f DP 48 F3 [CAN TRAVELLERS IN SPAIN THE SPANISH INNS 1776-1867 UC-NRLF *B Mfi fil? BY C. EVANGELINE .FARNHAM Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University N*to fork COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1921 EXCHANGE AMERICAN TRAVELLERS IN SPAIN Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 http://archive.org/details/americantravelleOOfarnrich AMERICAN TRAVELLERS IN SPAIN THE SPANISH INNS 1 776-1867 BY C. EVANGELINE FARNHAM FA Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of thr Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1921 f Copyright, 1921 By Columbia University Press Printed from type. Published May, 1921 • • • K>HA*'^ PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, PA. PREFACE The following pages represent a part of an extended study of the impressions of American travellers in Spain. The plan of the whole work, the bibliographical investigations for which are prac- tically completed is as follows : Volume I covers the period from the date of the first description of travels in Spain by an American up to and including the year 1866, date of the completion of the prin- cipal lines of railway; Volume II covers the period from about the beginning of the year 1867 to tne present day. The first volume, of which these pages form a single chapter (provisionally Chapter V), chronicles impressions of both the country and its people. I desire to express here my thanks to the officials of the Library of Congress, to those of the New York Public Library, of the Columbia University Library and of several other libraries and historical societies for courtesies extended to me while I was con- ducting my researches. I am glad also of an opportunity to express in print my appreciation of the careful guidance of those under whom I have studied. To the members of the Department of Romance Languages of Columbia University in particular I desire to acknowledge my gratitude for the training received and for their kindness and inspiration ; especially to Professor Gerig for his criti- cal reading of this work in manuscript, for his suggestion of certain improvements, and above all for his constant encouragement, in- spiration and kindly advice since my undergraduate days; to Pro- fessor de Onis, under whose supervision this work has been carried on, for inspiring in me a love of Spanish literature and of Spain and its people and for the suggestion of the subject here treated; and lastly to Professor Todd for his painstaking care and helpful suggestions in connection with the reading of the manuscript in its various stages and in the final revision of the proofs. -^ C. E. F. Columbia University, t^ March, 1921. ' 4*6423 AMERICAN TRAVELLERS IN SPAIN THE SPANISH INNS, 1 777-1867 I. — Primitive Construction of the Inns THE American traveller's impressions of the inns were quite as unfavorable as were his impressions of the roads and con- veyances. The earlier travellers tell us that in the more primitive houses there were no windows, the only light coming from the open door or the opening in the roof above the hearth. 1 Adams writes from Bilbao, January 15, 1780: "The houses, as well as everywhere else, were without chim- neys, fires or windows; and we could find none of those comforts and conveniences to which we all had been accustomed from the cradle, nor any of that sweet and quiet repose in sleep, upon which health and happiness so much depend." Even where there were windows, there was in many cases no glass, nothing but the wooden shutter to be opened or closed at will. Adams describes the two windows in his room at Castellano as "port holes, without any glass" with two wooden doors to open and shut before them. 2 In the houses of the villages through which Mrs. Cushing passed on her way from Inin to Tolosa there was no glass. Sometimes there was an iron grating, but usually she found only chinks cut in the wall to admit light. 3 Even at the Fonda del Obispo in Toledo there was no glass in the windows. When the shutters were closed the room was perfectly dark and when opened thoroughly chilled. 4 While she found that the houses of the better class had balconies, the windows opening upon these did not always 1 John Adams and Mrs. A. Adams, Familiar letters of John Adams and his wife, New York, 1876, p. 376. 2 John Adams, The works of John Adams, Boston, 1850-56, vol. iii, p. 242. 3 Caroline Elizabeth Cushing, Letters, descriptive of public monuments, scenery, and manners in France and Spain, Newburyport, 1832, vol. ii, p. 10; cf. Joseph Townsend, A Journey through Spain in the years 1786 and 1787, London, 1791, vol. i, p. 92. 4 C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 154. 2 .". :: .:••:.•.— I4&£fcw Travellers in Spain have glass. 5 At the village inn of La Puebla the windows consisted of several panels opening separately, so that one could let in as little or as much light and air as desired. On a journey from Granada to Barcelona in 1829, Irving makes the following entry in his journal at Lorca on the third of August : " No glass in these parts of Spain." 6 In the miserable vent a of Esteras where the anon- ymous author of Scenes in Spain stopped in 1831 there was but one small window and this was of oiled parchment. 7 Cheever tells us that the room he occupied at one of the inns between Colmenar and Granada had only one grated window. This was without glass but had a wooden shutter to keep out the damp air. 8 Sometimes there were small panes of glass set in the wooden shutters. The sitting- room of a venta where Bryant stopped in 1857 was so lighted but the sleeping rooms were dark. 9 The discomfort caused by the lack of windows was augmented in many cases by the peculiar arrangement of stable and living rooms. Frequently in the ventas, mules and other animals were kept in the same room as the guests, and during the greater part of the period we are studying, the stable, even in the cities, was usually found under the same roof as the living rooms. Arthur Lee was much disgusted during his short visit to Spain in 1777 at finding the living rooms over the stables. 10 Adams found in Galicia a similar arrangement of the kitchen on the same floor as the stable. "On the same floor with the kitchen was the stable, but this was always open, and the floor of the stable was covered with miry straw like the kitchen. I went into the stable, and saw it filled on 5 Ibid., p. 49. 6 The Journals of Washington Irving (from July, 181 5, to July, 1842) ; ed. by William P. Trent and George Hellman, Boston, 1919. 7 Scenes in Spain, New York, 1837, p. 220. 8 Knickerbocker Magazine, vol. xix, p. 122 ; cf. C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 232. •William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller, New York, 1859, p. n6; cf. Alexandre Dumas, Impressions de Voyage, Paris, 1854, vol. ii, p. 43. This absence of glass in the windows was noted also by Gautier. He writes of a village he visited in 1846 : * Torquemada est remarquable par l'absence complete de vitres." The inn he tells us was the only building which had this " luxe inoui." Theophile Gautier, Voyage en Espagne, Paris, 1875, p. 58. 10 Arthur Lee, Journal (MS.), Manuscript Division L. C. ; cf. Henry Swin- burne, Travels through Spain in the years 1775 and 1776, London, 1779, p. 117. Primitive Construction of the Inns 3 both sides with mules belonging to us and several other travellers, who were obliged to put up by the rain." 11 At Villaf ranca he writes in his diary : "The houses are uniformly the same through the whole country, hitherto — common habitations for men and beasts ; the same smoky, filthy holes; not one decent house have I seen from Corunna." 12 Jay found the same arrangement at the inns on the road from Cadiz to Madrid in 1780. "The mules were generally lodged under the same roof, and my bedroom has frequently been divided from them by only a common partition." 13 Monroe during his journey from Irun to Madrid in 1804, and Ticknor, while travelling from Barce- lona to the capital in 18 18, were impressed by this same peculiar plan of living rooms and stable under one roof. Monroe writes of the inn at Irun in 1804: " I entered the best tavern with our mules, the ground floor of which was given up to them." Just before reaching Madrid he enters in his diary : " The first floor in every house was occupied by the mules, and the second by the proprietors. I am now within 28 leagues of Madrid and I have lodged every night in the house with the mules who have been the companions of my journey." 14 Ticknor in a letter dated Madrid, May 23, 1818, says: "Since I left Barcelona I have not been in a single inn where the lower story was not a stable." " Twice," he adds, " I have dined in the very place with the mules." 15 Mackenzie stopped for a night at a posada where the stable under the living rooms was lighted by holes pierced through the ceiling. 16 Mrs. Cushing, like Ticknor, once dined in the same place as the mules. In one of her letters she writes of a venta between Burgos and Madrid : 11 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 241 ; cf. ibid., p. 242. 12 Ibid., p. 246. 13 John Jay, Correspondence and public papers, New York, 1890, vol. i, p. 335; cf. Swinburn, p. 80. 14 James Monroe, Diary (MS.), Manuscript Division, N. Y. P. L. 15 George Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journals, Boston and New York, 1909, vol. i, p. 185. Other travellers had similar experiences on this route. 16 Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, A year in Spain, New York, 1836, vol*, iii, P- l 77> Cf. ibid., vol. i, pp. 59, 60; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Life, Boston and New York, 1893, vol. i, p. 126. 4 American Travellers in Spain "The apartment, into which we were shown as our dining-room, was so dark, damp, and gloomy, that we insisted upon the table's being set in the front part of the house, in a large court, which served as a common passage for man and beast, and a portion of which was actually occupied as the stable. This was much the most comfortable place that the house afforded, and here we sat down to a most miserable dinner, which scarcely sufficed to appease our hunger for the remaining four hours of the day, in which we were to continue on the road. Just as we were finishing the dessert, a demure, staid-looking borrica marched up to the table, and stood close at my side, waiting with all possible patience for its expected share of the fruit." 17 Even when Wallis was in Madrid in 1849 the ground floor of the largest tavern was given up to the mules. 18 In the northwestern Pyrenees three years later Channing found pigs, mules, and hens in the wretched houses of the post towns. 19 Taylor describes the venta at Gaucin, where he stopped for a night in 1852, as "one room — stable, kitchen, and dining-room all in one." 20 The posada where Schroeder stopped at Loja was built on the same plan. 21 At Quintana in 1857 Bryant lodged at an inn which he says consisted like most Spanish inns of stables on the first floor and dwelling- rooms on the second. 22 Pettigrew, like Adams, found the kitchen was sometimes on the lower floor where the mules were kept. He writes of his entrance into the posada at Alhama in 1859 : " Pushing my way through the kitchen and among the mules I mounted to the first story to see the accommodations." 23 Not only American travellers but also those of other nation- alities were impressed by this arrangement of stable and living rooms. Gautier writes of a posada in Castilla la Vieja : 17 C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, pp. 45, 46. Cf. ibid., p. 181 ; Scenes in Spain, pp. 46, 222, 223. Other Americans and the well known English traveller, Richard Ford, give similar accounts. 18 Severn Teackle Wallis, Spain, Boston, 1853, p. 5. Other Americans make similar statements. 19 Walter Channing, A physician's vacation, Boston, 1856, p. 472. 20 Bayard Taylor, The lands of the Saracen, New York, 1856, p. 444- Cf. ibid., p. 405; Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 124; Gautier, p. 197. 21 Francis Schroeder, Shores of the Mediterranean, New York, 1846, vol. ii, p. 100, 22 Bryant p. in; cf. ibid., p. 114. 28 J[ames] Jfohnston] Pfettigrew], Notes on Spain and the Spaniards, in the summer of 1859, Charleston, 1861, p. 249. Primitive Construction of the Inns 5 "La posada ou Ton s'arreta pour diner avait pour vestibule une ecurie. Cette disposition architectural se reflete invariablement dans toutes les posadas espagnoles, et pour aller a sa chambre il f aut passer derriere la croupe des mules." 24 II. — Wretched Conditions of certain Inns As might well be expected, such an arrangement of the interior was not conducive to cleanliness. Consequently we find that not a few of the American travellers mention filthy conditions encoun- tered. 1 No one was more impressed with the filth in Castilla la Vieja than was Lee in 1777: "From the stable which is the common re- ceptacle of horses, asses, mules, dogs, hogs, beggars, and idlers/' we read in his journal, "you ascend to your room, where you are received by all manner of vermin, and where everything is as dirty as if a general and constant hydrophobia possessed this detestable people." 2 His general impression of Guipuzcoa, however, seems to have been much better. In the first named province "pride, poverty and dirtiness reign absolute " while in the latter the people are "stout, well fed and clothed." Adams found the houses in Galicia and Leon quite as filthy. The first floor was nothing but the ground covered with straw trodden into mire; on the second floor, which was never swept or washed, smoke, soot, dirt and vermin were everywhere. The Maragato women he found more nasty than squaws. 3 Like Lee, Adams seems to have been more favorably impressed by Guipuzcoa. He found the houses there and in Vizcaya larger and more convenient than those in Galicia, Castilla, or Leon, but the public houses were much the same. The inn at Briviesca was a large one with twelve good beds, but the house was, like all others he had seen, smoky and dirty. Bryant finds at this same place in 1857 a "decent spacious inn full of guests." The town itself, however, he describes as dirty and badly paved. 4 24 Gautier, p. 32. Cf. ibid., p. 67; Richard Ford, Gatherings from Spain, London, 1846, p. 172. 1 Cf. J. Fr. Bourgoing, Tableau de VEspagne Moderne, Paris, 1797; George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, New York and London, 1896; [Julia Clara (Busk)] Byrne, Cosas de Espana, London and New York, 1866. Others, too numerous to mention here, found similar conditions. 2 Lee, Journal (MS.). 3 Adams, Works, vol. iii, pp. 241, 242, 245-247, 250, 253, 254, 257. * Bryant, p. 89. 6 American Travellers in Spain So filthy was the best tavern at Irun in 1804 that Monroe was obliged to look for accommodations elsewhere. " I ascended to the second floor thro a mass of filth on the staircase into an apartment that exhaled a flavor which was highly offensive. In the apartment were six or eight young men of different nations, Spaniards, Portuguese and French, who had been detained there some time by the cordon which was established by the French Gov 1 , to prevent all communication from Sp n . on ace 1 , of the yellow fever w b . was at Cadiz and some other posts. I felt an unexpressible desire to get out of the house and procure other lodgings as soon as possible." As there was no room available at this inn Monroe gladly went to another which had been procured for him, thinking he would fare better, but this was quite as bad as the first. " They were both in the extreme," says Monroe, " and neither co d . be safd to be worse than the other." 5 A quarter of a century later Mrs. Cushing pre- sents a picture of an inn at Irun, the same in construction but much cleaner. " Ascending a stair-case leading from one side of the stable, we came to a second floor, and were shown into a room, which, although wholly unadorned, and destitute of any superfluous accommoda- tions, was nevertheless sufficiently commodious and neat in appear- ance, to insure us against any difficulty on the score of a comfortable night's lodging." 6 Monroe found great filth at the other stopping places on his way to Madrid. 7 Wallis, whose impressions in 1849 are quite as un- favorable, writes of the poor inns he encountered on the road from Bayonne to Madrid : " As to the ' entertainment for man ' with which we were favored, under the auspices of the Postas Peninsulares in whose diligence I travelled, it is a matter of duty to those who may follow me to say, that it was as detestable as can be imagined. The humblest ven- torrillo on the Andalusian hills, where I partook of game and salad in former days, while the fleas took reprisals from me, was a palace 5 Monroe, Diary (MS.). 6 Vol. ii, p. 4; cf. Bryant, p. 47. 7 Monroe, Diary (MS.). Wretched Conditions of Certain Inns 7 for a Sybarite, in comparison with some of the par adores into which we were now compelled to burrow." 8 Bryant on the contrary finds great cleanliness at these inns about eight years later. A friend of his had told him at San Sebastian that he would not find luxury at the inns on his journey to Madrid but that he would find great cleanliness. At Vegara where he finds the rooms " as clean and bright as a Dutch parlor/' Bryant writes : " We have been thus far agreeably disappointed in seeing the promise of cleanliness so well fulfilled." 9 At the capital Monroe stopped at the best inn, La Cruz de Malta, but even this was not as clean as Parisian inns although it was better than anything he had found since leaving France. 10 Some months later George Erving, United States minister to Spain from 1805 to 1 81 9, stopped at the same inn. After a fruitless search for clean, respectable furnished lodgings, he decided to rent a house, and himself furnish the rooms needed. In a letter to Monroe dated Madrid, November 18, 1805, he says: " On account of the temporary nature of my employment I should have taken furnished lodgings if any which were respectable or were clean could have been found ; but after staying a fortnight at the Cross of Malta concluded that the best mode was to take a house with bare walls, and furnish such apartments in it as are necessary." 11 8 Wallis, Spain, p. 3. Conditions encountered by numerous other travellers seem to have been quite as wretched. 9 Bryant, p. 73. 10 Monroe, Diary (MS.). — Townsend, who travelled in Spain in 1786 and 1787, stopped in Madrid at a hotel by the same name. Townsend, vol. i, p. 347- — This as well as the other inns at the capital he found good. Ibid., p. 290. 11 James Monroe, Letters (MS.), Manuscript Division, N. Y. P. L. — The inns of Madrid impressed Laborde as being very poor, but La Cms de Malta was not as bad as the others in his opinion : " La Croix de Malte est la moins mauvaise. On y trouve plusieurs autres auberges, dont les prix son! plus modiques; mais elles sont rarement decentes, et on y est mal nourri et loge." Alexandre de Laborde, Itineraire descriptif de I'Espagne, Paris, 1808, vol. iii, p. 149- — Inglis found this inn very bad in 1830: "The dirtiness and want of comfort in the Cruz de Malta would have driven me into private lodgings, even if the charges in the hotel had been supportable." Henry D. Inglis, Spain in 1830, London, 1831, vol. i, p. 85. — No traveller, however, speaks as critically of the inns at Madrid as does the Spanish writer, Larra. In La Fonda Nueva he says: "iQuiere usted que le diga yo lo que nos daran en cualquier fonda a donde 8 'American Travellers in Spain Ticknor writes from Madrid June 3, 1818: " In the first place I am settled in lodgings procured for me by Mr. Erving, with people he knows to be honest, and whom I find uncom- monly neat; which, you will observe, are the two rarest virtues in Spain." 12 Vail in 1840 finds that in respect to accommodations one is but a shade better off at the capital than on the road. " It is singular that in a metropolis like this, with a population of two hundred and twenty or thirty thousand, there are but two hotels, and they are kept by Frenchmen. In each there are accommoda- tions but for half a dozen persons and those of such a description as would do no credit to our smallest country towns." 13 In speaking of the houses he says it is difficult to keep them clean and orderly as the climate is favorable to the propagation of vermin. Wallis complains of poor accommodations in the capital nine years later. " He will be a wise man who reads the principle backwards, and remembers that the Fonda de las Postas Peninsulares being the largest tavern in Madrid, is of necessity the worst." 14 The Fonda de las Postas Peninsulares which Wallis finds very bad is mentioned by Bryant in 1857. The latter says the hotels of Madrid have the reputation which they deserve of being the worst to be found in any of the large capitals. 15 Ticknor's picture of the inns between Barcelona and Madrid is a dark one, even worse than that of Laborde. The filth, especially, made a very disagreeable impression on him. This was so great that he generally preferred staying in the carriage when they vayamos? Mire usted, nos daran en primer lugar un mantel y servilletas puercos, vasos puercos, platos puercos y mozos puercos sacaran las cucharas del bolsillo donde estan con las puntas de los cigarros." Mariano Jose de Larra, Obras Completas, Barcelona, 1886, p. 285. Cf. ibid., p. 450; Ramon de Mesonero Romanos, Panorama Matritense, Madrid, 1881, pp. 89, 92. 12 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 187. 18 The Van Buren papers (MS.), Manuscript Division, L. C, vol. 41. 14 Spain, p. 4, 15 Bryant, p. 123. Cf. Wallis, Spain, p. 5; Byrne, vol. i, pp. 169-171, 182; ibid., vol. ii, p. 295. — According to Mrs. Le Vert it was possible to find an excel- lent casa de huespedes when she was in Madrid in 1855. Octavia Le Vert, Souvenirs of travel, New York, 1859, vol. ii, p. 15. Wretched Conditions of Certain Inns 9 stopped rather than go into the squalid houses. 16 His description of the wretchedness or these inns recall those of Swinburne and of Bourgoing. 17 An American who travelled here in 183 1 found the best inn at Zaragoza extremely filthy. 18 Pettigrew in 1859 was pleasantly impressed with the hotel in this same city. 19 Until about the middle of the nineteenth century most American travellers describe the inns at Barcelona as very dirty. 20 Later travellers found them clean although still uncomfortable in some respects. 21 The American traveller's impressions of the inns of the Medi- terranean provinces of Spain are on the whole much more favorable than those of Swinburne. 22 It is true that Cartagena is described by Americans as being very filthy. 23 Moreover, Vassar found the rooms of the inns between Murcia and the capital generally dirty. 24 Irving writes in his journal that the Fonda de la Paz at Valencia is filthy. However, the Valencia pictured by most Americans, is 16 George Ticknor's Travels in Spain, University of Toronto Studies No. 2, Toronto, 1913, pp. 24, 25. Cf. Townsend, vol. i, pp. 92, 222, 225, 229; Laborde, vol. ii, pp. 9, 12, 48. 17 Swinburne has left a sketch of the Venta del Platero in Catalonia, a venta which he describes as "a hovel that beggars all description." "We were lodged," he says, " in part of a ground floor, the remainder of which was occu- pied by the mules and pigs." Swinburne, p. 80.— Bourgoing' s impressions of the inns on this route were no better than those of his English predecessor. The Venta de Santa Lucia beyond Villafranca he describes as " la plus degoutante des hotelleries espagnoles." Bourgoing vol. i, p. 57. 18 Scenes in Spain, p. 234. 19 Pettigrew, p. 73. 20 Cf. Ticknor, Travels, p. 12 ; John Adams Dix, A winter in Madeira; and a summer in Spain and Florence, New York, 1853, p. 318; E. C. Wines, Two years and a half in the navy, Philadelphia, 1832, vol. i, p. 225 ; Severn Teackle Wallis, Glimpses of Spain, New York, 1849, P- 46. 21 Cf. John Milton Mackie, Cosas de Espana, New York, 1855, p. 141 ; Le Vert, vol. ii, pp. 48, 57. 22 Most of the cities and towns of the Mediterranean provinces were as pictured by Swinburne in 1775 and 1776 extremely filthy. Cf. Swinburne, pp. 80, 99, 104, 190. 23 Manuel Mordecai Noah, Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Bar- bary states, in 1813-15, New York, 1819, p. 170; Francis B. Crowninshield, The story of George Crowninshield 's yacht, Cleopatra's barge, on a voyage of pleasure to the Western Islands and the Mediterranean, 1816-1817, comp. from journals, letters, and log-book, Boston, 1913, p. 108; John Guy Vassar, Twenty years around the world, New York, 1861, p. 325. 24 Vassar, p. 328; cf. Bryant, p. 161. io American Travellers in Spain much more attractive than the Valencia described by Swinburne Horner found the streets well paved with pebbles and in a tolerable state of cleanliness. 26 Dix in 1843 thought Valencia the most beau- tiful of the towns he had seen in Spain. 27 Warren writes enthusi- astically of the view of this city in 1849 : " The first view of Valencia burst upon me like the wondrous city of a dream/' 28 Here he found excellent accommodations in the Fonda del Cid. Irving in 1828 was much disgusted with the squalid inn at Granada as he was with the Spanish posadas in general. In a letter dated Granada March 15, 1828, he writes to Mademoiselle Bollviller: " One is exhausted by incessant fatigue and put out of all tune by the squalid miseries of the Spanish posadas. I am now so sur- rounded by dirt and villainy of all kinds that I am almost ashamed to dispatch a letter to your pure hands from so scoundrel a place." 29 Towards the middle of the century impressions of the accommoda- tions here were more favorable. In 1857 Bryant describes the Fonda de Minerva as " a tolerable hostel." 30 Malaga, which left so unpleasant an impression on the English traveller Townsend in 1786 and 1787, is spoken of in favorable terms by most American travellers. 31 Noah, during his sojourn in the city, stopped at a large, comfortable hotel which was the best he had yet seen in Spain. 32 Baker writes in 18 19 that Malaga has good accommodations for foreigners. He adds that there are several very decent lodging houses, and some inns, one of which is not excelled for capacity in room and entertainment in any other 25 Swinburne (p. 99) describes the streets as knee deep in mud and the houses as filthy. 26 Gustavus R. Horner, Medical and topographical observations upon the Mediterranean, Philadelphia, 1839, p. 47. 27 Dix, pp. 314, 315. 28 John Esaias Warren, Vagamundo, New York, 1852, p. 281. 29 Washington Irving, Life and Letters, New York, 1892, vol. ii, p. 88; cf. Scenes in Spain, p. 49. 30 Bryant, p. 203. 31 " Hence it comes to pass that in the city few traces of industry are seen, whilst filth and nastiness, immorality and vice, wretchedness and poverty, the inevitable consequences of indistinguishing benevolence, prevail." Townsend, vol. iii, p. 17. 32 Noah, p. 164. Wretched Conditions of Certain Inns n seaport town of Spain. 33 Woodruff's impressions in 1828 are quite different. He finds the streets badly paved and dirty, in fact the whole city in a dilapidated condition generally. 34 Later travellers speak favorably of accommodations in Malaga. In the fifties a very good hotel called the Fonda de la Alameda is frequently men- tioned. As early as 1853 it had what was then a luxury in Spain, good baths. In 1857 it was called one of the best hotels in Spain. 35 According to American travellers the city which impressed one by its cleanliness was Cadiz. Judging from their descriptions, it was, in this respect, the city par excellence of Spain. These impres- sions are just the opposite of Swinburne's picture of Cadiz in 1776. 38 Noah was struck with the cleanliness of the city in 1813. Mrs. Allen in 1864 had never seen a cleaner city. Mrs. Claghorn, who found little to please her in Spain, describes Cadiz as "a bright clean city," in 1866. While not as enthusiastic in speaking of the accomodations afforded travellers as in speaking of the cleanliness of the city in general, the American traveller seems to have carried away with him a favorable impression of the few hotels mentioned. Noah found the hotel of the Quatro Naciones tolerable but he says there was not a good hotel in the place although it was then a city of importance. The American Consul told Noah that because of the lack of suitable accommodations the supercargoes of vessels generally lodged in the houses of the consignees and that at one time he had forty in his house. 37 In the forties there was a great 33 John Martin Baker, A view of the commerce of the Mediterranean, Washington, 1819, p. 37. 34 Samuel Woodruff, Journal of a tour to Malta, Greece, Asia Minor, Carthage, Algiers, Port Mahon, and Spain, in 1828, Hartford, 1831, pp. 231, 235; cf. Horner, p. 72. 35 Bryant, p. 193. Cf. Traces of the Roman and Moor, by "a bachelor," New York, 1853, p. 37 1 ; Taylor, p. 434. 36 At the time of Swinburne's visit, Cadiz (p. 216) was even worse than Valencia. He found the streets badly paved, extremely filthy and filled with bad odors. So overrun were they with swarms of rats that the late pedes- trian was exceedingly troubled. Townsend corroborates these statements about ten years later and describes the improvements which took place after Count O'Reilly became governor. " For their pavements," he says, " for the cleanliness of their streets, for a well regulated police, for some of the best edifices, and for many wise institutions they have been indebted to their late governor, Count O'Reilly. Townsend, vol. ii, p. 346. "Noah, p. 65. 12 American Travellers in Spain improvement in the hotels of Cadiz. Dix in 1843 found very good lodgings, and Warren in 1849 considered the Fonda de Europa the best in the country. 38 While Mills in 1865 does not speak in such high praises as the latter, he too, found it clean. 39 From the forties on, the American traveller's impressions of the accommodations in the larger towns and cities seem to be more favorable. The inns of the smaller towns and the country ventas, however, he found generally filthy up to the end of the period we are studying. 40 Even among these he occasionally found one that was clean. The landlady of the posada at Alcala la Real reminded Vassar in 1842 of a Dutch housewife for cleanliness. 41 Few were the inns like the little posada at La Carolina which Pettigrew visited in 1859. Its well swept tiled floor he considered worthy of Hol- land. 42 Some of the inns of the Basque provinces, also, he found neat. 43 "Mrs. Le Vert seems to have found most of the posadas and other places where she stopped in 1855 fairly neat. 44 Nearly ten years later, Mrs. Allen on the contrary, describes the inns in general as very dirty. Of those on the road from Malaga to Granada she writes : " The inns or posadas by the way are so filthy that no ladies can enter them." 45 On her arrival at Bayonne, she expresses her satisfaction at finding herself again in a French hotel "where cleanliness, a rare luxury in Spain, was the rule." 46 38 Warren, pp. 181, 182; cf. Taylor, p. 392. 39 L[ewis] E[ste] Mills, Glimpses of southern France and Spain, Cincin- nati, 1867, p. 99. 40 Ford (p. 167) does not think it advisable for English ladies to stop at the inns off the main roads. 41 P. 142. — This recalls Gautier's impressions of his room in the posada of the village of Astizarraga in 1840: " Quand on nous mena dans nos chambres, nous fumes eblouis de la blancheur des rideaux du lit et des fenetres, de la proprete hollandaise des planchers, et du soin parfait de tous les details." P. 23; cf. ibid., p. 183. 42 P. 144. Cf. Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 223 ; Longfellow, Outre-mer, Boston, 1846, p. 285. 43 P. 363. — There even Swinburne found the first one he stopped at ex- tremely clean. P. 425. 44 Le Vert, vol. i, p. 320; vol. ii, pp. 8, 11, 15. 45 Harriet Trowbridge Allen, Travels in Europe and the East, New Haven, 1879, P- 483. 46 Ibid., p. 504; cf. Byrne, vol. ii, p. 252. Wretched Conditions of Certain Inns 13 In Estremadura where the roads were poor and where there was less travelling, the accommodations impressed the traveller as being inferior. 47 Stevens in 1866 describes the stage inn at Merida as exactly like those pictured in Don Quijote. 48 Galicia and the Asturias, likewise little visited by foreigners, left a similar impres- sion on the traveller. 49 In those primitive inns where the living rooms were in such close proximity to the stable, there were swarms of vermin which prevented many a weary traveller from resting during the few hours halt of the diligence. Arthur Lee found the inns of Castilla la Vieja teeming with vermin in 1777. 50 Jay on his journey from Madrid to Irun in 1782 did not escape the fleas and bugs. 51 Bryant had an uncomfortable night at Aranda in 1857 because of the fleas. " We had an uncomfortable time that night with the fleas, which, I suppose, swarmed up from the stable below ; and we were not sorry to leave our beds and our dirty inn with early light." 52 Adams found fleas and lice universal in the houses of Galicia in I 779- 53 At Astorga, on his way to France, he writes: "Found clean beds and no fleas for the first time in Spain/' 54 According to Ticknor the inns on the road through Aragon from Barcelona to Madrid were quite as bad as those described by Adams in Galicia. He states in a letter written at Madrid, May 23, 1818: " Since I left Barcelona I have not been in a single inn where the lower story was not a stable, and of course the upper one 47 Joseph Warren Revere, Keel and saddle, Boston, 1872, p. 56 ; cf. Laborde, vol. i, p. 37& 48 [Henry S. Stevens], From Cleveland, Ohio, to Brazil, and from South America to Europe. Letters to Cleveland Herald, by H. S. S. [Cleveland ? 1866?], p. 36; cf. Larra, p. 450. 49 At Pontevedra Borrow found " more than the usual amount of Galician filth and misery." Vol. i, p. 396- 50 Lee says that no attention is shown the travellers at the inns "but by the fleas, and other vermin who pay their compliments in troops." Lee, Journal. 61 Jay, Correspondence, vol. i, p. 309; cf. A year in Spain, vol. ii, p. 35. 82 Bryant, p. 114. 63 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 244. 84 Ibid., p. 247; cf. Borrow, vol. i, p. 320. 14 American Travellers in Spain as full of fleas as if it were under an Egyptian curse." 55 Pettigrew speaks of the vermin at the inns of Aragon in 1857. His hostess at Venasque arranged for her son to accompany him as far as Bar- bastro. " She, herself," he says, " followed with the assurance that her son was a most excellent individual eminently a mozo de con- fianza, and by way of farther recommendation, he could lodge me at private houses where there were neither fleas, nor bugs, ni pulgas, ni chinches (fond delusion!)" 56 In Andalucia the traveller was particularly troubled with vermin at the inns. 57 Jay found the posadas between Cadiz and Madrid in 1780 more tolerable than he had expected but the rooms were swarming with fleas and bugs. Describing a venta at which he stopped between Granada and Cordoba in 1842 Vassar says: "We were almost devoured by fleas." 58 At one time it was apparently so unusual to find sleeping quarters free from vermin that when such were found, travellers seemed to consider the fact worthy of mention. Warren was impressed with the fact that hotel Vista Alegre, at Puerto de Santa Maria was free from pulgas. "Here the traveller will find a comfortable, though unpretending hotel, the 'Vista Alegre,' where he will be able to secure a well cooked repast, and if he needs it, likewise a decent bed, unhaunted by fleas, or gallinippers of any kind ! Such quarters are deserving of notice, if for no other reason than their extreme rarity, as Spanish Fondas are, as a universal rule, the worst provided, and most uncomfortable in the world." 59 Thus March states that at the Fonda Vista Alegre, Puerto de Santa 55 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 185. Cf. Scenes in Spain, passim; The Van Buren papers, vol. 41, Vail to Van Buren, Madrid, Dec. 10, 1840; Pettigrew, pp. 64, 299. Many similar cases are mentioned by other travellers. 56 Pettigrew, p. 56 ; cf. ibid., p. 67. 57 Jay, Correspondence, vol. i, p. 335. Cf. Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort, New York, 1915, vol. ii, p. 223; Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 410. Others report similar conditions. 58 Vassar, p. 141 ; cf. ibid., pp. 142, 329. — Gautier to the contrary writes of the inn at Ocafia : " Les insectes dont Ton nous avait fait de si f ourmillantes descriptions ne se produisaient pas encore, et notre sommeil ne fut trouble par aucun cauchemar a mille pattes." Gautier, p. 183. 59 Warren, pp. 195, 106. Heating Facilities 15 Maria, and the Posada de la Paz, Gaucin, there were no pulgas in 1853. 60 In the capital itself the traveller was not free from this annoy- ance. Vail writes in 1840 that the houses of Madrid are so con- structed that it is difficult to keep them clean and orderly, especially as the climate is favorable to the propagation of vermin. 01 Wallis in 1849 finds the principal inn of the city constructed on the old plan so that the odor, the fleas and the horse flies from the lower floor circulate in the rooms above. 62 Most of the travellers seem to have been of the opinion of March, who said : " Doubtless the two most vexatious institutions in Spain are the beggars and the pulgas. "* z III. — Heating Facilities The American who travelled in Spain during cold weather was, moreover, impressed by the lack of proper heating facilities at the inns. Adams and his party took violent colds during their travels in Spain because of the lack of heat in the houses on the road. He writes from Bilbao January 16, 1780: "We arrived here last night, all alive but all very near sick with violent colds taken on the road for want of comfortable accommodations. 1 We read in his diary under the entry of January the sixth : "The weather is very cold; the frosts hard, and no fire when we stop, but a few coals or a flash of brush in the kitchen, full of smoke and dirty and covered with a dozen pots and kettles and surrounded by twenty people looking like chimney-sweepers. ,,2 These houses, he tells us, had no chimneys, only holes in the roof to let out the smoke. Speaking of his journey as far as Bilbao, he 60 Charles Wainwright March, Sketches and adventures in Madeira, Por- tugal, and the Andalusias of Spain, pp. 157, 305. 61 The Van Buren papers, vol xli, Madrid, Dec. 10, 1840; cf. Mesonero Romanos, Panorama Matritense, p. 92. 62 Wallis, Glimpses of Spain, p. 5. Cf. Los Espanoles pintados par si tnismos, Madrid, 1843, vol. iii, pp. 160, 165, 235-238; Panorama Matritense, p. 108; Byrne, vol. ii, p. 319. 63 P. 431 ; cf. Larra, p. 165. 1 Familiar letters, p. 373. 2 Works, vol. iii, p. 250. 1 6 'American Travellers in Spain says : " Through the whole of the journey the taverns were incon- venient to us, because there are no chimneys in their houses, and we had cold weather/' 3 The kitchen fire of one of these chimneyless inns at which he was obliged to stop is described as follows : "In the middle of the kitchen was a mound, a little raised with earth and stone upon which was a fire, with pots, kettles, skillets, etc., of the fashion of the country, about it. There was no chimney. The smoke ascended, and found no other passage than through two holes drilled through the tiles of the roof, not perpendicularly over the fire, but at angles of about forty-five degrees. On one side was a flue oven, very large, black, smoky, and sooty." 4 Ticknor observes in 1818 that the inns between Barcelona and Madrid had no fireplace other than a hearth in the centre of the building which put out the eyes of the occupants with smoke. Mrs. Cushing in 1829 remarked that the smoke issued in clouds from small openings cut in the roof for that purpose, from chinks in the walls, and from the open door. 5 Longfellow describes a hearth which he saw in a room about ten feet square with walls sloping upward like a pyramid to an opening where the smoke escaped. "Quite round this little room ran a row of benches, upon which sat one or two grave personages smoking paper cigars. Upon the hearth blazed a handful of fagots, whose bright flame danced merrily among a motley congregation of pots and kettles, and a long wreath of smoke wound lazily up through the huge tunnel of the roof above. The walls were black with soot, and orna- mented with sundry legs of bacon and festoons of sausages ; and as there were no windows in this dingy abode, the only light which cheered the darkness within came flickering from the fire upon the hearth, and the smoky sunbeams that peeped down the long-necked chimney." 6 3 Familiar letters, p. 373. Cf. ibid., p. 376; The revolutionary diplomatic correspondence of the United States, Washington, 1889, p. 458. 4 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 241. Cf. ibid., pp. 242, 244-246, 250, 253, 255; Swinburne, p. 71. 5 P. 10. Cf. ibid., pp. 3, 4, 149; A year in Spain, vol. i, p. no; Irving, Journals, vol. iii, p. 4. — Gautier was impressed with this primitive construction in 1840 at the inn of Torrequemada. Although it had the unheard of luxury of panes of glass in the windows, it had a kitchen with a hole in the ceiling — " n'en a pas moins une cuisine avec un trou dans le plafond." P. 58. 6 Outre-mer, pp. 174, 175; cf. Irving, Journals, vol. iii, pp. 5, 65. Several others paint similar pictures. Heating Facilities 17 Mackenzie was impressed with a similar hearth which took up the whole corner of the kitchen at the Vitoria inn where he stopped in 1834: " In one corner of the room, which was of great extent, was a large chimney, in the middle of which blazed a fire consisting of a mass of live embers, fed by large logs, the ends being thrust together like the spokes of a wheel, and pushed forward from time to time, as they consumed away, while on either side within the spacious area of the chimney itself were capacious wooden benches with backs, into one of which I hastened to throw myself, having for my com- panion a retired old colonel, who sat quietly smoking in the post of honor in the corner and who presently engaged me in agreeable conversation." 7 The absence of fireplaces in the sleeping rooms is frequently noted by American travellers. Mackenzie says that Madrid in 1826 was so seldom visited by foreigners that it was ill provided for their accommodation. His room at the Fonda de Malta, the best hotel in the capital, had no fireplace. His window never got the sun and it was so cold that there had already been ice. Mrs. Cushing observed in 1829 that the Madrilenos did not know how to guard against the cold and that there were few fireplaces in the city. In fact she found the fireplace hardly known in all Spain. 8 Rear Admiral Charles Steedman of the United States Navy on his visit to the Mediterranean ports of Spain in 1837 and 1838 found no fireplaces except in the houses of English and American consuls. 9 According to Warren, fireplaces were of so recent introduction when he was in Spain in 1849 that it was very difficult to secure a room that had one. Wallis, however, was impressed with the fact that fireplaces and other modern improvements were beginning to be introduced that same year in the capital. 10 Nevertheless Mrs. Le Vert's impression six years later seems to be that there are few in the city. 11 Mills found rooms with fireplaces at the capital in 7 Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Spain revisited, New York, 1836, vol. ii, pp. 295, 206. 8 C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 24. Cf. ibid., p. 56; Revere, p. 64; The Van Buren papers, vol. xliii; Larra, p. 286. 9 Charles Steedman, Memoirs and correspondence, Cambridge, 1912, p. 85; cf. Dix, p. 276. 10 Wallis, Spain, pp. 8, 9. 11 Le Vert, vol. ii, p. 32 1 8 'American Travellers in Spain 1865 but they were at a very high rate. 12 Mackie, in 1851, was struck by the absence of fireplaces in Barcelona. There was only one in the town and that was in the house of an Englishman. Speaking of his room in one of the principal fondas he says : "There was no fire-place! There was none in any of the rooms. There was none short of the kitchen, and what is more, there was but one, as I afterward learned, in the whole town of Barcelona. That had been set up by an Englishman of course." 13 Mrs. Le Vert found the rooms cold at Cadiz in 1855 because there were no fireplaces. 14 Even ten years later Mills finds the inns of Spain very uncomfortable because of the cold, there being no fire- places except in a few new hotels. 16 The fireplace in the posada at El Escorial was the first he had seen since leaving Bayonne. 16 The stove, according to Warren, was an unknown luxury in Spain when he was there in 1849. 17 Not one had he seen in the whole country. Moreover, he believes that it would be very diffi- cult to transport them into the interior from abroad. But he adds : " If ever a railroad is laid down from Cadiz to Madrid, a cargo of cooking stoves will prove a most profitable speculation." 18 Mackie about two years later was impressed with a modern improvement for heating at the hotel in Barcelona. This was a small pipe which passed from the kitchen through the room to the roof and at least took off the chill. 19 12 Mills, p. 55- 13 Mackie, p. 143; cf. Vassar, p. 317. "Le Vert, p. 328. 15 Mills, p. 47; cf. ibid., p. 153. 16 Mills, p. 56.— Mrs. Byrne travelling in Spain the following year notes the absence of this very important part of the English house: "Fireplace, of course, there was none. This constitutes a chapter in domestic economy un- known to the penates of the Peninsula — no blazing hearth have they, round which to gather on the chill winter's night. They know not the mysterious power of that domestic magnet which draws the whole family circle, from grandsire to grandchild inclusive, within one small concentrated focus of sym- pathy; and unites, in one common bond of unity, the affection of three genera- tions." She adds that in some of the best houses there are French fireplaces in which olivewood is burned, giving a good blaze. Vol. ii, p. 325. 17 Warren, p. 28; cf. Larra, p. 286. 18 Warren, p. 112. 19 Mackie, pp. 151, 152. Heating Facilities 19 A means of heating which is mentioned by nearly all travellers, but which is considered by them quite insufficient, is the brasero. 20 It is described by travellers as a pan, either of copper or of brass set in a large wooden frame sometimes of very beautiful wood such as mahogany, raised just enough from the floor on wooden legs so that the feet of those sitting around it may comfortably use it as a foot rest. Mackie tells us that the brasero is rilled with a superior kind of charcoal. This is previously burnt in the open air and stirred until it ceases smoking and until the injurious gases have passed off. When the coals are covered with a layer of white ashes it is brought in. 21 " In the palaces of the nobility," says Warren, " these vessels are made in an ornamental manner, and sometimes enclosed in an immense china vase with numerous little holes at the top for the escape of the heated air." 22 Sometimes the brasero was placed under the dining room table. 23 Sometimes the sleeping room was heated with it. 24 According to Admiral Steedman it was placed under a circular table covered with a thick cloth. Those sitting around it were able to keep their feet and legs warm but their backs were cold. 25 Mrs. Le Vert was impressed with the contrast of the brasero to the good coal-fires at home. 26 According to Mills the 20 Cf. Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 250; C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, pp. 56, 57; Vassar, p. 317; Irving, Journals, vol. iii, p. 6; Bryant, p. 206; and others. — Mesonero Romanos says of the brasero : " He aqui un objeto paramonte espafiol." 21 Mackie, p. 144. Cf. C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 24 ; Ramon de Mesonero Romanos, Escenas Matritenses, Madrid, 1881, p. 363. 22 Warren, p. 112. 23 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 119. Cf. Irving, Journals, vol. iii, p. 4. 24 Caleb Cushing, Reminiscences of Spain, Boston, 1853, vol. i, pp. 106, 107. Cf. C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 24; Mackie, p. 144. 25 Steedman, p. 85 ; cf. Byrne, vol. ii, p. 326. 26 Le Vert, vol. i, p. 329; cf. ibid., vol. ii, p. 32. Mrs. Byrne notes this con- trast and is even more critical than American travellers. She writes in 1866 that there is a scarcity of fuel in La Mancha and that people are obliged to burn chopped straw and vine twigs in their " wretched braseros." Vol. ii, p. 262. — In another place she calls the brasero " a wretched apology for a fire/' Ibid., p. 326. — Again she writes : " Here the brasero is the only recognized fireside ; and it is, in the eyes of an Englishman, a sorry substitute for all that his own im- plies; it seems to acknowledge the necessity of a family centre, but it does not realize it." Byrne, vol. ii, p. 325. — The Spaniard's impression of the brasero is quite different from that of the foreign traveller in the country. Flores sings its praises in his " Cuadro cincuenta y dos, Al amor de la lumbre, of an inter- esting volume called Sociedad de la fe en 1800. No one, however, shows the 20 'American Travellers in Spain brasero was the only means of heating apartments when he was in Spain in 1865 and it did not impress him as being a satisfactory one. The hotel where he stopped at Burgos was uncomfortable. As there was only a brasero of charcoals to warm the room he de- good qualities of the beloved brasero better than Mesonero Romanos. It is interesting to note that he uses much the same arguments in defending it against the invasion of the English mode of heating, which he considers inferior to the Spanish, as Mrs. Byrne uses in speaking of the former which she finds far superior to the latter. Escenas Matritenses, p. 364. — In his Panorama Matri- tense he writes : " No se puede negar que un brasero def endido por diez 6 doce personas, todas alegres, todas amables y sin grandes pretensiones, es una de las cosas que inspiran mayor confianza y dan rienda suelta al natural ingenio para desenvolverse sin aquellas trabas que la afectacion, el orgullo y el falsamente llamado buen tono suelen imponerle." P. 206. — Very conservative and much attached to native customs and things, he regrets the invasion of foreign in- fluence following the death of Ferdinand VII and fears that his cherished brasero along with many other things Spanish will be relegated to the past. In his Escenas Matritenses he says: " Verdad es que, segun van las cosas en la patria del Cid, dentro de muy poco tiempo acaso no tengamos ya objetos indigenas de que ocuparnos, cuando leyes, administration, ciencias, literatura, usos, costumbres y monumentos que nos legaron nuestros padres acaben completamente de desaparecer, que, a Dios las gracias, no falta mucho ya." " Entonces desaparecera tambien el brasero, como mueble anejo, retrogrado y mal sonante, y sera sustituido por la chimenea francesa, suiza 6 de Albion; y la badila dara lugar al fuelle, y soplaremos en vez de escarbar." P. 359. He compares the brasero with the stove, which he calls a stupid method of heating: "La estufa, pues, es un metodo de calefaccion estupido, y carece de todo genero de poesia." P. 363. — For him no means of heating can be compared to the brasero: " Denme el brasero espafiol, tipico y primitivo, con su sencilla caja 6 taritna; su blanca ceniza y sus encendidas ascuas; su badil excitante y su tapa protectora; denme su calor suave y silencioso, su centro convergente de sociedad, su acompanamiento circular de manos y pies. Denme la franqueza y bienestar que influye en su calor moderado, la igualdad con que le distribuye, y si es entre dos luces, denme el tfanquilo resplandor igneo que expelen sus ascuas, haciendo reflejar dulcemente el brillo de unos ojos arabes, la blancura de tez oriental.'* — According to Mesonero Romanos, even in the social aspect, the brasero is superior to the fireplace: " Ademas ,;c6mo comparar a la chimenea con el brasero bajo el aspecto social, quiero decir, sociabilitario 6 comunista, para que nos entendamos?" Ibid., p. 364. — He sums up his pleadings in defense of the Spanish mode of heating in the following words : " Vemos, pues, que ni social, ni politica, no humanitariamente hablando, puede compararse la benefica influencia del brasero con la de la galica chimenea. — En cuanto a lo economico seguramente que tambien tiene la preferencia, por mas accesible y de mas seguro efecto; y por lo que dice relacion a la forma, tampoco teme la comparacion. Y sin embargo de todas estas razones, el brasero se va." Ibid., p. 366. Furnishings 2 1 cided to go on to Valladolid. 27 There conditions were no better. At Cadiz he suffered from both the cold, and the fumes from the brasero. " It was cold in the evening certainly, and when tired of shivering in shawls and overcoats, we inhaled headaches from the brasero, and were not in a frame of mind to praise the hotel very highly." 28 IV. — Furnishings According to American travellers, many of these inns were scantily furnished. Adams found little furniture in those where he stopped in 1779, and the floors of some of them were covered with nothing but loose straw. 1 Noah in 18 14 put up at a fonda in Almeria where he says he had a room assigned to him without fur- niture. 2 Ticknor writes in 1818: "Even in the large cities it is astonishing to see how much they are behindhand, — how rude and imperfect is their house furniture, and how much is absolutely wanting." 3 Mackenzie was impressed with the scantiness of the furniture in 1826. His first room at the Fonda de Malta, the best hotel in Madrid, was a room with an uncovered tiled floor and naked beams above, furnished solely with two chairs and a bed in an alcove at one end. 4 The room into which he moved a few days later was furnished somewhat better. 5 His room at the best fonda in Barcelona impressed him as desolate in comparison with French bedchambers. Of the Fonda of the Four Nations on the Rambla he writes : " Being of modern construction we found large and commodious apartments. But to one accustomed to the convenience and luxury of a French bedchamber, my present room was but dreary and desolate." A comfortless bed, a few chairs and a table 27 P. 47. 2s Ibid., p. 99. Cf. ibid., p. 153; Mackie, p. 144; Byrne, vol. ii, p. 326. 1 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 241. — Swinburne writes in 1776: "If we chance to find a few unbroken chairs we esteem ourselves uncommonly fortunate." P. 116; cf. Townsend, vol. ii, p. 43- 2 Noah, p. 167 ; cf. ibid., p. 171. 3 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 197 ; cf. Scenes in Spain, pp. 212, 300. 4 A Year in Spain, vol. i, p. 125. Cf. Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 113; Borrow, vol. i, p. 162; ibid., vol. ii, p. 106. 5 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 126 ; cf. ibid., p. $. 22 American Travellers in Spain made up the furnishings in the room. 6 Some of the country inns he found practically destitute of furniture. 7 Mrs. Cushing, about three years later, stopped in Madrid at a very large fonda called the Fontana de Oro. She makes no complaint of the furniture but to the contrary tells us the room was a handsome one with two neat sleeping and dressing rooms connected with it. 8 Like Mackenzie, however, she found some of the smaller inns with little or no furni- ture. 9 Vassar describes the main room of an Andalusian venta where he spent a night in 1842 as having a rude table with benches for the sole furniture; the chambers were completely bare. 10 The rooms of the inns between Murcia and the capital he found gen- erally with no furniture except cot-beds. 11 In 1849 tne furniture of Warren's room at a Toledan inn consisted of a few worm-eaten chairs, a common brown table, and two dirty looking bedsteads. 12 Mrs. Le Vert in 1855 was impressed with her magnificent rooms at a casa de huespedes in Madrid. 13 The great improvement in the furnishing of rooms at the capital struck Pettigrew on his second visit to Spain in 1859. The rooms he found as elegant, though in a different style, as those furnished in Paris. At the time of his first visit in 1852 he was impressed, like Dumas some years before, with the rickety pieces of furniture. 14 Also in smaller places in 6 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 37, 3§ ; cf. ibid., vol. i, p. 35- 7 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 61 ; cf. Ford, p. 177. — Pecchio, about five years before, was impressed wijh the scanty furniture in the houses. In a letter dated Briviesca, May 9, 1821, he says: "Una casa del piu mediocre fittabile inglese vale piu che tutto un villagio di Spagna," Giuseppe Pecchio, Sei Mesi in Ispagna nel 1821, Madrid, 182 1, p. 6. 8 Vol. ii, p. 4& 9 Vol. ii, pp. 231, 232. Cf. Irving, Journals, vol. Hi, p. 73; Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 122; Wallis, Spain, p. 6; Ford, p. 169. "P. 140. 11 Ibid., p. 328. 12 P. in. Cf. p. 89; Schroeder, vol. ii, p. in. — Dumas enumerates as fol- lows the pieces of furniture in his poorly furnished room at Alcala la Real in 1846 : " D'abord une table vermouloue, deux ou trois chaises boiteuses, qui nous ont inspire si peu de confiance, que Ton a monte pour les remplacer des bancs de la cuisine." Impressions de Voyage, vol. ii, p. 69. — At Sevilla he again com- plains of rickety chairs, which he does not consider safe to sit on. Ibid., p. 222. Cf. Pettigrew, p. 91 ; Larra, pp. 286, 450. 18 Le Vert, vol. ii, p. 15. 14 P. 73. — Mrs. Byrne in 1866 found scanty and poor furniture at some of the inns. Byrne, vol. ii, pp. 263, 264. — Borrow speaks of the few pieces of fur- Furnishings 23 1859 he notes the scanty furniture. 15 Likewise Mrs. Allen was im- pressed with the scanty furniture at a venta where she stopped be- tween Malaga and Granada in 1864. 18 A piece of furniture which impressed several American travellers in Spain before the middle of the nineteenth century was a low table on which meals were served. 17 The American traveller's impressions of the accommodations for sleeping were in many cases very unfavorable. The bed, a piece of furniture which he had always found so indispensable at home, was not infrequently entirely wanting. Adams found very few beds on his journey through Spain in 1779. Not until he reached Leon did he find one that was clean. At Briviesca, how- ever, he found in a dirty tavern as many as twelve good beds, which were provided with clean sheets. 18 Ticknor on his journey from Barcelona to Madrid in 181 8 slept on a bedstead only twice in the course of thirteen days. The remaining nights were passed sleeping in his clothes on the stone floors, which were very uneven. 19 The custom among the common people of sleeping on the floor is frequently noted by American travellers. Adams says the natives usually slept on the floor and sometimes only in straw like animals. At one inn where he stopped in Galicia one side of the fire was a niture in the apartment where he stopped at Madrid in 1837. Borrow, vol. i, p. 162. — At Oviedo he also had a scantily furnished room. Ibid., vol. ii, p. 73. — Gautier found bare rooms at an inn beyond Oviedo. On the walls of the dining- room, however, were some engravings, an unheard of luxury according to him. Gautier, p. 67. 15 P. 299. 16 P. 486. 17 Cf. Scenes in Spain, pp. 119, 130, 221 ; A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 63; ibid., vol. ii, p. 90; ibid., vol. iii, p. 176; Noah, p. 134; Ford, p. 181. — -In Scenes in Spain we read that one which was spread at Archidona was only two feet high. — Dumas found these tables very uncomfortable. Vol. ii, p. 50. — We find this piece of furniture frequently mentioned in Spanish writings. Larra in El Castellano says : " Los dias en que mi amigo no tiene convidados se contenta con una mesa baja, poco mas que banqueta de zapatero; por que el y su mujer, como dice, ipara que quieren mas? " Larra, p. 37. Cf. Los Espaiioles pintados por si mismos, vol. ii, p. 231 ; Antonio Flores, Ayer Hoy y Mariana, Madrid, 1863, vol. i, p. 31. — This low table was still used at some inns, according to Mrs. Byrne, when she travelled in Spain in 1866. Vol. ii, pp. 254, 263. 18 Adams, Works, vol. iii, pp. 242, 247, 253. 19 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 185 ; cf. Larra, p. 165. 24 American Travellers in Spain cabin filled with straw where the innkeeper's wife and four children "all pigged in together.' ,2 ° Mackenzie at the inn at Guadarrama offered his guide a bed, but the latter preferred to sleep on the floor. 21 For many, we are told, a bed was a superfluity. 22 The sight of the kitchen floor covered with sleeping muleteers is frequently mentioned by American travellers. Like the muleteer in the venta room where Don Quijote rested after his adventure with the yangiieses, their beds were made of the pack saddles and blankets of their mules. 23 Mrs. Cushing writes of the sight pre- sented by one of these large kitchens early in the morning: " When I entered the kitchen to take some chocolate for breakfast, I found the floor covered in every direction with muleteers, who, using their cloaks instead of a bed, were reposing in the deepest slumber, of which their audible breathing gave full evidence." 24 Rockwell was impressed by a similar sight. Each muleteer after a hearty meal and a joyful evening wrapt himself in his blanket and lay down in the most convenient place, the ground, the hearth or a bench, and slept until morning. 25 Vassar writes of his journey from Granada to Cordoba in 1842: "The first night we slept in a venta, upon a brick floor, among horses, mules, drivers, and others 20 Works, vol. iii, p. 241. — More than thirty years later George Borrow on stopping at a chosa on his way to Finisterre from Padron, was told there was no bed. The occupants had never slept in a bed. They either lay down around the hearth or in the straw with the cattle. Vol. ii, p. 118. Cf. Mackie, p. 142; Ford, p. 183. 21 A year in Spain, vol. ii, p. 39. 22 Pecchio in one of his letters in 1821 says that the soldiers slept on the floor in the houses of the rich Andalusians in preference to sleeping in a bed. He adds : " Dicevano che non potevano dormire in quelle macchine per loro sconosciute." P. 8. 23 Cf. Don Quijote, part i, chap, xvi ; Washington Irving, Works, New York, 1882, vol. vii, p. 535 ; Scenes in Spain, p. 234 ; Ford, p. 183. 24 Vol. ii, p. 233. Cf. ibid., pp. 47, 181, 279; A year in Spain, vol. iii, p. 175; Ford, p. 183. — This recalls one of Pecchio's letters in which he says : " La maggior parte della gente rozza porta in tutte le stagioni sulle spalle una coperta di lana a vari colori che nel giorno le serve di mantello e nella notte di letto." Pp. 6, 7. 25 Vol. i, p. 253. Cf. Longfellow, Life, vol. i, p. 129 ; A year in Spain, vol. iii, p. 236. Furnishings 25 of bandit appearance." 26 There were no beds in the house. Bryant in 1857 observes that muleteers were sleeping on the floor of the inn at Aranda. " We got down stairs by stepping over the bodies of about a dozen muleteers, who, wrapped in their blankets lay snoring on the floor of an ante-chamber." 27 Mrs. Allen found no bed at an inn where she stopped between Malaga and Granada in 1864. 28 Even when the sleeping quarters were not in the kitchen, the traveller frequently found them very primitive at the smaller inns. Mackie on stopping at one of these inns in 1852 had the choice of sleeping with mules on the first floor or on the newly gathered grain in the second. 29 Sometimes a bed was prepared on the floor in this room above or in a room adjoining the kitchen. 30 Now and then a wretched flock-bed was furnished. It was such a one that the author of Scenes in Spain found at Alhama in 183 1. 31 The mattress furnished was often of the poorest description and exceedingly uncomfortable. 32 Taylor found his at the venta in Gaucin much too short. 33 26 P. 141. Cf. Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 122; National Magazine, vol. xi, p. 360. — About four years later Dumas was impressed by the sight of a kitchen floor covered with sleeping muleteers. In passing out of the kitchen at Alcala la Real early in the morning he had to step over a dozen muleteers asleep on the floor: "lis s'etaient eparpilles dans la venta. Chacun selon son gout et sa commodite avait pris sa place ; Tun couche tout de son long sur le cote gauche ou le cote droit, l'autre adosse au mur, l'autre etendu tout de son long sur le dos avec les deux mains sous sa tete en place de tout oreiller." Dumas, vol. ii, p. 71. 27 Bryant, p. 114. Cf. Scenes in Spain, p. 234; Irving, Journals, vol. iii, PP. 72, 73', Wallis., Glimpses of Spain, p. 282. 28 Allen, p. 486. 29 Mackie, p. 349. Cf. Ford, p. 183 ; Flores, vol. i, p. 317. 30 Cf. A year in Spain, vol. ii, p. 228; ibid., vol. iii, pp. 176, 188; Scenes in Spain, pp. 29, 48, 118, 120; Knick. Mag., vol., xix, p. 122; Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 410; Pettigrew, p. 299. 31 P. 234. Cf. Borrow, vol. i, p. 277 ; vol. ii, p. 50. 32 C/. C. E. Cushing, vol*, ii, pp. 38, 39, 337, 339; Bryant, p. 162; Mills, p. 70. — The impression of other foreigners in the country seems to have been similar. Cf. Bourgoing, vol. i, p. 3; Ford, p. 57; Byrne, vol. ii, pp. 271, 319. — Gautier describes the mattress on which he slept one night in 1840 as one of "ces pellicules de toile entre lesquelles flottent quelques tampons de laine que les hoteliers pretendent etre des matelas, avec reffronterie pleine de sang-froid qui les caracterise. P. 197. — Gautier's impressions of this bed were quite as 26 'American Travellers in Spain When a bedstead was furnished, it was, in many instances, but a rude piece of furniture or a makeshift. Mackenzie describes his at Madrid as a set of loose boards supported on two horses and painted green. 34 That on which Mrs. Cushing slept at the posada in Buytrago was a common wooden frame without posts. 35 Bryant was impressed at the Posada de Alicante in the town of Villera, Murcia, "with the rude bedsteads which were made of beam and plank by some coarse carpenter." 36 For many years the traveller who had to stop at small towns and villages was obliged to carry not only his bedclothes but also his mattress. Adams writes to the President of Congress from unfavorable as were Don Quijote's impressions of one at the country venta where he stopped for a night. " Un colchon que en lo sutil parecia colchon, lleno de bodoques; que, a no mostrar que eran de lana por algunas roturas, al tiento, en la dureza, semejaban de guijarro, y dos sabanas hechas de cuero de adarza, y una frazada cuyos hilos, si se quisieron contar, no se perdiera uno solo de la cuenta." Don Quijote, part i, chap. xvi. — According to Mesenero Romanos the beds were sometimes so poor it was impossible to rest. Panorama Matri- tense, p. 108; cf. Los Espanoles pintados por si mismos, vol. ii, pp. 165, 235. 33 Taylor, p. 444. — Pecchio had found the same difficulty some thirty years before. He writes in a letter headed Briviesca May 9, 1821 : " II letto era di un terzo piu corto della mia persona che non e gigantesca, come sapete, barcol- lante, et emulo del pavimento in durezza." P. 5. 34 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 147 ; cf. Irving, Works vol. vii, pp. 536, 538. — Townsend's description of the makeshift bedstead he found at Junquera forty years before Mackenzie's visit to Spain is quite similar to that just given. He says : " No bedstead, but only three boards laid upon trestles to support a mat- tress." Vol. i, p. 92. — Gautier's description of a bedstead on which he slept one night during his journey through Spain in 1840 is exactly the same, ** forme de trois planches posees sur deux treteaux." P. 197. — The makeshift bedstead offered Mrs. Byrne at the fonda in Valdepeiias in 1864 was even worse. " The repast despatched, we thought it time to see the beds, and consequently asked to be conducted to our rooms; this was quite a poser, and elicited the most curious revelation. It turned out there were no rooms in the case! but the beds, we were told, should be brought in as soon as we wanted them; we begged to see them at once, on which, after a brief delay, three boards were brought in, and placed in an inclined position by resting one end on a bench; this proved to be the best they could produce." Vol. ii, p. 271. — One would con- clude from the above descriptions that the bedstead which was sometimes pro- vided for the traveller had improved little since the days of the Knight of La Mancha. Don Quijote says of a bedstead on which he slept one night at a country venta: * Solo contenia cuatro mal lesas tablas sobre dos muy iguales bancos." Don Quijote, part i, chap. xvi. 35 Vol. ii, p. 39. 38 Bryant, p. 162. Furnishings 27 Bilbao January 16, 1779, that on the journey from La Coruiia to that place he and his party were obliged to carry their beds with them. 37 Jay had to make such a provision for his journey from Cadiz to Madrid in 1780. 38 Monroe referring to a wretched inn at Irun in 1804 says : " However, it seemed to be my fate to remain there that night, and in consequence I ordered up my bedding, baggage, etc., with the intention to make the best arrangement I could." 39 Noah carried his bed with him during his travels in Spain. At a village inn where he stopped between Tortosa and Tarragona the mat- tresses were arranged on clean straw in the same room as the mules. 40 Irving, writing of a journey made from Granada to Valencia in 1829, tells us that his bed at night was the mattress he had brought with him in the cart. 41 Rockwell notes the custom of carrying mattresses in the public conveyances. In 1836 he found them listed in the printed bills of baggage rates and in the receipts for fares. 42 Vassar had to carry his mattress on a journey between Granada and Cordoba in 1842. 43 Somewhat better than the one room venta was the posada with a common dormitory. Sometimes, according to American travel- lers, it was a rudely arranged room quite like the venta room in which Don Quijote, Sancho, and the arriero slept, and sometimes it had several beds. The posada at Quintana where Mackenzie stopped for a night in 1826 had a common dormitory. 44 In 1834 he found a similar arrangement at Guadalajara, and also at Guadarrama. Of the inn at Guadarrama he writes : " According to the custom in Spanish post-houses established in connection with the diligences, we were all packed into a common dormitory/' 45 March in 1852 37 Rev. dip. corres., vol. iii, p. 457. Cf. Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 244; ibid., vol. iii, p. 242; Swinburne, pp. 116, 117, 231. 38 Correspondence, vol. i, p. 333 ; cf. Bourgoing, vol. i, p. 8. 39 Diary. 40 Noah, p. 179. Cf. ibid., pp. 136, 163; Ticknor, Travels, p. 17. 41 Life, vol. ii, p. 179. Cf. Irving, Letters, vol. ii, p. 223; Journals, vol. iii, pp. 65, 66, 68, 80. 42 Rockwell, vol. i, p. 252 ; cf. Panorama Matritense, p. 106. 43 Vassar, p. 142. — This custom of carrying one's mattress when travelling is also noted by Spanish writers. Cf. Flores, vol. i, p. 311; Panorama Matri- tense, p. 108; Larra, p. 6. 44 A year in Spain, vol. it, pp. 94, 95, 227. Cf. Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 253; Irving, Journals, vol. iii, p. 5; Ford, p. 57. 45 Spain revisited, vol. ii, p. 52. 28 American Travellers in Spain had difficulty in procuring a room to himself at the posada in La Luisiana. 46 The American traveller's impressions of the facilities for bath- ing at Spanish inns during this period were most unfavorable. In some of the small country inns the means for the morning ablu- tions were meagre or entirely wanting. Irving writes in his journal at Venta del Conde near Canales: "great delay and difficulty in getting wash-basins, water, towels, etc., cleanliness of person not being considered among the wants of the traveller. ,, Their presence is mentioned as though it were a fact worthy of note just as the absence of pulgas is mentioned by others. Mackenzie tells us that in the very neat inn at Quintanar there were basins of glazed earthenware and pitchers of water, with a clean towel of coarse linen for each passenger, hanging from nails against the wall. 47 Dix in 1843 found plenty of clean towels and large wash basins at his lodgings in Cadiz but this was almost the only house in Spain where he did find them. 48 The following year Schroeder was very gratified to find at the very clean little inn at Loja a good supply of towels and stone ewers. 49 At a venta where Smedberg stopped there was no basin and he was obliged to go down to the stream and bathe. 60 Many of the wash basins were very small like that which was provided in Mackie's room at the principal fonda of Barcelona in i85i. B1 46 March, p. 230. — Townsend and Ford mention the common dormitory of the Spanish posada. Townsend, vol. ii, passim; Ford, p. 57. — Flores writes of the conditions at the old inn: " Terminada la cena se retiraron a dormir, los hombres a un cuarto, y las mujeres a otro, y obligados, por la necesidad, a hacer cama redonda los de cada departamento, pasaron la noche en dos piezas, contiguas a las camaras de grano, 6 tal vez en los graneros mismos." Vol. i, PP- 317, 318. — An inn which impressed Gautier in 1840 was an improvement on the one just mentioned in that it had several sleeping rooms, but even these had each four or five beds : " Cette f ois la posada etait beaucoup plus espagnole que celles que nous avions vues jusqu'alors: elle consistait en une immense ecurie entouree de chambres blanchies au l'ait de chaux, et contenant chacune quatre ou cinq lits." Gautier, p. 67. 47 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 116. 48 P. 220. 49 Schroeder, vol. ii, p. no. 80 Nat. Mag., vol. ii, p. 360; cf. Ford, p. 177. 81 Mackie describes it as a very narrow basin resting on a slender stand. " But," he adds, " in a country so much better provided with wine than it is Furnishings 29 At times there was difficulty in securing enough water. Bryant was greatly annoyed by this at one of the inns where he stopped in 1857. The incident is recounted as follows in a letter dated "Cartagena, Old Spain, November 28, 1857:" "The greatest difficulty we had was in obtaining a sufficient sup- ply of water for our morning ablutions. A single large washbowl, half filled with water, was placed on a stand in the corner of the great room, and this was expected to serve for all. We called for more water, and a jar was brought in, from which the washbowl was filled to the brim. We explained that each one of us wanted a separate quantity of pure water, but the stout waiting- woman had no idea of conforming to our outlandish notions, and declined doing any thing more for us. It was only after an appeal to the landlady, that a queer Murcian pitcher, looking like a sort of sky-rocket, with two handles, five spouts, and a foot so small that it could hardly stand by itself, was brought in, and for greater security made to lean against the wall in the corner of the room." 52 Even scarcer than wash basins and water at these inns were the facilities for bathing. Toward the middle of the century, however, according to the American travellers, there was marked progress in this respect, as well as in other ideas of comfort. Between 1833 and 1843, in particular, there was great improvement. 53 No fonda showed this more than did the Fonda de la Alameda at Malaga where Wallis stopped in 1847. This fonda had been opened only with water — and in a country where even the highest dames are said merely to rub their faces with a moist napkin instead of laving them — what more could be expected? I should have been thought as crazy as he of La Mancha to have found fault with such arrangements/' P. 141. 82 Bryant, pp. 162, 163. — This experience of Bryant recalls a similar one re- counted in Los aires del lugar of the Panorama Matritense: " Pedimos agua para lavarnos, nos trajeron una jofaina sucia y ordinaria que pusieron sobre una silla, y para hacer que mudaran el agua a cada uno, tuvimos que sostener tantas cuestiones como individuos eramos." Pp. 107, 108. — At Valladolid in 1866 Mrs. Byrne had to ask for an extra supply of washing appliances. At the fonda in Cordoba she found no provisions whatever for ablutions. " The rooms," she says, " were wholly unprovided with any furniture suggestive of ablution, and it was not easy even to make our need of such accessories under- stood." Vol. ii, p. 294. — It was only after a great deal of trouble that they were given washing stands, water, and towels. Mrs. Byrne found the houses not frequented by English travellers were usually deficient in these facilities. Vol. i, p. 106; vol. ii, p. 294. Cf. Ford, p. 142. 63 Cf. Dix, p. 220. 30 'American Travellers in Spain about a month when he reached that city. It owed its estab- lishment, he tells us, to a company of enterprising young men of the city who while abroad had imbibed new ideas as to the needs of a modern inn. An abundant supply of water carried in pipes to the upper floors was plentifully provided in every room. 54 Other American travellers were greatly impressed by the provisions for bathing at this hotel. Taylor, who stopped here in 1852, found a good bath. 55 March, who sojourned here the following year while in Malaga, considers it a good hotel and mentions particularly the foot baths which, he informs us, are not generally found at Spanish hotels. 56 It impressed Bryant in 1857 as one of the best hotels in Spain. 57 At Granada, baths — in the time of the Moors found in every street and indeed in every house — were not in 1853 general in the fondas, though these were in other respects good. These facilities had only recently been introduced at the principal inn, the Leon de Oro. "Baths, that necessary luxury of hotels," writes March, "have but recently been attached to the fondas of Spain, nor are now a general institution with them." 58 In 185 1 Mackie notes the absence of this necessity at the principal fonda in Barcelona. 59 And yet Irving, soon after his arrival there in 1829, writes in his journal : "took a warm bath — excellent baths — well tiled." 60 Among the im- provements which impressed Pettigrew on his second visit to Spain in 1859 were the " footbath and the other appliances of a first rate hotel " at Zaragoza. 61 54 Wallis, Glimpses of Spain, pp. 90, 93. 65 " At the Fonda de la Alameda, a new and very elegant hotel, I found a bath and a good dinner, both welcome things to a tired traveller." P. 434. 56 P. 34i. 67 Bryant, p. 193. " P. 360. 59 P. 141. 60 Journals, vol. iii, p. 00. — This bath, however, was probably not at the inn but in a casa de barios. 61 P. 73. — Ford found warm baths pretty generally established in the larger towns when he was in Spain. P. 142. — According to Mesenero Romanos great reforms were instituted in connection with the baths at the capital in 1835. However, judging from his difficulty in finding one he must have considered them far too few. In his interesting sketch, Las Casas de banos, he says that after much trouble in going from one to another his efforts are crowned with Furnishings 3 1 Some of the early American travellers in Spain were impressed by the primitive and inadequate cutlery. Noah in 1814 took dinner at a village where he was obliged to eat with wooden spoons and forks. " Silver," he says, " is an unknown luxury and other metals are equally scarce." 62 Ticknor is astonished in 1818 to see how much they are behind in this respect even in the large cities. " The chief persons in a village — I mean the respectable ecclesiastics the alcaldes — often have no glass-ware in their houses, no dinner- knives, and little of earthen manufactory [sic] while a metal fork is a matter of curiosity." 63 At the posada in the village of Ondrubia Mrs. Cushing found three knives for seven people and at the next inn conditions were even worse. 64 The author of Scenes in Spain had placed before him at one of these primitive inns a plate and a horn spoon. When he asked for a knife they brought him a jacknife, but this he was obliged to surrender a few minutes later to the stable boy to whom it belonged. 65 Channing on the contrary was impressed in 1852 by the plentiful supply of cutlery. He writes: "The table was always neat, and, amidst the mountains, silver or plated forks were as plenty as in the city." 66 success. On entering the room of one of the newest and best baths in the city he is struck with the improvement that has 'been made: " Entre en la pieza del bafio; encontre en ella sillas para sentarme y colocar mi ropa, una mesa para poner el dinero y el reloj ; espejo, cepillos, peines, sacabotas, una pila hermosa de alabastro. jYo estaba absorto! . . . creia no encontrarme en Madrid . . . Por fin, me meti en el agua y . . . calle." Panorama Matritense, p. 372. — Mrs. Byrne in 1866 presents quite a different picture of the baths at the capital. She finds them few and little used. Moreover, she is impressed by their bad condi- tion. One which is considered the best she finds very much dilapidated and another has no fireplace or gas. Two others she describes as in tolerably fair working order, but all, in her judgment, are on a small scale. Vol. i, pp. 218,219. 62 P. 182. Cf. ibid., p. 166 ; Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 125. 63 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, pp. 197, 198, cf. Ford, p. 56. e * Vol. ii, pp. 34 35, 37- Cf. A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 68 ; ibid., vol. ii, pp. 61, 62. 65 P. 130. Cf. ibid., pp. 119, 121; Ford, pp. 56, 181; Los Espaiioles pintados por si mismos, vol. ii, pp. 234-238. 66 Channing, p. 491. 32 American Travellers in Spain V. — Food and Beverages ellers The early American traveller in Spain and even later travel in isolated parts of that country were impressed both with the necessity of carrying with them not only the bed — of which we have already spoken — but also food and utensils for preparing it. 1 Adams tells us that he and his party in 1779 had to carry all of their food. 2 Jay in 1780 was obliged at Cadiz to make all provi- sions for meals to be taken on his journey to Madrid. 3 Monroe when he travelled from Bayonne to Madrid in 1804 had to carry his own provisions. 4 Ticknor in 1818 found the inns of Aragon especially lacking in provisions. 5 Later travellers had similar ex- periences. Irving writes in 1829: "The posadas and ventas have seldom anything to give you." 6 At a venta where Mrs. Allen stopped between Malaga and Granada in 1864 there was nothing to eat or drink not even water. She writes : " We asked for some water — there was none, but they would send a boy a quarter of a mile to get some." 7 The traveller found that provisions, even where they were pro- vided, were in many cases extremely meagre. At one house where Noah stopped he found nothing but wood and water. 8 At the prin- cipal inn at Lake Albufera near Valencia Mackie was told the only provisions in the larder were potatoes and onions. "This was so characteristic of the country," says Mackie, " that I could scarcely 1 Cf. C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 277; Washington Irving, Alhambra, New York, 189S, PP- 16, 29; Ford, pp. 82, 113, 122, 167, 168, 171; Larra, p. 165. 2 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 244 ; cf. Rev. dip corres., vol. Hi, p. 458.— The food was carried in saddle bags on each mule : " There are wallets or saddle- bags on each made with canvas, in which we carry bread and cheese, meat, knives and forks, spoons, apples, and nuts." Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 243. ^Correspondence, vol. i, pp. 333, 334. Cf. Swinburne, pp. 79, 116, 117, 231; Townsend, vol. i, pp. 1, 2. * Diary; cf. Noah, pp. 135, 168. 5 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 185. 6 Letters, vol. ii, p. 223 ; cf. Works, vol. vii, p. 535- « Allen, p. 486. 8 Noah, p. 187. Cf. ibid., p. 163; Ticknor, Travels, p. 24; A year in Spain, vol. ii, pp. 17, 18, 228; C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 188; Scenes in Spain, p. 29; Byrne, vol. ii, p. 16. Food and Beverages v* refrain from laughing in his face." 9 He adds that the nearest place where one could get bread was six miles away. Much fun is made by travellers in general of the inn keeper and his ill provisioned inn. Variations of the conversation which Sancho Panza had with the huesped at the hostelry in Zaragoza are repeated frequently in books of travel. 10 Mackie relates an amus- ing conversation with an innkeeper who began by saying " Hay de todo," but who had only the means of cooking and serving what the traveller had brought. On entering an inn Mackie has the follow- ing conversation with the innkeeper : 9 P. 314. — In the Spanish writings of the period we are studying, this lack of provisions at Spanish inns is frequently mentioned. Cf. Larra, p. 450; Flores, vol. i, p. 317; Panorama Matritense, p. 107; Los Espaiioles pintados por si mismos, vol. ii, pp. 231-238. 10 " Llegose la hora de cenar ; recogieronse a su estancia ; pregunto Sancho al huesped que que tenia para darles de cenar. A lo que el huesped respondio que su boca seria medida; y asi, que pidiese lo que quisiese: que de las pajaricas del aire, de las aves de la tierra y de los pescados del mar estaba proveida aquella venta. — No es menester tanto-respondio Sancho ; que con un par de polios que nos asen tendremos lo suficiente, porque mi senor es delicado y come poco, y yo no soy traganton en demasia. Respondiole el huesped que no tenia polios, porque los milanos los tenian asolados. — Pues mande el senor huesped — dijo Sancho — asar una polla que sea tierna. — I Polla? jMi padre! — respondio el huesped. — En verdad en verdad que envie ayer a la ciudad a vender mas de cincuenta; pero, fuera de pollas, pida vuesa merced lo que quisiese. — Desa manera-dijo Sancho — , no faltara ternera, 6 cabrito. — En casa, por ahora — respondio el huesped — , no lo hay, porque se ha acabado ; pero la semana que viene lo habra de sobra. — i Medrados estamos con eso ! — respondio Sancho — . Yo pondre que vienen a resumirse todas estas faltas en las sobras que debe de haber de tocino y huevos. — i Por Dios — respondio el huesped — que es gentil relente el que mi huesped tiene! Pues hele dicho que ni tengo pollas ni gallinas, y ^quiere que tenga huevos? Discurra, si quisiere, por otras delicadezas, y dejese de pedir gullurias. — Resolvamonos, cuerpo de mi — dijo Sancho — , y digame finalmente lo que tiene, y dejese de discurrimientos, senor huesped. Dijo el ventero: — Lo que real y verdaderamente tengo son dos unas de vaca que parecen manos de ternera, 6 dos manos de ternera que parecen unas de vaca ; estan cocidas, con sus garbanzos, cebollas y tocino, y la hora de ahora estan diciendo: 1 j Comeme ! j Comeme ! " Don Quijote, part ii, chap. lix. 34 American Travellers in Spain "'What now for supper, landlord?' " ■ Hay de todo. Everything is at the service of Vuestra Merced/ " ' Give me then a roast chicken, and a — ' " ' There is no roast chicken, Senor,' interrupted the inn-keeper, hanging his head by way of obeisance. " ' Give me a rabbit — with his feet on — ' " ' No rabbit, Senor.' And the inn-keeper let his chops fall as well as his head. " ' But you have a roast pig — a cut of cold beef — mutton cutlets — a partridge — pigeon pie?' " The mesonero shook his head at each question. I then came to a full stop, thinking it better to give the poor man time to tell what he had got." 11 Thus it happened that frequently those who had not had the foresight to provide provisions were obliged to make excursions into the neighborhood. Irving writes in 1829: "You must either bring your provisions with you or forage for them through the village. 12 "Mrs. Le Vert found it necessary to do this at Temblique even in 1855. 13 Revere in speaking of the accomplishments of an attendant he took with him on his journey north, says : " He was, too, versed in cooking and in foraging, — no mean accomplishment in Spain." 14 The American traveller's impressions of the meals in many of the inns were unfavorable. The rancid oil and garlic gave no little annoyance. Arthur Lee writes in 1777: "The Castilians are much of the complexion of the Indians, but more ill-favored, and their dirtiness and garlic render them more offensive than paint and 11 Pp. 347, 348. Cf. A year in Spain, vol. ii, pp. 17, 18; Ford, p. 174. Spanish writers of the period we are studying speak of the " Hay de todo " of the inn-keeper. Flores gives the following conversation between a traveller and an innkeeper: " ' l Pero aqui, que es lo que hay ? — Aqui hay de todo, respondio con orgullo el posad^ro/ " The traveller asks for ham, eggs, and chicken in succession but is told each time there is none. Finally the inn-keeper informs him " Hay aceite y sal y ajos, y si a sus mercedes les gusta el peregil y la cebolla, tambien se buscara/ " Flores, vol. i, p. 3*5- 12 Irving, Letters, vol. ii, p. 223. Cf. Irving, Journals, vol. iii, pp. 72, 74; Noah, p. 168; C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 277; Scenes in Spain, pp. 219, 220; Bryant, p. 117; Bourgoing, vol. i, p. 3; Ford, p. 174- 13 Vol. ii, p. 14. " P. 70. Food and Beverages 35 bear's grease do the savage." 15 Hardly had Mrs. Cushing crossed the frontier in 1829 when she had her first experience with these "cosas espanolas." She was at Irun: "I learned," she says, "be- fore finishing the repast that I should be obliged to acquire a taste for them [oil and garlic] as no one dish came on the table, which was not cooked in oil, or seasoned with garlic." 16 By the time she had reached Fresnillo she was beginning to acquire a taste for them. She gives an interesting description of the preparation of the food in the various earthen pots and jars around the fire. These dishes, although containing plenty of oil and garlic, she finds " far from unpalatable." The oil soup, however, is for her "disagree- able beyond measure." 17 Both oil and garlic, she tells us, are found in almost every Spanish dish. 18 Nevertheless, in spite of her great distaste at first for these two ingredients, she becomes later very fond of Spanish cooking. 19 Another American found the oil very offensive. It was the principal ingredient of a dinner which was served him at Zaragoza. 20 The strong oil which he found was the chief substitute for butter, held an important place, he observed, in their greasy olios and pucheros. 21 Wallis writes that on his first visit to Spain in 1847 ne was of tne impression that the tales of the use of garlic were greatly exaggerated and that he went so far as to say that it was never served him in " fonda, venta, or vento- rillo." 22 On his next visit, however, he was not so fortunate, for it was served him even in the capital. 23 The oil and garlic nearly forced Warren into starvation during his first days in Spain. Nevertheless, he evidently became accustomed to them for at Tolosa he ate heartily of a meal highly flavored with both. 24 The majority of American travellers complain more or less at first of the oil and garlic. They rarely speak, however, in such strong terms as Mac- 15 Journal. 16 Vol. ii, p. 5 ; cf. ibid., p. 20. 17 Vol. ii, p. 37; cf. Mackie, pp. 155, 156. 18 Vol. ii, p. 53; cf. Ford, pp. 57, 178, 179- 19 Ibid., passim. 20 Scenes in Spain, p. 270. 21 Ibid., p. 93. 22 Wallis, Glimpses of Spain, p. 94. 28 Spain, pp. 9, 10. 24 Pp. 21, 113. 36 'American Travellers in Spain coun who finds the Spanish cuisine "execrable" because of these ingredients. "Every article placed before you," he says, "is stewed, and strongly impregnated with rancid oil, garlic, saffron, and red-pepper; and the newly-arrived stranger, whose stomach is unaccustomed to such high-flavored condiments, is obliged to fall back upon boiled eggs, bread and cheese." 25 March, like most American travellers in Spain, learned, on the contrary, to like Spanish cooking. He writes of the national dish : " I grew so enamored of it that, before long, the pungent garlic with which it was seasoned, and the rancid oil with which it was accompanied, became a second nature to me." 26 The following narration by Noah of his own experience at the posada of Torreblanca in 1814 is rather an exception: "We arrived, fatigued and hungry in the evening at Torreblanca; the Posada was none of the best, but our good hostess, willing to prepare something for supper, seized a tough dung-hill cock, de- capitated him without ceremony, dissected the bird, and placed the parts in an earthen dish, and with onions and tomatoes ; we viewed the ceremony, of cooking the same, over a naffy of charcoal, and the addition of oil, of no great freshness, which was poured in the dish from the lamp feeder, sufficiently cured our appetite, without partaking of the dish." 27 On the whole the Americans seem to have adapted themselves more easily to Spanish dishes than did either the English or the French. 28 The latter were especially critical of the food. Accord- ing to Pettigrew a breakfast served at Aranda one morning during his travels in Spain in 1859 was the cause of complaint among the French passengers of the diligence. He, however, found it very palatable although it was well flavored with garlic. 29 26 Knick. Mag., vol. xli, pp. 08, 99. 28 March, p. 136. 27 P. 176; cf. ibid., p. 182. This recalls Ford's statement that "the oil is used indifferently for lamps or stews." 28 Both the English and French travellers make much fun of the oil and vinegar. Ford compares the wine, which he says sometimes serves for vinegar, to purple blacking. He says the table is plentiful and the cooking to those who like oil and garlic excellent. Ford, p. 57. Garlic, he found particularly offen- sive to the English. "The very name, like that of monk is enough to give offence to most English." Ibid., p. 178. 29 Pettigrew, p. 353. — In the opinion of Dumas Spanish oil and vinegar spoil Food and Beverages 37 Because the national dish, the olla or the so-called puchero in the north of Spain, contained large quantities of the two ingre- dients just mentioned, it was not agreeable at first to the taste of many American travellers. For Maccoun it had no attractions. 30 The majority of American travellers, however, became quite as attached to it as did the Spaniard and not infrequently do we find them choosing it, as did that good governor Sancho Panza, in pref- erence to some other dish. 31 Wallis thinks it not unworthy the great Sancho's praise. 32 Schroeder found the olla delicious. 33 Warren in 1849 not only acquired a taste for it but considered it a "sublime compound, a dish worthy of being devoured by monarchs." 34 Mackie, after acquiring a taste for the olla podrida, decided it was one of the two really good things in the country. 35 March, whose taste for the national dish increased daily, says : " If any day I was obliged to forego it, in travelling or otherwise, I thought with the Roman Emperor, 'I had missed a day.' " 36 He even goes so far as to say that it detained him three months in Spain. for a Frenchman any dish of which they are a part. He particularly regretted on his visit to Spain in 1846 that these two ingredients made it necessary for him to renounce the pleasure of his daily salad. "Mais la verdure en E&pagne n'avait d'autres resultats que de nous imposer de profonds regrets, puisque l'huile et le vinaigre espagnols sont si loin de nos moeurs culinaires que je defie a un Frangais si grand amateur qu'il soit de laitue, de raiponce ou d'esca- role, d'avaler une seule bouchee de l'une ou de l'autre de ces herbes, si appe- tissantes cependant des lors qu'on les a mises en contact avec l'un ou l'autre des deux liquides que nous venons d'enoncer." Vol. i, p. 172; cf. vol. i, p. 235. — Ford, to the contrary, finds the salad delicious. Pp. 133, 134; cf. Captain S. S. Widdrington, Spain and the Spaniards in 1843, London, 1844, vol. i, p. 236. 80 He writes : " The famous puchero and olla may be very savory dishes for the Spaniard but for one accustomed to a civilized cuisine, a mixture of beef, bacon, sausages, beans, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, pepper, etc., etc., has no attractions." Knick. Mag., vol. xli, p. 99. 31 Sancho gives the following order to his doctor : " Lo que el maestresala puede hacer es traerme estos que llaman ollas podridas, pue mientras mas podridas son, mejor huelen, y en ellas puede embaular y encerrar todo lo que el quisiere como sea de comer, que yo se lo agradecere, y se lo pagare algun dia." Don Quijote, part ii, chap. xlix. 32 Glimpses of Spain, p. 6. 33 Vol. ii, p. 101 ; cf. Vassar, p. 340. 3 *P. 114. 35 P. 156. 86 P. 136. Cf. ibid., p. 149; Taylor, pp. 429, 430. 38 American Travellers in Spain This national dish is frequently described by American travel- lers. Noah writes: "The olio [olla] is a never failing Spanish dish; this consists of beef and pork, steamed down with cabbage, garravansas [garbanzos] or large peas, together with other vege- tables." 37 Others tell us it contains various other kinds of meat. In fact according to the descriptions given there seems to have been as much diversity in the contents as in the days of Sancho Panza. 38 According to Mackenzie the more elaborate kind of olla is called olla podrida. Garbanzos are mentioned as common to all with the exception of a puchero containing " avichwelas " [habich- uelas] which Wallis tells us was served him at Jerez. 39 As in the days of Don Quijote it was "una olla de algo mas vaca que carnero." Beef, pork, and bacon seem to have been the common meats of those described, but chicken, kid and other meats are sometimes mentioned. Noah who travelled in Andalucia says mut- ton is more plentiful than beef and is the favorite dish. 40 Up to the sixties the olla is mentioned by nearly every Ameri- can traveller in Spain; many of whom give long descriptions of its composition and preparation and testify to its popularity. 41 In "P. go; cf. Taylor, p. 405. 38 Speaking of ollas Sancho says : " Por la diversidad de cosas que en las ollas podridas hay, no podre dejar de topar con alguna que me sea de gusto y de provecho." Don Quijote, part ii, chap, xlvii. — Spanish writers frequently men- tion pigs' feet when they describe the composition of the olla. In Breton de los Herreros we read: " El Artesano aqui, sin esa embrolla Que exalta y fanatiza al de Lutecia, Su pitanza asegura, y no en su cholla Hierve tanta Utopia horrible 6 necia. Al oler los garbanzos de su olla. Con vaca y pie de puerco y fina especia, De buen grado algun procer exclamara; ' Aqui estoy yo, maestro ; una cuchara ! ' " Manuel Breton de los Herreros, La Desverguenza, Madrid, 1856, p. 200. 89 Glimpses of Spain, p. 141. *° P. 90. — As in the days of the Knight of La Mancha, beef seems to have been cheaper than mutton when Townsend was in Spain some thirty years previous. Townsend was accustomed to enquire the prices of provisions before leaving a city. His figures like those of Laborde a few years later and of Inglis in 1830 show a lower price of beef as compared with that of mutton. 41 English and French travellers also testify to its universal use. Ford de- scribes it at length and informs us that it is well made only in " well appointed Andalusian houses." Pp. 123, 124, 125; cf. Borrow, vol. i, p. I33-— Gautier Food and Beverages 39 spite of its popularity with the natives and the American travellers, the demands for roast beef by the English and the demands for nothing less than the cuisine frangaise by the French caused it gradually to disappear from the table of the inns along the beaten track of travel. With the mantilla and the Spanish dances it grad- ually lost its honored place so that by the sixties we find it seldom mentioned by travellers. With the general impulse felt in the country from the thirties on, foreign dishes began to take the place of native dishes at inns most frequented by foreigners. Accord- ing to Mackie the fondas were already getting ashamed of the national dish in 185 1. He says: "Half a century hence the travel- ler will be obliged to descend to the ventorrillo to get a taste of it." 42 Eight years later Pettigrew was impressed with the posada at Lucena, which, as it was not often frequented by strangers, was of native simplicity and served a real olla. u The posada being seldom visited by foreigners, was in the prim- itive style, none the worse, however, for that, as we at least, were not imposed upon in the cuisine; no boiled beef broiled up into steaks but a real olla and huevos con jamon." 4 * At a small village in Catalufia where Mills was detained over night in 1865 because of a flooded stream, chops were served the guests but the family had olla podrida. 4 * Mrs. Cushing was favorably impressed with the guisado al- though some of the other travellers recalling Gil Bias looked on it somewhat suspiciously. 45 Gazpacho, a very primitive dish com- posed of water, vinegar, salt and oil into which bread was broken was sometimes served the traveller in Andalucia. 46 The salad, so disliked by the French, seems to have met the approval of the found it in 1840 the " mets eminemment espagnol, ou plutot l'unique mets espagnol car on en mange tous les jours d'lrun a Cadiz, et reciproquement." Pp. 23, 24. — It is also frequently mentioned by Spanish writers. Cf. Larra, p. 39 ; La Desverguenza, p. 296. 42 Mackie, p. 155. 43 P. 287. 44 P. 133. 45 Vol. ii, p. 277. Cf. Caleb Cushing, vol. i, p. 107 ; A year in Spain, vol. ii, p. 18; Spain revisited, vol. ii, p. 64; Mackie, p. 154; Ford, pp. 123, 131, 175. 46 Cf. Noah, p. 166; A year in Spain, vol. ii, pp. 176, 227; Scenes in Spain, p. 121; Ford, p. 134; Gautier, p. 268. ,-■■. 40 American Travellers in Spain American traveller as well as that of the English. 47 The polio con aroz which one American finds excellent is seldom even mentioned. 48 Bacalao was still served as it was at the first inn where Don Quijote stopped when he started out in search of adventures. 49 Humphreys writes in 1791 : " At the public houses on the roads at a considerable distance from the sea, codfish from America is plentier and cheaper than other goods that are to be found. This seems the more strange as the droves of cattle, herds of swine and flocks of sheep are apparently numerous and excellent." 50 If the American traveller did not look with a favorable eye on this dish, which was placed before him not infrequently at poor ventas, he found, on the other hand, that the trout were excellent. 51 In fact he was quite as pleased with a dish of trout as was Gil Bias' flattering guest at the supper in the meson at Pefiaflor. The famous ham of the Alpuj arras receives words of praise from American travellers in general. Woodruff describing an ex- cellent dinner he had at Almeria December 9, 1828, says: "Among the variety of viands, wines, and fruit, at this excellent dinner, was a Granada mountain ham, so much esteemed by the gourmands of France and England. It is cured in snow and sugar without smoke, and with little or no salt. It is known abroad by the name of sweet ham." 52 The bellotas on which the swine feed and which is supposed to * 7 Noah, Mackenzie, Wallis, Mills, Widdrington, Ford and others speak of it in favorable terms. * 8 C/. Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 418; Mackie, p. 343; Ford, p. 131. 49 Francis Landon Humphreys, Life and times of David Humphreys, New York and London, 1917, vol. ii, p. 86; Baker, pp. 25, 184; Traces. of the Roman and Moor, p. 321; March, p. 212; Nat. Mag., vol. xi, p. 360. bo Vol. ii, p. 86. 81 Cf. Revere, pp. 61, 63; March, pp. 232, 268, 305, 330; Bryant, pp. 71, 87, 158; Pettigrew, p. 368; Ford, pp. 21, 28. — The well known English traveller, Widdrington, already referred to, recommends the delicious trout of Castilla la Vieja and Leon. Spain and the Spaniards in 1843, vol. ii, p. 74.— Even Gautier found the trout a really excellent dish in Spain. Gautier, p. 141. 62 Pp. 255, 256. Cf. Revere, p. 55; March, p. 422; Mackie, p. 153; Petti- grew, pp. 281, 287.— Even Mrs. Byrne says that it is not difficult to approve jamon con dulces although he finds it somewhat incongruous to an English palate. Vol. ii, pp. 162, 163; cf. Ford, pp. 129, 130. Food and Beverages 41 give to the meat its excellent flavor are mentioned by a few Ameri- cans. 53 One recalls the gift of these which Sancho Panza sent to his wife Teresa, another remembers that Sancho was a great lover of the bellota, but, strange to say, only one mentions the fact that it was a handful of these nuts that called forth that famous speech which Don Quijote made to the goatherds after enjoying their hospitality. 54 The turron of Alicante, that of Jijona, the preserves, the fruits and nuts, all receive their share of praise from the American traveller. 55 Until well toward the middle of the century, the American in Spain was impressed with the absence of both tea and coffee. Adams, to be sure, mentions drinking tea in a private family, but this seems to have been a mark of attention to him, and even on this occasion the ladies drank chocolate. 56 Neither of these beverages was known generally in the Peninsula when Jay took some tea among other provisions for the journey from Cadiz to Madrid in 1780. Mrs. Cushing in one of her letters from Spain in 1830 says that if tea and coffee are not absolutely unknown in the whole of Spain they are at least so scarce that few are able to buy them. 57 An American who about this time went ashore at Barcelona from the frigate Constellation was impressed with the Spanish custom in the cafes of mixing spirits with the coffee. He describes as follows a scene in a cafe on the Rambla : 83 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 25; March, p. 208; Bryant, p. 115; Pettigrew, pp. 34, 281, 304. Cf. Swinburne, p. 85; Ford, p. 127. 54 Cf. Don Quijote, part i, chap. xi. 55 Adams, Works, vol. iii, p. 233; Noah, pp. 90, 176; Woodruff, pp. 236, 255; Caleb Cushing, vol. ii, pp. 274, 275, 278; Joseph Hart, The Romance of Yachting, New York, 1848, p. 277; Mackie, pp. 153, 154; [Mrs. James L. Claghorn], Letters written to my son, Philadelphia, 1873, p. 199; and many others speak favorably of these. The melon is frequently mentioned as of a very fine variety. It pleased Jay so much that he sent seeds of it to America. 56 Works, vol. iii, p. 240. 67 Vol. ii, p. 52.— Ford, a little later, was impressed with the same fact. Tea and coffee, he says, have supplanted chocolate in England and France but not in Spain. Ford, p. 143. — Gautier nearly ten years later was likewise im- pressed with its rare use. " Au reste il est d'un usage assez rare." P. 99. 42 'American Travellers in Spain "We were ushered into a large room furnished with a great number of small marble tables, around which were seated some dozen of groups who were engaged in loud conversation, and were allaying by means of a cup of strong coffee, the fumes of the wine with which they had washed down their dinner. " Our tragedian sung out for cuatro tazas de cafe, which were forthwith brought in, and a small decanter of liquor was placed upon the table at the same time. Many of the Spaniards mix spirits with their coffee." 58 It was not, however, until some years after the death of Ferdi- nand VII when the doors of Spain were thrown open to the world and foreign influence both social and political entered, that the cus- tom of drinking tea and coffee was really introduced into the country. With increased liberty came an increase in travel and with this increase in travel a catering to the wishes of the traveller, which meant tea for the English, coffee for the French, and both for the American. 59 The use of tea as well as coffee increased although slowly from the later forties on. At Jerez in 1847 Wallis was given tea by his landlady. 60 March tells us that in 1853 it was a frequent sight to see the Gaditanos taking their coffee or chocolate on the flat roof of the house. 61 According to Bryant, however, neither coffee nor tea was in common use when he was in Spain four years later. He writes from Malaga, December, 1857 : " Those who take coffee drink it at the cafes, as an occasional refreshment, just as they take an ice cream ; and the use of tea, though on the increase, is by no means common." 62 Although the custom of drinking tea and coffee had been gradu- ally introduced into different parts of the country both were usually badly made. Wallis says that at Cordoba in 1847 the people were 68 P. 216.— Gautier about ten years later was impressed with the fact that coffee was not taken in cups but in glasses. " Le cafe ne se prend pas dans des tasses mais bien dans des verres." P. 99. 89 A Spanish writer of that time writes that the history of tea in Spain is the history of the social and political regeneration of the country. " La historia del te en Espana es la historia de nuestra regeneration social y politica. . . . Su importation de la China y su uso y su abuso, son la historia del uso y el abuso de nuestras libertades." Flores, vol. iii, p. 262. 60 Glimpses of Spain, p. 150. 61 P. 140. 82 P. 177. Cf. ibid., p. 127; Mills, p. 153. Food and Beverages 43 amused when he ordered tea. He adds " they seemed to think it a much better joke than I did when I tried it." 63 Warren observes in 1849 that coffee is seldom taken by Spaniards and finds that even in Madrid one cannot get it well made. So difficult was it to get either tea or coffee well prepared that foreigners were obliged to substitute chocolate. 64 Mrs. Claghorn found both tea and coffee bad at Cadiz in i866. 65 > 66 If good coffee and tea were lacking there was always excellent chocolate. The American traveller not only learned to take this instead of his favorite beverage, but also became very fond of it. Hardly one of them fails to expatiate on its perfections. Adams writes in his diary at El Ferrol, December 10, 1779: "Breakfasted on Spanish chocolate, which answers the fame it has acquired in the world." 67 On December 22, he describes the serving of choco- late to some ladies at a private house to which he was invited : "A servant brought in a salver, with a number of tumblers of clean, clear glass, full of cold water, and a plate of cakes which were light pieces of sugar. Each lady took a tumbler of water and a piece of sugar, dipped her sugar in her tumbler of water, eat the one, and drank the other. The servant then brought in another 63 Glimpses of Spain, p. 254. e* Pp. 84, 85. 65 P. 195. 66 Mrs. Byrne in Spain about the same time criticizes the coffee as she does things Spanish in general. " A little Spartan sauce," she says, " is by no means a despicable addition to a Spanish meal, and the coffee was scarcely such as to have been relished without it." Vol. i, pp. 67, 68; cf. ibid., pp. 107, 183.— Accord-j ing to her the use of coffee had greatly increased by 1866. She writes: " Cafi noir and cafe au lait are very extensively consumed, and it is therefore all the more inexplicable why coffee should be so indifferent in quality." Pages 67, 68; cf. ibid., pp. 107, 183, 184. — The custom of drinking tea was adopted even more slowly than that of coffee. This was due in a great measure no doubt to the cost which in 1866 was from $1.80 per pound upwards. Mrs. Byrne says: " It is to be had at the cafes, but it is only asked for by such as wish to pass for having attained advanced ideas." Ibid., pp. 67, 68; cf. ibid., pp. 107, 183. And so it seemed to Flores who writes in 1863: "El gran tono es el te, ya le hemos dicho." Vol. iii, p. 272.—" Yo, te aseguro lector," says Flores in another place, " aunque me tengas por demasiado sentimental y romantico, que no puedo sorber, una taza de te sin pensar en las conquistas de la civilization, ni aspirar el aroma de sus hojas, sin sentir los aromas del arbol de la libertad." P. 262. 67 Works, vol. iii, p. 232. 44 American Travellers in Spain salver, of cups of hot chocolate. Each lady took a cup and drank it, and then cakes and bread and butter were served ; then each lady took another cup of cold water, and here ended the repast." 08 Jarvis on one of his voyages to Spain in the latter part of the eighteenth century was favorably impressed by the chocolate that was served him at a private house in San Sebastian. 69 Noah in 1814 considers it the only thing that is made better in Spain than in any other country. 70 Warren in 1847 is of the same opinion. 71 Schroeder tells us of the delicious chocolate served him in the posada at Loja in 1844. 72 Mackie finds the chocolate one of the two good things in the country. For him it is " una de las delicias espanolas." ■ " Hot, and foamy, and purple," he describes it in his usual genial style when speaking of Spain, " it solaces the whole inner man. It satisfies at the same time the longings of the stomach and of the soul. ,,T3 The preparation of the chocolate impressed some of the earlier travellers who stopped at small inns where the kitchen was the general gathering place of all. The chocolate is described as a composition of cocoa, sugar and cinnamon made into cakes. Mackenzie says : " To prepare the usual portion for one person, an ounce is thrown into three times its weight of water and, when dissolved by heat it is stirred by means of a piece of wood turned rapidly between the palms of the hands until the whole has a frothy consistency." 74 In the northern part of the country during e6 Ibid., vol. iii, p. 240. 69 Mrs. M. Pepperrell Sparhawk Cutts, Life and times of Hon. W. Jarvis, New York, 1869, p. 102. ™ P. 90. 7i P. 84; cf. ibid., p. 126. 72 Vol. ii, p. 1 13 ; cf. ibid., p. 1 1 1 ; Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 123. 78 P. 157. — Although the French travellers had less to say about the choco- late than did those from the United States, they spoke of it in terms of ap- proval. Even Dumas who makes much fun of Spanish cooking calls the asucarillos and chocolate excellent. " Tout cela," he says referring to them, "etait d'une qualite superieure." Dumas, vol. i, pp. 42, 43- — The English travel- ler accustomed to carry his tea with him wherever he went probably depended less on the chocolate than did those of other nationalities and for this reason has less to say about it. Mrs. Byrne, however, who praises very little that is Spanish finds it excellent but she adds that it is much too substantial for a beverage." Vol. i, p. 184; cf. Ford, p. 57- 74 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 63. Cf. Spain revisited, vol. ii, p. 64 ; C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, p. 5. Food and Beverages 45 the latter years of the period we are studying it was made very thin in the French manner, but in other parts of the country the deli- cious thick kind, the delight of the American traveller, was still served. 75 As to the manner of serving the chocolate, there seems to be a difference of opinion. Noah, in 18 14, found it served in tumblers, but the majority of the travellers seem to have been impressed by the small size of the cups in which it was served. 78 Nearly all mention the custom of serving large tumblers of water with it. 77 The curious way of taking the chocolate by dipping slender sponge cakes or long slices of bread into the thick liquid attracted the attention of several travellers. 78 During the whole of the period we are studying chocolate was the universal morning beverage, and was taken frequently in the evening as well. It was drunk in the home, at the hotel, in the poorest venta and even on the road. 78a Mrs. Cushing relates that once when she was the only woman present, for the venta was kept by men, she was served chocolate in the morning. Noah speaks of taking chocolate in the " Nevareas or chocolate houses." 79 Warren took chocolate in " confiterias." 89 In fact chocolate was taken everywhere. 81 Vassar in 1853 noted that it could always be procured throughout Spain. 82 According to Bryant it was still the universal beverage when he visited the country in 1857. 83 But with the inrush of foreigners, the use of coffee and tea, as already stated, 75 Pettigrew, p. 364. Cf. ibid., p. 354 ; Knick. Mag., vol. xix, p. 123 ; Bryant, p. 177 ; Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 187. 76 Dumas says they take their chocolate in thimbles. Dumas, vol. i, p. 70; cf. Ford, p. 143. 77 Cf. Ford, p. 143. 78 Cf. Noah, p. 90; Scenes in Spain, p. 223; Warren, p. 84; Bryant, pp. 127, 177. 78a C/. Revere, p. 56; Wallis, Glimpses of Spain, p. 254, 276; Ford, pp. 57, 143. — Ford says chocolate is to the Spaniard what tea is to a Briton and what coffee is to a Gaul. Ford, p. 142. 79 P. 90. — Noah no doubt means neverias. He frequently misspells Spanish words or uses them incorrectly. 80 P. 84. 81 Even Ford writes : " It is to be had almost everywhere and is always excellent." P. 142. 82 P. 328. 83 P. 177. 46 American Travellers in Spain was increasing. With other " cosas de Espana," chocolate was giving way to the influence from without. Its power was decreased in proportion to the extent of the social and political changes in the country. In the sixties, it no longer reigns alone. 83a Although the American traveller had often to do without his accustomed cup of tea or coffee, he generally found an abundance of pure, cool water to drink. The Spaniard's fondness for water (evidenced by the prominent place given to the alcarraza in the street, at every diligence- or railroad-station, in the home and in every inn, as well as by the numerous fountains), the sound of run- ning water so common in Andalucia, and the familiar cry of the water carrier "Agua fresca, fria como la nieve" — all this greatly impressed the American traveller. 835 Nor was the American traveller less struck by the sight of the bota, that common appendage of every conveyance in Spain. 830 Less critical of the wine than the English or French he was ever ready to take his turn at the bota during the long journey or at the country inn. Unlike some English travellers he does not seem to have noticed any disagreeable flavor from the pitch lining of the skin. Mackie, however, contrary to the opinion of most American travel- lers in Spain, finds the ordinary wine of the country too sweet when new and too rough when old. 83d The common wine seems to have been the Valdepenas. It is frequently mentioned by American travellers in Spain as an excellent wine of a rich color and the com- 88a Flores writes in 1863. "Hoy, Dios gracias, aunque no reina y gobierna, porque el sistema constitucional no consiente estos poderes ambidiestros, reina a medios con los otros dos poderes, el te y el cafe. Su nombre ha pasado a la posteridad con los de esos otros dos colegas, y algo es algo." Flores, vol. iii, p. 273. 83b C/. Noah, p. 90; Channing, p. 489; Woodruff, p. 255; Irving, Journals, vol. iii, p. 78; Byrne, vol. i, p. 85; Ford, p. 138. Ford says that every posada has rows of water jars at the entrance, and that the first thing every one does on entering is to drink. Ford, p. 140. 83c Ford speaks at length of the bota. He agrees with the American as to its universal use. "A Spanish woman," says Ford, "would as soon think of going to church without her fan or a Spanish man to a fair without a knife, as a traveller without his bota." Ford, p. 07. 83d P. 162. Cf. Revere, p. 61 ; Taylor, p. 428. — Mrs. Byrne is much more severe in her criticism : " As for the vin comun," she says, " it is as inferior to the vin ordinaire of France as ditch-water is to Stogumber ale." Byrne, vol. i, p. xxix. Food and Beverages 47 mon beverage of the country. Mrs. Le Vert considered that placed before them in Valdepefias worthy to be set before an emperor. 886 That sanitary fashion of taking the wine by holding the bota at arms' length and allowing a stream to flow into the mouth, struck nearly every American traveller and some even learned to take long draughts in this manner. 84 The sherry wine seems to have been in quite as good favor with the American travellers as with Falstaff. 85 Van Ness used it in Spain and had it sent to his brother in the United States. 86 A beverage which Warren calls the "national agraz," made from unfermented grape juice, receives his highest praise. " The gods themselves," he says, " never drank anything on a hot day, more invigorating and delicious." 87 Besides these beverages American travellers found most excel- lent the refreshing naranjada of Andalucia. A variety of helados, 83e Speaking of the inn at which they stopped, she says: "In place of water, upon the table there were large earthen vessels filled with this rich fruity wine, worthy of a place at the banquet of an emperor." Le Vert, vol. ii, p. 13. — Ford calls it the " generous Valdepenas or the rich vino de Toro." An occasional smell of a bota of this is refreshing to the nostrils, according to Ford. " There the racy wine perfume lingers, and brings water into the mouth, it may be into the eyelids." Ford, p. 07; cf. ibid., p. 147. — Swinburne wrote nearly a half a century before : " The Val de Perns produces a very pleasant red wine, the most drinkable, for common use, of any in Spain." Swinburne, p 319. — Mrs. Byrne, to the contrary disliked this wine. She says " the Val de Penas, which is thought so much of in England, and really is a different article, is, here rather inferior to liquorice tea! besides being flavoured with pitch and undressed goatskins." Byrne, vol. i, p. xxix; cf. ibid., vol. ii, pp. 161, 162; Ford, p. 57. — Ford, about thirty years before, was of quite a different opinion. " Very little pure Valdepefias," says Ford, " ever reaches England ; the numer- ous vendors' bold assertions to the contrary notwithstanding." Ford, p. 149. 84 Noah, p. 134; C. E. Cushing, vol. ii, pp. 175, 176; Mackie, p. 163; Mills, p. 135. Cf. Swinburne, pp. 7, 8; Ford, p. 98; Townsend, vol. i, p. 92. 85 Mrs. Byrne, as in the case of the Valdepenas, does not find it to be as good as in England. Byrne, vol. i, pp. xxiv, xxx. 86 The Van Buren papers, vol. x, March 17, 1830. — Van Ness writes to Van Buren from Madrid, March 17, 1830: "I will thank you to tell my brother that I will write him particularly in a few days, and that I have sent orders to Xeres to have two quarter casks of the best sherry wine shipped for him, one of the pale and one of the brown colour." He offers to send the same to Van Buren. He says the price of the first class is about $90 the quarter (30 gallons) and of the second class which he uses $75. Ibid. 87 P. 85. 48 'American Travellers in Spain the horchata de chufas and the boisson d'amandes blanches did not fail to satisfy the palate of even the French. 88 American travellers found it quite as difficult to procure cows' milk as they did tea and coffee. The universal custom of using goats' milk and the lack of suitable pasturage for cows in many localities, we are told, made it a rare and expensive luxury enjoyed by few. We are informed in Scenes in Spain that cows' milk is little used in 183 1. However, with the improved facilities of trans- portation and the increase in the number of foreigners traveling in the country bringing new ideas and new demands, its use was intro- duced more generally. By 1849, along with other innovations, had come the casas de vacas. Many signs of these accompanied by the illustration of a cow being milked soon struck the eye of the traveller as he passed along the principal streets of Madrid. The milking, Wallis tells us, took place while the customer waited, if he so requested. 89 In spite of these casas de vacas Pettigrew finds milk rare in 1859. 90 Instead of cows' milk that of sheep, asses, and goats seems to have been in general use throughout the country. 91 Many an American traveller found this milk very unpleasant to the taste. Pettigrew, on the contrary, found it quite agreeable. 92 Noah was struck by the sight of a flock of goats going from patio to patio in the early morning to be milked while the customer waited. He found the milk rich and healthy. " Milk is obtained from goats ; large flocks are seen, with their drivers, at day break; the tinkling of their bells disturbs the morn- 88 Ford, however, considered these too sweet. P. 144. 89 Wallis, Spain, p. 334. — Suspicious as usual of Spanish things, Mrs. Bryne thinks it hardly safe to purchase milk here unless one can witness the milking. Byrne, vol. i, p. 204. 90 Pettigrew, p. 296. Cf. Bryant, p. 89 ; Claghorn, p. 199. — According to Mrs. Byrne it was a favorite beverage in 1861 at the capital where the casas de vacas were numerous. Byrne, vol. i, p. 204. — At the cafes, she was struck by the sight of men sipping milk while smoking cigars. Ibid., vol. i, p. 183. 91 Cf. Ford, p. 74. 92 P. 286. — None, however, praise it as does the English traveller, Wid- drington, who drank it almost exclusively during his travels in Estremadura. He says: "We drank little wine, and abundance of goats' milk, that is not only the best in the world, but superior to any other milk I ever tasted." Spain and the Spaniards in 1843, vol. i, p. 236. Food and Beverages 49 ing nap; the driver brings them into the patio of the house, and the milk is received into the vessel, fresh from the goat, which is rich, and healthy, and also a great article of trade." 93 Wallis was impressed by a similar daily scene at the capital in 1849. The goats after spending the whole day in the surrounding hills were brought into the city by the goatherd. The author says : "As they go to the houses of their customers, the maids run out with their milk-vessels in search of the evening supply. The goat- herd seizes the nearest of the flock, and proceeds to business in the middle of the street, while the rest of his company, immediately conscious of a pause in the march, bivouac on the stones till the milking is over. A signal, which they only understand, then sets their bells in a moment to tinkling, and the procession advances, at its leisure, until the calling of another halt." 94 This was still the mode of delivering milk in 1859. 95 Another article of consumption, missed quite as much by the American traveller as cows' milk, was the butter made from its cream. According to Noah this was very scarce at Cadiz in 1814. Foreign residents were at that time using imported firkin butter. 95 * Mrs. Cushing writes about fifteen years later that it is so scarce in the whole country that few can afford to purchase it. 96 There was, however, even before this date a highly colored butter, called man- teca de Flandes. It was advertised in one of the daily papers at Madrid when Mackenzie was in Spain in 1826. 97 Wallis found it very rancid in 1847. 98 On his second visit, he was very happily impressed with an innovation in the way of the making and selling of butter at only a moderately high rate at the royal dairy at Mon- cloa, near Madrid. This same year, 1849, salted butter at a lower price was obtainable from the Asturias. Wallis writes of this improvement : "If he [the traveller] should chance to have been in Spain before, 83 P. 90. 9 * Spain, pp. 335, 336. 95 Pettigrew, p. 286. 95a P. 90. 96 Vol. ii, p. 52. 97 A year in Spain, vol. i, p. 140. 98 Glimpses of Spain, pp. 150, 151 ; cf. Ford, p. 153. or to have recently sojourned in any of the districts where things continue to be as they were in the beginning, he will rejoice in his deliverance from goat's milk and the butter prepared from it, or that insufferable compound, manteca de Flandres (Flemmish butter). 99 According to Mackie it was very difficult to get good butter when he was in Spain in 1851 and 1852. 100 March, however, found very good butter at Gaucin in 1853. 101 Channing, on the contrary, found no butter on his journey from Irun to Madrid in 1852. Neither does he agree with Wallis as to the quality of that furnished in the capital. He says : "They have in Madrid what they call butter, but it did not remind me of the article." 102 Mills was unable to get butter at Toledo in 1865. 103 One article of food which travellers in general speak well of in Spain is the bread. Noah considered it inferior to none in the world. Vassar found the bread excellent throughout Spain in 1853. 104 The bread of Sevilla is especially praised by all. It is described as not as spongy as that of the United States but of a 99 Wallis, Spain, p. 335. — According to Ford good butter was obtainable even before this. P. 133. "OP. 159. 101 P. 305. 102 p. 488. 103 P. 70. Cf. Bryant, p. 89; Claghorn, p. 199. — No American traveller is, however, as severe in his criticism of the butter in Spain as is Mrs. Byrne. Speaking of the food at San Sebastian she says : " As for the manteca that was altogether impossible, as we know of no circumstance which could have induced us even to taste the tallowy looking garlic-scented compound. Had there been any compulsion to 'grease our bread' we should have infinitely preferred an English candle end." Byrne, vol. i, p. 68. — She was quite as suspicious of the butter sold at the casas de vacas in Madrid as she was of their milk. Neither did she risk taking that served at the cafes. Of a breakfast at one of the latter she writes: "We called the mozo, and asked if we could have cafi-leche con pan; as for manteca, which he offered us we had long since discarded that condiment from our bill of fare." Ibid., p. 183; cf. ibid., vol. i, p. 91. 104 P. 328. — Even the English praised the bread. Ford frequently speaks of the good bread in Spain. Ford, p. 87, passim. — Mrs. Byrne praises it again and again. In her opinion it is one of " the only two articles of consumption that the natives can turn out credibly." Byrne, vol. i, pp. 96, 91, 107, 185. — According to her the only redeeming feature of the Spanish railroad buffet, at that time not generally known in Spain and most inferior to that of other countries, was the water and the bread the quality of which she says is " such as not easly procured in any other country." Vol. i, p. 85. Food and Beverages 5 1 closer grain and firm. It remains fresh, we are told, for a week and sometimes longer. Even then it is equal to the best of other countries. " A loaf of it with Spanish chocolate," says Pettigrew, " is a breakfast for a king." Some call it pan de Dios. 10 * Its superi- ority at Sevilla is frequently attributed by travellers to the pe- culiarity of the water at Alcala de los Panaderos, the nearby town where it is made. 106 The sight of this town of bakers was an impressive one to Warren. He tells us that at the time of his visit in 1849 there were more than two hundred mills in operation and fifty ovens in constant use. 107 While the majority of American travellers in Spain acquired a taste for the olla, praised the chocolate, the bread, the trout, the dukes and the fruit, and soon adapted themselves to Spanish cook- ing in general, few failed at some stage of their travels to criticize it. In Scenes in Spain we read the cuisine at Madrid is detestable in 1 83 1, "a century behind the elegance of Paris." 108 Vail on his journey from Irun to Madrid in 1840 found the food very un- pleasant. In a letter dated Madrid, December 10, 1840, he writes to Van Buren : " The traveller is allowed but six hours rest each night, mostly at inns of the most primitive character, and has to fare on the most loathsome compound of rancid oil, garlic, horse beans, and tough meat frequently taken from a goat dead of natural death or starvation." 109 In the forties the general impulse given to the country began to show itself in the cooking. French chefs became more numerous and there was a tendency to imitate French and English dishes. Wall is, on his second visit to Spain found the cooking in general much improved, but most of the restaurants bad. The table d'hote of the Vizcaina at Madrid he says "has a modified nationality of diet which has carried comfort to the bosom of many a wayfarer." 110 105 Cf. Alhambra, p. 22 ; Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 264 ; Mackie, P. 345; Ford, p. 115. 106 Cf. Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 264; Warren, p. 133; Taylor, p. 405; Le Vert, vol. ii, p. 1; Pettigrew, p. 23; Ford, p. 115. 107 P. 133; cf. Ford, p. 115. 308 P. 181. 109 The Van Buren papers, vol. xli ; cf. Vassar, p. 142. 110 Spain, p. 8. 52 'American Travellers in Spain Two of the restaurants of the capital are mentioned by him as good. However, he considers Barcelona, Sevilla, Cadiz, and especially Malaga as better provided than Madrid. According to Schroe- der the cuisine at Malaga was excellent more than five years before. He was evidently well impressed with Spanish cooking for he writes he "can testify in favour of the excellence of Spanish cooks." 111 According to Warren Spanish cooking is extremely unpleasant to the unaccustomed palate but he tells us not to wonder that any Spanish dish should be eaten with a relish by a foreigner who has lived in the country. 112 Mackie on his journey from Valencia to Madrid in 1852 found "no evidence of any' high cul- inary art. " But," he adds, " who that travels in the peninsula ex- pects to do anything more than keep body and soul together?" 113 Taylor at about the same date finds the cuisine at the Fonda de Madrid, Sevilla, excellent. At Carmona he was not as fortunate and he says that according to reports the cooking is even worse in the interior. 114 Maccoun the same year considers the cooking of the poorest village inn of France better than that of Spain. " The Spanish cuisine/' he says, "is execrable." 115 "Maccoun, however, in his extremely adverse criticism is an exception among the Ameri- can travellers. Mrs. Le Vert, in Spain about three years later, fre- quently speaks of very good meals. 116 She believes that all the stories about poor inns are false and states that she has found the inns excellent. 117 The only place where she was not well and plenteously served was at the town of Igualda beyond Monserrat. 118 Mrs. Allen who travelled in Spain in 1864 is of quite a different opinion. She expresses her satisfaction, on her arrival at Bayonne, at being in a French hotel "where French cooking restored their flagging appetites." 119 Mrs. Claghorn two years later found the 111 Vol. ii, p. 163. 112 Pp. U2, 113; cf. Mackie, pp. 155, 156. 113 P. 34s ; cf. Traces of the Roman and Moor, p. 418. *** P. 406. 115 Knick. Mag., vol. xli, pp. 98, 99. «« Vol i, p. 329; vol. ii, pp. 3, 8, 11, 15, 16, 48, 57- 117 Vol. ii, p. 25 ; cf. Channing, p. 491. 118 Vol. ii, p. 53- 119 She says : " It was pleasant to be again in a French hotel where cleanli- ness, a rare luxury in Spain, was the rule, and where French cooking restored our flagging appetites, weary of the everlasting Spanish oil." Pp. 504, 5<>5- Food and Beverages 53 accommodations in Spain bad in general but the cooking especially so. Unlike other travellers she has not even a good word to say for the bread. She writes in one of her letters : " I feel half starved most of the time and cannot even fall back upon the bread and butter, for they are as bad as can be." 120 Mills who travelled in Spain the year before, and much more extensively, found the cuisine, in general, tolerable. " One can always find," he says, " excellent chocolate, bread, salad and generally a good cutlet or chop, how- ever, wherever he goes." 122 Although the American traveller's criticism of Spanish cooking is rather sharp in some cases, it is on the whole much less poignant than that of the Italian, French or English. 122 120 Pp. 196, 198. 121 P. 70. 122 By far more acrid in his opinion of Spanish cooking than the American was the Italian, Pecchio, who writes from Briviesca in 1821 : " In verita, avrei rinunziato volontieri la notte scorsa a quattro sensi almeno. Una zuppa che non avrebbe allettato neppure un can levriere di ritorno dalla caccia, Costole abbrustolite di castrato delicate come quella scom|unica in pergamena che Barnabo Visconti fece trangugiare ai legati del Papa; vino fetente di pelle di caprone; quattro noci ben secche, senza tovaglie, senza cambio di piatti, ecco la cena che ci fu imbandita nell' osteria del mastro di posta di. . . ." Pecchio, p. 5- — The execrable cuisine was one thing for which the French could not forgive their neighbors across the Pyrenees. Had they ventured into unfre- quented sections, as did the Americans, instead of following the beaten track it is difficult to conjecture what they might have said. We read in he voyage en Espagne : " La cuisine de l'Espagne, et les hotelleries, n'ont pas ete sen- siblement ameliorees depuis don Quichotte; les peintures d'omelettes emplumees, de merluches coriaces, d'huile ranee et de pois chiches pouvant servir de balles pour les fusils sont encore de la plus exacte verite; mais, par exemple, je ne sais pas ou Ton trouverait aujourd'hui les belles poulardes et les oies mon- strueuses des noces de Gamache." Gautier, pp. 138, 139. — Dumas found the food even worse than that of Italy. " En Italie," he says, " ou Ton mange mal, les bons restaurateurs sont francais; en Espagne, ou l'on ne mange pas du tout, les bons restaurateurs sont italiens." Dumas, vol. i, p. 70. — The English had hardly a better opinion of Spanish cooking than did the French and Italians. According to Ford "but few things are ever done in Spain in real style, which implies forethought and expense; everything is a make-shift." Culinary conditions he thinks quite as bad as in the East. " Spain, as the East, is not to be enjoyed by the over-fastidious in the fleshy comforts; there, those who over analyse, who peep too much behind the culinary or domestic curtains, must not expect to pass a tranquil existence." Ford, pp. 107, 168. — Ford frequently ridicules the cooking. Roasting, a requisite in every English cuisine, he found almost unknown in Spain. — Mrs. Byrne, although in Spain only a year after Mills 54 American Travellers in Spain According to American travellers, the accommodations, then, furnished by the lonely venta and the village inn, were on the whole meagre until well toward the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury and even until much later off the main routes of travel. The fondas, too, although they improved greatly in the larger cities during the general awakening following the death of Ferdinand VII, were far from furnishing those comforts found in other coun- tries where there was more travel. 123 has quite a different opinion from him as to the food. She not only found it poor but sometimes extremely scanty. Like her fellow-countrymen and the French she has much to say about the cuisine. Her descriptions of the " skeletons compressed into tightly strained parchment skins served for chicken " and " the tallowy butter " remind one of some in Don Quijote, and in Le Voyage en Espagne. Like other English travellers — and contrary to the cus- tom of American travellers — she constantly compares with the English. The famous Spanish hams she does not find as appetising as "a respectable English ham," and the wine is not as good as that of England. Indeed for her " the Spanish cuisine is such a ticklish affair that it would be hard for an Englishman to be compelled to feed at any given place in Spain." Byrne, vol. i, pp. 91, 172. — Again she writes of the Madrid Foundling : " The food is such as the coun- try affords, and such as the habits of the people have rendered admissable but it would not be palatable to English taste." Ibid., vol. ii, p. 90. 123 In the writings of Spaniards of that day, we find ample testimony as to these conditions. Larra writes of the posadas of Estremadura: "En segundo lugar esas posadas, fieles a nuestras antiguas tradiciones, son por el estilo de la que nos pinta Moratin en una de sus comedias ; todas las de la carrera rivalizan en miseria y desagrado, excepto la de Navalcarnero, que es peor y campa sola sin emulos ni rivales por su rara originalidad y su desmantelamiento ; entiendase que hablo solo de la que pertenece a la empresa de los mensajerias — habra otras mejores tal vez; no es dificil." Larra, p. 450. The bad inn is frequently cited by Breton de los Herreros. In the comedy, A Madrid no vuelvo, Don Baltasar finding the guest has not gotten up looks at his watch and says : "Las siete. Estos cortesanos Son lo mismo que las aves Nocturnas. Eh, no me admiro Despues de un molesto viaje Por caminos tan perversos Y posadas tan fatales. . . ." Manuel Breton de los Herreros, Obras escogidas, Paris, 1862, vol. i. In Una noche en Burgos Don Celed replies to his daughter who says that Don Luis, whom he wishes to entertain, may prefer his liberty at the inn: Pues mas completa la tendra alii que en un mal parador. Manuel Breton de los Herreros, Una noche en Burgos, Madrid, 1843, p. 32. Food and Beverages 55 Because of these conditions, during the early part of the period we are studying, it was the custom, in places where there were no good inns, to entertain travellers of the upper classes in the homes. William Carmichael writes to Short in 1792 that he can procure him letters of introduction to the principal persons in the different cities of Spain through which he may pass. 124 Monroe found the inns so bad at I run in 1804 that he gladly accepted an invitation to spend the night at the home of one of the foreign ministers. Here he found "some others of the best society of the Travellers who were detained by the cordon." 125 Ticknor was entertained by the higher clergy and others in 18 18. His reception by the postmaster of Madrilejos particularly impressed him. Of this circumstance he writes : " My license to post was endorsed with a particular order from the Ministry, that the postmasters should receive me with attention, and give me any assistance I might need. The one at Madrilejos showed, from the moment I entered his house, a kind of dignified obedience to his order, which struck me." 128 Irving in speaking of his visit to Moguer in 1828 says: "Few people travel for pleasure or curiosity in these out-of-the-way parts of Spain, and those of any note are generally received into private houses." 127 When he presented his letter of introduction at the house of one of the descendants of the Pinzons, who sailed with Columbus, 124 He writes from Madrid September 9, 1792 : " As I am generally known here, I can procure you letters of introduction to the principal persons in the different cities thro' which you may pass." The papers of William Short, Manuscript Division, L. C, vol. xxi. 125 Diary. — Townsend was favorably impressed by his hospitable reception at the homes of Spaniards during his travels in Spain in 1786 and 1787. Now he is received by a family whose ° style of living resembles the old British hospitality," now by the Archbishop at Sevilla who is " well lodged and keeps a hospitable table," now by the Count of Afalto, governor of Barcelona and captain general of the province. He speaks especially of his entertainment by the upper clergy of whom he has a high opinion. In his directions to those who expect to travel in Spain, he mentions the necessity of letters of introduction to the principal families in the places to be visited. Vol. ii, pp. 43, 49, 288, 289; vol. iii, pp. 319, 321. 126 Ticknor, Life, vol. i, p. 222. 127 Works, vol. vii, p. 536. 56 American Travellers in Spain he was immediately invited to give up his room at the inn for one in their home. Although the inn was one of the primitive kind already described, ill provided with the necessary comforts, Irving did not feel it would be right for him to change, as the kind inn- keeper had taken some trouble for his accommodation. However, he took his meals with the Pinzons during his sojourn in the place, and was deeply impressed by their kindness. 128 128 Irving, Works, vol. vii, p. 53& — Widdrington is told at Almaden : " It is impossible that you can stop at the posada, which is only fit for arrieros ; the governor having only just been appointed is a bachelor, and has but a limited number of beds which are now occupied, otherwise he would have received you at his house." Spain and the Spaniards in 1843, vol. i, p. 162; cf. ibid., vol. i, pp. 16, 106. — Not infrequently did the village priest entertain the stranger. Ford says : " It has more than once befallen us in the rude ventas of the Salamanca district, that the silver-haired cura, whose living barely furnished the means whereby to live, on hearing the simple fact that an Englishman was arrived, has come down to offer his house and fare." Ford, p. 180. — Borrow in spite of his persistency in thrusting his bibles on the community was invited by an old priest whom he met at the Irish college in Salamanca to pay him a visit on passing through his village. Borrow, vol. i, pp. 281, 308; cf. ibid., vol. ii, pp. 40, 79, 89. — That the traveller was frequently entertained in private homes is corroborated in the Spanish writings of that day. The hospedador de provincia according to Rivas was a Spanish type which had not changed in the slightest during the general overthrow following the death of Ferdinand VII. " 1 Quien podra imaginar que el hombre acomodado, que vive en una ciudad de provincia, 6 en un pueblo de alguna consideration, y que se complace en alojar y obsequiar en su casa a los transeuntes que le van recomendados, 6 con quienes tiene relaciones, es un tipo de la soeiedad espanola, y un tipo que apenas ha padecido la mas ligera alteration en el trastorno general, que no ha dejado titere con cabeza? Pues, si, pio lector; ese benevolo personaje que se ejercita en practicar la recomendable virtud de la hospitalidad, y a quien llamaremos el Hospedador de Provincia, es una planta indigena de nuestro suelo, que se con- serva inalterable. Los Espaholes pintados por si mismos, vol. i, p. 384. — The hospedador de provincia, he tells us, is known to all Spaniards and to all for- eigners who have travelled in Spain. Both the travellers in the coche de colleras or those in the post chaise of forty years before the travellers of his day, in diligence, galera, or on horseback, all he contends have experienced this hospitality. P. 385. — Larra praises particularly the hospitality of Badajoz : " La amabilidad sin embargo y el trato fino de las personas y familias principales de Badajoz compensan con usura las desventajas del pueblo, y si bien carece de atractivos para detener mucho tiempo en su seno al viajero, al mismo tiempo le es dificil a este separarse de el sin un profundo sentimiento de gratitud por poco que haya conocido personas de Badajoz y que haya tenido ocasion de recibir sus obsequios y de ser objeto de sus atracciones." P. 450. — The comedies of that day also mention the fact that the traveller was entertained in private houses. Breton de los Herreros gives a good picture of this hospitality Food and Beverages 57 These and other examples of hospitality will be considered more in detail in the chapter entitled, " The People.'' in Una Noche en Burgos. One of the chief characters, Don Celed, replies to the posadera who complains that he takes away her guests: " Muger, deja que despunte en mi amigable recinto este benefico instinto de hospedar al transeunte." The doors of Don Celed's house are always open wide to the stranger or to friends. He replied to Don Luis who does not wish to trouble him: " i Quia ! Obsequiar al forastero, Sea Pedro, 6 sea Juan es mi delicia; y al hi jo de un amigo tan cordial cuando a nadie se la cierro, <»no he de abrir de par en par mi puerta?" P. 32; cf. ibid., p. 93. VITA C. Evangeline Farnham was born in Oldtown, Maine. Her education was received at public and private schools of Massachu- setts ; private school in Paris, 1900-1901 ; private school in Madrid, 1 901 ; University of Paris and International Guild, Paris, 1904- 1905; France, summer, 1909; summer course, University of Grenoble, France, 19 13 ; summer course, Junta para Ampliation de Estudios, Madrid, 1920; Columbia University, 1911-1921 (B.S. with French diploma, 1916 ; A. M., 191 7) . She has published, prior to this dissertation a study entitled "Devices for teaching oral French," Modern Language Journal, February, 1918. In 1905-1906 she was instructor in French at Mary Institute, Washington Uni- versity, St. Louis; from 1907 to 1909, supervisor of French in the public schools of New Bedford, Massachusetts; from January, 191 1, to July, 1916, instructor in French at the High School in Kearny, New Jersey. During the years 19 18-1920 she was con- nected with Barnard College, the first year as lecturer in Romance Languages and Literatures; and the second as instructor in Spanish. Since 191 9 she has been instructor in Spanish in Ex- tension courses at Columbia University. 5* THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL PINE OP 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. 0b0 a WW>" SEP 141941 ■r'49V/M 2Sep'53VL 24JUN'59G0 IN STACKS JUN 101959 REC'D LD JUN 1 9 ^59 iV W&Q& WAV 9 I960 LD 21-100m-7,'40 (6936s) jo j n