THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
/
GRANADA
GRAN A DA
MEMORIES, ADVENTURES, STUDIES
AND IMPRESSIONS : BY LEONARD
WILLIAMS : CORRESPONDING MEMBER
OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY : AUTHOR
OF "THE LAND OF THE DONS;" "TOLEDO
AND MADRID; THEIR RECORDS AND RO-
MANCES," ETC.
WITH 24 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTO-
GRAPHS AND A FRONTISPIECE IN
COLOUR BY A. M. FOWERAKER, R.B.A.
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMVI
n
t'
K
What a large volume of adventures may be
grasped within this little span of life by
him who interests his heart in everything,
and who, having eyes to see what time and
chance are perpetually holding out to him as
he journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he
can fairly lay his hands on. — Sterne
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
All rights reserved
Contents
CHAPTER
I. A Journey South .....
II. The Sacred Mountain ....
III. The Sacred Mountain (continued)
IV. The Sacred Mountain (concluded)
V. A Cortijo in the Sierra
VI. The Summit of Xolair
VII. The Snowstorm ...
VIII. Revival
IX. How I Did not Climb the Trevenque
X. The Ave Maria Colony
XI. A Tractate on the Gypsies of Granada
XII. The Old Road to Guadix .
XIII. Guadix
XIV. A Night in the Albaycin
XV. The Alhambra by Moonlight
17
39
61
73
85
lOI
log
119
135
149
165
177
187
201
List of Illustrations
Page
After-glow : the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada from
theAlbaycin FronUsi>iccc
In a Garden of Granada . .' .
A Moorish Well near the Sacro-Monte
A Gipsy Lodging on the Way to the Sacro-Monte
In the Albaycin
The Cortijo of San Jeronimo ....
The Sun Rising on the Peak of the Veleta
The Lake of the Mares
Mulhacen and the Alcazaba from the Summit of th
Veleta
A Snowstorm Coming up the Mountains .
A Wild Scene on the Sierra Nevada .
A Good Head for a Height, on the Summit of the
Trevenque ...••••■
The Ave Maria Colony
The Fountain of the Hazel Tree
The Inn of the Little Mill, from the Hill-side.
The Teeth of the Old Woman . . ■ •
The Inn of the Little Mill, on the Old Road to
Guadix ...•••■••
A Wayside Wineshop
17
39
61
73
85
93
97
lOI
log
119
135
149
165
169
171
177
XI
ILiBt of aUustv
The Gateway of Guadix .
In the Albaycin
The Casa del Gallo .
A Corner in the Albaycin
The Alhambra; the Ladies' Tower
The Alhambra; the Court of Cypresses
The Tower of Homage, seen from the Albaycin
atlons
Page
179
187
189
193
201
205
211
In a Garden of Granada
A Journej' South
HE Catalan poet and satiri.st Bartrina
lias declared that the substance (as
distinguished from the vehicle) of a
man's talk is self-suHicieiit to disclose
his nationality. Let me sui>;ii-cst that
another index is the way a man performs his travel-
ling. The French traveller gig-oles, the Spanish
traveller jabbers, and the English traveller growls.
Precisely on the evening which took me southwards
to Granada I snatched a golden opportunity of
putting this observation to the test, for all three
nationalities were represented in my own compart-
ment of the railway carriage, tenanted by growling
English, giggling French, and jabbering Spaniards.
But since I had listened to one of Maura's sjieeches
1 A
(5iana&a
the day before, and had no sympathy with growling,
jabbering, or giggling at that moment, I tipped the
guard to find me a solitary seat and bundled off'
elsewhither.
Night in La Mancha. Night in all cjuarters of
the world is desolate, but in La Mancha ! A sultry
night in August. The passage of the train creates
a current of hot air : even the moon shines fire. A
lonely land ; a land of vacancy or units, this La
]Mancha. One vast, unbounded blot upon the ample
breast of Spain. No map denotes the limits of La
Mancha. You may begin or end it where you please.
One chalky desert, extending anywhere and every-
where. At infinite distances a single cornfield, a
single vineyard, a single mound, a single stream, a
.single sheepfold, looking, with its huddled, amal-
gamated inmates, like a creamy and gigantic mush-
room ; a single tree, upsprouting from the sunburnt,
wind-swept, mirthless prairie to prick the torrid
heaven ; a solitary windmill by the way ; a solitary
cottage, one-doored, one-windowed, with possibly a
solitary tenant slumbering in the open, up against
the walL Even the scanty stations are isolated from
the villages or towns whose name they bear, seeming
to have strayed as far as possible from these, and
squatted beside the rails in order, as it were, to take
a peep at passing civilisation.
You remember Y^orick's definition of a traveller ?
" The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a
dark entiy may be an excellent good man, and fit
for a hundred things ; but he will not do to make a
^•ood sentimental traveller." " Well but,'' you ob-
o
B 3ouvnc\: Soutb
ject, " this definition is only i)iu-ti;il. We see things
nowadays \\ ith the brain, or with both brain and eyes,
or merely with the eyes; but very seldom with the heart.
Have you no definition of a traveller generally —
of a modern, matter-of-fact traveller, now that senti-
mentalism is sadly on the wane ?"" I think I have.
The man who, when he travels by night, remem-
bers to wind up his watch, knows how to travel : he
merits, without reserve, the name of traveller. I
drew my timepiece forth and found it ticking feebly,
hastened to ply the key, and saved my re]>utation as
a traveller by perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then I
went off to sleep and dreamed that old Don Quixote
was "holding-up" the train. When I awoke, the
summit of Despenajierros was sailing overhead, tipped
with pale yellow against a paling sky. Night and La
Mancha might have never been. Yonder, suffused
with sunlight, lay the olive-groves of Andalusia. The
olive is an ugly tree; its shape is mean; its colour, as
llusinol would say, is that of a faded \'enetian blind.
Who could aspire to counterfeit the mournful elegance
of the weeping willow, the hauteur of the elm, or the
rugged majesty of the mountain pine.^ But the
olive ! Twist a shred of dingy green paper about an
inch or two of black wire — say a straightened hair-
pin — and factum est. Your hands have jMoved to
all intents and purposes as cunning as those of
Mother Nature.*
* Since writing this I find that Arthur Young was just of my
opinion. " Descend mountains terraced for olives, which grow
well in rocks but add nothing to their beauty ; insomuch that
cloathing a naked country with this most ugly of all trees, adds
nothing to the pleasure of the eye." — Tour in Catalonia.
3
Ovana^a
^Vhatever bards may twitter to the contrary, no
olive has ever beautified a land, except symbolically.
Yet I was glad to see these olives now. Their
presence betokens Andalusia ; their history is older
than the Flood. Tradition says their parallel or
diagonal files and uniform, fluffy aspect suggested
first the madronera of the rnaja — that singular, grace-
ful overskirt whose use, unhappily, decreases day by
day. Soon other signs revealed " the Land of Holy
Mary'' — sunburnt fields, with galaxies of scarlet
])oppy ; sunburnt sierras, brown and yellow, melting
into blue ; dry river channels fringed with prickly
])ear ; snowy cortijos ; a ruined castle on a hill. A
land of peace, though not, alas, of plenty, scarred by
innumerable wars, plundered by crafty priests and
conscienceless caciques* gnawed by centuries of mal-
* The Andalusian millionaire and potentate, a sordid, gross,
unschooled, ill-spoken type, whether he ostentates a title or not,
has nearly always made his wealth by usury, or, as he calls it,
banking. A prominent beato, at some time or other he spares
enough from his thievings to present a gewgaw lo the local
" Virgin." For this his fellow townsmen almost canonize him,
while gaping rustics grow doubly eager to confide their scrapings
to his pious charge, or pay him twenty per cent, per month for
an advance upon their crops. Of course he bends his knees to
the Viaticum, kisses the bishop's ring, subscribes to the clerical
newspaper, and frequents mass. "When a man of business,"
said Ganivet, " conceals himself in the cloak of piety, he is more
to be feared than a Kruppgun." Indeed, the villainy of any
Spaniard may normally be estimated by the fervour of his
churchmanship. Perhaps in this respect Spain and Great
Britain do not differ very vastly. Reverting to our Andalusian
millionaire, he has no energy except for sucking blood, and
storms in pretty language against the British, German, French,
or Belgian capital and enterprise which fortify the land whose
entrails he himself is seeking to devour.
4
H 3ouincv; South
administration. .V land whose ocx-upants, thn)ii<;li
mingled indolence and ignorance, are ever falling
backward in the feverish, inevitable race; nonchahmt
suicides whose best ambition is gdzjuicho and a
cigarette — bad aliment and worse tobacco ; who>e
onlv merriment the twani; of the lumibrious uuitar.
Whenever I visit Andahisia, the same (juestion
repeats itself to me. How can a people live upon so
little, and live so long?
\et still the Andalusian peasant smiles and sings.
I could hear them from the train — those semi-nasal,
semi-guttural copla-s; thrown to the wind as we thi-ow
promises or prayers. And then the colour of the
scene — red, and green, and yellow saddlebags and
nosebands, flowers by the wayside, flowers in the
women's hair. Or what of this f Before the white-
washed wall of a (ottage a sheet of golden maize
spread out upon the road ; seated beside the maize a
couple of tortoiseshell cats ; in the doorway a little
old woman with bright silver hair and a pink jacket;
and, over all, the sky of Andalusia. Just as the
cottage dwindled we overtook a tall mule with two
riders, a lad of some fourteen years and a smaller
brother clinging round his middle. The latter urchin
was nearly naked, and his brown legs shone a perfect
terra di Siena in the rising light. He might have
started out of a picture by Raphael.
The resignation of these Andalusians passes all
belief. At one point on our journey a countrified
fellow mounts the footboard, but fails to turn the
handle, which is stiff. " Que g-rasia .'" he exclaims,
grinning in upon the passengers, '■^ :c/i(it a Joke !'^
5
©l•ana^a
The spirit of his remark is deeply wise, after the
local manner of philosophy. He may or may not
lose the train ; but at least the sticking of the door-
handle is worth a chuckle. According to this
standard, nothing is wholly tragic. Unluckily, the
converse must be true as well; "their enjoyment is
attended even with a sigh ; '' and hence it is that
Andalusian laughter never seems unmixed with
tears.
At one of the stations three beggars were labour-
ing along the platform. Labouring in two senses.
In the first sense they were exercising the labour
which belongs to their profession. Whether that
labour is better or worse, or worse or better paid,
or harder or softer than other of its kinds and rami-
fications, is not our business at this moment to
inquire. And then {labour number two) they were,
to use the dictionary term, " moving slowly, as
against opposition, or under a burden." All the
three had seen extended service in contriving income
from decay (a feat notoriously bevond the means of
many a moneyed potentate), and now were fired with
all the art and inspiration of decrepitude. This is
a sober truth. The only occupation we exercise with
better zest and strength, and larger honorariums as
time inclines our bodies and numbs our intellect, is
that of mendicancy ; some falling back upon the
stranger public, others upon their friends, or sons, or
daughters. So that in this good world that feeds
and shelters all, even senility is marketable ; and
imbecility, whether in youth or age, conspicuously
so.
6
"R Journey Sout(3
Returiiino" to the academic as distinguished from
the virtual beggars, I say that all these three were
far advanced in years. Two were old. The third,
almost beyond the range of any adjective, was in-
iinitely older. His face, in F'lij^-ard.s- expressive
metaphor, might just have been the Wandering
Jew's, if that blasphemer had survived from Christ
till now. Besides being senior to his fellows., he also
was the raggedest and most authoritative ; for tatters
in a mendicant are positively modish, and onlv con-
secjuential beggars can aftbrd to ostentate them. This
beggar wore, undoubtedly, an air of chieftainship,
though all the gang were full of varied interest. A
statistician would compute for us the quantity of dirty
copper which had passed between those thirty thumbs
and fingers in the course of, say, a hundred years, show-
ing us in a deft, comparative picture on the colunni
plan, the beggar in the middle, the copper upon one
side of him, and the dirt (allowing something extra for
the superadded grime of travelled money) upon tin:
other. I wonder which of the ]n\u< would reach the
highest.
But I am not a statistician ; and what amused me
most was watching the co-operative system of the
veteran three. I found their propaganda admirably
plaiuied and admirably executed. jNIuttering a suit-
able supplicatory phrase, they crawled before the
carriages in solemn single file. If you were looking
out of the window, the first would pass you by almost
ignored. But then the second came along and called
your vagrant notice back, and when the third arrived
your hand obeyed the summons automatically. I
7
©ranaSa
watched the case with eager speculation. At every
turn they took, the third and last received the fixed
attention and the tangible reward.
Three men, I thought (remembering Horatius and
his helpers), can surely make a better stand against the
universe than merely one; so these associated indigents
})arade in shrewd alliance their tatters and anticjuity
as every train goes past. V Union fait hi force.
Turning to another foreign language ; " When you
have a good thing,"" said one of our American cousins,
" push it." In this example the iteration of the propa-
ganda proves itself. Debility and dirt compose the
goodness. Your young and lusty beggars are at best
probationers! What do they earn compared with
master-craftsmen ? Nezo rags are unconvincing and
theatrical, nor is the dirt of ages gathered in an
hour. You have seen Gringoire on the stage ? Did
he look dirty ? He seems to me a gentleman who
has just come out of a motor accident. To these,
upon the contrary, the dirt accumulated and matured
across innumerable lustrums is worth its weight in
glory and in gold.
I repeat that the line between beggardom and
non-bcggardom becomes in many places quite imagi-
nary. Who shall lay down, even to the splitting
of a hair, the just and proper definition of a mendi-
cant ? Not (speaking of what I know) the historic
codes of Spain. True, the Siete Partidas, the Or-
denamiento de los Menestrales of Pedro the Cruel
(1351), the Ordenamiento de Toro (1369), the
Cortes of Burgos of 1379, and the Ordenamiento
of Briviesca of 1387 — all these provide ferocious
8
H 5oiuncv South
fines or torments for .able-bodied be<>;gar.^ of tiie
kiniidom. The citv of Toledo even decreed their
death.* But how about the soldier and tiie priest,
who positively <jjutted Spam tin-ou<Thout the Middle
Ages? The })riest, "founding his temporal estate
upon the spiritual estate of the faithful," spends
money but does not produce it. Exactly the same
remark applies to the soldier. \Vhy nIiouIcI not
these be maidiraiitcs Vdl'/di, or, as the old ("astilian
has it, haldfos f
It is preposterous to take for granted that the
only kind of mendicant is a frowsy wretch who
pesters or pleads upon the pavement for a copper
coin. How easy it is to show that mendicity, like
tleath, ipquo pidsat pede paupennii tuhernus regurnqiic
turrt's ; infects and exercises in all walks of lite, well-
nio-h without discrimination. The other day a young
and beautiful lady of title came to my house to solicit
a contribution towards some jewels for a (wooden)
" Viriiin.'''' I can recall no other instance where beaut \
in a woman has disgusted and reiielled me. AVhat
business had this begging dame to set a sensual snare
for a spiritual purpose? What did she come to my
house to beg for? Money? Not only money.
When I asked the maid what kind of a stranger-
visitor was waiting in my anteroom, '' /jouiig^'' I was
told, ''a)id vcrjj handsome^ This, then, was what
the Countess of came to beg for.
* '• Por la.primera vez dardn a cada Jino dellos cincuenta azotes
piiblicamente por ena cibdad, i detnas que los echardn a azotes fiuia de
la cibdad: c' por la seqimda vez que les cortardn las orejas ; J por la
tcrcera vez que los mandardii ttiatar porello."—!fiforme de la Imperial
cindad de Toledo sobre pesos y medidas ; 1400, p. 103.
9
OianaSa
Again, not long ago I asked a Spanish comandante
to lunch with nie at Lhardy's, in Madrid. He came,
and brought three friends of his, all officers of the
army, like himself, who all sat down and gorged at
my expense. Close to the doorway of the same estab-
lishment lingers an old blind pauper, who whines at
intervals for an ochavo. Am I to call this old blind
man a mendicant, but not this officer ? I will dis-
tinguish here. The blind old man, by merely mut-
tering his question more or less into my private ear,
left me a loophole of escape. \ot so the comandante.
" I beg,"' he said, " to introduce my friends, Fulano,
Perez, and INIengano. Perhaps ifoxi ic'dl not mind
their Joining ns ? "" So in this case the soldier was —
the soldier ; but only the old blind pauper was the
gentleman.
A similar confusion has prevailed at every period
of this nation's history. Her former laws attempted
vainlv enough to point a difference from the moneyed
to the pauper mendicant. The shrewd, observant
Ganivet remarks, as closely coexistent and con-
nected, a plebeian and an aristocratic beggardom,
sketching, in master terms, the inendicitijofthe noble —
*•' the hidalgo who gloats over the admirable temper of
his sword, and over his imaginary estates, who dreams
of grandeur and supports himself upon the crusts
collected by his servant." Late in the seventeenth
century, a report presented to the Spanish Govern-
ment declared that it was a matter of the utmost
nicety to winnow the indigent from the well-to-do ;
adding that swarms of beggars nere wont to game
awav their earnings in vaults and taverns, " meddling
10
B ."^ouincv Soutb
with meat and diink, and cvcrv other form of vice."
Obviously a pauper who leads this kind of life is
nothing of a pauper. The same report goes on to
say that many of the women mendicants were known
to possess "excellent houses, jewels, fowlyards, and
money in abundance." A royal cedula of August 24,
1540, affirms that the beggars " have their concu-
bines, and lead an evil and dishonest life, with grave
excess in eating, drinking, (did other v'lccsr The
Ordinances of Madrid for the year 1439 provide that
no able-bodied beggar is to remain in the city for
longer than three days, on pains of a hundred lashes
if he go afoot; but if he be on horsebdck he is to lose
his beast. Salazar declared mendicity to be "the only
trade in which a Spaniard of the seventeenth century
would deign to follow in the footsteps of his father
and his ancestors, considering it to be the usefullest,
easiest, and most unfettered of all occupations."" In
no country is it so common to be asked for alms by
perfectly well-dressed, well-fed ])eople as in Spain.
Late in the eighteenth century the Economic Society
of Madrid described the same abuse ; and assuredly
Philip the Fourth grew no less popular when he hung-
up a bag in the churches of Madrid, enabling his
subjects to boast that " they had given an alms to
the King of Spain."
Partly from indolence, partly from ignorance,
partly from a false appreciation of the jirinciples
of human rather than Roman Catholic charity,
Spain has at all times viewed the beggar's trade in
various of its fornis with scarcely veiled complaisance.
A proof of this is in the number of her mendicants,
11
6l•ana^a
and in the quantity of relief provided for them."
Campomanes estimated their total in his day at thirty
thousand trne paupers, and one hundred and forty
thousand idle paupers. In 1782, ^Madrid alone dis-
tributed in alms two hundred and twentv-five thou-
sand reales, and in 1783, including the King's
contribution, half a million ; all this in a poor,
thinly populated, and exhausted capital. Further-
more, a papal brief of ^larch 14th, 1780, empowered
Charles the Third to devote a third part of the entire
revenues of the Church to almsgiving. Campomanes
had previously computed the amount of money lost
to the nation by the collective idleness of her mendi-
cants at one hundred and eighty-two millions of
reales per annum ; and Kodrigo Caro and Ortiz de
Zuiiiga assure us that early in the seventeenth
century, when Spain was in her most impoverished
condition, the charities of Seville exceeded seven
millions of reales yearly. Over and over again the
prisons of the realm were choked with mendicants ;
but the State lacked funds to support them, and
since they could not be allowed to starve outright,
vomited them forth once more upon societ}.
Accepting for a moment the trite and vulgar defi-
nition of a mendicant, it were " a harder alchymy than
Lullius ever knew "" to point the difference of a moral
millimetre between this creature and the Spanish
priest ; or between the same creature, the Spanish
thief or bandit, and the Spanish common soldier
at least throughout the Middle Ages and even later.
All of those types subsisted on pillage obtained by
force or fraud. The Royal Letter of 1540 from
12
1\ ."^ouincv South
which I have ah-eady c|Uoted, coinphiins in bitter
language of the hordes of mendicants who roamed
about the land " under the guise of pilgrims and of
hermits,"''' Indeed, the monks and clergy (mendicants
themselves) encouraged the beggar as their most
productive agent. The picarescjue literature of
Spain divides its scope, without the slightest pre-
ference, between the beggar and the bandit ; and
truly the difference is little more than fanciful
between the pauper who harries you along the street
as he demands your money, and the pauper who
claps a pistol to your head and makes the same
demand upon the highroad : or again, between the
bandit and the soldier-gaolbird, whose only regular
pay consists in plunder. Such were the Spanish
armies in the Netherlands, and the forces sent against
the Moriscos of the Alpujarra. These latter would
melt mysteriously away between the night and
morning, and when their leaders came to look for
them were found to be engaged in looting innocent
])eople's property.
Certainly the beggar has proved as serviceable a
go-between to the criminal as to the priest. " They
pass with ease," says an old account, " from begging
to every kind of wickedness."" How near mendicity
is to theft or murder is shown by the La::arillo de
Tormcs, Rinconctc y CortadUlu, and similar master-
pieces of the picaresque. Nor has the office of the
mendicant in Spain been always even nominally pro-
hibited. Spanish towns and cities have frequently
provided licences for beggars in return for hire, pre-
tending by this means to limit the privilege of
V6
C5l•ana^a
alms-asking to the strictly incapacitated and necessi-
tous. But here, as ever, roguery contrived to
triumph. The hcence was exhibited in the form of
" bronze insignias,"" or tablets with " the wearer's
name and qualitv,'" suspended round the necks of the
approved practitioners. In 1671 these tablets bore a
picture of the Virgin. But, of course, the beggars
made no scruple of selling, or lending, or stealing
one another's licences ; and very soon the tablets
and " insignias "" had to be suppressed.
In one of the raciest of his " custom articles,"
the brilliant Larra describes a number of " liveli-
hoods which do not afford a livelihood " ; in plainer
words, those petty occupations that lurk perforce
upon the border-line of beggary. How often have
I seen a ]\Iadrid street-porter supplicate relief,
although with his coil of rope upon his shoulder. A
similar remark is applicable to the flo\\ er-girls, who
offer divers wares for sale ; to the gatherers of
cigarette ends ; and even to the newsboys : but, on
the other hand, the candeleros who used to hawk
about a light for smokers have disappeared from this
capital. Formerly the law prescribed the trades and
occupations which it held to constitute mendicity ;
such as (in 1745, Ordenanzas de Vago.s; ch. 5),
gamblers, drunkards, " those who maltreat their
wives without a visible cause," tumblers, ball-
throwers, bagpipe-players, exhibitors of magic-
lanterns or performing dogs and other animals, and
sellers of sugarcane, or of the sweetstuff' known as
turron.
So, taking one thing with another, the con-
14
fraternity of Spanish mendicants intrudes on every
epocli of Spain's history, engrosses or affects all
classes of her citizens. On this account their
haughtiness has grown proverbial. Seized with pity
for an aged mendicant who used to crawl iibont
Madrid, I once permitted him to come to mv house
and receive daily a plate of soup and a pennv. Not
many days had passed before he (piarrelled with mv
servants, complained of the soup (the same wliieh was
set upon my table), and demanded, not onlv an in-
crease of sdlcmj, but a glass of wine and a beefsteak
and potatoes.
While I was busied with these reflections, some
stations slipped away. I did not take much notice
of them; firstly, because I was absorbed with the pre-
ceding observations ; and secondly, because no rail-
way-station in Spain deserves a more than casual
curiosity. All are identical in barrenness of archi-
tecture. Hear how Ganivet describes thenu " The
railway-station is the symbol of our political and
administrative incapacitv, although we mav console
ourselves with the thought that they are not likely
to remain long standing ; their term of life is marked
out for them by their builders; and v.hen a mistake
creeps in, we become by so much more the gainers."'
Nevertheless, at one of these stations nrar to
Granada — though whether the nearest or the
nearest but one or two, I cannot for the life of me
recall — a small girl, probably the station-masters
daughter, hardly old enough to walk alone, was
nursing a toy lamb on the platform. Even an
inftint's mind is sensitive to metaphor; more ^o, it
15
(ranaJa
may be, than our own. Gazing from her toy to-
wards the cirro-cumukis of the early morning, " the
horregiiitos^'' she cried, " O look at the horreguitos'" ;
and truly those oval, fleecy cloudlets were not un-
like innumerable flocks at pasturage upon an azure
plain.
Yet presently, as if the hand of God had taken
an invisible sponge and wiped the face of heaven
clean, the horrcgiiitos vanished.
16
A Moorish Well near the Sacro-Monte
II
The Sacred Mountain
^tN a cloudless October nioniini;- — one of
the finest I recall in any land — I started
to walk to the church and college of
the Sacro-Monte of Granada, It was
a Sundav, too, and the streets were
throng-ed with mass-goers, water-sellers, strollers,
])edlars, and every other class of passenger. At the
end of the Plaza Nueva, just where the road l)ends
off beside the gracefid Mudejar tower of the Church
of Santa Ana, a woman was frying at a stall the
circular cakelets with a hole in the middle vulgarly
denominated tejer'mgos or, more politely and less
locallv, churros: Even in so radiant a landscape
this patch of brightness stood out ablaze with colour;
17 B
Ol•ana^a
the yellow discs immerged in bubbling oil: the
pearly smoke, the bunch of fresh-cut reeds — on which
to thread the merchandise — hanging beside the stove.
But the woman was (as women surely have the essential
right to be) the brightest note of all. A :Manila ker-
chief decked her shoulders; her cheeks and fingers were
ruddy with the fire, and I noticed with pleasure and
surprise that even the lustre of her jetty hair reflected
the azure of the sky.
The way to the Sacro-^NIonte lies first of all along
the Carrera del Darro, where once stood forty
Moorish palaces within the health-restoring quarter
of the Haxariz. Nowadays some few of the houses
wear yet an ancient look, and even many of the
modern ones possess a subtle picturesqueness all their
own. Sometimes their walls are rose, or tawny, or
vermilion ; or strings of flaming capsicums are hang-
ing from the window. Upon this morning a girl
leant over the railing of a balcony, tapping a tiny
foot on Seville tiles embosomed in a multitude of
flowers. Her cheeks, caressed by large and flashing
earrings reminiscent of the Moor, were flushed with
vigour and fresh air. Her glossy hair, as yet un-
dressed, was loosely held by a claret-coloured ribbon ;
and overhead a canary, whose breakfast she had just
provided, shrilled forth her praises from an emerald
cao-e. Before I took my eyes from her a blind man
came along, tapping the pavement with nis stick.
Never in all my life had I so pitied blindness.
Traversing the outskirts of the town I climbed the
steeply rising road, and found myself upon the terrace
of the Sacro-Monte.
18
cbc Sacvc^ /iPoimtain
The buildiiii^- itself, erected in the eailier half of
the seventeenth century, is hardly wortii attenti(jn.
A chilly church, a chilly college, a chilly courtyard,
bordered by a basement and a single storey of chilly
corridors. Along these corridors are eight and
twenty arches, oyer which are carved the founder's
arms and "the cabalistic star of Solomon, the em-
blem of the house." Yet though the fabric is so
cheerless in itself, it has a southerly aspect and over-
looks the lovely valley of the Darro onto the historic
caves of " Father Piquinote," and the equally historic
carmen of the Genoese Pascasio. The canons' residence,
between the college and the chiu'ch, has room for
twenty prebendaries and six chaplains. The seminary,
whic-h is at the eastern end, harbours a hundred and
fifty scholars, clerical and lay. The church, a simjily-
vaulted structure, contains some paintings worth ex-
amination — five by Kisueno, and an Iiiuiutnihttc Con-
ception attributed to Nino de Guevara, a pu})il of
Alonso Cano ; but the altar, dating from the middle
of the eighteenth century, is hideous. At one side is
a passage containing a Birth oj' Christ, by Carducho,
typical of that artist both in colour and in stiffness ; a
Conccption,hy Peter Raxis ; aMarfji/rdojn of Snntiaffo,
by Bocanegra; and a Saint Martin, l)y Risueno.*
* A native of Granada, equally distinguished in painting and
in sculpture. He stands high up in the second class of Spanish
painters ; and this, in the land of Velazquez, Alonso Cano, and
Goya, is not a little. Kisueno was born about the middle of the
seventeenth century, and died, according to Cean. in 1721.
Raxis was not a Granadino, although he passed a great part of
his life here. Bocanegra, a pupil of Alonso Cano, and. like his
master, a native of this city, was a fairly fashionable painter of
the seventeenth century. The manner of his death was curious.
19
0^ana^a
From this recess we enter the Sacred Caverns of
the Sacred Mountain — gloomy and constricted sub-
terranean passages, opening out at intervals into a
small, well-lighted chapel. The unusual effect of
this suggested to Jimenez-Serrano a pretty and a
prettily expressed conceit. He says : " On passing
through these galleries dug out between the bowels
of the mountain, and issuing therefrom into the
pleasant clearness of the chapels, we seem to witness
a combat of our inmost thouo-hts and roam through
dismal paths of ignorance and doubt, until we fix
our eves on God, the li";ht of all creation."*
Now let me tell the story of these caves — a longish
story, though full of interest, social, national and
psychological — the story of the most astonishing,
amusing, and protracted swindle that the world has
ever heard of.
In 1588 an ancient tower was standing in the very
centre of the city of Granada, close to where we now
observe the Sagrario of the cathedral. About this
tower old writers, and even comparatively recent
ones, have echoed or invented sundry legends, main-
taining it to be of prehistoric or Phoenician origin.
Echeverrfa has much to say about a full-length statue
of a Roman soldier, discovered somewhere round
A younger rival, Teodoro Ardemans, irritated by Bocanegra's
intolerable vanity, challenged him to a match at painting each
the other's portrait. The challenge was accepted by Bocanegra,
and Ardemans, hitting off his likeness to perfection, proved him-
self the better of the two, besides completing the picture within
an hour's work. The duel, notwithstanding its pacific nature,
had a fatal consequence : for Bocanegra, stung by his defeat,
took to his bed and died a few days after.
"■■ Manual del Artista y del Viajero en Granada, p. 362.
^0
Zbc SacvoJ /mountain
about Granada, and bearing this i:iscription at the
base, Cuio Ant'ist'io Turpioni. " Here," he com-
ments, " we have a famous man called C'aius Anti^tius
Turpion, who mav have <^iven his name to the Torre
Turpiana (such was the usual title of this tower,
though it was also called 'the ancient" and 'the
uninhabitable') either from having mended it or else
from having dwelt in it, or taken it bv force of
arms." He adds that it was ancient even in the time
of Nero.* Another of these silly scribes is Pedraza,
who assures us that "erected bv the Gentiles,"" it
resembled several other towers standing in his day.
But since Echeverria admits that it was also similar
to the Puerta Nueva, which still exists, we may be
sure that it \vas merely a Moorish fabric, probably of
a defensive kind, and dating from an early period of
the Moorish occupation.
On Friday then, March 18th, 1588, the tower
was beino; thrown down to make wav for part
of the Christian temple. A day later, while carting
away the debris, the workmen came upon a leaden
box, caked over with mud, and which, being opened by
the overseer, was found to contain a piece of parch-
ment, a scrap of linen in the shajje of an obtuse-
angled triangle, and a bone. The parchment was
covered with Arabic writing, headed by five small
crosses disposed so as to form a single large one. The
substance of the writing claimed to be a projAecy of
Saint John the Evangelist, presented by Saint Dio-
nysius to Saint Cecil, patron of Granada, uj)on the
latter's visiting Athens. The signature ai)peared to
* Paseos por Granada, vol. i. p. 256.
21
©ranatia
be autographic, and read as follows : " Cecil, Bishop
of' Granada.''''
Pedraza and Echeverria explain that the writing
on the parchment formed a kind of cryptogram,
chequered with sundry letters in black, and others in
red ; and that, when the black letters were joined and
the red letters were joined, each batch of them was
found to form " a clear and current Spanish, as
polished as we speak it at this day " ; the entire
legend constituting a prediction of the end of
the world. A transient difficulty was presented by
the fact that the Arabic and the Spanish were pre-
cisely those of the time of the discovery ; until a
learned doctor, Lopez Madera, took upon himself to
show that the Spanish spoken in the first century and
that of the sixteenth were identical — truly a tour de
force of scholarship. The parchment itself was
examined bv experts, who pronounced it to be the
skin of something, but neither ram, nor ewe, nor
ffoat, " nor any other beast of those that are familiar
to us.""" The relics, says Echeverria, were genuine
bevond all doubt. The bone was of the proto-
martvr Stephen. The cloth was half of that w here-
with the Virgin dried her tears at the Passion of Our
Lord ; and for this reason the Virgen de las
Angustias was named patrona of Granada — a proud
position which she still enjoys. Strange to say,
the corresponding half was found, of all places
in the world, in America — at the town of Puebla de
los Angeles, formerly Tlascala. Here, once again,
the unbiased erudition of Echeverria shall be of use
to us. " Possibly," he suggests, " long years ago
Zhc Sacrc? flDountain
America was joined to Palestine by stretches of land
where now are straits of water.'
The discoverv in the Torre Turpiana was rare
enough ; but rarer finds were yet to come. When
the excitement created by the prior event had almost
died away ; when Vaca de Castro had succeeded
Mendez de Salvatierra as archbishop of Granada ; *
and when the process instituted to classify and con-
firm the holy rag, and bone, and parchment had
dragged its slow length along for several years, a
further series of discoveries burst forth upon the
pious people of Granada. Just then a favourite
entertainment of the poorer citizens consisted in
searching the hollows and the hills for buried
treasure, not of a spiritual but of a practical descrip-
tion ; for times were bad and the Christian Granadinos
were terribly put to it to keep alive without the need
of work. Upon a certain day in 1594 a connnon fellow
by name Sebastian Lopez, accompanied by one
Francisco Garcia, went forth to look for treasure on
* Ramos Lopez awards a tender tribute to the memory
of Vaca de Castro's predecessors for their stern destruction
of the baths of the Moriscos — "asylums of voluptuousness,''
as Seiior Ramos picturesquely calls them (El Sacio -Monte
de Granada, p. i8). Years after the Moriscos were expelled,
the laws of Spain provided that the scanty remnant of this
tortured people were " not to possess an artificial bath in
the said kingdom of Granada, or bathe therein, on pain of fifty
days imprisonment, two years banishment, and a fine of a
thousand maravedis." If the offence (i.e., the bathing) were
repeated, the criminal was to be fined double. If he proved to
be incorrigibly addicted to ablution, and washed himself yet a
third time, he must go to the galleys for five years and forfeit the
half of his property. — Francisco de la Pradilla, Snma de Todas
las Leyes Penales, Canonicas, Civiles, y destos Reynos. Madrid, 1628.
2ii
ffirana^a
tlie outskirts of the town, bearing in his pocket a
written "recipe"''' in which he greatly trusted.
These were its directions :
" When Spain was lost, a mine of gold that used
to lie between Encesa and Cabrera, upon a naked
ridge that hath blue stones, was closed within the
kingdom of Granada. Within the mine aie nine and
forty chambers. Its mouth is to the western side ;
and in those days they used to draw from it two
ounces and a half of gold for every five ounces of soil.
This mine belonoed to the king; Don Roderick ; and
when Spain was lost, the miners perished beneath a
projecting mass of earth, thrown down at the mouth
of the mine in order that the Moors miy-ht not avail
themselves thereof."
So much for the " recipe." Sebastian, proceeding
for a while along the Guadix road, at length drew
near to what is now the Sacro-Monte. After scruti-
nizing the ridge, he came to the conclusion that it
well might be the spot referred to in his paper :
moreover, some stones on it were slightly bluish. So
getting to work he discovered, after digging for a
little while, what seemed to be a rabbit-hole. Down
this he thrust a stick, but moving the stick from side
to side and not encountering a limit to the cavity, he
marked the spot and returned to Granada, conveying
with him a fragment of cupriferous stone, which a
silversmith ]n-onounced to contain a quarter part of
copper. Roused by this analysis, which seemed to
tally not a little with his " recipe," our man marched
back upon the morrow, and resumed his operations
with redoubled vigour. Widening the orifice, he
24
"Cbc Sacl•c^ /mountain
found beyond it a tavc with a levelled Hoor of Nofti^li
earth, and, digging out a part of this, a large stone,
too heavy for a single person to stir, covering tlu'
entrance to a second cavern, also made level b\ a
human hand. Two nionths were taken up with thcM.'
investigations, until, upon Fel)ruary 21 >t, one of
Sebastian's helpers, bv name Francisco Ilernande/.
unearthed a strip of rotten lead, three fingers broad
by some two feet in length, inscribed at one
extremity with three lines of clumsily executed Latin
letters of cuneiform design, which only with unusual
pains could be construed into the following:
coiu'vs vsrr.M Divi mf.syioxis
.MAltTVUlS I'ASVS EST SV]i XKltO
XIS LMI'KRATORIS I'Oll'.XTATV
On jVIarch 15th, 1595, and after its interj)retation
by two Jesuits, notice of the stri]) of lead was given
to the archbishop, who promptly ordered the
searches and researches to continue at his own
expense. Pedro de Castro y Quinones, tenth arch-
bishop of Granada, was the son of Cristobal Vaca
de Castro, a })rominent Spaniard who liad enriched
himself as governor-general of Peru, leaving at his
demise a handsome fortune. His son, on being-
appointed to the see of Granada, is stated to have
said that he accepted the post with extreme reluct-
ance, admitting of the dignity merely to giatifv the
king ; but, he added, God was sending him to
iymuadiifor .souic great cxrut. This great event is
naturally thou<<;ht to mean the fiiulinii of the famous
relics of the Sacred Mountain. However, in fairness
(3 vanafa
to the prelate''s memory it must be owned that
although his intellect was all too small, and his
credulity all too large, Pedro de Castro was an
earnest, charitable, and well-meaning man. He went
through life revered and hoodwinked simultaneously.
In personal appearance he was, Pedraza tells us,
" small of body but great of head." His labours,
though often injudicious, were at least untiring. His
almsdeeds knew no limit. In the thirty-three years
of his prelacy — twenty in Granada and thirteen in
Seville — his income amounted to a total of two and
a half millions of ducats, of which, observes the same
historian, he did not keep one single real. He also
inherited a large amount of money through the
death of his two brothers ; but all of this vast
fortune went in charity and unselfish works. Even
his shirts and robes were mended, so that he might
have more to give away. One day his servant ven-
tured to order him a new cassock. When it was
brought, " how's this ? " exclaimed the archbishop,
refusing to put it on ; " why hast thou brought me
this without my asking for it ? Take it away and
give it to the poor. Those that I have are good
enough for me.""*
It is impossible, therefore, to lay upon this
generous-hearted man the blame of the disgraceful
swindles of the Sacred Mountain. He was, in fact,
a victim of his own too trusting nature, as well as of
the cruel roguery of others.
This brings us back to the " discoveries." Isidro
Garcia, one of the two Jesuits who had declared the
* Pedraza, Historta de Granada, p. 266.
26
cbc Sacl■<:^ .OOountaux
meaning of the marvellous strip of lead, visited the
cave and exclaimed sententiouslv, " Here we shall find
a mine of saints." His prophecy proved absolutely
true. On ]VIarch 20th, a portion of the earth fell in
beneath the workmen's feet, and another cave was
disclosed. Next, on different dates and at varying
intervals, appeared the whole notorious series of the
leaden plates and books. The first plate turned up
by the ])icks was three and twenty inches long by five
in breadth, l)eing doubled four times over so as to
conceal the writing. The legend, in faulty Latin, as
upon the strip discovered previouslv, averred that in
the second year of Nero's empire, and on March 1st,
Saint Hiscius, together with his pupils, Turilus,
Panuncius, Maronius, and Centulius, had earned the
palm of martyrdom upon this holy site, being put to
death bv burning. The inscription, too long and too
ridiculous to quote in full, concludes : " ni lap'nles in
calcem conversifiiernnt quonun pulvcn's in huiu.smcri
montis cavernis iacent (jni, ut ratio po.Htnlat* in eonaii
ino/ioriam vcneretury
The next plate recorded the similar martyrdom,
also upon the Sacro-Monte, of Saint Ctesiphon, called,
before Saint James converted him, Aben-Athar, and
in the same inscription declared Ctesiphon to be the
author of a book called The Foundation of the
Church, which book, it said, was also in these caves,
together with the ashes of the saint and martyr. At
this the citv grew wild with expectation, and public
prayers were offered for the discovery of the j)recious
t Of course, among a sane society, these three words, " ut
ratio postuhit ,'' would have sufficed to damn the whole collection.
27
volume; though everybody, inchiding the archbishop,
believed that the work would resemble an ordinary
bound volume of the sixteenth century. However,
when finally exhumed, it proved to consist of five thin,
circular, leaden sheets, about the size of the Host,
with a cordlike strip of lead thrust through to keep
them joined, the whole being enclosed in a leaden
case inscribed, " Liber fiindamenti eelesiw Salomoiis
charaeteribus serijjtit.s.'" Immense rejoicings followed ;
liberal pourboires to the diggers ; * and discharge of
* The sum awarded to the treasure-seekers for stumbling first
upon the forgeries is not stated. We know that there was a law-
suit between Sebastian Lopez on the one hand, and Juan de
Leja, Juan Martinez de Paredes, and Pedro Hernandez on the
other. The judgment was in favour of the three companion-
litigants, Sebastian being condemned to keep perpetual silence as
to the quantityof the reward. Pedraza, Hist, de Granada, p. 270.
The archbishop, wealthy, charitable, and zealous to excess
about the welfare of the " relics," gave every reason to
the treasure-hunters to put their best foot foremost. Pedro
Jimenez, who extracted a leaden book on April 22nd, 1595, was
rewarded from the prelate's purse with a hundred ducats, and
his fellow workmen with fifty bushels of corn, because the book
contained " the most essential portions of our holy Catholic
faith." A month before this Castro had presented a woman
named Catalina de la Cueva with thirty thousand maravedis
for bringing him a triangular cover enclosing three circular
leaden plates inscribed with Arabic characters. — Echeverria,
Paseos pov Granada, pp. 295-297. (Note to the edition of 1814.)
As time advanced the archbishop seems to have grown less
open-handed. Late in 1606 a "book," containing fifty-one
leaves, written by Saint Cecil and annotated by Saint James, was
found in possession of a dying man who had unearthed it eight
years earlier on the Sacro-Monte, but had preferred to lay the
secret by, expecting prices to improve. How strong was avarice
in this instance is shown by the fact that the man upon his
deathbed sent the book to the king, in order that "if he re-
gained his health he might be given something." — /did. pp. 326,
327 {Noie).
28
XT lj c S n c r c J /Di o u ti t a i m
cannon from the ramparts of the Alljambra. Pre-
sently another " book "" was found, as well as a plate
declaring- that on February 1st, in the second year of
Nero's reign, Saint Cecil, disciple of Saint James, had
also suffered martyrdom upon that holy sjiot.
Herewith, Saint Cecil being the legendarv proto-
l)ishop of Granada, the populace went wholly off their
heads. Night and day the road to the Sacred Moun-
tain was like an ant-heap for the multitudes who
plodded up and down, counting their beads in pious
silence; myriads of the townsfolk, the stern authori-
ties of the Holy Office, the President of Chancery,
and dames and cavaliers of high degree. Six hun-
dred and eighty crosses, forwarded from every part
of Spain, were jilanted along the wayside,* " looking
like an invention of Almighty God."""!" Those of
the rich and noble were " corpulent and well-
wrought," while even the poor contributed their
humbler ones of wood ; until, within not many
months, "there was not a handbreadth of soil the
mountain over but was covered with a cross." *
At length were found the plate referring to
Saint Ctesiphon, and the oven (similar enough to
* Three are still standing on the summit of the hill, and were
dedicated, two by the silkmen and market vendors, and the
other by the stonecutters and the soldiery of the Alhambra. —
Gomez Moreno, GuUi dc Granada, p. 471.
t Lopez Madera, Discursos de la Certidumhn' dc las Reliquiae
descuhiertas en Granada, p. 27. Granada, 1601. This was one of
a shoal of tomes produced with the object of demonstrating the
genuineness of the " relics," and crammed with undigeslible and
undigested scholarship. Indeed, these books are quite as leaden
in their way as those of the Sacro-Monte. The title-page bears
imaginary portraits of Don Cecilius, Don Hiscius, and so forth.
;|: Echeverria, Paseos por Granada, vol. i. p. 219.
i>9
©ranaiia
an everyday cooking stove) which had served for
burning San CeciHo. The Latin of the plates was
remarked to be not only modern, but bad Latin
at that, " with a good many solecisms."'"' No matter.
" Was it necessary,"'"' demands Echeverria with scorn,
"that the plates should have been inscribed by a
Christian person thoroughly versed in the Latin
language ? "" As for the ashes of the martyrs,
hardened by now into a chalky mass (excepting
the body of Saint ^Vlesiton, which was only half
consumed), they were submitted to the soap-makers
and silversmiths, and stated to be human remains,
mixed up Avith earth.
From now until the winter of ]59T, a mighty
quantity of bones, and leaden books, and plates was
dragged to light ; sometimes by the navvies, some-
times by amateur rehc-hunters, sometimes even by
children at their play. Several of the plates and book-
covers were found to contain, besides inscriptions in
bad Arabic or worse Latin, fanciful designs, chiefly
of interlacing triangles, professing to be " the seal of
Solomon.'"' Hence the star of Solomon engraved upon
the columns of the courtyard of the Sacro-Monte.
From long before this date the Sacred ^fountain
had borne a name for prodigies and portents. Its
grass and thyme were said to fatten flocks above all
other jiasture. The ancients spoke of its surround-
ings as the Ravine of Glory^ from mystic flres or
lights which hung about it after dark ; and from its
foot issued the Stream of Healthy which banished all
diseases.* These marvels now revived and multi-
* Pedraza, Hist, de Granada, p. 270.
30
"Che Sacl•c^ /mountain
plied apace. The bcata Ana de Jesus dejiosed to
having felt "a suave and fragrant tide,"' wafted
from the caves towards lier house top, while >lie
knelt there praying ; and " all," says Ramos Lopez,
writing in 1883, " who know this venerable mother's
reputation, will recognise the value of her testi-
mony."" Even the archbishop remembered to have
seen " processions of lights and balls of fire sus-
pended above the Holy Mountain."'' The bones
and books wrought numberless cures, the mere
examination of which kept Castro busv for thiee
years. Nor had the relics of the Torre Turpiana
grown inactive. The scrap of kerchief, or, as
Pedraza calls it, the toca (head-dress) of the \'irgin,
applied to the leg of a divine obliterated three
unsavoury sores rebellious to all ])revious treatment.
Stranger still, a cloth which had merely been in
contact with the iuca relieved the .Alartjuis of
Mondejar, governor of the Alhambra, of a painful
Huxion, and cured a case of cataract. One day,
when Philip the Second had fallen sick, he called for
the original rag, and wrapping it about his person
recovered upon the spot ; so prior to sending back
the relic to Granada, he snipped a fragment off one
corner and placed it in a costly reliquary in the
Escorial, where it was still adored in EcheverriVs
time, and jjrobably is so at this hour, " But,"
remarks Pedraza, with unconscious irony, '"strangest
of all is this ; that the ashes of the martyrs should
have been preserved for sixteen hundred years en-
closed in earth without becoming one with it,
against the rules of all philosophy."
31
(5rana^a
Now let me state the titles of the leaden books,
whose total reached nineteen :
(1) Concerning the Foundations of the Faith, bv
Ctesiphon Ebnathar, disciple of Saint James the
Apostle.
(2) Concerning the Venerable Essence, by the same
author.
(3) The Mass Ritual of Saint Javws the Apostle,
by his disciple Ctesiphon. The directions for the
service provide that after the appointed prayer the
minister is to wash his hands and face.
(4) The Oration and Apology of Saint James the
Apostle, son of Xaniech Zebedee, against all manner
of adversity, zcherexcith he made his prayer to God,
and ichich zcas taught him by his master, Jesus, the
Son of Mary.
(5) The Book of the Preaching of the Apostle Saint
James, icritten at his command by his disciple and
amanuensis Ctesiphon Ebnathar, an Arab; for
general use and preaching to the people of the land
of Spain.
(6) The Weeping of Peter the Apostle a>id Vicar,
after his denial of Our Lord Jesus. This weeping
lasted seven vears, after which time Peter heard a
voice proclaiming his pardon.
(7) The Book of Glorious Deeds of Our Lord Jesus
and of Mary the Virgin, his Mother, by Ctesiphon
Ebnathar, Disciple of the Apostle Saint James. This
work (to give it too flattering a name) is just a con-
glomeration of media?val tales and excerpts from the
Koran and the gospels. Godoy Alcantara (on whose
relation of the forgeries and their discovery 1 partly
32
Zhc Sac re ^ /fountain
base my own) observes that tlie fifth chajjter,
describiiifi; " the beauty and person of Jesus and his
Mother Mary," is eminently oriental. Jesus, it tells
us, was the handsomest of men, and Mary the love-
liest of women ; the colour of their hair being that
of the ripe date.
(8) The Guerdon of Believers in theeertd'ndij of the
Gospel., eontaining' eip;ht questions asKrdof Holij M(irif
bij Saint James the Apostle, standard-hearer of the
Faith: xcritten, at his eonunand, bij his disciple ttnd
amanuensis, Ctesiphoti Ebnathar, the Arab.
(9) Co)uernino' the g-reat Mijsteries xcit)ie-ssed btj
Saint James the Apostle on the Saered Montdain :
written, (d his eomnunul, hp Cecil his disciple.
(10) The Book of the Enignuis and Mpsteries seen
by the Virgin Holy Mary, throns^-h the grace (fGod,
on the night of her spiritual conversation, as she de-
clared them to Saint James the A/)0stle ; icritten, at
his command, by his amanuettsis atul disciple, Cecil
Ebnelradi.
(11) The Book of Sentotees co)urr)iing the Faith,
manifested by Holy Mary, the stainless Virgin, to
Saint James the Apostle, translated into Arabic, at
Holy Marys comnunul, by Cecil Ebnelradi". These
sentences are stated to have been written by the
Virgin in person upon a piece of parchment ; l)ut
she bade Cecil, " tidic them and translate thou into
Arabic, and place them upon lead in order tlud they
may guide the servants of the Lord in the last fit/n-.s.'"
(12) 7'he History of the Seal of Solomon, the -s m
of David, prophet of the Lord, according to Holy
Mary, by Cecil Ebnelradi.
33
^Sl•ana^a
(IJJ) Of the cornprehensihility of the Divine jmxver,
clemency^ and justice toicards creation., hij Cecil
Ebnelradi, disciple of Saint James the Apostle.,
defender of the Evangelic laxo.
(14) The second part of the preceding work.
(15) Of the nature of the Angel, and of his poxver ;
hy Cecil Ebnebridf, disciple of the Apostle Sairit
James.
(16) The delation of the House of Peace, and of
the House of Veng-eance, and of Torments ; by Cecil
FJ)nelradi.
(17) Of the illustrious deeds of the Apostle Saint
James and of his miracles; hy Cecil Ebnelradi, his
disciple and amannensis. Contains a ^^ physical and
moral portrait of the Apostle.'"
(18) The second part of the preceding.
(19) History of the Certainty of the Holy Gospel.
Here is one of those prognostics which used to be
extremely popular with the Moriscos. In order to
grasp its whole significance, says Godoy Alcantara,
we must think of it as pointing to one of the leaden
books inscribed with unintelligible characters, and
therefore called the "illegible"'"' or "dumb" book.
This latter professed to be a gospel presented by the
Virgin to Saint James, and the circumstances of its
preparation were as follows. " One day, when the
apostles were gathered together in Mary"'s house,
after the coming of the Holy Ghost, she told them
that by God"'s command, conveyed to her by Gabriel
the archangel, she purposed to reveal to them the
certainty of the glorious gospel sent down to her by
the Almighty, after her conversation with Him.
34
C b c S a c r c ^ /B> o u n t a i n
Thereupon she exhibited the gospel in question,
written bv a powerful hand with radiant Hght on
circular tables of precious stones, whose value God
alone has knowledge of; and also a copy made by
herself on leaden plates, sealed with the seal of
Solomon. Peter said to her, ' What dost thou bid us
do with this Certainty ? ' She replied, ' It hath been
ordered nie that thou do with it as was done with
the tables of Moses ; James will bear this copy to an
uttermost quarter of the earth, and there he will
conceal it in a holy spot where God shall guard it
till the appointed time."" Peter inquired how God
would make this revelation. Mary replied that the
gospel would remain under Gabriel's protection
until the heresies and offences of the world should
need the application of the remedy ; that those
offences and heresies would be disclosed by the hand
of a holv priest (the Archbishop Vaca de Castro) : and
that God would thereupon avenge His law by means
of the fairest people among His creatures. Then
said Peter, ' What people be they r ' ' Arabs and
their language," replied the Virgin ; ' I tell thee that
these Arabs shall be among the fairest of all people,
and their language of the most melodious. They
shall be chosen by God to save His law in the last
times, after having been its bitterest enemies; and
God shall endow them with might and wisdom to
this end. "Pis not the sons of Israel, but the Arabs
and their tongue that shall assist the Almighty and
His law, together with His holy gospel and His holy
church upon the latest day." Peter exclaimed, ' Our
Ladv, tell us how shall that befall, that our hearts
35
tBranaSa
may be ([uieted." She replied, ' Know ye that in the
extreme west is a region called Spain, in the utter-
most part whereof God shall preserve the copy of
this Certajntf/, and when the appointed time draws
nigh shall make it manifest, as also the books that
are together with it ; and its defender shall be the
servant of the hidden servants of the Lord ; nor shall
there be any other person in the world so potent to
this purpose/ Then Peter said, ' O Lady, who shall
be this defender of the glorious gospel ? ' She
replied, ' When the time approaches, God shall raise
up a king among the kings of the east, together with
people hungering after victory, and shall award to
him a vast and mighty empire ; and terror shall
invade all hearts, even to lands in the remotest west ;
and he, though not an Arab, shall yet be king of
all the Arabs. God shall cause all men to readily
obey him, and reconcile all mortals ; and doctors,
expounders, and interpreters shall meet in council ;
and this shall be the first council in which the Arabs
shall be gathered together, and the last council of
the world. They shall assemble there by reason of
the book in their own Arabic tongue, which then
shall be the common one. AVhen they are met
together they shall dispute greatly, and their intelli-
gence shall be confounded, till God raise up a lowlv
creature in that place, who shall explain the
Certaintij of the gospel in the light of the Holy
Ghost. When all are satisfied, their law shall
become a single law, and error and impiety shall be
banished from the world. And yet these days of
<juiet shall be few, for after they are past corrup-
36
Zbc SacicJ /lOoiiutnin
tion jsliall return, and only the Antichrist shall be
awaited. The council shall be held in the island of
Cyprus, which the king of the kings of the Arabs
shall wrest from the Venetians at the coming of
those latest times.' With this the \'irgin took tiie
tablets, and the apostles bore her company, and all
together in the darkness of the night went out unto
the Mount of Olives. There they praved to God ;
whereat the mountain burst asunder with a mighty
Hash of heavenly Hame, received the tablets into its
entrails, and closed once more. When thev had all
returned to Mary's house, she said to Saint James,
' Go with this copy of the tablets of the Cei'tnintyy
and with this book, unto the seashore. God shall pro-
vide thee with a little boat, whose pilot shall be the
angel Gabriel. ^^' hen ye arrive in Spain, make entry by
the eastern side, and hide both book and tablets where
a dead man comes to life. Thereafter preach to the
inhabitants, and slacken not until a servant of the
servants of the Lord believes thee, thus making good
thy patience in thy preaching, since it is known that
God loveth the patient. That mortal only shall
believe thee ; but thy disciples shall win that nation
to the faith, and divers shall suffer martyrdom upon
that holy spot.' ''
These instructions were strictly carried out. The
apostle found the little boat, and guided by the
archangel reached the shores of Spain. As soon as
he had landed and laid the book and tablets down,
the earth began to gape, and from it came a man
who said, " AVhy hast thou raised me from my tomb,
wherein I rested since the time of Moses ? INIy soul
37
(5l•ana^a
is with the blessed." Saint James replied, " It was
not I who raised thee, but the power of God, and
the copy of the Certainty of the Glorious Gospel.
What is thy name ? " The man replied, " Alachius,""
and asked in turn, " and thine ? " " James, the
apostle of the apostles of Jesus, son of Mary, Spirit
of the Lord."" Then the other said, " Salvation be
with thee ; my soul is happy with Him : glad am I
of thy coming, and crave that thou restore me to
my couch."" This Santiago did, and remained with
his disciples in that spot for forty days, writing this
history and concealing it in the caves, together with
the copy of the Certainty^ and the book ; and on his
departure enjoined his disciples to visit the place
after his death, and hold it duly sacred.
38
A Gipsy Lodging on the Way to the Sacro-Monte
III
The Sacred Mountain— ro«^/«"f'^
,HE discoveries of the Sacvo-Moiite
transpired with winged (luickne.ss
^] throughout the Catholic world. Castio
himself conveyed the tidings to the
.__^i2^^ King of Spain and to the ro})e.
Philip, than whonwx better subject for >uch jugglei y
could hardlvhave been hoped for, replied ui Hattering
terms, and offered to defray the cost of the transla-
tion The papal answer was more circumspect, ior
while the pontift-also applauded the zeal and forttme
of the prelate, he reserved to Rome the vdtnnate
decision upon the doctrine embodied in the leaden
books. Decidedlv this reservation was a prudent
one The archbishop himself had set to work to
59
^3l•ana^a
study Arabic (thoiioh first of all, perhajis, he might
have studied common sense) ; while a local council
of eighteen eminent theologians, assembling at his
palace, had voted with one accord that the books
were stored with "holy. Catholic, and apostolic
doctrine; lofty, positive, and scholastic theology;
gravity and compression; Christian piety; a majestic
style ; and natural and revealed teaching exceeding
the power and light of human understanding, that
seem to be dictated by the Holy Ghost."
Yet on the other hand the archbishop was author-
ized by a papal brief, dated by Clement the Eighth
from Ferrara, July 1st, 1598, to finally decide upon
the authenticity of the ashes, plates, and such like
rubbish forming part of the collection. With this
intent the prelate called together a special synod of
five-and-forty members (nearly all of whom were of
the clergv) to sit in judgment on the nature and the
value of the precious stuff'. The proceedings were
conducted in his own palace ; and at their termina-
tion, after only half a dozen sittings, a verdict was
})ronounced unanimously favourable to the " relics,"
then deposited upon a bureau in the middle of the
room, while all the company went down upon their
knees to do them reverence. This verdict was pub-
licly proclaimed in the cathedral, after the misa
nia^or on April 30th, 1600 ; and once again the in-
fatuated people of Granada rushed out of their heads
with rapture and rejoicing.
In the meantime two translators were appointed
to declare the meaning of the leaden books. These
men were both of Moorish stock, educated, possessing
40
"Cbc Sacl•e^ /n^ountahi
the degree • of licentiates, and both of them inter-
preters, by royal warrant, to the Crown. Their
names, of which I beg my readers to take especial
notice, were Miguel de Luna and Alonso del Castillo.
Once translated and made public, however, the
substance of the leaden books was not received with
unadulterated confidence. Indeed, from the gross-
ness of the blunders, blasphemies, and contradictions
they contained, such universal credence would have
been impossible, even in that century and in Spain.
One or two persons began to murmur that they
smelt a hoax. They pointed out that the ground-
work of several of the books was patently Moham-
medan ; and quoted infidel expressions such as this,
cleanly transplanted from the Koran ; " If one of
the maidens of Paradise were to spit a single time
into the sea, the sweetness of her saliva would suffice
to sweeten all the waters of the vast abyss." Never-
theless, the books were well defended ; notably by
the parti-ans of the Immaculate Conception and of
Santiago's personal mission among the Spaniards.
Their chief opponents were the powerful Order of
Santo Domingo, supported, as time went on, by a
small though troublesome number of individuals.
Pending the final judgment of the holy see, the
Pope had forbidden all discussion on the matter.
But the few though indefatigable private censors
wei'e not to be kept silent. One of them, by name
Gurmendi, took lessons in Arabic with a Turk, and
aided by a Jesuit priest prepared an independent
version of his own, accompanied bv a quantitv of
opportune and adverse criticism. Copies of this
41
(5vana&a
attack were forwarded to the Royal Council, the
Supreme Council, the Inquisition, and even to the
Pope. In November of 1607 Pedro de Valencia, a
pupil of the learned Arias Montano, presented an
Informe to the cardinal -archbishop of Toledo, in
which he said, " For the love of God I beseech your
reverence that as the primate of Spain, pious, learned,
and generous, vou arm yourself with holy valour and
intention, and hinder this from going forward. The
jest is now become too heavy to be borne. Well I know
that the Church at large, including its High Pontiff,
runs no risk of being deceived. The peril is for the
good report of Spain, since, when these books are
seen at Home they must perforce appear to be what
they are, and people will wonder greatly at their
having caused us such emotion."
The cause of the defenders of the forgeries grew
more and more discouraging. Archbishop Castro
was translated to Seville, and died in 1623. The
Marquis of Estepa wrote a ridiculous defence of the
books, which did a great deal more to damn them
than even the acrid comments of Gurmendi ; and had
the mortification of seeing his darling labour con-
fiscated by the Holy Office. The papal nuncio
began to thunder at the door of the palace, demand-
ing that the books should be despatched to Rome.
At length the kino- commanded their removal to
Madrid ; but the canons of Granada who had charge
of them refused compliance, and the padlock of the
chest which stored away the unhicky fictions had to
be filed through upon the warrant of a justice. Once
in Madrid they were exposed to the quips and epi-
' 42
"Cbc Sacl•c^ /n^ountain
grams of Qaevedo, and other irreverent and free-
thinking humorists, until, in 1641, a strong! v worded
papal brief enjoined their prompt translation to the
holy city ; and thither they were borne, attended
by two faithful fathers of the Sacro-Monte.*
This " battle of the books " dragged on for
forty-one years more ; by which time nearly all the
combatants had died a natural death. The books
would probably have done the same ; for at this date
the general curiosity seemed quite extinguished.
Even the Spanish Ambassador at Rome was heard to
remark with a contemptuous shrug that they were
good enough for making bullets of. However, the
indiscretions of a Spanish priest and ''plumbist''
nominated to the Italian see of Trini, precipitated the
solemn and irrevocable papal sentence, pronounced on
* Bertaut de Rouen did not omit to visit the holy mountain
of Granada ; but speaks contemptuously of the relics and the
caves, or, as he bluntly calls them, " toutc cette histoire de faussete."'
This was in 1659. " Nous prisnies des chevaux pour aller plus com-
modement voir les cavernes de la Montague qtiHls appdlent sacree, qui
est dans ce Valon agreable die Darro que fay descrit, Sr* qu'ils disent
esire si saint par la vertu des Reliqites de Saint Ctesyphon <Sr
d'auttes Martyrs qui y ont este trouvez, a ce que tons les Espagnols
croyent 5f soustiennent." He then relates, in a similar tone of
scepticism, the finding of the plates, and books, and bones, and
adds: "On trouva encores beaucoup d'autres Lames de plomb, qui
portoient que Saint Cecile Disciple de Saint Jacques avoit souffert le
martyre en ce lieu : mais la pluspart du monde croit qu'il y a eu de la
fraude, &° que cela n'a servy que pour ayder d prouver la venue de
Saint Jacques en Espagne : ce que tons les Espagnols croyent comme un
article de foy. ' '
Bertaut was unaware that the decision upon the authenticity
of the " relics," in distinction from the " books," had been con-
ceded by a papal warrant to Granada, for he adds : " Aussi on
n'a point encore approuve a Rome Vinvention de ces Reliques ny la
veritc de ces livres. ' '
43
l5l•ana^a
September 28th, 1682, and promulgated, a few days
later, from every pulpit throughout Spain. The so-
called books were declared to contain " nothing but
fabrications, devised to the destruction of the Catho-
lic faith/' They were furthermore declared to be
tainted with Mohammedan doctrine, and condemned,
in consequence, to perpetual ignominy. On penalty
of excommunication no preacher, reader, or professor
of divinity was even to mention them or their con-
tents, unless it were to confute, reject, and reprobate
the false teaching and false re\ -lations in which these
forgeries abounded.
A little while before, I begged my readers to take
particular notice of the names of INIiguel de Luna
and Alonso del Castillo, the two Moriscos officially
appointed to reduce the leaden books to the Castilian
vernacular. Castillo had done some service to Philip
the Second by collecting Arabic volumes for the library
of the Escorial ; and also by performhig for that
sovereign certain correspondence with the Moorish
kings of Africa. He was a scholarly man, possessing
both the erudite and the popular forms of Arabic,
as well as Spanish, Greek, and Latin. Luna was
less equipped with scholarship, but active and quick-
witted, and with a genuine sense of humour — using
the latter word perhaps a trifle disparagingly. We
must suppose that a rogue appears to other rogues
a virtuous fellow ; for Echeverri'a calls Luna " an
honest ]Morisco, reconciled with the Church." In
view of this assertion, we will see what kind of man
was " honest '" Luna ; and after that, what kind of
man was his votary and disciple. Father Echeverria.
44
Zbc SacicJ /Iftouiitaiii
Miguel de Luna was tlie author of the false
chronicle professing to be a literal rendering from
the Arabic, known as" The True History of the King
Don RodericTi\ xchercin is treated the principal cause of
the perdition (f Spain, and the conquest of that count r/j
carried out by Mira)na)/i(>l/n Abnan^or, formerly King
(f Africa a)ul the Arab/as. Also contains the Life (f
the King Jacob Ahnancor. Written bv the wise
Alcayde Abulcacini Tarif, the Arab. Newly trans-
lated from the Arabic by Miguel de Luna, inhabitant
of Granada, and interpreter to our lord the King."'
This singular and mendacious work,* indited, as Luna
tells us (p. 438, note), at the city of Bokhara in the
year one hundred and forty -two of the Hijra, or
seven hundred and sixty-three of the Christian
era, is just a concoction of legends prevalent in
Luna's time, adorned with colouring and garnish
of his own make, and numerous fragments of Homan
and Greek mythology. To cjuote an instance of
this latter, in chapter ix. of part ii. (pp. 349-
353), headed " Concerning a Memorable Occurrence
which befell the Mohammedan general Abdelaziz, ichilc
he was hunting in a Mountain^'' we find the venerable
story of Androcles and the lion dished uj) anew ;
save that Androcles is Abdalaziz, and the lion has
become a bear.
Such was "honest" Michael, considered upon this
count alone. But worse remains b(?hind ; for J^una by
* The copy in my library is of the seventh edition, and is
dated 1676. The first edition appeared in 1592. This alone
would prove that the "chronicle" was everywhere accepted as
genuine, as well as that it was extremely popular.
45
©ranaia
no means limited his powers to forging a secular his-
tory of Spain. There is now no room for doubt that
he and Castillo between them — sometimes one, some-
times the other, sometimes the two collaborating —
contrived and hid away the forgeries of the Sacred
Mountain of Granada. Truly they played their
comedy with exquisite art. A grateful nation paid
them to decipher their own fabrications ; so entering
into the spirit of the joke, they drew up and matured
their renderings with ostentatious slowness, feigning
to squabble with each other over a reading here and
there, or professing themselves exhausted by the diffi-
culty of unwonted or archaic words and phrases. Of
course the hugest jest of all was the "dumb book" —
which nobody (even its authors) could faintly under-
stand — professing to relate the " Certainty of
the Hohj GospeV handed by the Virgin to Saint
James, to bear away to Spain. This masterpiece of
impudence was gravely submitted to Athanasius
Kircher, one of the leading archa?ologists of his day,
who finally protested that, although he had worked
hard at it foi* more than two years, and was thoroughly
versed in twenty-one " exotic languages,*" he could
make neither head nor tail of its contents. His only
discovery, he confessed, was that it was written in an
alphabet containing forty-two distinct characters.
Seldom, therefore, has a more incongruous or
ludicrous situation been created. But what was the
motive of the forgers ? Did they, as Godoy Alcan-
tara suggests, expect to fuse, by a species of reli-
gious reform, the Catholic and the Mohammedan
creeds, so as perhaps to rescue the Moriscos from
46
cbc SacvcJ fountain
ejection by their subjugators; or was their purpose
merely to enjoy a joke ; or was it a vindictive one?
I incline to believe that their principal or only aim
was to avenge their persecuted brethren. The for-
geries were executed not long before the final expul-
sion of the jNIoriscos, who hated, very justly, the
cruel and indolent Spanish swashbucklers who had
settled in Granada, and were rapidly inducing the
moral and material ruin of that most venerable city.
Luna and Castillo, themselves protected by " a thin
varnish of Christianity," would thus endeavour to
instil a quantity of heretical venom into the faith of
their oppressors, and so confound at once the church
and commonwealth of Spain.
Considered in this light, their entertaining if
Satanic effort was almost totally successful. The
Spaniards, even to their prelates and their king, were
far too ignorant, fanatical and credulous to save
themselves. Just at the nick of time the Pope
stepped in and saved them. But for this, as Godoy
has summarized in a sentence of tremendous import —
if Rome had kept aloof, and Spain in the sixteenth
century had been allowed by Providence to carry out
her project of an independent national church, thi:
Spanish people would have embodied into the spirit
AND THE TEXT OE THE New^ TeSTAMENT THE ENTIRE
contents OF THE LEADEN FORGERIES OF THE SaCRED
Mountain.
The substance of the forgeries was carefully con-
trived to meet the national desire. In them we find
those idle tales so dear to narrow Spanish intellects —
the coming of Santiago, and the martyrdom of many
47
<3 r a II a ^ a
saints whose merest names are nothing more than
"rumours of a doubt." The fable of Saint James
visit to the shores of Spain originated in a wild tradi-
tion and the Vote of Santiago — this last a formidable
tax imposed upon the poorer classes of the nation.
Echeverria, who on these matters should only be
consulted to excite a smile, affirms that when
Saint James was visiting Granada he was made a
prisoner by the heathen, who bound him, and were
on the point of putting him to death, when the \'irgin,
Avho yet was living in this world, appeared upon the
scene and set him free. AVe are further told that
this took place precisely on the Sacro-]\Ionte, in
whose notorious caves Saint James had fixed his
habitation by divine command.
According to a couple of ancient and obscure
writers, quoted by the editor of the second edition of
Echeverria's Paseos, Saint James was in Granada
about 36 or 37 a.d., this being the first of the Spanish
cities to imbibe his cheerful tidings. Certainly his
visit was sensational ; for one day, walking up the
Sacred Mountain, he resuscitated a man who had
been dead and in his grave six hundred years. The
wretch restored in this uncharitable fashion to the
miseries of life was christened and confirmed forth-
with, and then appointed to the see of Braga, thus
becoming the first bishop of that town, " This
miracle,'" concludes our editor, " is related by Fray
IVudencio de Sandoval, Bishop of Tuy ; by Don
Rodrigo de Acuna, Archbishop of Lisbon ; and by
many other persons distinguished for their A'irtue,
knowledge and veracity."
48
Zbc SacrcJ /fountain
All this nonsense has a clerical origin, and is
absolutely valueless. As for the lesser saints and
martvrs — Hiscius, Ctesiphon, and the rest of Cecil's
six companions— the Gothic Breviary is unconvinc-
ing, while the Codex of Albelda (883 a.d.) is too
late. Yet notwithstanding this, Cecil himself is made
the subject (or, more properly, the victim) of three
uncritical and fulsome articles by that most intolerant
of Catholics, Francisco Simonet.* This author
begins by recognising that all we know about
the shadowy seven is practically nothing. At the
same time, without adducing any reason, he thinks
it " probable that they were Spaniards," f and
pupils of Saint James. Then, waxing bolder, he
finds that Cecil (whom he takes for granted to have
been the founder of the see of Ililjerris or Granada^
" preached the faith with marvellous eloquence and
fervour, kindling in many hearts the flames of holy
love which were inspiring (.sic) his own, lightening
the darkness of the native population, and gaining
many souls to Jesus Christ." A moment later the
panegyrist declares his preference for " the authority
of the Church of Granada, widely admitted through-
out the Catholic world, and based on vert/ probable
conjectures'''' (the discoveries of the Sacro-Monte !),
over " the silence of antiquity."
Now the mischief done to Spain by the discoveries
upon the so-called Sacred Mountain lies in the fact
* Cuadros Hisioricos y Descriptivos de Granada, pp. 37-63.
f Florez says they came to Spain about 62 a.d., first journey-
ing to Guadix, and then dispersing through the country. But
how is it possible to fill in a biography where even the outline
of the personage is wanting ?
49 D
0vana^a
that although the leaden books were branded as a
forgery, the remainder of the "relics" are even to
this day accounted genuine. Of course, when Rome
condemned the books, Spain should have followed suit
and hastened to reverse her own decision on the bones,
and ashes, and plates, and ovens of the Sacro-Monte.
Ikit no. The relics, guarded in Echeverrias time in
two great boxes half imbedded in the wall, are still
adored ; and still the wonder-working caves are shown
with undiscriminating zeal to every class of visitor.
:\Iany of the saints who lie piecemeal about the
land, if every limb of theirs were brought together,
would prove to have more legs than any myriapod ;
vet still the Spaniards fly to their defence. Ramos
Lopez, principal of the Sacro-Monte church some
vears ago, protests against "the foreign historians
who endeavour to eclipse our glories, denying the
visit of Saint James to Spain, as well as his preaching
in this kingdom.'' Of course, the foreign historians
mio-ht obiect that it is not for themselves to
deny Saint James' landing on the Spanish shores
so much as for Ramos Lopez and his co-religionists
to prove it. But Ramos is incorrigible in the firm-
ness of his faith. "Although," he says, "certain
authors are averse to making the confession, it
must be owned that the finding of the leaden tables
inscribed in Latin, and also of the relics, served to
illustrate the Christian antiquities of our region,
pmikidnrhj in rchat relates to the preaching- of Saint
James and his disciples.'" *
So much for these enlightened days. Writing in
* El Sacro-Monte de Granada, p. 117. Madrid, 1883.
50
■Cbe Sa^:l•c^ /IDountam
the middle of the eighteciitli centurv, Echeverria
recalled that one or two unrighteous persons had
ventured to cast a doubt upon the relics. " Heaven,"
he observed, " has not been slow to castigate their
obstinacy. The principal Antiplumbists have met
with a disastrous end."' * " How could Luna," he
asks elsewhere, "have hidden the relics in these caves
in sight of all the city?" This argument sounds
plausible. Our neatest refutation of it is to turn to
the Letters of the Sacristan of Finos de la Pucnte.'*-
The author of these dissertations, written in the un-
pleasant, semi-jocose, semi-cantankerous and dispu-
tative style also adopted by Echeverria, is Doctor
Cristobal Conde, described in his own words as
" theologian, antiquary, and interpreter in the ex-
cavations of the Alcazaba of Granada." Godov
Alccintara shall tell us something more of Conde.
The son of an obscure foundling, and educated at
the college of the Sacred ^Mountain, Conde became
fast friends with another ex-pupil of the same semi-
nary, Juan de Echeverria, author of the Paseos por
Granada so often quoted in these chapters. Eche-
verria was uncomelv in his personal appearance,
" after the manner of Don Basilio in The Barber
of Seville^'' and in his character " a crafty, knavish
cheat."" This pair of rascals, together with one
Flores (not to be confounded with the learned
writer on ecclesiastical antiquities), despite their holv
orders and professed respectability and scholarship,
* Paseos por Granada.
+ Lerida and Granada, 1761, 1762, 4 vols. Complete copies
are very rare. Excepting mine, I have never seen an unbroken set.
51
(5rana^a
agreed to forge as many " monuments " as Spain
could swallow, and then "discover'' them in
the Albaycin of Granada, round about the site of
the ancient Alcazaba. Conde accordingly wrote
his Letters to prove the genuineness of his own and
Echeverria's fabrications. One of the arguments he
uses is the following. "Let those," he says, "Avho
visit the Alcazaba observe the depth of the caverns
where the monuments have been discovered, and the
bulk of several of these, requiring ten yoke of oxen
for their removal, as well as their dilapidated look ;
and then decide if any fraud were possible." We
have just seen Echeverria employ a similar argument
in defending the relics of the Sacro-Monte. " How,"
we have seen him indignantly demand, " could Luna
conceal the monuments in the caves, and fill these in
or dig these monuments out in sight of all the city,
in a spot where so much operation could never be con-
cluded without the notice of the neighbours .? " Yet
this was precisely what Conde and Echeverria them-
selves effected in the Albaycin a century and a half
later. Capitals, cornices, inscribed slabs, leaden tablets
— nothing withstood their priestly ingenuity ; and it
was only after a considerable while that one of the
workmen employed by the syndicate of swindlers
declared or hinted that he and his fellows buried
secretly by night the very " monuments " they openly
extracted on the following morning. This breach of
confidence was unendurable ; so Flores, who was an
influential member of the Inquisition, resorted to the
suave correction of that high and holy court, and
drove the man demented.
52
"Cbc Sacrc^ flDountain
In view of the satisfactory results obtained by
forging sacred and profane " relics " of general
interest,* our trio of rogues, protected by Luis
Francisco de Viana,"]" abbot of the Sacro-Monte and
virtually a coadjutor of the other three, decided to
extend their industry to the preparation of docu-
ments of a private character. Taking the paper
stamped by government, they filled it in with titles
of nobility, genealogies, writs, wills, nnjal decrees-,
and so forth ; inserted the sheets so filled among the
archives of the law courts, and then demanded to
inspect and utilize them. " The existence of this
bureau of ftilsiflcation was no secret in Spain. Every
one who required a sham document took the road to
Granada.*";|; At the same time, Conde, who had no
name to truly call his own, '* discovered " himself
to be illustriously born, and making himself a docu-
ment, assumed, upon the powers which it granted
him, the second surname of Medina.
* I am sorry to say that one of our countrymen was taken in
by Conde ; or so the forger asseverates in his Pinos Puente
Letters (vol. i. p. 143). " Don Juan Branfurd (the surname
appears to be misspelt), of English nationality, colonel com-
manding the 13th Regiment of His Britannic Majesty in the
fortress of Gibraltar, came hither, instructed by the Royal Society
of London, in order to inspect these discoveries. He examined
them one by one with all deliberation, and liked them so much
that he attempted with wheedling words to purchase some
literary stones and leads, offering any price for them."'
t "That great Spaniard," as Echeverria calls him. Eche-
verria's good opinion is really most embarrassing. To receive
his praise is to assume /fr se the stamp of infamy ; and we feel
that when he calls Mohammed an impostor he is paying him a
distinct compliment.
X Godoy, Los Falsos Cronicones, p. 322.
53
OranaJa
Presently a craze sprang up for everytliing con-
nected with the visit of Saint James to the Peninsula.
(Jur friends were not behind the time, and put upon
the market a handsome quantity of bishop's rings
ascribed to the tenth centurv, decorated with a
horseman bearing a banner and a sword, and the
words Jacobus Victor. These were accompanied by
another forgery, to wit, " a letter from Mohamad
Benzay, a Moor who was trodden nndojvot hi/ Saint
James' horse at the battle of Clavijo, and made a
prisoner : directed to his brother, Abencholen
Ibrahin.'"
The national movement which provoked these
fictions depended from the " Vote of Santiago,""
already mentioned in this chapter. The vote itself
consisted of a tax in kind, payable to the Cathedral
of Santiago in Galicia, and weighing with oppressive
heaviness upon the agricultural classes ; but just
about this time the "privilege"" was menaced by the
attitude of certain of the nobles, determined to make
an effort to combat such imposture. This was why
Echeverria and his colleagues, acting as local agents
for the Chapter of the great Cantabrian temple,
hastened to afford new testimony of Saint James'
mythical appearance in the mythical affray ; and of
the validness of the grant alleged to emanate from
the Spanish Crown.
My library contains a copy of this " \'ote of
Santiago,"" telling us all that we can want to know.
The work, drawn up before a notary public at
Granada in 1685, is printed on stamped paper, and
bears a curious title depicting Santiago at the
54
cbc S.^v:rc^ /IBountain
battle of Clavijo, i^ravely carving at the clouds ; nr,
well as other scenes relating to his residence in Spain.
The tax, it seems, is payable to "the stewards or
servants" of the church of Santiago, and is required
to consii^t of " heavy measures of the choicest
wheat, barley, and other grain," not omitting " wine
for the sustenance of the canons residentiai-y of the
said church of Santiago.""' Although the languajre
is archaic in form, its phraseology is manifestlv
modern. Should any descendant of King Ramiro
" or anybody else seek to violate this our Testa-
ment, or hinder its fulfilment, whatever be his
condition, whether clerical or secular, may he for
ever be danuied in Hell, together with Judas the
traitor. Also, may his children become orphans
and his wife a widow ; and may another possess his
temporal estate. Also, he shall be deprived of the
body and blood of Jesus Christ, and therefore of the
eternal kingdom, for ever and for ever. More-
over he shall pay unto the king and the church of
Santiago, equally between the two, six thousand
pounds of silver.'"' A few lines further on, this
malediction is repeated with increase of viru-
lence. " Whoso should seek to break this docu-
ment and donation of the church of Santiago, or
should refuse to pay the same, whatever his station,
whether king, prince, labourer, layman, or cleric, we
curse and excommunicate him, and sentence him to
the pains of Hell, that there he be tormented ever-
lastingly, together with Judas the traitor."
The detailed account of the battle which goes
before these truly Christian phrases is carefully
55
Orana^a
drawn up ad hoc, and makes delightful reading.
" While I was meditating many matters and turning
over in my mind the peril of the Christians, I, King
Ramiro, fell asleep. So, as I slumbered, the blessed
apostle Santiago, defender of the Spains, was pleased
to show himself before me in the flesh. And when,
astonished at this sight, I asked him who he w^as, the
apostle of God made answer, 'I am Santiago.'
Therewith I wondered greatly, and he proceeded ;
' Perchance thou knewest not that Jesus Christ,
what time he distributed the other portions of the
world among the rest of the apostles, my brethren,
gave unto me the whole of Spain to guard, placing
her beneath my shelter and protection?' Then,
squeezing my hand, he said, ' Be strong and confident,
for verilv I shall assist thee; and on the morrow,
through the might of God, thou shalt defeat the
countless army of the Moors that now beset thee. Yet
manv of thy warriors (for whom eternal rest already
is prepared) shall win the crown of martyrdom in
this affray. And that of this there be no doubt, ye
and the Moors shall plainly see me riding a white
horse of marvellous and dazzling beauty, and I shall
carry a white standard of great size.' ■" Of course
upon the morrow the saint fulfilled his promise, and
sixty thousand Moors were slain. The title of this
spurious document is thus translated, and forms
almost a chronicle in itself : " The Privilege of
King- Ramiro, confrmed hy the Apostolic See,
relating to the vote he made to the glorious apostle
Santiago, in company icith the archbishops, bishops,
clergy, princes, ricos hombres, army, and peoples of
56
cbc SncicJ /mountain
Spain ; in viemonj and ircognition of the deliverance
obtained from the Tribide of the Hundred Vir^'ins —
zchich tribute thetj zee re zoo nt to pajj unto the Moora —
by reason of the victory of Clavijo, zvherein the apostle
appeared before the King (defeated the day preceding
at Albclda) and either arr/iy, and fought against the
Moors and overcame them, repairing the peril and
the risA- of ruin zchich threatened Spain ; a special
privilege vouchsafed by God unto no other nation
in the world : wherefore from that day forth we call
in battle upon the name of Santiago as the patron
and deliverer of SpainT
Let us return to Flores and his gang. In course
of time the scandal became so serious and the com-
plaints against the trio of forgers so unceasing, that
the Government, obliged for decency's sake to inter-
fere, laid hands on all the three, and put them on
their trial. After much amusing evidence, delivered
by each one against the others* with astounding-
imperturbability, they were found guilty and sen-
tenced to short terms of imprisonment ; but luckily
for Spain the trash they had invented was piled into
a heap and publicly burnt.
* Flores, when under examination, admitted that " the very
workmen took pains to keep the monuments from being extracted
until a large concourse should assemble ; for pious persons,
stimulated by religious zeal, rewarded them with money for the
finds they made ; and such did their greed become that they
used to introduce among the ruins the splintered bones of
animals, and sprinkling them with water perfumed with sweet-
smelling herbs, roses, or jasmine, sold them as relics. The
credulous folk never suspected the deceit ; but he who was
declaring (Flores) med to reprove the workmen for this wickedness."
— Los Falsos Cronicones, p. 321, note.
51
Ol■ana^a
This was about the tiine of S\vinbiirnc''s visit to
Granada. Touching the forgers and their trial, he
wrote: "Medina Conti, author of the Paseos de
Granada, pretends to have found an Arabic manu-
script of this j)eriod, corroborating the testimony of
Peres (de liita) : but these writers are sudi notorious
impostors that little credit can be given to anything
thev may advance: however, there must undoubtedly
be some foundation for these anecdotes, and a previous
knowledge of them is rather necessary for the perfect
understanding of the Alhambra." The statement
that Conde wrote the Paseos de Granada is
erroneous. The English traveller evidently meant
Kcheverria, while the " Arabic manuscript ^'' would
be that of which a rendering is inserted in the
second volume of the Paseos, pp. 71-75. Swin-
burne adds in a footnote: "Conti (Conde), in order
to favour the pretensions of the church in a great
lawsuit, forged deeds and inscriptions which he
buried in the ground where he knew they would shortly
be dug up again. Upon their being unearthed, he
published engravings of them, and gave explanations
of their luiknown characters, making them out to be
so many authentic proofs and evidences of the asser-
tions of the clergy. His imposture was detected,
and he now lies in prison without much hope of
recovering his liberty. I am told he is a most
learned, ingenious man, profoundly skilled in the
antiquities of his country. The Morocco ambas-
sador, in his way through Granada, j)urchased of
this man a copper bracelet of Fatima, which Medina
proved, by the Arabic inscription, and many certifi-
58
■Cbc Sncl■c^ /IRouiitam
cates, to be genuine, and founii among the ruins of
part of the Alhambra, with other treasures of the
last king, who liad hid them in hopes of better days.
This famous bracelet turned out afterwards to be the
work of Medina^s own hands, aiid made out of an old
brass candlestick." {I'l-avcls in Spci'ni, p. 185.) It
might have even bettered 6winburne"'s opinion of the
ingenuity of these gentlemen had he known that
Echeverri'a was in the habit of publishing anonymous
attacks upon his own treatises, in order to render
them more lively and convincing, " sustaining in this
manner a kind of controversy with himself.''
59
In the Albaycin
IV
The Sacred Mountain — concluded
HE regimen of the church and college
of the Sacro-Monte from inside deserves
a brief description. As soon as it was
known that Castro proposed to found
a temple and a seminary upon this
hallowed spot, and liberally endow them from his
private means, letters poured in on him from
numerous of the religious orders distributed through-
out the Peninsula, asking to be awarded the custody
of the new establishments. These applications were
carefully considered by the prelate, whose choice had
beo-un to incline towards the Order of Saint Benedict,
when it occurred to him (plucking a leaf from the
book of Dionysius Alexandrinus) to visit the Sacred
61
C5rana&a
Mountain and solve his doubts by prayer. Accord-
ingly he penetrated, quite alone, into " the oven of
Saint Hiscius," and passed in this seclusion three
mysterious hours. On coining out he refused to sign
the o-rant he had intended for the Benedictines,
curtly observing that " it was not the will of God. '
" The fact is,"' says Kamos Lopez, echoing the words
of the archbishop's confessor, "that while he was pray-
ing in the oven the Virgin appeared to him and bade
him provide his church with non-monastical officials,
mapping out for him the whole of the particulars
wherewith the building was erected a twelvemonth
later."
The seminary was titled after Saint Dionysius
the Areopagite. In 1609 a bull from Paul the
Fifth approved its rules and constitution, and eleven
vears later a royal warrant granted by Philip the
Fourth placed both the college and the church
beneath the tutelage of the Crown. Among the
forgeries discovered in 1595 had been a stone inscribed
with the words " Alary ccas not touched hij the original
sinT The credulous archbishop had paid a singular
veneration to this stone, and fervently enjomed the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception on the pupils
of the Sacro-Monte. The college regulations were
numerous and irksome. As in other lands, the students
were divided into " Ancients " and " Moderns.'' The
day began with the " oration," from five to six, half-
past five to half-past six, or six to seven, according
to the season. Three-quarters of this weary hour
were passed afoot. After this the Seminarists were
allowed to breakfast (except on Saturdays and other
62
•Cbc Sac^c^ /fountain
days of abstinence, when neither bite nor sup was
permitted), but not witli "fried things, such as
breadcrumbs, or anything else which might prevent
their studying."' The interval from one to other of
their morning studies was passed in '" conference "
in the cloisters ; but no group was to consist of more
than four scholars, and the rector was to be present
whenever possible — a nice way, one may think, of
developing the youthful intellect. The Ancients
were allowed a black cap and a cloak in winter,
but no gloves. The Moderns must go bare-headed.
If one of the latter should cover his mouth with a
fold of his capa (making what is known as the cmbozo*),
he must unroll it every time that the rector or any
of the prebendaries passed him by. The midday
meal was awful in the icy frigidness of its routine.
At the clanging of a bell each scholar went to his
room and fetched his knife and fork, his napkin and
his spoon, and waited in the cloisters until the rector
gave three knocks upon the door of the refectory.
Hereinto the con)pany now trooped " in total
silence," and stood in a double row while grace was
said. Two of the Moderns then conveyed into tiie
middle of the hall a bare bench, occupied forthwith
bv half a dozen wretches told off to deliver a lesson
in law. Besides the bench the dining-hall contained
a small pulpit, and occasionally, by way of varying
the digestive, the lesson was a chapter of holy writ,
followed by extracts from a volume designated by
the rector.
After the due preliminaries the kitchen hatch was
* See The Land of the Dons, p. 48.
6.'}
©ranafea
opened, and the servants (I need hardly state that
these were male) proceeded to distribute the bread
and the water-bottles. Nobody was to choose his
bread, but had to take it as it came to him. The way
to call the servants was by " rapping once or twice
upon the table, not with the hands, but with the
knife, or spoon, or fork."" Otherwise "the silence
shall be strait enough for this to seem the eating-
chamber of some staid community, and not of puerile
and orderless people.'' Even the scholar who dis-
covered a pressing need to quit the room must make
his exit " underneath the table ■" *
When the scanty meal was at an end, the kitchen
window was shut, the lesson-readers filed away, and
their bench was removed. The servants then col-
lected the water-bottles and the broken bread, and
each student, taking his leavings to the end of the
table and depositing them there, inclined his head
to signify that he freely made them over to " the
poor servants." Lastly, the congregation repeated a
Tit autem Dom'ine miserere nobis (which seems, under
the circumstances, to have been a very logical peti-
tion), and left the hall.
Yet even in so rigorous a community the emi-
nently Spanish institution of the siesta was loyally
maintained; so while their empty stomachs were
making believe to digest the banquet I have outlined,
the scholars, after a spell of conversation in the Sala
de Quiete, retired to the doors of their respective
* Praxis de las Ceremonias que debcn ohservarse por los Colegiales
del Insigne Colegio de Theologos, y Juristas del Senor S. Dionisio
Areopagita, sito en el Sacro llipulitano Monte, extra-Muros de la
Ciudad de Granada (printed about 1785), Insirnecion vi.
Ubc Sacrct /IDountaiu
rooms to take their niodicuiu of oil from the Superior,
and shutting out the sunlight, went compulsorily to
bed. Later in the day, and when the afternoon
classes were concluded, they were permitted for half
an hour before the spiritual exercise of the Kosario
to indulge in pliysical exercise upon the sn\a\[ phicda
adjacent to the college, but they were not to retire
towards the sacred caves, or purchase honey or chest-
nuts, " which do more harm than benefit''; and the
sellers of these dainties are warned to keep their
distance from the holy building. Supper was as
wearisome as luncheon, philosophy, not law, being now
the mental sauce served up with every plate. Then
there was a spell for digestive purposes in the Sala
de Quietc, and at a quarter to ten Litany in the
chapel, with sometimes a Rosario added, and always
" a scrutiny of consciences."
On going to rest the students were provided with
a dingy, flickering ^'^/o/^ to light them into bed, from
when till after morning service of the day succeeding
no pupil was to breathe a syllable to his schoolmates.
But as they reached their bedrooms, all made ready
in the doorway to receive a dose of holy water. Each
scholar, both the Ancient and the Modern, nuist at
this instant have his collar on and "stand at cere-
mony " — that is, pressing his cap against his breast
with both hands — until the rector, attended by a
servant carrying the holy water, passed to administer
the precious fluid to every member of the company.
Then, after a paragraph or two of dog- Latin palaver
on either side, the doors were closed and bolted, and
all (one hopes) was sanctity and slumber.
65 E
^3l•ana^a
So much for the daily routine of the collegians.
The rest of their book of rules and regulations is
absorbed with detail, quaint from its very triviality.
The admission of a candidate to the Sacro-INIonte
was held to be a grave affair. The period of proba-
tion was a month, and a whole Instruction is devoted
to the ceremonies connected with the taking of the
hood. This, together with the cap and with the
gospel on which the candidate was to take the oath,
was deposited on a silver platter. Towards the close
of the proceedings, and when the neophyte was already
invested with his hood and cap, and had embraced
the rector and numerous other persons of the plainer
^ex, an article was read to him enjoining him on pain
ofjirompt expulsion not to carry any kind of firearm
or other offensive or defensive weapon, and exacting
his consent that in prevention of this heinous mis-
demeanour the rector should search his clothing at
any hoiu- of the day or night. (The reason for this
-stringent clause will be discovered presentlv.) At
leno-th, when these formalities were through, the
victim signed the register and the public ceremony
terminated. Privately, the new collegian was pro-
hibited from "standing" celebrations at his own
expense — iced watei', sweets, or any other substance.
He might, however, bestow an alms upon the Chapel
of Saint Dionysiiis, and " gratify " the " poor viozos;"
namely, the larderer, cook, porter, cankulario or
beadle,* the barber, and the barber's assistant.
* Caiiiculario—" Beadle, he who beats dogs out of the church."
So says the venerable Spanish and English Dictionary of
Fathers Higgins and Connelly. In this case, more properly the
hedel.
66
Zbc S a ci c ^ /Il> u n t a I n
Twice a year, in September and March, the student
paid his board and lodging. Otlierwise his wants
were few, consisting merely of" the indispensable
articles of clothing, a " little book of Saint Peter of
Alcantara, '^ another of Father Kempis, the Exerci^es
of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and " some d'l-snprnut.s^^''
described in my old Spanish dictionary as " a disci-
pline, an instrument for whipping ; a cat o" nine
tails."
This Praxi.s is so stocked with prohibitions that
the student hardly seems to be permitted anything
but prayer. " Nothing fashionable " may form a
part of his attire. Neither externally nor inwardly
may he indulge in " coloured clothing, or silk, or any-
thing resembling it,"" or go "profanely ornamented,
whether indoors or out." \\'e further learn that his
ordinary college costume is to be "a tawny cloak,
a black baize cap, more than four fingers high,"
and for outdoor wear, "a hood of rose-coloured
cloth, or clerical habit Avith a white collar above,
but no collar or anything else new-fangled to the
habit itself. The vest should have no flaps, or ribbcms,
or strings, or buttons about the upper part, but must
be absolutely plain. No reticles, not even black
ones, must confine the hair; nor nnist the shoes have
heels. These, furthermore, nuist fasten, not with
buckles but with buttons, even where a habit is
worn. Neither within the college nor without shall
gloves be used. The cloak is to be decent, and of
such a length as to reach the heel behind and the
instep before. The students must have no knife
except a penknife ; and this (like most of the
67
©r3na^a
prohibitions we are i-eading) " without a point to
it," AV^eapons, both firearms and others, are pro-
hibited on pain of instant banishment. He shall
also be expelled who secretly breaks college of anight,
or introduces women, even if they he his mother or
sisters. Playing at cards is vetoed ; likewise, under
special penalties, "the taking of tobacco smoke;
since, if this custom be endured, our community
will see itself invaded by a habit which induces
the students to forsake their studies, and congre-
gate in parties detrimental to their good behaviour.^''
Nor are they to drink wine, aguardiente, " sundew "
(ros solis), or similar strong liquors. Neither Ancient
nor Modern is permitted the use of a brasero or a
fire, " nor must they {)lay on any instrument, as being
improper to the reverence of this sanctuary."*
Hair-cutting day was passed as follows. The
scholars were summoned in groups of four, the
Moderns in the morning and the Ancients in the
afternoon ; each scholar having to provide his towel.
Next, the crown of the head was shaved or" opened " ;
in other words, the clerical tonsure was performed,
obedient to "the common right and special privilege
conceded to our college. Some moderate and decent
locks above the ears are suffered to remain, but no
whiskers ; and the cue is cut so as not to fall below
the white collar in the Moderns, or the collar of
the cloak in the Ancients. No bushy hair will be
allowed." In this way, four times yearly at the least,
was carried out the rasure of the Sacro-]VIonte ; " for
if it be omitted, the students in their youth allow
* Praxis, Instr. xxi.
68
"Cbc Sacrc^ /fountain
their hair to <^ro\v, and fill themselves with vanity,
transgressing the honesty, and modesty, and good
behaviour that are proper to our institution."*
Such are a selected few of the regulations, or pro-
hibitions (for in this case the words are practically
synonvius). Whether they were faithfully observed
I cannot say, I only know, from intimate experience,
that a Spaniard is never happier than when he is
making a law, except when he is breaking one. My
readers will therefore draw tiieir own conclusion.
The students reached the climax of their miseries
during the period of the Lenten exercises ; and also
when the '' discipline or cat o" nine tails '' was called
into employment. Grim and gloomy are the precepts
for this latter function. Once a week, all through
the year, except in May, June, and July, the entire
college took their places in the church, each penitent
at a sufficient distance from his neighbours. Then
the lights were put out ; and to solemn words and
music, and the solemn swishing of the cruel little
thongs, the company (excepting, we suppose, the
rector) performed " a fervid act of contrition '' ;
at the close of which a light was brought in and the
rector stood by the door to see if any member of his
flock had accidentally forgotten his cat o' nine tails.f
The Lenten exercises, though not, perhaps, so
painful in a literal and fleshly sense, were also fraught
with much discomfort. For days together the •' ex-
ercitants'' might neither walk, nor talk, nor break
their fast. Even their bedrooms were deban-ed from
them, although they were ajjpointed a brief interval of
* l^nixis, Iiistr. XX. t U . !"sti: xxvii.
09
©ranasa
repose in the " exercise room " — apparently a kind of
eighteenth century torture-chamber. Here, if their
bodies sank beneath them, they must "arrange
themselves upon the floor as well as they are able ;
])ut without taking off their cloaks, and without
making tl)eir books into a pillow."
In these authentic illustrations we therefore find an
accurate and first-hand account of Spanish academic
life a hundred years ago. To-day we should expect so
rigorous if impractical a course to turn out little but
dunces, prigs, or hypocrites. Pedraza, notwithstanding,
dwells in terms of high complacency upon the virtue
and the erudition of the Sacro-Monte scholars ; *
while Ramos Lopez, president in our own time, assures
us that they emerge from these secluded and severe
cloisters " advanced in virtue and letters, courtesy and
culture, all of which is useful to them everywhere."
This may be so ; and certainly the learned gentle-
man devotes the whole of a lengthy chapter to the
pupils or professors of the Sacred Mountain whom he
instances as having reached celebrity. The list is
slightly disappointing. For my part, I can only
recollect three men connected with this college
whom the world has cared, or could have greatly
cared, to hear about. These are the dramatist, poet,
and antiquarian, Aureliano Fernandez Guerra y
Orbe ; the novelist Juan Valera ; and Father Andres
Manjdn. Thanks to PepHa Jhnhicz, Don Juan
Valera needs no introduction of mine among an
English-speaking people ; on several occasions I have
availed myself of Fernandez Guerra's studies and
* Hist, de Gran. p. 275.
70
Zbc SacicJ /mountain
researches on old Granada; and to Father Manjtin,
philosoj)her and philanthropist, I shall devote a
chapter of this volume very shortlv.
On the other hand, one is rather shocked to find
among the Sacro-Monte worthies (juoted hv Senor
Ramos, the name of the former abbot and canon,
Luis Francisco deViana, whom we have seen aljetting
Echevern'a and his gang of rogues. At this rate the
l)iographer might just as well have included Eche-
vern'a himself, together with (Medina) Conde, and
the student who, on October 5, 1726, bestowed " a
violent and instantaneous death" upon a conu'ade ;
or, in our less benevolent though more veracious
Saxon term, assassinated him.*
But these are only details. Speaking in a broad,
uncritical, catholic spirit, who would deny that the
Sacred Mountain of Granada has played a prominent
part in Spanish history, both sacred and profane ;
and bears a venerated name anion"; all <i;enuine
believers ? Do not her legends flourish to this hour ?
Every Sunday, at the evening hour of eight, the
chaj)terand the inmates of the college, headed bv a
priest bearing an image of the Virgin, visit in devout
procession the last of the chapels constructed among
the holy caves, for it is known that this is the precise
spot whereon the saints "were accustomed to cele-
brate the mysteries of their religion, and preach the
divine word unto the new -converted. This truth
* Praxis, p. 151. This was why the student, upon admission
to the college, was stringently forbidden to carry arms. It is a
pity that our amiable friends the Spaniards are not more
generally prudent in this matter, instead of continuing to stick
and shoot one another as freely as they do at present.
71
(2l•ana^a
was proved by the discovery of a t-up and leaden
vessels,"'
What a thing is faith — or obstinacy ! Senor
Ramos'' tenaciousness deserves the closing word, and
I shall grant it him. '• As the procession advances
through these holy grottos, the image of the Virgin
visits, week by week, the martyrs' tombs — spots
whicli the Lord has looked upon with special pre-
dilection. The shades of Cecil, Ctesiphon, Hiscius,
and their followers seem to come forth to welcome
the Virgin Mother, and mingling with the company
unite their voices with our own to greet in her the
Star of the Seas, the City of God, the ever-Virgin,
and the Happy Gate of Heaven."'
"These dulcet accents find an echo in the
empyrean, where angels, to the music of their golden
harps, repeat the very verses that expire beneath the
bosom of the catacombs.*"
72
The Cortijo of San Jeronimo
A Cortijo in the Sierra
HE Granadinos are essentiallv line-
weather folks, coddled and spoiled bv
the perennial sunshine of tlieii-
caniu'ues and Vega ; and so, about the
end of October, as soon as I announced
my intention of climbing the Peak of the \ eleta,
thickly streaked with snow, they laughed into my
face. However, my resolve was taken. In autumn
I had reached (iranada ; in autumn the venture nmst
be made, for probably it was a (;ase of now or never.
Consoling mvself, therefore, with the reflection that
there was plenty of method in my madness, and
confounding mv Spanish friends and enemies with
73
OranaSa
theix- own proverb insisting that a madman under-
stands his business better than a sane outsider under-
tands it,* I looked about for a prdctico, and fixed the
fatal hour of departure.
I found this jmlcfico or guide in one Jose Fer-
nandez — as we might say, an Andalusian John
Jones — nicknamed, for sake of readier identification,
Pincho, a native of the neighbouring village of
Huetor. "Please call me Pincho,"' he exclaimed,
upon the striking of our bargain : " my real name is
of no use to me, for nobody knows me by it ; "" so
taken with the novelty of his request I gave my
promise on the spot, and Pincho he shall remain till
the end of my narrative. A small, spare, sinewy,
vivacious, swarthy young man of seven or eight and
twenty, a veritable son of tlie Sierra, trained from
early boyhood to ransack the crannies, and caves, and
glaciers of INIulhacen for m((nza)uUa,oY stalk the moun-
tain-goat upon the slippery and jagged sides of the
Trevenque. He was, besides, the undisputed ow ner of
a brace of gaunt and sorry-looking female Rocinantes,
reported, notwithstanding their conspicuous lack of
comeliness, to be among the sturdiest and surest-
footed of their kind, and as familiar as their master
with each path and precipice of the mighty Mountains
of the Sun and Air. We thus agreed that for two and
thirty reales, or about five shillings day by day,
Pincho and his steeds should take me up to the Peak
of the V^eleta and down again to the hotel ; the
keep of the cattle to be at Pineiro's charge ; the
maintenance of Pincho to be at mine. This was the
* " Sale III (is el loco en sii casa, que el cuerdo en ia ajena."
74
H Coitijo ii\ tbc Siciia
substance of our covenant ; and graspin<^- hands
across a ha'porth of adulterated as well as watered
wine, we testified to the honom-able word, respec-
tively, of Wales and Andalusia.
Our line of march and commissariat were soon
determined, for Pinclio, though a Spaniard, was a
lover of despatch. In Spanish phraseology, we carried
the matter " at the lance's point.'' I also had the
luck to bear " a letter of presentation " from the
owner of a farm in the Sierra to his guar da or
superintendent, instructing him to open wide the
door to the intrepid expeditionists, and put them
up in hospitable fashion. This referred to bed alone :
our board, composed as follows, must travel with us :
A tin of cocoa.
A half-bottle of brandy.
A kilo and a half of cooked veal.
A quarter of a kilo of Spanish sausage.
Three kilos of bread.
A pound of sugar.
A packet of salt.
A tin of stewed peaches.
The rest of the impedimenta consisted of
Two boxes of matches.
A spirit lamp, spirit, and saucepan.
An iron mug.
Cigarettes.
Two blankets.
Field glasses.
Three photographic cameras, loaded.
A spare box of plates for changing on the journey.
(On reaching the C'ortijo, Pincho, with the most
75
Oranada
benevolent intentions in the world, mistook this box
for that of the stewed peaches, and with a sweep of
his navaja laid it dexterously open on the supper-
table.)
A cake of cocoa-butter for anointing chafed faces —
and elsewhere.
That admirable Hispano-Oriental institution, the
leathern bota. I purchased a new one, holding nearly
three litres, and filled it at the Venta Alegre with
strong red wine. One dollar, wine included.
At half-past eleven of a showery morning our
cavalcade was ready for the road; the capachos* packed,
the nags bestridden, Pincho leading on the white, I
following on the brown. The starting-point was the
hotel door. My friends, marshalled on the step, already
envied, I suppose, our safe return. At any rate they
sought with scoffs and evil auguries to intimidate the
pair of madmen bound for the treacherous Sierra of
the Snows, though strangers glanced at us with sym-
pathy, and wished us buen v'laje. Then, giving a
grin to all alike, we moved away at a majestic stride,
down the Alameda, over the Genii, and out of a long
lane, fringed with vines and gardens, onto the open
hillside.
The approach to the Sierra Nevada is over a series
of steep acclivities and descents, chiefly unwooded,
swelling by fuirly regular stages from a hundred feet
or so to four or five thousand. Plach of these
swellings has its name, usually derived from some-
* Big round baskets, slung on either side of the saddle. Pro-
perly employed for carrying grapes in harvest-time, they are
roomier and handier for a mountain expedition than the ordinary
alforja.
76
K Cortijo in tbc Sicvva
thing of small importance on, or in, or round about
it ; the Cerro de la Ventana overtopping the Cerro
de la Campanuela ; el Puche * overtopping the
Ventana ; the Cerro de IMonachil overtopping the
Puche; and, further on, the Cerro de la Teja and
Cerro del Nogal overtopping the Cerro de Monachil.
After this the heights grow formidable, and the
Cerro del Tesoro, Cerro del Trevenque, and Cerro de
]\Iatas Verdes are second only to the snow-clad slopes
and steeps of the Sierra.
As soon as we began to mount Sierra-wards the
weather grew wet and nasty, with a touch of chilli-
ness, although beneath the rain-clouds the sun con-
tinued shining. By reason of this the prospect was
a double one, both grave and gay at once, smiling to
right and left upon the Vega and the lovely valley
of the Genii, and frowning before us into the vapour-
laden summits of the higher ccrros. From end to
end the Vega and the valley displayed their specks
and rows of gleaming whitewashed villages, from the
Sierra de Padul on the one hand to the Sierra de
Alfacar on the other. Prominent among these
villages were Huetor, Cenes, and Pinos Puente. I
have seen many uncommon landscapes, but never a
one more strange than this, more melancholy, or
more beautiful.
On we plodded, silently and slowly. Pincho, im-
pervious to scenery, but not to rain, pulled his
.sombrero down upon his ears and wrapped his
* Puche or Purche = Puig.Piiy, Provencal piiech, Catalan /k^x,
Italian poggio ; all from Latin pogiinn, piigium, a hill, ridge,
mound. — Simonet, Glosario de Voces Ibertcas v Latinas usadas
entre los Mozdrabes, p. 451.
77
C5 r a n a ^ a
shoulders in his blanket. What he could spare
of this he threw on the capacho.s^ looming like
kettledrums across the downpour. Now and then
we met a muleteer from some corfijo, tramping
beside his nodding, jangling, potato-laden beasts,
and sped him citywards with a short " co;? Dios,''''
grudging him at heart his sunny haven in the valley.
And yet, at least to me, the cold, repellent scenery
was wondei'fully \\ild and wonderfully fascinating.
The mantle of the storm becomes this desolate
region better than blue skies. Unfathomable tajos^
topless cliffs, immure the writhing roadway; and our
mountain nags, obedient to the awkward custom of
their kind, kept picking the very border of the
precipice. One of my feet was treading cloud ; and
several times I grasped the girth and tested the
stirrupless saddle with a shudder.
Meanwhile the soil had changed in colour from
tawny to vermilion ; and, washing the soil away, the
pelting rain brought down innumerable streamlets, so
that the road seemed running blood. Once, as we
turned a corner, I stole a backward glance ; and lo !
the dwindling towers of the Alhambra were reddened
also — the selfsame colour of the streamlets of the
road.
Four hours from Granada — four hours nearer
heaven — we struck to the left and floundered
through half-fro/en mire across the level sunmiit
of the Puche. Here we encountered a family of
labourers going down to pass the winter. The man
was dragging an ass, heaped high with maize, pota-
toes, and a stick or two of furniture ; the woman
78
1\ Cert 1)0 m tiK Sic I in
piloted a povker, Irisli fasliioii, by the leg"; and a
couple of la<>;giii<;' brats Ijrought up tlie rear.
Ueyond tlie Fuehe is a ouHy imprisoning the
Cortijo de las Minibres, bedded in an acre or two
of loaniv arable ; and over tlie crest of the opposite
rerro is the Cortijo of San Jerciniuio, to which we
were consigned. This last ascent is almost perpen-
dicular. In general, when we speak of a horse as
climbing a hill, the term is simply hyperbolic ; but
in this instance there is no exaggeration, for the hoof
seemed not to tread the ground so much as to be
trying to catch hold of it.
It was now so dark that very shortly only masses
and outlines were distinguishable. The contour of
the ccrro was too f\intastic for descri})tion. A moun-
tain, no matter how jagged and abrupt, looks always
orthodox so long as it retains the shape its Maker
gave to it; but, once enveloped in a mist, becomes
a fearful, unfamiliar, spectral form ; the more so
when a stiffish wind disturbs, and shifts, and splits,
and shrinks it from one moment to another. As to
the silence, immense describes it less inadequately
than inteihse. The stillness was as vast and eerie, if
not as changeful, as the mountain; though once I
heard a horse's neigh at the Cortijo underfoot, and
once or twice the echo of the blasting in the river
Monachil — strains that were carried up to us as faint
and sad as the sound of a convent-bell, borne from
far off upon the darkness of a winter morning.
At last (and never, I maintain, can two short
words have meant so much before), a long, taint
patch of white and the barking of dogs dis-
79
tSranaSa
closed the near Cortijo of San Jerdnimo. Nobody,
except the dogs, seemed much concerned at our
arrival. However, the door was open, so springing
from the saddle we stepped within. The room in
which we found ourselves was long and low, lacking all
conscious art or symmetrv,and just designed to shelter
man and beast — especially the latter. At one end an
enormous fireplace, with a conical top that touched the
raftered ceiling, vomited mingled smoke and flame ;
and at the other a prehistorically rude stone stair-
case wound above into the only storey. In one
of the sides was the " street ■" door,*and in the other,
the entrance to the yard and stables. The kitchen was
an oblong bench of stone, with a lilliputian hornillo
for the cooking, and a hole for the clay water-bottle —
this latter of a markedly oriental shape. Close to
the bottle was a roughly giazed barrefio, or earthen
tub for scouring dishes. Before being spoiled by
years of wear, it might have cost a shilling; and
the pale sea-green of this enamel is just the pigment
used by the Andalusian Muslims seven hundred
years ago. Above the kitchen was a small shelf, built
into a niche in the wall and holding two glasses and
two plates. A dingy rack with a handful of pewter
spoons hung near the shelf; and close to the rack
a bunch of horseshoes, a gun, and a powder-flask.
Upon the floor were a chair or two, a bench, and a
heap of heads of maize. Such is the eating, sleeping,
and working-room of any farm in the Sierra Nevada.
* La calle, " the street." Such is the name the people of the
cortijo bestow upon the barren ledge on which their tenement
is constructed.
80
H Coi-tijo in tbc Sicira
I knew the guarda at a glance, not bv the cut of
his clothes, which were pastoral enough, but by his
domineering air; and, ])ulling out the danij) and
rufHed letter from my cordui'ov jacket, ])resente(l my
credentials. Taking an iron ((tud'il and hanging it
from a string, he sat beneath, and, raising the mis-
sive to the light, nodded towards a chair. I sat. At
the end of every sentence he looked me over from
head to heel, and saw, reflected in my steadfast
pupils, a broad, athletic, gamekeeper-looking frame,
not much above the middle height, and small, sus-
picious, grey-green eyes set in a shaven face all cut
and crimsoned by polar snow and African sun. In
spite of the chilly evening, he wore no jacket ; but
round his head was twisted a speckled kerchief, re-
vealing, above the neck and ear, a few dark, l)ristly
hairs beginning to tinge with dirtv silver.
When he had reached his master's riibnca — the
fanciful device with which the law of Spain compels all
citizens to end their autograph — he folded the letter,
secreted it, as though it had possessed the virtues of a
banknote, in an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and gave
me his hand. This was on Monday, October ^6th,
1903. After a moment's pause, he asked me if the
Boer war were ended.
I said it was.
" That war cost England a pretty penny,"" he re-
marked deliberately and (as it seemed) contentedly.
" Yes," I blandly assented ; " and there are more
and prettier pennies whei-e that j:)enny came from."
He first described a downward jerk with his head —
equivalent to semi-acquiescence — and then cocked it
81 F
(3l•t^na^a
on one side, meani ng to say, " ^Vho knows P Even the
damned ingleses may some day have to work in a
cortijo.''''
Presently his family and the farm-hands all came
trooping into supper ; the gunrda.'i wife and daughters
three, besides about a dozen men and boys, miser-
ably clad, miserably cold, miserably resigned. The
puchero was dragged from the fire into the middle
of the floor, and clutching each a pewter spoon,
the party crouched around. The same dish served
them all, and for many minutes there was no move-
ment but the rhythmical plunging of the spoons,
no sound but the rhythmical .slop, slop, as the semi-
solid mass was thrust into the eaters' mouths. A
taciturn lot they were, doubtless from necessity rather
than from inclination, for what have they to talk
about ? Even the women weie silent. The guarda
with an air of rude authority sat at the head of the
floor (of course I was about to say table, when
I remembered that there was none) ; and soon,
standing before the fire to dry my steaming clothes,
I put him some (questions respecting the life and
business of the farm. The former is truly patri-
archal. Here there is health because there is no
doctor ; innocence, because there is no priest. But
work and weather are severe. The produce of their
toil is corn, potatoes, haricot-beans, g-arbanzos, and
maize. All this goes down to be sold in the city,
excepting the maize, the husk of which makes fodder
for the cows, while the grain is mashed and given to
the pigs. These are the highest-prized and best
attended-to of all the live stock, since the Sierra
82
•H Coi-tijo in tbc Siena
Nevatla is famous for its breed of tliem, and the
hams of Trevelez, on the Alpujarra side, are noted
throughout the whole of Andahisia.
After the modest meal was ended, the ladies with-
drew to scour the dishes and spoons, and the men»
instead of telling' ribald stories — so inveterate a use
with civilized and Christian gentlemen who live on
lower elevations — began to })eel the maize, tossing the
cobs in one heap, and the grain in another. This
was the signal for a microscopic, bandy-legged table
to be fished out somewhere from u})stairs and thrust
into a corner of the hearth ; my guide appeared from
feeding the horses and unloading the capacho.s; loaded
the microscopic table, and down we sat. And while
the good things disappeared apace, the well-cooked
veal and sausage, the brandy and the wine, the cort't-
jerofi went on working, ever working, tossing the cobs
in one heap, and the grain in another ; and stealing
from time to time (though always without desisting
from their task) a sidelong, horrible, painful, patient
glance at the tempting table of the senorivo.
My bedroom, to which my host conducted me^
was in the granary. The floor was piled with grain
above the level of a tall man's head ; but in the
corner next the door a hole was scooped, and in the
hole I found my couch made ready, two sacks of
maize, a small straw palliasse, a pillow, and a blanket.
'I sank to rest, or rather, with the intention of resting.
Not so the fleas, and hopeless of driving off' those
desperate and clearly anti-vegetarian battalions, I
lifted my wearv limbs, or what was left of them,
and dozed in a sitting position on the grain. Rats,.
85
too, kept lirushing against my legs, or chattered and
squabbled in my very ear. At length, when quite
three hours must have dragged away, I saw a light
and heard a step outside the door. One of the
herdsmen was going downstairs to feed the cattle,
and wrapjjing my blanket round my frozen shoulders
I followed him. The hour was only one. There, in
the faint light of the embers, and each of them
enveloped iu his mania, the slaves were fast asleep ;
for the master and his wife and daughters slept
upstairs. There, too, a-sprawl among the rest, his
head artistically wrapped in a scarlet handkerchief,
was Pincho. I asked the herdsman who preceded
me downstairs how long he had re])osed. " Two
hours," he said ; " I go to bed at eleven." Then,
noticing amazement on my face, he added, " O
senorito. it's a hard life : even the beasts fare better."
The giiarda, to do him justice, was also up
betimes, and swearing at the slugabeds for slumber-
ing after three. As for myself, I drew the bolt
of the cortijo door and looked into the night.
The lesser summits, crowned with leaden cloud,
shot up their angry crests on every side save one.
Upon this side alone the sky was stormless and serene.
Just in the middle of the infinitely pale yet in-
finitely lumhious ether, a single star was burn-
ing ; and lit by the lamplike glitter of the star, and
pillowed in new-shaken snow, rested the ageless
features of imperial Xolair.
84
The Sun Rising on the Peak of the Veleta
VI
The Summit of Xolair
LITTLE before the break of day we
saddled and set oat on our aerial voy-
age, for overnight our goal had ])een a
human habitation ; but now our cjuest
was undeniably towards the sun and
stars. At first the path itself was indistinguishable,
though Pincho knew it to ascend between two files of
Cyclopean boulders protruding violet-black against the
Nile-green sky ; so that the landniarks guided us, and
not the road. x\n hour of zigzag clauibering brought
us perpendicularly over the cort}jo,uo\\' visible enough.
Nobody was yet astir. The roof was like an open
book, back upwards, bound in dingy, salnH)n coloured
cloth; the threshing-floor beside it like a finger-ring.
Browning recurred to me at once ; but round about
both book and ring was cast a rosary of trees.
85
Oralla^a
The heavens grew lighter and shed then- light
iijion the earth. I now was able to contrast the Alps
of Switzerland with these of Spain. AVe entered
upon a region sparsely overgrown with pigmy oaks,
unpleasant to the eye, at once decrepit and impuberal.
Despite, or possibly by reason of, their presence, naked-
ness and wildness were the prevalent features of the
scene. The peaks of Switzerland have commonly
a certain trimness. Villages reside beneath their pre-
cipices or in their interjacent valleys. Sometimes
a great hotel is perched within a stone's throw of
their top. The pines, too, have an orderly, Noah's-
arky look. Upon the other hand, the mountain oak
is sinister, unkempt, disreputable. Besides, the
Spanish range conveys a wider sense of atmosphere,
due partly to the vaster intervals from peak to peak,
and partly to the ex(iuisite clearness of the An-
dalusian air. Other, though slighter, causes are
the lack of vegetation and the nearness of the sea.
When Dr. \'on Drasch examined the Sierra to pre-
pare his geological report upon this region, its over-
whelming barrenness impressed him very forcibly.
'•It would seem," he said, "as though Phoenicians,
Romans, Visigoths, and Moors had here concerted to
uproot all vegetable life." Dark indeed is the his-
tory attaching to these mountains. From the earliest
time the shadow, not of the goatherd's staff, but of
the sword, })rojects across their boundary. His-
torians have recorded that the ancient dwellers in
this Moiis Solorhis * of the Romans were ever a
■^ According to Saint Isidore [Etymologies, Book xiv. ch. 8)
Solorius is from sol oricns, corrupted by the Granadinos into sol y
m
Zbc Summit of I'olaiv
troublesome and wuilike race, j)artaking- of the spirit
and complexion of tliese angry fastnesses. The
•same state of things continued beneath the Muslim
rule. According to the Arab Ben-Ketib-Alsalami,
there rose a certain desperado, Suar-Hamboun el
Kaisi, who styled himself " the King of the Moun-
tains of Xolair," and built innumerable castles in
the Alpujarra, until a body of the Caliph's troops sur-
rounded and decapitated him. Law-abiding persons,
whether Mussulman or Christian, spoke of the grim
Sierra with alarm. A thirteenth-century geographer,
who calls it " the mighty ^Mountain of Siler " {C/icHr-
el-TedJ), observed that "it is never free from snow
the whole year through. Therein the snow is heaped
for ten years at a time, looking like black stones, and
when thev break it the white snow lies beneath.*
Oil top of the mountain no herb mav thrive or
animal exist, by reason of the cold ; but further
down are many fertile villages. Five and twenty
rivers have their source upon this mountain, nine of
which join current with the Guadalquivir. Nobody
aire, i.e. the Mountains of the Sun ami Air : Arabic Xolair, Xuleyr,
or Che'ot'l Ats-salech. Edrisi said of this range that '"it has many
castles on its slopes, and one is Hisn-Farira, from which the
nuts are named." Farira, if Conde may be credited, was latterly
Ferreyra, in the jurisdiction of Guadix.
* The contrary is really what occurs. "A deep hollow sur-
rounded by high ridges is called in the Sierra Nevada a corral.
Owing to the shape of the Sierra these corrales are numerous.
In them the snow accumulates and grows as hard as marble, so
that it is difficult to scratch it even slightly with the toughest,
sharpest tool. It forms a series of layers varying in shade,
according to the time that it has lain, from black beneath to
white upon the surface. "^ — Rubio, Del Mar al Cielo, p. 354.
87
(Bra nab a
may climb to the peak unless at midsummer, and
there are found a great variety of virtuous herbs ;
but the ascent can only be made from three spots.
Those who reach the top descry to a vast distance,
even to Tlemcen, albeit they abide in peril of the
cold."
Thus have the height and steepness of the Sierra,
its uninhabited character, and the horrid deeds com-
mitted in the war with the Moriscos, combined to
give it a strange and sinister report at everv period
of the past. " Cette grande montag'ne^'' wrote Bertaut
de Rouen, two hundred and fifty years ago, " qui est
couverte de nelge en tout temps, et qui Vestoit alors
qtCil falsoH encore nn fort grand chaud, est d cinq
lieiies de la Ville de Grenade ; et ainsi on pent dire qu'elle
en a plus de cinq ou six de haut : car depuis la Ville
on monte tonjours pour y alter.'''' Truly a novel system
for measuring the heights of mountains !
Wondrous and weird tales, then, have gone abroad
concerning the lakes and caverns, the peaks and
precipices of Xolair. Its loftiest summit bears the
title of BoabdiTs sire, precipitator of the downfall of
Granada, the warlike and ill-fated Muley Hacen,
whose spirit is rumoured by the villagers of the Alpu-
jarra to hover nightly round his gelid and enormous
cenotaph. Next to the ominous crest of Mulhacen,
and on the southern side of it, upsoars the vast
Picacho del Veleta, not, as Ford declared, a cone,
but perpendicular at one extremity, in token of some
appalling landslip infinitely long ago. Millions upon
millions of tons of slate and granite must have
whirled through space onto the crags below ; millions
88
Zbc Summit of Jo I air
upon millions of years since then have covered up
the giant debris w ith millions upon millions of tons
of snow.
Viewed from Granada, the precipice of the N'eleta
seems measurable by inches. Viewed from a moderate
distance, such as six or seven miles, it gives to the
Picacho the aspect of a coffin large enough to hold
the bones of all humanity from the Deluge onward.
In the colossal cleft between Mulhacen and the
Veleta nestles a lake, that of Vacares, in which, if
fame says true, an old-time handet rots entombed
for all eternitv, plunged by an avalanche beneath
the fathomless, unnaturally noiseless water, and
overshadowed by the monster spires. Bertaut de
Rouen had also heard of this laguna. "'"An phis
haut de cette montagne^ il y a lui fort grand Lac
dcmt on conte mesme des prodiges ; car on d'lt qiion
ny s^anroit troiiver de fond, et apparemment cest de-
la et de la quantite de neiges fondues qui iy ramas-
sent, qui v'lennent les deux rivieres du Darro et
du Xenil, quoy que Teau en so'it iViine nature fort
dijf'erente ; car on ni'avoit d'lt a Madrid que Teau du
Xenil estoit mortellc. Je trouvay Id seulement quelle
donnoit dcs fliuv et des maux d'cstomac a ceux qui ny
estoient pas accoi'itumez. Et ce nest pas nicrvcillc, car
cest de lean de neige toute pure.''''
Over these mountains, therefore, legentl and
superstition hold a potent sway. Now we are told
of buried treasure, heavier and richer than all
the hort of all the Nibelungs ; or now of a troop
of phantom soldiery ; now of a hermit, frozen in
his sterile cell ; now of the " soul in sorrow " of a
89
CBrauaJa
monarch, or a miser, or a murderer. " A shepherd
was tending liis flock by the side of the lake, and
there came two men in strange dress, one holding
an ojoen book, and the other a fishing-net. And
the man read from his book, and said, ' Cast the
net.' And he cast it, and drew up a black horse.
And he with the book said, ' This is not it ; cast
again.' And he cast and drew up a pied horse.
And he with the book said, ' This is not it ; cast
again.' And he cast and drew up a white horse.
And he with the book said, 'This is it.' And they
both mounted on the white horse and rode away, and
the shepherd saw them no more."
"These shepherds believe that some day the lake
will burst through the mountain and destroy Granada.
One night a shepherd stantling by the lake heard a
voice say —
' Shall I strike and break the dike?
Shall I drown Granada town ? '
And another voice answered, ' Not yet.' "
This tale is taken from Ga::pacho, one of the
extremely few sensible non-Spanish books on Spain
written about the middle of last century. Fifteen or
twenty years before, the anonymous author of ^
Summer in Andalucia repeated an absurd belief that
Mulhacen was inaccessible ; and earlier still, in 1799,
the Spanish Government defrayed the expenses of
a costly expedition to recover a ]\Iorisco treasure
rumoured to be buried in the Barranco de Guarnon.
Lawyers and labourers and clerks were all despatched
to this ravine, a lonesome spot, secluded from the
usual track of passengers ; and the story of the
90
Zbc Summit of Jo lair
methodicalthough silly search ivads nowadays like
some romance of the West Indian main.
In course of time we crossed the Trados del Aire,
or "Meadows of the Air." I need not add that
"meadows" is here a term completely fanciful.
Before us were mighty wastes ascending ever, co\ered
for miles with those decrepit oaks or scanty shrubs,
spinose and tempest-broken. But I was compensated
from another quartei-. The day was dawning- fast.
A singular effect of broadness grew into the sky.
The eyes of Nature seemed to open and her breast to
throl). In these high parts the clearest heaven, as
daybreak blushes forth in maiden promise of
approach, assumes an ugly ashen tone, a crude, inert
(hstemper, priming the skyey dome as though to
make it ready for the myriad shades of morning.
Then, as these last appear, the Nile-green of the
waning night, and afterwards that lifeless and }n-e-
paratory grey, are superseded, first by pearly white,
then gold, then rose, and lastly blue. Each of these
colours, advancing through innumerable gradations
from pallor to obscurity, occasions, as it overlaps its
predecessor, another nuiltitude of confluent and
complementary hues, namelessly beautiful, alluring
rather to the soul than to the senses. From j)atient
watching I have learned by heart, though not by
memory, the order of their rotation. I can even
imao-e them as I write : but I cannot describe them.
I console myself with thinking that nobody could
describe them.
The Sierra soon became as marvellous as the sky.
N'allevs and chines grew more and more distin-
91
©l•ana^a
guishable; at first about their silhouetted edges
only : then troops of riant sunbeams peered into
their tenebrose recesses until the cold earth, meeting
their mild regard, seemed to be smiling back, at
them. Hard-featured juts, and pinnacles, and crags,
as old as night herself, grew flushed with exquisite
and tender sanguine, displaying their golden neck-
laces of lichen or brooches of rare saxifrage, with as
it were the guileless vanity of girlhood. Even the
oak-boles seemed to expand their crooked arms, and
deck their wrinkles in a younger and more lustrous
foliage.
Now and again thin wreaths of mist, like whiffs
from a giant's pipe, scurried across our faces, until
we left that mist behind us and below. Near the
Penon de San Francisco, a ridge of gaunt black cliffs,
we came upon the earliest snows, resembling lumps
of cuckoo-spit, capping the scrubby herbage. As we
advanced, the lumps grew more profuse, until the
landscape mimicked with astonishing truth the
aspect of a gale at sea — of grey-green waters flecked
with streaks of foam ; and finally, a couple of miles
beyond, all was white except where peaks or boulders
broke the surface.
The air grew steadily colder, the snow deeper, the
Picacho larger. Between the mountain and ourselves
extended an immense barranca, so that our course
was not direct but semicircular. Black and white,
to right and left, above us and beneath, the fields of
the Sierra, scarred or dimpled here and there with
hollows and ravines. Fringing the eastern sky a
jagged range of spiring sunnnits, haloed with blazing
92
"Cbc Summit of I'olair
sun, siift'iised w ith saffron s|)leii(l()iir. Awav into the
west tlie Vega of Granada, lier whelkv lands not all
unmufffcd from the hrunie ; liei- niotclike cottaEfes
The Lake of the Mares
and houses ; her ruddy walls and towers ; her files of
feathery cypress; her sugar factory with its cream v
smoke etherealized by distance into creamier
vapour.
Deeper and deeper grew the snow. Our animals,
pastern-deep, began to flag and sometimes floundered
on the border of a drift ; but there was the Picacho,
loftier and larger by degrees. Another hour should
bring me to his footstool. While this eternity elapsed,
I marked the spiky barrier that confronted us ; for
by this time we had described the sweeping semicircle.
Our road lay right ahead, over a score or so of steep
and large inclines, with dangerous pits between : but
Pincho knew these well. The l^icacho now was on
9J3
Oiana&a
the left, the barrier stretching many a mile upon his
right and capped with many a lofty and fantastic
pinnacle. The most remarkable and human-shaped
of these is called, ingeniously enough, the Friar of
Capileira.
A little further on, beneath the actual shadow
of the barrier, a lake lies bosomed in a snowy,
silent cavity of the mountains. This is the " Mare's
Lake,"' or Laguna de las Yeguas, about a hundred
yards in length by thirty broad. Its edge was
frozen at this time of year, bat Pincho, dropping
on his knees beside the ice, contrived to drink
extravagantly. Spaniards are mighty quafFers and
connoisseurs of water : in fact, comparing the two
nations, I have noticed that on discovering a stream
or pond the tendency of the Englishman is to get
inside if ,• the tendency of the Spaniard, to get it
inside h'nii. Where one laves, the other laps. " In
the matter of water-drinking," said Ganivet, "we
know no rivals on the globe " ; and again, " with my
compatriots thirst becomes an appetite. Some,
imbibing water, imagine themselves to be eating-
food." On this account Pincho related to me with a
wry face how several months before two English
army officers whom he was guiding had stripped and
plunged into this lake head foremost. Did they not
drink it also, I inquired. " No, Senorito," was the
disgusted return ; " you see they brought a dozen
bottles of a whitish kind of brandy."
We lunched beside the lake — some slices of cold
sausage, bread, and snow-water. The air, though
sharp, was not uncomfortably cold, and stimulated
94-
Z\ic Summit of Volair
hunger raix-ly. We wished our pockets had con-
tained more fare; hut then we (|uite expected
to be hack at the C'ortijo hefore nightfalL Even
our store of cigarettes had stayed behind. There-
fore, as soon as our scanty meal was swallowed, even
to the crumbs, we left the patient horses without
tethering them, and set upon the final stretch of the
Veleta, whose prodigious mass shoots heavenward
from close beside the border of the mere. Towards
its top the mountain is shaken together of loose and
slippery laminas of slate ; and the snow, new-fallen
though thawing rapidly beneath the noonday sun,
would reach my hip at least one step in every three.
Our going, in fact, was mainly guesswork, aggravated
by the portage of my cameras. In this way, with
distracting slow ness, we covered a thousand or fifteen
hundred feet, until the horses dwindled into specks
against the dazzling snow, and even the lake looked
insignificant and puny. Beneath us now I spied the
Friar of Capileira, silent, white-hooded, like a good
Carthusian, slanting his head upon the platelike
surface of the water, as though to nunnble grace
before a meal.
Suddenly the angle grew less steep. The last com-
ponent slabs of the Picacho projected definitely into
space. A wind of terrific violence and impact,
piercingly cold besides, issuing from a thousand
places simultaneously, was whirling round and
round and beating up and down. Luckily the sky
was clear, save for some glittering clouds above the
flexuous horizon of Alhama. I fancied them to be
the spirits of departed mountains, returning from
95
(3rana^a
another universe to commune with this new Sierra.
Not Spain alone, but all the world seemed at my
feet. I saw a dozen maps at once, life size as Nature's
pulse desio;ned and coloured them. Yonder, exactly
on a level with ourselves, was Mulhacen ; yonder the
Alcazaba ; yonder, upon the seaward side, the Cerro
del Caballo and the Tajo de los Machos. And
then the sea ! Smoothness and Huency in one, its
larger part was pale cobalt, its lesser part a lucid
mazarine. Two mains join here about a strip of
azure water famed in history and song —
" quella face stretta,
Ov' Ercole segno li stioi rigiiardi,
Archioche I'uom pin oltre non si metta."
This was enveloping Gibraltar, and enveloped in its
turn by African mountains warping south and south.
Right underneath the wastage of the great Picacho
the billowy Alpujarra, ran or roamed with warworn
slopes, more truly sealike in suggestiveness of strife
and storm than ever the hushed and tranquil Medi-
terranean. On every side except this last a century
of variform Sierras, some with gold or ruddy whins
upon their ample flank ; others with red, or grey, or
tawnv stone ; others, as ours, with deej), unsullied
snow ; the ranges of Iznalloz and Parapanda ; the
Sierras of Baza and Segura, Ronda and Tejeda,
Gata, Sagra, Lujar, Cazorla, Gador, Huetor, Alfacar,
Almijara, Jarana, Grazalema, and Filabres ; the
Sierra Morena severing Andalusia from La Mancha,
the vineyards and the corn from groves and orchards
in whose neighbourhood the indolent Guadalquivir
absorbs the luscious scent of orange-bloom and
96
Zbc Summit of Volair
almond ; the Pico del Lucero ; the C'eno of San
Cristobal ; the ^Mountains of Kxtreniadura, Portu-
gal, Alhania, Loja, and Algarinejo ; the "throats"
Mulbacen and the Alcazaba from the Summit of the Veleta
or passes of El Lobo and La Ragua, leading, the
former from the Alpujarra to Guadix, the latter
to the villages included in the ]\Iarquisate of the
Zenete.
Why does distance please ? Hazlitt, whose essay I
found mvself recalling now, has failed to state his
argument convincingly, or even clearly. " Distant
objects please, because in the first place they imply
an act of space and magnitude, and because, not
being obtruded too close upon the eye, we clothe
them with the indistinct and airy colours of fancy.
In looking at the misty mountain-tops that bound
the horizon, the mind is, as it were, conscious of all
97 t;
(Brana^a
the conceivable objects and interests that lie between.
We imagine all sorts of adventures in the interim ;
strain our hopes and wishes to reach the air-drawn
circle, or to ' descry new lands, rivers, and moun-
tains,"' stretching far beyond it : our feelings, carried
out of themselves, lose their grossness and their husk,
are rarefied, expanded, melt into softness and brighten
into beauty, turning to ethereal mould, skv- tinctured.
^Ve drink the air before us and borrow a more refined
existence from objects that hover on the brink of
nothing. Where the landscape fades from the dull
sight we fill the thin, viewless space with shapes of
unknown good, and tinge the hazy prospect with
hopes and wishes and more charming fears. "'
This theory is trite and superficial. The truth is
deeper down. Our love of distance is engendered in
our only age of absolute optimism, that is, childhood.
Distant objects please us now because thev bring
with them a reminiscence of our infancy, when all that
seemed far off' seemed also inoffensive. Nay, what
seems farther oft' than infancv itself; and yet it
soothes and pleases us to contemplate its recollection .''
Childhood, delicate, poetic, unsuspecting, is far more
se.isitive to space and magnitude than mere maturity.
The hedge of the next field looks to a little child the
confine of another universe. ^Vhat will he think of
the hills upon the far horizon ?
Another of Hazlitt's errors is the following:. He
preconceives that every distant object must be hazy.
But here, upon the Sierra Nevada, the farther oft' an
object is the more intensely clear it looks ; and a
traveller has observed, with perfect truth, that
9S
Tbc Summit ot folaii-
" nothini^, however small, seems capable of being
hidden from our view.'"
Distance in landscape is almost alwavs more or less
connected with a mountain or with mountains. Moun-
tains, indeed, involve a double distance, perpendicular
and horizontal — twin distances that interact uncjues-
tionably to increase the grandeur of the general mass.
Then height, of course, is irremediably linked with
heaven — a prettv though futile fiction, born with
our birth and diligently fostered by the Church.
On a fine day in the Sierra Nevada the landscape
never fades from the dull sight bv reason of simple
distance. It disappears from very smallness, as
though we looked at it beneath a microscope (and
so we virtually do) ; but even the farthest detail has
as vigorous an outline as the stone on which I rest
my pocket-book to make this memorandum.
Just as I had jotted down the words, a great
brown eagle left his cranny in the cliff, beat the aii'
into obedience, and rested motionless between the
earth and heaven. His head was turned towards us,
and he seemed to scrutinize me through and tlu-ouoh.
I felt a pang of shame. He filled the vastness which
overwhelmed my guide and me. His look was that
of superhuman greatness ; for the eagle sees further
than we do, and soars higher.
Two reasons why I would consider him superior to
ourselves.
99
A Snowstorm Coming- up the Mountains
VII
The Snowstorm
\Y it's all the same to you,"' said
Pincho, lookinf]^ intently down into
the west, " well begin to get back.''''
I picked up my cameras, but
asked him why.
" Because the weather up here is very strange.
Ifs not what you're accustomed to below. Some-
times upon these heights it's very crazy.'''
While he spoke he still kept looking westwards.
I followed the direction of his eyes. Beside the
spiky top of the Trevenque, and over the valley of
the Monachil, was a diminutive round white cloud, no
bigger than a puff of cannon-smoke. The under })art
of it was slightly grey. Unlike the cumulus resting
101
(Srana^a
delicately on the far horizon of Alhama, this cloudlet
seemed incapable of change, hanging with heavy
insio-nificance above the snow-fields and the river.
Pincho was right. Its very stagnancy inspired alarm,
AVe began the descent, springing from jut to jut
adown the slaty steeps, and covered two thousand
feet of breakneck climbing in rather over half an
hour. When we had gone some distance I called to
mind the prr7)iiere, in Madrid, of a comedy by one
of my familiar friends. This was to be the night ap-
pointed ; and so, tearing a leaf from my sketch-book,
I wrote him a telegraphic message of goodwill, to be
transmitted on our arrival at Granada, and dated in
iocular lan^uao-e from thesunnnit of these mountains.
Then we continued. Underneath our toes the
pinVhead lakelet grew to a blue-black bead, next to
the bigness of a hand -mirror, and so by regular
degrees until we caught the glimmer of the fretted
ripples, and the mere was once again life-size. There
were our scraggy steeds, nosing patiently and fruit-
lessly amid the snow, a dozen yards fiom where we
had abandoned them. As Pincho hastily adjusted
the capaihos, muttering a kind of mingled curse and
prayer, I realized that the storm-cloud had swollen
to an alarming bulk. By some illusory effect, which
doubtless has a simple scientific cause, it seemed to
race upon, yet never to come up with, us, though all
around was falling in its subtle grasp. It rested on
the water at the further end of the lake ; it poked
enormous fingers into the bowels and the fissures of
the mountain ; but where we stood was free for quite
a while. At length a fine mist blew about our faces,
102
Zbc Snowstorm
seeming to sprinkle us, not with drops, but clew. It
might have been the fair serein of any sunnner's eve.
IJut this did not occur in sunnner, nor was it the
time of twilight ; and the mist, for all its mildness,
was the herald and precursor of the snowstorm.
We pushed away, I mounted, Pincho, the better
to inspect our trail, afoot. So far, our prints had
undertjone no change. No earthlv wavfarer had
redisturbed those virgin fields except a single fowl,
the frail concatenation of whose tread ran crosswise
from our own. At first we travelled very fairly, until
the mist began to gather substance and snap asunder
the last shafts of the sun. Then, just for a moment,
I caught a farewell glimpse of the Picacho, infinitely
overhead, not motionless but seeming to upbreak
above the elements, undiademed atop, only his massv
neck torquated with the storm. Swiftness and majesty
in one he soared away. The prospect grew more
awful and unearthly every instant. Boulders that
proved to be within a stone's throw assumed a filmy
and fantastic form behind the dim, diaphanous veil
that hung and scoured at once across their jagged
edges. Deeper and darker, swifter and colder and
moister grew the fog. A horrible pain invaded all
mv limbs, then numbness, more appalling still.
iVIontaigne declares that " even to fear, courage is
required."' If this be so, I was as brave as anybody
under heaven, for my panic knew no bounds. Nor
was I alone in these emotions. Pincho, leading the
way, was outwardly composed ; but the horses,
scrambling frantically forward with distended eyes
and nostrils, exhibited a pitiful dismay.
103
0rana^a
I thouffht it better to tumble from the saddle and
essay to walk. Apart from other adverse circum-
stances, each step required at least the toil of three.
First there was the extraction of the foot from the
snow, then the depth of snow to be surmounted,
and finally the onward step. Our track, until it
merged into the mist, was still distinguishable, but
this was not for long. Enemies were advancing
upon us, as multitudinous as all the sands of all the
seas, stealthy and skilful in attack, themselves invul-
nerable, though ruthless to the vanquished. A dozen
snowflakes fell upon my sleeve. I brushed them off,
vet before I could raise my hand again, a dozen more
had fallen on the back of it.
The caresses of a well-loved woman practised in
deceit are not more subtle, more insistent, more
insinuating. Oddly enough, a similar thought
occurred to Pincho. Half turning round, he said,
" Estd amorosa la nievey (" The snow is amorous.'')
An epithet of more than academic nicety, uttered by
a peasant who can neither read nor write. Such is
Andalusia. How truly he had drawn the character
of those feline flakes. Of course he meant to say
that the snow was soft, and treacherous, and tender ;
not the vigorous snow of winter, that makes an
adamantine pavement or pipes an honest warning ;
but the snow that kisses and ensnares in crafty
silence, the builder of false bridges, the fell con-
triver of the avalanche, the amorous snow ; snow
the woman !
The sky was like a great grey sieve held up against
white paper. Largeness and confinement united in
104
"Cbc Snows toiin
appalling comradeship, the one to smother us, the
other to mislead. The less we could espv ahead, the
bigger grew the vastness, the more I felt to be
obliterated from my view ; in spite of which one
strip of narrowness drew out into another, and their
series seemed to have no end in number and
monotony. The waste by now had grown unpathed.
Pincho, I take it, smelt our whereabouts with the
instinct of a born .rcrrano ; but twice or thrice we
plunged into a drift; at other times the snow was
only to our knee.
The next state or stage into which I fell is better
illustrated by another's words than by my own.
"Nature, having discovered me on one side, had
covered me on the other. Having disarmed me of
strength, she armed me witii insensibilitv, and a
regular or soft apprehension." Presently the " soft
apprehension" yielded to none at all. Mv mind was
less exhausted than my muscles. I thought my end
was both inevitable and immediate ; and yet I had
no fear of death, and only very little curiosity. My
musing was chiefly retrospective, and commonplace
at that. My scruples of a future state were inter-
ested and ignoble. All of us as Death appears in
the doorway are more or less of attitudinarians. I
have attended numberless deathbeds, and always
found the same misgiving ; zchat will the bystanders
obse?'VC, and zchnt icill thctj report of us? Pluck has
something to do with this, but vanity a great deal
more. We step into our cerements with histrionic
self-conceit. Let me confess, then, with an almost
anti-Christian candour, that I both exonerate and
105
(5 V a n a ^ a
extol the deathbed attitudinarian, the more especially
if he succeeds in demonstrating that (judiciously
employed) the final moment of our lives is equal in
importance to the sum of all the rest. Alonso Cano
withdrew his wrinkled lips from the crucifix because
it was too ugly. Byron, that protean votary of la
pose — social, moral, literary and linguistic — thought
fit to die in Greek ; as if a man could ever speak a
foreign language as sincerely as his own. Each of
these artists posed in what he knew. But the arch-
pnseur of all was that illustrious rogue of whom it is
related that nothing in this world became him like
his leaving of it. This is indeed to pose imperish-
ably.
I thought of writing something valedictory, but
naturally enough I could not bend my fingers. This
shows that my intelligence was partly paralysed, for it
oi.ly dawned upon me very gradually that in my pocket
was the telegraphic message to my friend. It pro-
ceeded to dawn upon me, furthermore, that here was
a perfect, providential pose. Night and death were
joining hands to overwhelm me. I smiled at them.
A search-party, or if not this, the earliest visitors
together with the following spring, would drag my
unhouseled bones to light, and in the pocket of my
corduroy coat — my telegraphic message to my friend.
What w^ould they say ? Why, what an admirable
cynicism in the very grasp of death — to scribble a
facetious telegram and make no mention of that
sinister embrace. I felt a kind of monstrous satis-
faction. After all, an idle chance contributed to my
renown. With this my mind grew quite at rest. I
106
"Cbc Snowstorm
sunk into the snow with ahsohitc contentment.
"Leave me*" (I think I cried). "Give me mv
blanket and leave nie. To-morrow I will follow you ;
vuiuanii^ muHuna.'''' My utterance seemed thick and
inarticulate, as though I were aniesthetized. Pincho
was at my side. " Senorito,'"" he shouted, "get up ;
for God's sake get up."
I felt that to rise was the easiest task in all the
world, yet not a limb would stir. So Pincho
dragged me up and beat me brutally about the
head and face. One of his blows hurt. It struck
me on the temple, where I suppose a fragment
of existence still remained. The pain, as hot as
scalding water, appeared to trickle down me; and
as I tried to step, once more my boots went forward.
So that my legs were hitherto my own. My will,
together with all its furniture and gimcracks, was
evidently Pincho's. Where now was all my Latin
and Greek, my history, my Christianity, and so
forth .?
There is no word in the English language to
indicate my manner of making progress. I did not
tramp or plod, for tramj)ing and plodiling imply a
definite fatigue; but here all sense of feeling had
worn itself away. Of course my strength was ebbing,
and vet 1 knew no strain. There may have been
exertion in the snow which bound my limbs, or in
the cold which petrified them ; but in myself I was
aware of none.
The rest of what befell was subsequently told me
by my guide. It seems that after several hours of
this unequal combat the dangerous zone was over-
107
passed, the cold grew bearable, and sheets of snow
gave place to sheets of water. Pincho and the horses
were nearly dead ; I was completely so. I have a
notion, infinitely slight, of walking, rolling, or being
pushed or carried down a sticky bank, and then
being thrust towards a shadowy mound, which
proved to be a goatherd's hut, deserted, the highest
in the whole Sierra. Although I thought myself
upon the other side of death, this spurred me to a
last galvanic effort and I stood. An instant after-
wards nature surrendered me for good and all, body
and brain and soul, a chattel propped on end, with-
out volition to conceive or strength to execute ;
until, deposited by Pincho or by chance before the
cavelike entrance to the hovel, I dropped, as lifeless
as a log, across that unexpected threshold.
108
A Wild Scene in the Sierra Nevada
Mil
Revival
,HEN I awoke, or came again to life, I
found myself upon a sodden, earthen
floor, with water trickling from above
into my nostrils, eyes, and mouth (for
I was gasping hard). The horses,
fellow inmates of our shelter, were munching some
mysterious fodder (it proved to be the cabin roof),
and I could hear their hoofs gyrate within some inches
of my head. Finding my voice forthwith, I called
to Pincho, who dejectedly returned my salutation
and struck a match. Before it burnt away I sat up
and volunteered to help, ashamed of all my past
inaction. What could I help in ? I was told, in
makinir a li<rht and warmth that should endure. The
roof of the cabin, I repeat, was thatched inside with
109
5l•ana^a
straw, and Pincho's box of matches was nearly full ;
so pulling part of the roof to pieces, while the horses
gobbled the remainder, we kindled simultaneously a
fire and a lamp, feeding the blaze by turns, about ten
minutes at a time.
The hours wore on, yet failed to stay the deluge.
What a rain ! I do believe it tumbled down in
thick, unbroken cords, not strings of drops, or drops.
As for the tediousness, all the nights of the year, or
many years, seemed to have joined together, like the
rain, in one interminable cable ; and when I looked
back upon the snowstorm, I almost fancied it some
faint adventure of my childhood, descried imperfectly
along the avenues of time. Hunger, and weariness,
and ^^eakness, all were here ; terrible antagonists
for two exanimate men. One comforting dis-
covery we made, but only one. The day before
Pincho had stuck a cigarette behind his ear, and there
forgotten it. We halved the sweet, small cylinder
with extjuisite impartiality. Then only did I com-
prehend the virtues of tobacco, that nuhilis herba,
as a picturesque old Oxford poet justly titles it ; and
as I puffed bent forward to inhale the smoke anew.
Yet even this finding of the cigarette was coimter-
balanced by a fresh disaster. Near the top of the
hovel projected a large stone horizontal slab, crown -
ino; a vent in the wall designed to carry off the
smoke. On one occasion Pincho, rising mechanically,
more than half asleep, to feed the fire, dashed his
oblivious brow full tilt against the border of the slab,
causing a wound which bled alarmingly, until I dried
my handkerchief and bound it up as well as I was
110
tvcvival
able. So we existed till the dawn. \Vhen dav be<ran
to show it was no longer raining. The heavens had
wept themselves dry ; though still occasional drops
fell down in sullen protest at their impotence. Our
cabin was surroimded by a kind of bog, probabl\- at
ordinary .seasons a piece of cultivable land, but now
submerged through all its surface. Our feet came
up from it encased in kilos of thick mire. Then we
dragged forth the beasts and set our cavalcade in
marching order. Vet, when we prepared to move,
a further trial was awaiting me. Of course I had
unshod myself the night before : but now, on picking
up my boots, I could no more get them on than if
they had been an infant's; nor were thev merelv
shrunk and wrinkled, but, since the fire had dried
them, of a bricklike hardness. Luckily Pincho
had brought in his pocket a pair of military aljxtr-
gat<t6- — a couple of slabs of rope with black cloth
strips to bind them round the ankle. Not ^lercurv
himself could wish for lighter sandals ; so on thev
went and off we started.
After a spell of wretched ambulation, wc struck
some rising ground, and shortly afterwards a moun-
tain path without the surface water of the level land,
and only about shin-deep in mire. .VIong this path
we plodded. We were in the heart of the Sierra; yet
no Sierra was visible. The mountains from top to toe
seemed wrapped in lead-coloured cotton-wool. The
air was saturated ; so were \\e ; and the horses,
poor creatures, kept vomiting both from skin and
nostril as thick a vapour as the steam-cock of a
locomotive.
in
0rana^a
Presently a dirty urchin crooning a lugubrious
copla sprang up, as well as I could see, from nowhere.
We took our bearings from him, and since he
proved to be going our way to some remote co7'ttjo,
set him before to serve as cicerone. That part of our
peregrination is completely indescribable, save by the
one word zcetness. We saw wetness, felt wetness,
smelt wetness, swallowed wetness. We even heard
wetness ; for the stunted bushes, as we brushed them
by, discharged their pattering load of moisture. The
whole of that spongy landscape, with ourselves into
the bargain, might just have fallen into a monster
pail, and been pulled out a dripping sop.
After three hours of this misery we reached the
farm. Its occupants were glad to see us, or said they
were. They also said thev were surprised ; and of
the truth of this there could be no doubt, for we saw
it written far beneath the level of their faces. I think
at first they took us for spectres, until we called for
the precious provisions we had recklessly left behind
on the preceding day — coffee and cocoa, biscuits, and
bread, and brandy, cold beef and Alpujarra ham,
Bologna sausage and tinned salmon. Surely there
are definable and definite occasions (and this, I plead,
was one of them) when gluttony is not only excusable
but praiseworthy.
AVhen at a sing-le sittino^ we had breakfasted and
lunched, and " overtaken "' — in Pincho's phrase — our
supper of the night before, our limbs unstiffened
enough for us to mount the horses, and on we moved.
Providence had blown us out with self-importance,
and besides, our stomachs were refreshed. No further
112
1R c V i V a I
effort was demanded of us ; all the rest was glorv.
Therefore our talk for several hours was in the key
of mutual admiration. Had we not " })lanted a
pike in Flanders" by scaling the Picacho nearly in
November ? AVe spoke, in conseciuence, of the vulgar
herd of August or September al])inists with lordly
]ntv coupled with disdain. Vet though we stretched
our exploit to the utmost, the danger out of sight
proved verilv a danger out of mind. I always found
it so. The times when I have stood upon the vei-y
verge of death must number (juite a score, and yet
they cause me, as I turn the backward pages of my
life, no more emotion than a barking dog. Does this,
I wonder, betray in me a somewhat strange resiliency,
or do I share it with my fellow men ? At any rate,
I find it at once a source of weakness and of power.
Of weakness, because it cuts me off from the sedate
vocabularv maintained to be inalienable from those
so-called solemn moments ; of power, because it
seems to show me that the groundwork of our being-
originates, if once we elbow off the parson with his
cant, not in pathos but in liumour.
Throughout this cogitation I felt a growing desire
to contemplate again the great Picacho del Veleta.
But no. The weather by now had mended, and the
sun, like a scolded child with traces of recent tears
across his face, crept timidly forth once more. The
mist rolled off the bases of the mountains. Here,
parallel to our path, was the Trevenque, and yonder
the Tesoro ; yet still the emperor-peak remained
enveloped in invisibility.
A dreary time ensued, although the sky kcjit
113 H
^3l•ana^a
brightening. While we were plodding up and
down the stony steeps, I tried to amuse myself by
examining Pincho as to his occupations, accomplish-
ments, and so forth. Once upon my sneezing he
took me up with a pious ejaculation, as is usual in
this country. I set the question to him from
Montaigne, " Can you tell me whence the custom
ariseth, to blesse and say God helpe to those that
sneese ? '' But Pincho on this point was not an
oracle. The humbler classes of this as of all lands
possess their superstitions, but know not why.
Properly considered, is not this what constitutes a
superstition ?
Then it occurred to me to ask him if he could
read and write.
" No, Senorito,''" was the quick reply. " I went to
school for seven years ; but the fact is, my school-
master was a dreadful fool."
The retort f/i*courteous was evident, but I set my
lips to hide a smile, and said nothing.
When we began to descend the cuesta winding in
an almost endless spiral towards Granada, a violent
surprise awaited me. Up to this point I had
imao-ined mv faithful Pincho to be the lowliest of
the lowlv. But now he expanded into nothing less
than a landed proprietor, A small boy working
in a field of potatoes adjacent to the roadway, ran
up to Pincho's side, and solicited employment as his
gardener and his goatherd ; for it seems that my
guide was owner of the following effects, enu-
merated to me in this order :
The two nags.
11-t
ri\e <^oat.s.
A wife.
Two cliildren.
A cottage.
A plot of ground.
Pincho pulled up forthwith, and regarding the
candidate with an air of Sabine aust.eritv, delivered
a pithy sermon on the characteristics of the domestic
goat.
" The goat,"' he said, " is a delicate creature, whose
milk is easily turned bad by beating and (lis<>;itstosr
The boy assented.
" There are lads who ill-treat their goats and spoil
their milk."
The boy shook his head, to indicate that though
such criminals are not unknown, he for his part
repudiated all association with them.
" Vou will not lay the stick uj)on mv goats?"
'• Not I."
'• Nor frighten them with shouting .- "
•' No."
" Nor pelt them with stones .-""
" May I see myself blind if I do."
This closed the examination. " Vou mav come
to my house at Huetor," observed the potentate, " on
Tiiursday morning." He then handed the infont a
cigarette, which the latter lighted with ])recoci()us
care, and shook his rein, while the other sprang
blithely back to his labours in the glebe.
The time had now arrived to settle our account^.
A pretty pair we nnist have looked ; I'incho, with
his bandaged, blood-stained head. I with mv stirruj)-
115
©vanaba
less, naked, swollen feet protruding through the
griniv sandals. Luckily nobody was by to raise a
laugh, and so for us the moment was intensely
solemn — as solemn as the signing of a treaty, or the
editor''s replies to coi'respondents in the Satunlatj
Revieic. First we brought our jaded animals to-
gether and shook hands in imposing silence, like
Wellington and Bliicher on the field of Waterloo.
Then I pulled out and told the money — twenty-four
pesetas and a gratification of another twenty.
Pincho took them and took his hat off. " Don
Leonardo,"" he said, with a distinct tremble in his
voice, " I am a poor man, though honest." (I recalled
Cervantes'* nasty cynical phrase to the effect that
honesty and poverty are incompatible, but charitably
kept the recollection to myself). " I like," my guide
went on, "to serve a gentleman; and you, Don
I^eonardo, are a gentleman."'"' I murmured my thanks
and did mv best to dispel the accusation ; for it is
not thought decent in ceremonious Spain to accept a
compliment without rejecting its conclusions, at once
besmirching your own fair fame and taxing your
panegyrist with untruthfulness, " I am a poor man,
Don Leonardo ; but if ever your circumstances
should become — as we often find them in this world ""'
(I caught a decided delicacy in the pause), " Pincho,
alias Jose Ferucindez, has always a dollar in his
pocket to share with you."'"'
After these moving words we grasped the hota,
and sealing our friendly sentiments in the approved
fashion began to thread the lanes of cottages upon
the outskirts of the town, when suddenly, in turning
116
IRcviViU
a comer, Pincho glanced across his shoulder, called
to me, and ])()inted. There, it seemed innumerable
leagues away, towered the great Picacho, smothered
in spotless snow. And even while we looked, the rosy
radiance of the setting sun drew over that majestic
mass from crown to pedestal.
ir
A Good Head for a height, on the Summit of the Trevenque
IX
How I Did Not Climb the Trevenque
)\V very stranj>er exclaimed my
friend and fellow expeditic)ni>t. the
lieutenant—" a baker who does not
know the price of bread."^ He
raised his eyeglass with co(iuettish
curiosity.
« If only my son were here/' sighed the old woman,
" I couhl inform vou in a moment.
The loaves were in a little cupboard in the passage :
not manv loaves all told-pcrhaps a sccre. I picked
out one and prodded it with pseudo-connoisseurship.
It seen^^d to me the very best of bread, this clean,
and close, and snowy bread of Spain. I dug my
thumbs into it, and then I weighed it on my palm,
and then I sniHed at it. The fact is, I was hungry,
119
Oranata
and the smell of bread, just like the smell of earth,
is one of nature's perfumes.
I said : " It does not seem to weigh the Ai/o."
" No doubt," returned the beldam, with a stealthy
snigger ; " it is only a half-AvYo loaf."
" Well, well," put in my friend to cover my con-
fusion, " ask us all you please. But I warn you," he
added, "that if you overcharge I shall report you
to the Governor of Granada. You know the law
relating to articles of prime necessity ? "
" Quid,''' replied the old woman, without the least
dismay, " the Governor of Granada has other things
to busy him."
My friend drew out some coppers. " How much ? "
he asked again, this time a trifle snappishly.
A man of middle age stepped into the passage
from the street and cast a quick, suspicious glance at
both of us. " Thirty centimoSy'' he said, as brusquelv
as the officer before him, "that bread costs thirty
centhno-'ir
And yet the crone had suffered — or had taken —
no offence. " I told you so," she croaked with quick
contentment ; " he bakes and sells the bread. I only
keep his home in order." A look of motherly pride
went with the words : but (like a woman) slic it was
who held hei' hand out for the money.
The scene of this ado was Cajar, about one hour's
walking from the city of the Alhambra and the
Alahmares. Cajar is one of those villages, common
enough in this Peninsula, which seem, no doubt
fallaciously, to have more houses than inhabitants.
Even (a non plus ultra token of depopulation in this
120
■fljow 3 IDl^ IRot Climb the Cicvciuiuc
laud), there is no bull-ring and the c-hurch tan boast
uo beggar on its doorstep. Yet Cajar is clean, and
old, and well-to-do, and eminently decent. Before
we bade its cottages good-bye, wc turned into
the only tavern of the place, a two-roomed,
unpretentious shanty with a moiscl of a
counter, and summoning a niedia'val matron from
her needle, drank down a glass of thin white
wine, and afterwards a (juantity of water. Our
floor was simple brick, our table simple pine, our
walls the simplest whitewash, outraged by sundry
cln-omos of the German grade of hideousness ; those
chromos which become gamboge throughout as years
roll over them — the Kaiser's "yellow peiil '" with a
veno-eance. Between the chromos a broken bracket
contained a broken plaster image of Saint Michael
stamping Satnn underfoot. In spite of the arch-
angefs kicks and of his thrustings with a kind of
pickle-fork, only the image of the Tempter stayed
unbroken. Amid these natural and artistic charms
we sat, the officer, his servant, and myself on three
straw-seated chairs : and this was all the chamber.
Our limited provisions had been packed into an
empty camera case. We pulled them out and made
a rapid meal, breaking, together with a chunk of
cheese and hard-boiled egg, the bread we had just
purchased. Unluckily we cannot, like the camel,
store up a drink against the actual hour of our
thirst, and draw on such reserve as requisite. I
(luatted a glass, and then another glass ; and yet I
was not thirsty. Prevention in this instance proved
a I'-reat deal worse than cure, and later on I paid a
121
^5rana^a
heavy price for such dipsetic folly. However, .since
thirst and hunger must be positively felt before
we take their meaning even in a faint degree, I
suffered for the moment no uneasiness. So tjuitting
the empty tavern for the empty street, and empty
Cajar for the empty ways beyond, we lit our cigar-
ette, and strode, contentedly enough, towards the
high Sierra.
The taller crests of this, as everv loftv range, are
hidden at their base by humbler foothills, but in
its general consistencv and form the Sierra Nevada
of Spain suggests a pigmy Himalaya rather than the
Alps or Pyrenees of Europe. ChieHv composed of
mica shale, with little granite or cohesive stone, the
principal elevations tend to break awav w itli marked
abruptness on a single side ; and hence the ])rospect
from the crown of the Veleta nuist be strangely
like the mannnoth Gaurisankar and his neighbours
viewed from the forests of Sikkini. lietween the arms
or divisorias that go up towards each peak are deep
harrancos or ravines conveying streams of melted
snow. Often these latter have their source in crystal
lakes that lurk (juite near the summits of the chain ;
often their covnse is placid and the music of their
march melodious and suave ; often, a foaminu-, roarino-
mass, they overleap a thousand feet of precipice ;
often their silver passage may be traced for hours at
a time ; often for hours at a time thev creep con-
cealed within the very bowels of the mountain.
Animal life is not diversified. Eagles and wolves
are fairly numerous, but scarce and growing scarcer
every season is the beautiful cahra mantes^ a kind of
122
Ibow 3 Si? IRot Clnnb tbc cicvciiouc
ibex, wary and keen-scented as tlie cliauiois. Forests
of chestnut, oak, and pine invest the lower zones ; and
here and there a scanty patcli of wheat or niaize
adjoins the white cortijo sheltered in some hollow of
the rocky ridges. Above the wheat and maize are
stretches of thin ])asture, where shej)herds keep their
cabins and their Hocks from spring till early autunni.
AVhen I was small I used to think the Al})>
and Himalayas rose u}) as jjerpeudicular as any
wall, from absolute sea-level to the clouds.
Reader, have vou not thought the same .' That mi>-
beliel, so tvpicallv and ])athetically infantile, origi-
nated in our atlas, where Everest and his l)rother
giants rise like the steepest sugar loaf against their
scale of altitude. So, too, misguided by our natural
history, did we not think in childhood that the
hottest climates are per «' the best ; that livers, like
a compensation-balance, accommodate themselves to
every temperature; that tropical America's unsullied
skies, year in, year out are rather warmer than an
English June; and that a lion is the bravest of all
beasts, scarcely excluding man r And yet upon
such misconceptions hangs no little of our latter-day
philosophy. A ])retty world we live in if no child
should know the truth a])out it till increasing yeais
and waning innocence oblige him ! However this
may be, our present process is akin to barbarism.
Parents, governesses, and the authors of school-
literature conspire to keep the child awhile in fairy-
land. Then na,ture, hustling fantasy aside, thrusts
up her bigger and more brutal book, and rubs tlu-
childish nose upon its pages.
12; J
(Bl•ana^a
Of course it is impossible to plant the foot at
any certain spot and say, " Here begins the Sierra
Nevada." The first approach by where we moved
this morning, is up and over a softly shelving
and apparently interminable slope, with rounded
rocks, like elbows, here and there projecting
through a miserable, threadbare, stony soil. Only
at distant intervals yon spy a tall arretf clad
with unbroken snow. After a league or so of this
insensible incline we found, on looking back, the
tower of Cajar church beneath our feet. Beyond
and lower still, the maplike Vega of Granada
swept broadly round towards xVlhama and the
west, dotted all over its expanse with picturesque
demure hamlets interspersed with green and golden
cultivation. The atmosphere through which we
viewed that fair and far champaign was silent with
the silence of the mountains, where vision ripens at
the cost of sound. Fine-weather clouds half glided,
half gyrated overhead in delicate yet massy drift-
age ; a falcon transpierced the deepest azure ; and
once we passed a goatherd propped dead-weight
upon his staff. He and the rock on which he stood
seemed, like a statue and its base, equally contrived
from stone. We called to him. He did not hear,
or did not answer if he heard ; and so, to no re-
gret of mine, we strengthened our illusion.
About midday the slope, mounting to several
thousand feet and stopping at a shoulder, disclosed,
beyond the border of a desert table-land embosomed
in the cyclopean mountain walls, a splendid sweep
of precipice and peak ; of shaly ridges first, speckled
124
1I3 w 3 ID 1 ^ 1H 1 C 1 nn b t b c Ci c v c n q ii c
and streaked witli foam, and after these the glitterinti
snow-fields of the great Sierra. Our [!;on\ was the
Trevenqiie. Yonder it lay, five miles ahead and
slightly to our left, a crest of Matterhorn steej)ness
rising from a group of lesser peak lets ranged about
their lord.
By this time I was dead athirst. The part of
the Sierra through which we now advanced is very
nearly destitute of water. Only at several miles
apart the regular path of mule and mountaineer
runs through or round a limpid, microscopic pool ;
and each of these the aborigines grandihxjuently
term a " fountain.'" To make my woeful situation
worse, a stream was purling in the vallev far be-
neath. So did the siren''s song provoke I'lvsses,
save that, unlike Ulysses, I was free to follow.
However, I glued my eyes upon that aiid peak
ahead, and manfully maintained our bearings.
Presently, by great good luck we struck one orange
at the bottom of the camera-case, and, not much
further on, one of the celebrated " fountains."
Plump in the middle of our track a small depres-
sion contained a quart or two of water. However,
unless disturbed, the priceless liquid was ethereally
clear, and overflowing very slightly showed that it
oozed and issued from a constant source. ^Making a
cup out of my half of the orange, I filled and cjuaffed
at will. In artificial craftsmanship a silver cup is
lined with gold. Here (and it appeti/ed me all the
more) nature, proceeding on another plan, had lined
my f>-olden o;oblet with fine silver. My fiiend. con-
temptuous of such luxuries, fell flat along the soil
125
OianaJa
and thrust his lips into the mimic patch of moisture.
Each of these methods served its primal purpose ; yet
our discussion as to their respective value sustained
our chatter for the whole remainder of our outward
journev.
The sim was evidently stooping to the west when
we drew really near to our destination. Unlike his
brother mountains of this range, the conical Tre-
venque, an insinuating crest that steepens bv im-
palpable degrees, is chiefly sand and rock. From
autumn to early spring the snow, wherever it can
find a place to lie, affords some kind of foothold ;
but even in the best conditions the climb is what
the euphemistic Spanish terms comprometklo. The
topmost hundred yards are dangerous, and the final
\'e\\ completely sheer. In this ascent I did not
join my comrade. A long stagnation in the town
had disinured me to such violent exercise. Already
my feet were sore and swollen, and worst of all (so
great was my fatigue) a nail projecting from my boot
was piercing deep into my heel, without my recog-
nising that the pain of this was purely local.
Accordingly I took my seat upon a modest crag
and gazed at the Trevenque and my friend's recedino-
form. I found that on the south the mountain
overhangs a ramhla or dry river bed, lookinf^ from
this my perch just like a broad, white carriage -road.
The ramhla winds away into a velvety abyss fringed
with grey pinnacles and juts of Scandinavian weird-
ness. Sometimes these points of rock converge until
they almost meet, forming a kind of arch that only
lacks a keystone. \\\m\ is the end of the abyss I do
126
■fljow 3 Sij Wot Climb t Ik 'C i l v c no u c
not know. Some day I shall exploiv it to the (k-jjtli,
but tVoiu above it seems unfathomable.
A loii^- v.liile afterwards my friend returned, to-
g'ether with his a.s'i.stente. "Of course vou j)hoto-
o-raphed us at the top ?'' he asked, as I rejoined liini
on the path below the crag. He spok(.' huskily,
limped, and looked a sorry sji^lit all over.
I liad not photographed him. With j)rudent
inactivity I had passed a couple of hours, partlv in
staring at the scenery and ])artlv in a do/e. My
camera had lain beside me, but the index of the
changing-box had not advanced one single number.
The lieutenant was annoyed. " It's too bad," he
gasped ; " you |)romised to photograj)h us. I l)elieve
you've been asleep."'
I said I had.
" Vou English," he resumed, '"' are alwavs railing
at the Spaniards for their indolence ; but I can't see
much of the liritish energv in i/ou."
I said. •" 1 am not English. I am \Velsh ; and the
Welsh are rumoured to proceeil from an ancient
Spanish stock. My indolence is atavic."
" Whv, then,"' my friend retortetl, - vou \Velsh
are just degenerate Spaniards, that is all."
This time it was I mIio felt obliged to answer,
since foot-sore folks permit themselves a touchy sen.se
of self-esteem. Changing the current of the convei'sa-
tion, I pointed out that from the top of the Trevenque
to the spot where I had lingered was at least two miles.
" My lens," I argued, " does not distinguish persons at
that distance — not even a Spanish officer. Vou might
as well expect me to photograj)h a Hv on the Neleta.''
1^>7
^5vana^a
They had not reached the apex of our peak.
They climbed upon a rocky ledge protruding out
and sheer eight metres from the crest ; had brushed
the summit with their finger-tips, but had not set
their toes on it. Once they had thought themselves
about the very brink, but crawling several inches
further espied the actual crown still fretted over-
head, and underneath, four thousand feet described
as perpendicular as with a })lumb, a threadlike
cataract. The stolid servant, who had been a shoe-
maker before he took to (or was made to take to)
soldiering, turned green from dizziness, vet sought
with rustic shame to mask his true emotion. " O
what a view," he blurted ; but overcome before the
words were at an end, concealed his face upon the
scrap of stone which barely held him from eternity.
Perils of other kinds had aggravated the attempt.
The scanty shrubs they clutched at broke away, or
filled their palms with prickles. In parts the snow
was glaciated, and once an eagle flapped its dis-
concerting wing across their faces. Altogether it
had been a bad adventure ; a very bad adventure.
Not without a selfish exultation at my heart, I
wagged my head and proffered my condolences.
Mine, after all, had been the true philosophy. Beatm
'die (jui procul negotiis. A pi-etty negotiiim had
been theirs; and so, extending to my worsted jivals
an ostentatious magnanimity begotten of glutted
vengeance, I granted, nay, I forced upon them,
another hour of unconditional repose.
Then we set out for home. Ushered by evanescent
colours in the sky, night drew her pageantry before
1^8
Ujow 5 ^l^ IWot Climb tbc "Cicveiuiuc
US OH tliese large and loftv j)lacc"s. TIk' distant
snow-fields, smitten by the tlusk, as.su nied a sad,
strange, olive tone, then ash, and, last beneath the
failing day, a sheeny hue, half-nacreous, half-dia-
phanous, pencilled at every cliff and curve with dark
yet delicate shading. Out of the sanguine, chrome,
and orange west projected neighbouring sununits,
indigo and violet, madder, mauve and purple. \ euus
and a strip of moon sprang forth abreast ; then either
j\Iarv, with Orion at a corner of the three. So did
the stars appear, until, to one who strained his eyes
across that vapourless expanse, they seemed inviting
him to oversoar the realms of space, and, as a new
and nearer essence to themselves, to be admitted to
the perfect knowledge of their paths, to be initiated
into every secret of their superterrene splendour.
Beneath us we had light enough to keep from
falling flat, but often not enough to guard our-
selves from stuiu))ling. Thus rocks or stones of
biggish size could be detected ; but pebbles, round as
well as sharp, menaced our balance and assailed the
tender portions of the foot. Our road was fairly
plain, but sometimes crossed another one, or several
others at a time. The servant led the wav ; next
came the officer, and then myself. The lieutenant was
singing snatches of Italian opera — tenor, soprano,
contralto, baritone, or basso, just as the fancy took
him — his rendering of all five being equally and
indiscriminately execrable. He told me at a later
staire that he was sinoin"; " to drown the aching:
of his feet,'' making (at least for me) one painful
action to eclipse another. Once or twice he paused
1^9 1
(Bl•ana^a
to point a name or other circumstance related to
some star. Suddenly I felt a hatred for those stars
that just a little before had magnetized me. Not
often does the mimic or untrue affect us more pro-
foundly than the real, yet so it was on this abrupt
occasion. Far above, the star-lamps glittered grandly.
Far ahead and far below, uncovered at some corner
of our way, the lamplets of Granada twinkled in the
blackness. Here was my sudden cynosure, and this
is why. Upon a time I courted a girl in the old
country. She lived in a great seaport, I in a small
suburban village on the coast ; and every night I
walked both in and out, around the bay, to see and
speak with her. Now, as I fixed my gaze upon
Granada, the city lamps resolved themselves into
those lamps of old. Again I welcomed every step
that brought me closer to those lamps and her ;
lamented every step that parted me from her and
them. Eyes that would fathom mine no more ;
hands that my own would hold no longer — I saw
and I caressed them once anew. Just as we sever or
undo the silken ribbon that binds up a bundle of
old love-letters, I set my life asunder from a dozen
years ; and fresh with even the perfume of the past,
the memory of those hours came very mournfully
and very sweetly back to me.
Proceeding downwards for about two hours we
halted to confer. Our line of march by now was
thin and indistinct, but yonder lay Granada. The
city lights were glittering, apparently not far ahead,
and rather to our right. We should be nearing
Cajar. Presently, to be sure, we struck the outskirts
130
hjow .'J ^l^ iRot ciimii tbc ricvciunic
of our villajre. Trees were about us, and the air was
jjitchy. I drew ahead, but tliough I stepped with
care I nearly thrust mv foot into a water-channel.
Strange ! I liad seen no water-channel on tliat
morning. Was Cajar, like so nianv of our ladv
friends, one thing bv night and sonietiiing else bv
day ?
Suddenly I heard an exclamation from mv col-
league. ^' WccUcmnfi"' (the nearest a{)proach a
Spanish palate ever makes in the direction of my
surname), " Weelleams, we are in La Zubia.'''
I thought it was a savage joke, or else that he was
off' his head, like the survivors of the Medusa, and
other wights who have endured the unendurable.
" Don't be a fool," I angrily retorted. Nevertheless,
I felt some new misgiving, Mv feet were two great
bags of pain. I set them down ; that is to say, I
stopped. The officer shuffled up, attended closely
by our faithful shoemaker. " It's quite true," he
repeated in a tone of dull, monotonous despair ; "I
asked a cottager. We are in La Zubia."
We stared aghast towards each other's faces. I
make this declaration at a venture. We could not
see each other's faces, but I am positive that liorror
was inscribed on them. My ))roof is purely circum-
stantial. Man is so poor at husbanding his feelings
that we even make the same grimaces in the dark
as in the daylight. As if we might not spare our-
selves the trouble.
" How about your lights of Granada ? " asked the
lieutenant with a sneer, " han^in^ a couple of hundred
yards (iicaij like pearls upon a string' r "
131
" Yes,'"' I retorted, " and how about your science
of the stars ? I don't believe you know Orion from
the moon."
But then, instead of trying to come to blows, we
laughed outi"ioht.
I said, " AVe must have missed our way." The
mean grotesqueness of the words exceeds derision ; yet
who, in similar straits, would not have uttered them ?
The damned village of La Zubia is distant from
Granada nearly seven kilometres. We could have
flown sooner than reach the toAvn afoot. We dragged
our carcasses to somewhere with a smell of wine
and sank upon two shaky chairs, burying our
heads and arms upon a table. Our shoemaker was
bundled off to make inquiries with a view to our
return. After a while he shook us up to say that
both the telephone wires were broken, but that a
native of the place possessed a carriage and its
corresponding team. Presently the native came, and
somebody shook us up again. Between the pair we
stammered out some syllables, and asked the price of
passage.
" Seven pesetas.''''
Were we awake, or were we in a dream ?
" Seven pesetas.'^ The noble woixls restored to us
a measure of vitality. That man — so high a worth
he set on charity — was nothing of a Christian dealer.
His veins warti tilled with Jewish, ^Moorish, or ]Morisco
blood, unspilled, unspotted and unspoiled by Ferdi-
nand and Isabella. " Seven pesetas ! " We would
have paid ten pounds apiece, even if we had had to
sign a document for their discharge before arrival.
132
1I3CW 3 ^l^ HAot Climb tbc cicvciuiuc
" Seven /;6^sr/^/.y .' " It could not be; this paltiv,
this infinitesimal reward. It could not be : yet so it
was, togethei- with another marvel. Incredible to
state, the native took our stupefaction for a protest.
"Well,"' he conceded, " six y:;6'.y6'<rt.S', to say the very
least."" I think that after all he was a Christian —
and a fool.
The carria<^e came — a covered wagonette. AVe
tottered to its door. The shoemaker, I take it,
climbed upon the box. Some one was doubtless
also there to drive.
We scnorifo.s clambered on the stej), then fiom the
step upon the floor, and from the floor u])ori the
parallel and ample cushions. Darkness and sleep
an-ain took charg-e of us herewith, until, extended
prone as in an ambulance, we drove into Granada.
13;J
The Ave Maria Colony
X
The Ave Maria Colony
iPON the road to the Sac ro-Monte, just
where it makes a couple of rapid bends
about the Darro, the passer-bv looks
down on half a dozen sunnv villas nest-
lino- in luxuriant foliage. If he looks
down with some attentiveness, these villas will impress
themselves upon him as mvsteriously associated one
with another, constitutinp^, for all their separate
garden-plots and boundaries, a single large estate,
disposed by the same intelligence, ruled bv the same
administrator. And he will hear, distinguishable
from the murmur of a neighbouring brook, the
babble and ring of many youthful voices ; far more
than ever a single family might muster. Here, in
©ranaJa
fact, is the Colony of the Ave Maria ; where waifjs
and strays, and pauper boys and girls are educated
both in body and in brain, and — best of all — edu-
cated from the love of God, ami not the lust of
Mammon ; schoolrooms converted into carmenes,
carmenes into schoolrooms ; sunshine into study, and
study into sunshine; where "recreations and jollv
pastimes fetch the day about from sun to sun. and
rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream " ; a
pedagogic paradise in the open air ; the best, and
brightest, and blithest institution in the whole of
modern Andalusia.
As I shall presently tell, a dozen years ago this
noble work had only just begun. To-dav the colony
consists of these six carmenes, with beautiful and
ample grounds attached, classes for five hundred
boys and girls, and workshops for such as are old
enough to learn a trade. Besides this, the colony has
branches, also with several hundred pupils apiece —
the Tr'mnfo, at the northern apex of the city,
and the Quinfd Alegve, at the southern, upon the
road to Huetor. The cost of keeping up the whole
amounts to more than fifty thousand pesetas annually ;
a stiff amount for Spanish purses, and to which the
State, which only thinks of soldiering and sailoring
and such tomfoolery, contributes not one single
centhno.
Of course, as soon as I was told of the wonders of
the Ave Maria, I burned to inspect them for myself;
and so one day, accompanied and guided by a friend
who knows the Colony well, I stepped aside into those
gardens on the Sacro-Monte road. Threading a
136
Zbc Bvt /ID a via Colcnv
maze ofslinihs we came upon a terrace covered at
one extremity with a trellised \iiie, sliadini; a class
of /;r/'/t'«/as', oi- tiny children. These were the hi-ats
who once upon a time had spent the day in stoning'
and molestinii; peaceful wayfarers; yet now, as soon
as they caught si<;ht of us, they sprant; to their feet,
pulled off their caj)s, and shouted ''^ Ave Marui'' ;
which is, I was informed, the colonists' indispensable
salute. A o-eiitle featured lad was their preceptor.
Him we asked for Don Andres — that is, Father
Andres Manjon, to whom Granada owes this admir-
able labour. AVe learned that " the father " (how
appropriate the title sounded) would not appear
until midday, for, being a canon of the Sacro-Monte,
his duties there detain him till this hour. However,
the second in command was sununoned to entertain
us prior to his chiefs arrival, and show us all the
carvicncs and all their occupants.
While this lieutenant was being sent for from
another garden, I marked the spot itself. Here and
there a piece of the w'hitewashed wall of one or other
of the villas projected its brilliant surface from
between the foliage. Flowers and trees and bushes
were on every side, pleasant lawns and shady paths,
and birds and water-courses in full song. Upon my
left, beyond a rustic bridge that spans a miniature
ravine, I faintly caught the hivelike murnun- of a
multitude of lips. Beneath, the Darro twined in
graceful coils, partly concealed by velvety leafage.
Amidst this latter is the Fountain of the Hazel
Tree, the favourite haunt of (.'bateau briand, who
used to liken it to Vaucluse. Above, the huge
137
©rana&a
Alhambra overshadowed all, between the Tower
of Comares at the western end, and, at the other,
the slender, delicately-pencilled cypresses of the
Generalife.
The second in command of Don Andres is a com-
fortable looking, rather short and rather stout eccle-
siastic, with a highish colour and a small and cheerful
eye — the kind of eye which might arouse misgivings
in a layman, but which is always pardoned in a priest.
In any case Don Juan (to quote his name), despite a
rather gruff and sudden voice which I suspect to be
somewhat affected, is (juite in favour with the young-
sters, who stroke his hand and tweak his robe with
absokite impunity, although they venerate as well as
Jove him. The smallest child who asks or answers
him a question, or runs his message, must doff his
cap and utter the semi-talismanic '■^ Ave Maria.''''
" En i>Tac'ia conceh'ula^'' is the prompt reply ; and only
then the message or the (juestion is proceeded with.
Don Juan conducted us across the rustic bridge
into a kind of playground. I say a kind of play-
ground, because, in point of fact, it proved to be a
schoolroom, with stone benches raised along one side,
and on the benches some fifty or sixty little people
learning to count by means of ninepins and blocks of
wood. The teacher of this class was a girl from the
Albaycin, herself an ex-disciple of the colony.
I noticed that the middle of the space before the
benches was not level, but raised into irregidar little
heaps and sunk into irregular little hollows. " Here,"
explained the padre, " we have a map of Spain, with
all its mountains and all its valleys." So saying, he
138
"Cbc Bvc /Caiia Colons
approached the seated rows upon the beiKhe>, and
called '' Antonio Torres."
Up darted an eao;er-looking little boy, and pulled
off' his cap.
" Ave Mariay
" En iiTdcia roiictbida.''''
Another sinnmons from the padre. This time
Alberto Vega. Another eager-looking little bov ;
again the countersign.
" You, Antonio, go to Barcelona."
Antonio, who, as far as I could gather, was some-
where in the Mountains of Lechi, darted across
country, planted his foot upon the haughty city of
the Berenguers, and beamed at us.
" Antonio, where are you now ? ""
" In Barcelona."'
" Where is Barcelona ? "
" In Cataluna.'"'
" What is there at Barcelona ? "
" A university, a bishop, and half a million
inhabitants."
*' What else ? ""
" It is a seaport, and sends out woollens and olives."
" Now o;o to Madrid.""
The scampering was repeated.
" Where are you now r "
" In New Castile, in the capital of the kingdom."
" What does it produce ? "
" Nothing." (A sharp if not unmerited rebuke for
the court of the Hapsburgs and Bourbons.)
" Now, both of you, go to Portugal."
Off went the bold excursionists, hand in hand.
139
©vanaJa
" You have gone too far : you are standing in the
sea;" and the padre, with a pat upon their .shoulders,
good-naturedly redeemed the drowning manikins
from the angry ocean.
Next on our programme was a spelling-lesson,
conducted something in the fashion of a game of
living chess. For this the scholars utilize a kind
of bib, extending both before and behind their
bodies, with a hole for the head, a letter on the
chest, and a numeral in the small of the back.
Thus (unlike, alas, those leaden, legless pieces which
interpret me), sentences and words arrange and
disarrange and rearrange themselves with winged
alacrity ; each lettei' and each number wears a
smiling and expectant face ; spelling becomes
gymnastics, and literature a veritable pastime.
Then we passed on to other scenes. In <nie of
the upstairs rooms a pretty, soft-voiced, brown-
eyed girl, in the whitest of white print dresses, was
teaching geography to a group of loving little
maids, who lavished caresses on her as fondly as
thou oh she had been their elder sister. As we
entered they broke into a simple jingle relative to
the provinces of Spain, a map of the Peninsula was
hanging on the wall, and the learners, taking a wand
by turns, pointed to the regions being enumerated
in their artless little canticle. Their happy voices
were so insinuative that 1 asked to be presented
with a copy of the verse : and the pretty teacher,
opening her desk, handed me one with a blush and
a smile.
I believe that there are more blackboards (of a
140
"Cbc Bvc /iDarta Co Ion v
certain kind) in tlic Ave Maria Colonv than in the
whole of Europe. On the wall of every <■«///«'«, on
every pillar and post about the gardens, are myriads
of patches painted black, in case an insj)iration
should seize the |)Uj)ils in their playtime, or the
master or mistress, as they stroll about at in-
tervals, sui^gest some problem to them. On this
occasion a tinv yirl of six, catching up a piece of
chalk or chalkv stone from the avenue wheie she was
plaving hide-and-seek with her schoohnates, delivered
a blackboaici lesson in subtraction which niv friend
and I digested with no small particular ))rolit ; after
which, seizino- a conn-ade somewhat smaller than her-
self, she showed us with illustrative pullings, pushings,
and pinchings, the limbs and subdivisions of the
human figure.
Elsewhere about the Colony I spied the solar system,
cunningly contrived with wooden balls revolving on a
set of wires beneath a canopy of vine; also, in lines
and symbols fixed into the soil, the tropics and the
sisus of the Zodiac. Indeed, at every point I saw
fulfilled the precept of Montaigne: "he shall not so
much repeat, as act his lesson. In his actions shall
he make repetition of the same."" Here are some
infants round a figured skeleton, filling in the bones
wdth pebbles. Yonder, an older and a larger group
describe, in cheerful strains of song, each local Spanish
character. One youngster takes the part of Aragonese ;
" I am the butiirro of Aragdn, an honest man but
obstinate, and say no, and no, and no," — another that
of the Sevillian— " So/J Scv'ilhino, dc la t'wrra dc Marin
Santis'tma. Viva la si'fufe torcra."" The national
141
^5l•ana^a
religion and the national sport for ever arm-in-arm !
So even bull-fighting, I notice with a mild astonish-
ment, is not discouraged in this model Colony.
We reach another group — sharp little faces for the
most, in written with all the latent picardia of Murillo's
beggarlings ; though these are better mannered. They
are, in fact, the kings of Spain, who play at leapfrog
as they tell their stories to posterity. Each rattles off
his reign in turn; but he who trips must "make a
back " for his successor. Many a Gothic monarch
with a sonorous mouth-filling name, steps forward,
not inopportunely, to remind me of his birth, and
exploits, and demise. Between the leaping and the
recitation each minute s\vallows up at least a century,
so very soon we find ourselves contemporary with
Velazquez, "I," shouts the mimic patron of that
mighty painter, looking all over as if he meant the
words, " I am Philip the Fourth, governed by the
Count-Duke of Olivares. In my reign the Catalans
rebelled against me." Thus, as the merry round con-
tinues, the past declines insensiblv into the present.
The last to leap conveys, of course, the latest message.
His frame is slighter than the rest, his voice weaker,
his face paler. Poor child. He seems to feel the
weightiness of his kingship in this age of anarchy,
democracy, and socialism. " I am Alfonso the Thir-
teenth, son of Maria Christina. I began to rule in —
in — . Then, faltering at the date, he thrusts, in token
of abdication, his tongue into his cheek, and bending
to a Carthaginian antecessor, sets back the march of
history by a trifle of two thousand years.
I was so interested with all this life, and gladness,
142
■Cbc Hvc /ID a I- i a Co I on v
and spontaneous, novel, outdoor scholarship, that I
had almost forgotten my principal ambition — that
of seeing and speaking with its author. Suddenly,
however, while I was intent upon the lesson in
genealogy, " here he is,"" exclaimed my friend ; and
looking up I found that Father ^Manjon was contem-
plating me.
I had expected a mild, paternal face and manners.
Naturally I was disappointed. Father Manjon is
above all else an organizer, innovator, and reformer ;
and such a character does not dispense ductility, but
on the contrary demands it ; the more so in a land like
this, where all is prejudice, ignorance, and routine. The
face of Father Manjon is the strongest and the deepest
I have ever seen, except Sagasta's. The lines are
square — square chin, square cheeks, square forehead.
The mouth is equally firm and forceful. The eyes of
Father Manjon were fixed upon and into me. Their
colour was just a moderate brown. Let me upset,
with this, the novelist's hallucination that a })ene-
trating eye is always black. Not necessarily. It is
not the colour of the eye that penetrates, but the
colour of the brain behind it.
As soon as I recovered my composure, I stated to
the padre my eager wish that he would tell me at
first hand the story of his Colony. At once and
with unostentatious kindness he complied; and this,
so far as I remember, is the substance of his narrative.
For many years Father Manjon had been a canon of
the Sacred Mountain, and also a professor at
Granada University. Now the distance between the
two seminaries is not a short one ; and even many
143
Oranafta
years ago Father Manjon's legs can hardly have
retained the vigour and the elasticity of boyhood.
Consequently, following an approved and ancient
custom among the rural clergymen of Spain, he
bought himself a donkey — a white donkey, a bland
and blameless-looking donkey, just as sacerdotal
donkeys should be. Haltered beneath a staircase in
the university, this donkey matches very creditably
with the snowy marble steps, as though he, too,
were treated to a matutinal scrubbing. Upon the
highroad all Granada recognizes and respects the
privileged bearer of the good and gifted padre.
Such is life. Our wages are augmented or diminished
according to the company we keep, the service we
perform ; and the faithful ministers of the famous
also collect their little sheaves of fame; cars, as it
were, spilled over from their chieftain's superfluity.
One afternoon, then, nearly twenty years ago,
Father Manjon was riding down the corkscrew ciiesta
of the Sacro-Monte, when suddenly, from somewhere
underground, he heard a number of youthful voices
nmsicallv chanting; their Christian doctrine. Leav-
ing his donkey by the waj'side, he set himself to
search the adjacent paths among the hot and dusty
terraces of prickly pear, until he found the cave from
which the harmony proceeded. AVithin the cave was
a small, emaciated, miserably clad woman surrounded
by her pupils, ten little girls, ragged and shoeless,
some of them gipsies. On questioning " Mother
Crumbs,'"' as she was nicknamed by her charges,
Father ]\Ianj6n was told that she had three children
of her own, and no regular means of subsistence ;
144
"Cbc Hvc /n^aria Colonv
that she held these humble classes because she
beHeved it to be her duty ; and that she paid, as
rentei- of" her cave, four pc.srfm and fiftv rcntiino.s
per month.
Such was the oiigin of the Ave Maria Colonv.
The poor cave-dweller was examined by a board of
charitable ladies and pronounced, for all her method
and philanthropy, a lunatic. A\'^ould that we all
employed our lucid moments to as sane a purpose !
In course of time she disappeared from (iranada, and
has never since been heard of. Was she perhaps some
angel, and do the acts of angels seem insanitv to
humans? In any case, her bright example had fallen
upon a " towardly and pregnant soil."" Half-anima-
ted, half- rebuked by her discovery, Father Manjdn
purchased a carjnen near the \er\ cave where she
had laboured, engaged a (pialified schoolmistress,
and placed a class of little girls beneath her
charge. This was in the autumn of 1889. IJefore
long, a class of little boys was handed over to the
female teacher's husband. " God and the little
ones," observes the noble author of this noble effort,
"have done the rest between them. At this day we
possess sixteen schools and eight houses, together
with their gardens and orchards, where the children
may be educated in the open aii."
The gigantic success of the scheme is due, as far as
I can see, to a profound knowledge of the needs of
modern Spain, combinc^d with heroic sacrifice of self,
unflaffii'ino; viy-ilance, disinterested -zeal, and a faultless
and matured appreciation of the national character.
In one of his printed pamphlets on the Colonv,
145 j£
(Sra^a^a
Father Man) on explains his method and ideal.
Unlike the generality of Latins he lays particular
stress upon the paramount need of physical side by
side with intellectual tuition. The body and the
brain must ffrow tojjether : hence the orchards and the
gardens of the Ave Maria ; for it is easy to remove
the schoolroom into the open air, but not the open
air into the schoolroom. " I seek," he says, " to
train my charges into thorough men and thorough
women, sturdy of frame and spirit, prepared to
utilize their physical and moral strength to benefit
themselves and benefit their neighbours." These were
old truths in Germany and England, but what do
they imply in this Peninsula ? A revolutionary
through and through. I dare affirm that no such
other has been known in Spain.
" One hears it said" (I continue quoting from the
padre) " that Granada is the fairest corner of the
earth, and that her carmenes are so many ]iieces of
heaven. Very well. In the fairest corner of Granada,
that is, the V^alley of Paradise, close to the city
gates upon the Sacro-Monte road, beside the right
bank of the Darro, are situated our own scholastic
carmenes.''''
" The six are separate, for the sake of greater
order ; and yet they are conterminous, in order that
a single mind may rule them all. Everything about
them is ample, cheerful, and wholesome ; plenty of
open country both for work and play ; beautiful
gardens to view^ and smell ; clear and copious streams
for irrigation, drink, and personal ablutions; canopies
of vine and honeysuckle, rose and passion flower to
146
Zbc Hvc /Caiia Colotiv;
part the .siinl)L';uiis ; massy trees to fiiniisli tViiit and
shade. The aii- is pure and perfunied ; one growth
of Howers siu-ceeds another ; the birds compete in
son<:f ; the Httle ones g-and)ol as tliey will ; and all is
health, and liveliness, and motion."'
In every n)atter that concerns the Colon v a rare
solicitude is shown. .Vt midsununer and Christmas
a suit of clothes is triven to all the children. Thcv
have a drawin<r-school, where four professors make a
present of their services, and a theatre with seatin<r-
rooni for Hfteen hundred spectators. Every Saturday
they march in |)rocession round the ganlens, display-
inj; their scarlet and white banners, sinirini; sacred
songs, and headed by a band of drums and cornets.
They have a volunteer corps, perfectly drilled and per-
fectly uniformed. Three or four picnics are arranged
annually for all the scholars, but among the poorest
bread and meat are distiibuted daily. Father
Manj()n lias no sympathy with that stupidest and
connnonest of boasts in Spain, that the Spaniards
require less nourishment than other mortals. "The
Spaniards are a people who do not eat. They are
frugal from necessity, and saving to the pitch of
stinginess. They make their meals on bread and
water, and practically fast the whole year through."
And again, " the best fed nation is that which works
the best, and that which works the best is that which
feeds the best. The two events are interacting.''"'
Such is the story of the Ave Maria schools as
it is told me by their author. W'liile he is
telling it, those happy little creatures gambol at our
side and round about i.s. Troops and festoons of
U7
©r3na^a
tiny girls trip in and out among the fountains.
Vibrating to their harmony, the water in each marble
basin reflects the ripple of their laughter ; roses and
jasmine lie beneath their twinkling feet ; tendrils of
vine, convolvulus, and honeysuckle caress their faces
and their hair ; and gold and silver sunbeams peep
upon them from between the branches. Above,
around, the air is odorous with almond, orange, and
acacia ; pure blossoms these, as white as innocence,
as innocent as childhood. A good man delved the
garden years ago, and God rewarded him with flowers
and with sunshine. I glance towards my friend, and
he returns the glance. Either of us is touched to
tears ; as though divining, within this little world of
candour and delight, the all-pervading, all-approving
presence of the Master.
148
The Fountain of the Hazel Tree
XI
A Tractate on the Gipsies of Granada
/r is possible to reiranl tht-' Aiulalusian
gipsy (as everything upon this earth
above it, or beneath may be regarded)
in either of two ways — the serious and
the sentimental, or the humorous.
For instance, it is possible to regard him in a sjiirit of
lachrymose lamentation at the superiority of our par-
ticular morals over his, or, on the contrary, to regard
him as a sprightly kintl of creature, who often swindles
and deceives, and sometimes, as a variation, even intro-
mits a knife or bullet into us; but always gives us
exquisite amusement in exchange. Of course, to
realize this kind accommodation on the gipsys part
demands at least some sense of humour on oui- own.
149
©rana&a
The sour, contentious tourist who pokes, requesting
and requiring, into places where he is not wanted,
carries a reclamation ready in his pocket, and pesters
consular officials for redress, is not a proper person
to be murdered by a gipsy, Both should be able to
cooperate in cheerfulness, and set about their busi-
ness with a mutual, reciprocal, and trustful fellow-
feeling. Upon this score I would suggest how little
pains we take to sympathize with those whose moral
standard is affirmed (although by interested sections
of society) to be less elevated than our own. Here
is, initially, a want of charitableness, and subse-
quently a morbid aggravation of our self-esteem.
Goodness, as preached and practised nowadays, is
just a question of a show of hands. Might is not
only right, but righteousness as well. Ages of this
hypocrisy have made it rare and difficult indeed to
analyze from within, the acts and the emotions of
anybody whom society (again that hateful word)
succeeds bv brutal violence in branding as a bad or
dubious character. Most of us are so preposterously,
preternaturally virtuous that we do not even care to
try. Even an author, who normally should find the
s-enerous endeavour worth his while, is seldom able
to sympathize with a rogue (I say once more, con-
ventionally so-called; by putting himself into the
other s skin and sentiments, though either of these
transmutations is essential to the cause of common
justice, Thackeray, to be sure, bequeathed to us in
Barry Lyndon the story of a novelized rogue de-
lineated with a certain intimacy, and many of the
incidents and reflections suspended from that hero are
150
B 'Cractatc on tbc Gipsies of Ol•nnn^a
prolmbleand reasonable enou<xli ; l)ut it is undeniahlv
superior to prevail upon a ro<j,ue of flesh and blood
to set his bashfulness aside and tell us his experiences
himself. One of these davs, in a noIuiui' of Ks.sni/s
on Spain and the S/ninianl.s; I hope to present
the doctor Charles Garcia, author of 'J'/ic Anncntncss
and Xohlencss nf Thieving* a work uidx-aten in
the fields of innocent literature for iunnour, ethics,
and ])hilosophy agreeably intermingled. But only
very rarely has the unblanied mem))er of society
the sense of fairness to transform himself into a tem-
porary rascal, or the permanent and re«^ular rascal
the requisite courage to assume the privileges and
publicity of blatant virtue.
The poet of the much becpioted verses,
" O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as ithers see us,"
got hold (presumably on prosody's account) of the
wrong end of the stick. He should have said,
" O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see iihers as they see themselves — " +
a task which is a deal more difficult, and, when
achieved, a deal more interesting, humanizing and
instructive. In either case, I claim commiseration
for the Andalusian gipsies. Their virtues and their
vices do not tally with our own. Their hands arc-
possibly quite as clean as ours, but not so numerous,
* La Desordenada Codicia de bs Biencs Acoios. Obra apazibU y
curiosa, en la qual se descuhren los enrredos y maranas de los que no se
contentan con sii parte. Paris, 1619 ; reprinted, 1S77.
f I can make no rhyme here ; but this is not my business.
Nor, apparently, could Burns, whose business it was.
151
and therefore wickeder ! Setting aside this foolish,
barbarous prejudice we find the naked fact start
forth as follows. The gipsy race believe that they
are doing right in doing wrong. If the rest of the
world conformed to their example, our present legis-
lation would decamp to the Antipodes, and tutti
would be, or ought to be, content'/. Even as matters
are, in clinging to their doctrine the gipsies do a
positive service to ourselves. Where would be the
harm in wickedness if every one were wicked ? Upon
the other hand, where would be the merit in good-
ness if every one were good ? These words are hardly
mine — the classics bear me out. " All opinions,''
says the Areopagitica, "yea errors, known, read and
collated, are of main sei'vice and assistance toward
the speedy attainment of what is truest." This very
juxtaposition of vice and virtue is vice's best apology.
" Quod bono lucinum honum, quod a bono remotum^
malum.'" Again, " If every action which is good or
evil in man at ripe years were to be under pittance
and prescription and compulsion, what were virtue
but a name, what praise could be then due to well-
doing, whatgramercy to be sober, just or continent ? ""
Thus error, by cau'sing, procreating, and fomenting
virtue, establishes her title to a place among the
virtues, unless we abrogate all notion of fair play,
and speak of her as gu'dttj of good actions.
Father Manjon's most thorny problem is the
gipsies. This brings me to the gipsies of Granada.
When they visited the city first is not precisely
known ; but Gomez Moreno has unearthed a quaint
old notice relating to them in the reign of Charles
152
K Tractate on tbc Gipsies ot 0^alla^a
the Fiftli.* Oil the apjjcal of the aichhishup of the
diocese, who complained in hitter language of " the
nianvEgvptians who mix with the Moiiscos, teaching
tliem matters of witehcraft and superstition, and
steaHng the clothes from their houses and tluir cattle
from their lands,"' the emperor re-estahlislied a decree
of Ferdinand and Isahella. dated Madrid, March 4th,
1499, and beginning with these phrases : "To vou
Egyptians who play the vagabond about ourking{h)ins
and our seigniories, together with vour wives, vour
children, and your houses, health and grace. Know
that a report was made to us, how that of old vou
move from place to place, having no trade or means
of livelihood except by begging, stealing, bartering,
deceiving, and the exercise of sorcery, divination, and
other neither righteous crafts nor honest; whereas
most of you are fitted to do work and be of service."
The edict says tliat thev must choose some spot to
settle in and follow a decent calling, or else in sixtv
days they are to (jiiit the kingdom on pain of losing
their ears or even their libertv, being held to bomhige
for the rest of their existence.
This was four hundred years ago ; vet still the
Spanish gipsy thrives and thieves as heretofore. At
most he settles in the poorest cpiarter of the town, or
even, as at Granada, in a cavern bv the wavside ; i)ut
as for industry, respectability, and such like trash,
the centuries slip over him in \ain. " Omnvs fionir
Jeriunt,''^ observed the poet (iloubtless before the days
of the "Egyptians'"); yet which of the hours has
been known to iiitlic-t the slightest scratch uj)on
* Giii.i dc Gianada. pp. 4O9, 470.
153
(5l•ana^a
the moral epidermis of the gipsy ? He has his code
and sticks to it in spite of parliaments and princes,
establishing, single-handed, so to speak, against all
comers, his claim to two of our much-bethumbed
and much- belauded virtues — constancy and valour.
Apart from this he entertains (as he would probably
declare, on moral grounds) a permanent and perfect
horror of morality.
Father Manjcni is prejudiced against the gipsy.
Why ? Because he tries to make him not a gipsy.
This may be well enough for the Utopian, but his
is not the only standpoint. Writers on Spain, espe-
cially the impecunious, have cause to thank the
gipsies from the bottom of their heart. Will any
one attempt to gainsay that the gipsies have contri-
buted to Andalusia about three-quarters of her pic-
turesqueness, indolence, disorder, dirt, and other
tourist-drawing, literature-creating qualities ? Of
course not. Viewed in this light the gipsy is the
creditor of art and letters. On this account, when
entering his company we should abstain from carry-
ing the debt upon our person, or he may possibly
repay himself upon the spot, not from improper or
felonious motives, but with hhe rustic, correspond-
ence-saving courtesy of his race. If I owe to the
ir'itano a tolerable jjortion of this chapter, should I
be justified in denying him, say, a five-pound note ?
Legally, perhaps, but not on moral grounds. Appre-
ciative of this fact, on visiting a gipsy tenement for
" copy *" I never court the smallest friction or un-
pleasantness, but make a point of buttoning up my
watch beforehand, so that at least is safe. What else
154
H "Cractatc on Xbc Olp3ic3 ot Ol•n^a^.l
have I to losf .' My <4ipsy cannot do iiu- liaiiii iij)oii
the score of money, for the same reason wliicli imjieded
the nnniificent, or rather muu'woh'nt, Sterne from
giving to all the beggars who crowded round his
chaise — because I have it not to steal. Conse{|uentlv.
is it not true that, as I hinted further back, the
pauper writer is even more beholden to the gipsy than
the well to do, foi-, in the former of these instances,
the gipsy's toil is patently disinterested ? Vet,
whether this be so or not, I would impress the
following lesson at first hand upon mv readers. '• Suit
your manners to your company"''' is practical enough
for stay-at-homes; but when vou voyage, •"suit vour
purse to vour company " is still more practical.
And then the manners of the gipsy are so easy
and so suave. He seems to laugh and smile by
instinct, and, as Macaulay noted, always removes
his hat (or somebody else's) in passing bv a church or
shrine. His doings and declarations are illuminated
with the sunshine of good humour as with a halo.
Whether he robs you or only lies to you, he never
utters a graceless word or executes a graceless act
ungracefullv ; and even when he murders is able, I am
told by those who know, to conjure up a correspond-
ing smile upon the agonizing features of his victim,
who recognizes with his latest look the truth of the
adage, " iiu hommc tpi't nt nc .scr(ij(tmn'is (Ittn^ririi.r."
The base of this is stern solicitude for detail. ^Ve
see the same in all careers. An eminent physician
charges (juite a guinea extra for the way he j)ulls out
his watch or unscrews his thermometer ; an eminent
dentist for the way he hides (as well as j)lies)
155
CBrana^a
the fatal tweezers. I know of barber-dentists in
Madrid who actually clean the instrument before the
patient's eye, denoting thus the spanless interval
between the artist and the second-rate practitioner.
Dumas, in stating that Africa begins about the
Pyrenees, had probably these barbarian-barbers in
his mind. But the Andalusian brigand (now, alas,
believed to be extinct), whom we may classify upon a
level with the doctor and the dentist 1 have instanced,
always began his business in a jocular fashion, re-
creating his victim with master quips and cranks,
while he was tying him to the coach-wheel. He
would infuse, too, a pleasurable mystery into the
whole proceeding. Will he pull forth his snicker-snee
or onlv utilize his blunderbuss? Ha! he dips his
hand into his sash. How prettily the sunlight gleams
upon the blade ! " The rest Is silence.''''
Such an artist was Jose Maria, the gipsy and the
great highwayman of a hundred years ago. I use the
adjective great with absolute premeditation. Firstly,
the best of Spanish brigands always came from An-
dalusia. Guichot and other erudite authorities on
brigandism will bear me out in stating that no bungler
can be found to have existed here. The Andalusian
climate and geography united with hereditary pride
of craftsmanship, piously bequeathed from fathers to
their children, to render local brigandage /io?*confOM/\s.
And, secondly, I speak of the great Jose Maria upon
the cumbersome though potent warrant of the penal
code of Spain, which calls, or used to call, all national
brigands " famous,'' whether from Andalusia or any
other region of this countrv ; and what h famous but
15G
B 'Cractatc on tbc Oipsics of Orana^a
a sviiojiyni for great ? * The great Jose Maria, there-
fore, at his death (unHke those less exalted characters
referred to by Mark .Antony) bc{|ucathed the lx?st
of him, that is, the memory and the modus opcraudi
of his choicest crimes, to future generations. I'n-
luckily, the lapses of posterity have thrown his
venerable precepts out of joint: for even great men
have to build their fame in harmony with their sur-
roundings, llaihvays and Givil Guards jiave spread
corruption over xVndalusia. To-day an honest brigand
cannot venture armed upon the high road without
being waylaid and assaulted. So is it that n)anv a
fine profession has been spoiled by progress. One of
such is brigandage ; and, thanks to Nicholas and
other manifest peacemakers, warfare, a legalized,
though possibly inferior form of brigandage, is pro-
mising (or menaciiig) to follow very shortly.
Everybody who visits the Alhambra is fated to
encounter, loitering as a rule between the Tower of
Justice and the I'alace of Charles the Fifth, the
"prince of the gipsies" (as his visiting card informs
us), and therefore a direct descendant of the " great "
Jose Maria. IJaptismally, this j)ersonage's name is
Mariano Fernandez ; but he prefers to be known by
the title of C/mrro c Jumo. His age is not much
less than seventy, but he carries an erect figure and
hangs upon it, true to a scruple, the classical habili-
* "Este delito cometen, los que de proposito estan en los caminos para
robar, que se Uaman salteadores, 6 en el mar con navios, a que Uaman
cosarios.y los unos y los otros llama el derecho, ladrones famosos, par
lo qual, y porque tal hurto se comete de ordinario con mucrte de los
ofendidos, b se da causa para ello, ticnen pena de »/«(•»/<•," — Francisco
de la Pradilla, Suma de Todas las Leyes Penales, p. 27.
157
Oranafta
nients of his glorious ancestor. The hat is of the
sugar loaf pattern, with what looks like a powder
puff on top. The jacket is embroidered in the middle
of the back, and narrow breeches enveloping the
shrunk shanks of the wearer, decline with these into
a pair of leather gaiters, fringed upon the outside,
extending from the knee. In such a dress — perhaps
the very same — Jose Maria lived and laboured. Did
he design it to amuse his victims ? If so, he has an
added claim on our regard, and De Quincey's so-
called murderers are miserable amateurs and pigmies
by the side of him.
The visiting card of Chorro e Jumo also informs us
that he used to serve as a model to Fortunv. " We
did this ■" or " we did that," he says with conde-
scending satisfaction ; and at the end of their con-
joint manoeuvres, " Don Mariano handed me a dollar.
He was a gentleman, Don Mariano was." Accent this
declaration where you please. " He was a gentle-
man " ; he xvas a gentleman "" ; or, " he was a gentle-
man."'' In either case you must infer that if you do
the same by Chorro e Jumo as Chorro e Jumo says
Fortuny used to do by him, you also will attain a
patent of gentility. Perhaps the purchase at a
dollar is almost worth the making.
So Chorro e Jumo is a patron of the arts. Now
surely there is something truly splendid in the
thought (and infinitely more so in the fact) of a roval
person sitting, at a liberally hyp«»regal fee, not for his
portrait only, but for every kind of genre, historical,
bucolical, and so forth. What would Tolstoi say if
his Czar dispensed one-dollar sittings to all the
158
B "Cractatc on tbc Oipsica of Orana^a
painters of his empire.' Would not so wliolesome
and so vast an aftal)ilitv entirely revolutionize the
veteran agitator's views on art ? I am eonviiued it
would.
Nevertheless, the historv of C/iorro c Juinu is a sad
one. lioabdil used to tell his sorrows to Hernando
de liaeza. In such a spirit has Chortu i- Jtitiio told
his own to me. His subjects are degenerate and un-
satisfactorv. IJesides, he does not even dwell among
them. Paradox must be treated nicely nowadays, ami
doubtle.ss for this reason Daudet omitted Churro
from his elegant romance ; yet, though the term may
sound a triHe overstrained and venturesome, this gipsy
king IS just a roi en exil who has never stepped outside
the borders of his own dominion. No one disputes
his moral right to the Alhambra ; yet round al)out
him are a people alien from his own, who bend
the knee unblushingly before a mm-^-'itnno monarch.
Some vears ago he had his private palace — a sandy
cave beneath the shadow of the mountain, till on a
day the roof fell in and very nearly scjuashed him.
Thenceforward Mariano hangs dejectedly about the
moated grange, houseless, lu)}^eless, homeless, like
the waifs and strays we read of at the end of
Whitaker. " Vnija^' he .sometimes makes lament,
with sad though sure philosophy, *' when a man s
own house falls in upon him, what in the world is
left to fall .^ "
I have a lively sympathy for throneless C/iorro,
especially when I fix my eyes upon his sugar
loaf. My Welsh com})atriots used to "ear a
similar one, till tvrannous England tore it oil" ami
159
V a » a J a
stamped it underfoot— England, that in return for
stripping me of problematical estates and dignities
(which might have come my way had I and Wales
been somebody and something else), has thrown to
me and mine the paltry crumbs of education, order,
and prosperity. So, in a sense, I am a sharer of the
fate of Chorro e Jumo, and shoidd inscribe my
visiting card accordingly. When, years ago, the
(then) Prince of Wales passed through Granada (if I
may breathe the question with befitting reverence),
did not the sight of Mariano's sugar loaf revive an
echo of contrition in that royal breast ?
Father Manjon, as we have seen, considers the
gipsies of Granada very seriously. " They are," he
says, "an ignorant, degenerate, idle, homeless, trade-
less people, lavish of tongue and loose of life. Their
understanding, faulty as to any spiritual or abstract
idea, quickens surprisingly in dealing with the animal
or instinctive part of life, and lends itself to lying
and deceit, which seem innate in them. Their will
power is as weak and wavering as a child's ; and
since it lacks all basis of a creed, as well as the
habit of welldoing, their actions are decided by a
momentary passion or caprice. All that requires
effort, sacrifice, apprenticeship, subordination, is re-
pugnant to their character. Their one endeavour is
to pass their time as free as birds, as lean as stalks
of asparagus, as careless as a castanet."
On the other hand, the painter-poet Rusinol
prefers to take the gipsies as cheerfully as they
take themselves, and even when they swindle him,
describes the incident with great good humour.
IfiO
H cr.iLtatc on tbc Oipsics ot ^3rana^.^
(Jiicc, wliilf oil a sketc-hint^ expedition >oiiie«lR're
near the town, wearv of (lra<;gin^ about his eohair-
box and easel, he determined, to<^ether with some of
his frientls, to buy a donkey. 'I'he ^ipsv fair was in
full swin<>: not far away ; so thither the party turned
tlieir steps. Arrivino; at the spot they found it
choked with donkeys of all coloui-s, shapes, and si/cs,
in every stage of niournfuliiess, misanthropy, and
boredom. However, they j)icked a female out, and
asked her price.
"Twelve dollars," replied a gij)sv la>s, '* but give
nie six, and she is yours."
Eventually the beast changed hands for three ; vet
when the bargain was concluded lav doun in loglike
stagnancy. The end of the unhukv transaction was
that Uusinol and his connades had to take the
docile creature in their arms and carry her home
with them, besides the easel and the colour-box as
heretofore.
Nor is the shrewdness of this much vituperated
people employed exclusively or even preferentiallv
uj)on the Christian. Whenever an op})ortunitv
occurs, they just as readily devote their ingenuitv to
"besting" one another, as the following tale will
show. A couple of gipsy pedlars were hawking
brooms ai)out the streets and ])l<i::iis of (iranada,
when one of them called the other to his side.
"Speaking," he said, "with |)erfect frankness, I
make my l)rooms myself, and steal my rushes, mv
handles, and my cord foi- binding. Nothing proceeds
from me excejit the time emplowd in nwuiufacture.
\Vith these economies mv lowest possibli- price is
IGl 1.
^5rana^a
fifteen cent'unos, and yet you sell for twelve. How
{•an you do it for the money ? "
" Why," replied the other, unabashed, " you see I
steal imj brooms I'eady-made.''''
Nevertheless, by reason of long and intimate
experience of his weaker points, the Civil Guards are
.sometimes able to outwit the gipsy. Not long ago,
in a country district near Granada, two members of
that excellent police arrested two gitanos on the
charge (backed by something stronger than sus-
picion) of having stolen a valuable horse; and as
thev led them in towards the capital, aj)plied all
manner of promises and threats to make them, first
confess, and subsequently furnish details of, the
theft. All was in vain. The gipsies, loyal to their
tribal law and custom, vowed and whined with
melting oaths and supplications that nothing had
they done, or seen, or even heard of in the matter of
the missing steed. At length the Civil Guards re-
sorted to an artifice they had concerted overnight,
in case all other means should prove of no avail. A
signal passed between the two, and then they halted.
" Ride on,"" said one of them to his mate, in tones ot
ominous severity, " and let us treat these criminals
as we decided." The other, leading his prisoner by
the cord which bound his elbows, drew ahead, over
the brow of a hill some little distance off, and out of
sight upon the further side.
Then the one who had remained behind dis-
mounted from his saddle and bade his captive kneel.
Trembling now with apprehension, the wretch fell
forward on his knees. The guardia next unslung
162
B. ciactatc en tbc Oipaice c( Orann^.l
his lirio. Just at that iiionuiit the lepnit of a
Mauser ran<; out across the hilltoj).
" There,^ observed the ^Kdrdhi^ '* I am >orrv for
it, l)ut I am obliged to do to you what mv mate has
just done to yours." He raised his riHe to hi>^ shoulder.
"If you wish to make a short praver."" he a(Med,
measuring a convenient distance from the bosom of
his victim, " I oive you half a minute. ( )v if. instead
of praying, you choose to tell me all the truth, of
course I still possess the power to save vour skin.""
That skin had never seemed so precious to our
gipsy; and gazing at the shining barrel just before
his nose, he left no detail unexplained; the hour, the
circumstances of the theft, and the secret whereabouts
of the stolen animal.
The 4>-w//y//V/ put up his riHe and charitablv helped
the shivering culprit to his feet.
•• And now,"" he said, with a grim smile, •' let us
rejoin our comrades, who are waiting for us."
I(j53
The Inn of the Little Mill, from the Hill-side
XII
The Old Road to Guadix
INLESS vou fure to tranij). tlRiv i>
only one way of <^ettini^ to (iiiadix l)v
the old road ; and that is in a gondola-
But there are gondohis and <;()ndola>.
There is the gondola which glides, as
I am told, along the still lagoon; and then there is tin-
gondola of Spain, and more especially of Andalusia.
drawn by two, three, four, six, eight, or anv available
number of horses, and which toils and tund)les up and
down the Andalu>ian hills and niountain>/ Mv gon-
dola was of this latter cla^s. and as it >wcj)t iK'side
* "Gondola. A kind of carriage in which many persons can
ride together, built in the likeness of the boat so named."
— Dominguez, Dictionary of the Spanish Lan^uaqc.
OvanaJa
the door of the hotel at rather after seven, the strings
of bells upon the harness made a merry tintinnabula-
tion in the clear November morning. Even the driver's
swear-words seemed mellifluous — almost Arabic.
We crossed the citv at a long, soul-stirring canter,
down the Calle Mesones, past the university, past
the bull ring, and up the slope that borders
San ^Miguel el Alto. Beyond the crest the older
coach road to Guadix lay far ahead and far behind ;
our wheels were bruising it apace ; my charioteer was
tickling up the leader's ears in sjambok fashion
with a lash as endless as the road ; and points of
foam betiecked the glittering carntvra.
I looked at it with curiosity, almost with awe —
this old Ctnii'iHo de GikuH.v, renowned in stories of
the past, when diligences scoured between the cities
day by day, and wayside tavern-keepers handled
golden ounces as though they were so many
peas. 13ut now, with a train from ]Moreda to
Guadix, and another train from ]Moreda to Granada,
this highroad has become a desert, and the diligence is
numbered with the dead. The Old Koad to Guadlr.
Is there not something weird and uncommon in the
name .^ So many things die out of use, but surely
not a road. Is there another in this overcrowded
world, that people traverse less and less with
multiplying generations r
Old, too, are scenes that add their fascination to the
roadway's ; the noria of the ancient east, that irri-
gates the fields ; the primitive plough ; * the old
* "The construction of their plough is remarkable for its
simplicity. The handle, sheet, and share are of one piece.
166
Zbc Ol^ 1(^oa^ tc Ou.iMr
Sicnu of Altacai" thrustiii*^ a (■kiir-ciit, tltep-blm-
nose into the sky, as thouji^h he were some kiii<;ly
inuniniv of" old time ; the olden villa<res that ne>tle
round his foot. The first and lai<j,(st of these
hamlets is the higher Fargue, a coupU- of rows
of staring house-wall wMshed with white, or pink,
or vellow, and hung with eords of searlet eapsi-
eum hke monster rosaries inventeil for the Devik
This, with a beam mortised into it and strengthened by a retch.
with two pins to form the furrow, is the whole implement
Both the handle and the beam are lengthened out by pieces
when such assistance is required."
"From a comparison of all the ploughs to be found in the
interior provinces of Spain, I am inclined to think that the first
idea of this now complicated implement originated in the use of
a crooked stick, pushed forwards by a man, to form a furrow in
loose soil. When afterwards he called for the help of oxen, it
became necessary to contrive a beam, in order to regulate the
line of draft, according to the stiffness or looseness of the soil
and the depth to which he wished to move the earth. For this
purpose it was needful that the beam should be of sufficient
length to reach the yoke, that there he might have his point of
support to be elevated or depressed as occasion might require.
In process of time he found it convenient to have two pins, to
be placed in such a direction on the share as to remove the
earth to the right and to the left, and thus to form a wider
furrow than the share alone could trace."
"Here then we have the plough commonly used for tillage
in the kingdom of Granada. As for the fin to the share, the
coulter, the fore-sheet, and hind-sheet, the mould-board, the
ground-wrist, the drock. the bridle or cat-head, with the foot
and wheel or wheels, they are evidently modern, and not yet
introduced." (Townsend, yoHJ-wo' tlnoiif;Ii Spaiu. 1792, vol. iii.
pp. 53, 54 ) Similar remarks are applicable at this moment !
At the same period, however, in north-eastern Spain the art of
ploughing was more advanced. "The ploughs here have all
longljeams as in the South of France, which reach to the yokes
of t'he oxen, and consequently they have no traces ; two small
sticks form all the mould-board ; they plough all flat." (Young.
Tour in Catalonia, I793-)
167
»5 V a u a ^ a
Uetweeii the villages are sprinkled clean cortijos, not
unlike the farmsteads of Cape Colony, excepting that
the olive or acacia stands in place of the repulsive
though hygienic blue gum. And when the world
and I were younger by a dozen years, I saw those
trellised vines at Rondebosch and Constantia ; those
clear-cut, deep blue mountain-noses thrust aloft at
Tulbagh, Worcester, or the Paarl.
Soon after leaving Huetor Santillan, a cottage
cluster girt with smiling gardens, ihe scenery grows
wilder, and the farms more rare. A little further
back their industry was bee-keeping, and rows of
hives, cane-woven, lined with -lay, were ranged
along each wall. But here it changes to esparto,
a mean and ugly merchandise, heaped shoulder-
high in drear, disordered stacks. Fresentiv the
scene grows wilder yet, all habitations cease, the
road approaches mountains, then plunges in among
them. Beyond the pass, and where the gorges end
towards a spacious prospect of forest and of field, lies
a caprice of nature known as " The Teeth of the Old
Woman ^ — a multitude of grey or tawny jagged rocks
some four or five feet high and shaped precisely like a
fang. The annals of the brigandage of Andalusia
award this horrid spot a lasting and a melancholy
fame. Years, of course, have passed away since last
the cry " alto el coche .'"'^ resounded from behind these
hungry looking crags. But few, I think, would care to
pass them walking and alone, at night time, even now.
I took occasion to inteiTogate my driver on the
subject of those sombre memories — a decent and in-
telligent young fellow named Fernando. His father
168
Zbc Ol> Txco to OuaMr
and his grandfather ahke had (hiven the dili^rinid.
The latter, he assured me, had several times hetii
corded to the wheel, for unless tliev were resisted
»
>«^^
The Teeth of the Old Woman
the brigands' practice was seldoni to assassinate.
Of coui'se, when dealing with a strong purt'idn. a
military escort only made the situation worse. But
what could be more critical than the following ad-
venture, also related to me by my charioteer. One
night his father was driving home an empty gondola
to Santa Fe, with notes about him from a cattle
purchase in Granada. Crossing a bridge, lie spied a
couple of black figures, ciouching, one on either side,
Avithin the shadow of the stonework at the farther
end. Suspecting that they boded him no good,
he lashed the horses up and strove to break away
by sheer speed. The two men sprang together
at the reins. One of tliem missed antl fell, the
Kil)
Ovana6a
wheels just grazing him. The other also missed
the reins, but keeping his feet dashed at the back
of the vehicle and there hung on. The handle of
the door was new, and what with the stiffness, or the
jolting, or with both, it would not turn ; so, smashing
the pane with his fist, the brigand let the window
down and proceeded to crawl inside, in order to
attack the driver at his ease. Aware of this, the
latter determined not to incur additional danger
bv pulling up, but trusting to the horses* know-
ledo-e of the road i>;ave them the lash once more
with mioht and main, and fastened the reins to
the seat. Then, plucking forth his knife and
thrusting it open within his sleeve, after the
classical manner of this land, he opened the other
window just behind his box, and crawled in also.
Fortunatelv, his foe had stuck in getting past the
frame, so that his body hung inside the carriage,
and the rest of him without. Observing this, the
driver crept to striking range, and drawing hisfaca,
gave a sweeping slash ; on which the other, striving
to avert the weapon, received it full between his fingers,
and writhing desperately fell back into the roatl.
Uj) to this point Fernando had told his tale with
signal soberness. But since the climax is emotional,
no doubt he felt himself constrained to add to it a
splash of local colour. " As soon as my father got to
Santa Fc, he found, scattered about the floor of the
gondola, four bloody fingers ; wrapped them in a
piece of papei", and gave them Christian burial.""
'■'■En pa:: descanscn,'' I murmured piously — "may
thev rest in peace.""
170
Zbc Ol^ UvonJ to OuaMr
SlicIi was Fernando's conversation, always enter-
taining, always pictures(|iie. Once he pointed to a
distant hamlet in the middle of a lonelv plain, saying
The Inn of the Little Mill, on the Old Road to Guadix
there was no water for the \i Haiders, and that thev
had to fetch it from aff^r. " Believe nie, Senorito,"
he added, " those people look at a glass of water as
one looks at the face of God."
He meant no irreverence. It was merely an
atHhihcuida inherited from his eastern and Egyptian
forefathers.
No sign of human habitation lies between the Teeth
of the Old Woman and the half-wav house denomin-
ated the \enta liel Molinillo, or "Inn of the Little
]\Iill." immoitali/ed bv the author of Dmi Qn'/.tati:*
'■' My friend, Don Miguel de Pareja, says that beyond all
doubt this Venta del Molinillo is the very one referred to by
171
C5l•a^a^a
The wliite aubci-ge, climbed down to bv a curl-
ing, steep declivity impassable in snowv weather,
seems like a homestead rather than a hostelry.
Indeed, it is both one and the other now ; and
looks just like The Valley Farm imbedded in a
landscape of Salvator Rosa. Frowning cliff's are
all around; but in the shadow of their frown
these modest walls repose ; a stream spanned bv
a rustic bridge glides with, harmonious smoothness
past the door; and in the umbrage of some scarcely
stirring poplars the ducks and fowls unite their
trivial music with the purhng of the water.
The people of the Venta betray at a glance that
they have " come down in the world." I asked
one of the daughters (a foolish (juestion) if the
suppression of the diligence had greatly injured
them. " Ah, cahallero,'''' she replied, "this was pure
glory in the days gone by. The gold flowed in
here then like yonder water flowing past the door.''
The tears w ere standing in her eyes ; foi- in their
present straits it was as much as the poor folks could
contrive to find me a slice of ham and a couple of
eggs to make my lunch upon.
When man and beast had fed and rested we re-
Cervantes in the opening sentence of his Kinconetc- y Cortadillo,
thus : "At the Venta or hostelry of the Molinillo, which is situate
on the confines of the renowned plain of Alcudia, and on the road
from Castile to Andalusia, two striplings met by chance on one
of the hottest days of summer," &c. In his monograph
Cervantes en Granada, Sr Pareja points out that although there
are several Alcudias in Spain — three in the Balearic Islands,
two in the Province of Valencia, one in the Province of Almeria,
and one not far from Guadix, this last alone fits in with
Cervantes' description.
172
Cbc Ol^ •Ko.l^ to Oll;l^lr
sunic'd our way, skirtiiii;- tlif woods and iiioimtuiiis
of this lonely land, until, mounting- a ion<r ascvnt,
we swept upon the liandet of Die/nia. From the
panic-stricken air with which the viilati;ers removed
their chairs from the midcMe of the street, they
showed that their ears had ceased to he accustomed
to the sound of wheels. Formerly, I take it, thev
merely dozed within the doorway.
It was at Diezma that, exactly one hundred and
seventeen years ago, a highly uncomfortahle occur-
rence befell the Reverend Joseph Townsend, "Rector
of Pewsey, Wilts; and late of Clare Hall, Cam-
bridge." " The village as now," he tells us in his
Jounieij, " comprised about one hundred and si'ventv
families. As I travelled the whole day fasting, I
hastened to the butcher's to see what was to he had.
There I learnt the price of provisions, and that
mutton sold usually for twelve, beef for eight (piartos
(twopence farthing) the pound of sixteen ounces ;
bread for six and a half. For wine I paid thiee
(juartos the {juartillo. liut, unfortunatelv, neither
beef nor mutton were to be had; and, to fill up the
measure of my consolation, at the posadd I coukl
obtain no bed, nor yet a room."'
" What could be done .? The (Uiy was closing, and
it began to rain. The alcalde was to besought for;
but he was nowhere to be found. At the end of a
long search, I met him returning from the field, antl
after a short salutation, presented him mv pass ; vet
to little purpose, for he could neither write nor ri'ad.
We went next in pursuit of the c-strihinio^ but he was
not at home. At last, however, we found a peasant
173
^3l•ana^a
who had learned to read and write. The pass was
produced, and su})niitted to an accurate examination.
It required that I should be provided with every-
thing needful, at a reasonable price.''
" The alcalde having listened to it with attention,
inquired what I wished to have. I replied, a bed.
A bed ! No such thin^' is mentioned in the pass.
But, if vour merev will have the goodness to observe
the expression, everytlihig needful. No, no, a bed is
not needful to a traveller ; he may do very well with-
out one. I told him, with great humility, that it was
for his- tiierc// to judge of what the pass implied, and
began quietlv to retire; when, seeming to recollect
himself, he ordered a billet to be made out."
" With this I went to my destined cottage, where a
bed was spread upon the Hoor, and I went supperless
to rest, having had little for the whole day but some
hard eggs, and, for the want of a corkscrew, such
wine only as the vineyards in the neighbourhood
produced.'"'
" The next morning the good people of the house
prepared mv chocolate, and when I was to take my
leave no persuasions could prevail on them to accept
of money for iny bed."
Even to-dav one meets some comical Spaniards
who like that Mayor of Diezma can neither read
nor write. I know of an Andalusian town where
even the postman is without these arts ; and so,
unable to deliver the letters from house to house,
he throws them in a heap upon the mayor's table
in the townhall, where the populace assemble to
take their pick of them. In consequence of this ex-
174
Zbc Ol^ •Koa^ to CMl.^^lv
traordiiiary custom uverv one knows i-verv oik- cNe's
business — who lias had a letter from lier swc-etheait,
who from her s())i in South America, and so on ; and
every mail provides a paradise for tonguester> with-
out number.
Beyond I)ie/ma the scene is uniform and Hat,
until the curling road leads down upon a tract un-
utterably desolate, uiuitteral)lv s(rani;e. 'I'he sinface
ofthelandis smoothed completelv level ; but hei'eand
there some miohty cataclysmic force has opened a
tremendous <rash extending many miles. The sides
of these gashes appear to have been moulded bv
some human architect, and counterfeit with wonder-
ful exactitude, at one point battlements and bas-
tions; at another, rows of niches; and at a third,
the " stalactite decoration "' of the Saracens. The
colour of this weird tract is ashen grey combined at
intervals with terra cotta ; but at its boundary
the gashes alternate with rows of whitish, fang-
like peaks, from fifty to a hinidred feet in height—
a kind of magnified replica of the "Teeth of the
Old AVoman." *
Two miles before Guadix we reached the village of
Purullena. A few of the Purullenians live in cottages ;
but by for the greater number are cave (lweller>, and
scoop themselves abodes, such as hobgoblin> might
inhabit, among the pits and the protuberance^ of
the landscape. I even saw a farm so scoo|)ed.
whose chinniey projected from a mound a do/en
* For a technical notice of these geological phenomena, see
Dr. Von Drasch's report on the geology of the Sierra Nevada,
in the sixth volume of the Bolctin de la Comision del Mafa Gcolbgico
dc Espaha, Madrid, 1S79.
175
©ranaJa
yards within, lender this prehistoric system there
is no landlord and no rent, but only a trifling tax
imposed by Government; and one of the hobgoblin-
looking tenants, to whom I bawled some questions
from my carriage, shrilly assured me that he enjoys a
delectable temperature in every weather, and at every
time of year.
However this mav be, the weirdness of the spot
reduces the traveller (or at least it did myself) to a
state almost of stupor ; and when we rolled into
Guadix, I wondered whether I had awoken from
one of Knatchbull-Hugessen's fairy stories, such as
enthralled me in my uncle's hayfield — was it yester-
day, or was it twenty years ago ?
176
A Wayside Wine Shop
XIII
Guadix
LITTLE old niu.stv, iiistv citv,
sc-attered alon<r a hillside lookiiiir
north, and therefore shelterless and
bleak; entered thr()u<^h the pite of
San Torcuato, a inedia-val fabric that
has lost all vestige of a door ; such is Guadix, the
Jcci of old Rome, whose occupants concern them-
selves but little with the freaks and frailties of time,
and live and do and die as in the doughtv davs of
Ferdinand and Isabella, or even of the Homaiis, or
Ph(enicians, or the IJastitani, or the liastitaiii's an-
cestors, as far away as Tul)al, Hi ic iilcs, and Adam.
Even the Reverend Townsend, who finds j)erlia|)s
too uuich to say of most things, from the formation ot
1 77 M
nitre to the expulsion of the Moriscos, or the history
of locusts to the breezes of the Mediterranean,
is very nearly mute upon the subject of Guadix.
He has my sympathy — the more so at this opening
of my chapter, when nineteen-twentieths of it stare
me blankly in the face like so many leagues of road
without a vehicle to cover them. In two respects,
our clerical tourist has the better of me. Guadix
in his day was embellished with an avenue, and
famous for its power of producing knives. " At the
entrance to the city,""' he wrote, " is the alameda
or public walk, well planted, and remarkable for
neatness.'" I have seen this alameda, or rather what
is left of it, and nothing in the whole of melancholy
Spain is more profoundly melancholy. It lies beside
the river bed or rambla, a ruinous fountain in the
midst of it, a ruinous row of elms on either side — un-
kempt, unwashen-looking elms, shin-deep in drifted
sand. Within a stone's throw of the endmost tree is
the wretched city gateway, and a wretcheder posada*
and opposite to these a farrierv for horses, asses,
mules, and bulls. \\'hile putting on his shoe the
bull is thrust into a kind of skeleton bathing-machine,
with a band round his belly and ropes round his legs.
Yet even thus he contrives to deal some very creditable
kicks, which do him all the greater honour, seeing
* The comparative standing of Spanish places of rest and
refreshment for man and beast may thus be represented :
Hotel = Duke,
Fonda = Marquis,
Posada = Earl,
Meson = Viscount,
and
Venta = Baron.
178
Oua^il•
that tliis, as Biiffbn would step forward to apprise
us, is not liis customary mode of combatiii<i;.
The streets of Guadix are narrow and mispaved
and steep, but
in the n)idst of
them is the
cathedral, a
solid and un-
graceful struc-
ture of the
eighteenth cen-
tury. Townsend
affirmed it to
contain " three
orders of archi-
tecture, Corin-
thian, ('oni):)o-
site, and Anoma-
lous." I fancy I
descried about a
hundred. As
for the knife manufacture, I saw no sign of it.
Townsend, on the contrary, saw, or was made to see,
more than he cared about. "' The article for which
this citv is most celebrated being |)ocket knives, the
first attention of my guide was to purchase one ; and
when we set forwards on our journey the succeeding
day, he j)roduced it."'
"The blade was sixteen inches long, and wjien
open it was prevented from shutting again by a
strong spring. Although this was the first of the
kind I had ever seen, mv imagination imuiediatelv
l'79
The Gateway of Guadix
l5rana^a
suggested the purpose for whicli it was designed.
Having produced his weapon, he began to brandish
it ; then, supposing himself to have been suddenly
attacked by some one armed with an implement
similar to his own, he stooped forwards, bending his
knees, and holding his hat before him, by way of
shield, in his left hand ; whilst his right hand, de-
pressed and grasping hard the handle of his knife,
directed its elevated point. Thus prepared, and
casting a look of fury on his supposed antagonist, he
sprang forwards, and, appearing to have received in his
hat the thrust of his opponent, he gave the fatal blow,
which was to enter at the lower belly, and in one in-
stant to rip up the miserable wi'etch from end to end."
" These knives are strictly forbidden ; but unfor-
tunately, inveterate custom is too strong for human
laws, more especially in a country where the passions
are easily inflamed ; and where, from the nature of
the judicial process, the laws must be weak in the
extreme. For, as we have remarked already, no
information can be taken but by the escnvanos^ nor
can any judgment be pronouni^ed but upon their
record. Now as these officers are usually poor, and
not unfrequently destitute of principle, they may,
without much difficulty, be persuaded to change the
complexion of an action, and at pleasure to make it
either black or white. Hence, from impunity,
assassinations are frequently committed ; and, as
little security can be derived from the laws, it
becomes the interest of every man to be armed for
his own defence. With this view only he procures
the formidable weapon ; but, when provoked to
180
(3 u a M r
anger, his views are changed ; that wliich was de-
signed for Ids own protection becomes the insti'u-
inent of treachery, of maHce, and of revenge." *
My Uxlging at Guadix, near enough to the cold
ground for nie to see, and smell, and taste, and feel
the damji — all four sensations simultaneously — was
in a humbleyb»f/a, whose name I shall conceal. The
rooms, although they had no carpets and scarcely any
furniture, were habitable at a pinch ; but the only note
of cleanliness about the slovenly ]\Iaritornes was the
white chrysanthenunn in her hair. When I had washed
with neither soap nor towel, nor anvthing but water
(and barely a tliind)leful of that), I sought the dark
and dingy dining-room. Alas poor tom^r/orf*, I know
them well ; the oilcloth-covered table, the coarse
cutlery, the thick glasses and bottles, the crab-shaped
rosea of bread upon each plate, the flower-stand in
the centre, composed of half a dozen simple stands of
graduated sizes. The chromo on the wall — a semi-
naked damsel feeding from her carmine lips a parrot of
a poisonous green — proclaims the excellence of such
and such a starch, or such and such a brandy ; and
thrust into the libellous looking-glass are several
dirty business cards.
It is the custom in communicative Spain to speak
to every stranger vou may meet, except an English-
man (who seldom answers if he does not know the
language, and still more seldom if he does) ; so
* I am sorry to observe that this state of things has not
mended very greatly. The use of the sixteen-inch blade which
the Reverend Townsend euphemizes as a " pocket-knife," is still
"inveterate"; still escrivanos are "usually poor," and still by
far too frequently devoid of principle.
181
Ol•ana^a
presently my tongue was wagging with the rest. I
could have told the company before I set my eyes on
them. Of course there were a couple of commercial
travellers, a priest, and the inevitable old gentle-
man retired on a pension from the service of the state,
afflicted with blindness, deafness, lameness, asthma,
indigestion, imbecility, and other ailments and diseases.
It would have been kinder to have put him out of his
misery upon the spot, as Professor somebody or other
recommended at a conference, or in an article, not
many months ago.
If I exclude this invalid we made between the four
a small yet eminently sprightly party. Nevertheless,
my attention was from time to time distracted by a
pale faced little girl of seven or eight, who waited
on us to the best of her diminutive power. I had
asked about her on the landing, just before the meal
began. " She is only distantly related to us," the
landladv had answered, in harsh tones ; " we took her
in for charity " ; and emphasizing charity she dealt
the child a violent cuff on the side of the head.
Upon the cuff I superposed a kiss, deeming it prudent
for the little sufferer's sake not to interfere by word
of mouth. She took both cuff and kiss with mute
indifference ; and I saw that she was unaccustomed
to the one, while to the other she was all too much
accustomed.
But when dessert was nearly ended, we heard out-
side the room the noise of a smashing plate, followed
by a scuffle and a shower of blows and cries. At
length one childish cry pealed out above the rest : " If
my mother were alive, you never would treat me so.""
^ 182
(3ua^ir
" //!"" Alas, there was a woild of nieaniii^ and of
pathos in that microscopic word ; for rnii^htv proljlenis
agitate an infant's brain. ^Vhene\•er a child com-
plains with reason, providence accords to him or
her a swift, incisive logic that is harrowing to listen
to. For it is terrible to hear a child cry ; but it is
far more terrible to hear it exjilain its sorrows.
Above all, in the childish mind the sense of some-
body or something lost or absent is poignantly
severe. Is any grief so great, so real., as that of a
broken doll ? The passions of children, stronger
as well as purer than our own, pulsate with all
sincerity (for pose is but the aftergrowth of more
corrupted if maturer years) ; and then their corporal
prison is a narrower one than ours.
I looked at the padre. He looked at me, winked,
grinned, and cracked a walnut.
The cries and blows continued. Again I looked
at the paihr. He was picking his teeth.
The sobbing and ejaculations died away. From
the quiet which ensued there might have been a
murder. For me a murder had been.
I looked at the padre for a thiid time. He had
risen now, and was taking out a pack of cards from
behind the mirror.
" PobrecUla,^'' I cried with unfeigned anguish ;
" que infdinefi ! '''
" Don't be frightened," rejoined the jxidre suavely
and with just the shadow of a sneer ; " the child is
very naughtv." He shuffled the cards, sat down,
and dealt them into several heaps. He was play-
ing patience.
183
(5l•ana^a
So, without a pack of cards, was I.
Disgusted with the scene I walked into the street
and thi'ough the town, discovered the gambling
hell denominated the Liceo, went over it, and
came away with fresh dejection. However little
of our college Greek and Latin may yet survive
in us, we still incline to mentally connect I^yceums
with literature and other things polite. But here
the air is fetid with roulette and monte. Therefore
the only art indulged in is that of rifling the
pockets of the simple or the vicious ; and yet
there is a library, consisting of perhaps three
hundred volumes, locked away into a corner, so as
not to obstruct the jj;amino:-tables. A chance
acquaintance showed me to these unthumbed tomes.
" We have all the English classics," he said ;
"Makalay" (with a strong emphasis on the lay)^
"■ Shesspeer, and the rest."" At least, I think this was
what he said, for I only made out his vvords across
the rattle of the dicebox, and those most unliterary
and un-Lyceum-like epithets which as a rule accom-
pany a luckless cast.
That night, when all the lodgers of my inn had
sought their rooms, the beating was lenewed. Once
more that dreadful wail arose across the darkness :
" O if my mother were alive, you would not dare to
beat me so."
"Strange," I muttered. "No commentator has
yet revealed to us how nuich of Scripture is ironical."
The blows and cries continued. Angry and (doubt-
less) impious reflections surged into my heart ; for it
is ever in the heart that sensitive persons do their
184
O u a ^ i v
reasoninj^. " After all," I thouj^ht, coveriiif^ my ears
with the bedclothes, " He wlio claims to temper the
wind to the shorn lamb, let Him temj)er thisT'
My dreams were troubled, altlioiiiih a ^lain of
consolation was in store for me. Hjjon the niorrow,
while I breakfasted, a decently-dressed youth rushed
in witii an armful of old books and Hunt;- them on
the table.
"There," he cried, "you may take yoiu" pick.
They tell me you are fond of such old thin<;s."
The first that came into my hand was Perez del
Pulgar''s Chron'nlc of the Cdtholic Sovcrc'ign.s^ Sara-
gossa, 1567, black letter, with the wonderful en-
gravings of that period.
" What do you want for this .^ "
" Whatever you like to give me."
" Better name your price."
" No, Senor, I leave the price to you,"
" \'erv well, I couldn't give you more than a
dollar ; but I warn vou the book may be worth a
good deal more."
" Or less."
The grin which accompanied this startling state-
ment excused my Hinging conscience to the winds ;
so I paid the five pesetas and clutched my bargain.
We parted, I am sure, with mutual disdain, the
vendor of the volume despising me for giving him
too much, and I him for accepting too little.
185
In the Albayciiii
XIV
A Night in the Albaycin
EYOND the northern bonier of the
Darro, and yet within the echo of his
waters and the shadow of his boskage,
rises a steepish hill confionting the
Aihanibra, and, covering this hill
from crown to base, the Albaycin. few tourists
penetrate the Albaycin, though numbers cast a care-
less glance upon the old, historic quarter from the
parapet of the Place of Cisterns, or the lordly win-
dows of the Tower of C'omares. A thousand years
have set its houses up and thrown them down, and set
them up and thrown them down once more, so often
that Time, one thinks, at last is weary of his work,
and even the ruins seem, as himself, perpetual.
Ruins, indeed, they are, yet not inanimate. They
187
©rana^a
seem, I say, to have outgrown the grasp of death,
respiring with a subtle dignity the pride of ancient
days, the Hfe and legends of the past. So in a quiet
and a reverential mood we must approach them. Then
they will whisper to us all their secrets ; and we shall
find that in these crumbling palaces and unkempt
gardens, hidden away like stores of jewels in a cave,
are half the glories of Granada.
There is an air about the Albaycin that belongs
to it alone ; at least I am aware of nothing even
faintly similar in other parts. Here, joined in closest
union, are wealth and penury, humility and haughti-
ness, the orient and the west. Within the limit of the
Albaycin the Christian church combines with the
aljama, themansionof the Christian noble clings about
the courtyard and the columns of the Moor. In either
instance both together, locked in a last embrace, are
falling to decay, although they do not seem to fall.
Already, wondering at the haunted silence of these
lanes, and tenements, and temples, we tread upon the
ashes of two peoples and two creeds, though vines
and blossoms caress the wrinkled walls like fresh-cut
wreaths upon a grave, while here and there projects
the cypress, starkly desolate. These contrasts have
at any hour and any season a sweet and subtle
magic ; but best of all observe them by the April
or October moon. It is my custom then to plunge
into the threadlike alleys of the old faubourg, and
clamber up them to the open space before Saint
Nicholas. The drooping beams fall full upon the
distant snows of the Sierra ; fall upon masses of
indigo foliage and russet church-towers ; fall, too,
188
B HAiiibt in tbc Hlbavcin
upon the purpk- foothills, and the ruddy pile of the
Alhanibra opposite. \\'hen all of these grow dim I
often cross the sunuiiit of the Alhavcin to watch the
The Casa del Gallo
last reful.tj;ence from the city wall. Mv favourite way
to this lies past the Casa del Gallo, once the palace
of the kingling Badis ben Habus, but now a common
lodging-house. The looms, surviving from the linen
factory established in the palace ages since, are still
at work within ; and as I peer between the heavy
iron 7-(jas I hear them ticking like gigantic clocks
across the dark and damp interior.
Not far beyond I strike into the Callejchi de las
Monjas, " Nuns' Lane," the loneliest in Christen-
dom. On one side is an orchard, on the other the
convent and the grounds of Santa Isabel, steeped in
monastic silence, solitude and sadness. Just where
the lane bends upward to the right is a small aque-
189
Ovanata
duct, from which they hanged the rebels in the
days of Philip the Fifth. Hence the fantastic
tales attached to it; though, to be sure, the
aqueduct looks red at sundown and ghastly pale
beneath the moon ; and close beside, a single cypress
gives it guard.
From the end of the Callejon de las Monjas to the
tavern of "Three and a Half is only a matter of
some paces, through the Puerta Nueva and across
the Plaza Larga of the Albaycin. The tavern is
just behind one corner of the Plaza. Its owner,
nicknamed (why I know not) " Trcs )/ Medio,'" a cour-
teous citizen under middle age, yet stout and serious
simultaneously, "of a sedate look, something ap-
proaching to gravity," will lead you through a murky
chamber strongly reminiscent of the final act of
Rigoletto — even to the curtain stretched across a
portion of the stage — into his orchard and the
open air. Here, smothered in foliage, are chairs and
tables for his customers. Trellises are overhead,
and, if it be their season, pyramids of muscatel, velvety
both to look and touch, caress your face in passing.
The orchard overhangs the ancient Cuesta de la
Alhacaba, once perhaps a moat, but now the road-
way leading steeply down into Granada, Above the
Cuesta, on the further side, some fifty yards away,
stretches the ancient city wall, level at first, declining
then towards the Puerta Monaita, and parallel with
the convent of Santa Isabel la Real, long centuries
ago the palace, of immortal memory, of Daralbaida.
When once the fading of the light has blotted out
all detail from the wall, it looks exactly like a minia-
190
H "KiGbt in tbc HIbavcin
ture Alhambra. So also docs the Alhanibra dip
from left to right about its Alcazaba; and each of
these battlements might well be one of the Aliiambra's
towers ; except that here there is no Darro at
the foot ; only the moated Cuesta. The houses, too,
are scanty at this spot, for most of the ravine is filled
with gardens. Seldom a wayfarer intrudes upon its
silence : his road lies rather through the bowels of
the Albaycin. Here, then, unpestered by a human
voice, and fenced with fruit, and Howers, and
trantjuillity, you are at ease to sip your glass of
thin vintllo, and smoke your cigarette, and sniff the
grapes, and watcli the city wall.
There are two writers who belong particidarly to
the Albaycin ; to whom the Albaycin particularly
belongs. Their names are Gines Perez de Hyta and
Manuel Fernandez y (jonzalez. Yet Perez de Hyta
was not a Granadino but a Murcian, while Seville
was the cradle of Fernandez y Gonzalez. It is the
fashion with nifvny an ignorant or an envious critic to
scoff at Hyta''s tales as idle fantasy, or even as mis-
chievous romance disfiguring the solenni front of
history. Even the knavish Echevern'a has mauled
him with indignant language (although in a later
chapter, and in order to procure support for one of
his own insipid fictions, he professes to withdraw his
hypocritical anathema). Prior to this, the priestly
cheat had branded the Gucrras C'lvilcs as " fabulous
throughout," lamenting that in Granada every father
gave the volume to his children for their school-
book. IJut though the Murcian novelist is careful
to effectively disguise historical facts, the spirit
191
Granada
of Granada is his very own. He is her Walter
Scott ; and makes us realize, as nobody before or
after him, her combats and her riots and her festivals ;
the splendour of her sultans ; the valour of her
warriors ; the sentiments and passions of her nobles
and her populace.
The other writer, Manuel Fernandez y Gonzalez,
was also a novelist with a dash of the historian. He
died before my time ; but many of my friends
remember him, and tell me largely of his eccen-
tricities. His tales in general are breathing
images of old Granada ; but Martin Gil and The
Monfies have brought the Albaycin a second im-
mortality. His manners were pervaded with a
quaint conceitedness that furnished endless laughter;
for he had steeped himself in bygone ages until
he firmly thought himself their citizen. " Gentle-
men," he declared to his associates, " you should
salute me with your skull in your hand " ; and
again, " Spain has only two poets : I am the male, and
Zorrilla the female."'"' He lived, as well as wrote,
romances, and with the full permission of her
parents, like Eduardo de Contreras in Gorostiza''s
comedy, Contigo Pan y Cebolla, robbed and carried
off his bride (a daughter of the Albaycin) because
this seemed to him the classical road to wedlock.
" Show him a sword," said one of his admirers, " and
he will paint an epoch for you."'"' He threw his work
on paper with the swiftness, though not, of course,
the versatile and varying inspiration, of a Lope.
Once he was told that the Spanish Congress proposed
to reward him with a pension. '• Tell the Congress,"'"'
192
» IHuibt in tbc Blbnvcin
exclaimed Feniaiide/ haughtilv, " that I am willing
to dictate its shorthand writers a novel of a hundred
thousand words in six hours ; or if it be a novel of
history, in seven,
in order to <;ive ^^i*^
me time to look
up Mariana." But
the oddest of his
customs was to
prowl about at
midnight in a
costume of the
seventeenth cen-
tury, not onlv
dressing his char-
acters, but dress-
ing himself to
represent them
in a truthful
mood. How of-
ten, after dark,
while roaming through the Albaycin, have I expected
to come upon the lonely phantom of the novelist,
striding up and down deserted lanes or plazuclf/s,
with a broad and plumed chaviJ)crgo ])ulled upon
his brow, a velvet capa of the time of the Philips,
and clanking, underneath the cloak, the ponderous
rapier of those fighting generations.
And yet this writer's spirit of investigation was a
wise one; for everything about this region he so
loved is mystery and strangeness. I know a corner
of the Albaycin — a corner made for moonlight and
193 N
A Corner in the Albaycin
^Bl•ana^a
romance — first a mansion, then a water-mill, and
now a ruin. Hither the moon may penetrate, but
not (from the sequestered nature of the spot) the
moving air. A little to one side are ranged the
worn-out millstones ; a coat of arms still crowns the
doorway ; the door is dropping from its frame ; and
over shield and door a weeping willow spreads its
mute and melancholy foliage. One night last
autumn I sat and watched this wondrous nook until
it seemed inalienable from my sight, or even from my
memory. My thoughts, inwoven with the scene,
were quietude itself. How Httle I anticipated an
adventure. On rising from beside the willow and the
millstones, I took a turning that was new to me, and
passing along a narrow lane between two rows of
garden wall, with only here and there a dwelling,
came out upon an open space. Here was the
strangest scene of any. I found myself in a deserted
plazuela, fallen, this one, completely to decay. I do
not know its name. I hope it has none. Mountains
of rubbish creaked beneath my tread. Houses were
all around ; not one was tenanted. Lumps of fungus
clung like clotted blood about their pallid faces,
horribly suggestive of the human dead ; for white-
wash, in these Andalusian cities, seems inseparable
from every kind of dwelling, occupied or no. How
does this happen ? Who stops at sea to paint a
derelict ? Who coats these shells with whitewash,
even when their inmates have abandoned them ?
Yet so it is, and whitewash is the first to come and
last to leave; at once a building's swaddling-clothes
and cerement. Here, then, the moonlight stared
194
H IWiiibt in tbc Blbavicin
tlii()iii;li ciiijjtv saslies on to picturelcss, iinpajK'ivd
walls, and lib-Iike rafters sodden black with a<;e.
Above, the unite Alhand)ra stood or stalked a<minst
a sky leaden yet limpid, niarvelloiislv deep, mar-
vellously dear. All of the heights were in eclipse,
but towards the valley the darkness orew more dark,
or at least more dense ; while thereabout, beyond
the edge of the C'arrera, I seemed to catch the
murmur of the stream, as though the spirits of
an Arab garrison were whispeiing underground.
The moon was just behind the Moorish Palace,
seen)ing to cast her rays across as well as over it.
Even the parapets and ramparts, locked to the
rocky ridge like teeth within a jaw, seemed to
have lost their substance. Dark thev loomed, though
not with the opacity of thickness, l)ut of shade. A
piece of cardboard held against a candle has the
same effect. I felt I could have poked mv stick
through them. Nothing would have convinced me
then that I was looking at a mighty mass of stone.
Was that the l^ow er of C'omares ? I could have
sworn no mortal feet, still less my own, had ever
stepped within.
I stayed as in a trance till distant chimes .sighed
forth an early hour, and took, in my regress, another
turning. In course of time I felt myself once more
in contact with the habitations of the living, though
every noi.se was dulcet, and subdued, and echolike.
Across the studded jjortal of a carmen I heard from
time to time the murmur of a fountain, or guitar, or
women's voices; while here and there the overflow
from some aljihc coeval with the great Alahniai- diew
195
(BranaBa
music from the hollows of the roadwav like the
cooing of innumerable doves. At length I stumbled
on — and almost tumbled over — a lover lying stomach
downwards, whispering with his dame across a sub-
terranean reja. Such cases are not infrequent in the
Albaycin. Stomachs, however, as Ibsen demonstrates
in Hedda Gabler, possess no element of romance ;
and I hastened to step aside, partly from delicacy,
but also partly from disgust. After this the neigh-
bourhood grew busier by moments ; and here and
there a grocer^s or a barber's shop was open still.
I reached the outskirts of the Albaycin. After
all, I thought, this is the famous — or notorious —
gipsy quarter of Granada — not the Brummagem
gipsies whom the grinning enganabobos (" take-in-
fools "''') of an interpreter displays to credulous tourists
in the courtyard of one or other of the hotels, but
the genuine, uncontaminated, unchristianized gitano.
Presently I passed an open door illuminated from
within. A handsome woman leaned in silhouette
against the post. " Come in," she said ; and in a
careless yet inquisitive mood I entered.
The place was a small and sordid wine-tavern,
stone throughout. A coloured calendar was in the
middle of the wall ; and in the middle of the
calendar a small, round hole, browned at the edge.
Put a person in the place of the calendar, and you
have a really elegant murder, that would have
enchanted De Quincey as constituting, from the
point of view of art, a huge advance upon the
primitive dagger-thrust of the Morisco. This
calendar and the bullet-hole through the middle of
196
H -nigbt in tbe HIbavcin
it were positively the first objects that met my eye.
As soon as I turned away from tlicm, I foiiiul that
the woman and myself wore not alone. A man, of
sinister and frowning features, lolled behind the
counter. He had (a<rain from I)e (^uincey's point of
view) an unimpeachably Lombrosian head and fiice.
I recotrnized at this the niceness of mv situation ; for
the place was shady, if not worse; while I, not beini^
prepared for this digression from my walk, was
trimly clothed and wore a scarf-pin and a ring of value.
Somehow or other, too, the door had closed. How-
ever, absorbed in contemplation of another world —
that dead, mysterious plazuela underneath the age-
less stars — I felt no fear of anything a woman could
do to me, much less a man. So up I stepped and
demanded wine for three. The sinister proprietor
poured it out. I took the woman's glass and placed
it in her hand, motioned the man to his, and raised
my own. The licjuor was a foul concoction, " faked "
and weakened both with water and sali%a ; for in these
Andalusian taverns all the heeltaps are returned into
the bottle. I think I spat out more than I sipped in.
" How much .? ■" I asked.
"Three pernllas (halfpennies)," was the surlily
delivered answer ; " since you are no Englishman.''
" Exactly," I said, " since I am no Englishman.
If I were an Englishman you would charge me
double V'
" Toma, I should think so."
The woman, who was seated in the middle of the
room, now drew, with ostentatious coquetry, a chair
beside her ; and then another chair beside the first.
197
©rana^a
She waved her hand to me to occupy the place of
preference. Prudently, as I thought, I moved to take
the scat remotest from her. Just at that instant the
man came round the counter ; and if he had looked an
ugly ruffian hitherto, viewed at full length he looked
considerably uglier; for one of his legs was crooked,
as well as his face a nightmare. " Tieiie m'wdo el
seuor'do ?'''' he asked with a sneer (" Is the young
gentleman afraid ? '") Having had to do before with
some of these pot-valiant scoundrels, particidarly in
the Mundo Nuevo of Malaga and the Macarena of
Seville, I stared at him (and he at me) for quite
a while. In moments such as these, the fate of
nations is decided. I remember once extolling to
Mr, Cunninghame Graham the systematic courtesy
peculiar to the Spaniards. " Well but,'"" observed
that most agreeable as well as shrewd of satirists,
glancing me up and down, " you must be nearly forty
inches round the chest." I thought of those forty
inches now, and howl should make them to inculcate
softer feelings in the bosom of my adversary. As
for the woman, I think from the bored expression of
her face she would have heartily rejoiced if both of
us had come to grief. Probably the i-eal recipient of
her favours was waiting round the corner of the street.
However that might be, I promptly sat beside her,
toucliing her very shoulder with my own. " Afraid,''
I said, as jocularly as I could, "not I,'' With this
I shot forth my hand, gripped the bully's wrist,
pulled him down upon the other and the outer chair,
and clapped my palm upon his leg with a report
that must have echoed in the Audiencia, Before he
198
H -Miijbt in tbc Blbavcin
had reached his pocket for a weapon, I shoved him to
his feet, and sent him reeHng towards the counter.
"Drinks round," I cried, "and let the foreigners
alone. I am an Enghshman.'"
These Anglo-Saxon courtesies seldom fail to flab-
berixast a Latin ; nor did thev fail on this occasion.
My man was more than flabbergasted. Besides, his
plans were utterly upset; for Spanish pi'oficients in
J^e Quincey's favourite art, who would not scruple to
" suppress " a fellow-countryman, content themselves
with merely cheating foreigners, especially the
English. This, I maintain, is owing to our national
and natural prestige, rather than to any appreciable
effort proceeding from that ramshackle circumlocution
and circumscription office denominated at Madrid
the British Embassy. In either case, I say my
man was more than flabbergasted. He seemed to be
comparing me with Spanish ])ictures of an English-
man, such as are seen in comic papers, almanacs, and
theatres. I wore no sun-helmet and no whiskers ;
nor do mv teeth ])roject a (piarter of a mile. How
should I then be English ? Nevertheless, he took me
at my word. What he would have done to a
Spaniartl we need not therefore trouble to incpiire.
What he did was to seek his balance and stand and
gape at me. At last he said, forcing a laugh, " I
knew you were a foreigner. One can see it in your
face."
" Thank you,"" I rejoined, " I had rather you saw it
in my face than in my accent."
He held out his hand ; and since I have shaken
hands with millionaires, I did not feel debased by
199
(Brana^a
taking his. We sealed our peace with several
libations from a better cask, in which the woman
joined with greater zest than in the conversation,
and chatted freely for about two hours. My ex-
assassin, or rather, my ex-assassin in posse, had been
in Cuba — or said he had — and since he described to
me in accurate terms the port of Isabela de Sagua,
which I had visited as a journalist during the war, I
credit his assertion. He had also done some smug:-
gling round the Campo of Gibraltar, of which be
told with not a little picturesqueness. Of course
upon this latter field I could not claim a partnership
with him ; although he found me quite an interested
listener. When I got up to go, to my astonishment
he would not hear of taking further money. " Vaya,^''
he said, as he threw back the door, " you are the only
decent Englishman there is. The account is paid."
Of course we parted friends. First the woman
gave me her hand, and then the man. I pointed to
the chair. " No ofl'ence, I hope ? "
" None."
"Good -night.''
" Good-night.''
But as I descended to the town, the yellow sun
stood out from the dark Sierra like a tea rose from
a Granadina's hair.
200
The Alhambra ; the Ladies' Tower
XV
The Alhambra by Moonlight
^E Alhambra bv moonlight ! Not
the gardens of the Alhambra. Not
the gardens or the avenues : still less
the Calle Real, thronged and profaned
bv gossiping seekers of fresh air. Nor
do I mean the Place of Reservoirs ; nor yet the trim,
newfangled esplanade that flanks the Tower of
Justice. Here too are people and profanity. \\'hat
I mean is something old and strange ; something
that I alone have had communion with while all the
world was occupied elsewhere. This, then, is what
I mean— the Palace of the Moorish kings; the soul
of the Alhambra ; the Alhambra.
201
©ranaba
Year in, year out, a multitude of modern men
and women acquaint themselves with this immortal
pile. Year out, year in, they come, and go away,
and bear abroad her story and her fame. Wonder
and delight are always on their lips and nearly
always in their heart. And yet, how singular a
thought it is ! For all these visitors, only the sun
caresses tJie Alhambra.
The night-porter had orders to expect me. I found
the outer door ajar; opened, closed, diew back the
bolt ; then crossed the vestibule and stepped with
bated footfall through the Court of Myrtles. For all
the studied softness of my tread, I seemed to break a
twofold silence — that of sleep and death. Instinc-
tively I paused in reverence, almost in shame. And
yet no sign or sound reproved me here. I saw,
unshadowed, unbeclouded by my puny presence, three
marvellous mirrors of the crimson sundown — the
glassy tiles; the glassy pool ; beyond the glassy pool,
the glassy leafage.
The court concluded at its northern end, not in a
massy door but solemn darkness in a filigree alharaca
frame. Entering through this the boat-shaped Hall
of Blessing, totally unlit, I sought the windows of
the Tower of Comares that look forth upon the west.
The sun had just declined beneath the Vega, altering
from shade to shade the whitest wall, the deepest
cypress ; here the level street, yonder the convent
garden of the Albaycin — " el encumbrado Albaycin^
junto con el Alcazaha.'''' Midway between the Darro
and my balcony above, the " rivulet of the wood "
was very faintly murmuring. In tones that I myself
202
TTbc Blbambra bv; /IftoonHabt
could scarcelv overhear, I echoed to its imisic the
plaintive words of Ganivet the suicide : —
Que silenciosos donnis
Torreones de la Alhambra !
Dormis soiiando en la tnueite,
Y la miieite estd lejana.'
Mv whisper floated back into the silence -and yet
the stream sang on beneath the tower. The purling
of this water-course does not disturb the stillness of
the spot. Rather it seems to fortify and complete that
stillness, much as a delicately played accompaniment
au<;ments and beautifies the volume of a voice.
I looked again towards the darkening west. Our
n)etaphors and similes ])ortray the sunset as an ending
merelv. But it is all in all, at once a dissolution and
a genesis to one who spells aright its mystic meaning.
The phases of its infancy, and prime, and dose are
absolutely homotaxic with our own. Cradled in rose
and slain in blood, the sunset is the saddest and
exactest emblem of our destiny. Each swift succeed-
inor stage of tone and colour denotes with terrible
truth our hopes, ozcr dreams, our doubts, our dis-
illusions. Towards the moment of its agony the hues
of sunset deepen. The face of day turns ashy pale, his
lips turn purple. Then sanguine streaks proclaim the
mortal gash, the murder done ; and night and death,
too shamed or pitiful to strike another blow, desist
at last, enveloping those red remains in sable silence.
Chastened by such reflection I drew away to visit
the othei- courts and chambers of the palace. First I
looked down upon the small, sad patio, wrought In-
Christian, not by Moslem architects, where the
'203
(Brana&a
ghost of the mad queen Juana is fabled by the
superstitious crowd to creep and peer behind the
heavy grating. After this, pi-oceeding to the Mirador
not far beyond, I gazed anew towards the Vega and
the Albaycin, the crest of San Miguel, and the valley
of the Darro ; and then, retracing my steps across
the Patio de la lleja, threaded the underground
approach that disembogues into the Courtyard of
Daraxa.
The Court of Cypresses ! The most etht real name,
the most ethereal spot in all the enchanted building.
Four walls enclose a garden, bordered with myrtle
boundaries; within the garden two medlars and five
cypresses enclose in turn an alabaster fountain, edged
with an oriental poem around the border of the cup.
Its waters, overfalling from cup to basin, moisten as
though with tears the tender phrases of the poem
and make them into melancholy music. But now,
as though the poet's lips were bound in silence and
even the fountain slumbered, those waters were not.
The scene was cold and sad, yet not disquieting.
I sat upon the sill of a great window reaching nearly
to the ground, unglazt d and open to the moon,
though guarded with herculean bars. Such was the
contrast between the moonlight and the shade that
when I looked towards the fountain I had to strain
my eyes to trace its shape, but when 1 looked towards
a lighted cypress I had to close them for the glare.
No daytime shadow is to be compared with this ; no
sunlight dazzles so fantastically.
Outside, across a dark expanse of soil. I saw the
Torre de las Damas with its ragged labyrinth of roof,
204
chc HI bam In- a In^ /iDoonliabt
and over this a stately row of sciiiiillatiii^ elms.
Within, a corridor ran (K)\\n before nie, and another
at right angles to it on niv left, forming between the
two a corner of
the court. The
other corners
were concealed
by shrubs. Along
the corridor con-
fronting me were
marble colunnis
white with icy
purity, while
iasrjied beams like
icicles protruded
from between the
pillars and shi-
vered on the
paving.
Memories of
i"'
The Alhambra; the Court of Cypresses
many princes
linger here.
looked towards the Torre de las Damas, and fancied
that I saw Boabdil Heeing from his father's wrath,
lowered by a silken rope to join his comrades in the
whispering wood. I looked at the ceiling of the
corridor, and thought that I could hear the emperor
pacing to and fro. Yonder, from the dainty mirador
across the court, a sultaness had drooped her
languorous looks upoi\ the Darro. \Vas she
regarding now ? Kings of the east and kings of
the west were with me on all sides, and in their
}eo5
0l•ana^a
company I felt at once exalted, and abashed, and
meditative.
Therefrom I next invaded (advisedly I use this
word) the Court of Lions, believed to wear a sinister
and horrible look beneath the midnight moon. I
did not find it so. I found it melancholy, as the
Court of Cyjjresses ; but with a melancholy something
less subdued. I stole beside that ever-famous foun-
tain, and the lions looked at me, as death or time
might look, with round, expressionless eyes that glare
with equal measures of indifference across an instant
or an teon. Why should I fear them ? The atmo-
sphere, or rather (if I may coin an Anglo-Spanish
word whose synonym our tongue alone does not
possess) the ((inh'ieiicij — that which was circumfused
about me — seemed even benevolent and suave. I
knew these monuments and all their history too well
to shrink from them, even from the legend-laden,
blood-bespattered Hall of the Abencerrajes just in
front of me, not thirty feet away. In this conceit I
felt myself a privileged intruder. The lowliest scribe
may serve to pen the chronicles of kings. So with
this palace and its inmates. I had endeavoured to
set their story down in earnestness and sympathy,
and in return they seemed to recompense my loving
labour and exempt me from their terrors.
After another while I turned aside into the Sala
de Justicia, profoundly dark, stabbed with an arrowy
moonbeam here and there. Now and again a falling
scrap of stucco ticked upon the floor, telling, as it
were, the agony of those illustrious halls. Then,
feeling my passage through, I penetrated to the
206
"Cbc Slbambia bv /IPoonliobt
venerable Rauda, and stood tlit-rc till the clinibin«r,
creeping shadow enveloped the gravelike niches in
the wall. An ancient burial place of Moorish kings.
A kingly burial place entombed in the Alhainbra,
lit by the Andalusian moon and stars, kissed by the
breath of the great Sierra of the Snow, and faimed
by plumy cypresses. How many splendours mingled
into one !
I stole away and found myself once more within
the Tower of Comares, scanning, asleej) beneath mv
feet, the city and the plain. How manv memories
and how beautiful must gather at such moments
"round the lover of Granada and her loie — memories
of Moor, and Mudejar, and Christian, and Morisco ;
of battle, and duel, and joust, and festival; the ringin<>-
trumpet, the hooting horn, the beating drum, the
mellow piping of the f/?<Z^am«; the dancing pennons
and the multicolour uniforms of all those noble
families ; the green and scarlet robe of the Zet^ri ;
the azure damask, lined with silver cloth, of the
Abencerraje, crowned with the cream and azure
plume ; the glittering shields, and swords, and
cimeters; the mares "as white as the Sierra of the
Snows."
Here lay the Bibarrambla even now ; where ladies,
as the legends tell, gathered to watch and to reward
the prowess of Granada's chivalry ; where sat the
sultan's bride resplendent in brocade and gold, " a
red rose placed upon the middle of her brow, and in
the middle of the rose a priceless ruby, dazzling the
eyes of all." Round the sultana stand the maidens
of her court — Galiana of Almeria, herself a prince's
207
ffil•ana^a
child, together with Sarracina and Cobaida, Fatima
and Alboraida, Jarifa and Zelima, Gahana's younger
sister — each name a legend and a loveliness.
I lift my eyes and gaze afield. Yonder is haunted
Albolote, famed in many a battle-song ; yonder, the
Fountain of the Pine, where Albayaldos and his
comrade Alabez adventured mortal combat with the
Master of Calatrava. Theirs is a legend of Arthurian
grandeur that I found myself repeating now. " So
had the sun arisen about an hour when they drew
beside the fountain, shadowed, as its name betoken-
eth, by a sturdy pine. Yet nobody was near, so
leaping from tht'ir steeds they slung their shields upon
the saddle-bow, antl seated by the fountain's brink
relieved their thirst upon its cooling water."
While they were thus engaged their Spanish foes
came prancing up to the encounter, each in a pard
and emerald tunic, with a cross upon his shield and
feathers of two colours on his helmet. Then either pair
saluted, and in a tone half playful, half of delicate
courtesy, the Master said to Albayaldos with a
smile : " At least till now we are the losers, being
the latest to arrive." " It matters not," rejoined
the Moor; "not in this circumstance abides the
victory."
Under his splendid dress each knight was mailed in
massive armour cap-a-pie. So taking either pair its
proper station they were preparing to fall on, when one
of the chargers pricked its ears and gave a neigh.
Then looked they all, and spied the valiant Muza,
armed as themselves beneath a tunic of bright orange,
spurring to meet them from the highroad to Granada.
208
Zbc H I b a m bra b v; /ID o o » I i ij b t
Up rode he and drew rein. " O gentlemen," he cried
reproachfully, " well did ye all agree to bring this
matter to an end betwixt yourselves. By Allah, for
all my spuning I was but on the point of time. But
how is this, O generous sirs and strong ? What is
youi- cause for battle; or have ye not a worthy cause ?
A\'hat shall it profit ye if either slay the other, or if
both be slain ? All of you are my friends whom I
well love, and what mischance soever befalleth unto
you, befalleth also unto me. Forego your enmities.
Make me a boon of this. Shall my arrival and my
prayer to you have been in vain ? " And as he spoke
these moving words, he looked more earnestly towards
the ^Master.
" Most noble Muza,"" said the JNIaster then ; " if my
antagonist consent, for our good friendshiij's sake
right gladly will I lay aside this skirmish."''
Muza made answer ; " great is the mercy that thou
gran test me ; nor did I expect a less one from so
principal a cavalier. And thou, O Albayaldos, wilt
thou not stay thy rancour also, and be friends \\ ith
him ? "
" Muza," returned the Moor, " it may not be. The
Master spilled my cousin's blood, that is so present
to my memory : thy prayer must not be satisfied.
Yet would I not be loth to perish by the Master's
hand. Such were an honourable death ; or else, if
I prevail, a double glory shall be mine. These are
my words : in them I am resolved."
With this broke in the other pair of combatants,
Don Manuel I'once de Leon and Alabez the ^loor.
"Gentlemen," cried the first, "it is the will of
209 o
^Bl•ana^a
Albayaldos to avenge his cousin''s death. Let
him work out that will, nor hinder him therefor.
Begin our battle, and let Muza be the umpire of
us all."
" It is well spoken," added Alabez. " Why waste
our time in words, where deeds outweigh all talking ?
So thou, Don Manuel, exchange thy horse with mine
and let us draw.'' Then, as his willing foe dis-
mounted, " take this,"" he said, '• in payment of thine
own ; yet verily ere long the twain shall be the
property of only one of us " ; and each remained
contented with the horse that came to him.
Herewith they motioned Muza to his post and fell
to fighting. Each knight was quick of eye and
vigorous of arm, a master horseman, inured to every
stroke and stratagem, practised in every wile of war,
insomuch that the issue of the day proved arduous
and doubtful. Now was a helmet shattered, now a
gauntlet, now a shield. Now they would hurl their
lances from afar, now close, and clash, and struggle
furiously. Now it was Albayaldos who flung the
Master all along his charger's neck, clutching the
mane to keep from tumbling underfoot ; and now the
Master who clove the other's mail, biting the flesh
beyond. Now Alabez, now Ponce de Leon would
feint and wheel like falcons round their prey, or now
run in, and shock, and grapple hand to hand, or
carve and thrust with cimeter and sword, till blood
was spouting from each horse and thiough the
harness of each cavalier.
So when the afternoon was wearing to its end,
and sky and sward alike were coloured with abundant
210
"Cbc Bib am In- a bv /IDoouli^bt
crimson, two of the combatants above the rest grew
faltering: and streny-thless. These were the Moorish
champions, both of whom, unhorsed at lenoth, lay
prone and motionless beneath the uplifted dagger of
their foe, till
Muza, darting
forward, stayed
the conqueror's
arm and begged
their lives, or,
in the case of
one, the scanty
remnant of a
life, seeing that
Albayaldos had
received three
mortal wounds.
Who, breathing
feebly and with
pain, declared his
wish to die a
faithful follower
of Christ. At
this his enemies (that had been) rejoiced exceedingly,
and raised him in their arms, and bore him to the
little fountain near the field, and by its brink the
Master gave him Christian baptisn), together with
D(m Juan for his baptismal name.
Presently with many a gentle word the Spaniards
took their leave and rode away to join their squad-
rons on the shores of the Genii, while Alabez had
washed and dressed his wounds, and staggering to the
211
The Tower of Homage, seen from the
Albaycin
©rana^a
saddle turned his horse's head for home. But loyal
Muza watched beside his friend, until the other's eyes
grew dim, and with a passionate appeal to our
Redeemer on his stiffening lips Don Juan gave up
the ghost. Just then four country fellows, carrying
each a spade, passed by to gather roots for fuel, and
these, at Muza's bidding, dug the warrior's grave and
buried him, and went their way in consternation at
his wounds. But Muza made a trophy of the hero's
arms and hung them from the pine above his head,
and when the day was ending took the bridle of his
conn-ade's horse and wended slowly home, now glanc-
ing back towards the place of death, regarding now
the empty saddle at his side, now contemplating,
through a mist of angry tears, the darkening minarets
and sanguine battlements of Granada.
Such is the tale I tell myself once more, gazing
with dreamy eyes into the enchanted plain. Then,
as I turn to go, each frigid beam that falls across
the ajhnez, discovering in the circumjacent gloom a
point or surface of old ornament, inspires it with a
sad similitude of life and light, until the deep interior
of the tower looks like some lesser firmament of stars,
whose borrowed brilliance is resorbed by the pale
moon.
Solemn indeed is this Alhambra now. Now is
the hour among all hours ; when night, disrobing,
trails her violet vest across the dim Sierra ; when
cloud assumes the shape of mountain, mountain the
shape of cloud ; when the Vega looks like billow
^12
Ube Hlbambra b^ flDoonligbt
upon billow of steel-cold water, and the city like a
campo-santo beside a desert ocean, her white walls
staring from the solitude — colossal tombstones, guard-
ing the memory of those mighty dead.
Printed by Ballantvne & Co. Limited
Tavistock Street, London
rv^
Oje
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