The tact of a blind person, especially one blind from 
 birth, is an ' eerie,' almost fearful, thing to contem- 
 plate ; it is like a second sight, and I do not wonder 
 that we read of so many blind prophets and pro- 
 phetesses. Their earthly paradise is lost to them, and 
 the justice of nature requires that they should be 
 compensated by a clearer foresight of the paradise to 
 come. It was touching to see how, after her work 
 
180 PUNCH PRODUCED UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 was done, she sat down and caressed her little 
 daughter, passing her hand gently over her face, a 
 habit she had acquired, doubtless, during the child's 
 infancy, to familiarize her touch with the features she 
 could not see. 
 
 While our beds were preparing we supped, as we 
 best could, in the common room down stairs. A 
 chilly night wind came through the open door, and 
 suggested to some one of us what a good thing a glass 
 of punch would be, by way of night-cap. Monsieur 
 Paul, who had a genius for cookery, whether of liquids 
 or solids, sprang up at the word, stationed- himself at 
 the brasero of live charcoal, coolly displacing the 
 bystanders, and, though he could not speak one 
 word of Spanish, succeeded, by dint of good- humour 
 and impudence, in obtaining all the utensils and in- 
 gredients he wanted. How the punch was made I 
 never knew, but it was, or seemed to be, excellent. 
 Difficulties vanish much sooner before the smiling, 
 bustling Frenchman, than before the quiet, grumbling 
 John Bull. 
 
 While the punch was brewing, one of the muchachas, 
 rinding out that I was an Englishman, beckoned me 
 mysteriously aside, saying she had something to show 
 me. I followed her to a cupboard, which she un- 
 locked, and triumphantly displayed the contents, 
 arranged with a view to artistic effect In the centre 
 was a large specimen of porcelain ware, such as in 
 England we keep rather for use than show, and it 
 was flanked with wine-glasses and teacups by way of 
 
THE GUIDE AT FAULT. 181 
 
 supporters, These were all trophies brought from 
 Gibraltar by her betrothed, a brave contrabandista. 
 He was now in prison, poor fellow, but as soon as he 
 got out they were to be married, and, I suppose, to 
 set up house with the treasures of the cupboard. 
 
 After a sound sleep of three hours we started again 
 at midnight. Our road lay at first along the sands, 
 and, after crossing a somewhat deep stream, kept 
 inland over rugged furze-clad hills. We were lighted 
 at first by the moon, and after her setting by the 
 morning star, brighter and clearer than in our climate, 
 and reflected in a long column of splendour from the 
 water. 
 
 Once our guide turned sharply to the left, and we 
 followed in silent obedience through tangled shrubs, 
 till we came to a sudden stand-still on the top of a 
 cliff looking down upon the sea. Then Manuelito 
 awoke. His horse, abandoned to his own devices, 
 had left the path, and was accordingly rewarded, as 
 we retraced our steps, by many kicks and opprobrious 
 epithets from his rider. This delayed us half-an-hour. 
 About dawn, as we were riding along a green hollow, 
 we heard a dull, booming sound. It was the first gun- 
 fire from the fortress. At the top of the next hill 
 we came in sight of the rock, red with the first beams 
 of the rising sun. ( Voila !' cried Monsieur Victor, 
 venting his enthusiasm in a simile, not perhaps of the 
 newest (which, indeed, is too much to expect in an 
 iuipromptu), ' Voila le rocher, qui rougit comme une 
 jeune fille a la vue de son amant !' The pucelle, 
 
182 FORCIBLE ARGUMENTS. 
 
 indeed, seemed modestly to retire as we advanced, 
 and we had a two hours' plodding along the flat sand 
 before we arrived at the Spanish lines. At the gate 
 a carabinero asked for our passports, and demanded 
 of what nation we were. The other two, being 
 Frenchmen, were mulcted in a dollar and a half each; 
 I, being an Englishman, was allowed to pass free. 
 ' What can be the reason of that ?' I said to Monsieur 
 Paul. ' VoilaP he replied, pointing to the cannon 
 on the heights, ' une cinquantaine de raisons !' And 
 truly those stubborn arguers speak a logic which 
 silences all opponents. Nothing like cannon-law 
 after all I 
 
183 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TT7HAT shall I say of Gibraltar? Is it not 
 already more familiarly known to us than 
 Plymouth or Chatham seeing that we speak of it 
 by the endearing diminutive e Gib,' while we never 
 say ( Plym,' or ' Chat ?' Have we not all heard all 
 about it, from the letters of our respective cousins in 
 the Muffs or Bombardiers, who have spent their pre- 
 scriptive time there watching over the interests of 
 England, and between whiles shooting rabbits at 
 Estepona, or making pic-nics at the cork wood ? I 
 shall say the less about it because, excepting in lati- 
 tude, it has ceased to be Spain, and has become part 
 and parcel of that most expansive ' tight little island,' 
 of whose glory we are prouder than of our purses. 
 Excepting the cloudless sky, the old castle, and a 
 convent or two, now reformed and secularized to 
 more cheerful uses, there is nothing in the place to 
 remind you that it has ever been otherwise than a 
 small English town. (I am forgetting the new cathe- 
 dral, which is made to resemble a mosque, with a 
 view, I suppose, to African conversions.) All the 
 streets have received English baptism, and the houses 
 are constructed on the principle of defying, instead 
 of propitiating the climate, being low, small, and 
 
184 GIBRALTAR. 
 
 compact, with neither court-yard nor fountain. Want 
 of room may be one cause of this; for even the 
 principal square, far from rivalling the vastness of a 
 Spanish plaza, is cribbed and confined within very 
 narrow limits. One side of this square is formed by 
 the Club House Hotel (where we lodged), a sort of 
 commercial inn, second-rate in everything but prices. 
 In front of it a military band plays twice a week. 
 The Frenchmen turned up their noses at the per- 
 formance, as their wont is in all that relates to English 
 art. I certainly thought that the drums drowned the 
 trumpets, that there was a deficiency of wind, and 
 a superfluity of parchment. Our soldiers generally 
 do more execution with their hands than their lips. 
 The crowd which assembled on these occasions was 
 curious, consisting, as it did, of Moslems and Jews, 
 and a nondescript rabble of * Scorpions,' the Anglo- 
 Spanish mongrel race, that dwells on the rock, and 
 nowhere else, like the monkeys. Here all creeds 
 and all trades are alike tolerated; there is neither 
 Inquisition nor perquisition. Taxes and tithes are 
 unknown. The Gibe! Tarif of the Moor is an 
 English free port, much frequented by the catholic 
 votaries of Mammon. As a matter of course, I 
 devoted one morning to visit the batteries, under the 
 guidance of a tall corporal of artillery. I got per- 
 mission for Messrs. Victor and Paul to go too, 
 a favour not always accorded to foreigners. My 
 national vanity was abundantly gratified by their 
 admiration; and I quite agreed with them, that the 
 
185 
 
 best thing we could do would be to show our enemies 
 our preparations for defence, and then no one would 
 be mad enough to think of repeating that most unsuc- 
 cessful of farces, c the siege of Gibraltar.' There are 
 (so our corporal said) seven hundred and seventy 
 guns mounted, or ready for mounting, provisions for 
 three years, and ammunition for ever. We traversed 
 the long galleries, cut within a few yards of the face 
 of the cliff towards the land side, with embrasures at 
 intervals, like the galleries of the Simplon road. In 
 one of these embrasures, a few years ago, seven men 
 were standing, to watch the effect of some experi- 
 ments in gunnery, when a spark fell into a powder 
 chest behind them, and blew them all out. All that 
 could be found of them was buried in the cemetery 
 on the Neutral Ground. The grave was pointed out 
 to us. There was no officer among them. 'Fiat 
 experimentum in corpore vili.' St. George's Hall, 
 also excavated in the rock, is considered one of the 
 chief lions. Balls are occasionally given in it for 
 the fun of the thing, since it is difficult of access, not 
 much more than forty feet long, and has the most 
 unelastic floor conceivable. Then we went up to the 
 signal house, perched on one of the summits, for 
 the rock of Gibraltar is so far like Parnassus, that it 
 has two. Everybody agrees that the view from this 
 point is one of the finest in the world, and I, for my 
 part, agree with everybody. So clear was the air, 
 that the rocks of Africa, though ten miles away, 
 seemed scarcely a bow-shot from us. The pale blue 
 
186 
 
 .sky, the dark blue strait, dotted with white sails, and 
 the grey shores, were all and each so distinct and 
 clear, that it seemed like the drop-scene in a theatre 
 rather than reality. Henceforth I shall always give 
 Messrs. Telbin, Grieve, and Co. credit for high art. 
 Monsieur Victor was so struck with the scene, that 
 when we got back, he shut himself up to compose a 
 copy of impromptu verses, the gist of which was 
 some rationalism about ' Hercule ' and ' ses colonnes.' 
 While on the spot, we all made an impromptu break- 
 fast, consisting chiefly of porter. Some veteran eggs 
 were boiled for us, but they proved not nice, like 
 the corporal, for he eat them all. We supposed he 
 was training his appetite against a protracted siege. 
 During the siege, they cooked and eat the roots of 
 the dwarf palms which grow among the rocks, and 
 English soldiers did, for once, drink water. Never 
 was Gibraltar reduced to such straits. 
 
 In descending, W T C followed the path to St. Michael's 
 Cave, which had recently been honoured with a visit 
 from the Infanta and her husband. We went on till 
 we got into inner darkness, with the mud oozing 
 over our ankles, and the drops pattering frequent on 
 our hats ; then we held a conclave, voted it possibly 
 romantic, but decidedly uncomfortable, and so re- 
 treated and emerged into the sunlight. The visit of 
 the Infanta had taken place about a month before, 
 and the rock was still echoing with the fame thereof. 
 She was received by the governor with genuine 
 courtesy and kindness. At first she appeared con- 
 
QUEEN ISABEL. 187 
 
 strained and reserved; but when, at dinner, Sir 
 Robert proposed Queen Isabel's health, in a 
 hearty Anglo-Spanish speech, she thawed at once 
 into geniality. When the Queen heard of the recep- 
 tion given to her sister, she immediately sat down, 
 and with her own hand wrote to Narvaez, requesting 
 that the Grand Cross of Carlos Tercero should be 
 sent to the Governor of Gibraltar. This susceptibility 
 of generous impulses is a noble trait in the Queen's 
 character, and is a brighter ornament to her crown 
 than any diamond there. She has been known, in 
 default of money, to throw a costly bracelet to a 
 beggar. That monarch is twice a monarch who 
 ceases to be slave to a master of ceremonies. So the 
 Grand Cross was sent forthwith ; but the powers that 
 move men like puppets, with their red tapes, forbade 
 its acceptance. Truly, etiquette and courtesy are not 
 always synonymous, rather, shall we say, etiquette 
 is courtesy in a strait-waistcoat. 
 
 I used to go for an hour or two every day to the 
 garrison library, which is virtually thrown open to 
 all strangers. I had a vast arrear of contemporary 
 literature to make up ; I was athirst for news, since 
 even the universal Times does not include within its 
 universe the kingdom of Granada. Every conceiv- 
 able magazine and review is to be found on that 
 ample table ; and there is not an officer in the five 
 battalions who has not an opportunity of going to 
 school with little ( David,' and falling in love with 
 poor ' Pen.' Altogether, ' Gib' is a pleasant place to 
 
188 AGREEABLE CONTRAST. 
 
 spend five days in, let the residents abuse it as they 
 please. From the brave and gentle Governor, down 
 to the brave and brusque i Sub,' everybody was kind 
 and hospitable. One evening, at a great dinner 
 given by the 56th, sitting, as it were, in a flowing 
 ocean of champagne, with an archipelago of entrees 
 by way of islands, I could not help remembering 
 how, that day month, I had been fasting involuntarily 
 at Mairena, vainly appealing to empty larders and 
 barren hens. 
 
 Such are the ups and downs of a tourist's life. 
 This, in truth, it is which constitutes the charm of it, 
 for the interchange of luxury and privation gives a 
 tenfold zest to the enjoyment of each. Horace's 
 Teucer understood this : ' Nunc vino pellite curas ; 
 eras ingens iterabimus aequor.' 
 
189 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I MIGHT have spared the quotation at the end of 
 the last chapter, for it is somewhat stale at best, 
 and, moreover, turned out inapplicable. My 'ingens 
 sequor' dwindled down into the Bay of Algeciras. 
 And this is how it came about: A steamer was 
 positively announced to be due at Algeciras early on 
 the morning of the 3rd of September (our St. Oliver's 
 Day), bound for Cadiz. Now, according to the sa- 
 pient sanitary regulations then in force, any person 
 coming direct from Gibraltar was held to be utterly 
 pestilential, and inadmissible on board ship ; whereas, 
 if he crossed over to Algeciras, he became at once hale 
 and sound, and might embark when he pleased. So, 
 after hearing a sermon from the bishop on Sunday, 
 the 2nd, I availed myself of the kind proposition of 
 a young officer, the best of good fellows, to take me, 
 Victor, and Paul, with all our effects, across in his 
 yacht. As our friend's duties were all on shore, his 
 pleasures were all on sea; and I believe he would 
 have been better able to manage a vessel in a storm, 
 than to put a squad of recruits through their drill. 
 By dint of manifold tacks, we reached Algeciras in 
 two hours and a half, the wind being dead against us, 
 and the boat making more water than way. Our safe 
 
1 90 ALGECIRAS. 
 
 arrival was commemorated, after our national fashion, 
 by a good dinner, in the course of which we forgot 
 all about an eclipse of the moon, promised by alma- 
 nacs for that evening (that catholic planet having no 
 objection, it seems, to Sunday labour). When we did 
 sally out, she was shining above in undimmed bright- 
 ness, and in the square below were shining many 
 pairs of luminaries still brighter the poor moon was 
 doubly eclipsed that night. 
 
 Next morning we got up betimes, to be ready for 
 the steamer, which had been promised as confidently 
 as the eclipse ; but hour after hour passed, and still it 
 came not We beguiled our impatience on the ter- 
 raced roof, by looking over the level sands of the 
 Neutral Ground for the smoke signalling its approach, 
 and by making sketches, more or less rude, of the 
 great Gibraltar rock, which lay before us like the 
 British lion couchant I find that the resemblance 
 occurred to Mr. Borrow in the same place ; but he 
 supposes it to be menacing Spain, while to me the 
 head appeared to be turned decidedly the other way. 
 I suppose, if the French had it, their fancy would 
 carve it into the outline of an eagle. Others have 
 discerned a more ghastly similitude, and compare it 
 to a corpse covered with a cloth, the hands crossed 
 upon the breast, and the knees gathered up as from 
 the death agonies. 
 
 Time wore on, and our patience wore off. Paul 
 and Victor pished and poohed and pested, and 
 abused everybody, particularly each other, more in 
 
OVERLAND JOURNEY TO SEVILLE. 191 
 
 ennui than in anger. I strolled out, and took my 
 seat under the acacias of the Alameda, killing time, 
 and now and then an obtrusive ant, with Don 
 Quixote. Whenever I looked up from my book, 
 my eye fell upon the clearly-defined rugged outline 
 of the Sierra, which lies to the north-west. I have 
 said that I am a constitutional idolater of all high 
 places, and I forthwith conceived a longing to stand 
 upon some of the breezy summits before me. Where 
 there's a will there's a way. I returned at once to 
 my two ennuyes, and proposed to them to go to 
 Seville by land. Victor acknowledged the brilliancy 
 of the idea, but pronounced it impracticable ; Paul 
 pleaded hippophobia, and thought a steamer in the 
 bush worth two horses in the hand, so I was once 
 more to take the road alone, As luck would have it, 
 I saw in the street an old man, whose grey hairs and 
 generally grand-paternal aspect tempted me to accost 
 him, and inquire where I could get horses. He replied 
 that he had two himself, and invited me to come and 
 see them. I liked the look of them, and bargained for 
 them and a sturdy mayoral to take me to Seville, via 
 Ronda a four days' journey for twenty-two dollars. 
 I started the same afternoon. Our sea-loving lieu- 
 tenant was at the door to see me off. ( Good-bye,' 
 he cried out after me ; e take care of yourself! Two 
 fellows ' of ours' were robbed on that road, coming 
 from Ronda fair, last May.' I think it must be part 
 of the military system at Gibraltar to inculcate a 
 wholesome fear of robbers among the young subal- 
 
192 OPPORTUNITY FOR A PAINTER. 
 
 terns, to prevent them straying too far a-field. 
 After skirting the sands of the bay, and crossing the 
 sluggish river by a ferry, we jogged quietly along, 
 leaving the white town of San Roque on our right. 
 Once or twice we passed a farm-house, whose inmates 
 were sitting in a ring, stripping the grains of Indian 
 corn from the stalk e shucking,' I think it is called 
 in America. All the way I saw nothing like a bandit, 
 except two men with immensely long guns, and they 
 were ranging a stubble-field with pointers for part- 
 ridges, quite in a civilized and orthodox manner. As 
 evening fell we came to a wood of pines and cork- 
 trees, whose fresh young leaves contrasted well with 
 their gnarled old trunks. Westward was a range of 
 dark purple hills, whose summits were all ablaze with 
 the fires of charcoal burners, while great clouds of 
 smoke went trailing across the clear green sky a 
 glorious combination of colour for any painter who 
 should have courage to trespass on conventionalities, 
 and paint things as they are. We soon plunged into 
 the thick wood, and lost sight both of purple hills and 
 green sky. There was a dense growth of underwood, 
 intersected by many tracks, among which we wound 
 in a most tortuous and perplexed fashion. I thought 
 I detected something of irresolution in my guide's 
 movements, so I questioned him as to whether he 
 were perfectly sure of the way. He answered with an 
 aplomb which quieted my doubts. At last, after much 
 riding, we came to a forced halt before an impene- 
 trable thicket, and then he was obliged to confess that 
 
AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPEDIENT. 193 
 
 he had lost his way and mine. Thereupon, I regret 
 to say, I lost my temper too, and abused him much ; 
 but he bore it so patiently, that he speedily disarmed 
 my anger, insomuch that I lighted the cigar of re- 
 signation, and gave him another. Then it occurred 
 to me to try an expedient familiar to the heroes of 
 novels under similar circumstances, and never known 
 to fail namely, to lay the reins on my horse's neck, and 
 trust to his sagacity. I did so ; but the unromantic 
 brute stood stock-still, and began to browse. So we 
 had nothing for it but to turn back and try another 
 tack. We had not gone far before we came to a nar- 
 row, deep ravine, along the side of which we rode some 
 time, hoping to find a passage. At last we found a 
 place, over which we scrambled, not without peril to 
 neck and limb, and finally, by great good luck, and 
 to the surprise, I am sure, of both of us, we emerged 
 into open ground and clear moonlight, not very far 
 from the right road. My attendant, who had almost 
 cried before we got out of the wood, now plucked up 
 his spirits, and set off at a good round pace, trying to 
 overtake the lost time. We soon came to a steep hill, 
 called, if I remember right, the Cuesta Dudon, at the 
 foot of which is a shrubby dell, haunted, if not by 
 bandits, at least by the fear of bandits. We kept on 
 along the level, chiefly by the dry sandy bed of the 
 Guadairo, till after midnight, and then the path 
 turned sharp to the left, and climbed the steep hill- 
 side to Gaucin. It seemed as if we should never 
 attain the summit. The horses were tired, and so was 
 
 GAZ. K 
 
194 GAUCIN. 
 
 at least one of the riders. Many a time the moon- 
 light, shining on a cluster of white rocks, flattered my 
 hopes that it was the village we sought ; and at last, 
 schooled by disappointments, I sturdily maintained 
 the village itself to be only a cluster of white rocks, 
 till we actually entered its narrow street. It was 
 then half-past one, and we had been nearly ten hours 
 on the road (and off it), when we finally dismounted 
 before the fast-barred door of the posada. A vigo- 
 rous kick woke the echoes for they are light sleepers 
 and a repetition of the same woke at last the more 
 substantial inmates of the place; and having pledged 
 our word through the key-hole that we were * people 
 of peace,' we were admitted. A most succinct house- 
 wife lighted me upstairs, carrying a velon, or lamp, 
 which would have passed muster in a cabinet of do- 
 mestic antiquities, so indisputably Roman it looked. 
 My bed was laid on the floor of a kind of loft, the 
 walls full of chinks and crannies, through which all 
 the cardinal winds entered at will, and kept noisy 
 conclave. They were so kind as to blow out the 
 light just before I got into bed; and, for the rest, 
 I was too tired to need a lullaby, or fear a hurly- 
 burly. 
 
 The south of Spain is traversed from west to east 
 by a confused mass of mountain-ranges. Gaucin lies 
 along the crest of the most southerly ridge, which, 
 just above the village, culminates into a bold pinnacle 
 of rocks. The little place can boast of a castle, in 
 ruins already, and a convent marked out for ruin 
 
LAST VIEW OF THE ROCK AND STRAITS. 195 
 
 hereafter, and that soon. Some trees still grow in 
 what was the convent garden, and among them a 
 palm, which I was surprised to see at that elevation. 
 But its chief boast is the prospect seaward, which all 
 the world can hardly match. 
 
 Through the wide, undulating plain plain only 
 by contrast you may trace the winding course of 
 the Guadairo, and beyond that a long wavy line of 
 sea-coast, terminating in the abrupt rock of Gibraltar. 
 Across the blue straits the view is bounded by the 
 bluff headlands of Africa. 
 
 I left the place at eight o'clock in the morning, 
 after submitting to be robbed according to the 
 approved fashion of civilised life. Mine host presented 
 not a pistol but a bill, whose charges might not have 
 been unreasonable at the ' Hotel des Princes.' Our 
 road lay, at first, among slopes covered with vast 
 vineyards the vines being studiously clipped of their 
 luxuriance, and reduced to the dimensions of goose- 
 berry bushes. At the little hamlet of Algatocin, on 
 turning round I saw for the last time, through a great 
 gap in the hills, 'the rock' and the straits. Soon 
 after we came upon the village and square tower- 
 flanked castle of Benadalid, on the summit of a 
 mountain, itself embosomed in, and overtopped by, 
 still mightier mountains, and so on for five long, long, 
 leagues to Ronda. Not that the leagues should have 
 appeared long they were diversified by all the grand 
 vicissitudes of hill scenery. Four elements go to form 
 natural scenery wood, water, variety of surface, and 
 
 K2 
 
196 DEFECTS IN SPANISH SCENERY. 
 
 human works. Now in Andalucia generally there 
 is a great scantiness of the first two, so that nature 
 has something of monotony and iteration in its 
 grandeur. We have hill and valley, castles, churches, 
 and villages, but, after all, we lack the softening grace 
 of woodland, and we feel that the hills would be 
 twice as grand if they had any lakes to reflect them. 
 In truth, wood and water are to the face of nature 
 what hair and eyes are to the face of men." In Spain, 
 Nature is bald and blind. 
 
 But stay ! if I make too sweeping an assertion, 
 here is Honda, with its cascade and its orchards, to 
 give me the lie. 
 
197 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE town of Ronda is built along the edge of a 
 cliff some six hundred feet high, just where a 
 bleak and bare tract of table-land breaks suddenly 
 away into a well-watered and fertile valley. It is 
 intersected by a gorge, narrow and deep, running at 
 right angles to the face of the cliff, which either the 
 patient stream has excavated for itself, or some kindly 
 convulsion rent for it. Just as it meets the cliff, this 
 gorge is spanned by a bridge, massive as a Roman 
 work, and, underneath, the little river flings itself down 
 into the valley by a succession of bold leaps. By 
 the side a winding path leads down to a number of 
 water-mills, very diminutive, but as busy as the 
 best. Each of them seems made for a vignette 
 nestling under a rock, covered with spontaneous 
 creepers, and flinging down a shower of diamonds of 
 the best water. I am sorry to mention, for the credit 
 of * Young Ronda,' that I was assailed by a shower, 
 not of metaphoric diamonds, but of common silex in 
 short (as Mr. Micawber would say), some boys pelted 
 me with stones. 
 
 I was under the rock, like another Dentatus, and 
 my assailants above, so that, having gravity all on 
 their side, the mischievous urchins, had the aim been 
 
198 RONDA. 
 
 as good as the intention, might have brought my 
 wanderings to an abrupt close. Fortunately, I met 
 a sturdy miller, to whom I appealed ; he flew into a 
 great passion, and, in a scare-babe voice, poured upon 
 them a torrent of vernacular invective, the only kind 
 of torrent upon which the laws of gravity do not act. 
 The lads fled tumultuously. Hereafter, perhaps, they 
 may turn out capital guerilla-men, and use deadlier 
 weapons, with deadlier effect, against a foreign invader. 
 The good miller attributed the savage disposition of 
 the infant mind to the want of education, and 
 believed the government to have an especial spite 
 against Ronda, since they had not established any 
 primary school in the place. His own education 
 seemed to have been neglected in early life. Pro- 
 bably the schoolmaster was abroad at the time, and 
 has not returned yet. He spoke continually of ' the 
 king,' and received, for the first time, from me 
 intelligence of the accession of Isabel the Second. 
 
 The view from below is grand indeed quite the 
 finest of the kind I have ever seen. The huge rock, 
 crowned with grey walls and ruined towers, and 
 quaint white houses, dwarfed by distance and con- 
 trast to the appearance of baby-toys the falling 
 water, gleaming brighter by comparison with the dark 
 dell from which it issues, and above it the bridge, 
 rivalling even the grandeur of Nature here, where she 
 is grandest all combine to form a picture which, when 
 once seen, is stamped on the retina of memory for 
 ever. They wrong it by comparing it to Tivoli. 
 
RONDA. 199 
 
 There is, indeed, here no SibyPs temple, and the 
 cascades are somewhat scant of water (at least, in 
 summer), but all at Ronda is on a larger and nobler 
 scale. No ( idler in Spain' could characterise it as a 
 ' sweet, lovely spot' no tasteless architects of villas, 
 no impertinent capability-men can cockneyfy Ronda. 
 Fortunately, in Spain there is not much danger of 
 their trying. Yet at Ronda we miss the gentle 
 ghosts that haunt Tivoli. What is Espinel to Horace? 
 By the way, I have a fancy for buying authors in situ, 
 so I did try to get a copy of Marcos de Obregon, but 
 in vain ; no one had ever heard the name, or knew 
 whether it was a man or a book. I once made a 
 similarly ineffectual attempt to get a copy of Catullus 
 at Verona. Neither poet nor novelist were honoured, 
 or even known, in their own land. 
 
 The town of Ronda boasts its fonda (start not, 
 gentle reader, at the fortuitous rhyme; I am not 
 going, like Mrs. Radcliife's heroes, ' to vent my 
 feelings in the following poem ') boasts, I repeat, its 
 fonda, where the creature-comforts, external and in- 
 ternal, bed and beef, water and wine (with other 
 alliterative antitheses), are supplied in first-rate style, 
 considering the remoteness of the locality. I was 
 charged, however, according to the standard which 
 regulates the fleecing of officers from Gibraltar at fair- 
 time. Happy Jasons these innkeepers, to whom the 
 golden fleece comes of itself to be shorn ! 
 
 Yet the stupidest of all the flock can hardly fail to 
 get his money's worth at Ronda. It is like no other 
 
200 UNION OF NATURE AND ART. 
 
 place in the world. Nature, so bold and fantastic, 
 has inspired man to emulate her. The town walls 
 are built on the very edge of the cliff, and look as 
 weather-beaten and as solid. Indeed, one could 
 hardly tell where wall begins and rock ends, but for 
 the moresque arches that span the rents in the face of 
 the cliff to afford a firm basis for the continuous 
 fortification. Here man imitates nature a little 
 further down nature has imitated man, in rearing 
 certain pinnacles of a curious conglomerate, that look 
 like the obelisks of antediluvian Pharaohs, washed 
 out of shape by the flood. 
 
 The first evening of my stay was gusty and threaten- 
 ing, so there was a very scanty sprinkling of man- 
 tillas on the Alameda, which, placed as it is on the 
 edge of the cliff where it is highest, admits all the 
 winds of heaven to free pratique. So for one night 
 the winds and I had the promenade pretty nearly all 
 to ourselves. The light of the waning wading moon 
 fell upon the rocky pinnacles of the opposing hills, 
 like battlements of some ruined city of the Genii, 
 and between lay the valley a depth of intense black- 
 ness. 
 
 The whole scene looked more like one of Martin's 
 pictures than I ever saw Nature look before. Now 
 and then came a driving cloud, blotting out the moon 
 from the heavens, mountains from the earth, and 
 castles from the air. 
 
 The next day was devoted to an excursion among 
 the neighbouring hills. Mine host procured a guide 
 
THE CUEVA DEL GATO. 201 
 
 for me, a lean and withered old man, who, with my 
 Mayoral (whom I called Agustin, his master's name) 
 rode upon one under-sized horse, in defiance of 
 Martin's Act. 
 
 A steep path among olive-groves leads down to 
 the valley, and thence by the brook-side, a long 
 league, to the Cueva del Gato, or ' Cats' Cave,' the 
 very name of which is suggestive of a scramble. The 
 mouth is above a hundred feet in height, and cries 
 aloud to be sketched. All about are strewn and piled 
 great fragments of rock, ruins torn from the mountain, 
 among which wild fig-trees and creeping plants in- 
 numerable have taken root, and fringe the black 
 chasm with bright green. A little stream of the 
 purest and coldest water trickles out with limpid 
 lapse, contributing a modest quota to the fertility of 
 the valley. Looking from within upon blue sky and 
 glaring sunshine, the grateful coolness becomes 
 doubly grateful. It is like being in a cathedral, or 
 better still, for it is a great temple that Nature has 
 built to God and herself (Deo Optimo Maximo sub 
 invocatione Naturae); its water is purer than any which 
 a priest pronounces holy, and its chiming falls are 
 more melodious than the notes of an organ. But 
 the Spaniards are not worshippers of Nature, and do 
 not affect to be so, and the Cueva del Gato is used 
 neither for prayer nor pic-nic. Leaving this, we 
 followed the course of the stream for half a league 
 more. Now and then we passed an orchard, where 
 ripe apples and pears hung within reach over our path 
 K 3 
 
202 THE GORGE OF ZUMIDERO. 
 
 tempting fruit, had it only been forbidden. Then we 
 crossed the stream and struck up the hill-side to the 
 little village of Benajuan, nestling in a sheltered dip 
 a patch of cultivation, surrounded by a stony waste. 
 The ground is divided into many small properties, and 
 large stones are placed at intervals the only land- 
 marks. Men and women were busy ploughing up 
 the ground for the next year's crop. Thence we 
 ascended, by the stoniest track ever misnamed road, to 
 Montehaque, another and larger mountain village, 
 overlooking its own nook of trees and corn-plots. 
 Above and around it slopes away a great waste of 
 rock, and on a projecting ledge, close by, a ruined 
 tower stands like a sentinel who has died on his post. 
 Turning to the right, we skirted the base of an isolated 
 mass of rock called the Peak of Zumidero, and soon 
 came to a gorge bearing the same name, to explore 
 which was the principal object of the excursion. 
 This is an exploit only practicable in dry summer 
 weather, for the path we followed bore indisputable 
 marks of having been recently in the occupation of 
 a furious torrent. 
 
 I dismounted and followed my aged guide, lost in 
 admiration at the agility he displayed. s Who would 
 have thought the old man had so much blood in him ?' 
 But the scenery about me soon taxed my powers of 
 admiration to the uttermost. We were threading a 
 rent in the mountain, not above twenty or thirty feet 
 in width, while the rocks on each side rose up per- 
 
THE GORGE OF ZUMIDERO. 203 
 
 pendicularly to the height of I know not how many 
 hundred feet. 
 
 In some places the strata were tost and bent into 
 most fantastic forms, now standing out vertically like 
 the stumps of a petrified forest, now thrusting forth 
 their jagged edges, like the rotting timbers of a 
 stranded ark. But I feel that in the attempt to 
 describe, I am falling into strained similes. Of this I 
 am sure, that the Alps themselves contain no finer 
 gorge than the Gorge of Zumidero. Yet I never 
 heard its name before, and I believe this is the first 
 time it has appeared in print. It cannot fail to be 
 stereotyped in the memory of all who have seen it. 
 
 After half-an-hour's scrambling, we came to the 
 mouth of the cave, into which the water (when there 
 is any) precipitates itself, and emerges at the Cueva 
 del Gato on the other side of the hill. The old man 
 told me that, a few years ago, an Englishman entered 
 at the one cave, and came out safe and sound at the 
 other. How far the tale is true, I know not. When- 
 ever any stranger does a fool-hardy act, he is set down 
 as an Englishman, and many acts that nobody ever 
 did are doubtless attributed to us. The cavern 
 mouth looked very black and Acherontian, and the 
 angle of descent approximated fearfully to the vertical. 
 I would not have attempted the feat, had I been 
 assured of finding within all the hidden treasures of 
 Sultan Solyman. We reascended by a short cut, 
 where the ground was very dry and slippery, and 
 
204 SUNSET VIEW. 
 
 where, but for tufts of short grass, it would have been 
 impossible to maintain a footing. In the middle of 
 the climb, my poor old man alarmed me much by 
 showing symptoms of fainting. If he had relaxed his 
 grasp for an instant, he would infallibly have been 
 killed. However, he recovered after a short pause, 
 and we reached the top in safety. We rejoined our 
 horses at the appointed place, and resumed our march 
 homeward. When we reached the crest of the hill, 
 looking eastward, a glorious prospect burst upon us. 
 In the far distance were bare mountains, just below 
 our feet, the wooded, watered, fertile valley, and 
 between them, the central glory of the whole, Honda 
 on her rocky throne, crowned with the light of the 
 evening sun. The last gleam was still lingering 
 about the hill tops when I arrived at the gates of 
 Ronda, and so closed one of the white days of my 
 life, the delights of which would have been doubled 
 had they been shared with a friend. 
 
205 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 T LEFT Ronda at dawn on Thursday, September 6. 
 Being high among the mountains, there was a 
 dewy freshness in the earth, and a bracing keenness 
 in the air, such as I had not experienced for long. 
 The sides of the narrow valley along which our path 
 lay were fringed with holm oak ; on our left hand, 
 rose a bold mountain-range the flying buttresses of 
 San Cristobal from whose shady recesses, at rare 
 intervals, sparkled white, green-belted hamlets. 
 
 The path continually descends, and the glen widens 
 out into a broad valley, till, after a ride of three or 
 four hours, we come in sight of Zahara a fortress 
 famous for its gallant capture by the Moors, at ' the 
 beginning of the end,' the first exploit of that war 
 which terminated in the surrender of Granada. The 
 strength of the position would seem to defy bdth 
 force and fraud. It is a bold rocky hill, blocking up 
 the valley, and commanding a prospect on every side. 
 The old towers and long walls still remain, mouldered 
 into beauty. The best view of the place is obtained 
 from the north side, after winding round the base of 
 the hill ; then the little town, before hidden, comes 
 into sight, cowering under the grim old castle walls, 
 and suggesting all manner of fantastic similes, more 
 
206 PUERTO SERRANO. 
 
 or less similar. Should I liken it to a flock of sheep 
 crowding to the fold? or a flight of doves to the 
 dove-cote ? or the white-robed chorus of a tragedy 
 suppliant to Ares? or Trojan maidens, blanched 
 with fear, clasping Hector's feet? Before I had 
 settled in my own mind an appropriate fancy, the 
 reality itself was lost to sight. About a league from 
 Zahara, we emerged from glen and wood upon a 
 wide, dreary desert of brown earth, studded with low 
 shrubs, lentisk, tamarisk, arbutus, and the dwarf 
 ilex, with prickly leaves and acorns. As far as the 
 eye could reach, the undulating hills were covered 
 always with the like. It was a cheerless scene, 
 and, to add to the cheerlessness, it began to rain hard 
 and threaten harder. However, we were approach- 
 ing Puerto Serrano, which we reached, by pushing 
 on, at one in the afternoon. 
 
 It must be nearly eight leagues from Honda, and, 
 wretched as the place looked, I was glad of rest and 
 shelter on any terms. It consists of one long, mise- 
 rable street of mud hovels, surrounded by a flat, tree- 
 less swamp. Everything has a squalid, desolate 
 appearance, and the posada is like everything else. 
 However, the poor people did their best to relieve 
 my wants, and I was soon seated on their only stool 
 (happy folks, that have one danger the less!) just 
 within the open door, enjoying a very palatable mess 
 of eggs and tomata, A number of ragged boys over 
 the waj gathered together, and observed my pro- 
 ceedings with much interest, and probably envy. I 
 
A GOOD PASTOR. 207 
 
 took no notice, and devoted all my attention to the 
 dish, till on a sudden I was saluted by a volley of 
 large stones, which the young savages discharged 
 (with a bad aim, fortunately, like their fellows at 
 Ronda), and then fled, in the Parthian manner, to 
 gather means for a fresh assault. An angry man 
 was the landlord, and loud and deep his curses. I 
 found, on inquiry, that there was only one school in 
 the village, and even that the cura had established, 
 and taught himself without fee. All honour to him ! 
 Who shall say that the army of martyrs receives no 
 more recruits ? It is true, persecution has now 6 no 
 faggot for burning,' yet he is not the less a martyr 
 who dies daily in a good cause. And a daily death 
 it must be for a man who has seen other places and 
 known better things, whose sensitiveness has been 
 quickened by any sort of education, to be immured 
 in a savage desert like this, and among a people as 
 savage a shepherd with a flock of undisguised 
 wolves. 
 
 The sun shone out upon us once more, as, after 
 a rest of two hours, we left the miserable place and 
 took our way across the comparatively cheerful 
 desert which lies towards the north. I should 
 rather have said rises and falls ; for all there is gentle 
 undulation ; the last heavings of the mountain before 
 it dies into the plain. The stunted eminences and 
 shallow depressions which we were now crossing, 
 bore to the peaks and glens which we had left 
 behind, the same relation that the ripples of a land- 
 
208 A PLEASANT SPRING. 
 
 locked bay bear to the billows and troughs of the 
 open sea. It was some relief, too, to think of the 
 ceaseless life and play of the waters in the midst of 
 such blank solitude and death-like stillness. For 
 two long leagues I neither saw nor heard beast, bird, 
 or insect ; so it was quite a pleasure to descry in the 
 distance, a large party, dressed in colours to match, 
 sprinkling the bare hill side like a bed of tulips. 
 When we came up, we found them grouped round a 
 little spring which had somehow come spontaneously 
 to the surface, and had provided itself against the 
 fiery sun with a fringe of fern and a coping of wild 
 fig-tree. There was a great mixed company gathered 
 eagerly round it ; horses and mules for the women to 
 ride, while the men walked beside them, quite out- 
 doing their fair companions in splendour of costume. 
 A short jacket, slashed with various colours, a crimson 
 sash, embroidered gaiters, and a little hat with a 
 jaunty tuft, made these majos look as gay and as 
 proud as peacocks ; and nothing could be more pic- 
 torial than their unstudied attitudes, as they lolled 
 on the ground or leaned upon the shoulder of a 
 mule. With these people pose and repose are 
 equivalent terms. They were bound, they said, to 
 the fair of Utrera, and were astonished to hear that it 
 was not the object of my worship's journey also. 
 They were very polite, and offered me the never- 
 failing 'fire,' presenting the cigar after the most 
 approved mode of civilized society. 
 
 My object was water, but they had so puddled the 
 
209 
 
 well that I was fain to slake my thirst with wine an 
 unpalatable substitute when the thirst is real. The 
 Spaniards need not boast of their sobriety ; they may 
 thank their stars for it; in the chill foggy atmo- 
 sphere of England, they would soon become accli- 
 matized to brandy. Haifa league farther on we passed 
 near a great square castle, with keep and towers 
 and curtain walls, all complete. I was much tempted 
 to diverge and examine it, but the setting sun warned 
 me to push on, for I had no fancy for passing the 
 night in a shrubbery, after the fashion of the Don and 
 Sancho. It was not yet dark when we got to 
 Coronil a considerable place, with its ruined castle, 
 of course; and, what was more to my purpose, a 
 decent posada, intitled ' Del Pilar.' The burly host 
 was reposing on a stone seat before the door as we 
 rode up. He made no sign of welcome, but I had 
 long found that the only way of conciliating an inn- 
 keeper was to do by design what Don Quixote did 
 in madness, to treat his house as if it were a castle, 
 and him as if he were the lord thereof. The truth 
 is, every man is above his trade, and would hold his 
 dignity sullied by showing the least empressement 
 towards a customer. Necessity compels him to 
 open his door; but, in revenge, he entrenches himself 
 behind a breast-work of reserve. Dismount and 
 approach, he consents to parley; salute with grave 
 courtesy, he accepts a truce ; address in your state- 
 liest Castilian, his flattered ' worship' surrenders at 
 discretion; present a Gibraltar cigar, the lord of 
 
210 UTRERA. 
 
 the castle is merged in the idolater of tobacco, and 
 becomes the humblest of your slaves. 
 
 I tried this plan of attack at Coronil with eminent 
 success, and was immediately put in possession of 
 such resources for supper and sleep as the vanquished 
 foe could command. The night, however, was ren- 
 dered most unquiet by the arrival and departure 
 of successive troops going to Utrera fair ; and I 
 regretted the less having to rise at two in the morn- 
 ing, and take the road also. The dwindling moon 
 just showed enough of the surrounding country to 
 free me from any regret I might otherwise have felt, 
 at not having seen it by day it was 'waste and 
 bare,' that mournful iteration knells through every 
 Spanish tour. We passed several groups on the 
 road, and at dawn reached Utrera, now the centre 
 of attraction. Here we rested for an hour time 
 enough to see all worth seeing in the town. 
 
 The church boasts an elaborately sculptured door- 
 way of the time of Ferdinand and Isabel. Close by 
 is a covered market, which even at that early hour 
 was humming like a hive ; the buyers swarming like 
 so many bees about the tempting wares ; heaps of 
 water-melons, piled like cannon-balls, baskets of ripe 
 grapes, rich green pimentoes, and scarlet tomatas. 
 
 Leaving Utrera, instead of following the main road, 
 we struck into a bye-path through a forest of scattered 
 pine trees, the ground beneath thickly grown with 
 the bush called carasca, which showered its dew 
 upon our feet as we rode along the narrow track. 
 
THE LOG AND THE SERPENT. 211 
 
 As we approached the end of our journey, Agustin, 
 who had been sulky and taciturn all the way, began 
 to brighten up and grow talkative. I suspected that 
 the change of behaviour was due to a politic calcula- 
 tion regarding the ' buena mano.' His chief theme 
 was the oppression of the government. When they 
 helped to hunt out Espartero they had been taught to 
 expect that they should have less taxes to pay for the 
 future; but, on the contrary, the taxes had been 
 doubled. Everybody heartily repented of having 
 exchanged Regent Log for Premier Serpent. They 
 were all ready for revolt, and would join the French 
 or any body to get rid of Narvaez. How far all this 
 was true I know not, but I am of opinion that the 
 lower orders in Spain (as elsewhere) entertain a 
 general hatred of all governments, and an especial 
 hatred of the government for the time being. More- 
 over, the improved system of general taxation intro- 
 duced by Mon, affords fewer loopholes for escape 
 than the former awkward plan of provincial assess- 
 ment. 
 
 Apropos of French invasion, Agustin repeated to 
 me an old rhyme ('refran muy antiguo') the purport 
 of which is strangely at variance with the pride and 
 self-confidence which are supposed to characterize 
 all the Spanish. Here it is : 
 
 El Rey de Espafia en campana, 
 Y el Rey de Francia en retire, 
 
 Espana sera de Francia, 
 
 E il tiempo doy por testigo. 
 That is: 
 
212 A CHEAP SHILLING'S-WORTH. 
 
 Let the king of Spain fight might and main, 
 And the French king stay at home, 
 
 Yet over Spain shall the Frenchman reign, 
 And my test is time to come. 
 
 By-and-bye, we left the wood of pines, and passed 
 through vast olive grounds, each with its hacienda, 
 or grange, attached ; then we came to a little dusty 
 village, where I purchased two pounds of grapes for 
 something less than an English penny, and soon after 
 I saw the Giralda, towering over a rising ground 
 which still hid all the rest of Seville. I pushed on, 
 and in a few minutes looked down on the wide plain 
 which surrounds the walls of the famous city. Here, 
 as at Madrid, there is no interval of compromise 
 between town and country ; compact within its walls, 
 and thick-set with towers, the city seems to have 
 clustered round the great central mass of the cathedral. 
 But it was getting near noon, and intensely hot, so I 
 did not pause to consider whether or no the first sight 
 had disappointed me, but cantered on to meet, or 
 make, the air. I passed over the Quemadero, where 
 the victims of the Inquisition used to be burnt 
 delighted in spurning it with my horse's heels and 
 presented myself and my effects at the nearest gate. 
 'Have you anything contraband?' asked the cara- 
 binero. ' Nothing.' ' Are you sure ?' and he came a 
 little nearer, lowering his tone ; then, with his hand 
 on my saddle, he repeated, ' Quite sure ?' in an affec- 
 tionate whisper. I put a peseta into his willing hand, 
 and was bidden to proceed, unsearched, 'with the 
 blessing of God' altogether, a cheap shilling's-worth. 
 
213 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE Fonda de Europa has been a palace in its 
 day. Now it has a shop-front, and externally 
 is no way distinguishable from the neighbouring 
 houses of the tortuous Calle de los Sierpes (Serpents'- 
 street). But inside is a court, with marble pillars all 
 round, supporting an arcade ; and in the middle the 
 shrubs grow as freshly, and the fountain plays as 
 cheerfully as ever. My rooms on the ground floor 
 opened into this court, and it was very pleasant of 
 an evening to inhale the faint fragrance from the 
 opening blossoms of the e Lady of Night,' and to listen 
 to the ceaseless splashing of the water. But, alas ! 
 too often sentiment received rude shocks by the 
 mingling of scents and sounds, more prosaic and 
 familiar, a whiff betraying the proximity of a cigar, 
 or a gurgling suggestive of bottled beer. The latter 
 luxury implies, of course, the presence of our country- 
 men, Ubi bene est ibi patria. Wherever an English- 
 man can get his beer, he feels himself at home. In 
 the present case our nation was represented by two or 
 three officers from ' Gib,' on pleasure because off 
 duty, and lying in bed till noon because they were 
 not forced to rise for parade at six. Lounging about 
 the corridors of this veritable Castle of Indolence 
 
214 SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 were a number of bearded, sallow specimens of young 
 Italy, the singers of the opera, much given to 
 oratorical vehemence and expectoration propensities 
 offensive at all times, but especially at dinner. These 
 kings of the stage were the tyrants of the table, and 
 at last goaded the much suffering minority into open 
 revolt. So some half-dozen of us, English and French, 
 declared ourselves a republic, and established a new 
 provisional regime, by resolving to dine at a separate 
 table, and a later hour. We christened our mess 
 the entente cordial. The secession was further 
 strengthened by Paul and Victor, my old friends, who 
 had come by way of Cadiz. 
 
 The morning after my arrival, I hastened betimes 
 to the cathedral, reckoned by all natives (except the 
 inhabitants of other cathedral towns) the grandest in 
 Spain. Thus they class them, Seville first, Toledo 
 second, Burgos third ; and I had congratulated my- 
 self in being able to see them in due order of climax. 
 It is painful to confess disappointment, after having 
 come so far for the purpose of being astonished, but 
 such was my feeling on the first view of Seville 
 Cathedral. It is built in late Gothic, a style which 
 Pugin and Ruskin have compelled one to despise, 
 and, besides, is hampered with accessory edifices, 
 destroying all unity and symmetry of design. After 
 all, its enormous height and vast bulk give it a sub- 
 limity barbarous if you will "but sublimity still. 
 On the north side stretches the famous Court of 
 Oranges, surrounded externally by the old Moorish 
 
SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 215 
 
 walls. The same gate which opened to admit St. 
 Ferdinand, the conqueror of the thirteenth century, 
 stands ajar for the tourist of the nineteenth. A 
 troop of noisy children are chasing each other in 
 and out among the rows of orange-trees, or sailing 
 boats of walnut-shell in the basin of the fountain, 
 without let or hindrance, for in Spain, happily for the 
 children of all growths, there are no beadles, nor any 
 of those severe functionaries who in England impress 
 upon one the impossibility of doing anything or going 
 anywhere. A horse-shoe arch, under which, in old 
 times, the members of the one true faith passed into 
 their mosque, now admits the members of the other 
 true faith into their cathedral. 
 
 Internally, the qualities of size and height tell upon 
 you with increased effect. At first, till your eye be- 
 comes accustomed to the stinted light, all seems dark 
 and void, like some vast cavern. One would think 
 that the priestly architects were jealous of admitting 
 even the glory of heaven into the temple of God. By- 
 and-bye, as the separate details develop themselves 
 to the view, so colossal are they that they diminish 
 your idea of the magnitude of the whole ; but this 
 again, is forced upon the understanding in spite of 
 sense, when you reflect that those pigmies on the 
 floor are full-sized men. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the general effect is injured by 
 the massive interpolations which separate the choir 
 and counter-choir from the body of the church. The 
 altar screen reaches almost from base to roof,' and 
 
216 ELEVATION OF THE HOST. 
 
 contains statues enough to represent all the saints in 
 the calendar. A number of steps lead up to the high 
 altar which is fenced on each side by a gilt railing as 
 tall as an ordinary church. The central space between 
 the two choirs is left open, only during mass a bar is 
 placed along each side to keep off the laity. The 
 other choir has a heavy classical screen at the western 
 end and two enormous organs, one on each side. On 
 Sundays and festivals all the space commanding a 
 view of the high altar is crowded with worshippers, the 
 men standing, till on a sudden a bell rings and every 
 one drops down on his knees, some almost prostrating 
 themselves, to adore the elevated Host. Through 
 the gilded rails, amid a dense cloud of incense-smoke, 
 you see the tapers burning round the holy place, and 
 can just discern the scarlet and white robes of the 
 priests on the steps of the altar. Then the organ 
 peals out ; and all your senses are captive to illusion. 
 One day I was present at a procession round the 
 aisles a much less imposing ceremony, for it took 
 place in fuller light, which brought to view all the 
 accompanying meannesses and incongruities : one 
 saw that the tinsel was not gold. I could not help 
 remarking that though the robes of the priests were 
 of scarlet embroidery, their boots looked as if they 
 had not been cleaned for a month. Moreover, they 
 kept chatting by the way in an undertone, and the 
 acolytes seemed to think it good fun, for they grinned 
 and made faces, undeterred by the presence of the 
 Cardinal-archbishop, who was walking in the pro- 
 
PAINTINGS IN THE CATHEDRAL. 217 
 
 cession. At intervals he halted, and two priests 
 came before him, and after kneeling for an instant,* 
 commenced jerking their pots of incense up, and then 
 dexterously withdrawing them when about three 
 inches from his Eminence's face. 
 
 I was most edified by the quiet demeanour of the 
 prelate, who seemed neither elated by the homage 
 nor startled by the censer's proximity to his nose 
 habit, doubtless, had enabled him to surmount both 
 weaknesses. 
 
 The church, its chapels and adjuncts, sacristy, 
 chapter-house, &c., form a perfect museum of art, 
 containing, inter alia, about a score of Murillos. Of 
 these the most celebrated are the ' St. Antony of 
 Padua,' in the last chapel on the north side, and the 
 'Guardian Angel' between the western doors. The 
 former can only be well seen about four or five o'clock 
 in a bright afternoon. In size it may be twenty feet 
 by ten. The saint, in friar's frock and cowl, is 
 kneeling on one knee, with out-spread hands, half 
 open mouth and eager eye, to greet the Infant Jesus, 
 who is seen descending in a glory girt with dark 
 clouds, and attended by a host of angels. The scene 
 is a church, with pillars and marble floor : beside St. 
 Antony is a table, with an open book and a vase of 
 lilies, and in the background is a door through which 
 one sees a sunny court and arcade. The figure of the 
 saint is glorious. The subject is one where Murillo's 
 genius never fails him. The pale worn cheek and 
 sunk eye flush and flash with rapturous joy; the 
 
 GAZ. L 
 
218 PAINTINGS IN THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 ecstasy of a moment repays the sufferings of years 
 one glimpse of heavenly light compensates a thousand 
 nights of watching. 
 
 The other picture was conceived in a tenderer mood. 
 The Guardian Angel, in bright raiment, gently leads 
 by the hand a little child; with one arm he points to 
 heaven, and the child's eyes follow it wonderingly. 
 
 Not far from it hangs ' the Adoration of the 
 Shepherds/ a most charming specimen of Luis de 
 Vargas, a master who has left little behind him 
 but a reputation. The rustics are represented bring- 
 ing all manner of animals and fruits as offerings to 
 the new-born Saviour. Beautiful as the picture is, it 
 gives one the idea rather of a successful piece of 
 eclecticism than an original design. A bright-eyed 
 child hugging a goat, as loth to part with it, is quite 
 after the manner of Raphael, and a fair-haired full- 
 blown woman, carrying a baby, is a palpable pla- 
 giarism from Paul Veronese. The * genre' reminds 
 us of the Bassanos. 
 
 In the Chapel of St. Jago is a grand picture by 
 Roelas. The saint is mounted on his traditionary 
 white horse, smiting and trampling down a crowd of 
 turbaned infidels, breasting the tempest of battle, and 
 leaving in his rear a calm wake, in which the banners 
 and spears of Castile come dancing on to victory. In 
 the distance are seen the routed Moors, flying towards 
 some towers dimly visible against a lurid sky. 
 
 Nothing can be bolder than the treatment of the 
 subject; the horse is galloping out from the canvas, 
 
THE GIRALDA. 219 
 
 and the spectator can hardly repress an impulse to 
 step aside and make way for him. 
 
 Not far from the western entrance is a slab marking 
 the grave of Fernando Colon (Columbus). The in- 
 scription modestly grounds his claims to posthumous 
 memory, on the fact that he was his father's son. 
 Two curious representations of the galleys in which 
 the great admiral navigated the Atlantic are cut in 
 the marble. They are executed with an uncertain 
 hand, like a schoolboy's drawing.- In one of them 
 are two figures with crowns, representing Ferdinand 
 and Isabel, quite enormous in proportion to the vessel 
 nearly half-mast high. 
 
 The Giralda, so called from a colossal weather- 
 cock at the top, is a great square tower at the north- 
 east corner of the cathedral. The lower part is of 
 Moorish construction, the rest a Christian addition. 
 You ascend, not by steps, but by a succession of in- 
 clined planes, which lead easily and pleasantly to the 
 top of the square part. This is surmounted by a 
 somewhat fantastic erection, neither tower nor spire, 
 narrowing by successive stages to a point on which 
 pirouettes the weathercock aforesaid, a figure of Faith, 
 veering with every wind that blows. Was it put 
 there in satire, or simplicity ? I should recommend 
 the substitution of an archbishop if a cardinal, so 
 much the better. 
 
 The view is of course superb. All Seville lies 
 spread out at one's feet like a model of itself. Indeed, 
 it is only by studying the plan of the town from this 
 L 2 
 
220 LIBRARY. 
 
 eminence that one is able to find any clue to the 
 tortuous labyrinth of its narrow streets. Here and 
 there is a plot of green, cypresses or palm-trees, sur- 
 rounded by gaunt ranges of white buildings, decaying 
 and decayed these, be sure, are the suppressed 
 convents. Further away are outlying orange groves, 
 most extensive on the opposite side of the Guadal- 
 quivir, whose sheeny windings are visible far to east 
 and far to west along the level plain. A few miles to 
 the north rise sloping hills planted with olives, and 
 crowned here and there with a village or convent. 
 Turning southward, the view is bounded by the blue 
 rugged outline of San Cristobal the Atlas, in both 
 senses, of Christendom. 
 
 Attached to the cathedral is a considerable library, 
 very liberally thrown open to the public. I generally 
 spent two or three hours there in the heat of the day. 
 There were always balf-a-dozen little boys reading 
 diligently. Their favourite books were Don Quixote, 
 Mariana, and Solis. The nucleus of the library was 
 the collection of Fernando Colon, the same who is 
 buried in the cathedral. 
 
 I was allowed to examine some very curious letters 
 in the handwriting of Christopher himself. In a 
 copy of Seneca, which belonged to the son, the famous 
 lines in the Medea are marked with his pen : 
 
 Venient annis ssecula seris, 
 Quibus oceanus vincula rerum 
 Laxet, et ingens pateat Tellus, 
 Tethysque novos detegat orbes, 
 . Neque sit terris ultima Thule. 
 
LIBRARY. 221 
 
 And in the margin he has added a note: 'This 
 prophecy was fulfilled by my father's discovery of 
 Hispaniola, October 12, 1492.' Columbus himself, 
 in a memorial which I saw in his own hand, appealed 
 to this ' prophecy,' as he called it a curious instance 
 of the almost religious reverence paid, after ' the 
 revival of learning/ to the old classics. In the same 
 spirit, Virgil's Pollio was construed into a vaticination 
 of the Saviour's birth ; and in the Dies Irce, the 
 Sibyl is joined with David as a witness for the coming 
 judgment-day. 
 
 I found some curious information in a book called 
 Grandezas de Sevilla, by Espinosa, a canon of the 
 cathedral in the end of the sixteenth and beginning 
 of the following century. He gives a diffuse but 
 interesting account of the funeral ceremonies per- 
 formed in commemoration of Philip the Second. A 
 sumptuous catafalque was erected in the cathedral, 
 adorned with pictures by Pacheco and others, repre- 
 senting the glories of his reign. Among the rest 
 was one of the ' Conquest of England !' an event 
 frequently alluded to in the Epigrams and other 
 poems written on the same occasion. May our 
 enemies ever have the same cause for triumph I Yet 
 I honour the stubborn pride which refused to believe 
 that the ' Invincible' had been vanquished. 
 
 But the account given of the rejoicings at Seville 
 in 1622, when Gregory the Fifteenth had conferred 
 upon the Virgin the title of ( sin pecado concebida,' 
 was still more curious and characteristic. The whole 
 
222 LIBRARY. 
 
 city gave itself up to delirious joy, which it manifested 
 in the strangest way. There was a grand procession, 
 in which all the heroes of antiquity, mythological 
 or historical, were impressed to do honour to the 
 immaculately-conceived Mary. Among the rest was 
 a statue of Hercules, with the legend : 
 
 Ercules dize que soys 
 Sin pecado concebida 
 Y por vos dada la vida. 
 
 Then followed a statue of Julius Caesar, with a new 
 interpretation of the initials S.P.Q.R. Sancta, Pura, 
 Querpo impecable, Reyna libre. There was also a 
 grand tournament in the Plaza de San Francisco. 
 All this is narrated with the most devout gravity 
 by the author, who concludes his book with this 
 crowning glory vouchsafed to the faithful city. 
 
 But as. I cannot share his devotion, neither must 
 I imitate his prolixity, so here I close my cathedral 
 chapter. 
 
223 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HPHE convent of La Merced Calzada ' Grace in 
 -*- shoes' has been turned into a museum of 
 pictures, its former occupation and occupants being 
 gone. It is, they say, the only one of the newly- 
 formed provincial museums which contains anything 
 but rubbish though, indeed, Seville might well rank 
 as a metropolis in art. Here, probably, the gems 
 were too well-known to be abstracted with impunity; 
 while in other places, during the turmoil of eccle- 
 siastical revolution, many individuals, private and 
 official, took advantage of din and dust to secure the 
 best things for themselves. I heard so many well- 
 authenticated stories to this effect, that, if it were not 
 for their constant professions of pure patriotism, I 
 should be inclined to suspect Spaniards of a pro- 
 pensity to jobbing. Even here the accumulation has 
 been so indiscriminate that it does not deserve to 
 be called a collection; everything in the shape of 
 smeared canvas has been admitted ; and there is no 
 catalogue by way of guide. Fortunately, the bad is 
 so bad, and the good so good, as a general rule, that 
 no one need be at a loss. There are, I think, no less 
 than twenty-five Murillos, most of which were to be 
 arranged in one saloon, called after his name. I 
 
224 LA MERCED CALZADA: 
 
 will not stay to enumerate, much less to describe 
 them; for a verbal sketch of this or that picture, 
 however detailed, is useless to those who have not 
 seen it, and superfluous to those who have. I must, 
 however, mention the * St. Thomas of Villanueva 
 giving alms to the poor,' which looks like a pendent 
 to the St. Isabel at Madrid. Squalid poverty and 
 loathsome disease are faithfully portrayed, and yet 
 do not revolt the sense, so elevated, almost glorified, 
 are they by the benevolence of which they are the 
 objects. Though the colouring is generally sombre, 
 yet the picture is, as it were, steeped in warm and 
 glowing atmosphere a peculiarity observable in 
 many or most of Murillo's works. It is produced, 
 I am told, by his employment of a red priming, 
 which tells through the upper coating of paint 
 Here and there, where a crack or flaw occurred, this 
 red priming was distinctly visible. Among the rest 
 of the pictures, perhaps the ' St. John in the Desert,' 
 and ' St. Francis embracing the Cross,' have remained 
 most distinctly impressed on my memory. I stood 
 for some time to watch a young artist copying the 
 ' St. John,' and understood the original all the 
 better. It was like reading Chaucer, with a 
 modernized text on the opposite page. In contem- 
 plating the whole series, I was lost in admiration 
 of the power which enabled one man to depict, in 
 such startling reality, every phase of suffering or 
 rejoicing humanity, and to present so grand an ideal 
 of dying or triumphant God. 
 
MUSEUM OF PICTURES. 225 
 
 The post of honour over the altar, in the ci-devant 
 chapel, is assigned to 'the Apotheosis of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas,' the masterpiece of Zurbaran. When this 
 picture was in the Louvre, it was placed side by side 
 with the ' Transfiguration,' and it was a moot point 
 among the Parisian amateurs whether of the two was 
 the finer work. Zurbaran painted it when only 
 twenty-seven, and in the course of a long life never 
 approached the excellence of this early effort. 
 
 Among the curiosities of the Museum, may be 
 mentioned Don Isidoro, the curator thereof, a stout 
 old gentleman, of an original and cosmopolitan turn 
 of mind. One day he developed to me at great length 
 a plan for remedying the confusion of Shinar, and 
 bringing all mankind to speak one language, and 
 that, of course, the Castilian (Don Isidoro being 
 profoundly ignorant of any other). Meanwhile, 
 pending the execution of his scheme, he would 
 make an excellent corresponding member for the 
 Peace Society. 
 
 It is a favourite saying with tourists, that Seville 
 is the Florence of Spain, the most salient points of 
 resemblance being the Giralda and Giotto's Tower. 
 Yet it is doing foul wrong to the shade of the gentle 
 Tuscan, to liken his graceful and airy conception to 
 the solid, cumbrous work of Abu-Ebn-what's-his-name 
 (the Moorish architect). There is, however, so far a 
 resemblance between the two cities, that the public 
 buildings of each are filled with works of art done 
 by the hands of their own citizens monuments of 
 
 L3 
 
226 THE CARIDAD: 
 
 filial gratitude. Pictures have a double charm when 
 seen in the place for which the artist destined them, 
 surrounded by their appropriate frame-work. One 
 derives far more pleasure from contemplating a Mu- 
 rillo in the Caridad, than from its companion at 
 Stafford-house. There is a nameless charm about 
 the former, which a Soult could not pilfer nor a 
 Sutherland purchase. Every one has heard of the 
 grand picture, ' Moses striking the Rock, 1 and no 
 one was ever disappointed when he saw it. It is 
 thoroughly Andalucian in costumes, complexions, 
 and crockery. These systematic anachronisms of 
 the great painters may be justified, I think, by the 
 true principles of ' high art.' The facts of religious 
 history are of universal application, and only interest 
 us so far as they appertain to ourselves, our country, 
 and our times. The painter dramatizes the scene 
 by adopting the character and costume of his own 
 people, and his own day. So, also, in the drama 
 itself: Juliet's nurse chatters in idiomatic Saxon, 
 and lago sings about King Stephen and his trews. 
 And as the great masters, in their earthly scenes, 
 despised the proprieties of time and place, so, in their 
 representations of Heaven, they soared above all the 
 laws of optics. It would have seemed to them an 
 impiety to 'foreshorten' the crowned Mother of 
 God. 
 
 In the sacristy, behind the altar, is a crucifixion, 
 attributed to Alonso Cano, and worthy of him or 
 anybody. The cross is set upon a mountain peak, 
 
ITS ORIGIN. 227 
 
 and on it hangs the Saviour, left alone with death. 
 A ghastly light of unnatural eclipse is seen breaking 
 here and there through the dark clouds. 
 
 This Caridad is a great hospital, founded by Don 
 Miguel de Manara, and thereby hangs a tale. Don 
 Miguel was young and rich, much given to revelry, 
 whereon he spent his time and his substance as reck- 
 lessly as if both were to last for ever. Late one night 
 he was returning, flushed with wine, from a gay ca- 
 rousal ; the streets of Seville were dark, silent, and 
 deserted. Suddenly he became aware of a funeral 
 procession moving noiselessly by his side. A long 
 line of mourners, in deep black, walked two and two, 
 each with a lighted taper. One of them, as he passed, 
 gave Don Miguel a taper not lighted, saying, ' Come 
 with us.' He felt constrained to follow, and tried 
 repeatedly to light his taper, but could not ; at last he 
 inquired whose body they were bearing to the grave ? 
 and one answered him, * Don Miguel de MariaraV 
 They came to the church where his father and an- 
 cestors were buried. It was in a blaze of light ; and, 
 as the procession entered, a multitude of voices began 
 to chant a Miserere. He tried to join, but his 
 voice refused its office: gradually, as if from the 
 damp stone floor, a deadly chill crept over his frame 
 from feet to head, and he remembered no more. 
 Next morning the sexton, when he unlocked the 
 door, found Don Miguel prostrate before the altar, 
 in a deep swoon. He was with difficulty restored to 
 himself a different self, for from that time forward 
 
228 THE CHURCHES OF SEVILLE. 
 
 he abandoned his pleasures, and devoted his life and 
 fortune to found and endow the Hospital of the 
 Caridad. If any rationalist presume to explain away 
 the story, I answer, ' There is the hospital, a solid 
 stone-and-mortar proof can you explain away that?' 
 
 The churches of Seville make little pretension, at 
 least externally, to architectural beauty. Many, how- 
 ever, are exceedingly curious, having been mosques 
 in their day, or synagogues. Who shall say to what 
 uses they may still come? In the church of All- 
 Saints is a curious combination a rose window and 
 doorway of rich florid Gothic have been grafted upon 
 the Moorish stock. Close by is the house of the 
 Counts of Montijo, now deserted and ruinous. Across 
 the family coat of arms two iron bars are nailed, and 
 this is the reason : In the days of Peter the Cruel, 
 an ancestor of the family held some office, of which 
 he carried a wand as badge. One day, in a fit of 
 irritation at some act of the king's, he broke this 
 wand. The monarch, for once belying his character 
 and his name, pardoned the offence ; but ordered 
 that the broken wand should always be displayed 
 over the arms of the house. 
 
 The university presents rather an imposing exterior. 
 Inside it is cut up into courts, too small and too plain 
 for architectural effect. Their only decoration was a 
 profusion of whitewash. I peeped into some of the 
 lecture-rooms; they were very small, and simple, 
 almost rude, in furniture. Judging from the appear- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY. 229 
 
 ance of the benches, Spanish students seemed addicted 
 to f whittling,' but, as it was long-vacation time, I 
 had no opportunity of observing their habits. The 
 library, however, was still open, as it is all the year 
 round except saints' days. There is a reading-room 
 attached, to which all may have, free access. The 
 books are chiefly ecclesiastical. There are, on the 
 whole, seventy -five thousand volumes, including 
 duplicates; all in most admired disorder, for the 
 newly appointed curator, a young man, had just set 
 himself to the task of re-arranging them, quite in 
 Ercles' vein. 
 
 The adjoining church contains several grand 
 specimens of Roelas, that great painter, who is 
 known and honoured nowhere else but in his own city. 
 Of these, the biggest picture, ' The Circumcision,' is 
 perhaps the greatest. The face of the infant Saviour 
 is exquisite. The brow is calm, and there is a sweet 
 smile on the lips ; and yet it is pervaded by an ex- 
 pression of intense pain. The subject, so nearly 
 approaching the ludicrous, is so treated as to be in- 
 contestably sublime. 
 
 The picture which, in the judgment of Cean Ber- 
 mudez, is Roelas's masterpiece, hangs over the high 
 altar in the church of San Isidore, and represents 
 the death of the Saint. Roelas was a priest as well 
 as a painter, and in this work the ecclesiastical spirit 
 is blended with the artistic. The aged archbishop is 
 represented as dying in the arms of his archdeacons, 
 
230 A PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 and the inferior clergy stand round in due order; 
 while above, the Virgin and Christ, with all the host 
 of heaven, wait to crown the parting spirit. 
 
 An old man, who sometimes accompanied me as 
 laquais-de-place, in his prolix exposition of the picture, 
 spoke of ' the blessed Trinity.' I asked him how he 
 made that out ? and he said, ' Why, there's the Virgin, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' Yet, on secular 
 matters, he was generally well-informed. His name 
 is Jose Lasso de la Vega, and claims kin with the 
 poet Garci of that ilk. He had served under the 
 British in the War of Independence, and cherishes a 
 gold pencil-case given him, he says, by ' Sir Camp- 
 bell.' Now, poor and old, he is glad to be employed 
 as 'guide to Seville,' and is far superior to the pro- 
 fessors of the craft. 
 
 One day, with the most cheerful garrulity, he 
 narrated all his misfortunes, concluding with an 
 elevated sentiment : ' And yet, now that I am poor, 
 I am better and happier than when I was rich.' I 
 pressed him to account for the fact, hoping to hear 
 some practical philosophy from the unconscious Stoic, 
 and his answer was : ' Well, sir, when I was rich, I 
 used to eat more than was good for me.' 
 
 Our philosopher talks in no other idiom than his 
 native Castilian, so that one takes, perforce, a 
 peripatetic lesson in the language. Generally, how- 
 ever, when once familiar with the place, it is better to 
 go alone. Official people relax rules, and private 
 
THE RESIDENCE OF MURILLO. 231 
 
 people inconvenience themselves, much more readily 
 to oblige a stranger than a native. 
 
 For instance, once or twice I went with Seiior Vega, 
 and asked permission to see the Canon Cepero's 
 pictures, which was, on one pretext or other, always 
 refused. I then went alone, and was immediately 
 admitted, and the housekeeper told me I should have 
 been admitted before, had I not been accompanied by 
 a laquais-de-place. The Canon's gallery contains now 
 little that is remarkable, but the house is interesting 
 as having been Murillo's own. This circumstance 
 induced the Canon, who is an impassioned amateur, 
 to fix his residence there. And a very pleasant house 
 it is ; the rooms occupied by the artist overlook a 
 little shady garden, with a fountain. Here he died, 
 and was buried in a church close by. This church 
 was destroyed by the French, and its site converted 
 into a plazuela (or small square). They have left 
 many such, as monuments of their domination. The 
 construction of them does not require much archi- 
 tectural skill. 
 
 Murillo was born somewhere in the Calie de las 
 Tiendas, lately re-christened Calle de Murillo ; with 
 brief exceptions, he passed the threescore and four 
 intervening years at Seville so narrow was the orbit 
 in which his life moved whose fame has gone round 
 the world. 
 
 The church in which he was baptized has shared 
 the same fate as that in which he was buried ; but the 
 
232 DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER. 
 
 parish registers have been transferred to the adjoining 
 church of St. Paul. I was curious to see the entry 
 of his baptism, and I found a courteous priest, who at 
 once fished out for me the required volume. It is the 
 first entry for the year 1618. His father is called 
 simply Caspar Esteban ; perhaps the family had not 
 yet acquiesced in the nick-name of * Murillo,' though 
 the painter has once or twice signed it on his works. 
 
 From St. Paul to St. Peter the transition is easy. 
 In one of the chapels of the church dedicated to the 
 latter Saint, is a picture representing his deliverance 
 from prison, attributed to Roelas, but, I think, un- 
 worthy of its author. The Angel is so ponderous 
 and muscular, that it suggests the idea of his having 
 effected the deliverance by mere physical force. 
 However, it is considered a prize, and as such is 
 jealously guarded by a curtain. The verger who has 
 charge of this curtain makes much of the picture by 
 fees. I did not grudge the two reals, as he commu- 
 nicated a fact, curious, whether in a historical or 
 etymological point of view. I should premise, that 
 ' coger las de Villadiego' is a slang phrase in Spanish 
 for absconding, or running away without leave. 
 
 * You see,' said the verger, ' that soldier asleep, 
 keeping watch over His Holiness (St. Peter). Well, 
 his name was Villadiego. So when the angel woke 
 St. Peter, and told him to arise and follow, St. Peter 
 could not find his shoes : ' No tengo mis calzas,' said 
 he. ( Never mind,' replied the angel, ' coge las de 
 
CASA DE PILATOS. 233 
 
 Villadiego' (take Villadiego's). And so the phrase 
 has been in use ever since.' 
 
 This precious story, originating probably in some 
 ecclesiastical joke, was narrated by the man gravely, 
 as if he believed it. It is one instance among a 
 thousand of the simplicity with which the common 
 people adapt Scripture, or what they suppose to be 
 Scripture, to themselves and their habits. In the 
 same spirit, they will tell you that a quaint mediaeval 
 Gotho-moresque house, called the Casa de Pilatos, 
 was really inhabited by the worthy whose name it 
 bears. It belongs to the Duke of Medina Cceli, but 
 is now abandoned to wind, rain, and occasional tourists. 
 Indeed, the family has become so impoverished (so 
 they told me) that I question whether they live in 
 any house at all. 
 
 Most of the great historic families have palaces in 
 
 Seville ; among the rest, the Counts of A . The 
 
 history of the present Count might furnish materials 
 for a romance, perhaps it is a romance itself, but 
 ( I tell the tale as 'twas told to me.' His father lived 
 at Seville, a quiet man, of literary tastes, and averse 
 to the fuss and fume of demonstrative patriots; accord- 
 ingly, he became an object of suspicion to the mob, 
 who, knowing no distinction between suspicion and 
 proof, marked him for an Afrancesado, and one day 
 tore him to pieces in the open street. Soon after, 
 the French came. The misfortunes of the widowed 
 Countess made her naturally an object of sympathy to 
 
234 A ROMANTIC INCIDENT. 
 
 the gallant strangers, several of whom were lodged in 
 her house. When, some time after, they evacuated 
 Seville, the Countess evacuated it too, under the 
 special protection of a French officer, taking with her 
 her only son, a child of seven years old. By-and-bye 
 they found the child an incumbrance, and accordingly 
 dropped him at a little village in Catalonia, leaving 
 him in the charge of a peasant. One day, as he was 
 playing in the street with some other boys, a quarrel 
 arose, and one of them struck him. ' How dare you,' 
 
 cried he, l strike the Count of A !' It happened 
 
 that at that moment the priest was passing, and heard 
 what was said. He took the boy and questioned him, 
 and learnt all he knew of his own history, brought 
 him back to Seville, and established his identity, to 
 the great chagrin of collateral relatives ; and the Count 
 of A is now living in his father's house, a pros- 
 perous gentleman. 
 
235 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 BESIDES Victor and Paul, there were two other 
 French gentlemen staying at our Fonda : one, 
 an old soldier, who had served in the grand army, 
 and had many anecdotes to tell of the Little Corporal 
 and his campaigns; the other, a young fellow of 
 twenty, light-hearted and feather-headed, taking 
 kindly to everything, but, withal, dominated by one 
 master passion. An early propensity to squirts and 
 all the aquatic amusements of childhood had grown 
 with his growth, and developed into a tender affection 
 for fountains, pumps, and water- tubs a genuine 
 hydromania. ' Ma specialite c'est les robinets,' he 
 used to say, and Seville was a city after his own 
 heart. One day we went to the Alcazar, the gardens 
 of which are full of concealed fountains. He in- 
 stinctively detected them and their modus operandi, 
 and took great delight in spouting a playful shower 
 into the coat-pocket of his elderly companion. The 
 presence of our insidious foe prevented us from paying 
 to the gardens the attention which they well deserve, 
 from their peculiarity. They suggest the idea of 
 having been devised by a Dutchman, whose prim 
 plan and precise rules are thwarted and violated by 
 the luxuriant outgrowth of tropical vegetation a 
 
236 GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR. 
 
 horticultural Frankenstein. Only give nature an 
 unlimited supply of water, and she rises with a giant's 
 strength, defies the shears, and shows her abhorrence 
 of geometry. (It would be well if the gardeners on 
 a larger scale would bear in mind, that the treat- 
 ment which suits the holly and the yew is not there- 
 fore applicable to the palm and the aloe.) Green 
 oranges (not in any way allegorical) were hanging 
 in profusion from the drooping boughs. He of the 
 robinets plucked enough to fill the pockets of his 
 revered friend, thus doing a double mischief. I felt 
 strongly tempted to push him into the fish-pond, and 
 take an appropriate and summary vengeance for all 
 his pleasant vices. Here Philip the Fifth used to 
 dangle and angle, with some success it is said. The 
 species of fish which allowed themselves to be caught 
 by him must have been remarkably loyal, or remark- 
 ably stupid. 
 
 The Moorish rooms of the Alcazar are on a some- 
 what larger scale than the portion of the Alhambra 
 from which they were copied. The principal court 
 is about twenty-eight paces long, by twenty-two 
 broad: It also struck me that the stucco ornaments 
 were less elaborately wrought out in detail than their 
 prototypes. 
 
 One day, in company with a French banker, long 
 resident at Seville, we went to explore Triana, the 
 suburb which lies on the north side of the Guadal- 
 quivir. On the way we met a priest, with a few 
 
INSTANCES OF SPANISH PRIDE. 237 
 
 acolytes, carrying the host to some sick person. As 
 my companions, Roman-catholics though they were, 
 did not kneel, I thought myself, as a protestant, 
 entitled, a fortiori, to dispense with the ceremony, so 
 we all merely took off our hats, and accordingly 
 received a savage look from his reverence, and the 
 epithet of 'barbaros.' This made our banker very 
 wroth, and he forthwith commenced a diatribe 
 against Spaniards in general and Sevillians in parti- 
 cular, accusing them of ignorance, laziness, and pride. 
 They lived, he said, from hour to hour, taking no 
 thought for the morrow, and wrapt up in the con- 
 templation of their own national and personal supe- 
 riority to all other nations and persons upon earth, 
 though even their patriotism was more parochial than 
 national. They were all ashamed of their trade; 
 the very hawker in the street would try to impress 
 you with the idea that he hawked for his amusement. 
 By-and-bye we came to a wattled hut on the river's 
 bank to wait for the ferry-boat, in which a man was 
 sitting eating a water-melon. According to the 
 Spanish fashion, he asked us to partake, saying, ' I 
 am eating it merely for refreshment.' The banker 
 whispered, 'It's his dinner, but he's too proud to 
 own it.' There may be indeed, I know there is 
 much truth in all this vituperation, but I have always 
 remarked that Frenchmen were prone to indulge in 
 unmeasured contempt for their neighbours, who, in 
 character and feeling, are separated from them by 
 
238 ANGLO-SPANISH SPECULATION. 
 
 barriers, compared with which the Pyrenees are but 
 mole-hills. The juster and truer view is, to regard 
 faults as the shadows attendant upon virtues. 
 
 In the course of the same walk, we visited the 
 Cartuja, an enormous convent, now converted into a 
 porcelain manufactory by Mr. Pickman, perhaps 
 the only Englishman who has found a Spanish specu- 
 lation answer. He had at first great difficulties to 
 contend with jealousy on the part of the natives, 
 and misconduct on the part of his own countrymen. 
 For he had imported forty or fifty skilled workmen 
 from Staffordshire, and in the course of a few weeks 
 most of them had to be sent home, as they proved 
 incapable of withstanding the temptations of a country, 
 where a man might be drunk for a week on a day's 
 wages. However, the preliminary obstacles have 
 been overcome, and the establishment shows all the 
 outward signs of prosperity. Here and there, among 
 the workmen, I still noticed the light hair and heavy 
 eye which characterize us children of the mist. What 
 would the old abbots say, if they could see their 
 corridors and cloisters filled with a busy crowd, and 
 their desecrated church piled high with pottery, the 
 ' superior ' being a stranger and a heretic ! Part of 
 the rich stall-carving is now stowed away in what 
 was the sacristy, and part has been sent across the 
 river to the Museum. Close by is an immense 
 orange-grove, in which Mr. Pickman has erected two 
 summer-houses, of the willow pattern, such as George 
 the Fourth loved, and painted like an ornamental 
 
INCONSISTENCY OF TITLES. 239 
 
 flower-pot, thus pleasantly blending the shop and the 
 garden. But Mr. P.'s courtesy ought to exempt 
 him from all quizzing. I hope he may make and 
 keep a large fortune, and be made a ' Grand of 
 Spain,' under the title of Duke of Perseverance a 
 title quite in accordance with the modern coinage. 
 It is, however, a monstrous anomaly to designate an 
 hereditary aristocracy by abstract qualities rather 
 than territorial possessions. The ' Duke of Thunder/ 
 suits the naval hero well, but is not so applicable to 
 the country vicar who succeeds him. Moreover, such 
 an assumption is apt to provoke a mischief-loving 
 Nemesis to plague a man, even in his own generation. 
 The * Prince of Peace ' may be a prisoner of war, and 
 the 'Duke of Victory' utterly defeated. We might, 
 perhaps, adopt the plan, with modifications, in our 
 plain-spoken England, and, in ostracizing to the 
 Upper House a Foreign Secretary or Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, might entitle them respectively, 
 ( Marquis of Meddling ' and ' Duke of Deficiency.' 
 
 Seville boasts a spacious theatre, dedicated to St. 
 Ferdinand; for theatres in Spain are not supposed, 
 as in England, to be in exclusive occupation of the 
 antagonist powers. Here, Italian operas alternate 
 with the legitimate drama, by which term I under- 
 stand any sort of piece in which the dialogue is 
 spoken, and not sung. The evening generally con- 
 cludes with a boisterous farce, full of outrageous 
 practical jokes, which would out- Wright Wright, and 
 frighten the Adelphi from its propriety. When a 
 
240 SPECIMENS OF THE NATIONAL BALLET. 
 
 piece has been unusually successful, the audience 
 mark their approval by summoning all the actors by 
 name. They then come forward, one by one, and 
 chant an extemporary quatrain, referring generally 
 to some provincial scandal of the day, resembling in 
 quality the effusions of * the Manchegan Prophetess ' 
 (whom my readers have doubtless forgotten). 
 
 The principal attraction seemed to be the national 
 dances, which were executed with immense spirit 
 and grace. The baile is a genuine home-growth, a 
 healthful and vigorous pleasure, cordially enjoyed 
 by spectators and performers unlike that miserable 
 exotic which, in England, fashion dandles into arti- 
 ficial life, and cannot find an English name for. 
 
 One day, we messmates of the entente cordial 
 negotiated with Don Feliz Garcia, the baile-master, 
 for a special performance, which took place in a 
 court-yard hired for the occasion. The dances 
 peculiar to each province of Spain were exhibited as 
 we required, in due geographical succession ; from 
 the graceful Andalucian to the merry Scotch-reel-like 
 Aragonese, and the heavy clownish Gallician. The 
 place was crowded with uninvited spectators, among 
 the rest an old man with a guitar, who sang between 
 whiles impromptu verses in praise of our hair, 
 our complexions, or (faute de mieux) our hats. 
 The whole affair cost us about fifteen dollars, and 
 the amusement was well worth the money. I am 
 sorry to add that the northern gold was on this 
 occasion spent as it too often is at home; for the 
 
FUNCION DE NOVILLOS. 241 
 
 next day I met Don Feliz reeling about the street 
 in a truly British state of intoxication. 
 
 The bull-ring is an enormous structure, half- 
 finished, looking as if it were half-ruined, and all 
 the more picturesque for that. Through the gap 
 one sees the cathedral, with its many buttresses and 
 pinnacles, and over all, the Giralda, rosy in the light 
 of the evening sun. 
 
 One day I was present at a funcion de novillos a 
 kind of juvenile bull-fight, in which young beasts 
 are brought to be bullied, and, if possible, killed by 
 young men. It is a kind of parody of a real bull- 
 fight nothing of its pomp and circumstance, and 
 danger ; a farce instead of a tragedy very grotesque 
 and ludicrous. For instance, a man in night-gown 
 and night-cap is brought in upon a bed, shamming 
 sickness, and is placed in the middle of the arena. 
 Then a young bull, with his horns sheathed in corks, 
 is let in ; of course he rushes at the only prominent 
 object the bed, and turns it over and over, the 
 sick man taking care so to dispose the mattresses and 
 bolsters, that the animal may spend his fury upon 
 them and not upon him. 
 
 At another time several men are set upright in 
 round wicker baskets, about five feet high, with nei- 
 ther top nor bottom. The bull charges these, one after 
 the other, knocks them down, and rolls them along 
 with his horns. It is great fun to watch the evident 
 perplexity of the beast when he sees their spon- 
 taneous motion. Then, when his back is turned, the 
 
 GAZ. M 
 
242 THE MEDIA LUNA. 
 
 attendants jump over the barrier and set the baskets 
 on their legs again ; and the same joke is repeated 
 till one is tired of it. 
 
 The unpractised matadors generally fail in attempt- 
 ing the fatal stroke, so the poor defenceless animal 
 has to be despatched by means of the media luna, an 
 instrument, as its name imports, shaped like a. half- 
 moon, and attached to a long pole. Armed with 
 this, a man comes slily behind and hamstrings him ; 
 after which he is feloniously slain with a knife 
 plunged through the spinal vertebrae. We could not 
 refrain from loudly expressing our disgust at this bar- 
 barity, to the great amusement of our neighbours, to 
 whom the spectacle was familiar. An English lady 
 was sitting not far off, and looked on without the 
 slightest change of colour. I charitably hoped that 
 she was rouged for the nonce. 
 
 An examination of these bull-rings made clear to 
 me the uses of many parts of the ancient Roman 
 amphitheatres, about which I had puzzled myself in 
 vain with conjectures at Verona and Nismes. The 
 remains of an ancient amphitheatre are still to be 
 seen about four miles from Seville, and I was anxious 
 to examine them by the light of my recently-acquired 
 experience. The place was called Italica, and bears 
 to Seville the same relation that Fsesulae does to 
 Florence, (another point of resemblance). I accord- 
 ingly made an expedition thither, in a kind of cab- 
 riolet peculiar to the country gaudily painted, 
 studded with brass nails, and attached to the horse 
 
AMPHITHEATRE AT ITALICA. 243 
 
 by the most complicated system of harness. The 
 driver sat upon my toes, his legs dangling over the 
 side, and urged, scolded, or soothed his beast with a 
 rich and varied vocabulary. By dint of all this we 
 executed the four miles in about an hour and a half, 
 coming to a final halt at the wretched hamlet of Santi- 
 ponce. I was immediately pounced upon by a crowd 
 of women and children offering Roman coins, first at 
 a dollar a-piece, and finally letting me have a dozen 
 for a shilling. At intervals among the olive-clad 
 slopes, fragments of solid rock-like masonry are 
 visible just above the ground, evidencing the extent 
 and grandeur of this second-rate Roman colony. I 
 question whether, a thousand years hence, such 
 traces of Manchester will be seen among the corn- 
 fields. 
 
 Italica, founded by Scipio Africanus, for his Italian 
 veterans, (whence the name,) was certainly the birth- 
 place of Theodosius, perhaps also that of Trajan and 
 Hadrian. Yet, if this had been the case, one would 
 have expected Honorius's laureate to have made the 
 town in particular, not the country in general, the 
 theme of his panegyric, where he says: 
 
 Sola novum Latiis vectigal Iberia rebus 
 
 Contulit Augustos 
 
 Hsec generat qui cuncta regant. 
 
 Half a mile from the hamlet is the Amphitheatre, 
 built in the hollow of a hill, by way of taking advan- 
 tage of the ground. It has evidently been destroyed 
 by some violent means, perhaps gunpowder. Vast 
 
244 SOCIETY IN SPAIN. 
 
 masses of cement and stone lie rent and shattered 
 round the oval. The arena itself is raised much 
 above its old level, and is now a corn-field. It is still 
 possible, in despite of brambles, to work one's way into 
 some under-ground chambers without much profit, I 
 confess. However, having come on purpose, I per- 
 sisted in taking some rude measurements, while my 
 companion, an artillery-man, yawned fearfully, and 
 complained of having been brought to the ancient 
 Italica under false pretences. ' What was Trajan to 
 him, or he to Trajan ?' 
 
 The pleasure and profit of my sojourn at Seville 
 were materially enhanced by an acquaintance (may I 
 say friendship?") which I formed with Mr. Ludwig, a 
 German by birth, the kindest, wisest, and gentlest of 
 men, and through him with Colonel D , an Irish- 
 man in the service of Spain, a noble sample of a noble 
 people. They introduced me to the circulo, or club, 
 where there were papers of all nations to read, chess 
 to look at, and sometimes music to listen to. Many 
 a night we used to walk or sit for hours in the Plaza 
 del Duque, chatting on all manner of topics, but espe- 
 cially on the things of Spain. Both of them had con- 
 ceived a great admiration for the people among whom 
 they were dwelling, and their experience of many years 
 entitles their opinions to all respect from a passing 
 stranger. They maintained that the Spaniards were 
 by nature most courteous and hospitable ; that the 
 occasional rudeness of which travellers complained 
 was due to their own ignorance of the national 
 
SPANISH PREJUDICES. 245 
 
 manners ; that the boys who threw stones at me were 
 but boys, who did it in mischief and not malice ; that 
 the popular prejudices, however vehement, were not 
 obstinate ; the Due de Montpensier, for instance, 
 against whom, as a Frenchman, everybody had at first 
 entertained a patriotic antipathy, had now entirely 
 conciliated their affection ; that if smuggling were 
 once put a stop to by a moderate tariff, they would 
 cease to regard the Manchester manufacturers as 
 ' Vampyres sucking the blood of Spain,' (a common 
 simile with their journalists) ; that the Andalucians, 
 at least, were more free from fanaticism than the 
 inhabitants of English towns; that if, in some respects, 
 the moral tone was lower than in England, in others 
 it was higher, especially as regarded the sins of glut- 
 tony and intemperance; that the morality of the 
 clergy had much improved since their wealth had 
 been diminished ; that the political depression of the 
 country was merely the exhaustion consequent upon 
 the uninterrupted troubles of the last half-century ; 
 that the people were growing wiser and better every 
 day under the wholesome discipline of Narvaez, a 
 system promising more real progress than all the 
 schemes of those who called themselves Progresistas. 
 The immense army now on foot, 150,000 men, was 
 essential to the maintenance of peace ; Espartero had 
 fallen because he slighted the military to flatter 
 civilians, refusing an audience to officers maimed in 
 the service, while he admitted any shopkeeper in the 
 uniform of the National Guard, thus throwing away 
 
246 NARVAEZ. 
 
 the staff to lean upon the reed. The most popular 
 step Narvaez ever took was the dismissal of the British 
 minister, because it flattered the national spirit of 
 independence, and they held that he had good prima 
 facie grounds for the act. One Portal, chief con- 
 spirator at Seville, had been promoted in the army by 
 Mr. Bulwer's influence ; he showed to his fellow- 
 plotters a letter signed with Mr. Bulwer's name (a 
 forgery of course), promising the co-operation of the 
 English squadron in case of revolt; this, combined 
 with other circumstances, had convinced Narvaez 
 (who, like all- honest but not over-wise men, jumps at 
 conclusions) of the complicity of the ambassador, and 
 the refusal of Lord Palmerston to receive the Spanish 
 envoy confirmed his opinion. During the insurrection 
 at Seville, the Infanta, who had recently arrived from 
 Paris, seeking a haven from the storms of revolution, 
 was obliged to escape in disguise, and take refuge on 
 board a vessel in the middle of the river. 
 
 (By this time, one may hope Fortune is tired of 
 repeating her cruel practical joke.) 
 
 On the whole, my informants regarded the state of 
 Spain as full of hope, even for bond-holders. This 
 roseate view of things is not by any means universal, 
 but I think right to give it, as we are in the habit of 
 receiving facts and inferences solely on the authority 
 of our friends the Progresistas, whose vocation, as a 
 constitutional opposition, is to grumble. 
 
 I ought to mention, also, my obligations to Mr. 
 Williams, our vice-consul, generally acknowledged to 
 
 
PICTURE GALLERIES. 247 
 
 be the most accomplished connoisseur in Spanish art 
 now living. His gallery still possesses some treasures ; 
 among the rest, three Murillos, a Zurbaran, and one 
 Sebastian del Piombo (signed). He was kind enough 
 to accompany me to Serior Maestri's, where is a fine 
 Murillo, ( St. Francis Praying.' Don Anicete Bravo 
 has an immense collection of pictures labelled with 
 great names. One ' undoubted Titian' is a bad copy 
 of the ' Bacchus and Ariadne,' in our National 
 Gallery. Half Seville lives on pictorial thefts and 
 forgeries ; not a day passed that I was not pestered 
 with people offering for sale fragments of broken 
 altar-screens; and half the saints in the calendar 
 painted on oval bits of zinc and copper. No one 
 need be taken in while Mr. Williams is at his elbow, 
 whose advice he has a right, as an Englishman in 
 distress, to claim. 
 
 Among the passing visitors at our hotel was the 
 
 author of Rookwood a gentleman who personally 
 
 has nothing of the charnel-house or dungeon in his 
 
 composition. I look forward to a Spanish romance on 
 
 * The Conquest of Seville, or The Tower of Gold. 
 
 There came also a cannie Scot, with two sons, 
 whose forte and theme was domestic economy, and 
 who warned us day by day, that we should find pale 
 ale ' varry expensuv.' One day in my rambles, 
 which were desultory like my book, I fell in with a 
 faded clerical-looking person, who, I found, had been 
 a friar, and was still a mendicant, He begged me 
 to go with him and see something. I went with him 
 
248 FREQUENCY OF ASSASSINATIONS 
 
 accordingly across the Court of Oranges to a little 
 chapel adjacent to the cathedral. I expected to see 
 a picture or a statue ; but there, to my horror, was a 
 corpse, with the face uncovered and smeared with 
 clotted blood. It was wrapped in white, and some 
 tapers were burning at the head and feet. It was a 
 man who had been killed in the Alameda the pre- 
 ceding evening, whether by accident or design I did 
 not learn. Apropos to this, my conductor proceeded 
 to give me some appalling statistics of assassination. 
 How far he had means of knowing, and how much 
 credit his assertions were entitled to, I cannot say. 
 He informed me that in the past month there had 
 been nineteen murders and attempts to murder in 
 Seville alone; and that during the May of 1848, 
 there were as many as thirty. If this be true, con- 
 siderable deductions must be made from my two 
 friends' enthusiastic praise of the lower orders of 
 Andalucia. The frequency of the crime may be 
 partly accounted for, not palliated, by the habit of 
 carrying a long knife, persisted in, in defiance of 
 prohibition. Yet this same people of Seville, who 
 took no notice of the murders at their own doors, 
 read and canvassed with eager interest the details of 
 a murder in London, which then constituted the 
 * English news' of the Spanish papers. When I 
 narrated my adventure that day at dinner, our 
 Scotch friend looked blanker and blanker; and at 
 last, laying down his knife and fork, said to his sons : 
 ' I tell ye what, boys, the sooner we get out o' this 
 
AT SEVILLE. 249 
 
 toon the better.' For my part, I never felt more 
 sorry to leave any toon in my life; and, judging 
 from my personal experience only, I should pro- 
 nounce Seville a quiet and orderly place. I had 
 many a lonely walk in starlight and moonlight by 
 the banks of the Guadalquivir, without being either 
 robbed or threatened. This I must say for the 
 civilization of the Sevillians, that wherever they kill 
 men, they bury them outside the walls ; and at all 
 events, kill their sheep and oxen outside the walls 
 also. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 r\ ORDOVA < birth-place of Seneca and Lucan, 
 \^ and Gonsalvo ; under the Romans, the rival of 
 Athens ; under the Moors, the rival of Damascus, fa- 
 mous then for the magnificence of its palaces, the 
 learning of its university, and the sanctity of its 
 mosque,' surely deserves a chapter to itself. Con- 
 ceive then, O reader, a white town, with a blank grey 
 mass of building conspicuous in the centre, dotted 
 with occasional palms, and half-circled by olive groves 
 conceive the lazy yellow Guadalquivir winding 
 through the plain, spanned by a long bridge, arid, 
 over all, the stern sierra frowning from the north 
 conceive all this, and you will have as good an idea 
 of Cordova as I have for I did not see it. When I 
 
 M3 
 
250 CORDOVA. 
 
 reached Seville, I was wearied of diligence and saddle, 
 and comfort whispered in my ear, ' Sit modus lasso,' 
 and plied me with a Spanish proverb, f A quien Dios 
 quiere bien, en Sevilla le dio a comer ; a quien mal, 
 en Cordova un lugar.' So I lingered a whole month 
 at Seville, scarcely harbouring a transient thought of 
 ' the birth-place of Seneca,' &c. Good-natured friends 
 have since repeatedly assured me that I have missed 
 the finest thing in Spain ; but with a traveller, ' the 
 finest thing' always is what he has seen, and you have 
 not. Besides, hope suggests that I may have another 
 opportunity, and inspires me to improvise a farewell 
 quatrain, in the manner of our ' Manchegan Pro- 
 phetess,^ 
 
 Now for tne land of mist and rain ! 
 
 But if next year I'm lord of a 
 Hundred pounds, I'll come again 
 
 To have a peep at Cordova. 
 
251 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 ' i DIGS, vecinos, que me mudo.' My flitting 
 -*- took place one fine morning early in October, 
 when I embarked myself and my goods on board the 
 steamer bound for Cadiz. The flat dreary banks re- 
 minded a young Englishman, who accompanied us, of 
 the Nile, only here there was not so much as a basking 
 alligator to relieve the monotony. Further down, the 
 river winds about with most abrupt curves, and it is 
 only by seeing a large sail now and then, coming 
 apparently over dry land, that one is able to trace its 
 erratic course. 
 
 As we approach San Lucar, the banks are fringed 
 with pines, which on that day, by a species of mirage, 
 seemed as if they grew in mid-air. Passing the bar, 
 we emerged from calm to trouble. It was like leaving 
 the nursery for a public school. My companion 
 ( grew paler and paler as we flew ;' but I, having a 
 week's voyage, at least, in prospect, made up my 
 mind and my body not to surrender to a two hours' 
 storm. We soon landed at Cadiz ; and, after some 
 little trouble at the Custom-house, proceeded to the 
 English hotel, kept by Yldefonso Jimenes, a Maltese, 
 who enjoys a deserved reputation for his civility 
 and his pale sherry. The comparative attractions of 
 Cadiz and Seville must not be estimated by the space 
 
252 CONVENT OF CAPUCHINS. 
 
 allotted to them respectively by that capricious spoilt 
 Childe Harold. He dismisses Seville in a couple of 
 lines, and devotes half a canto to the glorification of 
 Cadiz. A most perverse choice, truly; but I sup- 
 pose ' Inez' was at the bottom of it. 
 
 The morning after our arrival we walked round the 
 ramparts, which are of immense height and strength 
 where the Isthmus is narrowest, as if to prevent the 
 sea from converting Cadiz into an island. We then 
 visited, as a matter of course, the convent of Capu- 
 chins, now converted into schools. In the church, 
 over the high altar, hangs ' The Nuptials of St. 
 Catherine,' which possesses a mournful interest as 
 the last work of Murillo. While engaged upon it, 
 he fell from the scaffolding, and suffered an injury 
 which brought him to the grave soon afterwards. It 
 has been ludicrously retouched; patches of white 
 have been stuck on to the tips of the noses and the 
 prominences of the cheek bones, in almost all the 
 figures, which makes the picture like a scene in a 
 flour-mill. The church was preparing for a festival 
 on the morrow, and a number of women had brought 
 each her quota of flowers, and were zealously arrang- 
 ing them under the direction of a priest. These 
 pious women were chiefly advanced in years; the 
 younger sort frequent the alameda more than the 
 church. However, at this advanced season, the even- 
 ings were becoming chilly, and a sharp breeze ren- 
 dered the mantilla insufficient and the fan superfluous, 
 so that there was but a scanty sprinkling of the fair 
 
FEMALE BEAUTIES OF CADIZ. 253 
 
 sex (if the term may be used of Spanish ladies), even 
 on the alameda. I had entertained a suspicion that 
 Cadiz owed its reputation for female beauty chiefly 
 to the fortunate accident of its rhyme (since rhyme, 
 in our intractable language, often masters reason) ; 
 but from the scanty sample I was permitted to see, 
 I am inclined to think the reputation deserved. 
 
 Like their Sevillian rivals, they have the pale cheek 
 and dark liquid eye, expressive of rest, not apathy, 
 the rest of slumbering passion, reminding one of 
 a thunder-cloud, so deeply black that we know it 
 to be instinct with fire. The gait and carriage of 
 the Sevillian ladies are characterized by a voluptuous 
 languor, those of the Gaditanas by a buoyant elas- 
 ticity. Your matter-of-fact people, who find or make 
 a reason for everything, would say that it was the 
 sea-air that caused the difference ; but it is a subject 
 rather for a poetaster than a sciolist, and a dan- 
 gerous subject for either. 
 
 The men very ungallantly herd together of an 
 evening in the club, reading newspapers or playing 
 billiards. A man who cares for anything else, art or 
 architecture, will find little to detain him at Cadiz, 
 hardly enough to make it worth his while to unravel 
 the intricacies of the streets, which, from their being 
 so similar, and cutting each other at such various 
 angles, puzzle a new-comer exceedingly. 
 
 Therefore, as I found my host Jimenes was going 
 on business of his own to Xerez, I resolved to accom- 
 pany him, and see that ( mother of mighty wine.* 
 
254 XEREZ. 
 
 We crossed over to Puerto Santa Maria in a little 
 steamer. A lad on board attracted my notice by his 
 bright eyes and huge red cap, so I asked him on what 
 business he was bound. He replied, ' To catch chame- 
 leons,' of which interesting genus he offered to pro- 
 cure me a specimen for sixpence sterling, assuring me 
 that it would be no trouble to take to England, as they 
 lived entirely upon air. But it occurred to me that the 
 air of Southampton might not agree with the animal's 
 digestion so well as the air of Puerto Santa Maria; 
 however, I gave him the commission, which he did 
 not execute after all. Thence we took a calesa for 
 the remaining two leagues. As the carriage had no 
 springs, and the road was like what an Irish road 
 may have been before General Wade's time, I was 
 not sorry to come in sight of the vine-covered slopes 
 and Moorish walls of Xerez. Mr. Macaulay, in one 
 of his essays, speaks of a hypothetical army 'en- 
 camped on the banks of the Rhine or the Xeres.' 
 The river is as hypothetical as the army ; at least, if 
 there ever was such a river, it has vanished from the 
 memory of the oldest inhabitant, and taken its bed 
 along with it. The Guadalete is in full force a 
 couple of miles off. 
 
 But we have to treat of a nobler theme than water. 
 ' Water is very well in its way' (so far, Pindar was 
 right), but to speak of it after Xerez is an anti-climax. 
 Being furnished with a letter to Mr. John David 
 Gordon, our Vice-Consul, I lost no time in visiting 
 his wine-stores. The separate warehouses, or bodegas, 
 
WINE-STORES OF XEREZ. 255 
 
 are called each after the name of some saint, indeed, 
 one is even called the ' Bodega de Jesus.' This appli- 
 cation of sacred names to secular things seems like a 
 profanation to us protestants, who usually lay by our 
 religion, like a Sunday coat, for six days in the week, 
 and religiously abstain from using it. I tasted, sipping 
 prudently, a great number of samples, sherry, pale, 
 brown, and Amontillado, Pajarete and Arrope (which 
 is sherry boiled down to one-fifth of its original bulk, 
 and used in converting pale wine into brown). The 
 foreman who escorted me said that they had seven 
 thousand pipes in stock, some of it nearly two cen- 
 turies old (but the latter assertion rather staggered 
 my credulity). I was shown some hard, whitish clay, 
 called piedra de vino (wine-stone), which is used in 
 clearing the sherry. My conductor insisted upon 
 putting a lump in my pocket, as a specimen. Of 
 course I forgot it, and a few days after, found it 
 reduced, like Hannibal, to a handful of white dust. 
 There is little at Xerez to gratify any sense except 
 taste ; it is a common-place second-rate town. Its 
 population, I was told, do not neglect their golden 
 opportunities, and are much given to drunkenness. 
 
 Next day we returned by a more circuitous route, 
 in order to visit the Cartuja, one of the most famous 
 convents in Spain. It is now tenanted only by a 
 single family, the matron of which acted as cicerone. 
 Every picture has been removed from church and 
 sacristy, every particle of furniture from the cells of 
 the brethren. The prior's 'cell' is a very pleasant 
 
256 THE CARTUJA. 
 
 suite of rooms, looking out upon a little garth filled 
 with pomegranates, and over that commanding a wide 
 prospect of valley, and river, and bay. Bare as the 
 rooms were, the bright sunshine clothed them with 
 cheerfulness. I dare say the poor ex-prior regrets 
 his quiet rooms as deeply as any ex-king his palace 
 and his pomp. Musing on these things, and diving 
 into the crimson depths of a huge pomegranate, rich 
 and ripe, I walked up and down the large court. It 
 is about ninety yards square, with a continuous 
 cloister on every side. The central space was used 
 as a campo santo, and divided into four equal por- 
 tions; the first appropriated to the brethren, the 
 second to their lay dependants, the third to the 
 children of their schools, and the fourth to the 
 undistinguished poor. The neglected cypresses look 
 as if they mourned doubly now for the living as 
 well as the dead. 
 
257 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 ON Sunday morning, Oct. 7, at nine o'clock, I 
 embarked on board the steamer 'Montrose,' 
 bound for Southampton. I found myself one of a 
 small and select party of cabin passengers, half-a- 
 dozen in all. Two of these were Anglo-Americans, 
 going to Lisbon, in the enjoyment of rude health, and 
 happy in the prospect of a ten days' quarantine. The 
 rest of us were all English, including one Irishman. 
 The day being calm, we discussed in the most ami- 
 cable spirit with our brethren of the west the present 
 and the future of the great Anglo-Saxon race, all 
 cordially agreeing that, wide as the Atlantic was, two 
 such ' tall' nations might easily shake hands over it. 
 Next afternoon we came in sight of the rugged 
 outline of Cintra, and at four o'clock cast anchor in 
 the Tagus. Of course we were not permitted to land, 
 and watched from the deck our two friends as they 
 were rowed off to undergo the prescribed course of 
 pillage and purification in a lonely convent on the 
 southern bank of the river. Over against us was the 
 gaunt palace of the Necesidades, so called, I suppose, 
 because the necessities of the exchequer have hindered 
 it of completion. As the evening closed, we could 
 see the citizens pacing up and down on the terrace by 
 
258 BAY OF VIGO. 
 
 the shore ; and that was all we saw of Lisbon. On 
 Tuesday afternoon we left the Tagus, and the follow- 
 ing evening were off Oporto. A wild surf was lashing 
 the coast, and it was not without trouble that a boat 
 came off to us with a cargo of fruit and a young 
 cockney, who, had he been in the full enjoyment of 
 that domestic comfort which every Briton has a right 
 to expect upon the deep, would have been offensive 
 and impertinent. 
 
 Next morning when I went on deck we were just 
 sailing into the bay of Vigo, where we anchored for 
 some hours for the purpose of taking in nine or ten 
 deck passengers, fine bullocks. They came on board 
 in capital condition, but during the voyage one of 
 them died, and the rest were lean kine indeed when 
 it was over. The subject- waves did their duty most 
 patriotically as protectors of the British grazier. 
 Some few years since, our consul at Vigo imported 
 a bull from England, with the enlightened purpose of 
 improving the native stock, but the unfortunate 
 animal was denounced by the priest as godless and 
 heretical, and had to be sent home again. Canta- 
 brum indoctum juga ferre nostra P The dwellers on 
 this north-western coast are much more ignorant, and 
 therefore more brutal than their countrymen else- 
 where. Not long ago one of our Alexandrian steamers 
 was wrecked there, and the neighbouring people 
 came down and pillaged everything, going so far as to 
 wrench the rings off the ladies' fingers. 
 
 One could not- regret being delayed in the Bay of 
 
VOYAGE HOME. 259 
 
 Vigo, which, in my opinion, fully deserves the enco- 
 miums it has received. The little town clustering 
 about the tower-crowned steep, the wavy hills, 
 sprinkled with pines and dotted with white granges, 
 the winding edge of sand that fringes the still land- 
 locked waters how could a scene be other than 
 exquisite with all these ? The eye of the traveller 
 from the south rested with double pleasure on the 
 dark verdure. 
 
 When we sailed out of the bay that same after- 
 noon, we found the sea running high, and the long 
 surf climbing savagely up the grey cliffs. The 
 water, except here and there a crest of foam, was 
 all of a dead purple, what Homer calls < wine-like.' 
 The wind blew right against us, and continued so 
 all the way, prolonging our unhappy voyage to ten 
 days instead of seven. We were suffering what 
 Spanish sailors call ' the lashing of St. Francis's cord,' 
 (el cordonazo de San Francisco,) because the day con- 
 secrated to him falls near the autumnal equinox. 
 Similarly the gales of the vernal equinox are termed 
 f the thrashing of St. Joseph's stick,' (la barrada de 
 San Jose,) that saint's day being the eighteenth of 
 March. Our nor'easter, moreover, brought with it 
 cold and wet, so the passengers mostly kept their 
 berths. During five lonely nights and days, all the 
 time which I did not devote to sleep and Don 
 Quixote I spent in recalling my summer's experience. 
 As I dragged my memory, little incidents and minute 
 details, which had sunk and been forgotten, came up 
 
260 ARRIVAL. 
 
 to the light, and arranged themselves into a shadowy 
 picture. So in the midst of this cold autumnal storm 
 I was able almost to live over again the sunny pleasant 
 days of summer. The process amused me for many 
 idle days, and I thought that if I set down its results 
 they might amuse other people for a few idle hours. 
 Not but that I was glad when it came to an end, 
 when on Tuesday evening, October 16, I was told 
 that we were within sight of the English coast. I 
 jumped up, hastened on deck, and there, sure enough, 
 in the misty distance, was the wavy outline of the 
 long-looked-for land. As I watched, a bright ray 
 shot out from some lighthouse on a far-off promontory 
 like a star of welcome. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 FnnHE following letter, for which I am indebted to 
 L -L an old schoolfellow, will speak for itself. My own 
 doings would have seemed tame after his, so I kept 
 the letter for the end, just as the game comes in 
 with the last course, and as the guns and crackers are 
 reserved for the finale of a melodrama.] 
 
 f Let me congratulate you, mon ami, on your safe 
 return from the Iberian wanderings, and claim to 
 add, as a yet closer bond to our friendship, the 
 memory of those strange spots which we now retain 
 in common. 
 
 'There are some traits of the manners of the 
 Spanish people, unimaginable unless seen, which 
 each of us has met with, unaltered, I doubt not, 
 by the lapse of even such a space as three years, for 
 that I calculate to be the interval between our visits. 
 You probably have experienced a counterpart to that 
 incident which pictured to me more vividly than 
 whole histories of civil commotions, the unsettled and 
 restless state of the public mind whilst my friend 
 Don Jaime and I were refreshing ourselves, after the 
 fatigues of winter-quarters in the cities, among the 
 glorious spring gardens which surround the fruity 
 
262 APPENDIX. 
 
 Alhaurin el Grande, distant about five leagues from 
 Malaga. We found that the wondrous variety of 
 scents and colours which we inhaled and gazed on, 
 from fig, vine, pomegranate, peach, quince, nectarine, 
 and apricot, all bursting out in the first richness of 
 flower and leaf, mingling with last year's orange and 
 lemon, and set in a frame-work of dark olive, all 
 this luxuriance, suggestive though it was of future 
 luxuries, did not make us forget the fact, that our 
 worthy and cleanly hostess (she promised to send 
 me a cake of figs and almonds, which I never had) 
 could give us but little variety for the supply of our 
 table. Lean hens and unseasonable partridges formed 
 the chief of our diet : so, in our epicurism, we inquired 
 if no pork-chops were attainable. We thought this 
 not an unreasonable demand, for we continually 
 encountered living specimens of the food in our 
 rambles. The reply was, ' No ; the tax on pork is so 
 high that the people are waiting for a pronunciamento 
 before they will kill their pigs ; then, all that will be 
 changed.' This was singularly confirmed a few days 
 after, on our return to Malaga, when the carabinero 
 at the entrance, on our neglecting to bribe him, 
 challenged a portable writing-desk of the smallest 
 dimensions, and inquired whether it contained 
 fancy, of all things in the world to smuggle in such a 
 guise ! ( alguna cosa de puerco.' 
 
 ' Similar characteristic incidents I doubt not you 
 have met with ; but there is one portion of Spain 
 where I spent three very delightful weeks which I 
 
APPENDIX. 263 
 
 am sure you are quite unacquainted with, close as 
 you have been to its boundaries. -You remember, as 
 you glided down the Guadalquivir from Seville to 
 Cadiz, when near San Lucar, that the opposite banks 
 of the river, though not lofty, were so thickly wooded 
 with pines and other low trees, that they formed a 
 barrier inscrutable by the eye. Within this ridge 
 lies a large space of country, much in the same con- 
 dition as it appeared, I fancy, when vegetation had 
 first overcome the shock of the deluge. A wilderness, 
 chiefly of sandy soil, sometimes slightly undulating 
 and covered with the pines, standing in clusters, or 
 continuous, sometimes with only low, odoriferous 
 and spiniferous bushes, through which it is with 
 difficulty you can force your way, and woe to your 
 nether garments, and what is contained within them, 
 if you attempt it without a leathern apron. Then, 
 perhaps, you come upon several miles of unbroken 
 sand, terminating in a rich spot, where water lurks 
 and nourishes all reedy things, frogs and mosquitoes ; 
 but it flows not, ever stagnant, it gives the name of 
 the Marismilla to this district. Occasionally the 
 wood might be dignified with the name of forest, and 
 anon entirely disappears. Here, you will allow, is 
 variety enough for the picturesque, and if you will 
 permit it, in the absence of towering hills and living 
 waters even for the beautiful; nature, in all her 
 first spring redundance, starting forth amid the ruins 
 of previous years for all is untouched by the hand 
 of man and assuming all the quaint shapes and 
 
264 APPENDIX. 
 
 graceful combinations, which are vainly sought for in 
 the midst of cultivation. Now let me add the chief 
 charm to the picture, and you, who are not ashamed 
 of the traces of our original savage instincts, which 
 civilization has deigned to tolerate, though some- 
 times in a strangely metamorphosed garb, you will 
 sympathise with me when I add, as the chief attrac- 
 tion of this wild region, that it is the primest sporting- 
 ground in all Europe. Countless herds of the red 
 deer scour across its wastes. The wild boar roots in 
 its marshy thickets, whilst his grim mate leads put 
 her tuskless progeny to wallow in its seething mire. 
 The lynx flashes in his brightness across your path, 
 and seems only too conscious that you are the more 
 dangerous animal of the two. Wolves also are 
 reported ; and your guide sometimes points myste- 
 riously to an unwonted impression in the sand, and 
 mutters Lobo.' Such form the chief objects of the 
 'caza mayor,' or larger game. Foxes of wondrous 
 size and cunning steal about, too ; and for the ' caza 
 menor,' or small game, you find abundance of red- 
 legged partridges, hares and rabbits, woodcocks and 
 wild-fowl, if you take the trouble to visit their haunts. 
 You would as soon think of shooting at a sparrow at 
 home, as at a snipe in this wilderness. 
 
 ' Fancy, now, the gleesomeness of heart with which 
 I found myself, one bright morning early in February, 
 ferried across the turbid river, and deposited in this 
 double-barrelled paradise, when all traces of winter 
 had vanished, and the heat had not yet called forth 
 
APPENDIX. 265 
 
 the swarming mosquitoes, or boiled up the malaria 
 from the reeking swamps, in company with three 
 right jovial and hearty good fellows; the one, our 
 senior and acknowledged chief, a keen sportsman 
 and crack shot of some years' standing; another, 
 whose fame had not yet stood the test of such a lapse 
 of time, but whom I had seen, a few weeks before, 
 plant a bullet in the breast of a stag, as he stood for 
 a moment at gaze, at the distance of a hundred and 
 twenty paces, before he plunged into the thicket, 
 visible only by the head and horns ; the third, though 
 he claimed not equal sylvan glories, exhaustless in 
 good humour and profuse in wit. Our host likewise 
 of the posada at Puerto Santa Maria was there in 
 double capacity, displaying the qualities of a patri- 
 archal hunter skill in the slaughter of his venison 
 during the day, and in preparing therefrom savoury 
 meat for the evening's repast. Imagine this company 
 assembled on the banks of the stream, where was 
 waiting for each his steed, Jed by an attendant gallego, 
 or ' gallifat,' as we termed him, (O Don Jorge, doctus 
 utriusque linguae, how you enriched both !) who rode 
 when his master dismounted for the purposes of 
 sport: imagine us starting off on that bright, fresh 
 morning, under the guidance of the sage huntsman 
 and guardian of the ' coto,' Manuel Toro, and pene- 
 trating into the depths of the wilderness, caring little 
 for all other possessions in the world save our trusty 
 weapons, and the extra horse, laden with provisions, 
 which accompanied us. All other needfuls had been 
 
 GAZ. N 
 
266 APPENDIX. 
 
 sent on before to the ' Palacio de Dona Ana,' includ- 
 ing fresh meat and all things required in cooking, 
 several casks of prime Xerez, wonderful stores of pale 
 ale, beds, and carpet-bags. We shot only at such 
 small game as presented itself on and near our line 
 of march, as the caza mayor requires more time and 
 preparation than were consistent with our design of 
 reaching our quarters before nightfall. The Palacio 
 itself would have afforded us scanty accommodation 
 beyond the shelter of its stout walls, a few chairs and 
 table, with a blazing fire, and bare bedsteads, kept 
 there by the habitues of the ' coto,' and at the service 
 of all who had the privilege of the entree. These 
 are confined to twenty subscribers, who rent it of the 
 Duke of Medina Sidonia, each of whom can take 
 with him a couple of friends, but may not send them 
 to shoot without accompanying them himself. Owing 
 to the experience and forethought of my friends, we 
 found nothing wanting to comfort and even luxury, 
 though there was no other habitation, save the huts 
 of the guardians of the * coto,' or * preserve,' for leagues 
 around us. 
 
 * I cannot give you a detailed account of all our 
 doings, for as I kept no notes of the transactions of 
 each day, the whole is now blended into one 
 delightful mass of irregular recollections, wherein 
 are thrown together the morning rides, with the first 
 cigar lighted, as we plunged into the depths of the 
 wilderness chatting gaily of our prospects of sport, 
 or the silent ambuscades, to which we stole with 
 
APPENDIX. 267 
 
 quick breath and cautious step the anxious crouch- 
 ing behind bush or sand-bank whilst the beaters were 
 driving up the game the hurried excitement of the 
 shot, the triumph when the quarry fell, or the half- 
 disgusted resignation with which one waited for 
 'better luck next time' when it passed scatheless 
 the jollity of the hour of f bacada,' or ' mouthful,' 
 alias lunch, when our sumpter-horse was lightened of 
 a good part of his load the change of scene from 
 one beat to another the ride home when the day's 
 work was over, quite enough tired to enjoy the rest, 
 but not too wearied to acknowledge that repirvov ex, 
 Ki/vaytW Tga7Tga 7rAyjyj? the delicious languor which 
 supervened, and cut short all disquisitions on the 
 merits of the day's sport, and the narrations of former 
 exploits, and sent us to our couches, the last weed 
 smoked, by ten o'clock, glad of the release when the 
 arrangements for the morrow had been completed. 
 All these diverse scenes I could not now reduce to 
 regular narrative order, but they are all vividly, 
 though confusedly, impressed on my memory. I 
 may, however, give you a sketch of one day's pro- 
 ceedings as a sample: 
 
 * Conceive us, then, as having taken due precautions 
 to store away an ample breakfast at eight o'clock, 
 and ready for the start at nine. Manuel Toro, 
 having knowingly surveyed the heavens, and con- 
 sulted the auspices, with which he was deeply 
 conversant, leads the way, generally against the wind, 
 in company with. our senior, Don Juan ever the 
 
 N2 
 
268 APPENDIX. 
 
 first ready to move. We ride along for three or 
 four miles perhaps till we approach the first 
 ground where game is expected at a signal we 
 silently dismount; our attendants mount in our 
 places, and wait with our steeds, whilst Manuel 
 assigns our posts. Suppose we halt at A, the wind 
 blowing as the arrow points. The line A B F may 
 
 be the edge of a thicket, the ridge of a sandbank, or 
 some inequality in the ground, which offers shelter 
 at occasional spots. Manuel walks a-head, all the 
 rest of the guns following : he points out a station, B, 
 to one who is left there, to copceal himself as best he 
 may, when he sees where his neighbour is similarly 
 posted at C. He then draws a line in the sand, in 
 the direction B C, that he may be sure of the 
 position of the next human being to him in the 
 world, as his first object in discharging his duty 
 
APPENDIX. 269 
 
 towards his neighbour, is not to make him the object 
 at which he discharges his piece. This is a very 
 needful precaution, as, in the bewildering sameness 
 of surrounding objects, he might easily lose all know- 
 ledge of his locality without such a mark, and his 
 friend will keep himself as little visible as possible 
 if he wishes for the chance of a shot. C takes similar 
 measures, marking out the direction of both B and 
 D. So Manuel proceeds, dropping one at each 
 station, until he has fixed the last at F. He then 
 emerges at g, and gives a signal to the beaters at A, 
 who proceed to take their places at b, c, d, e,f, so as 
 to encompass the whole space to be beaten. They 
 then ride down windj tapping the trees, forcing their 
 way through the densest coverts* but without much 
 noise, as the game is easily roused; perhaps at the 
 first movement a stag is disturbed in his morning 
 slumber looks around him scents the tainted air, 
 and dashes away from danger as he fancies, and 
 makes for the position occupied by D ; but D is too 
 excited when he hears his tread among the crackling 
 bushes ; he turns to peep into the thicket ; but, alas ! 
 his motion has snapped a twig, the stag becomes 
 suspicious, and turns away towards C. C, mean- 
 while, with all determination, hardly breathes he 
 moves not a muscle save to grasp his gun more 
 firmly, and hopes to reap the reward of his per- 
 severance; but the top of his cap, of an unsylvan 
 hue, is distinguishable between two disjointed 
 branches, or the wind wafts a lock of his hair above 
 
270 APPENDIX. 
 
 his head, if he have doffed his head-gear for greater 
 secresy ; him the fates favour not, and the benado, 
 getting more frightened, rushes on towards 23. Here 
 his fear gets the better of his sagacity, or B has left 
 nothing to betray his presence the deer dashes out 
 past him ; as soon as he has crossed one of the lines 
 diverging from B marked out for human safety B 
 may do his best or worst for deer-destruction. If he 
 is not too nervous when he levels his weapon, he 
 remembers that said deer is moving rapidly perhaps 
 eighty or a hundred yards off he aims a little in 
 front of his fore-shoulder ; and if his bullet go true, 
 and the shoulder is struck, over rolls his victim, and 
 he is happy ; if he has fired a little too late, or too 
 far back, and the poor beast receive the missile in his 
 paunch, he will bear his hurt for miles, and must be 
 followed up ; and woe to the rest of the day's sport, 
 for all the party join in pursuit of a 'benado panzado* 
 (pronounced benao panzao); otherwise, as is not 
 uncommon, his bullet goes whirring on, with a 
 sound very startling to the unaccustomed, who fancy 
 that it must have passed within a few yards of their 
 own precious carcasses, when in fact it may have 
 been continually lengthening its distance from them 
 or buries itself with an unsatisfactory thud in a 
 bank of sand. 
 
 ' The distance between the posts of ambush varies 
 from one to three hundred yards, according to the 
 size of the beat and conveniences for concealment, 
 so that if the beast is lucky enough to choose the 
 
APPENDIX. 271 
 
 exact central spot between the two guns, he may get off 
 with the chance only of being reached by a long shot. 
 The keeper always examines the track of a deer after 
 the spot where he has been fired at, and pronounces 
 whether he has been hit or not ; a drop on the sand, 
 which an unpractised eye would overlook, causes him 
 to pronounce that he is hit ; and if he decides that 
 'da sangre,' the rule is, he must be followed an 
 occupation probably for the remainder of the day. 
 They can tell, also, by his track whereabouts he has 
 received his wound, by a limp, or a trailing of a leg, 
 or a weakness on one side. If it is fixed that he is 
 hard hit, time is given him before we follow, in order 
 that, on finding himself uncomfortable, he may take 
 to the nearest resting-place, and stop there to bewail 
 his melancholy fate ( f echaremos un cigarro'). When 
 it is fancied that he will not be urged onwards by the 
 sounds of pursuit, but has laid down and is getting 
 stiffish, and unwilling to start on again in short, 
 when the cigar is ended, we take to the track. 
 When he enters a thicket, we surround the covert 
 with guns before it is entered by the beaters, so that 
 he may be secured if he have not passed through ; 
 and so on until we either overtake him, or evening 
 overtakes us. When once it has been said of the 
 benado that he ' da sangre,' he becomes of less inter- 
 est to all the party save one to him who fired the 
 shot which told ; for, whoever may at last bring him 
 down, he is reckoned among the trophies of the first 
 blood-drawer. I remember, on one occasion, when 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 my neighbour had fired at a deer, it came afterwards 
 beautifully within shot for me. I coolly sent one 
 bullet at him, which disabled a fore-leg, but as he 
 went stumbling up the slope of sand, I thought it as 
 well, lest he should give us more trouble, to bestow 
 my second upon him, and this struck him in the 
 shoulder, and brought him at once to the ground. 
 I was rather proud of my feat ; especially as it was 
 performed in sight of one or two more, who saw how 
 each bullet told. When the beat was over, and some 
 of us were examining his two wounds, to my asto- 
 nishment the keeper and my friend, who had fired 
 first, came up along the track, and declared he had 
 been hit before I fired. I, and the rest who had 
 seen me fire, were quite sure that my two bullets 
 were there in those two holes ; however, as Manuel 
 affirmed that he was bleeding before ever I fired, we 
 were sore puzzled. At last, in turning him over, we 
 found that the first shot had passed over his head, 
 and cut a round hole in the erected ear, from which 
 a drop or two of blood had flowed. This explained 
 the mystery, and showed the sharp-sightedness and 
 accuracy of these keen observers. 
 
 'Thus we slew the deer. When we came to a 
 more swampy covert, we expected to turn out a 
 * cochino.' Some of the party who had fleet horses, 
 and manageable, used to gallop after them with 
 spears, if the ground was open, and try to transfix 
 them. This is a very exciting, but dangerous amuse- 
 ment ; as, first, it requires the full gallop for a pig 
 
APPENDIX. 273 
 
 can go as fast as a horse for some distance ; and as 
 the ground is very uneven, and, especially in many 
 parts, full of rabbit burrows, the roll of the horse and 
 rider is by no means unfrequent. Again, the boar, 
 when brought to bay, has a very ugly way of using 
 his tusks, and if the horse is unused to the sport, 
 and so gets frightened at the hideous beast, or not 
 perfectly tractable, so as to turn shortly and quickly 
 at a motion of the hand, he runs a good chance of 
 being ripped up, or getting an unpleasant gash in 
 the shoulder ; nor is the rider's leg at all proof against 
 the onslaught of the exasperated brute. Sometimes 
 they would turn sulky, and take refuge in an impene- 
 trable thicket of low bushes, where all the interstices 
 seemed filled up with reeds, and would set us and 
 the dogs at defiance for hours : no one dared ven- 
 ture into the lair if he had been able to reach it, for 
 he could not have used his gun, and the boar would 
 have dashed at him, cutting his way with his tusks, 
 and, before the intruder could turn, would have upset 
 and given him the last Adonizing touch in the thigh. 
 Our last resource was to set fire to his domain ; and 
 we sometimes burnt down an acre or more of the wil- 
 derness without succeeding in dislodging the crafty 
 old pig. 
 
 ' When we had been a few days at the Palacio, we 
 were joined by a Belgian Count, who brought letters 
 of introduction to one of the party. We were going 
 to occupy the following day with the s caza menor,' 
 and give our horses a rest, of which they stood much 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 in need, since they were hard worked all through the 
 day : when not oppressed by our weight, they were in 
 the hands of the gallifats, and much more seriously 
 employed in forcing through the thickest parts of the 
 coverts which were at all practicable. 
 
 ' Our new comrade appeared next morning gor- 
 geously arrayed in a new shooting-frock (jacket it 
 could not be called) of some fancy plaid, which he 
 assured us had been specially recommended to him by 
 Milady Shrewsbury during a recent visit to England. 
 This was trimmed with a long fringe all round, appa- 
 rently constructed expressly to catch at all protruding 
 twigs, and, after encumbering the wearer for a short 
 time in the woods, to aid in rending the light and 
 delicate frock from his shoulders. We were disposed 
 to smile when we thought what a thing of shreds and 
 tatters our gay butterfly would become after a few 
 hours' struggling through brushwood ; if the wicked 
 notion of leaving him to his own imaginations, and 
 pitying him afterwards, did occur, it was rejected by 
 our sense of the duties of hospitality, and, after ex- 
 plaining to him the probable fate of his admired 
 costume, if he persisted in exposing it to hardships 
 for which the artist never designed it, we rigged 
 him out in an old real English velveteen shooting- 
 jacket how his dress-boots fared we had not heart to 
 inquire they certainly had not a sole to answer. 
 He acquitted himself, however, better than might 
 have been expected from his outward man, though* 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 he exhibited a few peculiarities. One day, when he 
 was stationed beside a piece of water through which 
 the deer would be driven and where he might have 
 a leisurely and uninterrupted shot a herd of several 
 benados, accompanied by numerous ciervas, dashed 
 past him into the water. Now it is a high mis- 
 demeanour to slay a cierva, or doe, but our friend, 
 instead of singling out a pair of antlers, and aiming at 
 him who bore them, in his raptures and amazement 
 blazed, no doubt quite promiscuously, into the middle 
 of the herd and, to his own astonishment no doubt, 
 as such a thing had not happened before, down fell a 
 beast. He instantly mounted his horse, rode into 
 the water jumped off, heedless of his boots, which on 
 this occasion were of the tragic order of untanned 
 leather such as heroes appear in on the stage 
 and danced frantically around his fallen victim. Nor 
 was his excitement cooled either by the water, which 
 he splashed around, or by the announcement that he 
 had slain a ' cierva :' in fact, during the whole of his 
 stay with us we never could impress him sufficiently 
 with the heinousness of his offence. That he had 
 slain anything so large, appeared to him perfectly 
 satisfactory. In spite of this we liked him much, 
 and we were sorry when he took his leave. Manuel 
 Toro summed up his character admirably, as far as 
 we were concerned with it, by saying that he was 
 ' muy buen' hombre, pero no cazador ' ( f a very good 
 fellow, but no sportsman'). 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 * I might go on with many reminiscences, of various 
 scenes, but I think I have sketched you enough to 
 show the style of our three weeks' campaign, and will 
 leave you to pronounce whether you would not have 
 liked to have been one of the party. 
 
 < Believe me, yours very sincerely, 
 
 <G. H. A.' 
 
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