ALL THE WORLD OVER
PERHAPS one of the most vivid impressions which the tourist receives upon his entrance into any Spanish city whatsoever, is of its muscular beggars—men of enormous size, with their ruffianly swaggering strength exaggerated by the national cloak. This garment is of heavy, tufted woollens, long and fringed, almost indestructable, and is frequently worn to muffle half the face; and the broad slouch hat, usually with a couple of rough feathers stuck in its band, does not tend to soften the general brigandish effect.
These beggars are licensed by the government, which must reap a goodly revenue from the disgraceful crowd, as they are numerous, and therefore they pursue their avocation in the most open manner. They will frequently follow the traveller a half-mile, especially should they find him to be ignorant of that magic formula of dismissal which is known to all Spaniards:
Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!
This appeal is constantly on the lip of every Spanish lady. She utters it swiftly, without so much as a glance, a dozen times of a morning on her way to church, as a dozen gaunt, dirty hands are thrust in her face as she passes; and hearing it, the most persistent fellow of them all is at once silenced, and falls back.
Coming in from their kennel-homes among the ruins and the holes in the hills outside, it is the custom to make an early morning tour of the city before they take up their stations for the day at the various church and hotel doors. Each seems to be provided with “green pudding,” in his garlic pot, and he eats as he goes along, and prays as he eats, stopping in front of the great oval patio or court gates of iron lattice, which guard the mansions of the rich.
At these patio doors he makes a prodigious racket, shaking the iron rods furiously, and all the while muttering his prayers, until some one of the family appears at a gallery window. Then instantly the mutter becomes a whine, a pitiful tale is wailed forth, and alms are dolefully implored “for the love of God.” But although such mottoes as “Poverty is no Crime” are very often painted on the walls of their fine houses, the probability is that the unmoved Señorita will murmur a swift “Pardon, for God’s sake, Brother!” and retire, to soon appear again to silence another of the fraternity with the same potent formula.
However, each of the countless horde is sure to gather in centimes sufficient for the day’s cigarettes and garlic, and, in the long run, to support life to a good old age.
THE Spaniards are a nation of dancers and singers. Every Spanish child seems born with the steps, gestures, snappings and clappings of the nationalfandangodance, at the ends of his fingers and toes. A guitar is the universal possession, and every owner is a fine player. The solitary horseman, the traveller by rail, takes along his guitar; and in car, or at cross-roads, he is sure of dancers at the first thrilling twang. There is always a merry youth and maiden aboard ready to make acquaintance in a dance, and anywhere the whole household will troop from the cottage, the plowman will leave his team in the furrow, and the laborer drop his hoe, for a half-hour’s joyous “footing o’t.”
One of the interesting sights of Toledo is the great city fountain on Street St. Isabel, near the cathedral. It is a good place to study donkeys and their drivers, and the lower classes of the populace. The water, deliciously sweet and cool, is brought from the mountains by the old Moorish-built water-ways, and flows by faucet. There is no public system of delivery, consequently a good business falls into the hands of private water-carriers. These supply families at a franc a month. The poorer households go to and fro with their own water-jars as need calls, carrying them on their heads. They often wear a cushioned ring, fitting the head, to render the carrying of the jar an easier matter.
A picturesque article of dress among Spanish men, is the national sash, a broad woollen some four yards in length, of gay colorings. This is wound three or four times around the waist, its fringed end tucked in to hang floating, and the inevitable broad knife thrust within its folds, which also hold the daily supply of tobacco. A common sight is the sudden stop on the street, a lighting of a fresh cigarette, a loosening of the loosened sash, a twitch of the short breeches, and then a tight, snug wind-up, when the lounger moves on again.
Another amusing sight is the picturesque beggar who seems at first glance to be hanging in effigy against the cathedral walls, so motionless will some of these fellows stand, hat slouched over the face, the brass government “license” labelling the breast, a hand extended, and, in many cases, a crest worn prominently on the ragged garments, to show that the wearer is a proud descendant of some old grandee family. To address this crested beggar by any other title thanCaballero(gentleman) is a deadly insult.
AMONG the many small sights of the Plaza about Christmas time, are the sellers of zambombas, or Devil’s Fiddles. This toy, which the stranger sometime takes for a receptacle of sweet drinks to be imbibed through a hollow cane, is a favorite plaything with Spanish children. A skin is stretched over a bottomless jar; into this is fastened a stout length of sugar-cane, and lo! a zambomba. Its urchin-owner spits on his palms, rubs them smartly up and down the ridgy cane, when the skin-drum reverberates delightfully.
The fruit markets are of a primitive sort. The peasant fills his donkey-panniers with grapes, garlic, melons straw-cased and straw-handled, whatever he has ripe, and starts for town. Reaching the Plaza, in the shade of the cathedral, he spreads his cloak, rolling a rim. On this huge woollen plate he arranges his fruit, weighing it out as customers demand.
From the old Moorish casements, the traveller looks down on the most rudimentary sort of life. He sees no labor-saving machinery. Instead of huge vans loaded with compact hay bales, he beholds the donkey hay-train. The farmer binds a mountain of loose hay on each of his donkeys, lashes them together, and with a neighbor to help beat the train along, starts for market. These trains may be seen any day crooking about among the steep mountain-ways.
The student of folk-life notes the shoemakers on the Plaza at work in the open air. Formerly the sandal was universally worn, with its sole of knotted hemp, and its canvas brought up over the toe, at which point was fastened a pair of ribbons about four feet long, and these ribbons each province had its own fashion of lacing and tying. But now the conventional footgear of Paris is common, and one buys boots of the fine glossy Cordovan leather for a trifle.
The proprietors of the neighboring vineyards visit the wine shops weekly to bring full wine-skins, and take such as are emptied. These skins, often with their wool unsheared, are cured by remaining several weeks filled with wine-oil, and all seams are coated with pitch to prevent leakage. The wholesale skins hold about eight gallons, being usually those of well-grown animals. They are stoutly sewn, tied at each knee, and also at the neck, whence the wine is decanted into smaller skins by means of a tunnel.
THE beggars of Spain are a most devout class. Piety is, with them, the form under which they conduct business; a shield, and a certificate of character. They walk the streets under the protection of the patron saint of the principal church in town, and they formally demand alms of you in the name of that saint. It is Religion that solicits you—the beggar’s own personality is not at all involved; and it is thus that the proud Spanish self-respect is saved from hurt.
The tourist who has not tarried in French towns, is, at first, astonished to behold women passing to and fro upon the streets with no head covering whatever. Hats and bonnets are rarely seen upon Spanish women of the lower and middle classes. Those who are street-venders sit bareheaded all day long in their chairs on the Plaza, wholly indifferent to the great heat and blinding dazzle of the Spanish sun. About Christmas, dozens of a “stands” spring up along the Plaza. It is at that season that the gypsy girls come in with their roasters and their bags of big foreign chestnuts; and they do a thriving business, for every good Spanish child expects roast chestnuts and salt at Christmas.
Many of the mountain families about Toledo keep small flocks of sheep—flocks that, instead of dotting a green landscape with peaceful white, as in America and Northern Europe, only darken the reddish-brown soil of Spain with a restless shading of a redder and a deeper hue. These brown sheep are herded daily down on the fenceless wastes. The shepherd-boys are usually attended by shepherd-dogs so enormous in size that the traveller often mistakes them for donkeys. They are sagacious, and do most of the herding, their masters devoting themselves to the guitar, the siesta, the cigarette, and the garlic pudding.
Toledo, more than any other Spanish city, abounds with interesting bits and noble examples of the old Moorish architecture, for the reason that it has not been rebuilt at all, and that few of its ruins have been restored, or even retouched. Color alone has changed. The city now is of the soft hue of a withered pomegranate. Turn where you will, your eye is delighted by an ornate façade, a carved gateway with its small reticent entrance door, a window with balcony and cross-bars, and everywhere there is the horseshoe arch with its beautiful curve. The old Alcazar is standing, though occupied as a Spanish arsenal, and on the height opposite is the ruin of a fine Moorish castle.
ONE of the best “small businesses” in a Spanish city, is that of the domestic water-supply. Those dealers who have no donkeys, convey it to their customers in long wheelbarrows constructed with a frame to receive and hold several jars securely. Stone jars, with wood stopples attached with a cord, are used, the carrying-jars, being emptied into larger jars in the water-cellars. The peasants have a poetic appellation for the soft, constant drip of the water from the old aqueducts:The sigh of the Moor.
With the Spaniard, as with the American, the turkey is a special Christmas luxury. But the tempting rows of dressed fowls common to our markets and groceries, are never to be seen. As the holiday season draws very close at hand, the mountain men come down into the city, driving before them their cackling, gobbling, lustrous-feathered flocks, bestowing upon them, of course, the usual daily allowance of blows which is meted out to the patient family donkey. These poultry dealers congregate upon the Plaza, where they smoke, and chaff, and dicker, keeping their droves in place with the whip; and the buyer shares in the capture of his flying, screaming, flapping purchase, in company with all the children on the street, for the turkey market is usually great fun for the Spanish youngster.
In the cold season, one of the morning sights of a Spanish town is the preparation of the big charcoal braziers outside the gates of the fine dwelling-houses. The coals are laid and lighted, and then the servant blows them with a large grass fan until the ashes are white, when he may consider that all deadly fumes are dissipated, and that it is safe to carry it within to the room it is to warm.
Nearly all the peasants in the near vicinity of cities are market gardeners on a small scale. They cultivate small plots, and whenever any crop is ripe, they load their donkey-panniers and go into the cities, where they sell from house to house. These vegetable-panniers have enormous pockets, and are woven of coarse, dyed grasses, in stripes and patterns of gaudy blue and red. When filled, they often cover and broaden the donkey’s back to such an extent that the lazy owner, determined to ride, must sit on the very last section of backbone. Some of the streets in Toledo are so narrow that the brick or stone walls of the buildings have been hewn and hollowed out at donkey-height, to allow the loaded panniers to pass. The buyers make their bargains from the windows, a sample vegetable being handed up for inspection.
TRAVELLERS should deny themselves Spain during December, January and February. The heating apparatus of the American and the English house is unknown in Spanish dwellings—fireplace, stove, nor furnace. The peasant draws his cloak up to his nose and shivers and cowers, while the middle-class family lights a single brazier, and the household, gathering in one room, hovers over the charcoal smouldering away in its brass cage, and the cats sit and purr on the broad wooden rim. These braziers are expensive—constructed of brass and copper—and few families afford more than one, making winter comfort out of the question, as the floors, of marble or stone, never get well warmed.
With the coming of pleasant weather Spanish families usually forsake the blinded, draperied, balconied rooms of the gallery for the secluded and garden-like patio. This court is often fifty feet square, and in its enclosure there is generally a fountain; the floor is tiled with marble, there are stately tropic plants in tubs, and orange and palm-trees are growing. Should the sunshine become too fierce there are smoothly-running screens and awnings to roof the whole court in an instant. Some of the old Moorish patios contain quaint wells, dry at some seasons, but often affording water sufficient for housekeeping needs.
The water-jars come from the famous potteries of Seville, and, made of a rude red clay, are similar in hue to our plant pots. They are brought in high loads by oxen—and these pottery carts are often an enlivening feature of the dull country roads.
The water cellar is not a cellar at all, but a stone-paved room off the patio, delightfully cool and sloppy of a fiery July day, with the water-carriers unloading, and filling the array of dripping red jars with the day’s supply from the public fountain.
Every Spanish peasant wears a knife in his sash. These knives are usually about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp, murderous blade. The handles are of tortoise or ivory, often carved richly, or inlaid with figures of the Virgin, the Saviour, or the crucifix. The knife is kept open by a curious little wheel, between blade and handle, and is used indiscriminately, to slice a melon or lay bare a quarrelsome neighbor’s heart.
SEVILLE is celebrated for its oranges and its pottery. Nearly the whole Spanish supply of water-jars comes from this city; and the outlying country is agreeably dotted with orange orchards, as olive oases enliven the vicinity of Cordova. The export of the fruit is a considerable business. The most delicious orange in the world may be bought in the streets of Seville for a cent, and the ordinary rate for the ordinary fruit is four for a cent. In the Christmas season large and selected oranges are sold in the outdoor booths. They are carefully brought, and temptingly hung in nets, along with melons cased in straw, fine bunches of garlic, chestnuts, assorted lengths of sugar-cane, tambourines, zambombas, and such other sweet and noisy objects as delight the Spanish youngster.
The decorative plant of Spain is the aloe—truly decorative, with its base of long, dark, clear-cut, sword-like leaves, its tall slender trunk often rising twenty feet high, and its broad candelabras of crimson blooms.
A picturesque industry of Seville is the spinning of the green rope so much used by Spanish farmers. It is manufactured from the coarse pampas grass of the plains, and the operation is a very leisurely and social one, requiring three persons: one to feed the wheel, one to turn it, and a third to receive the twisted rope.
Plowing, in Spain, is still a very rude performance. The primitive plow of the Garden of Eden era is yet in use—a sharp crotch of a tree, crudely shod, however, with iron.
An indispensable article of peasants’ costume for both men and women, should an absence of even two hours be contemplated, is thealforja, or peasant’s bag. This, in idea, is similar to the donkey-pannier—a long, stout, woollen strip thickly tufted with bunches of red and blue wool, with a bag at either end, and is worn slung over the shoulder. The pockets of thealforjainvariably contain, one a pot of garlic, or green pudding, the other a wine skin.
The mouths of some wine-skins are fitted with a bottomless wooden saucer, and are lifted to the lips for drinking; but the preferable and national style is to catch the stream with the skin held aloft and away at arm’s-length.
A CENTRAL point of interest for visitors to Seville is the Cathedral. Its tower, known as the Giralda, is one of the most celebrated examples of sacred Moorish architecture. It was erected in an early century, and was considered very ancient when the Spaniards, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, built upon it the fine Cathedral. In the interior, the Tribuna de la Puorta Mayor is much visited for its lofty and beautiful sunlight effects, and there are several precious Murillos. The ascent of the Giralda is usually made by tourists—an agreeable variety in European climbing, as there are no stairs, the whole progress being by an easy series of inclined planes of brick masonry. Queen Isabella, not long ago, made the entire ascent and return upon horseback. From the summit, one views the whole of Seville, with its dark-green rim of orange gardens, set in the great flat barrens that stretch out towards Cadiz. A comic sight usual at the foot of the tower, significant as a sign of the complete contempt in which the Catholic Spaniard holds all things Moslem and Moorish, is that of a goat belonging to one of the custodians, tethered from morning till night to a fine old Muezzin bell.
Another noted building is the Tower of Gold, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, opposite the Gypsy quarter. Tourists visit it to get the fine architectural effect of the Cathedral, also for its view of the Bull Ring. It stands on the site of the old Inquisition, where hosts of Moorish captives were tortured.
The Alcazar, always visited, is an ancient Moorish palace, and is considered, in point of elegance, second to only the Alhambra. It is now set aside by the government as the residence of the Queen-mother Isabella.
San Telmo is also much visited. It is the palace of the Duc de Montpensier, known throughout Spain as “the orange man.” He owns numerous orange orchards, and lavishes much time and money on his plantations and hothouses.
Another point of curiosity is known as the House of Pilate. It is said to be an exact reproduction of the celebrated House of Pilate in Jerusalem. It is remarkable for some exquisite tiles, and it bears many interesting inscriptions.
Seville presents an odd aspect to the stranger between the hours of three and six P. M. During this hot interval the streets and shops are deserted, everybody, even to the beggars, being under cover and asleep.
MOST of the peasant girls in the vicinity of Spanish cities contrive to keep a bit of flower-garden for their own personal purposes. She is a thriftless lass indeed, who has not at least one fragrant double red rose in tending, or some other red-flowered shrub. From Christmas on through the spring fête-days of the Church, they reap their tiny harvests. During this season every Spanish man and woman who can, wears a red flower in button-hole or over the ear, and the streets are thronged with bareheaded, black-tressed peasant and gypsy flower-venders. Flowers are a part of the daily marketing, and two or three centimos—a centimo is one fifth of a cent—suffice to buy a fresh nosegay. New Year’s is a marked fête in Seville, as then “The Old Queen” in the Alcazar rides out in state, the Alameda is thronged with carriages, and the whole populace is a-blossom with red.
A custom noticed by the tourist who lingers about cathedral doors, is one most observed, perhaps, by the poorer and more superstitious classes. Men and women dip the fingers, on entrance and departure, in holy water, and wet some one of the countless crosses which are set in the wall just above the cash-boxes—the cash-box in Spain being the inevitable accompaniment of the cross.
As in other Spanish cities, the noble Profession of Beggary considers itself under the protection of the Church, and the entrance to the cathedral is down a long vista of outstretched hands, the fortunate one at the far end, who holds aside the matting portiere for you to enter, feeling sure of a fee, however the others fare. The whole vicinity abounds with loathsome spectacles of disease and distress, those entirely helpless managing to be conveyed daily into holy precincts. It is often amusing to witness an adult beggar “giving points” to some young amateur in the art, the dignity of the national calling evidently being insisted upon.
An agreeable sight in this city of churches and beggars, is the afternoon stroll of companies of young priests and students from the convents. They are very noticeable, as part of the panorama, with their broad, silky shovel hats and black flowing gowns. Some are scholastic and intent upon their studies even in the streets, while others evidently take a most young man-of-the-world enjoyment in their cigarettes and the street-sights.
REVENUES are collected in most primitive ways by the Spanish City Fathers. As there are no important sources of public income, there are few transactions, however trifling, that do not pay tax and toll. Every man is suspected of smuggling and “false returns,” and it is a small bunch of garlic that escapes. Burly officials, often in shirt-sleeves and with club, lounge at all the entrances to the town, to levy duty upon any chance donkey-pannier or cart bringing in fruit and vegetables for sale. Frequently there are scenes of confusion, sometimes of violence. The government is determined that not a turnip, not a carrot, not a cabbage shall escape the yield of its due; and it is not to be denied that the poor farmer hopes fervently to smuggle in a wine-skin or two—a dozen of eggs, or some other article of price, among his cheaper commodities. As a rule, he fails; for, suspicious of over-much gesticulation and protestation, the official is quite likely to tumble out sacks, baskets, bundles and bales, and empty every one upon the ground, leaving the angry farmer to pick up and load again at his leisure.
Andalusia is a brown region stretching gravely between Cadiz and Granada. The effect of this landscape, all in low tones, upon natives of the green lands of America and England, is most depressing. The soil itself is red, and the grass grows so sparsely that the color of the ground crops up, giving impression of general sun-blight, broken here and there by the glimmering moonlight gray of an olive orchard, or the dark-green of an orange garden. The huts of the farmers are built of the red clay; the clothing of the population appears to be of the undyed wool of the brown sheep, while to add to the prevailing russet hue, the general occupation seems to be that of herding pigs on the plains—and the pigs are hideously brown also. It is said that they derive their color from feeding on the great brown bug, or beetle, which abounds in the soil. The traveller counts these feeding droves by the dozen, each with two lazy, smoking swineherds.
Travelling by rail over the Andalusian levels, one passes a succession of petty stations, villages of half a dozen houses each, where the only visible business appears to be in the hands of women, in the shape of one or two open-air tables, with pitchers and glasses, and a cow or goat tethered near in order to supply travellers, as the trains stop, with drinks of fresh milk.
MANY of the public buildings of Spanish cities stand as they were captured from the Moors. Sometimes, as in Cadiz, the town has received a coat of whitewash; but more frequently the only Spanish additions and improvements are a few crosses inlaid in the old cement, or a plaster Virgin niched, in rude contrast, beside some richly wrought Moorish door of horseshoe form. The town hall of Seville remains to-day as ten centuries ago.
The Spanish towns lie, for the most part, in the valley. The Moors usually chose the site for their cities with a view to the natural defences of mountain and river. The hills of course, remain, but the rivers, once full rushing tides, are now dried into stagnant shallow waters, a natural result in a country long uncultivated.
A favorite business with the young men among the mountain peasants is the breeding of poultry; not alone of fat pullets for the Christmas markets—that is a minor interest so far as enjoyment goes—but of choice young game cocks—cock-fighting being the staple, everyday national amusement, while the bullfight is to be regarded as fête and festival—“the taste of blood” is a welcome ingredient in any Spanish pleasure. All poultry is taken to market alive; the pullets, hanging head downwards, are slung in a bunch at the saddle bow, and the cocks are carried carefully in cages. Fowls are not a common article of food, as in France, but are, instead, a holiday luxury, and the costliest meat in the market.
Looking idly abroad as he crosses the Andalusian plains, the tourist on donkey-back notices the queer carts that take passengers from one station to another. These odd omnibuses are but rude carts, two-wheeled, and covered with coarse mats of pampas grass, and they are drawn by two, three, four or five donkeys harnessed tandem. On the rough, movable seats, gentlemen in broadcloth, and common folk with laced canvas shoes and peasant-bags, huddle together, all eating from the garlic-pots as they are passed, and drinking from the same wine-skin; this good fellowship of travellers is one of the unwritten laws of Spain. Meantime the sauntering boys of the roadside hop up on the cart behind with the identical vagrant joy experienced by the American urchin after a like achievement.
YOU never can be sure when a Spaniard will arrive. Due at noon, should he meet a guitar, he comes at nightfall; and as it is certain that every second Spaniard, walking or riding, will have his guitar along, it is best not to look for the return of any messenger before evening. He may have chosen to alight from his donkey and dance an hour, or he may have elected to sit still and clap and snap a dance in pantomime—either is exciting and deeply satisfactory—and a fulfilment of one of the obligations of daily life which no true Spaniard can be expected to neglect for any such simple considerations as promise given, command laid, or bargain made.
A peculiarly gloomy look is lent to the Spanish landscape by the cypress, sometimes growing in groups, sometimes towering singly in solitude. This tree, funereal in its best aspect, has a dead, dry, white trunk, and the branches begin at a height of twenty, thirty, or forty feet, and then drape themselves in a cone-like monumental mass of purplish green. These gloomy evergreens are common, and the tourist feels, even if he does not note, the absence of the lively sunny greens of American and French landscapes, with the bowery shadows that everywhere invite the wayfarer to stop and rest.
The Bergh Societies would find ample range for work in Spain, for the beating and prodding of the donkey is one of the national occupations. As a rule, poor Burro is overloaded. A whole family will frequently come down into the city on his back, and tired though he be with plodding and stumbling and holding back, the officer at the gate is sure to give him a blow and a bruise with his bludgeon of authority as he passes in; and the poor creature sometimes very justly lies down in the street and dies without warning, allowing his owners to climb homeward on foot.
Now and then one comes unexpectedly on an example of ancient enterprise put to use. There are spots in the brown waste which are green and fertile, because the old irrigating wells have been cleaned out and set in motion—a pair of wheels studded with great cups operated by means of a pair of poles, and a pair of donkeys, and a pair of drivers. The land is cut in ditches, and often the farmer can be seen hoeing his garlic and his cabbages while he stands in water ankle-deep.
GREATLY dreaded by the unmarried young Spanish woman is the Beggars’ Curse; and a goodly portion of the beggars’ revenue is ensured by this superstitious national fear. The more vicious of the fraternity keep good watch upon the wealthy young señoritas and their cavaliers when they go out for pleasure. They do not follow them, perhaps; instead they take up their stations around the doors of those restaurants—whence they never are driven—where ladies and their escorts are wont to stop for chocolate, or coffee, oraguardente, on their return from calls or the theatre, or the Bull Ring. As the pair are departing, the burly beggar approaches, half barring the way perhaps, and asks for alms. It is usually bestowed; but he begs insolently for more; and if it be not forthcoming, a bony and rosaried arm is raised, “the evil eye” is fastened upon the doomed ones, and the Beggars’ Curse—the Curse of the Unfortunate—which all Spaniards dread, is threatened; and if it be evening, it is quite probable that the group stand near some crucifix of the suffering Saviour, with the red light of the street lantern shining down upon its ghastliness, so that the feeling of pious dread is greatly heightened, and a frightened pressure on the cavalier’s arm carries the doubled alms into the outstretched hand.
The dress of Spanish people of fashion is singularly artistic and pleasing. Although Paris styles are now followed by the señoritas, they still cling to the national black satin with its lustrous foldings and flouncings, to the effective ball fringes, and to the mantilla, draping face and shoulder with its heavy black or white laces, the national red rose set just above the ear. Nor is this too remarkable under the high broad lights of the Spanish sky, though it might seen theatrical in our cold, harsh, Northern atmosphere. The dress of the Spanish gentlemen is as picturesque. The hat is usually a curious, double-brimmed silky beaver, while the cloak is most artistic in color and in drapery. This cloak, lasting a life-time, is of fine broadcloth, lined with heavy blue or crimson velvet; and it is so disposed that the folding brings this gorgeous lining in a round collar about the neck, while another broad fold is turned over upon the whole long left side of the garment. The peasant’s cloak, of the same cut, is lined with red flannel, but it is often worn as gracefully. Long trousers are becoming general, but in some districts the tight pantaloon, slashed at the knee, is still seen, with its gay garter embroidered with some fanciful motto. One just brought from Spain bears this legend:There is a girl in this town—with her love she kills me.
WHAT THEY ALL FEAR—THE BEGGAR’S CURSE.MORE! SEÑORITA. MORE!
WHAT THEY ALL FEAR—THE BEGGAR’S CURSE.MORE! SEÑORITA. MORE!
SOUTHERN Spain is so mountainous that herding naturally becomes the occupation of the peasantry, rather than tillage. Great flocks of goats browse and frolic among the rocky heights and along the steep ravines where it seems hardly possible for the tiny hoofs to keep foothold; and the traveller often beholds far above him dozens of these bounding creatures, leaping down the cliffs to drink at the valley streams. They are generally followed, at the same fearless pace, by a short-frocked shepherdess as sure-footed as they. Her rough, hempen-soled shoe, however, yields her excellent support, being flexible and not slippery, like boot-leather.
Along the narrow mountain highways, the traveller frequently comes upon little booths built in among the cliffy recesses, like quaint pantries hewn in the rock. Melons, and grapes, and garlic, and oranges in nets, hang against the wall, and the heavy red wine of the country is for sale by the glass, also goat’s milk.
Farming processes go on at all times of year in Spain. Subsistence is a matter comparatively independent of care and calculation. Crops may be sown at any time. The whole year round the peasant lights no fire in his earthen, bowl-like hut of one room. He cooks outside his door, in gypsy fashion. His furniture consists of some rude wool mattresses, a table, and some stools with low backs. A few bowls, plates, and knives and forks suffice to set his table. A kettle and a garlic pot comprise his cooking utensils. Frequently he and his family are to be seen at meals, leaning their elbows on the table in company, and sipping like so many cats, from the huge platter of hot garlic soup, crumbling their slices of coarse black bread, as they need. In contrast with this crude bread of the common people, are the long, fine, sweet white loaves to be had at the Seville bakeries—a bread so cake-like, so delicious, as to require no butter, even with Americans accustomed to the use of butter with every meal. The salted butter of American creameries, made to keep for months, is wholly unknown in Spain, Spanish butter being a soft mass, and always eaten unsalted. But with his strong garlic and his fine fragrant tobacco, the Spaniard hardly demands or appreciates the refinements of food, and his tobacco is of the best, coming from the Spanish plantations in Cuba, and is very cheap, as it enters the country free of duties.
Sunny Spain: Sewing and Reaping in Winter
Sunny Spain: Sewing and Reaping in Winter
HOUSEWORK, among the sun-basking, siesta-loving Spaniards, seems to be not the formidable, systematic matter that it is made in America. Washing, as well as cookery, is of simplest form. “Blue Monday” does not follow Sunday in Spain. A necessary garment is washed when needed; superfluous ones are allowed to accumulate until it is worth while to give a day to the task. Then, among the peasants, “the washing” is carried to a mountain torrent, and the garments are rubbed and rinsed in the swift waters, while picnic fun makes the labor agreeable, as often several families wash in company. Among townspeople, the work is done in great stone tubs in the patio, or in the water-cellar. There the goods, repeatedly wetted, are laid upon a big stone table and beaten with flat wooden paddles. The snowy array of the American clothes-line is seldom seen. The washed garments are hung upon the table edges, and held fast by stones or other weights until dried.
A frequent incident in mountain travel is the sight of some stout lazy peasant away up the heights, holding fast by his donkey’s tail to help himself along as the poor creature scrambles up the zigzag steeps. At the base and along the face of these rocks cacti grow abundantly, often presenting a beautiful cliff-side of cacti fifty feet high.
Another sight, not so agreeable, along many a Spanish roadside, is that of the ancient wooden crosses, erected on the sites where travellers have been murdered by banditti. These roads are often desolate and dreary beyond description, unfenced, seldom travelled, and set with the constantly recurring stones of the Moorish road-makers. Leading across brown, treeless wastes, with habitations far apart, both peasant and tourist would easily wander from these roads, were it not for those rude mile-stones, which are often the only guide-posts and land-marks. When a fence is required, a hedge of aloe is usually started.
Spanish children chew sugar-cane as American children munch candy. The cane is brought from Cuba and is sold everywhere; carried about by venders in big bundles of handy lengths, to capture all stray centimos.
Not so well patronized is the street dealer in soap—“old Castile” soap—for this business is recognized to be a form of beggary, and though bargains are made and money paid, the soap is seldom carried away by the purchaser.
EVERY male Spaniard is obliged to render three years of military service; but usually this is no severe hardship, and loving his ease, he leaves home cheerily enough. The government is rather embarrassed than served, in the matter of stationing this soldiery, especially since the close of the Carlist War. The conscripts are set to guard the palaces, the parks, the national buildings; they are sent to Cuba and elsewhere, whenever it is possible, in fact all opportunities and pretexts are seized to set up a soldier on duty, or rather a pair of them, as two are usually to be seen together. Leave of absence is easily obtained, and but few days of actual presence and service are required during the third year. However, the military requirements by the government never relax, as “insurrections” are indigenous to the country and climate.
As the ancient Moorish doors are still frequent, so is the old form of knock and admission. The arrival raps smartly at the small door set within the great nail-studded gate. Presently an eye, a face, appears at the little wicket window to reconnoitre, to question. Should the examination reveal nothing dangerous or disagreeable, the latch-string is pulled, and entrance is permitted.
“Burro” must needs appear in all Spanish picture and story, for he is prominent in all Spanish folk-life. He is to be seen everywhere, with his rude harness tufted with gay woollens, and big brass nails, moving over the landscape in town or country—the helpless slave and abused burden-bearer, seldom petted, even by the children of the family. There are very handsome mules in Madrid and a few elsewhere; but the donkey is the national carrier. He is small, brown, brave, and always bruised. The Spaniards’ “Get up!” is a brutal blow between the eyes. He is seldom stabled, seldom decently fed. He is tethered anywhere—under the grapevine, by the door, among the rocks, but always at his master’s convenience; and his food is in matter and manner best known to himself. His harness is heavy and uncomfortable, and his hair is clipped close on his back where he needs protection most from the burning sun. This clipping is usually done at the blacksmith’s, by a professional clipper, and is a sight of interest to the lazy populace. Under the great shears Burro’s body is often decorated with half moons, eyes, monograms, garlands—whatever the fancy of his master, or the clipper, or the bystander may direct. Poor Burro! from first to last—poor Burro!
IN Cordova, a sudden stir in the street often betokens “The Return from the Chase”—not, however, the picturesque scattering of the “meet” after an English fox-hunt, but the arrival home of some solitary mule and rider, with a pack of harriers. The huntsman has been riding across country all by himself, his cigarette, and his dogs, to ferret out some luckless colony of hares in a distant olive orchard. The rabbits are very mischievous in the young olive plantations, and the huntsman and his pack are warmly welcomed by the olive-growers. These Spanish harriers are a keen-nosed race of dogs; quite as good hunters as the English fox-hounds. Nearly every breed of dog is found in Spain, except, perhaps, the Newfoundland. In most Spanish cities the dogs are one of the early morning sights as they gather in snarling, quarrelsome packs of from fifteen to twenty, before the doors of the hotels and restaurants, to devour the daily kitchen refuse—a very disagreeable spectacle; but there seems to be no other street-cleaning machinery.
The chief streets of a Spanish town are usually thronged with fruit-sellers, especially the Plaza, where the great portion of the population seems to congregate to lounge and sleep in the sun all day long, naturally waking now and then to crave an orange, a palmete, or a pomegranate—“regular meals” appearing to be a regulation of daily life quite unknown. These fruit sellers are girls, for the most part, though sometimes there may be seen some old man who has not been able to procure a beggar’s license. Oranges are always plenty. Palmetes, a tender, bulbous growth, half vegetable, half fruit, are brought into the city in January, and are consumed largely by the peasants and beggars, who strip them into sections, chewing them for their rather insipid sweetish juices.
The Spanish peasant cooks out-of-doors, like a gypsy. Often his kettle is his only “stove furniture;” in it he stews, boils, fries and bakes. Even in January, the cold month in Spain, he makes no change in his housekeeping. The peasants’ daily bread is hardly bread at all, but rather a pudding, a batter of coarse flour, water and garlic, stirred, and boiled, and half baked in his kettle, and then pressed into a jar. This “garlic pot” he always carries about with him in his shoulder bag. In the patio apartments of some of the ancient, Moorish-built houses there are quaint arches with stone ovens, which are sometimes utilized for cookery.
A DRUNKEN Spaniard is rarely seen, although the “wine-skin” keeps constant company with the “garlic pot” in the peasant’s bag. The heavy red wine of the country is used as freely as water, being sold for four cents a wine-skin; this wine-skin holds a quart or more. Not to drink with the skin held at arms-length, is to be not Spanish, but French—their generic name for a foreigner or stranger. Fine and delicate wines are made in the neighborhood of some of the great vineyards, but they are chiefly for exportation.
There is a popular saying, that Spanish ladies dress their hair but once a week. This is on Sunday, when they meet on one another’s balconies to chat and gossip while their maids arrange their coiffures, each maid taking care that she pat, and pull, and puff until her mistress be taller than her friends, for height is a Spanish requisite for beauty and style. Certain it is that the tourist sometimes looks up and beholds this leisurely out-of-doors toilet-making. The glossy black hair is universal, a fair-haired woman becoming an occasion for persistent stares, although Murillo, in his time, seems to have found plenty of red-haired Spanish blondes to paint. Happy is the gazing traveller if he also may listen; for the music of a high-bred Spanish woman’s voice is remarkable, holding in its flow, sometimes, the tones of a guitar, and the liquid sounds of dropping water.
Spanish urchins are as noted for never combing their hair as Italian boys are for never washing their faces. The change of the yellow handkerchief dotted with big white eyes, which they knot about their heads and wear day and night, seems to be the only attention they think needful ever to bestow upon their raven locks.
That Spanish peasant is very poor and unthrifty indeed, who does not contrive to own a foot or two of land upon which to grow a choice Malaga grapevine. Owning the vines, he erects an out-of-door cellar to preserve his crop—a simple arbor, upon the slats of which he suspends his clusters for winter use. Hanging all winter in the current of wind, the bunches of pale-green grapes may be taken down as late as February, and still be found as plump and delicious and as full of flavor as when hung. It is in this simple manner that they are preserved for the holiday markets.