'\ 
 
' h)y»tl:^.? 
 
FAITH 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
FAITH 
 
 BY 
 
 R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM 
 
 ») 
 
 LONDON 
 DUCKWORTH & CO. 
 
 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1909 
 
355 
 G74/5 
 
 TO 
 SIGNORINA ANTONIETTA SEGR^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 SoR Candida and the Bird 
 
 A Silhouette 
 
 A Saint 
 
 At the River 
 
 BU GiDRI 
 
 An Arab Funeral . 
 
 Mektub 
 
 Lochan Falloch 
 
 At the Ward Toll 
 
 An Idealist 
 
 In Christmas Week 
 
 Paja y Cielo 
 
 " Los Peares, un Minuto 
 
 Transfigured 
 
 Brutta Passeggiata 
 
 Dutch Smith 
 
 Andorra 
 
 El Pastor de Las Navas 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xi 
 
 24 
 42 
 
 54 
 66 
 81 
 89 
 
 lOI 
 
 108 
 118 
 12S 
 138 
 147 
 
 158 
 169 
 178 
 192 
 232 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS READER 
 
 Everything that a man writes brings sorrow 
 to him of some kind or other. Especially is 
 this the case as time goes on, and catches one 
 a-thinking on the days when that which now is 
 but a shadow, even though fairly stamped upon 
 a page in moulded letters, was once a living 
 thing. Let nobody deceive himself (as is the 
 wont of many, here in this island home of ours) 
 that books are spun out from the inner con- 
 sciousness, after the fashion that the learned 
 German evoked his elephant, or of him who 
 made the fiddle out of his own head and still 
 had wood sufficient left in it to make another 
 violin. 
 
 Such processes are well enough for silk- 
 worms, but men spin little silk from their own 
 bowels, and still less from their brains. 
 
 All that they write, even the sonnets, those 
 of Shakespeare and of Keats, has cost them 
 
 xi 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 labour and much biting of their pens. This is 
 so, and artists of all kinds, whether in paint or 
 letters, in marble, bronze, or in what medium 
 they work, all know it thoroughly. Those 
 who contest the point are the idealists, that is 
 to say, the men who as they pass their days in 
 business or the like, cherish devoutly the idea 
 that art of any kind is of the nature of white 
 magic, and comes into the world as easily as 
 does a calumny or an unnecessary lie. 
 
 All that we write is but a bringing forth 
 again of something we have seen or heard 
 about. What makes it art is but the handling 
 of it, and the imagination that is brought to 
 bear upon the theme out of the writer's brain. 
 It follows therefore that all writing, as I said 
 before, brings sorrow in its train. Even when 
 one looks back and reads the few rare passages 
 that flowed off from the pen so easily, that on 
 finishing them one was half tempted to ex- 
 claim, "Then I too am a writer!" and even 
 when those passages were written about scenes 
 one loved or of events pleasant to dvv^ell upon, 
 there still wells up the bitter-sweetness in the 
 mind that passages, scenes, and events are 
 past and cannot be recalled. It may be that 
 a painter with his long stroke of the brush, so 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 different to the niggling of the pen, is differ- 
 ently affected ; but then his work is beautiful in 
 itself, and must remain perforce a thing of 
 beauty, even to himself Painters, I fancy, are 
 the pleasantest companions of all the race of 
 men who follow any kind of art, either for 
 bread, or as a man loves a capricious mistress, 
 who on her part half scorns him, and of whom 
 he has no need, but still adores, chiefly perhaps 
 because no bond, either of law or of necessity, 
 enforces him to love. 
 
 Whether it is or not as I have fancied with 
 the painters, certain it is that writers store up 
 sorrow for themselves, by setting down some 
 of the myriad thoughts on paper, for all time 
 (or unto such time as the unsaleable edition of 
 their book is pulped), that course through 
 every brain. Had he not chanced to write, 
 the thoughts had been forgotten, and not re- 
 mained to plague the thinker of them and to 
 remind him that time flies. 
 
 What reason pushed the inventive Arab 
 or Chaldean to invent a water-clock I never 
 understood. Why could he possibly desire to 
 know what time of day it was, and thus remind 
 himself another hour had slidden past into the 
 vacuum of time ? 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 In the same way (at least, so it is said) that 
 when the rainbow falls upon a tree no cater- 
 pillars hang to the leaves, time unrecorded 
 does not cling about the soul. 
 
 To record, even to record emotions, is to 
 store up a fund of sadness, and that is why all 
 writing is a sort of icehouse of the mind, in 
 which that which once was a warm and living 
 action, a feeling, scene, experience, joy, or 
 sorrow, is now preserved, as it were, frozen, 
 stiff, deprived of actuality, and a mere chopping- 
 block on which fools exercise their wits. 
 
 From this it would appear that none of us 
 should write, except a poet here and there, or 
 a compiler of a railway time-table, for they 
 clearly are wanted in a well-constituted state ; 
 but, oh illustrious reader, for I assume you are 
 illustrious, because you cannot write yourself, 
 and hence are well endowed with the divine 
 and sacred fire of criticism, you will find that 
 almost all of the stories, sketches, or what you 
 choose to call them, in this book are sad. 
 None of them, that is if I remember rightly, 
 end in a blaze of sunset, actual or moral ; 
 virtue in none of them is in the least atom 
 better rewarded than it is actually rewarded in 
 the world. In none of them is any moral 
 
PREFACE 
 
 XV 
 
 drawn, or if it is, it is attempted to be drawn, 
 it is set down as truthfully as possible, which 
 naturally has the effect of making it seem 
 false. Tell me though, oh illustrious reader, 
 you who though, as I said before, cannot write 
 yourself and yet are born a judge of wit, of 
 pathos, style, of composition, and who can 
 weigh imagination to the last scruple, in the 
 balance of your brain, is it not better to write 
 truthfully, when all is sad, than to write on 
 sad things after the manner of your only jig- 
 maker ? 
 
 Cooped underneath the sky, like butterflies 
 shut up by schoolboys under a finger-bowl, we 
 can but flutter, or if we fly, rise only to the 
 middle of the glass. What we can do, is to 
 look out as far as possible through the im- 
 prisoning crystal and set down what we see. 
 So, I have written all the sketches in the book, 
 as clearly as my vision serves me to peep 
 out. If they seem false to you, oh most 
 illustrious, surely it is a little hard to blame 
 a post if a blind man runs up against it and 
 batters out his brains ! 
 
 R, B. CUNNINGHAME GrAHAM. 
 
t ■> CO e -> » ■> 
 > J 1 ^ ^ -> -I ) 
 
 ' > > 3 5 ■ 
 
 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 The long grey buildings of the convent with 
 their overhan^ine red-tiled roofs threw a re- 
 freshing shadow on the heated street. The 
 sun-parched trees stood stiff and motionless as 
 sentinels frozen at their posts. For months it 
 had not rained in Avila. For miles on every 
 side of the old town, the stone-strewn plains 
 were heated like a kiln. The dark grey walls 
 gave out the heat as you passed by and touched 
 them with your hand. The distant mountains 
 shivered in the heat. Upon the plains the last 
 dead stalks of fennel loomed in the mirage of 
 the heat like palm-trees in the sand. Lakes 
 formed in front of men upon their mules, their 
 faces shielded from the scorching sun by hand- 
 kerchiefs, and with their stiff Castilian hats 
 pulled down almost upon their shoulders to 
 protect their necks, and then as the mules 
 clattered on the stones, or brushed against the 
 withered herbage with a crackling noise, took 
 themselves further off, as fortune does in life, 
 
2 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 after one tantalising glance. Sheep and the 
 cattle stood I t-o^utid the deep-dug wells, their 
 heads bowed low, and their flanks heaving in 
 /\th^;'GU'!t,,' waiting till evening for the coming of 
 the men to draw the water in the long leathern 
 bags. The yellow swirling rivers had dried up, 
 leaving the mud as hard as kaolin, and here 
 and there held thick, green water, with a dead 
 horse or cow, bloated and swollen enormously, 
 just floating on the top. All nature suffered 
 with the heat, and birds approached the houses 
 seeking help, just as they do in northern 
 climates in the frost. 
 
 Is there at bottom some mysterious bond 
 between all living things, which, but for our 
 religion and conceit, should have made all the 
 animals and us one clan ? Who knows ? 
 Upon the strip of sand, which in old Spanish 
 towns lies at the edges of the streets (just 
 where the cobbles end), and makes a sort of 
 neutral territory between them and the gutter, 
 right opposite the convent door, a bird lay 
 fluttering with its beak open, and its eyes 
 almost closed. It lay half choking in the sun, 
 its beady eyes becoming glazed, and its perhaps 
 immortal little spirit just trembling to be free 
 and join the universal soul ; a minute or two 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 o 
 
 more and it would have gone to swell the army 
 of tired soldiers, camels, and horses who have 
 died of thirst amongst the sands. It may be, 
 as they say in Spain, God was not willing, or 
 the slight fluttering of the feathers raised a 
 little dust, for at that moment a side door 
 opened, and with a cautious glance to see that 
 no one was about, a nun stepped out, and 
 taking up the bird, bore it into the shade. It 
 lay almost expiring in her hand as she, with 
 many little cries of pity, took a piece of rag 
 and gently dropped some water in its mouth. 
 As the drops followed one another, it slowly 
 came back to the life it had so nearly left. Its 
 head became less languid, and its eyes brighter, 
 until at last it feebly pecked the hand that held 
 it, making the nun smile, muttering it acted just 
 like a Christian, as she released it, and let it 
 hop about her cell. Then taking up a cane, 
 she split it for a perch, and stuck it in the 
 darkest corner of the cell, making some holes 
 in the rough plastering. All had gone well 
 so far, and on its perch the bird sat rest- 
 ing, and recovering its strength. Quickly she 
 made a little cage out of split canes, not think- 
 ing for a moment that after giving life she thus 
 would take away life's chiefest treasure — liberty; 
 
4 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 but all in tender heart. The cage contrived, 
 and the revived and still half-drooping little 
 bird duly inducted to its prison, she put a 
 broken saucer and some bread-crumbs by its 
 side, and sat down, proud and happy with her 
 work. 
 
 Sor Candida was tall and dark, with large 
 black eyes and a slight pencilling of hair upon 
 her upper lip. Though she had left the world 
 and all its vanities, losing her liberty, perhaps 
 to save herself from want, just as she had her- 
 self deprived the bird of his for the same cause, 
 her walk was springy, and she retained that 
 easy swinging of the hips which is the race 
 mark of the women of the Spains. Had she 
 been in the world, no doubt, as she walked 
 through the plaza or the street, "God bless 
 your mother," " Long live grace," and other 
 cries of admiration would have follow^ed her, 
 and even as it was, the priests who visited the 
 convent, and talked occasionally in the dark 
 "locutorio" through the grating to the nuns, 
 would sometimes say to one another that 
 " Sister Candida was the fine essence of true 
 salt, a pearl that God Himself, no doubt, was 
 pleased to wear." In the same way, a bull- 
 fighter who has left the ring, if he pass near a 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 5 
 
 bull, rarely refrains from "challenging," as those 
 intelligent in such things say, by shouting loudly, 
 and by stamping with his feet. 
 
 Her happiness was at its height, and she 
 was praising God for having sent her just in 
 time (another proof, if one were wanted, of His 
 goodness towards all created things ; well is it 
 said that not a sparrow falls without His ken) 
 to save the little life, and thinking to herself 
 what name to give her prisoner, when a 
 doubt arose. Her heart stopped beating for a 
 moment, as she thought the convent rules 
 allowed no property. Nothing but articles of 
 individual use, a rosary, a book of hours, a 
 hair shirt, or a scourge, was fitting for a nun 
 professed, of the discalced and blessed order, 
 which the great Saint of Avila herself had 
 purified. Pets were not to be thought of, and 
 she reflected that it seemed ages since she had 
 known the bird, and he on his part twisted 
 round his head, seeming to watch her move- 
 ments in the cell. 
 
 All might have yet been well, had she but 
 yielded to that unstable guide, mere reason, and 
 opening the cell door, allowed the bird to fly. 
 He would have launched himself into the air 
 with a glad chirp, for by this time the heat had 
 
6 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 moderated as eventide drew near, and flown 
 refreshed to greet his friends, and tell them in 
 the trees, or in the corner where he had his 
 little home beneath the overhanging roof of 
 some high belfry, of the amazing charity of 
 a great being, tall as is a tower. 
 
 Sor Candida, young, kindly, and deprived of 
 love by the religious life, felt if she let her new 
 companion go that she would feel as does a 
 man cast on a desert island with but one fellow, 
 if that fellow dies. 
 
 Surely God would not be enraged If she 
 allowed the bird to stay ! Had He not sent 
 him to her, or her to him, just in the nick of 
 time ? He looked so pretty with his round 
 beady eyes, which followed her about. Besides, 
 she felt he was too weak to fly, so as the con- 
 vent bell rang out for benediction, and the 
 shadows lengthened, stretching across the cell 
 till they bathed half of It in a cool darkness, 
 she took a handkerchief, and having covered 
 up the cage, hurried off to the choir. 
 
 Perhaps her thoughts strayed from the con- 
 templation of the Saviour's passion, realistically 
 set forth (*'to a bad Christ, much blood"), and 
 from the antiphones, to her own cell, where in 
 a corner the precious bird was sleeping, after 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 7 
 
 his escape. The office over, all the nuns 
 walked in the garden, pacing to and fro, glad 
 to escape the heat the stones threw out at sun- 
 set, and to enjoy the air. Some sat and talked 
 about the little gossip of the place, whilst 
 others roamed about alone, turning incessantly 
 when they reached the wall, just like wild 
 animals shut in a cage in public gardens, to be 
 gaped upon by fools. Others, who had the 
 gift of prayer, sat alone enrapt, their lips just 
 moving, and their beads slipping mechanically 
 between their fingers as their souls strove to 
 join themselves with God. Friends walked 
 about in pairs, chattering and laughing almost 
 as gaily as girls do in the world, and even 
 pinching one another on the sly. And as they 
 w^alked, the bell of the cathedral rang out, 
 sounding as if, from the stiff arm of some 
 recumbent warrior in the choir, a shield had 
 fallen upon the stones, so martial was its 
 clang. 
 
 The breeze just rustled in the trees, stirrh)g 
 their parched and thirsty leaves with a metallic 
 sound. A coolness fell upon the land, and from 
 the country came the lowing of the cows as 
 they approached the well, where, since the 
 sun had set, stood shepherds, their sheepskin 
 
8 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 jackets thrown upon the ground, as they 
 strained on the rope which, passing through 
 a wooden pulley, held a leathern bucket, just 
 as in farthest Naboth^a, Esau gave water to 
 his herds. 
 
 So still the air was that the warning of the 
 clock in the great tower upon the walls, before 
 it struck, was heard across the town, whilst 
 from the thirsty ground a scent of freshness 
 came, as if to tell mankind that, down below 
 the surface, all vegetation was alive though 
 sleeping through the heat. 
 
 Still all aoainst the convent rules, the bird 
 continued to sino- on, and in the summer morn- 
 ings, before the enemy, the sun, came out de- 
 claring war upon mankind, Sor Candida's most 
 intimate and dearest friends used to assemble 
 stealthily and fill her cell, to hear its melody. 
 The delightful sense of doing something Vv^rong 
 — surely stolen music is as sweet as stolen 
 waters — increased their pleasure, and they 
 would sit enrapt, closing their eyes, to hear 
 it lift its little canticle. 
 
 Holding each other's hands they sat, whilst 
 one placed at the door looked through a chink, 
 to give the alarm if the superior should come 
 upon her rounds. All prospered, and the bird 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 9 
 
 waxed fat, fed with nefarious rape and hemp- 
 seed, introduced contraband into the convent 
 by a sympathising lay sister who went into 
 the world to buy provisions, and his sweet 
 singing ravished the nuns into an ecstasy of 
 innocent delight. 
 
 At times Sor Candida would say, " Sisters, 
 it seems impossible, but that the Lord is 
 pleased to hear the harmony the little one 
 pours forth, all in His praise." And they, 
 answering, would repeat gravely, '' Yes, little 
 sister, it must be so " ; then they would push a 
 piece of groundsel into the cage, for never had 
 the garden of the convent been so free of 
 weeds as since the advent of the little min- 
 strel, saved so providentially to sing the 
 praises of the Lord. 
 
 All went on well, day following day, and 
 though no doubt the bird mourned for the 
 reasonable converse of his kind, and won- 
 dered how the world wagged with his fellows, 
 he still grew fat, as it is said did Silvio Pellico, 
 although we have no record of his song. 
 
 But, one fine morning as they sat listening 
 to the feathered psalmody, all lost in admira- 
 tion, and with the ready tear of simple souls 
 glistening in all their eyes, a knock was heard, 
 
lo SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 and the cell door flung open showed the 
 superior standing in their midst. Sternly she 
 gazed, her broad white " tocas " looking like 
 driven snow as^ainst the dark brown habit 
 which she wore, of the same make and quality 
 as that worn by the foundress of their order, 
 she who, although she sits at the right hand, 
 perhaps by virtue even more of her humanity 
 than of her saintship, is yet a colonel of artil- 
 lery, where the blood-red and orange banner 
 floats against the sky. Her rosary hung by 
 her side, the beads of coral and the little 
 chains which held them, hammer wrought, 
 with the ''Maria" made in Zaragoza, bearing 
 the figure of the '' Virgen del Pilar." A round 
 medallion of the blessed foundress hung about 
 her neck, and her bare feet, thrust into hempen 
 sandals, were white and clean, the blue veins 
 standing out upon the insteps, showing she 
 followed the injunctions of her saint who said, 
 ''My daughters, it is dreadful to be foul." 
 Her shale-black hair, half hidden by the 
 "tocas," was silvering at the temples, and her 
 round, fat, good-tempered face was puckered 
 to a frown. 
 
 "Daughters," she said, "what brings so 
 many of you here into one cell, as if you 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD ii 
 
 were conspirators ? You know our rules for- 
 bid one nun to go into another's cell without 
 permission, and never with closed doors." 
 
 The nuns stood silent, cowering together 
 like wild mares in a corral. Then from the 
 corner of the cell there came a muffled chirp, 
 where the cage, hastily covered with a pocket- 
 handkerchief, did not exclude the light. The 
 prioress made a step forward, and, uncovering 
 the cage, saw at a glance the motive of the 
 nuns' silence, and the offender against all her 
 rules, serenely seated on his perch. Setting 
 her face as sternly as she could, she said : 
 
 ** Which of you is it who has brought this 
 bird into the cell ? All of you know that any- 
 thing, animate or inanimate, which causes a 
 nun's heart to stray from its allegiance to her 
 spiritual husband, Christ, not only violates the 
 spirit, but the letter of our rule." 
 
 Still no one answered, till, at last, pushed by 
 the rest, Sor Candida, drying her tears and 
 with one hand upon the little cage, as if to save 
 it from the wrath of heaven, stood forth, and 
 with the eloquence which has absorbed the 
 entire activity of her race, in latter days, took 
 up her parable. 
 
 She laid herself upon the mercy, both of 
 
12 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 heaven and the prioress ; told how, from her 
 window, she had seen the bird lie choking in 
 the sand, felt for its little agony, and had 
 remembered that, when upon the cross, our 
 Lord had suffered all but thirst, without com- 
 plaint, and how something, she knew not what, 
 had bade her venture, although she knew that 
 by thus stepping out into the street she had 
 fallen into sin. 
 
 Then as her voice gained strength, and as 
 she saw the encouraofinof orlances of her fellow- 
 culprits, she explained how that (" and this the 
 prioress knew well ") one sin leads to another, 
 and by degrees all she had done seemed to 
 grow natural, and it at last appeared that she 
 had known the little bird for years. 
 
 The prioress stood listening, letting her 
 beads mechanically slip between her fingers, 
 whilst her eyes now and then looked vacant, as 
 if her thoughts were straying to the patio of 
 some brown Castilian grange, where children 
 played about, and where, just underneath the 
 eaves, birds hung in cages, singing all the day. 
 
 The nuns all marked the look, and pressing 
 closer to Sor Candida, encouraged her to 
 speak. She told how, when the bird first sang, 
 she thought the angels had come into the cell, 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD i^. 
 
 o 
 
 and how she felt that all its sinorino- was to 
 God's glory, and then, the words half choking 
 her in the sudden rush of explanation, she 
 begged forgiveness, saying that if the prioress 
 opened the cage and let the bird escape, she 
 had better also open the convent door and 
 thrust her out into the street. She stopped, 
 and for a moment nothing was heard, but the 
 nuns' stifled sobbing, until the prioress, with 
 the frown almost vanished from her face, 
 said : 
 
 ** Daughter, you have acted wrongly, but we 
 are human ; let me see the little creature 
 closer," and v/hen they brought the cage, put 
 out a plump white finger, and allowed the bird 
 to peck at it, so naturally, it seemed as if 
 instead of a grave nun of high position, she 
 was a simple woman in the world. 
 
 Unwittingly she had exposed herself to the 
 dread influence of sympathy, and as she stood 
 a moment undecided, one of the sisters seized 
 the hand which hung down by her side, and 
 kissed it, whilst the others, crowding about 
 her, all found voice to beg for the retention of 
 the little bird, which seated on its perch seemed 
 to survey them critically, an attitude which it is 
 not impossible is frequent in animals towards 
 
14 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 men. The prioress, after a moment or two's 
 silence, drew herself up and gave her dictum : 
 
 '* Daughters, our good provincial comes to- 
 morrow on a visit of inspection, and I will tell 
 him what has occurred, and as he settles, so 
 it shall be done." As she stopped speaking, 
 the anofelus called the nuns into the choir, and 
 trooping out, they took their places in their 
 stalls. 
 
 Next morning brought the provincial, who, 
 in a shaky cab, drove to the door, looking in- 
 congruous, just as a nun looks out of place 
 when travelling in a train. Had he but ambled 
 to the door upon a mule, all would have been 
 in keeping except the canvas sand-shoes which 
 he wore in lieu of sandals, perhaps out of a 
 half-felt spirit of homage to external progress, 
 content to pass as a reformer to the outward 
 eye, so that he kept the inward vision well 
 obscured with the theology which he had 
 learned in youth, or maybe for his corns. 
 
 Withal an able man, and active in the busi- 
 ness of the order, untiring in all things pertain- 
 ing to the welfare of the province over which 
 he ruled. Well educated, but not intellectual, 
 for "quod natura non dat, Salamanca non 
 praestat," he yet had that dry humour, so com- 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 15 
 
 mon throughout Spain, together with a demo- 
 cratic freedom in address, unknown in northern 
 countries, and which perhaps the Arabs left as 
 a memorial of their sway. 
 
 When he had had his chocolate, and gone 
 minutely into all the details of the convent 
 with the prioress, and when the sweets, for 
 which the nuns were famous, the hard quince 
 cheese and sweet-potatoes swimming in syrup 
 thick as honey, with the turron from Alicante, 
 and the white cakes with caraways incrusted 
 on the paste, were set upon the table, seated in 
 a high-backed chair, the seat, of leather deeply 
 stamped, held to the framework by brass- 
 headed, hand-made nails, he took up his 
 parable : 
 
 "How go our daughters in the Lord? 
 Nuns, as your blessed foundress said, are ill 
 to rule, and I to whom it is appointed to 
 govern and inspect, know that they sometimes 
 prove as difficult to manage as a flock of sheep. 
 I speak under due licence and with pardon, for 
 we should not compare a Christian to a beast." 
 
 Then, drawing out his snuffbox, he tapped 
 it in a contemplative way and took a pinch, 
 brushing the residue from off his nostrils with 
 a brown, hairy hand. 
 
i6 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 The prioress, who saw her opportunity, 
 smiled and said : 
 
 ''Surely your paternity does not imagine 
 that I guide my flock after the fashion that 
 a muleteer drives mules by shouting ' Arre ' at 
 them and by throwing stones ? " 
 
 He lauQfhed and said the answer was as full 
 of grace as is an egg of meat, and after he had 
 blown his nose with a not overclean red cotton 
 handkerchief, the prioress placed before him 
 the difficulty that had arisen, and asked advice 
 whether the bird might be retained, and, if it 
 were retained, was it not likely it would prove 
 a stumblino--block, turnino- the minds of those 
 who ought to think on spiritual things to the 
 mere matters of the world ? 
 
 Taking a piece of sweet-potato on the end 
 of his broad-pointed knife, the provincial con- 
 veyed it dexterously into his mouth, and 
 swallowing it with a sound as when a duck 
 plunges his beak below the water of a pond to 
 eat a weed, and having wiped his mouth upon 
 the tablecloth, for a moment closed his eyes, 
 and then beofan to orive his dictum on the 
 case. 
 
 " Most of the trouble that we have in life," 
 he said, "is due to human nature, which we 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 17 
 
 can modify and alter, just as we can convey 
 the water from a spring in a lead pipe into 
 a house, so that the pressure be great enough 
 to make it rise." 
 
 "Ah," the prioress cut in, "it is then pres- 
 sure that makes the water rise. I never 
 understood it, or how it was the water came 
 into a house simply by laying down a pipe. . . . 
 Wonderful, indeed, are the Almighty's ways ; 
 but there are other things, and how a key 
 turns in a lock, and why the water rises in 
 a pump, I cannot understand . . . but life is 
 full of mysteries that no one can explain." 
 
 "Mother," the visitor rejoined, "the mind 
 of woman is not made for science ; there are 
 mysteries which it is best that only men should 
 pry into ; believe me, peaches lose their 
 bloom by being rubbed, even with a silk 
 handkerchief Faith is your province, and the 
 things that you have mentioned you had better 
 take on trust, knowing that those, competent 
 by their sex and education to deal with prob- 
 lems such as these, have solved them once for 
 all. What says S. Chrysostom, ' Mens feminae 
 non est . . . ,' but why quote Latin .^ and 
 besides, we stray far from, our text. I have 
 
 been thinking as I spoke, on this thing and on 
 c 
 
i8 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 that, and as I said, nature cannot be stifled, 
 and it may be that it is not entirely without 
 some great design that Providence has thus per- 
 mitted this Httle creature of His own creating 
 to have come into your Hves. I would not 
 that the sisters set their affections too much on 
 the bird ; but it may serve perhaps to show 
 them resignation to the conventual life, being 
 as it were itself an inmate of a cell, within a 
 cell. So, for the present it can remain, and 
 I will ask our Vicar-General when I see him, 
 if I have acted well.'* 
 
 The prioress thanked him, and said she 
 would convey what he had said to Sister 
 Candida and to the other nuns, and he, having 
 taken leave, got back into his cab, and dis- 
 appeared down the steep, stony street, the 
 driver cracking his whip noisily as he sat with 
 a rein in either hand, chewing the burnt-out 
 stump of a cigar. 
 
 The rescued bird little by little grew in 
 favour with the nuns, who all declared to hear 
 him sing was next to listening to the celestial 
 choirs. Even the prioress brought him some 
 sugar now and then, and smiled good-naturedly 
 upon Sor Candida when she launched out into 
 his praise. Occasionally, so much he waxed in 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 19 
 
 favour and in grace, his cage was taken into 
 church, and as the organ pealed he twitteringly 
 sang his little psean to the Lord, making the 
 nuns rejoice. 
 
 A year passed by, and once again the short, 
 but fierce Castilian summer heated the rocks 
 of Avila, making the lichens and the mosses, 
 with which the winter rains had clothed them, 
 here and there shrivel like leather, left out in 
 the sun. Once more the parameras turned as 
 brown as is the Sahara, and round the wells 
 once more the expectant cattle waited for even- 
 ing with their heads hanging to the ground. 
 The convent once again threw a cool shadow 
 on the street, and on the distant mountains of 
 the Credos only faint lines of snow remained 
 that looked like veins of quartz or marble, seen 
 in the clear white light. The heat continued 
 into autumn, till the great day when Avila 
 turns out to honour her who, born a simple 
 gentlewoman, died the most human of the 
 saints. 
 
 The convent was astir, and all the nuns 
 from early dawn were running up and down, 
 decking the church with flowers. Even the 
 prioress abated somewhat of her dignity, and 
 as she mopped her face and drank repeatedly 
 
20 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 from the white porous bottle from Andujar, 
 hung up in the draught to keep the water cool, 
 said she had never seen the blessed foundress' 
 day so stifling, and that she understood how 
 much the Blessed Mother, born in cool Avila, 
 had suffered in her journeys to the south. 
 Services followed fast on one another, and hicrh 
 mass over, the nuns all crowded to the win- 
 dows to see the image of the saint borne in 
 procession through the streets. Aloft upon 
 men's shoulders, and swaying to and fro as 
 they with difficulty passed through the crowded 
 streets, the saint appeared, her halo round her 
 head, and in her hand one of her books, the 
 other stretched in attitude of benediction to the 
 crowd. 
 
 All the old palaces were crowded to the 
 roofs. On all the balconies women with 
 flowers in their coarse black hair leaned on 
 each other's shoulders, and in the blazing sun, 
 the men and boys, their sleek and close- 
 cropped heads impervious to the heat, stood 
 and admired, taking their cigarettes out of 
 their mouths just as the saint drew level with 
 them, and replacing them at once as she passed 
 on, the bearers holding theirs unlit between 
 their fingers stained with tobacco juice. From 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 21 
 
 the adjoining country tall and sinewy men, 
 clad in short jackets and in knee-breeches, 
 stood holding their stiff felt hats, their heads 
 bound round with handkerchiefs, which they 
 wore turbanwise with the ends danalinor under- 
 neath. Their wives and daughters, dressed in 
 short bell-shaped skirts, puffed out with many- 
 coloured flannel petticoats, had handkerchiefs 
 crossed on their breasts, and their hair plaited 
 into tails. As the procession passed they 
 crossed themselves and fell upon their knees. 
 
 It took its way down tortuous cobbled 
 streets, past mediaeval houses with their coat 
 of arms speaking of when the mystic city 
 deserved its name of ** Avila of the Knights," 
 by little plazas in which acacias grew, by the 
 cathedral door, half fortress and half church, 
 whose battlemented walls contrast so strangely 
 with its belfry and its bells, until it reached the 
 gate, where it came out upon the road to San 
 Jose, the first foundation of the saint. All day 
 the cannon roared, and in the churches services 
 succeeded services, and Avila, for once, woke 
 up in its desire to honour her who has made it 
 known to all the world. 
 
 Inside the convent, when at last the services 
 were done, and as the nuns sat talking in the 
 
22 SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 
 
 refectory after their evening meal, the door was 
 opened, and Sor Candida appeared, pale and 
 with staring eyes, and in response to their 
 inquiries exclaimed the ''sin against the Holy 
 Ghost," and rushed back to her cell. The 
 nuns sat horrified, and the prioress, taking 
 some holy water and a taper as arms against 
 the evil one, who, she averred, must suddenly 
 have fallen upon Sor Candida, went, amongst 
 exclamations from the sisterhood of horror and 
 alarm, to see what had occurred. 
 
 She paused before the door and, looking in, 
 saw kneeling on the floor Sor Candida, sobbing 
 and calling down the curses of the Lord upon 
 her head. Before her on a chair was set the 
 little cage, where once the rescued bird had 
 sat upon his perch, and had poured forth the 
 melodies which, as the nuns averred, were 
 praises to the Lord. 
 
 The cage was there, a lump of sugar and a 
 piece of groundsel, dried brown with heat, 
 were sticking in its bars. The earthen water- 
 vessel was upset and dry, and in the bottom 
 lay a little bundle of dishevelled feathers, out of 
 which stuck a head with glassy eyes and beak 
 wide open, showing that the poor occupant of 
 the cane cell had died of thirst ; but rescued. 
 
SOR CANDIDA AND THE BIRD 23 
 
 as it seemed, to taste once more the bitterness 
 of death, by an inexorable fate. 
 
 Tears blurred the eyes of the good-natured 
 prioress. Twice she essayed to speak, and 
 then Sor Candida, rising from her knees, 
 looked at her wildly and exclaimed, *' This 
 is the sin against the Holy Ghost I have com- 
 mitted. 
 
 '' Whilst I prayed in the church and sat and 
 watched our saint borne through her town in 
 triumph, this little one of God lay choking in 
 the heat. 
 
 *' How could the saint forget? It would have 
 cost her nothing to have put a thought into my 
 mind. 
 
 ''This punishment perhaps has come upon 
 me as a warning that we nuns should not 
 attach ourselves to any one but Christ." 
 
 She sank again upon her knees, and the 
 poor prioress, having again essayed to speak 
 without avail, stood playing nervously with the 
 Maria of her rosary. 
 
A SILHOUETTE 
 
 The great brown plains of Entre Rios wore an 
 unfamiliar air. Herds of tame mares had run 
 half wild. They snorted and made off, a thousand 
 yards away, their tangled manes and tails all 
 knotted up with burs, streaming out in the wind. 
 The cattle had become as fierce as buffaloes, 
 and anyone who lost his horse had to make 
 long detours, for to approach them was as 
 dangerous as to come near a tiger or a lion. 
 Only about the flat-roofed, whitewashed houses, 
 set in their frames of peach groves, did a few 
 animals remain domestic, and even those, at 
 the approach of man, often made off and joined 
 their fellows on the plains. 
 
 Sheep were close-herded, not by mere boys 
 who climbed up to their saddles by placing 
 a small, brown, prehensile toe upon their 
 horse's knees, but by armed men. 
 
 The deer and ostriches ran if they saw a 
 
 man a mile away, and disappeared down the 
 
 brown grassy swells, just as a flying-fish shoots 
 
 24 
 
A SILHOUETTE 25 
 
 down the watery hills raised by the North-East 
 Trades. 
 
 Men, " campeando " horses that had strayed, 
 if they were forced to ascend a little hill, got 
 off, and creeping on all fours, surveyed the 
 country cautiously, and then, having made sure 
 that all was quiet on the plain beyond, remained 
 as short a time as possible standing against the 
 sky. If at the crossing of a river, where the 
 thick belts of hardwood trees obscured the 
 view, two travellers came unexpectedly upon 
 each other face to face, their hands at once 
 sought pistol or " facon," and as they crossed 
 at a sufficient distance to escape a sudden shot 
 or lasso cast, cautiously passed the time of day, 
 and not infrequently, seized with a panic, 
 spurred their horses, and galloped for a mile 
 or so before they drew their reins. 
 
 The sight, on the horizon, of a band of men 
 made the few dwellers in the scattered mud- 
 built ranchos flee to the woods, driving their 
 horses, carrying their wives and children, at full 
 speed, leaving their scanty household goods to 
 the protection of their dogs. 
 
 For months the revolution had been going 
 on, the rival bands roaming about and stealing 
 horses, slaughtering the cattle, and now and 
 
26 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 then, If they could catch a man or two alone, 
 cutting their throats just as they cut a sheep's, 
 driving the knife In at the point with the edge 
 outwards, and bending back the head. 
 
 The death of General Justo de Urqulza had 
 broken up the province Into two hostile camps, 
 and Reds and Whites maddened and raved 
 about the land, avoiding one another for the 
 most part, but fighting furiously when circum- 
 stances brought them to striking distance and 
 there was no escape. Prisoners had little 
 chance, and those who fell alive Into the 
 enemies' hands were foolish not to have kept 
 a cartridge, as now and then they were sewn 
 up In hides fresh stripped from off an ox, then 
 left to die, exposed to sun and rain, and eaten 
 by the flies. Others were killed In various 
 Ingenious ways, and the best anyone could 
 hope for was to be shot, or have his throat cut 
 out of hand. No hypocritical pretence of 
 treatino- fallen enemies as friends had ever 
 crossed the minds of anybody, and war was 
 carried on just as it might have been between 
 wild beasts, quite naturally, and with the full 
 amount of cruelty with which our nature has 
 endowed us, free and unrestrained. Still, on 
 the whole, things were no worse than they 
 
A SILHOUETTE 27 
 
 are in European wars, except that every man 
 who fought, knew that he did so with a halter 
 round his neck. 
 
 As all the rank and file on either side were 
 pressed, occasionally fathers and sons or 
 brothers found themselves opposed to one 
 another, and, strange to say, the claims of 
 party as a general rule proved stronger than 
 the call of blood, and not infrequently it 
 chanced that friends were called upon to kill 
 each other, and did so, as it appeared, without 
 a qualm of conscience, so strong is discipline, 
 and so amenable mankind to every influence, 
 whether of custom or of use. 
 
 It chanced upon a day, near Villaguay, two 
 brothers owned a small estancia, known as 
 '* Las Arias," close to a strip of monte near 
 a river in which carpinchos swam and tortoises 
 abounded, and where green parakeets flew 
 shrieking through the maize field, and built 
 their hanging nests in the old espinillo trees, 
 which here and there stood up amongst the 
 corn. The thick green grass fed mares and 
 catde, and kept them fat and sleek, when on 
 the outside "camps" animals starved from the 
 lack of pasture, and trailed themselves labori- 
 ously for miles to drink at water-holes, upon 
 
28 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 the face of which carcases bloated in the sun, 
 floated Hke bladders, and in whose mud, cows 
 and thin mares got stuck like flies in treacle, 
 and slowly starved, surrounded by a troop 
 of vultures, who sat and waited patiently, just 
 as the faithful followers of some great politician 
 sit faithfully expecting the glad moment when 
 his death shall free them and unchain their 
 tongues, which have got stiff for want of exer- 
 cise during their leader's life. 
 
 The brothers lived the ordinary life of men 
 in those days, on the plains. From their youth 
 upwards they had scanned the Pampa as sailors 
 scan the sea, reading it like a book, and know- 
 ing almost instinctively, all the lore men learn 
 when born to look at nature as an enemy, 
 between whom and themselves a temporary 
 truce exists, but which at any moment may be 
 broken in the twinkling of an eye. Men were, 
 of course, all hostile to them, and their 
 philosophy, short, pithy, and extracted from 
 the simples of their lives, bade them beware, 
 and as they said themselves, " Never facilitate," 
 that is, never to sit down on the left of anyone, 
 for by so doing he had you at a disadvantage 
 when high words ensued, and you essayed to 
 draw your knife. So, at the passing of a river. 
 
A SILHOUETTE 29 
 
 if you could well avoid it, you did not ride into 
 the water first, especially if you were wearing- 
 silver spurs or reins, or any of the massive 
 trappings with which on feast days men 
 adorned their horses, for it micrht chance that 
 you received a knife-thrust in the back from a 
 too much admiring friend, or perhaps merely 
 because the sudden lust to kill, so frequent 
 amongst dwellers on the plains, rose in the 
 heart of the man following you, just as in islands 
 far out at sea a roller suddenly sets in during 
 a calm, and sweeps away boats anchored off 
 the shore. 
 
 To these two brothers, with their quiet, but 
 occasionally bloody, pastoral life, whose only 
 care was to acquire some silver horse gear, to 
 keep their cattle fat, and their ''tropilla" sleek 
 and tame, and in whose minds a vague but 
 stimulating idea that they were free, with no 
 one daring to constrain them in their lives, 
 the fear of revolution hung like a black cloud, 
 which somehow it had always seemed impos- 
 sible should burst. Not that they cared about 
 the matter in the abstract, knowing that when 
 a Government went out a revolution followed, 
 just as inevitably as blood pours out after you 
 plunge a knife into a sheep. It seemed to 
 
30 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 them quite natural, for judging by themselves, 
 they knew no one gave up a woman or a horse 
 without a fight, and what so natural as that 
 a man who had enjoyed the sweets of being 
 "government" should struggle to retain his 
 place at the knife's point, and to the utmost of 
 his might ? 
 
 So, as they lived their lives, religiously 
 catching a horse at night, to stake out ready 
 to stand all day and blink and hang his head, 
 if not required for work, and sitting hours in 
 the kitchen drinking their mate, and illustrat- 
 ng all their points by diagrams drawn with 
 the point of a " facon " on the mud floor, upon 
 them came one morning, as a Pampero comes 
 up on a summer s day, the news that General 
 Fuldno had ''pronounced." Soon came the 
 usual rumours in a revolution, of men im- 
 pressed to serve, of horses taken, of cattle 
 killed, and now and then mysterious parties of 
 armed men passed, almost, as it were, hull 
 down on the horizon of the Pampean ocean, a 
 gleam of sun falling occasionally on a lance 
 head or rifle barrel, before they sank beneath 
 the grassy waves which roll towards the south. 
 
 Much did the brothers and their mother 
 deliberate on what was best to do to avoid the 
 
A SILHOUETTE 31 
 
 ruin which they foresaw would fall upon them. 
 The mother, an old "china" woman, wrinkled 
 and brown, was urgent that her two sons 
 should ofet toofether all their best horses and 
 *' emigrate/' that is, cross either into Santa F6 
 or Uruguay, and as she said, "Play armadillo." 
 But they, used to the district, and knowing the 
 recesses of the " montes " by the rivers as well 
 as i( they had been tigers or carpinchos, thought 
 it was best to stay at home and wait. 
 
 They held their council, after the gaucho 
 fashion, in the kitchen, sitting upon hard blocks 
 of fiandubay or horses' heads, passing the mat^ 
 round, and now and then holding it in their 
 hands and listening, as a horse snorted, or a 
 stallion, gathering up his mares, galloped past 
 in the dark. Occasionally the tame "chaja" 
 gave its shrill cry, causing the mother to look 
 up and say that either it would rain, because, 
 as all men knew, when the " chajd " cried, that 
 it had to rain, even against God's will, or that 
 there was a thief afoot after the horses staked 
 out near the house. 
 
 They sat and talked, watching the negro 
 " capataz " Gregorio come in and out, the fire- 
 light falling on his silver-handled knife as he 
 walked to and fro as noiselessly as if he were 
 
32 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 a ghost, in his white " potro " boots. His 
 ** Santas tardes" broke the silence, and, sitting 
 down, he took the mat6 from the attendant 
 negro girl who stood by, with a small kettle 
 ready on the fire to fill the gourd, and suck at 
 the bombilla to see it was not choked before she 
 handed it about. The others looked at him in 
 silence till he had drunk his mat^, for it would 
 be bad manners to speak first to anyone who 
 comes into a room. Unsheathing his long 
 knife, after apology for drawing it before a 
 lady, he laid it by his side, and, taking out 
 a lump of black tobacco, dexterously cut 
 enough, and tearing from a sheet of paper, 
 about as large as a good sheet of foolscap, 
 a piece of the right size, and holding it between 
 his toes which stuck out from his "potro" 
 boots, made toeless so as to catch the stirrup, 
 he rubbed the cut tobacco fine and made a 
 cigarette. Lighting it with a cinder held upon 
 his knife, he blew a thin blue cloud from his 
 thick nostrils, and began slowly. 
 
 *'Si, si, sefior, they say that parties of the 
 Reds have been about the Gualeguay, not 
 twenty leagues away. Lopez Jordan is moving 
 southward with a horde of Correntinos, infidels 
 who all speak Guarani. From Villagudy down 
 
A SILHOUETTE 33 
 
 to Cald, and right through Montiel, scarcely 
 a horse is left, and all the beasts they kill, 
 they roast with the hide on, so that there is 
 a double loss, both of the meat and hide." 
 
 A "Si, sefior," half whispered, was his 
 answer, and through the door, glistening 
 amongst the leaves of the peach " mont6," the 
 giant fireflies known as "tulipanes," flitted 
 like humminof-birds that had been rubbed with 
 phosphorus, and from the plain stretching out 
 white in the brio-ht moonligfht, the acrid scent 
 of sheep floated upon the air, their bleating in 
 the fold seeming like distant bells. Occasion- 
 ally dogs barked, and now and then the shrill 
 " chaja " repeated his wild note, and flapped 
 his horny wings with a strange hollow sound. 
 
 Gregorio, suddenly starting to his feet, went 
 out, and after listening anxiously, lay down, 
 and, with his ear close to the ground, remained 
 a little motionless, then getting up said, "Just 
 at the pass, you know, where the tall seibo 
 grows, I hear the noise of a large body of 
 armed men." 
 
 " Why armed ? " one of the mat6 drinkers 
 said. 
 
 " Firstly, because no body so considerable 
 as this is likely to be out at night except in 
 
34 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 arms, and secondly, because I hear steel scab- 
 bards ring, which probably are those worn by 
 the officers, for the men wear them sticking 
 through their girths." 
 
 In the twinkling of an eye the quiet kitchen 
 was in confusion, and the two brothers hurriedly 
 kissed their mother and, rushing out to where 
 their horses fed attached to stake ropes, 
 mounted in haste, barebacked, and quickly 
 gathering up the horses feeding round their 
 mare, whom they released as if by magic, one 
 brother slipping off his horse as lightly as a 
 leaf falls from a tree, to take the bell from off 
 her neck, like shadows disappeared into the 
 night, all the loose horses galloping in front. 
 
 A dropping shot or two and a wild galloping 
 of unseen horses showed that the brothers had 
 been seen by the advanced guard of the 
 marauding party, but soon the unfamiliar noises 
 died away, and left the plain silent and peace- 
 ful and as if nothing more was passing than 
 the quiet setting of the stars. 
 
 Inside the kitchen the night wore on, with 
 now and then a prayer, and with the mat6 
 ofoing- round from hand to hand, and now and 
 then the negro capataz went out, lay down and 
 listened, and coming back, sat gravely down, 
 
A SILHOUETTE 35 
 
 saying that he heard nothing, but that the 
 Three Marias were getting low on the horizon, 
 and it was time for sleep, seeing that even they, 
 the blessed three, set in the heavens by God 
 Himself to keep the holy Trinity before men's 
 eyes, would soon retire to rest. 
 
 The mother of the boys, escorted by her 
 negro maidservant, carrying a kettle in her 
 hand so that her mistress mioht take a matd 
 before she went to bed, went out, and passed 
 into the grey light of the coming dawn ; pass- 
 inof beneath the stunted China trees, skirting 
 the well round which a pack of yellow dogs as 
 lean as wolves were sleeping, who blinked at 
 them and then dozed off again. 
 
 The women stopped before the entrance to 
 the low white house, listened intently for a 
 moment just as wild horses listen, even before 
 they are alarmed, and then quietly closed the 
 door, almost mechanically, as if they had been 
 walking in their sleep. 
 
 The capataz, left all alone, smoked silently 
 for a few minutes, then rising, he extinguished 
 the ''candil" which burned in an inverted 
 mare's bell, stuck between the mouldings of 
 a broken cattle brand driven into the earthen 
 floor. Then, taking off his "chiripa," he 
 
36 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 placed his knife close to his hand, just under- 
 neath his saddle, and stretching himself out, 
 his feet towards the fire, wrapped himself in 
 his poncho, and fell asleep. Towards daylight 
 he was roused by the dogs barking, and, look- 
 ing out in the first light of the false dawn, saw 
 a man riding a tired horse, hatless and wet, 
 advancinof to the house. Takino- his lonof 
 silver-handled fac6n in his left hand, concealed 
 beneath the poncho which had covered him 
 asleep, he cautiously advanced to the " pa- 
 lenque," and waited till the man came up. At 
 twenty yards away he knew him, and called 
 out, " Ah ! patroncito, what has happened ? 
 Where are your brother and the horses ? " 
 But a orlance at the exhausted rider showed 
 him that something untoward had occurred. 
 Sliding off, all in one motion, so quickly that 
 his right foot almost seemed to touch the 
 ground before the left, and yet so quietly that 
 he scarce moved the dew upon the grass, the 
 young man slipped the bridle from his horse, 
 which stood a moment hanging its head, with 
 flanks tucked up and the wet dew clinging 
 upon its quarters ; and then, shaking like a 
 retriever dog, lay down and rolled, then shook 
 itself again, and quietly began to feed. 
 
A SILHOUETTE ^ 
 
 Lifting the dried mare's hide, that hanging 
 from two pegs, served as a door, they passed 
 into the kitchen, and when the capataz had 
 blown the ashes of the banked-up fire into a 
 glow, and thrown a bundle of dried thistle 
 stalks upon it, he heated water, and, handing 
 the young man a mate, said, '' Drink, patron- 
 cito, and tell me what it is. Where is your 
 brother ? Is he alive, or riding in the plains 
 of Trapalanda, as the Indians say ? " 
 
 Sucking the hot and bitter liquid to the 
 dregs, Panchito then began: "No, no Gregorio, 
 my brother is not dead, and luckily only rides 
 with a party of the Colorados who came upon 
 us with our horses swimming the river, and 
 waited for us to come out, just as a man sent 
 forward in an ostrich hunt waits for the driven 
 birds. My brother turned his horse to cross 
 again, but as he did so, a party lined the bank 
 we just had left, and took him prisoner at once. 
 I let my hat drop in the stream to draw their 
 fire, and threw myself beside my horse, and when 
 we touched the shore, darted at once full speed 
 into the woods. They fired, but missed me, and 
 the trees prevented them from throwing ' bolas ' 
 at my horse. So here I am safe, tired and wet, 
 with all our horses gone, and my poor brother 
 
SS A SILHOUETTE 
 
 Cruz obliged to serve amongst the Colorados 
 as long as General Lopez keeps the field." 
 
 As they sat talking, little by little the sun 
 rose through the mist, which hung on every 
 blade of grass and fell in drops off the low 
 eaves of the estancia buildings, and clung about 
 the coats of animals. Vizcachas peeped out 
 timidly from their holes, and tucotucos sounded 
 their last note from underneath the ground, 
 before retiring for the day. Sheep bleated in 
 the fold, and cattle, sleeping on the highest 
 ground that they could find, stretched out 
 their heads, but did not rise to eat, knowing 
 the wet, white dew upon the grass would be 
 injurious to them, whilst from the monte by 
 the riverside the noise of myriads of birds just 
 waking, filled the air with sound. 
 
 '' Let us eo out and meet the sun as do the 
 accursed Indians in the far south of Buenos 
 Ayres, where I once was a soldier," Gregorio 
 said. 
 
 Rising, they went out to the door, and as 
 they stood and scanned the plain, a noise of 
 galloping fell on their ears. 
 
 "What have we done," Panchito said, "to 
 irritate the Lord that he allows another band 
 of these accursed Reds to visit us? Providence 
 
A SILHOUETTE 39 
 
 surely cannot remember that our father was a 
 White ? " 
 
 Suddenly over a low hill a man appeared 
 racing upon a barebacked horse, his knife 
 between his teeth. After him swept a band 
 of ragged soldiers, some getting out their 
 " bolas " for a throw. Both onlookers recog- 
 nised at once the rider and his horse. 
 
 "My brother Cruz." "Yes, on his blue 
 roan horse," the capataz replied. Even as they 
 spoke, the foremost soldier, with a long cast 
 of the " bolas," caught the blue roan round the 
 hind legs, and with a plunge or two he fell, 
 and the pursuers gathered round their prey. 
 Leaping upon their horses, the agonised on- 
 lookers scoured to the place, and just arrived 
 to hear a sergeant say, " We must make an 
 example ; the young man has been once within 
 our ranks ; besides, his father was a cursed 
 White . . . you negro there, dismount and 
 cut his throat." 
 
 Pale and disordered with his fall, Cruz stood, 
 disarmed and helpless, looking mechanically at 
 the rising sun, knowing, he saw it, for the last 
 time upon earth. Its light fell on his face, 
 flushing his cheeks and bathing all the group 
 of gauchos and their horses in its life-giving 
 
40 A SILHOUETTE 
 
 rays. Facing about, the sergeant cried, *' Keep 
 those men back till I have finished with this 
 dog," and then signing the negro forward, 
 who advanced, drawing his knife and scenting 
 blood, just as a wolf lays bare its fangs before 
 he pounces on a lamb, with a quick move- 
 ment threw the prisoner on his face, wrenched 
 back his head, and plunged his dagger in his 
 throat. With a convulsive movement and a 
 whistling sound, as when the air is suddenly 
 let out of a pricked bladder, the blood gushed 
 out, staining the grass, and feet of the impas- 
 sive gauchos who stood round. The victim's 
 eyes glazed slowly, then turned back horribly, 
 exposing all the white, and a convulsive grin 
 deformed his features, whilst the negro pressed 
 his body with his foot, just as a butcher presses 
 the body of a sheep, to cause the blood to 
 flow. A few convulsive movements of the leg^s 
 showed life was passing, and then the body lay 
 extended on the grass, helpless and limp, and 
 looking like a bundle of old clothes. 
 
 The sergeant spoke the funeral oration, as 
 the negro wiped his knife, saying, ''The young 
 man might have made a soldier, for he was 
 brave, and was no miser of his throat." 
 
 Then they all mounted, lightly as a flock of 
 
A SILHOUETTE 41 
 
 birds, and struck across the plain, their horses 
 leaving a dark trail as they brushed through 
 the dew-bespangled grass. 
 
 Pancbito, slipping off, cast himself on his 
 brother's body with a groan, mechanically 
 throwing the reins over his horse's head, 
 upon the ground to stop him moving off. The 
 horse snorted a little at the fresh-spilt blood, 
 and then stood like a statue, outlined and 
 motionless against the sky, in the full glare of 
 the new-risen sun. 
 
A SAINT 
 
 The days of saints are past. We never see 
 them in these latter times. Our eyes are just 
 as slow to mark them as were the eyes of 
 those who slew and tortured them in days 
 gone by, giving them thus the chance of 
 immortality and of a place apart, in calendars. 
 I knew one though, that is, if stripes and 
 prisons oft, the scorn of men, a life of poverty 
 and a pure nature, with a soul afire at all 
 injustice, constitute a saint. As many of the 
 breed were born in most unlikely places and 
 surroundings, so was the one I knew, for I 
 feel certain that he was a saint in truth, in 
 deed, and thought and life, although no church 
 has canonised his name. The race has sprung 
 before, in palaces, in hovels, farms, in armies, 
 convents, and again in towns, in country dis- 
 tricts, and perhaps in gaols. But Cadiz, 
 ''Improba Gades," the laughing, whitewashed, 
 sea-bound, salt-ringed town, which rises from 
 the waves and seems to float, just as a nautilus 
 
 42 
 
A SAINT 43 
 
 lies rocking in the trades, does not at first 
 sight strike one as a cradle for a saint. 
 
 The little town of Hercules, built on its 
 tongue of land jutting far out into the sea, 
 and with the great black shoal, Las Puercas, 
 standing sentinel just in the fairway of the 
 port, with its long rows of dazzling houses 
 chequered with bright green jalousies, its 
 streets in which a crowd is never seen, in 
 which the tramp of horses is not heard, sans 
 trade, sans manufactures, peaceful, and seem- 
 ing far removed from all the troubles of the 
 world, does not seem fitting for the birth of 
 one destined to struggle all his life. 
 
 Your perfect rebel, and there can be no 
 saintliness without revolt in some shape or 
 another against the myriad meannesses that 
 dwarf mankind, makes his own struggle, if he 
 but strives against himself Easier far it 
 would have been to have sunk into mere 
 resignation (by that sin men have fallen deeper 
 than even angels fell by pride), and to have 
 found all fair, as did the Lord in Eden, till 
 man appeared to break the spell. In the soft 
 wind-swept, sea -lapped town, where stars 
 come out like fireflies, pale, and sink back 
 into the sky, and where day melts into the 
 
44 A SAINT 
 
 night as imperceptibly as if it were a tide, it 
 is so easy to forget. 
 
 Dressed in his unsubstantial, southern chil- 
 dren's clothes, made out of stuff like bed- 
 ticking, he must have gone to school, to some 
 poor starveling schoolmaster (the hunger of 
 a schoolmaster is a stock jest in Spain), or 
 some old snuffy priest. Still, in his youth 
 he could not but have showed the promise 
 of his life, just as musicians and great painters 
 composed and painted as soon as they could 
 speak, for saintliness is of the nature of an 
 art. 
 
 Even in Cadiz, with its quiet ways, its 
 streets so shady in the heat, so sunny in the 
 cold, its grass-grown plazas and its air as of 
 a woman, fair in youth and yet more beautiful 
 in age, the ordinary injustices of life must have 
 revolted him. 
 
 The overladen ass, girth-galled and patient, 
 treading its weary Calvary which leads it to 
 no heaven, except the rest from toil that death 
 affords, must have stirred all his blood. Cats 
 tortured and dogs stoned, no doubt set all 
 his childish nerves a-tingling and his sym- 
 pathies on edge, as they do those of many 
 children, but with the difference in his case 
 
A SAINT 45 
 
 that the indignation lasted all his life, and did 
 not settle down into that careless acquiescence 
 that makes cowards of us all. 
 
 Whether he stood and whispered at the 
 grated window, when he grew older, to some 
 girl half seen, or, standing on the pavement, 
 formed with his lips dumb words to some fair 
 Gaditana on a balcony, I do not know, but 
 I imagine that his only love was his old 
 mother, and that, although throughout his life 
 he never knew the name of fear, with women 
 he was timid and did not know the worth of 
 his timidity in women's eyes. 
 
 Fortune had given him a little manufactory 
 of playing-cards, left by his father, which in 
 a year or two of philanthropic management 
 soon went to ruin, though I remember now 
 and then, long years ago, to have remarked 
 upon the ace of gold, in Cadiz packs, his 
 name, and to have thought the cards were 
 dingy and looked like blotting-paper. This 
 hindrance to his life having^ been thus re- 
 moved, the way was clear for him to run his 
 course. Never again did he own property or 
 any money, but what was necessary for the 
 subsistence of his mother and himself, and that 
 from day to day. 
 
46 A SAINT 
 
 Thus being independent of the world, he 
 naturally, after the fashion of his brother- 
 saints, set out on his career to redress In- 
 justices, make things grown crooked, straight, 
 and generally to court the martyrdom mankind 
 is ever ready to inflict on all who do not put 
 their necks beneath its yoke. 
 
 How he became an anarchist, that is to me 
 unknown ; but probably, after the fashion of 
 his countrymen, more by experience of life, 
 than by long poring upon books. 
 
 In such a little town as Cadiz, where every- 
 thing is known, nothing but vice is possible to 
 hide, and that but by the complicity of others, 
 who shield their fellow-sinners for the need 
 they have of them, his views were known to all, 
 and he became a sort of bugbear to the popu- 
 lation, who, in the vegetarian dreamer, saw a 
 dangerous revolutionist, and yet received a 
 pleasurable qualm as he passed by, feeling a 
 pride their city had produced so terrible a man. 
 As he walked through the streets, dressed in 
 his threadbare suit of shoddy Barcelona tweed, 
 a soft grey hat upon his head, with his weak 
 eyes shielded by neutral-tinted spectacles, 
 people stepped off the narrow pavement on to 
 the cobble-stones and murmured, ''There goes 
 
A SAINT 47 
 
 Antichrist." Strange rumours that he main- 
 tained a correspondence with the murderers of 
 the Czar gained ground, and sounded terrible 
 to those who had the vaguest of ideas what a 
 Czar really was, and in what portion of the 
 globe Russia was situated. The police began 
 to dog his footsteps, and to endeavour to get 
 proof against him of some mysterious crime. 
 Was it not patent to mankind that one who 
 lived on bread and milk, who never smoked, or 
 went to bull-fights, and whom no soul in Cadiz 
 had ever seen emerge from out the narrow 
 lane that leads down from the Paseo de Apo- 
 daca to the house where dwells La Barqulllera 
 and her nymphs, must be a man who cherished 
 dark designs ? No Christian ever would have 
 taken to his house lost dogs or kittens, or 
 stopped light hearted boys from putting out 
 cats' eyes, and pouring paraffin upon them and 
 setting it ablaze. Such practices the Church 
 itself does not condemn, at least by precept, for 
 it knows well that animals are not endowed 
 with souls, and he who seeks to mitlofate the 
 torture of their lives is a mere heretic and well 
 deserves the stake. 
 
 So, by degrees, the hero of my tale became 
 unpopular with all right-thinking men, and 
 
48 A SAINT 
 
 though he shared his pittance with the poor, the 
 very men he helped distrusted him, for charity, 
 although it suffereth long, is never popular. 
 
 A famine broke out in the south, with lack 
 of rain for months, so that the earth dried up 
 and cracked, and in the cracks millions of field 
 rats bred, that, issuing from their holes, 
 devoured the remnant of the crops the locusts 
 and the drought had spared, and the sun turned 
 to fire. Month after month it blazed upon the 
 fields, drying the springs and rivers, and parch- 
 ing up the trees. Water was dearer far than 
 wine, and in the little laughing town a hush fell 
 on the streets, whilst in the country hunger 
 stalked abroad and struck men to the ground. 
 Then came the movement of ''La Mano 
 Negra," and the authorities, anxious to pay in 
 full all that they owed to one who, in and out 
 of season, always opposed all governments, 
 arrested him and shipped him off incontinently 
 to the Penon de la Gomera, with shackles on 
 his feet. 
 
 For years he sweltered in the sun, wear- 
 ing the blue and white striped drill in which 
 the Spanish Government dresses its convicts, 
 on the coast. The little money that his 
 mother sent him he laid out in tobacco for the 
 
A SAINT 49 
 
 other convicts, who, used to what they called 
 ** the vice," were mad for want of it, and 
 by degrees his fellow-prisoners grew to 
 know him as The Saint. The school he 
 started, teaching the rudiments of education 
 on an old slate, is not forgotten in the wretched 
 little place, which stands up like a miniature 
 Gibraltar, united to the shore by a mere 
 tongue of land. 
 
 Somehow or other he escaped, and wandered 
 up and down for months amongst the tribes 
 upon the Riff. Though as a general rule the 
 Moors give up all convicts, except those who, 
 as the phrase goes, " throw away their hats " 
 and join their faith, they seem to have been 
 impressed with the inherent goodness of this 
 prisoner in especial, and passed him on from 
 one tribe to another until he reached Tangier. 
 The Spaniards, in their human, careless way, 
 did not repatriate him to complete his sentence, 
 but let him live as best he could by writing, 
 teaching, and the other little industries of the 
 unlucky man of education compelled to toil for 
 bread. 
 
 Something took place in Spain — perhaps 
 the unnecessary birth of some unnecessary 
 prince, the marriage of a princess, or the like 
 
 E 
 
50 A SAINT 
 
 event of national importance, and what is 
 known as an " Indulto," that is, the letting out 
 of prisoners (who should never have been sent 
 to gaol) occurred, and once more he was free. 
 His name was growing as a saint, that is, a 
 man who had no vices and spent his life in 
 doing good, but still was quite unfitted for the 
 world he lived in, by his outrageous love of truth. 
 
 Then came a half rebellion, and though the 
 saint of Cadiz was not in the town, some 
 speeches he had made, served as a pretext to 
 arrest him, and, once arrested, he was doomed 
 to be condemned. Aaain he found himself in 
 prison, though with the feeling of half Spain 
 upon his side, after his speech in his defence. 
 
 Years dragged along, and though from time 
 to time accounts leaked out of all that he 
 endured, he might have rotted and been 
 buried in a ditch had not a general pardon 
 once more taken place. Broken in health and 
 prematurely aged, he wandered back to Cadiz, 
 just as a wounded animal returns to die where 
 it was born, and as instinctively. 
 
 Those who had shunned him all his life now 
 stopped him in the street, and warmly wrung 
 his hands. Prosperous citizens saluted him, 
 and he became an object of respect, just as 
 
A SAINT 51 
 
 a conqueror is worshipped, after the victory 
 is won. 
 
 As the sun rose he walked down to the 
 beach, bathed and then basked a Httle in the 
 sun, and wandering back again, ate with good 
 appetite his bread and milk ; and, sitting down 
 to work, translated English scientific works for 
 the Madrid or Barcelona Press at miserable pay. 
 
 Death took him quietly, coming as a friend, 
 and in his only clothes, a worn and battered 
 shoddy suit of tweed, his mother seated by his 
 side, dressed in the livery of black that Spanish 
 widows wear, her worn merino shawl setting 
 her walnut-coloured face in a dark frame, he 
 lay upon his bed. 
 
 All Cadiz blocked the street, and through the 
 little whitewashed, flat-roofed house a long pro- 
 cession filed. Ladies in mourning, and workmen 
 in their ordinary clothes, passed through and 
 crazed at him, and at his mother sittingr silentlv. 
 
 Some kissed his hand, and others, patting 
 his mother on the shoulder, essayed to comfort 
 her, just as a horse nestles its nose against the 
 shoulder of its fellow, when he sees it is in pain. 
 
 Outside the house the ''Comrades" waited 
 in the sun, smoking and talking and spitting in 
 the dust, without the show of grief we in the 
 
52 A SAINT 
 
 north affect, but taking everything as natural 
 which happens to a man. 
 
 Juan, Pedro, Gil, and Saturnino, taking off 
 their hats, shouldered the bier, still smoking, 
 and the procession took its way through the 
 dark street of Columela, to the cemetery. 
 Emerging on the alameda by the sea, it 
 halted, and another band of ''Comrades," 
 brown, bullet-headed, and with their cigarettes 
 either behind their ears or in their mouths, 
 relieved the bearers, pushing their way through 
 the thick crowd that swarmed on every side. 
 Women in black, on every balcony, gazed 
 silently, and as the body passed, signed them- 
 selves with the cross, making it first upon 
 the breast, and then in miniature across the 
 mouth. Again the bearers changed, and as 
 they passed the cemetery gates, the civil 
 guards, sitting like figures cut in walnut, on 
 their high crested horses from Jerez, saluted 
 almost as if by instinct, their captain look- 
 ing vacantly before him, so that discipline was 
 saved. 
 
 Pushing its way through the dense mass of 
 people, the bier arrived before the grave. 
 
 Around it stood a group of workmen, with 
 here and there a person like a schoolmaster 
 
A SAINT 53 
 
 out of employment, dressed in black, faded 
 clothes. When the grave had been filled, the 
 sandy soil falling like hail on the cheap coffin 
 lid, a man stood out, and plunged immediately 
 into a maze of words about the virtues of the 
 dead, the rich, the poor, the social revolution, 
 and the glorious red flag. He ceased, amid 
 some rather faltering applause, and a rough 
 comrade took up his parable, his eloquence at 
 times just touching folly, and his folly rising 
 occasionally to eloquence. He finished, sweat- 
 ing and hoarse, muttering, "... he was a 
 saint . . . Adios Firmin . . . long live the 
 social revolution . . . long live anarchy." 
 
 The ground was beaten in upon the grave, 
 on which the blows of mattock and of spade 
 fell heavily, just as the blows of fortune had 
 descended all his life, on the man resting under- 
 neath. The crowd dispersed, and in an hour, 
 once more the town had taken on again its air 
 of emptiness, and in the streets the women 
 walked swinging and balancing upon their 
 hips, just as a square-rigged vessel sways and 
 balances, with a light, leading wind. 
 
AT THE RIVER 
 
 Along the bank of the brown, swirling, 
 southern river fringed with tamarisks, the army- 
 straggled, in a confused, tumultuous mass. 
 The sun was sinking slowly, although there 
 remained an hour or tw^o of light. Alone on a 
 white horse, in the fine rain that hung like dew 
 upon his fleecy haik, the Sultan sat, leaning 
 back lazily against the cantle of his high red 
 saddle, and looking at his army with an air half 
 of amusement, mixed with boredom and yet with 
 some remains of pride, as if he felt he was, out 
 there in the brown sand, close to the rushing 
 water, underneath the sky, and in the middle 
 of the half-nomadic horde, more the Com- 
 mander of the Faithful, than in his palaces at 
 Fez or Mequinez. 
 
 His umbrella-bearer on a chestnut horse 
 with a white tail and mane, and seared with 
 marks of firing against contingent equine 
 maladies, sat with the umbrella folded, letting 
 the raindrops trickle from the folds. The 
 men who trot beside the Sultan on the march, 
 
 54 
 
AT THE RIVER 
 
 00 
 
 sprawled about carelessly upon the sand. The 
 infantry in dark blue jackets and pink or 
 scarlet trousers to the knees, barefooted and 
 with ragged fezes on their heads, were huddled 
 like a flock of sheep, all in disorder, carrying 
 their rifles with fixed bayonets, or in any way 
 they chose ; their officers, dressed in half- 
 Turkish, half-European uniforms, looked just 
 like monkeys on a barrel-organ, seated on 
 their enormous Moorish saddles which need 
 the haik or the burnoose to make them pictu- 
 resque. 
 
 Behind the infantry came a confused and 
 mixed-up mass of horsemen, drawn from the 
 tamer Arab tribes. All wore their national 
 dress of dusky white, and all sat on their wild- 
 eyed horses, as only those who pass their lives 
 on horseback sit, easy and unconstrained and 
 swaying to the slightest movement, with the set 
 features and the rovingr alance of men ac- 
 customed to look out upon a wide horizon, and 
 to behold an enemy in everything that moves. 
 
 They held their guns upright like spears, or 
 else beneath their thighs between the saddle 
 and the girth, in the same manner that the 
 Spaniards and the Mexicans have taken from 
 them, together with the long and open reins, 
 
S6 AT THE RIVER 
 
 the bit with solid curb, and the hght way of 
 mounting in one motion, just as a bird starts on 
 its flight without an effort that the eye can see, 
 so different from the uncouth gymnastics of the 
 civilised, when they cHmb on a horse. 
 
 No one dismounted, though the army had 
 been halted almost for an hour durine the time 
 the Sultan was receiving a deputation from a 
 tribe, which came, bringing an offering of sheep 
 and oxen and a long train of covered dishes 
 piled high with couscoussou. Some of the 
 horsemen sprawled flat upon their horses' 
 necks, and others sat, one le^g across the 
 pommel of the saddle, and now and then a 
 man twitched his bit sharply, when a shrill 
 scream proclaimed that someone had allowed 
 his horse to approach too near his neighbour's, 
 and a fight was imminent. Three or four moun- 
 tain guns, on camels, constituted the artillery, 
 and in the rear an heterogeneous mass of tribes- 
 men, of women, negroes, and all the flotsam and 
 the jetsam which in North Africa accompanies 
 an army on the march, on foot, on horseback, 
 perched on asses and on mules, waited im- 
 passively, just as they had arrived upon the 
 river's bank, till orders came to cross. Upon 
 the flank of the strange, wild battalions a little 
 
AT THE RIVER 57 
 
 to the right the Sultan's baggage mules had 
 halted, fine, fat beasts, bearing his tents, his 
 treasures, and the necessary rubbish that in 
 Morocco every Sultan always has carried on 
 the road. A guard of tribesmen from the 
 south attended them, thin, wiry men, whose 
 tattered haiks w^ere all dyed brown with sand. 
 Some of them carried hooded hawks behind 
 them on a pad, which swayed and balanced, as 
 their owners' horses moved, just as a man sways 
 with the motion of a ship. Each chief had his 
 own train of baggage animals upon a smaller 
 scale, which were mingled with the rest and 
 huddled round his flag, just as the Sultan's 
 personal attendants were grouped about the 
 blood-red banner, which once the Sal6e rovers 
 flaunted on the sea. 
 
 Some European officers, dressed in fine 
 uniforms of scarlet cloth, over which hung a 
 light and fleecy white selham, their heads 
 adorned with the round Turk's-head turban 
 which only members of the Government may 
 wear, were near the Sultan, and now and then 
 he talked to them, about photography, the 
 Rontgen rays, and all the wonders to be seen 
 in Paris and in London, and the delights of 
 Europe, which he, by the virtue of his holy 
 
58 AT THE RIVER 
 
 station, could but behold in newspapers ; but 
 which appeared, by virtue of their unattain- 
 ability, a thousand times superior to the de- 
 lights he knew. 
 
 And as they sat and talked, the army gradu- 
 ally became mixed up with the camp followers, 
 and the long straggling lines of pimp-faced, 
 pink-clad infantry sat down upon the sand, 
 sheltering themselves in groups of twos and 
 threes, under a haik held up by rifle-barrels. A 
 non-commissioned officer, dressed in dark blue, 
 with brown bare legs, and with his European 
 boots slung round his neck, stepped to the 
 baggage mules, and drawing out a tray of 
 sweets went from group to group calling out, 
 **Ya Muley Edris," the cry with which the 
 sweetmeat sellers hawk their wares in Fez. 
 
 Trade never has dishonoured in the East, at 
 least amongst the Arabs, so a grave smile 
 flitted across the Sultan's neo^roid features as 
 he turned sideways on his fat white horse and 
 watched the faithful buy from the huckstering 
 sergeant, as he moved through the ranks. 
 
 The European officers were scandalised, but 
 in response to their remonstrances about the 
 lack of discipline, that discipline which makes 
 machines of men, the easy-going Sultan 
 
AT THE RIVER 59 
 
 answered that it was but a custom of the 
 country, and they, knowing the man they had 
 to deal with, sat straight upon their horses, 
 looking as mortified as he who sees a miscreant 
 enter a church and put his hat upon the altar, 
 for custom is as great a tyrant in the West as 
 in the East, and that which outrages it appears 
 as blasphemy to every sort of men. 
 
 At last the guides who had been sent to 
 explore the ford, and see if it were passable, 
 returned, and said it would just serve, but that 
 the stream ran deep. All was now hurry and 
 confusion, and the mixed, heterogeneous mass 
 of men and animals stood waiting for the 
 word. 
 
 The sun began to slant amongst the rain- 
 clouds, towards the white roofs and towers of 
 Azimiir, about a league away, just shining like 
 a fleecy cloud, where the plain shades into the 
 sea, as a long train of camels, bearing enormous 
 burdens, slowly came up and joined the army 
 halted on the bank. 
 
 Gently they sailed along, like great Dutch 
 galliots, their noiseless footsteps giving them 
 an air of flight. From side to side they 
 swayed, their packs looking like sails, and 
 seeming to sustain them in the air. Beside 
 
6o AT THE RIVER 
 
 them walked their drivers, men brown and 
 lean, sun-dried and spare of frame as was the 
 youth Mohammed, before Allah had marked him 
 out to driv^e his Arabs on the path of victory, 
 ordained by Him, when He created time. 
 Lastly, there came a negro riding on an ass, 
 instinct with the true dignity to which only a 
 fool attains, his snow-white clothes seeming- 
 still whiter, against his blue-black skin, scurfy 
 and rough as is the hide of some great water 
 buffalo or hippopotamus. With the true 
 Oriental unconcern for dignitaries the negro 
 halted his caravan a hundred yards or so from 
 where the Sultan sat upon his horse. The 
 camels kneeled, sinking down as it were by 
 sections, the packs standing out for a moment 
 like huge hummocks, and then subsiding on 
 the sand. The Sultan, always craving after 
 something new, asking from life more than it 
 has to give, and finding nothing interesting, 
 because he always looked for something non- 
 existent in the marvels that surrounded him on 
 every side, signed to an officer and sent him off 
 to ask what merchandise wascarried in the packs. 
 After the lengthy interval which, throughout 
 North Africa, it would be wanting in respect 
 for anyone charged with a message to abridge. 
 
AT THE RIVER 6i 
 
 the messenger returned. " Bianos," he said, 
 were what the camels bore, and then explained 
 thev were a kind of Christian instrument, with 
 an infinity of notes, which played strange 
 music, which to the faithful sounded like the 
 howling of a dog. The Sultan, after listening 
 to the man, as if he had forgotten all about the 
 camels and their packs, said with a shade of 
 interest, " It is well, bring me a ' Biano,' I 
 want to play that tune I learned from the 
 French dentist who was in Fez a year or two 
 ago, and put the bits of gold into the ladies' 
 teeth, which made me laugh so when I looked 
 at them." Then he sat back upon his horse, 
 throwing^ the ends of his lonof silken reins 
 across his shoulder, whilst on his face there 
 came a look of interest, which the sight of his 
 army waiting a sign from him to cross the 
 river, had been impotent to raise. In vain his 
 European officers, the only men of all the host 
 who dared to raise a protest, argued against 
 the loss of time ; the Commander of the Faith- 
 ful still replied to all their arguments, *' Bring 
 me the Biano, I want to play on it." In haste 
 a French mechanic and an English groom were 
 sent for, as being men able to deal with every 
 kind of mechanism, whether of beast or man. 
 
 j^ 
 
62 AT THE RIVER 
 
 In a rough halting Arabic interspersed with 
 oaths of their respective countries, they set a 
 gang of Arabs to undo the cases, and the com- 
 ponent parts of a grand piano, looking like 
 bones of some gigantic fossil animal, were laid 
 upon the sand. The knot of Europeans stood 
 apart disgusted at the loss of time, the certain 
 ruin of the piano, and the futility of the pro- 
 ceeding, which in their eyes was almost 
 criminal, trained as they were to order, and to 
 regard things that had cost much money, far 
 above human life. The army, on the other 
 hand, took it as natural, and interesting, for 
 almost every man who waited by the rivers 
 bank would certainly have done the same, had 
 he but had the might. Time was of no account 
 to them, for even if the army crossed at night 
 nothing more serious could happen than the 
 drowning of a score or two of men, and loss of 
 baggage animals, a thing ordained by Allah, 
 and against which it would be impious to strive. 
 Quickly the body of the instrument was set 
 upright, the other pieces put into their places, 
 and the great concert grand by Broadwood 
 stood a little tilting to one side, but still fit to 
 be played on by a monarch, in the light drifting 
 rain. A thrill of expectation ran through every- 
 
AT THE RIVER 63 
 
 one, though no one dared to approach the 
 instrument, the first -fruit of our European 
 culture, thrown out by progress as a defiance 
 to the old world, in which music is made upon 
 an earthern drum with ends of parchment, a 
 rude reed pipe, or a long three-stringed guitar, 
 with the neck stuck into a calabash. 
 
 Slowly the Sultan rode his horse up to the 
 spot, dismounted, and, as the wet trickled 
 down from his haik, stood like the Lord in 
 Eden, and, looking at his handiwork, pro- 
 claimed that it was good. One difficulty more 
 still lay between him and the accomplishment 
 of his desire. The key was lost, and though the 
 music waited for his touch, a lid of rosewood 
 still veiled the keyboard, keeping the Sultan 
 still apart from his enjoyment, waiting impa- 
 tient as a brideo^room waits for the disrobinof of 
 the bride. Signing mimetically to a soldier who 
 stood near, the man advanced, and driving his 
 bayonet underneath the lid, it opened, carrying 
 the brass plate on the lock with it, and clang- 
 ing back upon the body of the piano with 
 a loud jarring sound. 
 
 Gravely the lineal descendant of Mohammed 
 stood by, as careless of the eyes fixed on him, 
 of the approaching night, the rain, and every- 
 
64 AT THE RIVER 
 
 thing, either in heaven or earth, as he had 
 been alone, upon the plain. 
 
 After a moment of reflection, as if collecting 
 all his energies, he ran his hand across the keys, 
 and then slowly, and with one finger, and making- 
 several wrong notes, picked out the Spanish 
 Royal March. Then, closing the lid down with 
 a bang, walked to his horse, which had remained 
 watching him gravely, and mounting in one 
 motion, raised himself in his saddle for his 
 attendants to arrange his haik, and signing with 
 his hand, his European officers and his Kaids, 
 his umbrella-bearer, and the men who run beside 
 his stirrup, gathered about him, and without 
 turning to the army, rode down into the stream. 
 The water foamed about their horses, banking 
 up on the stream side, until their saddles almost 
 were awash, whilst the fierce current bore them 
 struggling sideways, sitting immovably with 
 their eyes fixed upon the further bank. There 
 they emerged, and stood like statues in the sand, 
 watching the army cross like a great shoal of 
 porpoises, shouting and struggling in the 
 stream, the smaller luggage animals swimming, 
 whilst men guided them by the tails, or walked 
 above them to break the current's force, holding 
 their guns above their heads. 
 
AT THE RIVER 65 
 
 The camels followed gravely, their slender 
 necks making them look like some vast water 
 serpent, rising from the flood. Soon all had 
 crossed, and on the sand, in the light, pene- 
 trating rain, the piano stood alone, looking 
 ridiculous, but somehow menacing, as if the 
 halting air that had been forced reluctantly 
 from its insulted keys had been the death-note 
 of the old, wild barbaric life which had surofed 
 past it, and now was swallowed up in mist. 
 
BU GIDRI 
 
 The little holes which seamed his rugged 
 Berber face had given him the title of the 
 Father of Small-pox, which he — after the 
 fashion of his countrymen, who take all, rain, 
 wind, sun, good and bad fortune, wounds, 
 prison, mutilation, even death itself, as being 
 actual and direct manifestations of the Will 
 Divine — had cheerfully accepted, and bore as 
 uncomplainingly as he had borne the illness 
 from which he took his name. Half Pagan, 
 half Mohammedan, (after the fashion of the 
 race from which most likely sprang St. Augus- 
 tine), although he thought himself a firm be- 
 liever, Bu Gidri was employed as soldier in the 
 British consulate at Fez. Dressed in the Arab 
 clothes which rarely suit a Berber, for the two 
 races are as distinct as are the English and the 
 French, he strove, though mean of stature and 
 appearance, to look a swaggerer, and had 
 grown the two long locks on either temple 
 which are the outward visible sign of the official 
 
 66 
 
BU GIDRI 67 
 
 of the court. His pointed (ez, and sword 
 cocked up behind in the Arab style, gave him 
 an air as of a monkey on a barrel-organ. Such 
 was his outward mien, but those who knew 
 him, knew that he was brave, staunch, obstinate 
 as a mule, and one of those able to knock a 
 nail into a plank by beating on it with his fore- 
 head, and then, if the necessity arose, to draw 
 it with his teeth. Being a Berber, he had the 
 catlike love of places, unknown to Arabs, who 
 for the most part live and die, as it were on a 
 journey, sleeping and dying on the road. Their 
 very cemeteries are often unenclosed, and 
 merely set about with pieces of rough stone, 
 through which run short-cuts, death-traps to 
 horsemen, who, trusting to the will of God, 
 at night cross them at highest speed, knowing 
 that those who sleep below the stones all were 
 bold riders to a man. 
 
 Withal, Bu Gidri was an honest and a con- 
 scientious man, one that no gold could buy, 
 a thing unknown amongst the Arabs, with 
 whom a key of gold opens all locks. Slow- 
 witted, but tenacious of ideas when once they 
 filtered through his skull into his brain, those 
 who employed him knew him for a man to 
 send upon a desperate errand should the neces- 
 
68 BU GIDRI 
 
 sity arise, certain that he would reach the place 
 to which they sent him, or die upon the quest. 
 
 One portion of his life was shut from all 
 mankind, although he was not so impene- 
 trable as are the Arabs, with whom a frank 
 exterior serves as a water-tight bulkhead 
 between them and the world. At times, when 
 asked about "his house" — the formula em- 
 ployed by Mussulmans when asking after one 
 another's families — he would launch into details, 
 and say that *' she " was well, and then, pull 
 himself up and stammer and drift off into 
 praises of his little boy, who he averred, with 
 the innocent fatuity of fathers, Mohammedan 
 and Christian alike, was quite a paragon. 
 
 To the outward eye, the marvel was a dirty 
 little boy in a torn yellow shirt, barefooted and 
 black-eyed, and with a little close -shaved 
 bullet-head, on which you could have struck a 
 match had it not here and there been spotted 
 with a white eruption, nauseous to behold. 
 But, for his reticence about his family affairs 
 he quite made up by his garrulity about a 
 certain little pacing pony that he had bought 
 in the Ait-Yusi country, and which he swore 
 could go from Fez to Tangier in three days, 
 and that, so smoothly that he could carry in 
 
BU GIDRI 69 
 
 his hand a glass of water and never spill a 
 drop. This equine wonder was a cow-hocked 
 and fiddle-headed beast, of a light cream colour 
 with black points, and had an eye bloodshot 
 and dangerous-looking, which did not in the 
 least belie his temper, for to approach him was 
 to expose oneself to be kicked or bitten, or to 
 receive a blow from his fore feet, which if it 
 carried home would have been fatal, for rising 
 up, he used to launch his feet into the air, just 
 as a boxer hits, and scream with fury, if he 
 did not know his man. Once saddled and the 
 Moorish bit jammed home between his yellow 
 teeth, which operation usually entailed tying 
 his feet together with a rope, or putting on a 
 twitch, he then became as gentle as a sheep, 
 after the way of many horses in the East. 
 
 Tied to a tree or post, nodding his head, 
 with the flies clustered in bunches round his 
 eyes, the high red Arab saddle towering like 
 a howdah on his back, he looked fitted for 
 nothing, but to draw water from a well. Yet 
 when his master got upon his back (which feat 
 he executed indifferently from either side, hold- 
 ing his gun, full five feet long, enclosed in a 
 red case), and drove the edge of the sharp Arab 
 stirrup into his belly, he pricked his long lop 
 
70 BU GIDRI 
 
 ears and a light shone in his red eye which 
 gave a promise of interior graces not revealed 
 by his exterior, impressing you, just as St. Paul 
 when he had begun to launch into his theme 
 must have impressed the men of Athens, 
 who had despised the ugly little Jew. Still, 
 with defects and all, he was the apple of Bu 
 Gidri's eye, and though he seldom rode him, 
 but for powder-play, when he would gallop 
 him about as if possessed, wheeling and turn- 
 ing on the strong Arab bit just as a gull turns 
 wheeling in the air, it yet was his delight to 
 tend him and, above all, to talk about his 
 powers. Most of his time the horse spent in 
 a yard, exposed to rain and snow, up to his 
 fetlocks in the mud in winter, and in the heat 
 a prey to flies, and screaming savagely if any 
 other horse came near him, as he laid back his 
 ears. 
 
 His master during the daytime generally sat 
 inside the doorway of the British Consulate, 
 looking at nothing, now and then drinking a 
 cup of sweet green tea flavoured with leaves 
 of mint. His duties sometimes took him to 
 the post office or to some other consulate, and 
 now and then mounted upon his horse, his gun 
 in hand, he rode behind the consul into the 
 
BU GIDRI 71 
 
 country to a picnic, his features fixed and 
 impressionless, with his blue cloth *'selham," 
 which if he had but been an Arab would have 
 been draped in graceful folds or flown behind 
 him as he rode, swathing his body like a 
 shroud. 
 
 Never in all his time of service, which had 
 extended over years, had he been sick or sorry, 
 or been away upon a holiday, so that one morn- 
 ing when he appeared, expressionless as usual, 
 to ask permission to be absent for a week to 
 go to Tangier, he got it willingly. Thanking 
 the consul in the unceremonious way a man 
 returns his thanks In countries like Morocco — 
 where, if permission is not given at once, the 
 man who asks, usually takes It on himself to 
 grant It — he said, as If the thing had happened to 
 another, " My son Is dead ; little Hamido whom 
 you knew. I want to bury him amongst my 
 people, after the fashion of my folk." Without 
 a word about the will of Allah, which, had he 
 been an Arab, he would have quoted gravely, 
 partly to show his faith and partly to conceal 
 his grief, he turned and left the room. What 
 passed that afternoon In the mysterious interior 
 of his house only himself could tell. Early 
 next morning, just as the furtive streaks of red 
 
72 BU GIDRI 
 
 which split the sky into a sort of pattern had 
 appeared, about an hour before the dawn, the 
 sleepy gatewards in the dark passage under the 
 massive archway of the Bab-el-Gizeh saw him 
 strike into the road. 
 
 Mounted upon his pacing nag, his gun be- 
 neath his thigh, and balancing a little bundle 
 wrapped in white rags upon the pommel of his 
 saddle, he twitched his bridle, making the pony 
 toss his head, and change his feet twice or 
 thrice hurriedly before he fell into his pace. 
 
 The crenellated walls of Fez, flanked here 
 and there by towers, on which stood storks 
 asleep upon one leg, or flapping lazily as the 
 dawn slowly crept across the sky, ran on the 
 right, and on the left a vast flat plain, dotted 
 with tents which sprang like mushrooms from 
 the sandy soil, extended to a range of hills, now 
 wreathed in mist through which the scattered 
 houses just appeared, ghostly and white, and 
 dripping with the dew. When he had passed 
 beyond the walls he turned, and, looking back 
 at Fez, saw it rise from the sandy hollows 
 where it lies, transformed and glorious, dazz- 
 lingly white as is a water-lily, silent and ghostly 
 in the early morning air, with every marking 
 on the houses and the mosques so clear and 
 
BU GIDRI 73 
 
 well defined that it appeared that he could 
 touch them with his hand. Rising a little in 
 the saddle, he settled all his clothes, then 
 pressed the stirrup in his pony's flank, who 
 whisked his tail and struck into a pace between 
 a trot and canter, swaying his rider to and fro, 
 just like a camel, as he shufBed through the 
 sand. 
 
 Muffled in his white halk, which swathed 
 him like a mummy, silent and sorrowful, bear- 
 ing his little dusky bundle balancing between 
 his body and the pommel of his high red saddle, 
 the pony's footsteps deadened in the sand, Bu 
 Gidri passed so quietly through the now sunlit 
 plain, that he appeared like death on his pale 
 horse, prowling round stealthily to mark his 
 prey. All day he paced along, jerking his 
 pony's mouth occasionally after the Arab 
 fashion, making the bridle ring against his 
 teeth when the beast broke his pace or seemed 
 to weary, and with his stirrup pressed into its 
 side. He passed the great red hill, traversing 
 first the sandy lanes, hedged on both sides with 
 aloes, and then the wood of olives, till he stood 
 on the ridge, from which Fez looks like a mere 
 blotch of dazzling whiteness fioating in the air. 
 The noonday heat caught him close to a brick- 
 
74 BU GIDRI 
 
 arched well, beside which springs a palm tree, 
 with its roots in water and its head in fire. 
 
 Lighting down carefully as must a man who 
 wears voluminous clothes and keeps his slippers 
 on by a perpetual contraction of the feet, he led 
 his horse into the shade, balancing carefully 
 the precious bundle on the saddle with his 
 other hand. Laying it down upon a stone, he 
 pulled his horse towards him sharply by the 
 tail to see if it stood firm and had not felt the 
 five hours' steady work upon the road, then 
 loosening the girths, he put the hobbles on 
 its feet and let it browse upon the scanty grass 
 which orrew about the well. Then sittino^ down 
 he ate a piece of brown and gritty bread, mois- 
 tening his thumb to gather up the crumbs, not 
 on account of hunger, but from the sacred 
 character bread has amongst the Moors, who 
 hold it impious to waste a particle of the chief 
 blessing God has given man. 
 
 Kief, smoked in a minute and curiously 
 shaped pipe, the stem of which was a light 
 cane about a foot in length, carved in concentric 
 patterns, he fell into that state of half con- 
 templation, half of dreaminess, which over- 
 takes all those who have the habit, and then, 
 rising to drink a little water, tightened his 
 
BU GIDRI 75 
 
 girths, bitted his pony, and swinging slowly 
 into his high saddle, leaned back against the 
 cantle, rubbed his stiff knees, and once again 
 took up his march, refreshed by his brief halt. 
 
 Night overtook him at the Hajara Cherifa, 
 on the Sebou, where he entered a zariba, and, 
 after looking to his horse, sat talking of the 
 price of barley, the doings of the tribes, always 
 either in rebellion or ready to break out, till 
 food was ready, and after eating heartily of 
 the wheaten porridge, known as couscoussou, 
 threw out more barley for his horse upon a 
 saddle-cloth, and lying down close to him, fell 
 into the broken sleep usual to horsemen on a 
 solitary ride. During the night he woke 
 occasionally, and watched his horse munching 
 his corn, and later, standing sleeping, resting a 
 leg, and with one ear laid back upon his neck. 
 
 Long before daylight he had saddled up, and 
 joined a caravan to cross the river, which lay 
 deep down below the village, a mere w^hite ribbon 
 in the mist. Slowly, the train of horses and 
 of mules, followed by a long string of camels, 
 slithered and stumbled down the slope. At first 
 they crossed a tract of stones, on which grew 
 tamarisks, stunted and broken by the browsing 
 of the goats, then they passed several branches 
 
76 BU GIDRI 
 
 of the stream, and lastly entered the main 
 channel, which, grey and cold, brawled through 
 the stones, affording a precarious footing for 
 the beasts. 
 
 Pressing in front, Bu Gidri passed the river 
 with the water to his saddle-skirts, the current 
 edging his horse sideways, until he reached 
 the bank. The pony scaled it like a cat, just 
 stopping at the top to shake the water from his 
 coat, and as his rider turned to see the others 
 cross, the dawn just lit up the encircling 
 hills, making the tops float in the mist, mys- 
 terious, and looking like extinct volcanoes in 
 the moon. It fell upon the rock from which 
 the crossing takes its name, of Hajara Cherifa, 
 and showed it standing gaunt, a natural obelisk 
 upon the plain, a palm tree growing at its base, 
 and giving it an air as of a temple, raised by 
 nature to some strange deity, never yet known 
 to man. 
 
 Leaving the caravan, Bu Gidri pushed on 
 over the stony plain, crossing the Ardatz and 
 the Wergha, high up in their course, where 
 they present an infinity of little streams, 
 meandering through sheets of pebbles, and 
 came by noonday, with his horse still full of 
 strength, to where a stream just issues from a 
 
BU GIDRI 77 
 
 ruined Roman wall. Fish played about the 
 entrance of the pool, and, as the shadow of 
 the horseman fell upon the water, they darted 
 back into the dark recesses of the arch. There 
 he passed the hottest hours, waiting for when 
 the sun, the enemy of man in Africa, should 
 fall a little — and once again pushed on. 
 
 The heat rose from the stones as from a 
 lime-kiln heated to its extremest point, and 
 with his head bowed in his haik he still pushed 
 onwards, the sweat dripping from off his 
 horse's belly, and drying white and saltish 
 on his coat. At times Bu Gidri crooned a 
 high-pitched Berber song, but always kept a 
 watchful eye on the horizon, just as a sailor 
 scans the sea, observing nothing near him, but 
 on the watch for anything unusual on the limit 
 of his view. The setting sun saw him just 
 passing down the steep red track, from where, 
 amongst the orange gardens. Alcazar just 
 appears set in its woods and cultivated 
 grounds, a league or two away. Fear fell upon 
 him that he should find the gates all closed 
 against him, for he knew well that raiding 
 mountaineers from Gibel Zarzar and the ad- 
 joining hills made the outskirts of the town 
 dangerous at night to him who sleeps alone. 
 
78 BU GIDRI 
 
 So he pressed on, after a good look at his 
 horse, and after feeling him sharply in the 
 mouth, to try his spirit, with the fixed look 
 and constant shogging of the feet, which come 
 upon a horseman, all unknown to him, towards 
 the evening of a long march, when there is 
 still a mile or two to do before the sun has set. 
 
 Nobly the pacing pony answered to his call, 
 switching his scraggy tail, and scurrying along 
 the road so smoothly that the little bundle 
 scarcely moved, just kept in place by a light 
 pressure of the rider's hand. He reached the 
 Koos, which runs between high banks, and 
 where the ford makes a great horseshoe bend, 
 to avoid the fury of the stream. Putting its 
 feet together in a bunch, the pony slithered 
 down the muddy bank, and in a moment Bu 
 Gidri found himself contending with the flood. 
 
 The men who hang about the ford to help 
 the passers-by and to point out the passage, 
 had returned to town, leaving the river deso- 
 late, grey, foaming, and broken into rapids 
 here and there, the outer one of which was 
 certain death to the unwary horseman who 
 should essay to cross. Carefully fixing both 
 his eyes upon a tree which stood out on the 
 further bank, he spurred his pony into the 
 
BU GIDRI 79 
 
 deeper water, which in the twilight seemed 
 about to overwhelm him as it banked up upon 
 the weather side, and flowed across the saddle 
 for a step or two. Then suddenly it shallowed, 
 and entering the slack water Bu Gidri waded to 
 the bank, and, coming out amongst the orange 
 gardens on the top, set his horse galloping, and 
 did not stop till he came to the gate, which 
 he found almost about to close, and passed 
 into the town just as the call to evening prayer 
 rang out from the high towers cased in dark 
 metallic tiles, which rise like lighthouses from 
 the flat sea of yellow houses and the thatched 
 negro huts. Only some sixty miles were left to 
 ride, so he slept well, and rising early took his 
 way across the black alluvial plain, where by 
 the Wad M'hassen runs the long bridge which 
 marks the battlefield on which the ill-fated 
 King of Portugal was slain, although some 
 look for him still to come back and claim his 
 kingdom, after three hundred years. Knowing 
 he now could reach his village in good time, 
 Bu Gidri rode along less anxiously, his pony 
 eating the road, as say the Arabs, like clock- 
 work, pacing so steadily that his master never 
 felt the pace, which seemed to skim the sur- 
 face of the ground just as a sledge flies on 
 
8o BU GIDRI 
 
 the surface of the snow. Towards evening he 
 crossed the Ackbal Hamara, leading his horse 
 down the steep, craggy track that comes out 
 on the plain. He passed Ain Dallia, and then 
 in an hour more, upon a little hill, rode into 
 the sea breeze, which seemed like coming into 
 paradise, after a day or two in hell. 
 
 He reached his village outside Tangier, just 
 at nightfall and dismounted at a house. Almost 
 at daybreak he was afoot with one or two com- 
 panions and an old woman whom he had hired 
 to wail beside the grave. With hoes they 
 hacked a hole in the rough stony village 
 cemetery, and quite impassively Bu Gidri laid 
 the bundle in the grave ; the woman broke 
 out into a shrill, ear-piercing lamentation, and 
 the brief ceremony was at an end. All day 
 he lounged about Tangier smoking a pipe or 
 two of kief, and drinking tea occasionally, 
 to show he was in town. Next morning 
 saw him on the road, and on the eighth day 
 after leaving Fez, the consul, going to his 
 office, found him at his post seated at the 
 front door, and with an air as of a man who 
 has performed a duty, sheepish, self-satisfied, 
 and just a little blackened by the sun. 
 
AN ARAB FUNERAL 
 
 A SOUND of chanting filled the streets as a small 
 white-clad group of men carrying a body, high 
 on an open bier, passed through the town. 
 The dusky haik that swathed the corpse, out- 
 lined its angles, making it look just like a 
 sculptor's sketch in clay, covered with linen and 
 damped to keep it wet. 
 
 The bearers, chosen at random, of all heights 
 and ages, stumbled along, now trotting and 
 again walking with the peculiar swing the flow- 
 ing Arab clothes give to a mass of men upon 
 the march. As the procession made its way 
 through the streets, filthy with refuse, and past 
 the market where the blood of animals left on 
 the stones had formed a purple mud, the people 
 whom it passed, scarcely appeared to notice it, 
 as if the funeral merely were an incident in the 
 long journey of the lives, so many of them pass 
 upon the road. A casual European looked with 
 interest, his hand rising involuntarily towards 
 his hat, then stopped upon the way, feeling 
 
 G 8l 
 
82 AN ARAB FUNERAL 
 
 uncertain how his salutation might be received ; 
 but the compatriots and co-religionists of the 
 dead man, lying so stifily underneath his haik, 
 bought, sold, and talked of money (their 
 favourite theme) unmoved, trusting in God to 
 stay His hand toward themselves, and give 
 them a long day. Yellow and wolfish dogs 
 ran in and out between the bearers' legs, and 
 no one cursed them, as Europeans do on 
 lesser provocation, and as the bier was borne 
 into the open market-place, it found itself 
 entangled in a crowd of people all dressed 
 exactly in the same white rags that their dead 
 brother wore. So thick the people swarmed 
 that the procession halted several times, to 
 let them separate. Long strings of camels, 
 bearing bales covered up with brown and 
 white striped rugs, swayed past it, their heads 
 towering above the bier, at which they looked 
 with the grave curiosity that seems to stamp 
 them as inhabitants of a world older than is 
 our own. Asses and mules carrying great 
 nets packed hard with straw pressed on the 
 mourners, and on the bier itself, as they 
 passed by, and now and then the mass of 
 human beings opened sullenly to let a horse- 
 man pass, who, upright in his saddle, appeared 
 
AN ARAB FUNERAL S3 
 
 to kneel upon his horse, in his short stirrup- 
 leathers. Huts made of sacking or of old 
 blankets, lined the road which cut the market 
 into two, and by them, squatted their owners 
 selling charcoal, bundles of firewood, vege- 
 tables and fruit. Men carrying goat-skins full 
 of water, and a brass cup in their left hands, 
 tinkling a bell, trudged to and fro, now and 
 then stopping to pour out a cupful and receive 
 a copper coin infinitesimally small. Over the 
 press there hung the scent as of wild beasts 
 distinctive of crowds in the East, and dust and 
 particles of horse-dung floated in the air, 
 making it pungent and difficult to breathe. 
 
 The market passed, the funeral took its way 
 through the town gates into the open country, 
 which, when a belt of gardens had been 
 crossed, stretched out a waste of stones. The 
 cemetery, built by the fostering care of the 
 French conquerors more than a mile beyond 
 the walls, surrounded by a high white wall and 
 set about with European trees which drooped 
 in the fierce sun, stood out gaunt, modern, and 
 as unlike as possible to an Arab burying-ground 
 with its rough slabs of stones, crossed by in- 
 numerable footpaths and browsed upon by 
 
 goats. 
 
84 AN ARAB FUNERAL 
 
 Emerging on the stony plain, from which the 
 sun gave back its heat a hundredfold, the 
 mourners halted and chanored bearers, chantingf 
 the whole time in a minor key. Their flowing 
 dusky clothes blended exactly with the land- 
 scape, on which the sun poured down a flood 
 of light so white that every colour disappeared, 
 and the corpse on its bier appeared suspended 
 in the air, or left alone, as if it were the grave 
 of some Araphoe or Apache chief, left on four 
 stakes to moulder, so absolutely the carrying 
 fiofures melted into the stones. 
 
 Once more they started, and their chant in 
 the thin air just reached the ear, fine and high- 
 pitched as a mosquito's song. They seemed to 
 fly, their feet just brushing on the road, in the 
 half-mirage raised by the heat and rising from 
 the ground. The bier swayed to and fro, but 
 gently, just as a rider sways upon a pacing 
 horse, and the procession, white and unearthly- 
 looking, floated towards its goal, as if borne 
 by the wind. 
 
 So, for a little space there came an air as of 
 romance over the last act connected with a man 
 who perhaps in life had been a petty shop- 
 keeper, or perhaps one of those nameless 
 brawling Arabs who in the market-place of any 
 
AN ARAB FUNERAL 85 
 
 town In Barbary, jangle and shout the livelong 
 day, sit in a caf6 drinking green tea If by the 
 merest chance they have a penny, and sleep at 
 night upon the cobble stones at a street corner, 
 or lie with other waifs in the '' m'darsa " of the 
 mosque. 
 
 Nature was making up to him, although he 
 knew it not, and probably would not have cared 
 even if he had known, for his life's sordid- 
 ness and want. As you looked out upon the 
 fleeting spectacle, so cloudlike and so similar to 
 life itself, hurrying along the road towards the 
 cemetery, the thought occurred, what If It Is 
 the last stage of the journey that some wander- 
 ing tribesman is making through the world ? 
 
 Then, as If confirmation of the Idea was 
 wanted and to make the simile complete, the 
 bearers once more halted, laying the bier upon 
 the ground and sitting down to rest. Only a 
 fragmentary note or two of the wild chanting 
 now reached the ear, deadened by passing 
 through the semi-tropical belt of garden land 
 planted with palm trees, apricots that grew 
 as high as elms, and with bananas, and those 
 so faint and so disjointed that they appeared as 
 If they had been wafted from afar, and that the 
 actual little group seated amidst the stone- 
 
S6 AN ARAB FUNERAL 
 
 strewn landscape had no reality and was an 
 image of a scene projected on the sky, as by a 
 mirage in the Sahara. 
 
 Once more they took their burden up, and 
 once again their drapery fluttered as the)N 
 trotted on, but now all in a mass, and the high 
 bier had faded out of sight against the stones. 
 They passed between high rocks, and then 
 once more came out upon the plain, always a 
 little nearer to the cemetery. Then, as they 
 neared it, once more they came into full view, 
 their dusky clothes standing out clearly against 
 its whitewashed walls. A green gate opened, 
 and they entered and were lost to sight, leav- 
 ing the gazer from the town walls uncertain 
 whether they had really passed before his 
 view, or had been but a figment of the brain, 
 or a refraction on the retina accustomed to 
 the various scenes of Arab life. Around the 
 shallow grave no doubt they stood, after their 
 custom, chanting their testimony of belief in 
 the One God, which moulds their faith but 
 does not influence their works. Lastly, the 
 corpse was lowered from the bier, and lay, 
 looking pathetically small in its white wrap- 
 pings, in the hot sandy soil which had so often 
 been its bed in life. Then, without waiting. 
 
AN ARAB FUNERAL ^7 
 
 whilst the others still intoned the versicle *' No 
 God, but God," the noblest, baldest statement 
 of belief that man has yet devised, three or 
 four took the mattocks with which the grave- 
 diggers had wrought the grave, and filled it, 
 shovelling down the sand and stones upon the 
 corpse, which seemed to shiver as it felt their 
 weight, and shrink into the ground. They shed 
 no tears, for to have done so would have been 
 to doubt of Allah's wisdom — Allah the merci- 
 ful, the compassionate, He who had breathed 
 the breath of life into the nostrils of the dead 
 believer for a spell, and then withdrawn it, as 
 it seemed good to Him. When all was done, 
 and a small sandy mound was raised over 
 the body, and then edged round with stones, 
 they stood a moment silently gazing on the 
 ground. Then sitting down, some on the bier 
 and others on the sand, they once more raised 
 their chant, wailing and long - drawn - out, 
 sounding as if the soul of the dead man still 
 fluttered round about the spot, bewailing its 
 disseverance from the flesh, which alone gave 
 it feeling and existence, if ever it had lived. 
 
 Long they sat singing, chiefly in verses from 
 the Koran ; verses affirming their belief ; belief 
 in Him who chose the Praised One as His 
 
8S AN ARAB FUNERAL 
 
 prophet, and let him In his youth guide camels, 
 so that the experience thus gained would stand 
 him in good stead, when it was time for him 
 to guide mankind. Hours passed, and then in 
 groups they sauntered back towards the town, 
 emerging from the cemetery bathed in the 
 evening light, glorious and statuesque in their 
 white robes. Then as they neared the town, 
 and as the setting sun fell on their backs, the 
 halo which it had thrown upon them far away 
 dispersed, they passed the gates, a group of 
 dirty Arabs, carrying some boards and chatter- 
 ing loudly as they trotted through the sand. 
 
MEKTUB 
 
 All Tangier knew the Rublo, the fair-haired 
 blind man, who sat upon the mounting-block 
 outside the stables of the principal hotel. His 
 bright red hair and bleared blue eyes, together 
 with his freckled face, looking just like a newly- 
 scalded pig, had given him the name by which 
 the Europeans knew him, although no doubt 
 he was Mohammed, something or another, 
 amongst his brethren in the faith. 
 
 He spoke indifferently well most European 
 languages up to a point, and perfectly as far as 
 blasphemy or as obscenity was concerned, and 
 his quick ear enabled him as if by magic to 
 ascertain the nationality of any European 
 passer-by, if ever he had spoken to the man 
 before, and to salute him in his mother-tongue. 
 
 All day he sat, amused and cheerful, in the 
 sun. Half faun, half satyr, his blindness kept 
 him from entire materialism, giving him some- 
 times a half-spiritual air, which possibly may 
 
 have been but skin deep, and of the nature of 
 
 89 
 
90 MEKTUB 
 
 the reflection of a sunset on a dunghill ; or 
 again, may possibly have been the true re- 
 flection of his soul as it peeped through the 
 dungrhill of the flesh. 
 
 As people passed along the road, their 
 horses slithering and sliding on the sharp 
 pitch of the paved road, which dips straight 
 down from underneath the mounting-block of 
 the hotel, between the tapia walls, over which 
 bougainvilleas peep, down to the Soko Grande, 
 El Rubio would hail them, as if he had been a 
 dark lighthouse, set up to guide their steps. 
 
 Occasionally, but rarely, he mistook his 
 mark, hailing some European lady with ob- 
 scenity, or bawling to the English clergyman 
 that he could tell him "where one fine girl 
 live, not more than fifteen year " ; but his con- 
 trition was so manifest, when he found his 
 mistake, that no one bore him malice, and he 
 remained an institution of the place and a 
 perpetual rent-charge on all passers-by. 
 
 By one of the strange contradictions which 
 Nature seems to take delight in just to con- 
 found us, when after a few thousand years of 
 study we think we know her ways, the Rubio 
 had a love of horses which in him replaced 
 the usual love of music of the blind. No one 
 
MEKTUB 91 
 
 could hold two or three fighting stallions 
 better, and few Moors in all the place were 
 bolder riders — that is, on roads he knew. 
 Along the steep and twisting path that leads 
 towards Spartel he used to ride full speed and 
 shouting " Balak " when he was sent upon a 
 message or with a horse from town out to the 
 villas on the hill. All those who knew him 
 left him a free road, and if he met a herd of 
 cattle or of sheep, the horse would pick his 
 way through them, twisting and turning of his 
 own accord, whilst his blind rider left the reins 
 upon his neck and galloped furiously. In what 
 dark lane or evil-smelling hole he lived no 
 European knew. Always well dressed and 
 clean, he lived apart both from the Moors and 
 from the Europeans, and in a way from all 
 humanity, passing his time, as does a lizard, 
 in the sun and in the evening disappearing to 
 his den. The missions of the various true 
 faiths. Catholic, Presbyterian, and Anglican, 
 had tackled him in vain. Whether it was that 
 none of them had anything to offer which he 
 thought better than the cheerful optimism with 
 which he was endowed by nature to fight the 
 darkness of the world he lived in, is difficult to 
 say. Still, they had all been worsted ; not 
 
92 MEKTUB 
 
 that the subject of their spiritual blandish- 
 ments could have been termed a strict Moham- 
 medan, for he drank any kind of spirits that 
 was presented to him by Christians, anxious 
 perhaps to make him break the spirit, if they 
 were impotent to move him in the letter of his 
 law. Still though he sat with nothing seeming- 
 ingly reflected on the retina of his opaque and 
 porcelain-coloured eyes, his interior vision was 
 as keen or keener than that of other men. 
 He never seemed a man apart, or cut off from 
 his fellows, but had his place in life, just as 
 throughout the East the poorest and most 
 miserable appear to have, not barred out from 
 mankind by mere externals as are their brethren 
 in the North, shut in the ice of charity, as bees 
 are shut behind a plate of glass so that the 
 rich may watch their movements in the hive. 
 
 Up from the Arab market over which he 
 sat, as it were, presiding in his darkness, just 
 as God seems to sit, presiding blindly, over a 
 world which either mocks Him, or is mocked at 
 by Him, there came a breath of Eastern life, 
 bearing a scent compounded of the acrid sweat 
 of men, dried camel's dung, of mouldering 
 charcoal fires, of spices, gunpowder, and of a 
 thousand simples, all brought together by mere 
 
MEKTUB 93 
 
 chance or fate, a sort of incense burned in his 
 honour, and agreeable to his soul. It seemed 
 to bring him life, and put him into touch with 
 all he could not see, but yet could feel, almost 
 as well as ii^ he saw, just as did other men. 
 
 Sniffing it up, his nostrils would dilate, 
 and then occasionally a shadow crossed his 
 face, and as he ran his hands down the 
 legs of the horse left in his charge, mark- 
 ing acutely any splint or spavin they might 
 have, he used to mutter, half in a resigned, 
 half in an irritated way, " Mektub," the sole 
 profession of his faith that he was ever heard 
 to make, for if a thing is written down by fate, 
 it follows naturally that there is somebody who 
 writes, if only foolishly. Whether the mystic 
 phrase of resignation referred to his condition 
 or to the possible splint upon the horse's leg, 
 no one could tell, but as the shadow passed 
 away, as quickly as it came, he soon fell back 
 again into the half-resigned good humour of 
 the blind, which, like the dancer's lithographic 
 smile, seems quite involuntary. 
 
 Years melted into one another, and time 
 sauntered by, just as it always must have 
 sauntered in the town where hours are weeks, 
 weeks months, and months whole years, and 
 
94 MEKTUB 
 
 still the hum of animals and men rose from the 
 Arab market, and still the shadows in the 
 evening creeping on the sand seemed some- 
 thing tangible to the blind watcher on his stone. 
 Not that he cared for time, or even marked its 
 flight, or would have cared to mark it, had it 
 been pointed out to him, for life was pleasant, 
 the springs of charity unfailing, wit ever 
 present in his brain, and someone always had 
 a horse to hold, to which he talked, as it stood 
 blinking in the sun. His blindness did not 
 seem to trouble him, and if he thought of it at 
 all, he looked on it as part and parcel of the 
 scheme of nature, against which it is impious 
 to contend. Doctors had peered into his eyes 
 with lenses, quarrelled with one another on 
 their diagnoses of his case, and still the Rubio 
 sat contented, questioning nothing, and endur- 
 ing everything, sun, rain, wind, flies, and dust, 
 as patiently as if he were a rock. Nothing 
 was further from his thoughts than that he 
 ever once again could see. Plainly, it had 
 been written in the books of fate he should be 
 blind, and so when European doctors talked to 
 him of operations and the like, he smiled, not 
 wishing to offend, and never doubting of their 
 learning, for had not one of them cured a 
 
MEKTUB 95 
 
 relation of his own of intermittent fever by 
 the use of some white magic powder, when 
 native doctors, after having burned him with a 
 red-hot iron, and made him take texts of the 
 Koran steeped in water, had ignominiously 
 failed ? 
 
 All that they said did not appeal to him, for 
 all of them were serious men, who talked the 
 matter over gravely, and looked on him as 
 somethingr curious on which to exercise their 
 skill. All mieht have o^one on in the same old 
 way, and to this day the Rubio still sat upon 
 his stone without a wish to see the horses that 
 he held, the sunlight falling white upon the 
 towers, or the red glare upon the Spanish coast 
 at eventide, had not a German scientist ap- 
 peared on the horizon of his life. 
 
 From the first day on which the Rubio held 
 the doctor's horse a fellowship sprang up 
 between them, not easy to explain. No single 
 word of Arabic the doctor spoke, and all 
 the German that the Rubio knew was either 
 objurgatory or obscene, and yet the men were 
 friends. Tall and uncouth and with a beard 
 that looked as if it never had been combed, 
 his trousers short and frayed and with an inch 
 or two of dirty sock showing between them 
 
96 MEKTUB 
 
 and his shoes, dressed in a yellowish alpaca 
 jacket, and a white solar topee lined with 
 green, the doctor peered out on the world 
 through neutral-tinted glasses, for his own eyes 
 were weak. 
 
 Whether this weakness drew him to the 
 blind, or if he liked to hear the Rubio's tales 
 about the Europeans he had known, to all of 
 whom he gave the worst of characters, calling 
 them drunkards and hintinof at dark vices 
 which he averred they practised to a man — 
 not that he for a moment believed a single 
 word he uttered, but thought apparently his 
 statements gave a piquancy to conversation — 
 the doctor never said. Soon Tangier knew 
 him for a character, and as he stumbled on 
 his horse about the town, curing the Arabs 
 of ophthalmia and gathering facts for the 
 enormous book he said he meant to write upon 
 North Africa, his reputation grew. The natives 
 christened him " Father of Blindness," which 
 name appeared to him a compliment, and he 
 would use it, speaking of himself, complacently, 
 just as a Scotsman likes to be spoken of under 
 the style and title of the land he owns, although 
 it be all bog. Though in the little world of 
 men in which he lived the doctor .was a fool, 
 
MEKTUB 97 
 
 in the large field of science he was competent 
 enough, and when he proved to demonstration 
 to the other doctors in the place that a sHght 
 operation would restore the Rubio's sight, 
 they all fell in with it, and though for years the 
 object of their care had held their horses and 
 they had seen him every day, without observ- 
 ing him, he now became of interest, just as 
 a moth becomes of interest when it is dead 
 and put into a case with other specimens. 
 
 Whether the sympathy that certainly exists 
 between wise men and those whose intellect is 
 rudimentary, and which is rarely manifested 
 between a learned and an ordinary man, 
 prevailed upon the Rubio to submit himself 
 to the ministrations of the German man of 
 science, Allah alone can tell. A season saw 
 the mounting-block deserted, and tourists gave 
 their horses to be held by boys, who tied them 
 by the reins to rings high in the wall, and fell 
 asleep, leaving the animals to fight and break 
 their bridles, and for a time no stream of 
 cheerful blasphemy was heard, in any Euro- 
 pean tongue, upon the mounting-stone. In a 
 clean unaccustomed bed in a dark corner of 
 Hope House, the missionary hospital, the 
 Rubio lay, his head bound up in bandages, 
 
 H 
 
98 MEKTUB 
 
 silent, but cheerful, confident in the skill of his 
 strange friend, but yet incredulous, after the 
 Arab way. 
 
 During the long six weeks, what were his 
 thoughts and expectations it is difficult to say. 
 Perhaps they ran upon the wonders of the 
 new world he would inherit with his sight, 
 perhaps he rather dreaded to behold all that he 
 knew so well and so familiarly by touch. He 
 who, when like a lizard he had basked against 
 his wall, had never for a moment ceased from 
 talking, now was silent, and when the doctor 
 visited him, to dress his eyes, and make his 
 daily diagnosis of the case, answered to all 
 the words of hope he heard, ''It will be, as God 
 wishes it to be," and turned uneasily between 
 his unfamiliar sheets. At last the day arrived 
 when doctors judged the necessary time had 
 passed. No one in Tangier was more con- 
 fident than was the '' Father of Blindness," 
 who went and came about the town buoyed 
 high with expectation, for he was really a 
 kind-hearted man, learned but simple, after the 
 fashion of his kind. 
 
 At early morning all was ready, and in the 
 presence of the assembled doctors of the place 
 with infinite precaution the dressings were 
 
MEKTUB 99 
 
 removed. Cautiously and by degrees, a little 
 light was let into the room. Holding his 
 patient's hand and visibly moved, the German 
 asked him if he saw. '' Not yet," the Rubio 
 answered, and then, throwing the window open 
 wide, the sunlight filled the room, falling upon 
 the figure in the bed, and on the group of 
 doctors standing by expectantly. It filled 
 the room, and through the window showed 
 the mountains standing out blue above Tarifa, 
 and the strait, calm as a sheet of glass, except 
 where the two " Calas " cut it into foam. It 
 fell upon the cliffs which jut into the sea 
 below Hope House ; upon the hills of 
 Anjera, and on the bird-like sails of the 
 feluccas in the bay, filling the world with 
 gladness that a new day was born. Still on 
 his bed the Rubio lay, pale with his long 
 confinement, and with his hands nervously 
 feeling at his eyes. All saw that the experi- 
 ment had failed, and with a groan the German 
 man of science buried his head between his 
 hands and sobbed aloud, the tears dimming his 
 spectacles and running down upon his beard. 
 With a grave smile the patient got out of 
 his bed, and having felt his way to where 
 he heard the sobs, laid his rough, freckled 
 
loo MEKTUB 
 
 hand upon the shoulder of his friend, and said 
 as unconcernedly, as if he had not suffered in 
 the least, "Weep not; it was not written"; 
 then, looking round, asked for a boy to lead 
 him back again to his accustomed seat upon 
 his stone. 
 
1 ■> 1 '> -, T •> t ■> ■> 
 
 LOCHAN FALLOCH 
 
 Brown billowing woods spring from the rising 
 ground beyond the lake. The lake itself is set 
 in fir woods on three sides, and on the other 
 bounded by a wild moor. 
 
 Almost all round it stretches a pebbly beach, 
 broken by beds of bulrushes, which now and 
 then rise from a mossy patch between the 
 stones. Islands with ruins of the past stud its 
 smooth surface, and are reflected upside down, 
 as in a lookino--crlass reversed. The woods, 
 
 o o 
 
 chiefly of beech, appear like outworks thrown 
 before the hills to guard their mysteries. 
 Roueh, roarlnor burns here and there cut a 
 passage to the lake and brawl between banks 
 fringed with rowan trees and ash. After the 
 woods are passed, a further outwork of wet 
 boggy ground, In which grow willows and 
 sweet-gale, extends. 
 
 This by degrees melts into a dull waste of 
 ling, strewed with great boulders of rough 
 pudding ' stone. The heath grows sparser 
 higher up, where the wind sweeps upon it 
 
 lOI 
 
102'' LOCHAN FALLOCH 
 
 •all; the, year, .Then it gives place to tracts 
 of stones. Lastly, the hill rising up steep 
 from the last slope is reached, and following 
 a burn, until it issues from a green mossy 
 **well," you stand upon the ridge. 
 
 There, a panorama stretches out, studded 
 with lakes, with woods, and interspersed with 
 farms towards the west. Towards the east lies 
 the brown Flanders Moss, an ancient sea, 
 which even yet appears to roll in the white mist 
 of evening. The whole is framed in ranges of 
 long undulating hills, which guard the south. 
 
 Northwards, the Grampians, still mysterious 
 and wild, tower up, in peaks, in castles, and in 
 serrated ridges, through which the passes, now 
 disused, formerly penetrated. 
 
 Standing upon the topmost ridge, and quite 
 invisible from any other point, quite unsus- 
 pected, lost, almost forgotten by the outer 
 world, is hid a little lake. 
 
 It is indeed a little hidden loch, lying so 
 deep and unsuspected in its hollow between 
 hills, that the first Kelt or Pict who came upon 
 it, ages ago, must straight have hit upon the 
 name it bears. Nature seems, now and then, 
 to have suspected that a time would come 
 when all her secrets would lie bare and open 
 
LOCHAN FALLOCH 103 
 
 to the prying eye of vulgar curiosity, and to 
 have hid away some of her chiefest beauties 
 in places where they are in sanctuary, hallowed 
 from human gaze, which at the same time wor- 
 ships and violates them. So, she set this her 
 little gem, remote, hiding it as a hind conceals 
 her young, deep in the heather, underneath the 
 tallest bracken, and in a wilderness of hills. 
 They tower on every side, bare, bald, and 
 wind-swept, whilst in a corrie nestles the little 
 lake, upon whose surface the wind scarcely 
 or never preys, leaving it calm, mysterious, 
 and unruffled, as if it held some secret, too 
 natural for us to understand. If fairies still 
 exist, they come, no doubt, from the Sith 
 Bruach which guards the Avon Dhu at Aber- 
 foyle, and sail their boats of acorn-cups and 
 leaves on the black lakelet. Upon the little 
 beach they run their craft ashore and dance on 
 the broad ribbon of smooth sand which rings 
 the lake, as a black mezzotint is edged around 
 with white. But if the fairies com.e, they come 
 unseen, leaving no token of their passage but a 
 few turned-up leaves which they have used for 
 boats, and the mysterious circlet of white foam 
 they churn, which hangs between the fringe of 
 bulrushes and the mimic surf in which float 
 
104 LOCHAN FALLOCH 
 
 flies that have ventured further than their 
 wings can bear them, and now wash up and 
 down, as in some distant island of the South 
 Seas, drowned mariners may drift upon the 
 beach. Sunk in its hollow far from the world, 
 the tarn seems to have been left adrift, a dere- 
 lict floated down to us from some older age, 
 and with one's eyes closed one can see strange 
 animals of monstrous size come down the steep 
 hillsides and drink and play, throwing about 
 the water as they stand knee-deep. Around 
 its banks grows equisetum, as if to point back 
 to a time when different vegetation, gigantic 
 and distorted, towered by its edge, and in 
 which harboured the strange beasts that must 
 have been familiar to its shores. 
 
 Light-footed tribesmen, as they drove the 
 "creagh" from the fat Lowlands to their 
 hungry hills, must have stopped by the lake 
 to slake their thirst, prone on their breasts 
 their rough red beards floating like seaweed 
 on the water as they drank. Even in summer, 
 when bees hum in the heather, and the scent 
 of peat fresh cast and left to dry perfumes the 
 air, and little moss-trout bask in the tiny 
 stream that issues from the lake, or dart 
 amongst its stones, there broods an air as of 
 
LOCHAN FALLOCH 105 
 
 aloofness from mankind. Over the corrle 
 which the water fills, leaving but little ground 
 between it and the hills except at one end, 
 where a long-forgotten, perhaps Fingalian, 
 mountain trail is still half visible on the stones 
 which lie amongst the ling, the wind sweeps 
 softly, and the water-spiders, with greater faith 
 than Peter's, v/alk on the surface of the lake 
 so lightly that they hardly leave a shadow as 
 they pass. 
 
 In winter, when the wind laments aloud 
 for the lost sun, and the dark water of the 
 lochan turns to black ice, whilst the white 
 foam congealed clings round the stalks of the 
 dead bulrushes, and all the heather droops in 
 the keen frost, the scene is wild and threaten- 
 ing, as if the spirits of the past kept watch 
 over the last of their possessions that had re- 
 mained untouched. Then, in spite of the keen 
 cold, the birds and animals all venture out, cer- 
 tain that they are safe, at least from man, and 
 leave strange tracks amongst the snow, which 
 form a chart of them and of their habits, read- 
 able but to those whose eyes have not been 
 rendered dim by poring upon print. 
 
 Even in snow and cold, and when the wind 
 drives all the grass and heather crouching to 
 
io6 LOCHAN FALLOCH 
 
 the ground, and when the little fish rise to the 
 air-holes in the translucent ice to breathe, and 
 nature seems to wither in the frost, there yet 
 remains over the lochan dhu an air as of con- 
 tent, amidst the desolation of the hills. 
 
 Whether the breeze just curls the water, or 
 drives a dust of particles of frozen snow along 
 the surface of the ice ; whether the cotton-erass 
 waves silkily and the bog-asphodels spring 
 from the peat and the green " wells " are bright 
 with mosses, or the field-mice play hide-and- 
 seek between the stalks of the stiff frozen 
 grasses, the lochlet seems to smile as enigmati- 
 cally as does the Sphinx, showing itself in full 
 communion with the past. It smiles, like a 
 fair woman who hides a guilty secret — for 
 knowledge, especially of happiness that is not 
 shared with others, must be guilt, and to with- 
 hold it from us, who seek it all our lives, is 
 surely criminal, that is, if the lake's secret 
 were not beyond our reach, removed out of 
 our ken, by its sheer innocence. As one looks 
 down from the ridge, watching the black tarn 
 sleeping in the heather, you see that what 
 it holds is not for us, and that the siorhinof of 
 the wind, which to it is a language compre- 
 hended, clear and sympathetic to its soul, to us 
 
LOCHAN FALLOCH 107 
 
 serves but to stir the senses, and you turn 
 away despairing, watching a heron or a gull 
 enter at once into the fellowship, outside of 
 which we stand. 
 
 It miorht be that at ni^ht, when the moon 
 
 silvers all the waters, and mist enshrouds the 
 
 hills, calling out from the grass and mosses 
 
 their secret perfume ; when roe steal from 
 
 the copses browsing so timidly about the open 
 
 patches of green herbage, scattered like islands 
 
 through the heath ; when dark grey moths 
 
 flutter about the edges of the lake, that if a 
 
 child dared venture up to the lone tarn, its 
 
 eyes might open and behold a wondrous world 
 
 of fairies, and it would understand all that the 
 
 rustling of the wind amongst the heather really 
 
 means. But if it did so, either it would turn 
 
 rank poet and be damned amongst its fellows, 
 
 or be snatched away to dwell for ever in some 
 
 fairy hill, remote from man, seeing the world as 
 
 in a camera obscura, with people running to and 
 
 fro like ants, in a perpetual gloom. No child 
 
 will venture ; the spell will not be broken, and 
 
 the black, little loch will remain hidden from 
 
 men's hearts, lost in the mist, lost in forgetful- 
 
 ness, just as it was intended that it should be 
 
 lost, by Nature, when she hid it in the hills. 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL 
 
 The mist had blotted out the moss, leaving 
 
 the Easter Hill, Gartur, and the three fir trees 
 
 above the Shanochil, rising like islands out of 
 
 a dead sea. At times the waves of mist 
 
 engulfed the islands, and then slowly fell back 
 
 and left them clear, as if some tide, unseen and 
 
 unsuspected, had ebbed and then had flowed 
 
 again, or a volcano underneath the moss had 
 
 been at first half doubtful of its work and 
 
 shrouded it in steam till it had taken shape. 
 
 Great drops of damp hung from the feathers of 
 
 the larches in the long sheltering plantations 
 
 on each side of the road. Damp filled up the 
 
 interstices of spiders' webs that clung between 
 
 the bents, stretching like fairy rigging between 
 
 the stems, as a triatic-stay stretches between a 
 
 schooner's masts. It settled on the heads of 
 
 grasses, enveloping them as in a veil, making 
 
 each individual stem look like a little ghost of 
 
 what it had been in the summer, when it was 
 
 green with life. Where banks of rushes, now 
 
 io8 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL 109 
 
 turning brown, emerged out of the shroud of 
 steam, they looked like frozen water weeds 
 protruding from the ice, by a pond's side, during 
 a winter's frost. 
 
 The perfume of the spruces and of the beds 
 of moss and blae-berries hung in the moist 
 atmosphere and filled the nostrils with a scent 
 of something older than mankind, keen, subtle, 
 vivifying, and which somehow connected man, 
 by some unseen, uncomprehended essential oil 
 or particle so small no microscope could make 
 it manifest, with the whole universe. 
 
 Beyond the moss the five-fold hummocks of 
 Ben Dhu ran out into the rolling waves of mist, 
 as a great cape runs out into the sea. Far off, 
 in the interior ocean of the mist Ben Ledi 
 showed its topmost ridge, just as the Peak of 
 Teneriffe rises among the fleecy clouds of the 
 Trade Winds. 
 
 The approaching evening added to the 
 gloom, and night appeared about to fall with 
 double darkness on the wide valley of Mentelth. 
 My horse's feet fell with a muffled sound upon 
 the road, as if it had been hollow underneath. 
 Now and again out on the moor the crowing of 
 a grouse was heard, and once an owl floated 
 across the road as silently as thistledown is 
 
no AT THE WARD TOLL 
 
 wafted through the air, Hke an enormous moth. 
 All was so quiet and mysterious, one seemed to 
 ride enveloped in a shroud which kept one 
 from the world. The spirit of the north was in 
 the air, intangible, haunting and vague, that 
 makes the dwellers in the north vague and 
 intangible, poetic and averse to face the 
 facts of life, with a hard rind covering the 
 softness of their hearts. Gigantic forms rode 
 in the billowy vapours by my side, those Val- 
 kyrie which northern poets have discerned, 
 either projected on the mist, as I did on that 
 night, or else projected on the pia matery of 
 their brain, round which a mist of vapour 
 always seemed to brood. 
 
 The shapes I seemed to see — or saw, for if 
 a man sees visions with the interior sight he 
 sees them, for himself at least, as surely as 
 if he saw them with the outward eye — loomed 
 lofty, and peopled once again Menteith with 
 riders, as it was peopled in the past. The ill- 
 starred earls, their armour always a decade out 
 of fashion, and now and then surmounted by a 
 Highland bonnet set with an eagle's feather, 
 giving them an air half of the Saxon, half of 
 the Kelt, their horses lank and ill-groomed, 
 their followers talking in shrill Gaelic, seemed 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL in 
 
 to defile along the road. Their blood was 
 redder than the King's, their purses lighter 
 than an empty bean-pod after harvest, and still 
 they had an air of pride, but all looked " fey," 
 as if misfortune had set its seal upon their 
 race. 
 
 They passed and vanished into the mist they 
 once had known so well, and it seemed to me 
 that they all rode, just as if they knew the way 
 as well as they had known it in their lives, 
 towards their ruined castle in the low island of 
 the rush-ringed lake. I did not turn and ride 
 with them, though had I done so I feel sure, 
 upon arriving at the ferry-keeper's hut thatched 
 thick with heather, out of which sprouted cory- 
 dalis and on whose ridge grew tufts of rag- 
 weed, there would have been a place empty 
 and waiting in the decaying, insubstantial boat. 
 Highlanders, driving the "creagh" towards 
 Balquhidder, passed, their mocassin-shod feet 
 leaving as little impress on the mist as they 
 had left in life, upon the tussocks of bent-grass. 
 They urged the phantom cattle with the points 
 of their Lochaber axes ; and, last of all, wrapped 
 in his plaid, his thick hair curling close about 
 his hard-lined features, passed one I knew at 
 once by his great length of arm and the red 
 
112 AT THE WARD TOLL 
 
 beard, on which the damp shone in a frosty 
 dew, just as it glistened on the coats of the 
 West Highland kyloes that he drove before 
 him on the road. Thouoh for two hundred 
 years he had slept well in the lone graveyard 
 of the deserted church beside Loch Voil, he 
 seemed to know the road as intimately as 
 he had known it in his old foraying days. As 
 he passed by he moved his target forward and 
 his hand stole to his sword, as if he recognised 
 one of his ancient foes. Then he was swal- 
 lowed up by the same mist that had protected 
 him so often in his life. 
 
 The gloom grew thicker, and in the clinging 
 air fantastic noises surged, as if the spirits of 
 the hills, so long oppressed and overcome by 
 modern life and by man's dominance of nature, 
 were abroad and had resumed their sway. All 
 the old legends appeared natural, the second- 
 sight a thing so evident, it seemed a madness 
 to deny. The Bodach Glas would not have 
 been surprising had he appeared, his head 
 averted and his plaid twisted about him in the 
 ancient fashion of the Isles. London was 
 millions of miles off, lost in reality, and the 
 true world was that I thought I saw on every 
 side, in the grey pall of mist. It seemed that 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL 113 
 
 I had ridden miles through the dark, steamy 
 woods. The damp chilled to the bones, and if 
 I put my hand upon my horse I left the imprint 
 of my fingers in the white dew that clustered 
 on his coat. Emerging from the woods, at 
 least upon one side, where the rough moorland 
 pasture stretches out towards the moss, close to 
 the toll-house at the cross-roads, four-square to 
 all the winds, there is an island of old ash trees 
 amongst the firs and spruces, which stands 
 upon a knoll close to a gate. At all times the 
 old trees look strange against the background 
 of dark firs. Upon that evening they appeared 
 gigantic, menacing, and magnified to twenty 
 times their size. As I approached them, glad 
 to have left the gloomy woods, my horse 
 snorted and bounded half across the road. A 
 voice in Spanish hailed me, and a figure moved 
 from the shadow of the trees and stood, dew- 
 damped and shivering, in his light southern 
 clothes. 
 
 His olive face had turned an earthy colour 
 with the cold, and it was rendered ghastly- 
 looking by a red sash tied like a comforter 
 about his neck. He told me that at a village 
 which he thought was called Bocliva, or some- 
 thing of the sort, he had been informed there 
 
114 AT THE WARD TOLL 
 
 lived a gentleman hard by who could speak 
 Christian, and he believed that I must be the 
 man. He was, he said, ''fasting from all but 
 sin that day, and he esteemed his having come 
 across me almost a miracle, for he felt saved as 
 on a plank, when he had heard me speak." 
 
 He knew a " litel Inglis," which he would 
 " spika so that I might hear." Then in that 
 lanoruaore he informed me that "he had lose 
 
 o o 
 
 the ship in Liz and walka Glasco " ; and then, 
 turning again to Spanish, thanked me, and in 
 particular for some cigarettes I gave him, 
 which he declared "were better far than bread 
 when the heart is empty and the feet sore, and 
 that the scent of them was sweeter than the 
 orange flower or than the incense in a church." 
 
 He came from Vigo, so he said, and if I 
 went there any time, I had my house in Teis, 
 just past the blacksmith's, and he, though a 
 poor man, was one who could appreciate. 
 Then, after telling me that '* Ildefonso Lopez 
 was my servant, and God would pay me," he 
 raised his battered hat and, starting off again 
 upon the road to ''walka Glasco," disappeared 
 into the night, singing a tango in a high falsetto 
 voice. 
 
 I rode into the open between the rough 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL 115 
 
 stone dykes that bound the road beyond the 
 toll, passed the old-fashioned cast-iron mile- 
 stone on which a hand is moulded pointing the 
 way to Aberfoyle, and, riding cautiously down 
 the stony brae, crossed the Ward bridge and 
 came out on the moor. 
 
 White waves of vapour came surging up 
 against the posts that marked the road, and 
 foamed about them, as the surf surges round a 
 rock. Throup^h the thick air the scent of the 
 bog-myrtle penetrated, acrid and comforting, 
 and on the banks of peat the willows trembled 
 as my horse passed them, as if they floated on 
 the moss. 
 
 All was as lonely and as northern as before, 
 but the spell had been broken by Ildefonso 
 Lopez in his brief apparition out of the mist 
 and gloom of the October evening, and though 
 I knew I rode along the road towards the 
 Kelty bridge, and marked unconsciously the 
 junipers that grow just by the iron gate that 
 opens on the path towards the Carse, it seemed 
 somehow that I was entering Vigo, by the 
 north channel between the Cies and the high 
 land on which a clump of pine trees overhangs 
 the sea. 
 
 The noble bay spread out between the hills, 
 
ii6 AT THE WARD TOLL 
 
 which ran down sheer, right to the water's 
 edge, leaving at intervals just ground enough 
 for a white, little town with red-tiled roofs to 
 lodge itself, half hidden amongst vines. 
 
 The fishing boats, brown and with sails as 
 sharp as a shark's fins, dotted the water, and 
 on a tongue of land the town of Bouzas 
 seemed to rock upon the sea, as it lay basking 
 in the sun. 
 
 Vigo itself, with its steep, winding streets, 
 its dark-tree'd alameda, its mouldering fort, 
 and the decaying hulk of an old ship left 
 derelict upon the sand, appeared, just as I first 
 had seen it thirty years ago. The castles, 
 where the brass guns had sunk upon the 
 ground beside their mouldering carriages, 
 towered above the town. 
 
 Chestnut and pine woods almost met the 
 houses, and from the beach the chattering of 
 the fishwives, in their bright red and yellow 
 petticoats, resounded in my ears. Beyond the 
 town the harbour narrowed, and the white 
 oratory of La Guia crowned the pine-clad hill 
 that rises up from the black point of the 
 Cabr6n. Still narrowing till it seemed a lake, 
 the harbour stretched towards the Lazaretto, 
 where under piles of sand that clearly show on 
 
AT THE WARD TOLL 117 
 
 a still day, lie the galleons Drake hunted up 
 the bay, until they sunk themselves to save the 
 treasure that they held. It passed by Redon- 
 dela, with its high bridge, and finished at San 
 Payo, from whence as I looked backwards 
 I seemed to see the islands at the harbour 
 mouth float in a sunset, red and glorious, and 
 crossed by bars of purple and of black. 
 
 It all appeared to hang outlined and visible 
 upon the vapour rising from the moss, just as 
 a wood appears, projected on the clouds, in the 
 South Pampa on a misty morning, with its 
 roots growing in the sky. Slowly it faded, and 
 as I jogged along, passing the Kelty bridge 
 and turning by the watering-trough into another 
 belt of wood, I almost wondered whether 
 Ildefonso Lopez had been a real man, or but an 
 emanation from the mist from which he issued 
 out so suddenly, and which had swallowed him 
 again almost as suddenly, upon his lonely way. 
 
AN IDEALIST 
 
 The comrade who had lectured having sat 
 down amidst applause, the chairman asked for 
 questions on the speech. In the long narrow 
 hall the audience sat like sardines in a box, so 
 thickly packed that they had hardly room to 
 shout. The greater part were workmen, but 
 workmen of the London type, sallow and 
 slight and dressed in cheap slop clothes. Some 
 foreigners gave colour to the gathering, and 
 showed up curiously against a sprinkling of 
 middle-class inquirers after truth. The latter, 
 mostly, were callow-looking, earnest young men 
 from various provincial universities, dressed in 
 grey flannel suits with green or yellow neckties, 
 their fluffy hair looking as if it never had been 
 brushed, and their long scraggy throats so 
 thin, one wondered they contained the enor- 
 mous Adam's apple which protruded over the 
 low-cut collar of their shirts. One or two 
 ladies, chiefly dressed in stuffs from Liberty's, 
 
 sat half-constrainedly, and jotted down either 
 
 ii8 
 
AN IDEALIST 119 
 
 impressions of the scene or notes of the more 
 salient portions of the lecturer's remarks. 
 Three or four comrades, of the kind whose 
 dally life is Socialism, that is of course talking 
 about it, and laying off what the world will be 
 like at its glad advent, sat in front places, and 
 now and then during the progress of the lecture 
 had interjected an "'Ear, 'ear" or "Let'em 
 'ave it," meaning of course the Bourgeois, who 
 certainly that evening must have trembled in 
 his shoes, to hear his vices publicly unveiled. 
 They had a kind of likeness to the men who 
 in the Quartier Latin remain art-students all 
 their lives, wearing wide peg-top trousers, fiat- 
 brimmed hats, and flapping neckties of black 
 crepe de Chine, and who In cafes spout con- 
 tinually of art, and In their way are comrades, 
 thinking that everlasting talk is the best way 
 to paint a picture or to revolutionise the world. 
 In front at a deal table sat one or two re- 
 porters, dull and uninterested, to whom all 
 creeds and faiths were equal, and any kind of 
 lecture or of speech, so many hours of tedious 
 work, which they, bound to work out their 
 purgatory here on earth, lived by reporting at 
 so much the column or the thousand words. 
 Over the hall there hung that odour of hot 
 
I20 AN IDEALIST 
 
 people, and stale scent, mixed with the fumes 
 of coarse tobacco in the clothes, which Is the 
 true particular flavour of all meetings, Tory 
 and Socialist alike, just as in times gone by 
 extract of orange peel and sawdust marked a 
 circus, or as in Catholic countries incense tones 
 down the various smells which rise from off the 
 faithful in a church. 
 
 No one responding to the chairman's call, he 
 just had risen up to thank *'our comrade for 
 his eloquent, well thought out and delivered 
 lecture, which all who 'eard it must allow was 
 miles a'ead of all the frothy utterances of 
 members of the tw^o parties of boss frauds 
 between 'oom laybour 'angs, as 'e might say 
 upon the cross, the Liberals and Tories, 
 hypocrites and Pharisees ... If ever there 
 was 'umbugs ..." when a man arose and 
 said " Excuse me, Mr. Chayrman, I 'aven't 
 got a question, but seeing you was arsting for 
 one, I'd like to say a word." 
 
 Boys seated in the gallery, to whom accord- 
 ing to their philosophic state of boydom all 
 meetings and all speeches simply were chances 
 for diversion, shouted out " 'Ear, 'ear, I saay 
 let Betterton ave 'arf a mo.' " 
 
 The chairman half-constralnedly resumed 
 
AN IDEALIST 121 
 
 his seat, baulked like a fiery horse at yeomanry 
 manceuvres, in full career, and toying with the 
 water-bottle, on which great drops of moisture 
 hung condensed, called upon Comrade Better- 
 ton, with a request he would be brief A little 
 withered-looking man of about seventy stood 
 up, yellow in colour as old parchment, and with 
 some still remaining wisps of yellowish, grey 
 hair hano^ing^ about his head, like seaweed on 
 a rock. His clothes were rusty black, and 
 neatly brushed, his faded eyes of porcelain blue, 
 were set in rims of red, his knees were shaky, 
 and his whole being was pervaded by an air of 
 great benevolence. Clearing his throat and 
 looking round the hall with the assurance of 
 a practised speaker, he broke into a breathless 
 sentence, fluent, unpunctuated, and evidently 
 well known to the admiring boys, who cheered 
 him to the fray. 
 
 "I've 'eard the speech," he said, "of the 
 comrade who has addressed us at some length, 
 I've heard and think it 'umbug. As Shake- 
 speare says, whilst the grass grows, the 'orse 
 is starving." At this quotation a boy yelled 
 "Why the 'ell don't he eat it then?" The ladies 
 coloured, fearing the social revolution had 
 actually begun, and from the chairman came 
 
122 AN IDEALIST 
 
 the hope that the audience would keep to 
 parliamentary language ''seein' that there was 
 lydies in the all." Then having called upon 
 our comrade to resume and not to take up 
 too much time, and order being once again 
 established, Betterton took up his interrupted 
 speech, just as a phonograph, cut off, begins 
 again exactly at the place where it was 
 stopped. " What do I find ? Nothing but 
 all the means of livelihood monopolize, means 
 of production in the 'ands of one set, land in 
 the other, even the raw material all taken up 
 by the capitalists. Things I say, comrades, is 
 gettin' daily worse, nothin' being left on which 
 a man can exercise his lybour, without a tax 
 to pay to somebody for doin' it. What is a 
 man to do ? Sometimes I think, all I can do 
 is to go out and throw a bomb of dynamite in- 
 volvin' in the sayme destruction all the blood- 
 suckin' sweaters and land monopolists alike 
 ..." What more the speaker might have 
 said. Providence only and the boys seated in 
 the gallery knew, for a voice emanating from 
 the body of the hall was heard to say in a 
 sarcastic tone, "Why don't you go and throw 
 it ? " and in the shouts of laughter that en- 
 sued, the speaker discomfited, but still benevo- 
 
AN IDEALIST 123 
 
 lent for all his fiery words, subsided in his seat, 
 and with the usual compliments and the collec- 
 tion, without which no meeting, Socialist, 
 Anarchist, Liberal, religious or Conservative, 
 can ever end, the hall was emptied in a trice, 
 the audience passing swiftly, with their eyes 
 fixed on vacancy, before the comrades who at 
 the door sat selling "literatoor." 
 
 This was the first occasion that Betterton 
 revealed himself to my unworthy eyes. As 
 time went on I knew him better, and became 
 so to speak one of his intimates, for there are 
 many kinds of intimates, besides the son you 
 eat and drink with and stand with in the club 
 windows, to criticise the ladies' ankles as they 
 pass. In the first place, he lived on bread 
 and milk, thinking it wrong to take the life of 
 anything (except of course a Bourgeois), so 
 that the pleasures of the table were not exactly 
 in his way. 
 
 The work of his profession, that of bill- 
 sticker, took him far from my haunts, and 
 caused him now and then some qualms of 
 conscience, as when he had to cover hoard- 
 ings, with the announcements of some stuff 
 or other which he knew was made by sweated 
 work. An atheist by choice and by convic- 
 
124 AN IDEALIST 
 
 tion, he yet had texts of Scripture always in 
 his mouth, and used to say, " Only I know 
 you see the laybourer is worthy of his 'ire, or 
 now and then I should just chuck it, it 'urts 
 me to be covering up an 'oarding with a great 
 picture of some 'arlot, for the advertisement of 
 some bloodsucker's soap. An' badly drawn 
 too, bad art" (for he was great on art) ''and 
 sweated stuff, not that I've anything to say 
 against a 'arlot in herself, the most of them is 
 driven to it by the rich." 
 
 As to why this should be, or how, he did 
 not condescend to explanation, but still be- 
 lieved it firmly, holding as the chief axiom of 
 his faith the wickedness of peers, who he 
 apparently considered had as much power, for 
 evil, as the French aristocracy before the 
 Revolution, or as Beelzebub. But notwithstand- 
 ing poverty and the whole hive of bees he 
 carried in his bonnet, his life was happy and 
 his faith so great it might have moved the 
 House of Commons from its foundations in 
 the mud, could he have found a lever ready 
 to his hand. As it was, at his lodgings in a 
 slum in Drury Lane, he used to issue broad- 
 sheets, printed and set up by himself, on yellow 
 packing paper. The one on which he prided 
 
AN IDEALIST 125 
 
 himself most was headed *' Messalina," under 
 which style and title he typified the Queen. 
 
 " Pause, brutal and licentious old queen," it 
 opened, " and think, if you have time to think, 
 in the wild orgies of your bestial career." It 
 finished with an adjuration to the proletariat to 
 unite, and the last line was '' Blood, Blood, 
 Blood, Heads off. Freedom and Liberty for all." 
 
 No larger than a sheet of notepaper, the 
 little periodical was stuffed, so he averred, as 
 full of facts as an egg is with meat, and 
 naturally was never paid for, but placed by 
 him upon his daily round in letter-boxes of 
 houses of the rich. One of his pleasures (and 
 they were few and innocent enough) was to 
 depict the feelings of the lord into whose letter- 
 box he had deposited his squib. '' When he 
 sits after dinner, drinking his port wine, with 
 his boots off before the fire, it will go through 
 him like a small-tooth comb, and maybe mayke 
 'im tremble, perhaps touch up his 'eart — who 
 knows ? — sometimes those kind of chaps is not 
 all bad, only they eats and drinks too much, 
 and 'as no time to think," 
 
 Not a dull day could Comrade Betterton 
 remember in his whole life. 
 
 " Talk of the Greeks and Romans," he used 
 
126 AN IDEALIST 
 
 to say, "of course the Romans mostly was 
 bourgwaw, like ourselves, but the Greeks cer- 
 tainly ad opportunities. I mean in art and 
 such-like, and seeing people go about without 
 their clothes, thus gettin' rid of all ypocrisy 
 and that, but then as to an ideal for hewmanity, 
 they was deficient. All art was for a class. 
 Now we live in a glorious time, I wouldn't a 
 missed it for a lot. But, as to art, exceptin' 
 poor old Morris, most o' your painters and 
 litteratoors and such is middle-class in their 
 ideas, thinks that their kind of stuff is only for 
 the cultivated classes, . . . and see your culti- 
 vated class, always at races and shootin' 
 pheasants, . . . care as much about the arts as 
 dockers down in Canning Town. What I 
 mean is, a man like me as 'is ideal nowadays, 
 and can look forward to a time, when all them 
 Bastilles is pulled down, . . . it's figuratively 
 I use the word. You needn't larf. ... It 
 does a man's 'eart good to look forward to a 
 time when all your middle-class ideals shall be 
 swept away, and mankind let alone, to grow 
 up beautiful, 'ealthy, artistic, and as unmoral 
 as the Greeks. That 'ere morality has been 
 the curse of men of my class, making 'em 
 'ypocrites and driving 'em to drink." 
 
AN IDEALIST 127 
 
 So he went on bill-sticking for his daily 
 bread and moralising always, both in and out 
 of season, and testifying to his faith, with all 
 the unction of a martyr at the stake, as once, 
 when at a public meeting, packed to the ceiling 
 with religious folk, someone averred he spoke 
 *' as he hoped in the spirit of my master, 
 Christ," Betterton, rising from his seat, re- 
 marked, " 'E ain't my master, Sir." 
 
 Benevolent and yet ridiculous, kindly, half 
 mad, and shrewd in all his speculations upon 
 life, on things, on motives, and on men, most 
 likely years ago his bills are covered over an 
 inch thick with others, his pot of paste turned 
 mouldy, his brushes worn down to the wood, 
 and he himself safely enfeoffed in the posses- 
 sion of the inheritance to which he had been 
 born, a pauper's funeral, and grave. 
 
 Still, when I sometimes look on his life's 
 work in literature, the pamphlet Messalma, in 
 which poor Queen Victoria is both so roundly 
 and unjustly vilified, and think upon the 
 pleasure that no doubt the writer had in its 
 production in his one stuffy room in Drury 
 Lane, it is not always easy to be sure, if one 
 should laug^h or cry. 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 The roar of London slackened, and those 
 pterodactyls of the streets, the motor-omni- 
 buses, seemed to disport themselves like great 
 Behemoth or Leviathan, reducing their crea- 
 tors to an inferior place, as if they lived upon 
 the sufferance of the great whirring beasts. 
 
 The white- faced, hurrying, furtive-looking 
 crowds, which throng the pavements for the 
 most part of the year, had given place to 
 multitudes of comfortable folk on shopping 
 bent, who walked less warily than the work- 
 driven slaves, who move about the streets 
 seeming as if they felt that everybody's hand 
 was armed against them, and that to halt a 
 moment in the race exposed them to its blow. 
 A biting frost clad hydrants in steel mail 
 where water dropped from them, and spread 
 white blotches on the wooden pavement at 
 which the cab-horses, inured to petrol patches 
 on the stones, to mud, even to blood after 
 
 an accident, to paper blowing in their eyes, 
 
 128 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 129 
 
 and all the myriad night noises of the town, 
 shied as at something menacing, so far away 
 had Nature gone out of their lives, as if no 
 vision of green fields in which they played and 
 raced beside their mothers, so stiltily upon 
 their giraffe - looking legs, ever returned to 
 haunt their labour-deadened brains. 
 
 The electric light shone blue against the 
 trunks of trees, and the sharp cold almost dis- 
 pelled the scent of horse-dung which perfumes 
 the air of London, as if to nullify all our 
 attempts to set a bar between ourselves and 
 other animals, and bring us face to face with 
 their and our common necessities and origin, 
 laughing at the refinements of material pro- 
 gress, and showing us that the one way by 
 which we can escape the horrors of the world, 
 lies through the portals of the mind. 
 
 Peace upon earth, goodwill towards all man- 
 kind, was the stock phrase in every church, 
 as if to make the bitterness of life outside, 
 more manifest, reducing as it did the preachers' 
 words to a mere froth of wormwood on the 
 air, or at the most a counsel of perfection, 
 towards which it was not worth one's while to 
 struggle, seeing it set so far out of our reach. 
 
 Holiday - making crowds filled Piccadilly, 
 
 K 
 
130 IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 which looked quite unfamiliar without its 
 strings of crawling cabs and prostitutes plying 
 for hire upon its stones, as eventide drew near. 
 One felt a sort of truce of God was in the air, 
 and that the Stock Exchange, the sweating den, 
 and the gigantic manufactory, in which a thou- 
 sand toiled to make vast sums for some unin- 
 teresting and quite unnecessary man, were quiet, 
 and that perhaps even the wretched negro in the 
 india-rubber bush might have a day of rest. 
 
 The parks, under their canopy of white, 
 turned fields again, and as the dusk came on, 
 the sound of church bells in the air gave a 
 false feeling of security, though one was well 
 aware no tiger-haunted jungle held half the 
 perils of the vast stucco solitude, in which we 
 pass our lives. Day followed day, cold, miser- 
 able, and cheerless, and the town left deserted, 
 by the myriads who make it look like some vast 
 anthill, on which the ants all strive against each 
 other, instead of helping one another after the 
 fashion of their semi- reasonable prototypes, set 
 one a-thinking on the Eastern legend, framed 
 in a warm and sunny land, and therefore quite 
 unfit for the chill north, which was the cause 
 of such a change in life. 
 
 The frosty stars shone out, so cold and 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 131 
 
 clear, they seemed but the reflections of some 
 world extinct, which had preserved its light, 
 but with the heat evaporated. The moon was 
 more congenial to our northern blood, pale, 
 passionless, and with an air of infinite yearn- 
 ing after something unexpressed, whilst the 
 full yellow beam of light from Jupiter, recalled 
 one to the plains, where in far Nabothea the 
 three kings sat gazing on the stars — a kingly 
 occupation, and one which nowadays all their 
 descendants have allowed to fall into disuse. 
 Perhaps unwisely, for if they followed it, who 
 knows if some particular, bright star might yet 
 arise on their horizon to guide them upwards 
 out of the realms of self? 
 
 It may be too that all of us are kings born 
 blind, and that the guiding star is shining brightly 
 in the sky, whilst we sit sightless, with our dim 
 orbits fixed upon the mud. Or it may chance 
 that motor-cars, arriving at the stable where 
 the lowly Saviour babe was laid, would have 
 affrighted all the humble company assembled 
 to adore. The gulf that yawns between the 
 millionaire and the poor man is wider far than 
 that between the watchers by the ass and oxen's 
 stall, and the three sheikhs, who lighted down 
 from off their horses to reverence the babe. 
 
132 IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 Nor was the gulf between the sheikhs, and 
 the animals stabled so snugly, with their warm 
 breath making an aureole about the sleeping 
 baby's head, so deep as that which yawns 
 between the modern dweller in our stucco 
 Babylon, and his selected breeds of animals 
 rendered so bestial by improvement as scarce 
 to move the pity of their owners for all their 
 various pains. 
 
 In that old cosmos, with its simple, reason- 
 able life, so like the life of plants and trees, 
 as fixed and as immutable as are the seasons 
 or the tides, there was a sympathy, un- 
 thought of, but all the same at hand, which 
 though it did not spend itself in theories, 
 redeemed mankind from many of its sins. 
 Justice, one hears, is but of modern growth ; 
 but in its action on the lives of men it toils a 
 thousand leagues behind the old brutality 
 which, though it certainly denied all rights, 
 admitted kinship, or at least was conscious of 
 a link between all sentient things, just as some 
 deity who had created man in his own image 
 might feel ashamed when called upon to punish 
 and destroy beings so like himself, though for 
 all that he could not hold his hand. 
 
 So in the Christmas week, with its fierce 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 133 
 
 cold and misery to thousands mocked by false 
 protestations of the brotherhood of man, and 
 pinched with hunger in the midst of wealth, it 
 must have seemed that all the legend was but 
 another of the corpse-candles lighted to set 
 them running after its thin flame. 
 
 Then came a thaw, and all the iron-bound 
 streets became Sloughs of Despond, in which 
 a million horses, turned to machines, chained 
 in their stables, and taken out, but to pound 
 ceaselessly upon the cruel stones till it was 
 time to be led back again and chained up for 
 the night, toiled wretchedly, not comprehend- 
 ing that they were agents in the progress of 
 the world. Still all the time the church bells 
 pealed, and all the time the planets shone out 
 soft and mellow, making one think involun- 
 tarily upon some old bright world which per- 
 haps never has existed save in dreams, but 
 which we now and then have to imagine for 
 ourselves or else go mad at seeing ugliness 
 revered as beauty, and wealth adored as 
 wisdom, with all the meanest qualities of man 
 enthroned as virtues, like a tin sky-sign setting 
 forth some trash with its full-bodied lies. 
 Frost, silence, traffic, all was the same to the 
 vast vulgar town, the hugest monument ol 
 
134 IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 Philistinism that the world has seen, or ever 
 will behold. 
 
 The blackened muddy snow, reminding one 
 of something pure, defiled, then scorned and 
 cast upon the mire, lay piled in heaps in 
 the chief squares, left there by accident 
 or by design, as if to give the magnates 
 in their shapeless palaces the mumps, and 
 render them as hideous as the g^reat cubes of 
 masonry in which they lived. Misery seemed 
 to reign triumphant in the wilderness of bricks, 
 where dullness strove with smug hypocrisy to 
 make life unendurable, whilst slowly the great 
 city seemed to take up its usual course as the 
 drear week drew out. Ladies in motor-cars, 
 with the hard, uninviting air that wealth im- 
 parts so often even to youth and beauty, flitted 
 about, scattering the mud on those whose toil 
 paid for each article of dress they wore, as if 
 they had conferred a favour on the world by 
 deigning to exist. The chill and penetrating 
 damp which rises from the London clay after a 
 thaw, and makes its way into the bones and 
 soul, to them was but another stimulus to life, 
 and aid to appetite. Neither the look of 
 wretchedness of men or animals seemed to say 
 anything to them, although no doubt their 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 135 
 
 minds were all alive with charitable schemes ; 
 for never In the history of the human race has 
 charity, that most unhumanising virtue which 
 has ever made mankind think itself better than 
 its fellows, walked in our midst so blatantly, or 
 justice hid itself more timidly, than at the 
 present day. 
 
 Boys, cold and pinched, with voices rendered 
 harsh by all the gin their parents had imbibed, 
 ran shouting out the names of newspapers, 
 flourishing broadsheets on which the headings 
 told of murders, adulteries, cheating and rob- 
 bery ; and smug-faced citizens and prurient- 
 minded girls, their pink-and-white complexions 
 strangely at variance with the twinkle in their 
 eyes, eagerly stopped and bought them, jostling 
 the men as if by accident, pleased at the con- 
 tact with them as they passed, and yet taking 
 offence at once if but a word was said, saving 
 their conscience in the national way, which 
 iinds all things permissible if but due silence is 
 preserved. 
 
 So dull and strenuous was the life that it 
 appeared impossible in other lands the sun was 
 shining, and that the brown-faced men and 
 merry black-haired women had time to love 
 and be beloved. 
 
136 IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 
 
 That nothinsf might be wantingf to set forth 
 all aspects of our pomp and state, in a small, 
 narrow street well strewn with offal from the 
 stalls of costermongers' barrows, under the flam- 
 ing light of naphtha lamps, a line of men stood 
 waiting at the door of a soup-kitchen at which 
 some charitable soul or council had provided 
 refreshment for the body — that body which, we 
 know, matters so little in a transitory life. 
 
 The mud had eaten holes into their clothes, 
 and their pinched faces under the electric light, 
 drink-swollen and blotched, looked corpse-like 
 as they stood shivering in the snow, which, 
 falling down like feathers on their hats, gave 
 them a look as if they had been supers at the 
 pantomime of life, and at some signal from the 
 wing, would break into a dance. 
 
 The stream of passers-by watched them un- 
 moved, thinking no doubt that idleness or 
 drink had brought them to their present situa- 
 tion ; and as they waited for their turn some 
 coughed and others scratched themselves, or 
 muttering it was " ellish cold" shuffled and 
 stamped, as the snow melted on their hair and 
 filtered through their rags. 
 
 On every side the current of the world 
 flowed past them, leaving them stranded on 
 
IN CHRISTMAS WEEK 137 
 
 the mud, with the safe shores of progress 
 and of wealth slipping away from them, as a 
 spent swimmer, struggling for his life, watches 
 the banks of a swift-running stream, race past 
 before his eyes. 
 
 Sometimes the line of men swayed like a 
 wounded snake upon the road as one of them 
 passed through the door, and as the others 
 waited for their turn one muttered to a chum, 
 " Blime me, cheer up ! it'll be better under 
 Socialism," and spat upon the stones. 
 
PAJA Y CIELO 
 
 Now, the whole Pampa from the Romero 
 Grande to Nahuel-Huapi and far Patagones 
 is cut into innumerable chess-boards of wire 
 fencing, and railways puff across it, taking up 
 wool and corn and hides, and other merchan- 
 dise, to send to Europe, that Europe from 
 which once came all the few luxuries the 
 dwellers on the Pampa ever knew. 
 
 But it was not so always, and where now 
 wave interminable crops of corn, once waved 
 the long brown virgin grasses, which made 
 the Pampa a sort of ocean, to the eye. 
 
 Nothing but grass and sky and sky and 
 grass, and then more grass and still more sky. 
 Nothing, for Pampa means ''the space" in 
 Quichua. A vast and empty space, empty, 
 that is, of man and all his works ; but full of 
 sun and light, and of the sweetest air imagin- 
 able, so sweet that merely to think of it keeps 
 the lunors fresh amono^st the reek of towns, 
 and makes the soul rejoice, even when petrol- 
 
 138 
 
PAJA Y CIELO 139 
 
 belching motor-cars fly past carrying their 
 goggled freights. 
 
 It was the home of deer and ostriches, and 
 of wild horses, dappled and pied, slate-coloured, 
 roan, blood-bay, sorrel and dun, spotted like 
 pudding-stone, calico, paint, buckskin, clay- 
 bank, cream, and some the colour that the 
 Arabs call Stones of the River, they all were 
 there, tossing their manes and whinnying for 
 joy, leading their lives in that great grassy 
 space, where there was nothing to be seen but 
 grass and sky. 
 
 Nothing but deer and ostriches were there, 
 with swiftly whirling teru-teros, the mining 
 tuco-tucos, and the mysterious mataco, the 
 quiriquincho, the Patagonian hare, chajas with 
 their great horny wings, flocks of flamingos, 
 and marching columns of the black-headed 
 Patagonian swans, with the wind ever rustling 
 in the grass, sounding the dirge of the fair 
 Eden so soon to be defiled. Wind waved the 
 surges of the grass, lifting the loose hair on 
 the necks of animals, and on the sandhills 
 bending the plants, and making them draw 
 patterns on the sand, just as in colder countries 
 they trace figures in the snow. 
 
 Something there was about the Pampa, 
 
I40 PAJA Y CIELO 
 
 almost unearthly, so natural it was that in a 
 world where all is artificial, and man appears 
 a giant, controlling everything, it seemed im- 
 possible he should be relegated back to his 
 position as but one of the many animals, with 
 but a little more intelligence than theirs. 
 
 A grassy sea, in which the landmarks were 
 the stars, so that a man rode straighter in the 
 night than in full noontide, if he had lost his 
 way. A green illimitable sea, in which the 
 horse was ship ; a desert without camels, but 
 as terrible to wander in as is the Sahara, in 
 which the horseman who had lost his trail was 
 swallowed up and never heard of, except some 
 traveller chanced to find his skull, just sticking 
 out of a dark tuft of grass, which had grown 
 rank and vigorous, as his decaying flesh laid 
 bare the bones. 
 
 This Pampa, that now seems to be a dream, 
 so far away it is, and so defiled by pestilential 
 and beneficent progress, was above all an 
 insects' paradise. 
 
 All day the hum of unseen winged things 
 hung in the air, just as if millions of Eolian 
 harps had been set everywhere — perhaps they 
 were — and the long filaments that used to 
 stretch from grass to grass, in a north wind, 
 
PAJA Y CIELO 141 
 
 may have been good conductors of their song. 
 All kinds of flies buzzed, hummed, and whirred, 
 and made themselves a nuisance or a pleasure, 
 just as you looked at them. Grasshoppers sprang 
 into the air, just as a salmon springs up in a 
 weir, and settled down again into the grass, 
 in the same way the fish slips back into the 
 water after leaping — even the splash was 
 paralleled by the stirring of the grass the insect 
 made and the sharp breaking noise his wings 
 caused in the stems. Crickets sang ceaselessly, 
 seeming to be just at your horse's feet, but if 
 you stopped and looked for them chirruped 
 again behind you, making a sort of will-o'-the- 
 wisp of sound. Locusts in myriads used to 
 pass, high up, in search of cultivated land 
 making a noise as of an army in the air, dark- 
 ening the sky, and followed by a multitude 
 of birds, hanging upon their ranks. 
 
 The dwellers on the plains put all the tribe 
 together under the name of " bichos," and only 
 thought of them as dangerous to crops, or dis- 
 agreeable to the skin, although no doubt they 
 would have missed them vaguely had they 
 disappeared, just as a man bred in the country, 
 though born without imagination, still misses 
 something in a town, that he can not describe. 
 
142 PAJA Y CIELO 
 
 Birds, from the ostrich, which the old 
 Quichuas called the " Desert's Mirth," down 
 to the little black and white **viudita," swarmed 
 in their millions. Vultures and crows hung 
 almost out of sight like specks, and yet, when 
 a tired animal was left to die, appeared as if 
 by magic and waited, just as an heir waits with 
 resigned impatience for a rich uncle's death. 
 Along the streams the pink flamingos fished, 
 or rising in the sun looked like a flock 
 which had strayed out of some old picture, 
 lovely and yet unnatural to eyes accustomed to 
 see birds, all grey or brown, flying through 
 air as thick as blotting-paper. 
 
 All these were of the nature of exterior 
 graces, but the interior vision of the Pampas 
 as revealed to one who writes of it, as of some 
 personal friend, lost, but still recollected vividly, 
 always lamented, and to be called again to 
 memory by an effort of the will, was something 
 that enflamed the heart with joy. Mountains 
 and woods, snows, sands, and the illimitable 
 vision of the sea, all have their moments when 
 they seem to smile. Green woods in spring, 
 mountains at sunrise, the deceitful sea when on 
 the beach of some fair island it ripples in, as 
 innocently as if it never drowned a mariner, or 
 
PAJA Y CIELO 143 
 
 beat a ship to matchwood in its destroying 
 surge ; even the desert sands, for the brief 
 season when the camel-thorn turns green, or 
 when the setting sun flushes the sand-hills, all 
 seem to smile. The keynote of them all is 
 sadness, sadness and melancholy, which spreads 
 a sense of cloud over the heart — tio^hteninor 
 its strings and turning back the soul upon 
 itself. 
 
 In the wide ocean of the Pampa, where 
 the waves seemed to roll without advancinor 
 or receding, tideless but for the ebb and 
 flow of winter and of summer, all was joy. 
 Even a storm obscured its smile but for a 
 moment, and the wise saying that joy cometh 
 in the morning — almost incomprehensible in 
 other countries w^here each day brings care — 
 might have been written by a Gaucho prophet, 
 or a philosophising Manzanero chief, or skin- 
 clad Patagonian seer, with the strange emblems 
 that they used to paint upon their guillapices of 
 guanaco skin. Perhaps the being near to 
 nature made all lightsome, for looking down 
 below the surface, all was as horrible as it is 
 elsewhere, man preying on the animals, they 
 on each other, Indian on Gaucho, and in the 
 then small, isolated towns the conquering 
 
144 PAJA Y CIELO 
 
 European was just setting out on his career to 
 enslave them all and make them miserable. 
 
 That it was near to nature was seen at once, 
 both by man's attitude to man, and to the 
 animals. So ruthless was he in his dealings 
 with them that he was scarcely cruel, that is 
 unless a tiger be so when he strikes down an 
 ox. Life was so joyous that it was taken with- 
 out thought and rendered up without a tear ; 
 and when the taker, having wiped his knife 
 upon a tuft of grass, sat down to smoke a 
 cigarette, certain it is no qualm of conscience 
 troubled him, more than it does a wolf. The 
 little air that comes at sunset ruffled his hair as 
 he pushed back his hat, and stirred the poncho 
 of his victim lying huddled on the ground, and 
 it may be he muttered, if indeed he thought 
 at all about the matter, '' pobrecito," as if he 
 felt he had accomplished both their destinies, 
 almost against his will. 
 
 In the thick months fringing the river banks 
 an air as of a temple in which to worship 
 nature stole on you as you entered them on 
 horseback, following strayed animals, whilst 
 birds in their degree seemed to sing greetings 
 as they sat about, too unaccustomed to man's 
 presence even to move away. The ceaseless 
 
PAJA Y CIELO 145 
 
 wind which either howled or rustled on the 
 plains was broken, and animals were fatter and 
 less wild than those outside the woods. They 
 moved amongst the trees, just as they must 
 have done in the dim Naboth^an Entre Rios 
 where they all took their birth. The parrots 
 chattered joyously, the monkeys howled, myriads 
 of frogs raised their metallic note, and sitting 
 sideways on your horse, rolling a black Brazilian 
 cigarette, you saw at once that it was love of 
 nature, not want of faith, that made the Israel- 
 ites propose to rear two tabernacles for their 
 own wandering chiefs. 
 
 Deeper within the monte flowed some stream, 
 set thick with camalotd, as thick as is a piece 
 of cloisonne enamel, with the same coloured 
 flowers. Beneath them ran the water, and to 
 cross you cut down branches, the horses tread- 
 ing gingerly along, their riders shouting when 
 they gained the bank, out of the joy of life, and 
 being answered back antiphonally by the sage 
 cormorants seated upon the trees. 
 
 Over the plain and mont^ the same air of 
 natural joy hung equally, making the darkest 
 woods seem bright, and the wide Pampa 
 brighter still, to the interior vision of the man 
 attuned to them and their primaeval air. Rail- 
 
146 PAJA Y CIELO 
 
 ways may cut the one into vast chess-boards, 
 on which the pawns are human Hves, and in the 
 darksome glades of the thick woods of espinillo 
 and of nandubay, sawing-machines, fed by pale, 
 sweating men, may whirr and clatter, giving a 
 foretaste of a hell compounded of the simples 
 we ourselves have deified ; but the bright re- 
 collections of the days of ostriches and deer will 
 still remain and become legendary. Perhaps at 
 daylight, or better, just at the false dawn, when 
 the white mist enshrouds the pajondles making 
 the ghostly heads of paja brava loom gigantic, 
 all may be blotted out and purified, and the 
 vast sea of grass and sky take for a moment its 
 old aspect of a great inland ocean on which 
 the ostriches appear just as a nautilus looks, 
 blown by the north-east Trades. 
 
 That is the way in which I see it. . . . Adios 
 Pampa ... or perhaps, until so long. 
 
-LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 
 
 The line ran close beside the MInho, which 
 foamed and brawled in the deep channel it 
 had cut between the hills. Along the banks 
 thickets of oleanders grew, mixed here and 
 there with tamarisks. Clouds of white mist, 
 raised by the sun after a touch of frost, hung 
 over everything, shrouding the chestnut forests, 
 half-way up the trees, leaving their tops, as it 
 were, detached and floating in the air. 
 
 It lingered in the stacks of maize, making 
 them look like bee-hives. About the curious 
 little hutches of rough stone, in which the 
 peasants in Galicia store their Indian corn, it 
 clung, leaving their squat stone crosses, sus- 
 pended in the air without a base, as if, by a 
 perpetual miracle, they were sustained, through 
 some mysterious power. Then, the sun rose 
 in all its glory, and as the train slowly crawled 
 past, jangling and creaking like a bullock-cart, 
 all the old agricultural life, such as that which 
 Theocritus or Columella have described, was 
 
 147 
 
148 ''LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 
 
 plain in all the beauty of its old-world simple- 
 ness and charm. Impassive men stood herding 
 sheep, leaning upon their sticks. 
 
 Girls held sleek, coffee-coloured cows by a 
 long rope to graze, and twirled their distaffs, 
 as they watched them eat. Women washed 
 clothes, at great stone tanks fed by a rill that 
 issued from the rocks, conducted in a cane, and 
 overarched with vines. 
 
 As they knelt in a row, dressed in bright red 
 and yellow petticoats, with scarlet handkerchiefs 
 upon their heads, their wooden shoes appearing 
 like canoes behind their tucked-up skirts, they 
 sang, a natural, harsh, wild song that penetrated 
 to the marrow of the bones. Sometimes from 
 other working places or from fields, other high 
 voices answered them, and so a dialogue went 
 on, just as it passes between birds unseen in a 
 deep wood, all in a minor key. Primitive 
 bullock-waggons, with solid wheels, and sides 
 of wicker-work, like those on Roman coins, 
 slowly crawled on the roads. The gentle oxen, 
 swaying to and fro, just as a man walks, 
 wrapped in a Spanish cloak, appeared to fabulate 
 as they turned towards each other, when the 
 driver touched them with his goad, or called 
 them by their names, exhorting them to be 
 
*'LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 149 
 
 themselves and pull. The wheels creaked with 
 a jarring sound, and seemed to sing as if a 
 swarm of bees had been imprisoned in the axle, 
 making a noise which, as the peasants say, both 
 stimulates the beasts and frightens wolves, and 
 is agreeable to those who do not care for pro 
 gress and modernity, or the sharp whiz of 
 steam. 
 
 Under the brown-tiled eaves long rows of 
 maize-cobs ripened in the sun, and on the 
 bushes here and there red and blue rags, and 
 petticoats were hung to dry, and stood out 
 blotchily, like colours on a painter's palette, 
 against the grass, and the metallic-looking scrub 
 of arbutus. 
 
 In the minute and old-world gardens grew 
 patches of cabbages, upon high stalks, like that 
 which the old-fashioned Scotch knew as " Ion or 
 kale," and by the steps which led up to the 
 houses plants of red salvia, and underneath the 
 pollard oak trees, the autumn crocus spotted 
 the grass like stars. Up many of the hills 
 terraces of vines, all turning red and purple, 
 mounted in tiers, and through the gorges now 
 and then a distant bagpipe wailed like a soul 
 in pain. 
 
 As the train wriggled like a snake through 
 
ISO '^LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 
 
 tunnels, the engine taking the short curves just 
 as a bicyclist wheels in and out of heavy traffic 
 in a street, creeping along the tdge of precipices, 
 and then emerging once again through woods 
 into the cultivated fields, it passed a village, 
 and drew up at a little station, near the river's 
 bank. A crowd blocked all the place, and on the 
 house-tops men stood watching for the train ; 
 boys seated in the trees looked down upon the 
 scene; and as the porter, in a nasal voice, called 
 **Los Peares, un Minuto," it was at once ap- 
 parent that the cry was quite illusory, for piles of 
 boxes, bags, and bedding crowded the platform, 
 whilst the perspiring stationmaster struggled 
 in vain to make a passage to the line. The 
 crowd surged to and fro, and to the questions 
 of the passengers, women in tears, and boys 
 excited by the crush and noise, replied that the 
 whole hamlet known as Val de Cabras was 
 going to Buenos Ayres, taking their priest with 
 them, to found another Val de Cabras, out on 
 the southern plains. As always happens in a 
 country such as Spain, where time is of no 
 value, the people rushed about as if the Day 
 of Judgment were at hand. The station- 
 master, who, if no one had been in the train, 
 would have allowed it minutes beyond its time, 
 
"LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 151 
 
 was sweating blood and water to get everyone 
 on board. Old women hugged their sons, and 
 men stood stifling down their tears, their 
 patched and parti-coloured clothes looking in 
 keeping with the scene. Girls raised an almost 
 Arab wail, and In the midst of the confusion 
 stood the priest, a stalwart, red-cheeked coun- 
 tryman, surrounded by a group of people, who 
 held him, some by his hands, some by the 
 lappels of his coat, and all pressed round him 
 as a swarming hive presses about its queen, 
 conscious he was the centre of their little world, 
 wrenched up from Its foundations, and so soon 
 to be absorbed In the mysterious continent 
 beyond the seas, which either swallows up 
 their fellows, just as a fish sucks down a fly, 
 or else returns them, rich and unrecognisable, 
 at the end of years. The people struggled 
 round the priest, those who had elected to 
 remain behind, kissing his clothes, the men 
 grasping his hands in theirs — hard, horny, and 
 deformed by toil — and asking to be blessed. 
 Now and again he turned towards the gate, 
 behind which stood a row of donkeys and of 
 mules, tied up to posts, with coloured blankets 
 on their saddles, and their heads nodding in 
 the sun. Women, with coloured flannel petti- 
 
152 ''LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 
 
 coats, red, green, and yellow, like a bed of 
 tulips, clattered across the platform In their 
 wooden clogs, and boys raised the shrill cry 
 they use In Portugal and in Gallcia when 
 excited, which sounds like a horse neighing, 
 and from the crowd of hot, perspiring men and 
 women there came a smell as of wild animals, 
 mixed with the scent of bundles of salt fish, 
 which almost all of them bore in their hands. 
 Some dragged great parcels wrapped in striped 
 blankets tied with innumerable knots, and others 
 carried on their shoulders the little ark-shaped 
 trunks, covered with cowskin with the hair on, 
 that look as if they had been made upon the 
 pattern of a mediaeval coffin, which, on a plat- 
 form, seem as if they mourned the bullock- 
 waggon where they had passed their lives. 
 
 Hard, knotted hands reached out and grasped, 
 for the last time, others as hard and toil-stained, 
 which were thrust towards them through the 
 palings, and men clasped one another with their 
 heads looking over each other's shoulders, just 
 as the patriarchs of Scripture embraced and wept 
 upon each others' breasts, and quite as naturally. 
 A universal sob shook the whole crowd, which 
 billowed to and fro, like water agitated in a 
 tank, resisting all the efforts of the station- 
 
''LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 153 
 
 master to get the train away at its appointed 
 time. 
 
 At last, when all the bundles and the trunks, 
 the water-bottles, and the poor household trea- 
 sures, which the departing villagers, driven from 
 their idyllic old-world life by weighing-down 
 taxation, w^ere taking with them, to wring and 
 salve their hearts in the New World, were put 
 on board, the priest was left alone, holding a 
 bulky umbrella in his hand. The porter clanged 
 upon the bell, the futile horn, which hangs 
 upon a nail in Spanish stations, tooted feebly, 
 and deep down below, the Minho dashing 
 through the rocks, roared a farewell to those 
 who, in the future, would, from the rivers they 
 would know, hear nothing but an oily gurgle, 
 and the occasional hollow sound of the alluvial 
 soil as it fell down into the deep and muddy 
 stream, that undermined the banks. 
 
 The emigrants all climbed into the train, and 
 from the crowd assembled rose a cry, " The 
 blessing, father ; bless us once more before you 
 go " ; but he, standing with one foot on the step, 
 still looked towards the palings, when through 
 the crowd a breathless boy came elbowing 
 his way, and dragging by a string a white 
 and liver-coloured pointer, which, when it saw 
 
154 "LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!;' 
 
 the priest, rushed forward, and fawned upon 
 his knees. 
 
 Handing his umbrella to a woman in the 
 train, he drew his left hand hurriedly across his 
 face, leaving a snuffy mark, where it had met 
 the tear, and then, patting the dog upon his 
 head, murmured, ''Adios, Navarro," and with 
 an effort and a gulp, steadily gave his blessing, 
 as the companion of his rambles w^hined and 
 strained upon the rope. 
 
 Rough, friendly hands stretched out and 
 drew the priest into the train, wdiich, after 
 jolting heavily, began to wind about through 
 the deep cuttings in the rocks, emerging now 
 and then close to the road, on which stood 
 groups of people, waving and shouting their 
 farewells. Just as it passed the last house 
 of the village, running close to the road, an 
 olive-coloured man upon a mule, stood in his 
 stirrups, and with uplifted hand made a cross 
 in the air, as the train, gathering way, slipped 
 past and, entering a tunnel, was swallowed up 
 and lost to those who, standing on the plat- 
 form, stood waving handkerchiefs, and gazed 
 with yearning eyes at the last carriages as they 
 vanished from their sio^ht. Then it emero^ed 
 again into the sun, and a girl washing by a 
 
"LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 155 
 
 stream, her donkey tied beside her, putting 
 one arm across its neck, waved a red dripping 
 petticoat, and the train, puffing and snorting, 
 resolutely set its face towards that Buenos 
 Ayres which was to make and mar its freight. 
 
 It bore them westward towards a land bare 
 of traditions, of vegetation, of everything that 
 hitherto had made their lives ; a land in which 
 their children would be educated men, not 
 knowing good from evil, as their fathers 
 in a rudimentary way had dimly compre- 
 hended them, where they would eat their fill 
 and lose their individuality, becoming uncom- 
 prehending instruments of the greatness of 
 a vast empire, and from whence they would 
 
 reofard Galicia with a mixed feelino- of con- 
 es o 
 
 tempt and pity, after the fashion of self- 
 educated men. 
 
 At every puff the wheezing engine made, 
 it took the emigrants further away from their 
 old, hungry, but Idyllic life ; further away from 
 bee-hives, made from the section of a cork 
 tree, and laid in rows amongst the lavender 
 and thyme ; further away from the sleek, 
 mild-eyed oxen, and from the ''romeria," 
 where they had danced " muifielras " to the 
 sound of " gaita " and of pipe. 
 
156 ''LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 
 
 No more the ploughman In the deserted Val 
 de Cabras would return home at night, carry- 
 ing his plough, after the fashion of the plough- 
 men of whom the Georglcs treat, or girls at 
 evening time gather round the steps of the 
 stone fountains and gossip as their hooped 
 wooden buckets automatically were filled 
 through long tin pipes, fitted upon the iron 
 nozzle, where the water flowed. Lovers would 
 no more linger in the oak woods of an evening, 
 and tell the tale that never wearies those who 
 tell or listen to It, whether amongst the clstus- 
 carpeted "robledos" of Gallcia, or In the 
 alleys of a town. Each jolt and jerk upon the 
 coupling chain, and each white bellowing burst 
 of steam, left the deserted village more deserted, 
 more given over to the decay that soon would 
 settle on it, when in the winter nights the snow 
 would lodge unheeded on the roofs, and the 
 wolves scamper through the streets. 
 
 As it went twisting on the track, winding and 
 wheeling through the tunnels, and emerging 
 now and then into the sunshine, the people, 
 sitting hunched amongst their bundles, broke 
 into a high-pitched song, which floated in the 
 balmy, pine-scented air, and was taken up 
 from one end to the other of the train. Cistus 
 
'^LOS PEARES, UN MINUTO!" 157 
 
 and lavender, thyme, burnet, and wild mar- 
 joram, germander, and the dead leaves of oak 
 and chestnut, gave out their aromatic scent, 
 and floating in the sun, white butterflies were 
 borne across the Minho, skimming the streams, 
 and soaring steadily across the linns. 
 
 Nature had put on all her charms, to make 
 the parting bitter, and to fix more firmly an 
 eternal, sad recollection in their minds, of their 
 lost homes. Nothing was left of the departing 
 village, but the name, and a few elders, who 
 had remained behind to hunger and neglect ; 
 and in some other village, perhaps, Navarro, 
 left to the care of some strange priest, sor- 
 rowed and wondered, for the great Power that 
 chastens whom He cares for, extends a hand 
 even upon the dogs of those He blesses with 
 His love. 
 
TRANSFIGURED 
 
 The winter sun, after a day of glory, was sink- 
 ing gradually, though there was still an hour 
 or two of light. The glare had blotted out 
 the walls and fences ; the relics of an older, 
 pleasanter, more human civilisation rose like 
 islands springing from a sea of burnt dry grass. 
 Towers, castles, aqueducts, tombs, and piles of 
 masonry, now shapeless, but which once had 
 been well known to the inhabitants of Rome, 
 who no doubt hailed them with joy on their 
 return from foreign countries, just as we hail 
 the gasworks by the bridge at Battersea, the 
 Lambeth shot tower, and the church in Lang- 
 ham Place, stood up on every side. They 
 stood like finger-posts upon the road of history 
 to guide us backwards to an age of cruelty 
 and of oppression, in some respects just like 
 our own, but differing from it by the possession 
 of the sense of beauty, and by the lack of 
 cant, that fourth dimension of our state. The 
 
 heat had raised a haze, which had turned every- 
 
 158 
 
TRANSFIGURED 159 
 
 thing to gold. The decaying piles of bricks, 
 and the long lines of ruined aqueducts, the 
 distant city, with the cross upon S. Peter's 
 seeming to hang against the sky, as when it 
 first was seen by Constantine, had lost their 
 air of ruin and dejection, and appeared glori- 
 fied, as if they waited for the triumph of some 
 emperor, who should deliver man. The gold 
 had tinged the snow upon the Sabine hills, 
 turning them back again into volcanoes, with 
 streams of molten lava running down their 
 flanks. The towns perched on the rocky hills 
 were glorified and shone refulgent, each look- 
 ing like a little Athens, as it must have looked 
 to Pericles, their churches each one turned to 
 an Acropolis. The sleek cream-coloured oxen 
 stood and chewed the cud, their limpid eyes 
 looking- like coal-tar heated and allowed to 
 cool till it acquires a jetty and transparent 
 glaze. They stood, conscious of their nobility, 
 direct descendants from the time when Rome 
 was noble and the centre of the world. The 
 Gracchi must have loved their ancestors, 
 tended and ploughed with them. Where shep- 
 herds dressed in brown herded their sheep, 
 their great white dogs beside them, there rose 
 an acrid scent, which took you back to a remote 
 
i6o TRANSFIGURED 
 
 and tiny Rome, in which the flocks were folded 
 every night. 
 
 At times a peasant on his rough black pony, 
 holding an ox-goad balanced across the saddle 
 like a lance, jogged past, wrapped in a tattered 
 cloak. In the deserted Via Appia, once thronged 
 with busy folk coming towards that Rome to 
 which led every road, and now an avenue 
 which somewhere must come out upon the 
 Styx or on the banks of Periphlegethon, no one 
 seemed to stir. The tourists had gone home, 
 and the clear air no more resounded to the 
 voices of the citizens of the great republic 
 which no doubt one day will proclaim Rome 
 and its Agro a territory, pending the time 
 when it may qualify to be a State. The living- 
 seemed to be effaced and to have given place, 
 as in fact they always must, to those who had 
 become the real owners of the soil by mingling 
 with it after death. Those who had paved 
 the Appian Way, and built the tombs which 
 fringe it, and who had ruled the world as 
 confidently as does the Anglo-Saxon race to- 
 day, appeared to smile derisively when from the 
 neighbouring high road the hooter of a motor- 
 car smothered the bleating of the sheep. They 
 ruled so confidently that they could not have 
 
TRANSFIGURED i6i 
 
 seen the figure of a man advancing slowly by 
 a road at a riofht anorle to the great thorough- 
 fare which led from Rome to Brindisi In the 
 days when Horace ambled out upon his mule. 
 He tramped along slowly and doggedly, carry- 
 ing a short, bright hedge-knife, with which 
 he had been working, In his hand. Bent, dirty, 
 and with the air of resignation that a hard life 
 often Imparts, he trudged along the road, just 
 as he must have trudged through life, without 
 complaint, and yet resentful as Is an over- 
 driven ox. The sun had burned his hair a 
 rusty brown, his flesh a livid colour, and on 
 his hands orreat freckles like the blotchlnofs on 
 a trout, showed he had once been fair, that 
 is for an Italian, although his face was almost 
 hidden In a week's growth of beard. A black 
 tight-fitting jersey, stamped with half-moons in 
 white, discoloured underneath the arms with 
 sweat, and darned in places with a light- 
 coloured thread, did duty for a shirt. It left 
 his neck, scraggy and wTlnkled as a vulture's, 
 bare, and round It was a faded red silk hand- 
 kerchief tied in a sailor's knot. A thick mous- 
 tache covered his mouth, which when he spoke 
 revealed his teeth, all stained and broken, look- 
 ing like those of an old horse, yellow and long 
 
 M 
 
i62 TRANSFIGURED 
 
 with age. Across his shoulders, dangling like 
 a cloak he wore his jacket, made of a brown 
 and shoddy-looking cloth, such as you see at 
 a ship-chandlers in a little foreign port. A 
 broad and greasy leather belt kept up his 
 trousers, which time and wear had made as 
 shiny as a piece of oil-cloth, rubbing the pattern 
 out and laying bare the woof. His black felt 
 hat was tilted at an angle, covering a hole, 
 gaping and ugly, where his left eye had been, 
 which seemed to have been taken out by an 
 unskilful surgeon, who had gashed and scarred 
 the cheek. Patience had given to his face an 
 air of dignity, as of a Samson, blinded and in 
 chains, peering about sightless and puzzled in 
 the darkness of his life, and wondering why 
 men laughed. He stopped to pass the time 
 of day and make a cigarette, moistening the 
 paper with a tongue as dry as a macaw's, and 
 after lighting it, with a match rolled up in a 
 bit of newspaper, drifted quite naturally into 
 the story of his life. He told it fluently, with 
 a good choice of words, but in a perfunctory 
 way, neither commenting or extenuating any- 
 thing, and yet when he began, something within 
 him made him keep on and finish it, not that 
 he knew it was a scripture, written for any- 
 
TRANSFIGURED 163 
 
 body's learning, but in the same way a volcano 
 belches forth its flames, from its interior fires. 
 
 '* Two francs a day, at forty-eight, for ten 
 hours' work, and an hour to walk each way. 
 Of course, the two hours should be paid for as 
 I do not walk them for amusement, but what's 
 the good of talking ? Turn redeemer and you 
 are crucified. Look at my hands at forty- 
 eight, after a life of work. . . ." 
 
 He held them out. They certainly had been 
 well crucified, and looked like roots of trees, 
 but dirtier, gnarled, knotted, and not inviting 
 to the eye. A finger, too, was missing from 
 the left hand, leaving a stump, just like a 
 candle-end. 
 
 He smiled, not the least bitterly, but as a 
 man may smile in a picture gallery at an un- 
 pleasant martyrdom by Ribalta, Ribera, or 
 other painters of the Valencian school, to show 
 that he is human, and that the sight of suffer- 
 ing does not disgust, when it is masked by art. 
 Spitting, in a philosophic way, not at the 
 world, but merely on the ground, he broke 
 again into his monologue, almost against his 
 will, just as the prophets sometimes seemed to 
 speak, in the Old Testament. '' I ought, per- 
 haps," he said, " to have gone to the Argentine 
 
i64 TRANSFIGURED 
 
 Republic when I was young. A man can have 
 a horse there — stand upright on his feet, and 
 does not need to go about, as he does here in 
 Italy, with his hat always in his hand. 
 
 " Besides, it was the land of Garibaldi in his 
 youth — there he learned to be free. Now what 
 is the use of talking ? I am too old, and an 
 old doe loves the house that he knows, even if 
 he is beaten in it. My age too, and my finger 
 make it impossible. They would not let me 
 sail. Instead of that, when I was young I 
 went up the Levant, first to Greece, which I 
 liked well enough, for the wages on the Corinth 
 railway were good, the wine sound, cheap, and 
 would be better, if they had not a cursed way 
 of filling it with pitch. What can you expect, 
 though, from a people who cross themselves 
 like Turks, from right to left, when all the 
 other Christians make the sign from left to 
 right? Not that I often make it, or ever, ex- 
 cept perhaps at night on a dark road, or when 
 a master looks. 
 
 *' In Greece I married. She was an Italian 
 girl, not a bad housewife, and tidy — religious 
 also ; a little of it is good for women, just as a 
 little wine is good for men. Well, that lasted 
 only a year or two. When I got back from 
 
TRANSFIGURED 165 
 
 Corinth she was dead, and all my savings 
 stolen. 
 
 "After that, Greece was black to me ; I left 
 my little boy with Sisters and off to Candia, 
 an island of the Greeks, belonging also to the 
 Turks, but under international control, why I 
 don't know. There I worked for a year or two, 
 I can't quite remember ; but I do remember 
 that I lost my finger there, working with a 
 steam crane at Larnaca. There was no com- 
 pensation to be got, as the man I worked for 
 was a consul, and I had no passport, so when 
 I wanted to appeal . . . pay and appeal, 
 eh ? . . . he threatened to send me home to 
 Italy. Repatriation was what he called it, but 
 it is all the same, when a poor man has to do 
 with rich men, especially if they are consuls or 
 the like. Justice, but not in my house, as the 
 proverb says. After that I took a passage in 
 a pilgrim ship to Alexandria. She was packed 
 as full of infidels as a basket is with fish. I 
 hadn't anything to steal, so I was not robbed ; 
 not that the infidels are any worse than we are 
 in that respect. 
 
 *' Alexandria I found a place in which a man 
 could live. Hot, but not too hot, except now 
 and then, and wages good, upon the railway, 
 
i66 TRANSFIGURED 
 
 until I lost my job : good sterling English 
 money too, gold without fluctuation ; there I 
 saved seven pounds, all in the little sovereigns, 
 two of which make one. 
 
 ** So now I got my little boy across from 
 Athens, for I had no wish he should become 
 a clerical, and found a first-rate job, to clean 
 the city sewers, four francs a day — that is 
 chellini, better than francs, they are. 
 
 ''A dirty job? Yes, but four chellini! 
 sheelins, eh, you call them. A cursed illness 
 overtook me — not fever, but another kind of 
 bad air — and all my seven pounds soon van- 
 ished. Again I got no compensation. My 
 employer was a Jew ; but Jews and Christians 
 are alike in such things. Then I went to Bey- 
 rout, paying my passage, and worked at making 
 railroads as before in Greece, with hundreds 
 of Italians, for we Italians are the beasts of 
 burden of the world. From there I tramped 
 on to Damascus. Frightened ? No, not the 
 least ; Christian and heathen poor are kind 
 enough to one another, and when a man has 
 nothing anyone can steal he is safe enough, 
 almost in any country. 
 
 *' Yes, they say Damascus is a pretty place, 
 but I saw nothing of It but the electric-light 
 
TRANSFIGURED 167 
 
 works and the hospital. 'Twas there I lost 
 my eye, owing to the sudden fusing of a 
 wire, that and because the doctor in the 
 hospital made a mistake and left a little piece 
 of iron in the wound. To save my other eye 
 I had to have the wounded one taken out, and 
 saw the stars, I can tell you, during and after 
 the affair. 
 
 " Then — this was two years ago — I got 
 repatriated as unfit to work by our consul at 
 Beyrout, and went to work again here in our 
 own Campagna at cutting firewood, making 
 drains, sheep-herding — anything a man of 
 forty-eight, with one eye, and with a finger 
 gone, is competent to do." 
 
 He stopped, and his cigarette having gone 
 out, he put the stump behind his ear for future 
 use, asked me the proper time, seeing that 
 I had come from Rome ; then, having stuck 
 the broad, curved hedge-knife in his belt, from 
 which it hung just like a legionary's sword, he 
 struck into a track which led up towards 
 Albano, for the recitation of his life had lasted 
 for three miles. 
 
 The sun was almost sinking, red and glori- 
 ous, and distant Rome appeared to rise from a 
 great ocean, just as Cadiz rises from the sea. 
 
i68 TRANSFIGURED 
 
 All was lit up and changed. The great sad 
 plains turned to a sheet of silver, the hills to 
 fire, the decaying relics of the past to palaces ; 
 and as the man, stopping a moment on the up- 
 land path to wave his hand, stood in the setting 
 sun's full glare, he was transfigured, and ap- 
 peared gigantic, outlined against the sky. 
 
 Then, as the gathering darkness seemed to 
 bring the clouds close to him, he grew taller 
 still, and as he vanished, seemed to be bearing 
 the weight of the whole world, like Atlas, on 
 his back. 
 
BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 
 
 The sky was full of larks, and over all the 
 
 great brown plain, just turning here and there 
 
 to green, an air of gladness hung. Nature and 
 
 Spring appeared to have awakened after their 
 
 winter's sleep, and to be starting out once 
 
 more, like maidens on their bridal morn, to 
 
 court the kisses of the sun. A smell of warmth 
 
 and growth gladdened the senses, and man 
 
 seemed once again to have entered into full 
 
 communion with the beasts, the flowers and 
 
 trees, just as he once had done in the fair 
 
 garden by the Chat-el-Arab, in which God by 
 
 His last creative act received that human 
 
 recognition which proclaimed Him God. Along 
 
 the muddy streams the canes were bursting 
 
 from their winter sheaths of brown. The 
 
 water spiders timidly began to venture out, 
 
 each one as bold a navigator into the unknown 
 
 as was Columbus, endued with faith as great as 
 
 his, and each one with his own magnetic needle, 
 
 planted by instinct in his microscopic brain. 
 
 169 
 
170 BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 
 
 Myriads of the minutest flies swarmed with 
 a gladsome hum about the edges of the 
 pools, in which the water now and then was 
 ringed by the round head of some exploring 
 tortoise, after its winter sleep. All animals 
 and insects seemed to have come into a glad 
 new world, inherited by right divine from 
 their remote and prehistoric ancestry, which in 
 primaeval times had long ago appeared as well 
 equipped for their existence as their descen- 
 dants of to-day, unlike mankind, that slowly 
 has ascended by degrees. The sun itself shone, 
 as it seemed with youth, refreshed by winter 
 and a season of long nights. Nature rejoiced 
 in its renewed exuberance, knowing exactly 
 what it had to do, taking no thought either 
 upon to-morrow or to-day. 
 
 Drops of green life congealed, hung at the 
 ends of twigs, that soon should be unfolded 
 into the glory of the leaves. Occasionally a 
 lizard darted from the crevice of a wall, looked 
 at the light a little timidly, and disappeared 
 again, just as a timid bather dips his toes into 
 the waves and runs back to the shore. 
 
 Calves frisked beside their mothers, and 
 Iambs skipped up and down, arching their 
 backs like a wild horse first saddled, whilst 
 
BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 171 
 
 lazy shepherd dogs lay basking, one eye upon 
 the sheep and one upon the flies which buzzed 
 close to their noses, as if the sense of danger 
 gave a zest to play. 
 
 Even the peasants on the plain, yellow and 
 ague-racked, and bound, almost as fast as 
 trees, to the small district where they had been 
 born, seemed less downtrodden, and shepherds 
 minding sheep sang in a high falsetto voice 
 songs which all ended in a long-drawn note 
 struck on a minor key. 
 
 It was a day in which Pan and the nymphs, 
 the hamadryads, and the rest of the humane 
 and Pagan gods, whose worship still endures 
 under another name in Italy, might have come 
 forth like butterflies after their hibernation of 
 a thousand years, and found all the Campagna, 
 which they had once known covered with build- 
 ings, pulsating with life, still lovely in decay. 
 In the brown solitude they had once known 
 all peopled with their shrines, they might have 
 danced, after a tear or two, to find themselves 
 the sole survivors of their world, and sung, 
 just as a man when he comes back after the 
 lapse of years and finds his house deserted 
 and in ruins, first weeps to ease the aching of 
 the heart, then falls a-humming some old tune, 
 
172 BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 
 
 almost involuntarily, as things forgotten well 
 again into his mind. It seemed as if Death 
 had forgotten for a space his work, and as if 
 envy, hatred, poverty, suffering, and pain must 
 have been banished, or held over for a spell ; 
 as if all gold had disappeared, except in poetry 
 or on the domes of cities far away, just seen 
 at sunset, but unattainable as those sunk in 
 the sea, which now and then appear for a 
 brief season, just before a storm. A veritable 
 truce of God seemed to have been proclaimed, 
 including every living thing in its provisions, 
 and sealed and witnessed by the spring, God, 
 Nature, and the world. Soracte stood out, blue 
 and serrated to the east, rising sharp up from off 
 the plain just as an island rises from the sea. 
 
 The Alban Hills, Horace, had he returned 
 to life, would have known at a glance, with the 
 wild ridge, underneath which the Speculum 
 Dianae sleeps, blue and unruffled, hiding be- 
 neath its depths the golden galley which lies 
 rotting in the mud. All these he would have 
 known, and portions of the Via Sacra where 
 he used to walk, more by the inequalities of 
 ground than by the sight of anything he saw ; 
 but all the rest would have been as a dream, 
 horrible and unreal, except the plain itself, and 
 
BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 173 
 
 the unchanging life that shepherds Hve, like 
 that which he described. There seemed no 
 reason that the apparent truce should ever have 
 been broken judging by the eternal sense of 
 quiet, which hung in the air, only disturbed by 
 the metallic croakinor of the frogrs, the crickets' 
 note, or the rustle of the wings of dragon- 
 flies, which hovered round the flowers, as do 
 the humming-birds, on the Tijuca, or round the 
 oranofe trees run wild, in the deserted missions 
 of the Parana. 
 
 Sheep followed shepherds who walked in 
 front of them, piping, some upon rude wooden 
 pipes, such as their Etruscan ancestors had 
 used, and some on penny whistles made of tin, 
 but which they still attuned to old-world strains, 
 proving that even progress bows its head to 
 custom ; and oxen, feeding in the long lush- 
 grass, answered their names when called, by 
 lifting up their heads. 
 
 Had one but gone into the Bosco Sacro with 
 a modicum of faith, Egeria would have been 
 there waiting, just as she sat and looked for 
 Numa in the round clump of trees upon the 
 shoulder of the slope above the Via Appia 
 Nuova ; but faith has paled before belief, and 
 the nymph waits in vain. 
 
174 BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 
 
 Along the smooth -worn stones on which 
 the legionaries tramped to civilise and to en- 
 slave the world, those round flat stones that 
 once stretched right from Rome up to the 
 Grampians, a ceaseless stream of traffic still 
 poured on, as it has poured for nineteen hundred 
 years. Brown peasants driving sheep, and rich 
 Americans nursing their indigestion and their 
 spleen in motor-cars ; herders of buffaloes, on 
 black and shaggy ponies, such as the Volsci 
 rode ; tourists on bicycles and ladies riding to 
 the meet ; and all those nameless nomads who in 
 warm countries always seem on the move (true 
 gypsies, either by blood or grace), succeeded one 
 another, and each without the least connection 
 with his fellow, just as motes dance about, seen 
 in a sunbeam, on a hot summer's day. 
 
 The thick white dust hung in the air and 
 covered everything. It blotted out the rags 
 and chanofcd the summer fabrics that the 
 passing ladles wore into an indistinguishable 
 and neutral tint ; upon the coats of horses and 
 of mules it clung congealed in sweat, and from 
 its folds the passers-by emerged just as a 
 steamer slips out from the fog and looms 
 gigantic, abreast of FInlsterre, or at the mouth 
 of a slow river running like oil between the 
 
BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 175 
 
 mangrove swamps, through which it filters to 
 the sea. 
 
 A puff of wind cleared all the road, carrying 
 the dust like a white cloud across the plain. 
 The day wore on, and as the freshness died 
 away, an air of sadness, born of the sunshine, 
 which in hot countries seems as if it emanated 
 from a sun wearied by his daily task for 
 myriads of years, invaded everything. The 
 unseen larks sang shrilly in the sky, their note 
 just filtering to the ear ; the lizards basked as 
 if they had been glued down to the stones, 
 and on the margins of the streams the new- 
 born canes drooped in the scorching heat. The 
 passers-by upon the road became more rare, 
 then ceased, except for peasants who at long 
 intervals appeared, seated high in their carts 
 with nautilus-shaped canvas covering, a green 
 bough flapping in their horses' head-stalls to 
 keep away the flies. No songs were heard, 
 except the crickets', which as the day closed in 
 became intensified, sounding as shrill and as 
 perpetual as the electric bell which twitters as 
 a train stops at a southern station, in the full 
 noonday glare. 
 
 Slowly the heat abated, and a freshness stole 
 into the air, as the light breeze coming up from 
 
176 BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 
 
 the sea at Ostia gently stirred the leaves. 
 Along the edges of the road the peasant 
 women sat and drank It in, combing their chil- 
 dren's hair, and looking out across the plain, 
 just as a sailor sits on the fore-bitts, and looks 
 out on the sea, after a long spell at the wheel, 
 under a baking sun. 
 
 When the whole road was bare of traffic, 
 and the sadness of the night, taking the world 
 out into the unknown, was near, a troop of 
 oxen slowly came in sight. Gently they surged 
 along, with the same movement that a man 
 wrapped in a cloak assumes. Their limpid 
 eyes belied the promise of their monstrous 
 horns, and as they walked some of them 
 munched a little grass, which left a greenish 
 foam upon their lips. The noblest of their 
 race, descended from the times when men and 
 they had first combined to till the earth, their 
 sleek cream-coloured flanks heaved gently, and 
 it appeared as if they marched to victory, with 
 the blind faith in man that centuries of service 
 had encouraged them to hold. 
 
 Beside them frisked some calves, snow-white 
 and innocent, and with their budding horns 
 just showing black beneath the skin, as buds 
 upon an elm show black before the leaves un- 
 
BRUTTA PASSEGGIATA 177 
 
 fold. Behind them came the drovers on their 
 black ponies, each with his goad across the 
 saddlebow. Slowly they marched along, and 
 as they passed before the crossing where the 
 road breaks off towards the " Latin Tombs," 
 a woman sitting by the road looked on the 
 oxen and the young calves regretfully, and 
 muttering " brutta passegglata, vanno alia 
 morte," opened the gate to let the herd pass 
 through. 
 
 They passed along unconsciously, towards 
 the slaughter-house, and in a quarter of an 
 hour the sun set in a sea of blood, crimson and 
 violet, and breaking up like an Aurora Borealis 
 into strange shapes, which seemed to chase 
 each other through the sky, before they vanished 
 in the night. 
 
 N 
 
DUTCH SMITH 
 
 Painters all knew Dutch Smith and laughed 
 at him, for a kind-hearted, ineffective soul, 
 damned in the love of art. 
 
 His kindliness he had acquired from nature, 
 his nickname from his love of the Dutch 
 school. 
 
 Tall, gaunt, and with an air of having been 
 an officer of volunteers, he looked out on the 
 world through steel-grey eyes, which gazed 
 far off, yet seemed to see nothing particular, 
 in the horizon of their view. 
 
 Withal he had a subcutaneous humour, 
 
 which now and then welled to the epidermis 
 
 (just as the pitch suddenly bubbles in the lake 
 
 of Trinidad), but never overflowed. Bred as 
 
 a corn merchant, his attitude to art was that of 
 
 the traditional hen to ducklings. He loved, 
 
 but wondered at it, but still more wondered at 
 
 himself for his great daring in having left so 
 
 sure a calling to follow such an ignis fatuus, 
 
 as art. 
 
 178 
 
DUTCH SMITH 179 
 
 Thus It appeared that a continual debate 
 went on between the objective corn merchant 
 and the subjective painter, just as Maimonides 
 averred the dual personality of Moses held 
 converse with itself upon the mountain-top. 
 Having embraced the artist's state and faith, 
 he laboured at his self-imposed vocation with 
 a persistency which would have made him 
 great, that is, if greatness were attainable, 
 merely by work alone. 
 
 With honest pride he used to tell how much 
 his painting cost him every year : so much for 
 brushes, canvases, and paint, but leaving out 
 of all his calculations what he expended for 
 his personal wear and tear, for any thought of 
 self had never filtered to his mind. Each 
 spring he went to Haarlem to paint a subject 
 much painted by the school he loved, in which 
 a red-brick church with a tall spire sheathed 
 in corroded copper was the chief feature of 
 the scene. 
 
 Seating himself before it on his stool, his 
 paints and various accessories spread out before 
 him as if he had been offering them for sale, 
 most conscientiously he would reproduce each 
 brick and all the pointing, even the stork's nest 
 on the parapet, just where the spire sprung from 
 
i8o DUTCH SMITH 
 
 the tower, together with the clock, on whose 
 cracked face one hand did duty, so that you 
 had to make a complicated calculation to find 
 the time of day. 
 
 From year to year he migrated to Haarlem, 
 appearing in the spring, just as the stork which 
 built upon the tower came back from Africa at 
 his appointed time ; and with ten times more 
 regularity than the one hand set forth the 
 hour on the cracked dial of the clock. Had a 
 bombardment or an earthquake tumbled down 
 the church, it could have been built up again 
 from any of his works without an item missing 
 that the most long-lived burgher in the place 
 could not recall from childhood, and the right 
 tale of bricks. 
 
 His colouring was dirty and opaque, looking 
 as if his pictures had been dropped into the 
 mud, dried hastily, and varnished with a treacly 
 kind of stuff, to which the dirt adhered. 
 
 Serious towards his art and towards life in 
 general, and naturally a prey to anyone who 
 chose to cheat him, he yet was a still greater 
 prey to his good impulses, which pushed him 
 now and then to acts bordering on idiocy, that 
 is, if anyone can say where generosity and 
 folly, mingle and overlap. 
 
DUTCH SMITH i8i 
 
 Virtue in peril moved him to step out and 
 offer his assistance upon the smallest provoca- 
 tion, and no one ever came more readily to 
 lead blind men across the street, even although 
 to do so he was obliged to leave a timid lady 
 shivering upon a refuge in the rain. Children 
 who could not find their way, lost dogs, and 
 every kind of waif and stray came to him like 
 steel filings to a magnet and stuck as fixedly. 
 They used him, even to the dogs, who gener- 
 ally after a meal or two made off, leaving his 
 rooms like pigsties, and his heart bleeding at 
 their ingratitude, all to no purpose, for he no 
 sooner saw another cur without a master than 
 he repeated the experience, never remembering 
 that the man who gives his bread to a strange 
 dog loses the dog and bread. 
 
 But most of all those who were slighted or 
 neglected had his sympathy. His friends all 
 loved and laughed at him. Even the children 
 he led home, taking them by the way into the 
 pastry-cook's to buy them sweetmeats, looked 
 at him with contempt, for they discerned at 
 once he did not know the kind of chocolate 
 that was in fashion amongst their slobbering 
 compeers. Good humour in his case was of 
 the nature of a devouring passion, not of a 
 
i82 DUTCH SMITH 
 
 virtue, and almost tended to become a vice, so 
 much had he surrendered to its sway. Never 
 in all his life had he been known to dance with 
 a good-looking girl, for, as he stood crumpling 
 his gloves up in his hand into a ball and 
 making up his mind whom he should ask, some- 
 one was sure to bustle up to him and say, 
 " Dear Mr. Smith, not one of the Miss Browns 
 has had a partner ; do you think that you 
 would mind asking the eldest, and after that, 
 taking her mother down to supper ? " Then 
 he would stumble forward and be introduced to 
 some high-shouldered freckled damsel, who at 
 first sight despised him, but used him as a 
 makeshift till her own friends arrived, and then 
 passed him on to her mother, who kept him 
 busily employed fetching and carrying plates 
 about till she had had her fill. 
 
 Still, he was popular with all who knew him, 
 and not a fool, except upon the business of 
 the world, about which he was ignorant to an 
 incredible degree, though wise in theory, 
 talking sententiously about all kinds of things 
 which he had never seen but from afar. 
 Though he was so minute a draughtsman that 
 every edge of every brick he drew in Haarlem 
 church was sharp as if it had been turned 
 
DUTCH SMITH 183 
 
 out from the kiln but yesterday, he yet would 
 theorise as to the advisability of blending all 
 the picture in a harmonious whole. '* Nature," 
 he used to say, as if he had enunciated some 
 great unsuspected truth, ''abhors a line, hence 
 we impressionists " (for he believ^ed himself 
 a follower of Manet) "always endeavour to 
 present things in the mass." 
 
 He either never could have seen one of his 
 own paintings, that is, with the eye of observa- 
 tion, or else his retina was so constructed as to 
 present a different image to that of other men. 
 Women and wine he used to touch on with the 
 air of one who, though no Puritan, could never 
 see what led men to excess in either of them, 
 pronouncing them quite natural tastes, just as 
 he might have said a hoop is a fit toy for 
 children, or a mail-coach or motor-car for those 
 of riper years. 
 
 He might have gone on all his life succour- 
 ing the unmeritorious, painting the church at 
 Haarlem every spring, and moralising with a 
 half-foolish wisdom upon all things sublunary, 
 had it not been that he once made a trip to the 
 Levdnt. Having made friends with several of 
 the passengers on board the ship, they went 
 ashore to dine at a small Spanish port. 
 
i84 DUTCH SMITH 
 
 His friends, mostly young men and painters, 
 having dined badly at a Spanish Fonda, con- 
 suming dishes yellow with saffron, or fiery red 
 with cayenne pepper, a sort of culinary parody 
 upon the national flag, sat drinking what the 
 waiter called champan. Why, when the native 
 wines were good, they should have thought 
 it best to drink the essence of petroleum 
 at a pound a bottle is only known to youth- 
 ful travellers. Still it was so, and as they 
 drank their sweet and nauseous mixture, and 
 cursed the place for being so unlike either to 
 London or to Paris, they fell a-talking as to 
 what they could do to pass away the time. 
 There was no theatre, and gypsy dancing 
 does not usually appeal to Northerners, who 
 look for rapid motion in a dance, and miss 
 the lights of theatres, not being able to see 
 beauty in anything with a poor setting, after 
 the style of those who think that paste well 
 set, exceeds a diamond in a silver hoop. An 
 unfathomable gulf is fixed between the idealism 
 of the north and the materialistic vision of the 
 south, both of which qualities are best for those 
 who have them, as they are quite as unattain- 
 able by either, as is a cubit to the stature, 
 merely by taking thought. 
 
DUTCH SMITH 185 
 
 So, after a long stumbling conversation with 
 the waiter in bad Spanish, and many curses on 
 a place without amusements, they sallied forth, 
 led by a boy, to visit what they called "the 
 ladies," carrying Dutch Smith along with them. 
 He went half philosophically on the " humani 
 nihil alienum puto " system, and half protesting, 
 but still a little interested in spite of everything. 
 
 Their guide, accustomed to such errands, led 
 them by devious paths, up alleys where at the 
 corners lights burned before a virgin or a saint ; 
 past taverns where men played at cards, their 
 jackets thrown on their shoulders like a 
 cloak ; across a solitary plaza, one end of which 
 was filled up by a church, the space before it, 
 paved like a chessboard with blocks of marble, 
 which in the moonlight seemed to dance about 
 like waves. 
 
 With all he met he exchanged witticisms, 
 which luckily his followers did not understand, 
 pointing them with expressive pantomime quite 
 understandable of all. Then he plunged into 
 a dark silent street, and coming to a house 
 through the drawn wooden blinds of which 
 lights shone, stopped furtively before an iron 
 grated door. Twice he hissed sharply like a 
 snake, and ran his fingers up and down the iron 
 
i86 DUTCH SMITH 
 
 bars. The door was opened by a fat woman of 
 about forty years of age, her sleek black hair 
 shining with oil, white *'cascarilla " on her face, 
 and havino- as it were an air of an obscene 
 
 o 
 
 prioress or abbess clinging about her, coming 
 perhaps from the large bunch of keys she 
 carried in her hand. She bade them welcome 
 in a strange mixture of all languages, and 
 following her they trooped in single file up the 
 steep, badly lighted stair, leaving their guide 
 smoking an evil-smelling cigarette, which he 
 had taken from behind his ear and lighted from 
 a dog-eared match-box hidden between his 
 tattered trousers and his red greasy sash. As 
 they passed up the stairs, stumbling and 
 laughing, hearing the prioress call to her nuns 
 to come down to the drawing-room, Smith 
 reasoned with himself after the fashion of a man 
 over-persuaded, but who knows he is a fool. 
 He was quite sure, having been brought up as 
 a Puritan, that to enter such a house was 
 wrong, but then again, as a philosopher he felt 
 half pleased to show his fortitude and his 
 detachment from the things which rendered 
 others fools. 
 
 Lighting a cigarette, to give him counten- 
 ance, just as some ladies dare not for the world 
 
DUTCH SMITH 187 
 
 walk through a public promenade without a 
 parasol, he followed his companions, who were 
 waiting for the coming of the nymphs. The 
 place appeared to him not so repulsive as he 
 had thought it must have been. Over the red- 
 brick floor matting was spread, clean, white, 
 and with a picture of a Moor on horseback, 
 carrying a hawk, run through it in coloured 
 worsted work. Upon a black enamelled table 
 with a marble top there stood a vase of flowers, 
 and on the mantelpiece were waxwork fruits, 
 brought from Madeira, under a glass shade. The 
 clock, stopped at the hour of twelve, was French, 
 and represented a lady riding on a goat : perhaps 
 Europa, or perhaps merely a fantasy of art 
 drawn from its maker's brain. Blue glass spit- 
 toons stood here and there, and round the 
 room were sofas draped in brown holland, and 
 on the walls hung coloured prints of Garibaldi 
 entering Rome, Victor Emmanuel with a 
 moustache a fathom long, and one, faintly in 
 character with the genius of the place, dis- 
 played a German-looking Venus toying with 
 a fat, curly-headed youth who struggled in 
 her arms. Nothing in all of this could 
 shock a saint ; even the large and common 
 looking-glasses, draped in pink muslin to keep 
 
i88 DUTCH SMITH 
 
 away the flies, were not alarming, but for 
 the crazy way that they were fastened to the 
 wall. 
 
 A pattering of high heels and laughter on 
 the stairs showed that the girls were coming 
 down, and all the company, including Smith, 
 greeted them in bad Spanish as they stood 
 huddled in a heap, smiling, and pinching 
 one another furtively, before the open door. 
 Wrapped in their dressing-gowns, exhaling 
 common scents, and painted heavily, with flowers 
 in their hair, they filed into the room. Gravely 
 they answered the salutations they received, 
 and then sat down so quietly that it seemed to 
 their northern visitors that they were seated at 
 some evening party in some suburb, or that 
 the girls were quite respectable. None of them 
 asked for drink, and no one pushed herself 
 forward beyond the others, being restrained 
 by some invisible bond of etiquette, which 
 seemed to keep them passive until their 
 customers had chosen for themselves. 
 
 As conversation was impossible, and Esper- 
 anto, fortunately, had not then been invented, 
 rather shamefacedly the visitors made their 
 selection and trooped off up the stairs, the 
 Oriental-looking girls, with their large lustrous 
 
DUTCH SMITH 189 
 
 eyes, appearing still less civilised and still more 
 Oriental beside the tall and civilised barbarians, 
 so infinitely less human than themselves, who 
 followed in their train. When all had gone, 
 Dutch Smith sat talking to the prioress, who 
 " spik a leetle Inglis," and informed him that 
 she ''was call Anita Ramos, Inglis is calling 
 me fat Anne," and that she ''like the Inglis 
 ofentlemen who cominof to her house." 
 
 Smith, who had sat with the air as of a 
 member of Parliament at a committee, during 
 the process of the natural selection, now unbent 
 and found himself more interested. He learned 
 the lady was the daughter of a general in 
 Granada, and had received "regular education," 
 but circumstances and hard necessity, for " we 
 are all the slaves of destiny, my son," had 
 brought her to the pass of "keeping house 
 of how you call it . . . doves." All of the 
 doves were as hard-hearted as a millstone, 
 though she did everything she could to make 
 them comfortable, looking at them, not as 
 some women did, but just as if they were her 
 flesh, and she had borne them with much pain. 
 As for herself, time was, a colonel, now in glory 
 and, she hoped, pardoned for his sins, had 
 been the mainstay of her life. At times she 
 
I90 DUTCH SMITH 
 
 hoped that he might marry her, and often 
 prayed in church, for she was very Catholic, 
 that he would do so, but who shall fight with 
 death? Now she was old and ugly . . . ''the 
 Inglis gentleman was kind enough to say * No, 
 no,' but still it was so, and no one looked at 
 her. Old and a sinful woman, but God knew 
 her heart, and kindness touched her to the 
 soul." 
 
 This was the kind of thing to appeal to the 
 kind impulses and foolish sympathy of Smith, 
 and, how he never knew, for certainly lust of 
 the flesh was not a factor in the business, he let 
 himself be led out of the drawing-room by the 
 neglected fair. 
 
 The storks and swallows found him faithful 
 at the spring tryst in Haarlem, painting his 
 church industriously, and still the providence 
 of everyone who chose to play upon his feel- 
 ings ; still a philosopher, though, as he said, 
 even philosophy is not a certain guide, when 
 human nature chooses to step in. Except for 
 moralisings such as these, and now and then 
 reflections, more or less bitter, which escaped 
 him, on the female sex, the even tenor of his life 
 ran on as it had done for the last twenty years, 
 with the exception that he took a journey now 
 
DUTCH SMITH 191 
 
 and then to drink the highly smelling waters 
 of a German bath, from which he would 
 return, shamefaced and irritated, and swear- 
 ing that the malarial fever he had caught 
 in the Levant would plague him to the last 
 day of his life. Then sitting down to work, he 
 would proceed to daub his canvas with a 
 colour as opaque as glue, and paint for hours 
 just as a man throws coal into a cart, as if he 
 sought to expiate by work the slip from virtue 
 that he had made, as it were, inadvertently, and 
 which was costing him so dear. 
 
ANDORRA 
 
 Andorra yet survives and flourishes, one of 
 the last of the Innumerable small States that 
 once were set as thick upon the map of 
 Europe as stars in heaven on a clear winter's 
 night. 
 
 True, San Marino still crowns its rock, and 
 is well known to philatelists for Its postage 
 stamps, and illustrious In history for having 
 sheltered Garibaldi, the last of the heroic 
 figures of the past. 
 
 Montenegro falls into another category, for 
 It had strength enough to win Its independ- 
 ence by the force of arms. Some say that 
 Monaco still rears its head, but such a cloud 
 oi poudre de riz^ and such a stench oi patchouli, 
 o{ frangipane, of trejle and of white rose, iris 
 de Florence and of chypre, and of the sweat 
 of all the cocottes and the rastas of the whole 
 world, obscure It, that reasonable men have 
 doubted of Its continued permanence upon 
 the map. Andorra Is different from all the 
 
 rest In that she sells no stamps ; has not a 
 
 192 
 
ANDORRA 193 
 
 cocotte or a gambler in all her territory ; has 
 never known that such a thing as poudre de 
 riz ever existed ; never saved any patriot in 
 his extremity ; and all her battles were fought 
 in the dark ages against the Counts of Foix 
 and the no less intruding bishops of La 
 Seo de Urgel. Happy the country that has 
 no history, some unimaginative man has said 
 in some book or another. How rieht the 
 
 o 
 
 Arabs were to have begun so many of their 
 histories with the phrase, "Says someone." 
 
 Andorra, though, has had a history, as those 
 who take the trouble to read Froissart may 
 find out ; but who reads Froissart nowadays ? 
 Certainly she must have fought against the 
 above-named potentates to keep her independ- 
 ence ; but she has kept it, not by fighting but 
 by electing to live quietly, just as her fathers 
 lived a thousand years ago. 
 
 True, every citizen is bound to have a gun ; 
 but that seems to be all the duty, in a moral 
 military sense, he has, for no one ever saw him 
 with it, or still less heard him touch it off 
 "To touch it off" seems possibly the phrase to 
 use, as probably it is, in the most of cases, a 
 hereditary piece of ordnance. For all that and 
 in spite of lack of training, and simple as they 
 
194 ANDORRA 
 
 are, the people have a look as of a Puritan bull- 
 terrier, uncouth and awkward, but not en- 
 couraging, should any person happen to tread 
 upon its tail. Civil and courteous they are to 
 a degree that seems extraordinary to those 
 who live in countries which have emerged 
 from patriarchal customs and not yet found 
 their sea-legs in the new state of things. The 
 greatest piece of fortune that has happened to 
 this happy valley lost in the hills, is that up to 
 the present time it has had no roads. Want 
 of communication has kept out the tourist, 
 under whose foot all ancient customs wither, 
 as certainly as did the grass under the horse's 
 hoof of Attlla. 
 
 To reach the valley, one has to toil upon a 
 mule over the mountain roads, stumbling and 
 sliding, just as the Christian stumbles and 
 slides upon the Inconvenient path to Paradise. 
 If though the latter traveller is repaid when he 
 attains his goal, by visions of black eyes smiling 
 upon him In eternal youth, and by supplies of 
 sherbet cooled with snow (I fear that frequent 
 communings with the Moors have caused me 
 to confuse the persons and the substance of 
 our paradise and theirs), so Is the traveller re- 
 paid when, after shivering on the Puerto de 
 
ANDORRA 195 
 
 Saldeu, six thousand feet above sea-level, he 
 gradually descends into a land of sunshine and 
 of warmth. 
 
 Possibly in Juan Fernandez, or in some 
 island in some sea or other, there may be 
 valleys like Andorra ; sometimes in dreams 
 one sees (with the interior vision of the soul) 
 a valley of the kind, hedged in with towering 
 peaks to which cling pines, and with a little 
 town set in a frame of gardens, from whence 
 ascends the tinkle of a cow-bell or the faint 
 wailing of a bagpipe made melodious by the 
 distance that the sound travels through the 
 air. Commonly in such cases the noise of a 
 steam-hooter wakens one, as it once wakened 
 William Morris after he had dreamed about 
 John Ball, and of what England might have 
 been without machinery, and the real world 
 lies open, in its last incarnation of a dirty 
 street, through which a shrieking motor runs 
 like a car of Juggernaut. 
 
 In the deep valley of Andorra, down to 
 which wind paths like beds of mountain 
 burns, with lichened crosses standing at the 
 corners, and at whose sides water is always 
 plashing, led in a hollow tree or piped in 
 canes, there is no need to rub the eyes {el 
 
196 ANDORRA 
 
 ojo con el codo), or if you must, you rub them 
 to send yourself to sleep, so that the vision 
 may not fade and leave you waking in the 
 world. 
 
 Once you have crossed El Puerto de Saldeu, 
 a world within a world reveals itself ; a view 
 of Europe as it must have been a hundred 
 years ago. In little terraced fields planted 
 with ripening tobacco, with beans and maize, 
 in which lie water-melons so intensely green 
 they seem like something tropical, women and 
 men are working in the way that people must 
 have worked in Arcady or the Paumotas before 
 the well-intentioned missionary with his fateful 
 hymn-book, already charged with death, ap- 
 peared to save their souls and to deliver up 
 their bodies to consumption and to drink. 
 From the steep fields in which the trailing 
 vines hanof over the rouoh walls there comes 
 a sineine, between the note of a wild bird and 
 that of some rude pipe, which winds itself 
 about the Inmost recesses of the soul (that is, 
 the soul of those to whom its drawn-out melody 
 appeals) as does no other music in the world, 
 and shows the Arabs, on their way to take the 
 Pope of Rome, as said their General Muza, by 
 the beard, must have passed by Andorra and 
 
ANDORRA 197 
 
 left their trail. Long trains of mules with 
 dangling trappings of red worsted, conveying 
 bales of tobacco to the rough factory, where 
 ten or a dozen women lazily work to make the 
 nastiest cigars known to the world, pass to 
 and fro ; their drivers either sit sideways on 
 their backs or pick their way upon the illusory 
 roads beside them, their sticks stuck down 
 between their ragged jackets and their shirts. 
 In fact, a page of Borrow or of Ford, which 
 some one has turned down and then forgotten, 
 up to the present day. Now, when there are 
 so few forgotten valleys and so few dog-eared 
 pages worth the trouble to smooth out, I had 
 half thought that to write this, is of the nature 
 of a sacrilege, and that I had done better to 
 have forootten all about Andorra, or merelv to 
 have said the beds were verminous, the food 
 abominable, and that the people spoke a dialect 
 between \ht patois of Urgel and that of Foix, 
 quite unintelligible to any reasonable man. 
 Had but the valley been an island, I would 
 certainly never have thought of telling its right 
 bearings, or merely have reported it as a vigia 
 or an atoll quite uninhabited, with brackish 
 water and no landing-place for boats. 
 
 Withal, ten or eleven hours on muleback 
 
198 ANDORRA 
 
 make the navigation difficult enough to keep 
 the island free from contamination, and it 
 lies far beyond the ordinary track, except of 
 ships that pass by night and do not care to 
 have their number known. 
 
 Before I take you over the steep-pitched, 
 one-arched bridge which crosses the Valira, 
 with its long trails of ivy swinging eternally 
 backwards and forwards above the roaring 
 stream, guarded by ancient crosses at each 
 end and with a low stone parapet a foot in 
 height, which makes one think upon the pro- 
 verb, "He who on horseback crosses the 
 bridge, looks death between the eyes," it may 
 be that you would like to hear about the road. 
 Thus did the ancient navigators entertain their 
 readers with a discussion upon every subject 
 under heaven, commonlv describinsf in ofreat 
 detail the Cipango or Manoa they had not 
 reached, and almost at the last, say in a per- 
 functory way, on December the 13th I left Cadiz 
 or San Lucar, as the case may be, in the 
 caravel Marigalanti, sailing with the Acapulco 
 fleet, and as God willed it, had a good passage 
 of about two hundred days, seeing the flying- 
 fish and other wonders of the deep, and by 
 the grace of the Almighty safely came to port 
 
ANDORRA 199 
 
 in Acapulco of New Spain. Even Bernal 
 Diaz, he of the Castle, the prince of chroniclers, 
 so to speak, sandwiches in the date of his 
 arrival between great slabs of facts and com- 
 ments, terse, humorous and still pathetic, such 
 as only he could make. 
 
 Well . . . two roads lie open to you. One 
 by La Seo de Urgel and one by Ax-les- 
 Thermes. The first is from the Spanish side 
 and has its difficulties. 
 
 La Seo de Urg^l, stronghold of Carlism, is 
 situated — luckily for it — full eighty miles from 
 any railway. You get off at Calaf (it sounds 
 so Arabic, I had almost written El-CaUf), and 
 get into the coach. That coach, a box, made 
 of white pine and painted red and yellow, 
 **Viva Espana ! " conveys you in the short 
 space of thirteen hours (but not including 
 stoppages) up to La Seo de Urg61. Borrow 
 and Ford and others have described the 
 journey, not this particular journey, but 
 others of the kind, so picturesquely that 
 it is vain to try and emulate them. They 
 both have told of the apocalyptic horse and 
 the four mules ; of the blaspheming mayordl 
 and the zagdl who now and then gets off and 
 stimulates the team by throwing stones. Even 
 
200 ANDORRA 
 
 the names (in Ford's case, some of the oaths) 
 have been preserved, so that we know them 
 when we hear the long-drawn syllables of 
 Capltaana, Generaala, and the impersonal 
 Aquella Otra who receives most stones and all 
 the choicest flowers of speech of the attendant 
 sprite. Well do we know the country-women 
 with their baskets, the fat and jovial priest, the 
 friar, the horsedealer, and the strange Turk, or 
 Greek, or Jew whose family from the days of 
 Ferdinand Isabella had secretly continued the 
 customs of their race. We know the gipsy who 
 gets in, and speak to him (having the gift 
 of tongues) In Romany. We share our lunch 
 with all the passengers, drink with the priest 
 out of a leather bota, and leave the company 
 delio^hted with us and our fast friends for life. 
 
 Those were the days, and certainly Ford and 
 George Borrow were the men ; but even now 
 the journey has points of resemblance to those 
 they wrote about. The painted box on wheels 
 lands you at last in the strange, world-for- 
 gotten town, to which but little breath of 
 modernism has penetrated, and leaves you 
 there marooned. Then you must hire a mule 
 from an arriero, some Tio Chinche, Tio Pon- 
 zona, or the like, and make your way over five 
 
ANDORRA 20I 
 
 hours of mountain road, which leads along 
 the banks of the VaHra, until you come upon 
 Andorra quite unexpectedly at the bottom of a 
 pass. All things considered, I am doubtful 
 whether this road Is quite the best to take for 
 those who pass their time in motor-cars and 
 are accustomed to eat well at regular hours 
 and sleep in comfortable beds ; but as I never 
 travelled it myself I do not describe it in great 
 detail, though I am sure I could. 
 
 The other road, though not exactly what 
 would be called luxurious, is yet a little easier 
 than that by Seo de Urgel. A well-appointed 
 railway (Baedeker says so) lands you at Ax- 
 les-Thermes, passing by Foix and Pamiers, a 
 name corrupted from the ancient Apamea (once 
 more Baedeker). Then you take carriage for 
 four hours to Hospltalet, a little goaty, sheepy 
 town, Swiss-like and cold, and with its little 
 inn facing the road and music of the ceaseless 
 stream of motor-cars which come and go, as 
 regularly as does the planetary system, from 
 Ax to Puigcerda. Once there, so that you 
 turn your back on the high roadj and stop 
 your ears after the fashion of Ulysses or 
 the deaf adder of the Scriptures, you are in 
 the wilds. Cows wander down the street ; 
 
202 ANDORRA 
 
 goats browse upon the broken walls ; and 
 round the rough stone cross, boys sit all day 
 and criticise the women and the girls who 
 go for water to the fountain at the corner of 
 the square. 
 
 A road, like the dry track of a Highland 
 burn, leads out towards Andorra, and on it, 
 early in the morning, two horsemen, my 
 guide and I, might have been seen some 
 weeks ago making their way, just like the 
 personages of some bygone novel, along the 
 stony track. The trail led upwards through 
 some Alpine pastures, in which men mowed 
 the grass with scythes exactly like the scythe 
 Time holds in ancient prints, immensely 
 broad at the butt-end and tapering to a 
 point. All wore blue berets, and all sang 
 as they worked ; but being on the French 
 side of the Pyrenees, they sang the latest 
 melodies from Paris music-halls instead of 
 some wild Jota fiera as they would certainly 
 have done upon the Spanish side. 
 
 We rode along, smoking and talking about 
 " things and others," of the late war, for so 
 it seemed to him, between the French and 
 Prussians, and how he, with twelve youths 
 from Hospitalet, had joined the army of the 
 
ANDORRA 203 
 
 Loire, and he alone returned. We talked of 
 literature, that is, he did, unpacking all his 
 store, which in the main consisted of a history 
 of the Punic Wars, with much of Scipio (" Un 
 fameux lapin, va ! ") and of Canibal. Soon 
 at a little hamlet with a fine old cross we 
 passed the frontier of Andorra, that is, my 
 guide averred we did, as there was nothing 
 tangible to mark the line. 
 
 Still we went on along the Ariege, v/hich 
 boiled and tumbled far below our feet, the 
 horses giving us plenty of opportunity to look 
 into its depths by hugging, after the fashion 
 of their kind, the outside limit of the path. 
 
 No houses were in view, and only rarely 
 on the road did a man pass, driving before 
 him a packed mule, or now and then a girl 
 seated upon an ass. Horses and cows in 
 hundreds fed along the slopes, their bells 
 tinkling and jangling in the still air, a thou- 
 sand feet below. Sometimes they stood, their 
 bellies buried in the rushing stream, and now 
 and then two bulls fought in a perfunctory 
 way, as sword -and -buckler men fought in 
 old times in Edinburgh, to keep the "croon o' 
 the Causeway," that is, when anyone was there 
 to look at them and cheer them to the fray. 
 
204 ANDORRA 
 
 " C'est un vrai paradls pour toutes nos 
 vaches," the guide observed as he broke off 
 explaining all about Regulus and 'Ma mort 
 douloureuse de ce brave Canibal." Four or 
 five hours we rode along, passing the little 
 lake in which the Ariege has its source, and 
 talking of the fall of Carthage, which in some 
 way had got itself connected in the com- 
 mentator's brain with les sales Prussiens^ until 
 we reached the pass. 
 
 "This is El Puerto de Saldeu," said my 
 guide, breaking out suddenly in Spanish, which 
 he spoke well after the French fashion, sound- 
 ing all syllables quite equally, taking the nerve 
 and backbone out of it, although he knew 
 the words. Standing upon the summit of the 
 pass and looking down upon a sea of pine 
 woods and right into another brawling river, 
 the Valira (the cousin of the Ariege), cutting 
 its way through a deep channel in the hills, 
 forming a valley which, in the distance, 
 broadened to a great amphitheatre of moun- 
 tains, above which rose white peaks, you feel 
 that you have come into a world apart. It is 
 so seldom nowadays, even in Equatorial 
 Africa, to which you carry tents and smoke- 
 less powder, quick-firing guns, sun-helmets, 
 
ANDORRA 205 
 
 and are carried by subservient or rebellious 
 porters (but in each case members of a sub- 
 ject race, with whom there can be naught 
 in common save death or want of food), that 
 you feel cut off from the world. 
 
 Once or twice in the lifetime of most men 
 they feel alone, and I remember years ago, in 
 Paraguay, coming down from the Yerbales, a 
 hundred miles from anywhere, uncertain of the 
 way, I camped, not having eaten all the day, 
 beside a wood. Looking about, I found a bed 
 of the sweet fruit known there as guaviranii 
 (the sweetest in the world when you are 
 parched with thirst and there is nothing else 
 to eat), and having eaten well, unsaddled, and 
 sitting down (it was just sunset) on my saddle- 
 cloths, wrapped in my poncho, drew out tobacco, 
 chopped it, and made a cigarette, then lit it 
 with a flint and steel, striking the flint with 
 care, not to alarm my horse. Just then a tiger 
 roared, deep in the woods, and when, after a 
 struggle, I had quieted my horse, for to have 
 lost him would have been to lose my life, I felt 
 I was alone. 
 
 Well, strange as it may seem, upon the 
 Puerto de Saldeu, not forty miles from motor- 
 cars, and with my garrulous and history-loving 
 
2o6 ANDORRA 
 
 guide beside me, looking down on a valley 
 which had been civilised for centuries, I felt 
 the feeling I had felt in Paraguay. One rarely 
 feels it in the East, for there, even in deserts, 
 man has so stamped himself upon the world, 
 nothing astonishes, and one is certain, beyond 
 the mountains, or in the middle of the plains, 
 that you will come upon some tribe of nomads 
 who have not changed since Nimrod hunted, 
 and the walls of Babylon were built. 
 
 It may be that the sudden change from 
 modern life created the impression ; but as we 
 drove the horses down the hill-path before us, 
 cutting off corners to rejoin them, by little 
 trails worn in the stony soil, it seemed one 
 was about to enter into an unknown land. 
 
 Sliding and stumbling down the hill, the 
 guide shod with his hemp-soled alpargatas^ 
 going as lightly as a cat, we reached the 
 hamlet of Saldeu, which, with its deep pro- 
 jecting eaves, looked Swiss-like, had it not 
 been for the iron rings set in the walls of 
 every house to tie the mules to, and for the 
 knockers placed about six feet above ground, 
 so that the passer-by could knock without 
 dismounting from his beast. We passed a 
 watering-trough made of a huge old tree, look- 
 
ANDORRA 207 
 
 ing as if a tribe of Indians or negroes had left 
 their dug-out high and dry, and riding through 
 an archway, dismounted in a stable, in which 
 some twenty mules, each with its pack beside 
 it, stood munching at their corn. 
 
 Beside them, some sleeping on the packs 
 and some upon the straw, lay men who, at 
 first sight, I knew were smugglers, having 
 seen many of them in the wild roadless country 
 between Gibraltar and Gaucin, that is, the 
 country that was wild and roadless thirty years 
 ago. There in Saldeu they looked so much 
 in place, the stables would have appeared as 
 the stage would appear in Carmen, in the 
 third act, without the turnpike Andaluces, who 
 bear the mark of Saffron Hill writ large upon 
 their backs. 
 
 Leaving our horses tied up, by the mules, 
 we passed into a gallery which looked out 
 on a maize-field, sloping down to a little burn, 
 in which a row of women were washing 
 clothes, their red and yellow petticoats giving 
 them an air as of gigantic tulips, as they beat 
 the linen on a board, or washed their stock- 
 ings, filling them with sand and thumping on 
 the stones. 
 
 In the long gallery, three or four men were 
 
2o8 ANDORRA 
 
 lounging, whilst one of them thrummed a 
 guitar, whose strings, mended with wire, sent 
 forth a sound, when the player struck them 
 with the back of his brown hand, like an old- 
 fashioned jew's-harp or a hurdy-gurdy. The 
 march of progress has probably now relegated 
 both these instruments to the museum, un- 
 mercifully leaving us the gramophone, which, 
 like the rich, is always with us, to remind us 
 of our sins. 
 
 Following the example of George Borrow 
 (Ford would have addressed himself to a 
 black-haired girl who leaned out of a window 
 humming a Zorzico), I entered into conversa- 
 tion with the breakers of the law, and found 
 that most of them had once been soldiers, and 
 had fought in Cuba, about which they knew 
 as much as a returned Imperial Yeoman 
 knows about the Orange Free State, that is, 
 the inside of the hospitals and the long useless 
 marches in the sun, Much did our conversa- 
 tion turn upon things technical, such as the 
 dogs that in Gibraltar run the gauntlet of the 
 carbineers, each with his little pack upon his 
 back, and many were the tales about the 
 heroes who in times past had earned a place 
 in history by their bold smuggling deeds. 
 
ANDORRA 209 
 
 The seven of Eclja held them all spell- 
 bound, as the Homeric heroes held the 
 Greeks, and when I spoke about Jose Maria, 
 and of the town of Casariche, where those 
 who have a soul above mere smuofo-jinor take 
 boldly to the road, they crowded round to 
 hear. The fate of El Vivillo and the ereat 
 fight he made in the cortijo stirred their en- 
 thusiasm, and when at last the Gtiardia Civil 
 entered the burning farm, leaving five of their 
 number stretched upon the field, they held 
 their breath, and one of them, murmuring ''He 
 was a man, may God have pardoned him," 
 held out a glass of agitardieyite in which I 
 drank his health. They looked upon the 
 heroes of the South as prototypes, averring 
 sadly that in the North the true aficion was 
 getting lost, and thought the smugglers of 
 to-day were weaklings compared to those of 
 yore. So might a superannuated general in 
 his club lament the days of purchase in the 
 Army, or in the fens of Cambridgeshire a 
 stableman strive hard to mould himself after 
 the true West- Riding type and as Sir Thomas 
 Overbury says, "speak Northern no matter in 
 what part of England he was born." 
 
 I learned how one of them died of yellow 
 
210 ANDORRA 
 
 fever, had been thrown out to wait the dead- 
 cart, then come to Hfe again when he had felt 
 a land-crab nibbling at his toe, and so resusci- 
 tated. The word resuscitated evidently pleased 
 him, for taking the guitar (after first passing it 
 to me, in the fashion of Sir Philip Sidney, as if 
 my need was more than his), when it came to 
 his turn to play, struck into a giiajiray to which, 
 as he informed me, he had made the words 
 and put a tide, '' El Resuscitao." Death had 
 not staled the infinite variety of his arpeggios, 
 nor had returnino- life altered the hauntino- 
 melody of the half-negro air, nor blurred its 
 semitones. 
 
 When he had finished, and as he hung the 
 instrument upon a nail, a flower fluttered down 
 from the window where the girl had leaned, 
 and looking at the singer critically, I saw 
 he was a handsome fellow and " properly de- 
 liver," which fact, no doubt, the giver of 
 the flower had seen some time ago. After 
 some talk about the badness of the government 
 in Spain, a theme which, I believe, if one but 
 chanced to meet him, so to speak, off duty, the 
 Premier would join in with much zest, we 
 passed into the dining-room, and sitting down 
 at a long table, without a cloth, upon rough 
 
ANDORRA 21 1 
 
 wooden stools, enjoyed a meal of salt cod a la 
 Vizcaina, pork sausages made red with saffron, 
 and beans stewed in an oil which might have 
 served to lubricate a waggon-wheel. The 
 women of the house stood in the doors and 
 round the table, as it would not have been 
 a fitting thing for them to sit down with the 
 men, although they joined quite freely in the 
 conversation, which now and then was spiced 
 as hotly as the sausages, only exclaiming 
 '' Barbaro," when the bounds were overpassed, 
 just as a mother may reprove her son for 
 swearing, in a half-hearted way. 
 
 Smoking as sententiously as an Indian chief, 
 the owner of the house, a member of the 
 Council of the Republic, sat like an idol in 
 a josshouse, carved in walnut wood. Report 
 averred him rich, and witty [gracioso), an un- 
 usual compound, and his gracia consisted in 
 his knack of giving nicknames, which form 
 of wit is thought the hio^hest in Andorra 
 to which man can aspire. His fellow- 
 humorists had countered heavily upon him by 
 o-ivinof him the name of " Tio Alimentos," 
 which he appeared to merit, for when the 
 company had finished their repast, he sat down 
 solemnly at his own hospitable board and fell 
 
212 ANDORRA 
 
 to work like a half-starved coyote on a dead 
 buffalo. 
 
 The smugglers took their leave, quite openly, 
 with each man carrying on his back his bundle 
 of tobacco, all smoking their own wares. They 
 crossed the stream upon a narrow plank and 
 slowly disappeared amongst the pine-trees, on 
 the rough path to Spain. When they had 
 gone, across the river floated back in the still 
 air the long-drawn notes of the guajira, sung 
 by **the resuscitated one," and taken up, when 
 he had spent his breath, by all the rest of his 
 compeers. At last it melted into the thin air, 
 just like a cricket's note, but leaving still a 
 sense of sound upon the ear. When it was 
 quite extinguished, a window shut down in an 
 upper room, showing the giver of the flower 
 had been upon the watch for its last quavering 
 notes. 
 
 It was time for them to go, for hardly had 
 they disappeared than two or three French 
 frontier guards, under the protection of an An- 
 dorran peasant, who, because he had a gun, 
 appeared to think he was some kind of soldier, 
 appeared, and asked if anyone had seen les 
 contreba^idiers. They were assured that no 
 one had and went their way contentedly, smok- 
 
ANDORRA 213 
 
 ing cigars which had been purchased half an 
 hour ago from our late fellow-guests. 
 
 Mounting our horses in the dark stables, and 
 bending down to pass the door, we struck into 
 the street, which ran about a hundred yards 
 between low, deep-eaved houses, and then 
 came out upon some stony fields, planted with 
 what in Scotland used to be called long kale. 
 The road was bounded by low walls of 
 rough-piled stones, and at the top of a steep 
 natural staircase of smooth rocks there stood a 
 high stone crucifix, with something Gothic in 
 the carving of the Christ, who, dumpy and too 
 much foreshortened, looked like the figures on 
 the Gloria door of Santiago de Campostela, 
 and yet was human and even pathetic-looking 
 on his grey granite cross. 
 
 My guide crossed himself rather in a furtive 
 way, explaining that he did not do so as a 
 ''clerical," but because business took him often 
 to Andorra, where every one was "black." 
 The reason seemed to me sufficient in itself, 
 although perhaps the act either was one of 
 supererogation or of interior grace, as the 
 place we were in was far from houses and no 
 one was in sight. 
 
 Quaint little hamlets dotted the hillsides, 
 
214 ANDORRA 
 
 with little churches in proportion to their needs, 
 and tiny belfries formed of rough stone and 
 innocent of mortar, the windows in their sides 
 so sharp, they looked as if they had been built 
 for archers in the tower to shoot down their foes. 
 
 From every village ran a mule-track to the 
 main torrent-bed that served as a high road, 
 showino- the stones all whitened, where mules 
 and men had passed for centuries, and still had 
 left the way as rough and difficult to tread as 
 when the first explorer, stumbling on his beast, 
 had passed along the trail. 
 
 In a deep chasm far below the road the river 
 roared and tumbled, sending up clouds of 
 spray, which hung in a white mist upon the 
 larches growing by its brink. 
 
 At all the cross-roads stood a Calvary, and 
 before every church a massive crucifix cut 
 roughly in grey stone. Another staircase of 
 a league or so led to the village of Encamp, 
 where we dismounted at a venta and drank 
 some aguardiente, which turned the water in the 
 glass a milky white, and sitting on a barrel 
 under some bundles of salt cod-fish which 
 dangled from the roof, exchanged a greeting 
 with the owner of the house, a red-haired 
 Catalan. 
 
ANDORRA ^iS 
 
 A pale-faced caitiff-looking man he was, 
 who might have sat for Judas to an Italian 
 master, and yet he looked civilised amongst 
 the rough Andorrans, as perhaps did his pro- 
 totype of old amongst the fishermen. 
 
 Whilst we discoursed on politics, and an- 
 swered questions as to the health of the young 
 Queen of Spain, the possible duration of the 
 Ministry in France, the price of barley in La 
 Seo de Urgdl, and whether Machaquito or 
 Bombita was the best master of his art, a 
 crowed had gathered at the door. They stood 
 expectantly, just as in lands more favoured 
 men wait to buy the last edition of a news- 
 paper, not that they think it may be interest- 
 ing, but on the chance of something turning 
 up to gratify their hopes. I hoped I answered 
 to the full what was expected of me, and 
 thought I did so, until I heard a man remark 
 I was the agent of a circus which they were 
 waiting for. Sadly I spurred my unwilling 
 pony through the crowd, looking as like a 
 ring-master as I was able, but in my heart 
 conscious of failure, for to give pleasure to one's 
 fellows should be one's chiefest aim, here in 
 this transitory world. 
 
 By quick descents in which the ponies put 
 
2i6 ANDORRA 
 
 their feet 'together and skated down the hill, 
 just as a cow-boy's horse in the Bad Lands 
 slips down a ** slide," we cut off half a league, 
 saving some time, and proving the proverb, 
 that there is never a short cut without some 
 trouble, is not quite absolute. 
 
 Settling our hats upon our heads, and brush- 
 ing off the dust with which the ponies' scramble 
 on the slide had covered all our clothes, we 
 struggled back into the road which led through 
 groves of ilexes and chestnut trees and finally 
 emerged into a rich and fertile valley, where 
 little fields, fenced with flat pieces of grey 
 stone stuck close together, encircled every 
 house. Maize and tobacco showed the richness 
 of the soil, and as we rode along, the mule- 
 path melted by degrees into a modern road. 
 A milestone bore upon its face *' Andorra, 
 9 kilometros,*' but as upon the road itself there 
 was no traffic, save for the passing of a mule- 
 team now and then, or a stout farmer riding on 
 his nag, with an old rusty gun tied to the 
 cantle of his saddle, It seemed a work of super- 
 erogation, and my guide cursed it as an innova- 
 tion which lamed the horses, and would, in his 
 opinion, ruin the country, in the long run, for 
 men who lived by mules. I felt by intuition 
 
ANDORRA 217 
 
 he was right, for the stout mountain pony that 
 I rode, active and hardy as a goat on the steep 
 trails that we had left, stumbled perpetually 
 and fell upon his nose. I hauled him up upon 
 his feet, and getting off found that his knees 
 were quite undamaged, whilst my guide, sitting 
 on his horse, looked at me pleasantly, saying 
 with pride, " He often falls upon this portion 
 of the road, but never hurts himself" 
 
 I did not comment on the fact, knowing the 
 horseman's grave is always open, and that the 
 wayfarer may sometimes stumble on the road 
 towards Andorra, even when not a fool. 
 
 The sun was sinklncv as we came to Las 
 Escaldas, a little watering-place built in a 
 gorge between the hills. The river rushes 
 by the side of the main street, in which, 
 hedged in by cottages with overhanging eaves, 
 and set about with half-built little villas, stands 
 the Bath House, in which the citizens of the 
 Republic bathe and drink sulphuretted water 
 of some kind, which, as I learned with plea- 
 sure, is nauseous to the taste and smells like 
 
 rotten eggs. 
 
 All was in miniature and as if drawn to the 
 
 scale of the Republic, of which it is the pride. 
 
 Cows sauntered up and down the street, and 
 
2i8 ANDORRA 
 
 from the mills came the click-clack of hoppers, 
 as the enormous wooden wheels, constructed 
 to require the greatest possible amount of 
 water-power to set them going, slowly revolved 
 with a dull bellowinsf noise. 
 
 All was Arcadian, and from every side there 
 came the noise of water which in a hundred 
 rills ran everywhere, rills and more rills and 
 still more rills, with water led in canes, in 
 hollow trunks of trees, splashing down rocks 
 and gurgling under the high-pitched little 
 bridges, with an old millstone forming the 
 keystone of the arch. 
 
 Burly Andorrans, who in the tranquil current 
 of their lives could never have endured an ache 
 or pain, but who were led to take the cure just 
 as a millionaire at Aix-les- Bains, to drink its 
 nauseating waters, in case at any future time 
 he may be ill, lounged up and down and passed 
 the time of day. 
 
 Women conversed across the street from 
 balconies, informing those who cared to listen, 
 of their domestic troubles, and of their chil- 
 dren's health. A priest went down the street, 
 and as he walked along, from every house 
 a little boy or girl rushed up to him and 
 raised his fingers to their lips, catching a 
 
ANDORRA 219 
 
 blessing as It were upon the wing, and rushing 
 back aoraln. 
 
 o 
 
 In order that no jot or tittle of the Arcadian 
 scene should be left wanting, just as I crossed 
 the little Plaza of the town, a stout, broad- 
 shouldered peasant passed, jogging upon his 
 nag. His clothes were made of a two-carat 
 kind of cloth, and on his head he wore an 
 imitation Panama, set firmly on his brows. 
 He sat upon his horse, a fine bay colt with 
 four white feet and a white star upon its 
 forehead and branded with a K, strongly 
 and squarely, with something of the look of 
 Colleone, on his Immortal steed. On the hIo;h 
 pommel of his old-fashioned Spanish saddle, of 
 the kind called albarda, he rested his crossed 
 hands, and as he slowly jogged along at the 
 pace known as el paso Casieilano, his horse s 
 tail swung to each movement, and his fore 
 feet now and then rang against the stirrups. 
 In his hlorh dishinof oralt. 
 
 Men nodded to him and the boys all seemed 
 his friends, and from the windows women 
 looked shyly but approvingly as he passed 
 slowly down the street. 
 
 " Voici le President!" exclaimed my guide, 
 adding for my Instruction In a low tone, ** pas 
 
220 ANDORRA 
 
 fier le bonhomme," and as he spoke he raised 
 his hat and was saluted gravely in return 
 by the chief magistrate. I, too, saluted, and 
 was saluted in return, and then leaving the 
 despot in the full glare of the fierce light 
 which no doubt beats as fiercely on the pre- 
 sidential chair as on the throne, rode through 
 the winding street, passing the time of day 
 with the inhabitants all seated at their doors. 
 Women sat twirling distaffs, and in the fields 
 girls held their cows by a long cord ; some 
 combed their hair, and others seated on the 
 ground held children on their knees, whose 
 heads they searched as diligently as a man 
 hunts a particle in a Greek lexicon, in spite 
 of kicks and cries. 
 
 No one appeared to use the modern road, 
 which took its course, remote, unfinished, and 
 possibly slow, between some water meadows ; 
 but we, knowing the traditions, so to speak, 
 struck into the old trail. 
 
 It wound about, through a small grove of 
 ilexes, and though the capital was a short 
 league away, had not been altered since the 
 creation of the world, so that at times we 
 skirted huge boulders, and again dodged the 
 spray of waterfalls, picking our way, just as 
 
ANDORRA 221 
 
 one picks it in the Atlas mountains, and 
 taking care to step into the holes made by the 
 traffic of the ages, by the mules' passing feet. 
 
 The oak wood passed, the valley broadened 
 out into a fertile plain, to which tobacco gave 
 an air as of the " Vuelta de Abajo," with its 
 brown ripening leaves. Streams flecked the 
 mountain sides with streaks of silver, making 
 them seem alive with movement, and at the 
 bottom of a cliff Andorra lay, grey, ancient, 
 and an epitome in stone of what the greater 
 part of European towns had been, in the long- 
 vanished past. 
 
 We passed the roughly built tobacco factory, 
 stopping a moment to buy a few cigars, so 
 to speak, at the fountain head, finding them 
 green and pungent and with a flavour some- 
 thing resembling the perfume of a weasel with 
 a strong touch of goat. 
 
 Wrapped in a coarse brown paper with 
 the mendacious legend '' Tabaco Filipino " 
 stamped upon it in faint lettering, they served 
 to form the universal brotherhood of man, and 
 show one plainly that a touch of commerce, 
 even so slight a one as this, makes everybody 
 kin. 
 
 Ten hours of riding on the mountain trails 
 
222 ANDORRA 
 
 had brought us to our Mecca, into which we 
 passed over the steep-pitched bridge on the 
 VaHra, just as the night closed in. 
 
 The Plaza with its tall old houses, frescoed 
 with yellow arabesques, was quite deserted, 
 save for a pig or two which lay about, right 
 in the middle of the square, or dodged the 
 efforts of a boy to drive it home. On one side 
 rose the belfry above the body of the church, 
 just as a lighthouse rises on a shoal. 
 
 Into its doors were passing women, veiled 
 to the eyes in black, yellow and parchment- 
 looking, and of a type that only Spain affords. 
 
 Their only home appears to be the church, 
 where they squat motionless upon the floor, 
 or, kneeling on a chair, remain for hours with 
 their eyes fixed upon a saint. 
 
 The beggars at the door all know them and 
 long have recognised they have no alms to 
 give, and as they pass mutter to one another, 
 ** There goes old Dona Tecla," or " Doiia 
 Gertrudis," or simply, as they hold the leather 
 curtain up, say " La Beata," in a resigned and 
 hopeless way, knowing that the poor lady's 
 need is probably as great as is their own, and 
 then sink back again upon the moulding under- 
 neath the door, to wait what fate may bring. 
 
ANDORRA 223 
 
 Upon the other side was El Commercio^ that 
 is, the shops, which in this instance were repre- 
 sented by the apothecary and a large general 
 store. I glanced inside as we passed by, and 
 in them sat the usual Tertuliay that is, the 
 gathering which in Spain repairs to shops at 
 night to talk about the news. 
 
 I only caught a word or two, and passing by 
 the other portion of the "Commerce" of the 
 place, saw quiet women cheapening calicoes, 
 and heard upon the counter the sharp ring of a 
 large silver dollar and an expostulating voice 
 exclaiming, '* No, Sefior, it is not false, nor yet 
 from Seville as you say, but sound and of the 
 law." 
 
 One narrow winding lane led us into another 
 lane, as winding as the last, in which our 
 horses, though they knew the way, stumbled 
 and slithered and now and then stood snorting 
 at a black object on the ground which, when 
 we passed it, proved to be a pig asleep and 
 snoring, and stretched out at his ease. One 
 little square led to another little square, with 
 houses all with long flights of steps in front of 
 them, on which their owners sat, and in re- 
 sponse to greeting, told us ''to go with God," 
 a form of salutation which in most other lands 
 
224 ANDORRA 
 
 has fallen out of fashion, perhaps because God 
 does not manifest himself so plainly as He 
 does in Andorra, or from some other cause. 
 
 At the posada door we met the owner, a 
 stout Andorran known as *' El Tio Calounes," 
 a burly, greasy-looking man, his head bound 
 in a black silk handkerchief with the end 
 dangling underneath his hat, and smoking 
 pensively. 
 
 Travellers are not too frequent in these 
 parts, but for all that he was not anxious in the 
 least to welcome us, but seemed put out by our 
 arrival, till I, getting abruptly off my horse, 
 unpacked a budget of the news of the world, 
 quickly and volubly and so distorted as to be 
 palatable to almost everybody. The stern 
 Republican unbent, and after greetings faithfully 
 given and received upon both sides, said in 
 an uncouth dialect, ''Seeing you come with 
 Francois here, I thought you were from 
 France." 
 
 This difficulty over, we soon were friends, 
 and talked till supper-time, upon all kinds of 
 things, such as the spread of Carlism in La 
 Seo de Urg61, and the new bishop, who it 
 appeared was a friend of the King's, who Tio 
 Calounes always called Alfonsito, either to 
 
ANDORRA 225 
 
 show he was a democrat or in affection, for he 
 averred that he had heard the King- was one 
 who gave himself no airs {no se daba tono) and 
 could ride well and shoot. Accomplishments 
 of that kind being exactly what men look for 
 in emperors and kings, I instantly agreed with 
 him, and ventured to predict a happy and 
 prosperous reign for one who in his youth had 
 risen to the sense of his responsibilities and 
 made his people's welfare his first care and 
 duty, above all other things. 
 
 When at last supper came, we took it in a 
 room lighted by a petroleum lamp, which 
 leaked, and on whose sides, stuck in the oil 
 that daubed them, were carcases of moths and 
 flies, which fell into the soup. Mosquitoes 
 hummed, and now and then a rat ran through 
 the room and bats flew in and out, circling 
 about above our heads like swallows round a 
 pool. 
 
 As for the meal itself, it was a replica of the 
 lunch at Saldeu, though perhaps even more 
 highly flavoured, and after it we sat and 
 smoked the national cigars, during a thunder- 
 storm. 
 
 The bedroom which I shared with a French 
 cattle-dealer, who was drunk and snored as 
 Q 
 
226 ANDORRA 
 
 loudly as a gramophone, contained two Iron 
 beds, made for the Spanish market or in 
 Barcelona, of a thin iron piping with pictures 
 of the Annunciation in three colours set in a 
 varnished oval at the head. They had the 
 highest free-board, if the term free-board riohtly 
 applies to beds, that I have ever seen in all my 
 wanderings. 
 
 Mosquitoes and a fair sprinkling of the 
 pterodactyl that have remained in the Republic, 
 rendered night one long conflict, so that I 
 heard the long-drawn cry of the se7'eno, as he 
 called every hour. 
 
 Early next morning I was afoot and found 
 the owner of the house still at his post, smoking 
 and drinking coffee, which he was stirring with 
 a knife, as he sat tilted on a chair. The town 
 was waking, and in the streets women drove 
 goats to pasture, or led the horses down to 
 water, or stood about the fountain in the 
 square, waiting their turn to fill brass water- 
 buckets, which they bore balanced on their 
 heads. Men in the old Andorran dress, 
 breeches and jacket of dark velveteen with 
 sashes round their waists, red Phrygian caps 
 upon their heads, their legs encased in woollen 
 stockings of a grey-bluish hue, and on their 
 
ANDORRA 227 
 
 feet white alpargatas, lounged smoking every- 
 where. 
 
 Under arcades, mule-drivers were packing 
 mules, which, after the fashion of their kind 
 the whole world over, squealed and kicked 
 spitefully, now and then throwing off their load, 
 just as the men were tugging at the ropes, 
 with their feet stuck against the girths or twist- 
 ing them with sticks. 
 
 The acrid reek of wood curled lazily Into 
 the sky and the dense smoke of charcoal 
 braziers placed before the doors to *'pass" as 
 people say in Spanish, combined with the rank 
 scent of goats and sheep, which here and there 
 were folded In a deserted cottage, produced a 
 pungent scent such as that which in markets in 
 the East blends with the morning air. 
 
 At the south corner of the town, built of 
 grey stone to which a yellow lichen clings and 
 flanked by turrets at each angle of the tower, 
 rises the "Valley House.""^ 
 
 Built, as some commentators say, in the 
 tenth century, though others just as strongly 
 hold the twelfth as the true date of its founda- 
 tion, it serves as Council-chamber, prison, and 
 
 * Casa del Val. 
 
228 ANDORRA 
 
 archive, and as it looks toward the south over 
 an ocean of tobacco-fields, with the Valira 
 brawling underneath its walls, is the true 
 centre of the microcosm which clusters at 
 
 Its gate. 
 
 For centuries, when throughout Europe 
 liberty was dead, stifled in England by the 
 nobles, and in Spain killed at Villalar, in Italy 
 drugged by the Popes, and in the North chilled 
 by the feudal system with its ideal of a human- 
 ity that commences with the baron, here it has 
 flourished in a patriarchal way, just as a pine, 
 which in a rich soil deteriorates and dies, 
 springs vigorous from stones. 
 
 A woman summoned from her spinning and 
 carrying in her hand a key ten inches long, fit 
 for the gate of a great town or citadel, served 
 as the janitress. 
 
 With pride she struggled with the lock, 
 which only yielded to the united efforts of the 
 guide and myself and of the faithful guardian 
 of the key, and ushered us within. 
 
 In a great vaulted hall the Council meets, 
 the members, twenty-five in number, chosen 
 by universal suffrage, the test of voting being 
 apparently the strength to bear a gun, assemble, 
 and debate. When they have finished their 
 
ANDORRA 229 
 
 deliberations, which, as the janitress informed 
 me, rarely exceed an hour or two in length, 
 they dine together at great tables, set in the 
 Council-room. 
 
 The custom seems a good one and might 
 be followed with advantage in other Parlia- 
 ments, for it promotes good feeling and cannot 
 be a hindrance to debate, judging at least from 
 the way jurymen despatch their business, when 
 dinner is in sight. 
 
 The robes and the three-cornered hats of all 
 these simple representatives were hanging upon 
 pegs, and a rough picture done from a photo- 
 graph showed them assembled at the entrance 
 to the place and in the midst of them their 
 overlord, the Bishop of Urgel, who seemed a 
 pleasing-looking prelate, neither too fat nor 
 thin. 
 
 Below the Council-chamber is the State 
 kitchen in which great cauldrons swung on 
 weighty chains, and in them, so the janitress 
 averred, are cooked whole kids and sucking- 
 pigs and trifles of that kind w^hich keep the 
 fire of liberty alight in the stout stomachs of 
 the Garofantuan Archons who batten on the 
 cheer. 
 
 The stables where their horses and their 
 
230 ANDORRA 
 
 mules, for many of the members have a long 
 ride when they attend their parliamentary 
 duties, are tied and munch their corn, what 
 time their masters banquet and debate, are 
 large and airy and perhaps rather dirtier 
 than is a cattle-byre in the Long Island or 
 Benb^cula, but still seemed adequate enough 
 for the rough horses and the mules I met 
 upon the road. 
 
 A priest assured me that there is no written 
 law in the community, but that in spite of this 
 the folk are honest and God-fearing, and as 
 there are no laws to break, they never break 
 them, which piece of reasoning upon his part 
 seemed to me quite conclusive, and taken into 
 consideration with the fact that public function- 
 aries have no fixed salaries, but serve their 
 valley all for the honour and the glory of the 
 thing, makes up a state of things almost ideal 
 in this transitory world, that is if transitory 
 can be applied to places like Andorra, which 
 never can have suffered any change since God 
 was God or the sun first commenced to shine 
 upon the hills. 
 
 Next morning saw me early on the road, 
 riding along and smoking, musing contentedly 
 on this thing and on that, upon the fall of 
 
ANDORRA 231 
 
 nations and of kings, creeds, principalities, and 
 powers, and why It Is that fate had spared 
 Andorra when It had eaten up Greece, Rome, 
 and Babylon, and also on the various ways In 
 which men pass their lives struggling to do 
 things quite Impossible to do, when, after all, 
 nothing Is better than to jog along the road 
 and to shout ''Arre" loudly now and then 
 when a mule lags behind. 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 Amongst the multitudinous figures above the 
 high altar of the Cathedral of Toledo, there is 
 one that I have often caught myself looking at 
 with as great interest as if it were a work of 
 art. It represents, roughly painted, carved in 
 a warm yellow stone that seems to have con- 
 gealed sunshine in it, the figure of a mediaeval 
 Spanish shepherd. His loose frock is secured 
 by a belt, and falls to his knees, leaving the 
 rest of his legs bare. On his feet are sandals. 
 His head is bare, and shows a thick growth of 
 curly black hair, clustering round his blunt, 
 open face, in which are set two honest brown 
 eyes, which look out upon the world so directly 
 that you feel at once their owner is an Old 
 Christian, on all four sides, as the saying is, 
 and without a drop of either Jewish or Moorish 
 blood. 
 
 A long and rough staff is in his hand, and 
 round his waist is hung a gourd, just such a 
 
 gourd as you can see growing to-day in the 
 
 232 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 233 
 
 cigarrales outside the town. On every side of 
 him stand in serried ranks the effigies of kings, 
 of knights, of saints, of virgins, bishops, con- 
 fessors, and on his left hand a statue of a con- 
 verted Moorish alfaqzii, who by the grace of 
 God became a Christian to the greater glory of 
 our faith, and perhaps to serve as an example 
 of the unsearchable ways of the Creator of the 
 world, who might have made him, if He had 
 chosen so to do, a Christian, without attaching 
 to him the stain of being a traitor to the faith 
 in which he had been bred. 
 
 All the stone worthies look nobly out upon 
 the world, with the exception of the poor 
 alfaqui, who has a hangdog air as of a 
 renegade. 
 
 They seem to feel that they will never die, 
 whilst those they look at, all are transitory. 
 
 The shepherd has no look either of faith or 
 of nobility, but leans upon his staff just as he 
 must have leaned upon it in his life, when he 
 stood, on the sunburnt plain, a mere dark spot, 
 watching his black and yellow sheep, amongst 
 grey plants of fennel and yellow flowering 
 thistles, which in the clear Castilian air stand 
 up so sharp against the sky that they appear as 
 tall as trees. 
 
234 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 Nothing in his appearance, as he stands so 
 modestly, waiting apparently for the sun to 
 strike upon some ridge or other of the hills, 
 to know the time, to turn his flock towards 
 home, suggests that he was other than a 
 shepherd, such as a hundred others of his kind. 
 Why he should be enshrined amongst so many 
 noble lords and ladies above the altar, opposite 
 the silver gates that shut the choir, in the same 
 fane in which Don Alvaro de Luna sits headless 
 in his vault ; why he should be bejewelled 
 when the sun streams throuorh the o^lorious 
 stained glass, as if he were a knight, a king, a 
 bishop, or a saint ; why he should have been 
 counted worthy to appear in the long line of 
 figures that ring about S. James himself, 
 trampling a never-dying Moor to death under 
 his horse's hoofs, the sacristan will tell those 
 who expend a franc. Look at him well and 
 mark his sturdy legs, his hands like roots of 
 whin-bushes, his air of simple faith made 
 manifest in all his carriage, and then turn to 
 the encircling throng of knights and nobles, 
 his bold compeers in stone, and see if in their 
 eyes there is not to be found a look of gratitude 
 and admiration for the squat figure who makes 
 so strange a blot amongst their ranks. Why 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 235 
 
 do they look at him, as you might look upon a 
 man who had done you some great service, 
 almost unconsciously, a service greater than it 
 is possible to pay ? 
 
 Hard by, beneath the altar of El Transito, 
 are laid the bones of Juan Padilla and his 
 heroic wife, those of Juan Bravo, and the rest 
 of the illustrious band who died at Villalar. 
 Kings, constables, an emperor, bishops, arch- 
 bishops, emirs, sultans, and high-priests have 
 helped to form the penetrating dust that makes 
 the eyes smart in Toledo when the north wind 
 blows, and which makes every church smell 
 like a charnel-house. Scholars and queens 
 and clerks, learned both in Arabic and Latin, 
 and warriors skilled in both saddles, the high- 
 peaked tree of Fez and the flat bur of Europe, 
 as is set forth upon their tombs, lie thick on 
 every side. 
 
 All round the church in which the shepherd 
 stands so patiently, unmarked by those whose 
 admiration only can be stirred up by high- 
 sounding names, the wondrous city stretches 
 out a very palimpsest of Gothic superposed on 
 Moorish architecture, and that again reared on 
 foundations dug by the Romans, set with in- 
 numerable gems, El Cristo de la Luz, the 
 
236 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 Alcazar, Santa Maria la Blanca, once a 
 synagogue, a mosque, and now a church, the 
 jewelled cloister of San Juan, the square 
 known as the Zocodover, the Puerta del 
 Cambron, and all the myriad and tortuous 
 lanes in which the marigolds grow from the 
 walls, and where the red valerian attracts the 
 cats, from Moorish ajimeces — all go to form a 
 casket in which each house has something 
 noble in it, even in decay. A noble city, set 
 on a noble river and surrounded by a landscape 
 resembling nothing more than that seen in the 
 moon through a good telescope ; and in it, in 
 its chiefest gem, the incomparable church, in 
 which the French once bivouacked, stabling 
 their horses in the choir, unconscious that 
 the heavy gates that shut it, then painted 
 black, were solid plate, the simple figure 
 stands. 
 
 He stands unconscious that the whole city, 
 Spain and even Christendom itself perhaps, 
 owes its existence to his fortunate appearance, 
 and that without his knowledge of the passes 
 in the hills, for at the time the Moorish 
 host lay in Las Navas de Tolosa, and all 
 the width of Sierra Morena intervened be- 
 tween them and Alfonso (he who rode his 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 237 
 
 horse into the waves at Algeciras, brandish- 
 ing his sword against the infidel across the 
 straits), we all should now be rising in the 
 night to testify to the existence of the one 
 God and of his prophet, the immortal camel- 
 driver. 
 
 In those days, whilst the shepherd, whose 
 effigy now is sculptured in the church, kept 
 sheep upon the slopes of the dark mountains 
 that cut Castile off from the south, a wave 
 of faith had stirred the souls of the veiled 
 camel-riders, deep in the deserts far below 
 Marrakesh, impelling them to move, just as 
 the instinct stirs a swallow to take wing. Lost 
 in the sand, owning no property but their swift 
 camels, which drink only on the third morning 
 after they have drunk, and a few horses foaled 
 as they say by mares impregnated by the south 
 wind, they cherished their belief in the one 
 God, their God, made in their image, austere, 
 patient of hardships, self-centred, individual, 
 and impatient of restraint. They felt, there, 
 in their thirsty land, in which not even an 
 occasional great rock affords a shade ; there, 
 where the lizard's head is almost photo- 
 graphed upon the sand ; where water is the 
 chiefest gift that Allah gives, and that so 
 
238 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 sparingly he seems to know it is above all 
 price, and therefore often impregnates it 
 with salt, so that its drinkers shall not turn 
 necessity to pleasure, that the time had arrived 
 to testify. 
 
 They knew that far away in Spain their 
 brethren had become degenerate, reading and 
 writing, studying the Greek philosophers, eat- 
 ing and drinking, not to sustain life, but to 
 gratify the senses, and that the land they lived 
 in was a paradise, all ready to their hand. 
 There, poets told them that the jasmine 
 ever flowered, the roses bloomed, and that 
 the sound of water always fell upon the ear, 
 trickling in rills or plashing on the stones. 
 Almost involuntarily, they found themselves 
 upon the march. They poured across the 
 Atlas, crossing its snowy passes (they who 
 had never felt the cold, dressed in their 
 unsubstantial desert blue), through the rich 
 valleys of the Sus and to the north of 
 the Oasis of the Palms, past Tafilet the 
 sacred city, till they appeared like locusts on 
 the wing, before Marrakesh, assaulted, con- 
 quered it, dethroned the king and placed one 
 of themselves upon the throne, making him 
 God's vicegerent upon earth, by the one right, 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 239 
 
 the sword, they and their God could compre- 
 hend. 
 
 Saints, brown and ragged, sometimes Illumi- 
 nated folk, often mere madmen, preached to 
 them as they lay camped in the palm woods 
 that circle round Marrakesh, setting it in a 
 ring of green enamel, and they, in their dark 
 goatskin tents pursued the desert life, watching 
 their camels, sitting for hours looking away at 
 nothing, silent, and all veiled to the eyes. 
 Their new-appointed Sultan, Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin, 
 felt their fire In his veins, and passed his time 
 between the mosque, the javelin-play on horse- 
 back, and In conferring with his wise magicians 
 on the right time to start, and whether stars 
 seemed favourable to those of the One God. 
 From every side, as months slipped past, tribes 
 and more tribes came to his standard, camp- 
 ing upon the stony plain, amongst the palm 
 woods, and filling all the country round about 
 with men all clamouring to be led against the 
 foe. 
 
 All the wild Berbers of the Atlas came, 
 on foot or riding shaggy ponies and rough 
 mountain mules. In their shrill Shillah tongue 
 they sang wild songs that sounded like the 
 chattering of the cranes. They stalked about 
 
240 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 dressed in their orange-coloured cloaks, with 
 the strange eye embroidered on the back, that 
 makes a band of them appear like Argus, all 
 composed of eyes. 
 
 Ait Atta came, the riders of the plains, 
 skilled in the javelin, living like pirates by 
 plundering caravans, just as the pirates of the 
 sea plunder the ships both of the Faithful and 
 of the Christian dogs. 
 
 From far Shingeit, close to the confines of 
 the Slaves of Idols, came bands of holy men, 
 each with his Koran in one hand and in the 
 other a long spear. The hunters of El Jouf, 
 who ride the wind-drinkers that gallop down 
 the ostrich and the gazelle, their ragged-looking 
 mares descended from the mares the Prophet 
 rode, to one of which Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin owed 
 his escape and life after the battle of Las 
 Navas de Tolosa, marched in to join the last 
 and oreatest of the Arab raids. Tuaregs and 
 
 o o 
 
 men from Timbuctu, black as jinoun and only 
 but a little while ago converted to the faith, 
 arrived and camped beside the rest. Rehamna 
 and Howara sent contingents, and from Glimim 
 came men commanded by the Biruks, who 
 claim descent from Hannibal and the great 
 Barca clan. Then by degrees and without 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 241 
 
 order, just as a flight of locusts starts upon the 
 wing, the horde began to move. It struggled 
 through Chawia, at every step receiving re- 
 inforcements, from Taiilet, from Fez, from 
 TIemcen, and taking with it all the tribes 
 through which it passed upon its way. At 
 Tangier and Hisnr-el-Mujaz, the Castle of the 
 Crossing, was the tryst set, and there the ships 
 were sent to ferry them across. 
 
 In Christendom news had been brought to 
 King Alfonso at Toledo, where he held his 
 court, of the great gathering across the straits. 
 Horsemen came spurring in, telling the An- 
 dalos was all aflame, bringing reports that 
 the army of the infidel numbered a million 
 men. Fear fell upon the King, and he sent 
 messages across the Pyrenees to France, 
 Navarre, to Germany, to Rome, even to 
 farthest England, to come and strike for 
 Christ, for Christendom was in sore danger, 
 from the number of the foe. Still as they 
 mustered from the various kingdoms and 
 principalities, their forces straggling through 
 the Pyrenees, passing through miles of beech 
 forests at Roncesvalles, and over the Somp6rt, 
 following the course of the tumultuous Arag6n, 
 skirting the little town of Jaca, which rises 
 
 R 
 
242 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 from the plain just as Gibraltar rises from the 
 sea, and coming out at length upon the brown 
 Castilian plain, the infidels at Hisnr-el-Mujaz 
 were crossing busily in galleys, feluccas, 
 fishing-boats, and great barcazas, the strait 
 they called the Gate of the Road, as by it 
 they were wont to enter Christendom. At 
 last on both sides they were ready, and from 
 Toledo the Christian army, swollen by con- 
 tingents from every European Power, ad- 
 vanced to meet the Moors, marching from 
 Cordoba, up to the central plain. On the one 
 side, the Christian host moved on under the 
 banner of the Cross, its warriors, sheathed in 
 mail, riding their ponderous Flemish war- 
 horses, with crossbowmen from Genoa, archers 
 from England, and Swiss battalions bristling 
 with pikes, its ranks in order, and with a host 
 of priests and bishops just behind the King ; 
 the Spaniards, almost as swarthy as the 
 Moors, riding their semi-Moorish horses, fear- 
 ing no heat nor cold, sober of diet, fierce as 
 Indians, and northern knights, who in the 
 unfamiliar climate and vegetation thought they 
 already were in Africa. Upon the other, 
 like an angry sea, the Infidel straggled and 
 stormed along, their horses neighing and fight- 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 243 
 
 ing with each other, keeping no order in their 
 ranks, and more destructive to the country 
 that they passed than is a band of wolves 
 amongst a flock of sheep, the Sultan, dressed 
 in white, riding in front under a crimson 
 umbrella, with footmen trotting by his side. 
 Each army must have seen the sullen mass 
 of the great sierra that cuts the plain, barring 
 the desert wind from Africa, tempering the 
 piercing Christian northern air, and serving as 
 a barrier to vegetation, so that the plants from 
 Africa and Europe in neither instance venture 
 to the further side. 
 
 Still they marched on, and, coming to the 
 hills, both armies camped, for neither knew 
 the passes and both were fearful of surprise. 
 The Commander of the Faithful pitched his 
 camp on the south side upon Las Navas de 
 Tolosa, stretching a strong iron chain around 
 his tents, and on the north the pavilion of the 
 Christian King, conspicuous by the blood-and- 
 orange standard fluttering at the door upon a 
 lance, stood high above the rest. Long did 
 they lie upon their arms, and each of them 
 sent out their scouts to find a passage through 
 the hills, and each without success. At last, 
 as King Alfonso sat in his tent cursing and 
 
244 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 praying, and with his army almost about to 
 separate, a shepherd came to him and, being 
 brought into the tent, offered to show the King 
 a path by which merino sheep descend to the 
 rich plains, when on the northern side winter 
 has burned the ofrass. 
 
 Chroniclers on both sides have told the 
 battle, those of the Spaniards relating how 
 the Christians smote the Moors, killing two 
 hundred thousand of them, and how Don 
 Sancho of Navarre, the strongest man in all 
 the army, burst through the chains that ringed 
 the Sultan's tent. They tell, with many pious 
 saws, how great the slaughter was, and of the 
 mighty spoil the Lord of Hosts vouchsafed to 
 grant them, and they aver the blessed San 
 Isidro, taking upon him (in his humility) the 
 style and garments of a shepherd, appeared 
 and led them on. 
 
 All this they say and much more of the 
 same kind, all in the vein of men who know 
 the Lord has chosen them to be His instru- 
 ments. The Moors say less, and merely state 
 Allah did not see fit to smile upon their arms, 
 and how (no doubt to punish lack of faith) 
 that he delivered them into the hands of the 
 accursed King Alfonso ; may God destroy him 
 
EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 245 
 
 and consume his race in fire ! Then they give 
 praise to the One God, and say, in passing, 
 that Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin, seeing his warriors 
 flee and himself left alone, was sitting silently 
 before his tent when there appeared an Arab 
 from El Jouf, an aged man with a white 
 beard, and leading in a rope of camel's hair a 
 bright bay Arab mare. 
 
 Laying his hand upon the Emir's shoulder, 
 he said : " Mount and ride ; the mare is 
 desert-bred, nurtured on camel's milk, and of 
 the colour that the Prophet — may God have 
 pardoned him — commends. When greys and 
 chestnuts falter in the race and roans and 
 blacks sink down and wallow in the sand, she 
 will still pull upon her bridle. Mount and 
 ride." The Emir mounted and escaped, and 
 King Alfonso marched back to Toledo carry- 
 ing the spoil and a long line of captives 
 in his train. Bishops and archbishops cele- 
 brated solemn thanksgivings in the cathedral, 
 thanking especially the blessed San Isidro for 
 his protection of the host, and praising his 
 humility for having left the celestial choirs and 
 taken on him once again a humble shepherd's 
 weeds. All Christendom heaved a sigh of 
 satisfaction at its escape, and some one, per- 
 
246 EL PASTOR DE LAS NAVAS 
 
 haps a simple man to whose unlearned eyes 
 the vision of the blessed San Isidro was not 
 vouchsafed, employed a stonecutter to carve 
 the figure of the man who, after God, had 
 been the instrument of saving all the Christian 
 world, and set it up on high. 
 
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. 
 PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH 
 
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