We have lately been surfeited with the affairs of that portion of Europe south of the Pyrenees, and did intend not again to refer, at least for some time, to any thing connected with it. We are sick of Spanish revolutions, disgusted with causelesspronunciamentos, and corrupt intrigues, weary of Madame Muñoz and “the innocent Isabel,” of palace plots and mock elections, base ministers and imbecile Infantas. We care not the value of a flake ofbacallao, if Das Antas the Bearded, Schwalbach the German, Saldanha the Duke, or any other leader of Lusitania’s hosts, wins a fight or takes to his heels. Profoundly indifferent is it to us whether her corpulent majesty of Portugal, (eighteen stone by the scale, so she is certified,) holds on at the Necessidades, or is necessitated to cut and run on board a British frigate. Portugal we leave to the care of Colonel Wylde, homœopathic physician-in-ordinary to all trans-Pyrennean insurrections and civil wars; and Spain we consign to the tender mercies of Camarillas, propped by bayonets and inspired by the genial influences of the Tuileries. We have been pestered with these two countries, and with their annual revolutions, reminding us of a whirlwind in a wash-tub, until, in impatience of their restless, turbulent population, we have come to dislike their very names. Nevertheless, here are a brace of books about the Peninsula, concerning which we have a word to say, although we shall not avail ourselves of the opportunity they offer to discuss Portuguese rebellions and Spanish politics.
Writers on Spain, long resident in the country, acquire aborrachatwang, a smack of the pig-skin, a propensity to quaint and proverb-like phrases, characteristic of the land they write about. The peculiarity is perceptible in the books before us; in both of them the racy Castilian flavour reeks through the pages. And first—to begin with the most worthy—as regards Mr. Ford’s “Gatherings.” There be cooks so cunning in their craft, that out of the mangled remains of yesterday’s feast, they concoct a second banquet, less in volume, but more savoury, than its predecessor. This to do, needs both skill and judgment. Spice must be added, sauces devised, heavy and cumbrous portions rejected, great ingenuity exercised, fitly to furnish forth to-day’s delicate collation from the fragments of yesterday’s baked meats. Mr. Ford has shown himself an adept in the art of literaryrechauffage. His masterly and learned “Handbook of Spain,” having been found by some, who love to run and read, too small in type, too grave in substance, he has skimmed its cream, thrown in many well-flavoured and agreeable condiments, and presented the result in one compact and delightful volume. He has at once lightened and condensed his work. Mr. Hughes, the Lisbon pilgrim, has gone quite upon another tack. He makes no pretensions to brevity or close-packing, but starts with a renunciation of method, and an avowed determination to be loquacious. Dashing off in fine desultory style, with a fluent pen, and a flux of words, he proclaims that his sole ambition is to amuse, and with that view he proposes to be discursive and parlous. Amusing he certainly is; his irrepressible tendency to exaggeration is exceedingly diverting, whilst the excellent terms he is upon with himself, frequently compel a smile. His prolixity we can overlook, but we have difficulty in pardoning the questionable taste of certain portions of his book. In commenting on its defects, however, allowances must be made for the bad health of the writer. Doubtless he intends that they should be, for he repeatedly informs us that he is troubled with a pulmonary complaint of many years’ standing, to which he anticipates a fatal termination. “Istrive,” he says, “to escape, by observation of the outer world, and of mankind, from the natural tendency to brood over misfortune, and seek to discover in occupation that cheerfulness which would be inevitably lost in an unemployed existence, and in dwelling on the phases of my illness.” What can we say after such an appeal to our feelings? how criticise with severity a book written under these circumstances? If we hint incredulity as to the gravity of the author’s malady, we shall be classed with those unfeeling persons, “whose levity and heartlessness not only refuse to sympathise, but often even doubt if my sickness be real.” Truly, when we learn that between the months of September and December last, the sick man travelled fifteen hundred miles—the latter portion of the distance through districts where he was compelled to rough it—exposed to frequent vicissitudes of temperature, and to the unhealthy climate of Madrid—sudden death to consumptive patients—eating, according to his own record, with the appetite of a muleteer, “rushing into ventas, and roaring lustily for dinner,” (vide vol. i. p. 206.)—holding furious discussions in coffee-houses, and winding them up, after utterly extinguishing his opponents, with Propagandist harangues eight pages long, (ibid. p. 334,)—and, finally, writing—in the intervals of his journey, we presume,—the two bulky and closely printed volumes now upon our table, we must say that many persons in perfect health would rejoice to vie with so sturdy an invalid. We do hope, therefore, and incline to believe, that the yellow flag thus despondingly hung out is a false signal; that Mr. Hughes, if not to be ranked altogether under the head of imaginary valetudinarians, is at any rate in a far less desperate state than he imagines; and that he will live long, long enough to amend his style, refine his tone, and write a book as commendable in all respects as this one often is for its fun and originality.
It is very unfavourable to the “Overland Journey,” that its coincidence of publication and similarity of subject with the “Gatherings from Spain,” render a comparison between them scarcely avoidable. A comparison with so elegant and scholarly a book as Mr. Ford’s, very few works on the Peninsula that have come under our notice could advantageously sustain. But, after dismissing all idea of establishing a contrast, we still find much to quarrel with in Mr. Hughes’s recent production. It is careless, often flippant, sometimes even coarse, and as we read, we regret that a shrewd observer and intelligent man should thus run into caricature, and neglect the proprieties expected from all who present themselves in print before the public. Against these he offends at the very outset. Scarcely has he put foot in France, when he begins his comments on the fair sex, in which, whilst aiming at acuteness and wit, he displays very little delicacy. Neither are his inferences the most charitable. The young ladies at Havre, who, to preserve their drapery from mud and dust, display, according to the universal French custom, some inches of their very handsome legs, are assumed to do so at mamma’s instigation, and to ensnare husbands. “She is not more than seventeen, and appears to have no consciousness—her face all seeming simplicity and serenity, as are those of most French unmarried misses, (after marriage it is a little t’other.) How ridiculous to suppose that she is not conscious ofher exquisite shapes!” Mr. Hughes has a shocking opinion of the maidens of Gaul, whose conduct towards him seems to have been somewhat indecorous. “Very young girls abroad appear to have attained to consciousness, and often laugh out if you only give them a casual glance.” We know not whether there is any thing especially mirth-provoking in the glances of our lively invalid, but this is the first time we have heard tell of such very unbecoming behaviour on the part of respectable young French women. The next insinuation we stumble upon is of a different nature, although it would scarcely be more relished by its objects. Mr. Hughes is at Paris, indulging in aflânerieon the Boulevards, and taking notes of the latest fashions. “The dresses are now worn extravagantly high, stuck upinto the throat, and suggesting a suspicion that there may besomething blotchy underneath.” To say nothing of the suggestive and unsavoury nature of this remark, we are quite puzzled to know what would satisfy so captious a critic. One lady shows her ankle, and is set down as an immodest schemer; another covers her neck, and is suspected of a cutaneous affection. On a par with such an inference, is the gross account of an alabaster group in a shop window, and the wit of the conjecture whether Dr. Toothache, who attends to the “teeth, gums, tongue, throat, &c., has any cure for a long tongue, or if hepatches the gums with gum elastic!” Such stuff as this would hardly pass muster in familiar conversation, or in a gossipping letter to an intimate friend; but in a printed book, intended, doubtless, for the perusal of thousands, it is sadly out of place. It is a relief to revert from it to the strong good sense and graceful raillery of Mr. Ford’s pages.
Sure, where all is good, to fall in a pleasant place, we open the “Gatherings” at random. Upon what have we stumbled? Railroads. Interesting to Threadneedle Street. True that the mania days are past, when an English capitalist caught at any new line puffed by a plausible prospectus, however impossible the gradients and desolate the district. Nevertheless, and in case of relapse, a word or two about the practicability of Spanish railroads will not be out of place. Mr. Ford is a man who knows Spain thoroughly: that none can doubt. Neither can there be any question of his veracity and impartiality. Whatever interest he might have to cry up such projects, he can have none to cry them down. We, therefore, recommend all persons who have not already made up their minds as to the bubble nature of Peninsular railway schemes, to send forthwith to Mr. Murray for a copy of the “Gatherings,” and to read thrice, with profound attention, the last six pages of Chapter Five. They may also glance at pages 8 and 13, and learn, what the majority of them are probably ignorant of, that the Peninsula is an agglomeration of mountains, divided by Spanish geographers into seven distinct chains, all more or less connected with each other, and having innumerable branches and off-shoots. Notwithstanding this very discouraging configuration of the land, “there is,” says Mr. Ford, “just now much talk of railroads, and splendid official and other documents are issued, by which ‘the whole country is to be intersected (on paper) with a net-work of rapid and bowling-green communications,’ which are to create a ‘perfect homogeneity amongst Spaniards.’” The absurdity of this last notion is only appreciable by those who know the vast differences that exist, in character, interests, feelings, and even race, between the different provinces of Spain. Time, tranquillity, and a secure and paternal government, may eventually produce the blending deemed so desirable, and railways would of course largely contribute to the same end, could they be made. But to say nothing of the mountains, there are a few other impediments nearly as formidable. Spain is an immense country, thinly peopled, whose inhabitants travel little, and whose commerce is unimportant. And, moreover, projectors of Peninsular rails have reckoned without a certain two-legged animal, indigenous to the soil, and known as themuleteer. To this gentleman is at present committed the whole inland carrying trade of Spain. What will he say when he finds his occupation gone? how will he get his chick peas and sausage when he has been run off the road by steam? Mr. Ford opines that he, as well as the smuggler, who also will be seriously damaged by the introduction of locomotives, will turn robber or patriot,—the two most troublesome classes in all Spain. As to prevailing on him to act as guard to a railway carriage, to trim lamps, ticket portmanteaus, or stand with outstretched arm by the road-side, the idea will only be entertained by persons who know nothing either of Spain or Spanish muleteers. By the side of the line he doubtless would often be found; but not as a telegraph to warn of danger. In his new capacity of brigand, his look-out would be for the purses of the passengers. He could hardly stop an express train in the old Finchley style of presentinghimself and his pistol at the carriage window, but a few stones and tree-trunks would answer the purpose as well. “A handful of opponents,” says Mr. Ford, “in any cistus-grown waste, may at any time, in five minutes, break up the road, stop the train, stick the stoker, and burn the engines in their own fire, particularly smashing the luggage-train.” To English ears this may sound like absurd exaggeration. We have difficulty in imagining a gang of stage-coachmen, even though they have been puffed off their boxes by the mighty blast of steam, combining, under the orders of Captain Brown or Jones, the gentleman driver of some Cambridge, Rockingham, or Brighton bang-up, to build barricades across railways and pick off engineers from behind a quickset hedge. Here there would be no impunity for such malefactors; their campaign against innovation would speedily conduct them to Newgate and the hulks. Not so in the Peninsula, where roads are few, police defective, and where, at the present time, smugglers and other notorious law-breakers strut upon the crown of the causeway, appear boldly in towns, and hold themselves in every respect for as honest men as their neighbours. But it is not to be supposed that popular opposition, probable, almost certain, as it is, to be met with in such a half African, semi-civilized country, would be held worth a moment’s consideration by the dashing schemers who propose to cover the Peninsula with iron arteries. The audacity of those persons is only to be equalled by their consummate geographical ignorance, several instances of which are shown up with much humour and irony by the author of the “Gatherings.” Some of the most notoriously absurd of the schemes set afloat, have had their origin with Englishmen, of whom, since the close of the civil war, and especially within the last year or two, a vast number have betaken themselves to Spain, to follow up ventures more or less hopeful or hopeless. Owing to a long peace, to a rapid growth of population, and to the daily-increasing difficulty of fortune-making, the classAdventurerhas of late years, both in this country and the sister kingdom, greatly augmented its numbers. This is evident from the throng of unemployed and aspiring gentlemen ever ready to engage in any undertaking, however desperate and doubtful of success. Let a clandestine expedition be contemplated to some hole-and-corner state or antipodean republic, and up start a host of mettlesome cavaliers, from all ranks and classes, including Irish lords and English baronets and squires of low degree, having all fought in three or four services, more or less piratical or illegitimate, all bearded like the pard, and be-ribboned like maypoles, and all eager once more to rush to the fray, and signalise themselves under a foreign banner. These are specimens of the adventurer bellicose, the Mike Lambournes and Dugald Dalgettys of the nineteenth century. Of a more calculating and ambitious class is the adventurer speculative, who possesses a Dousterswivel aptitude for discovering mines, devising railways, projecting canals, and the like undertakings. Spain has of late been favoured with the attentions of many of these gentlemen, flying at every thing, from a common sewer to a coal mine, an omnibus company to a hundred leagues of railway. With geniuses of this stamp have originated some of the impracticable projects so eagerly caught at by English capitalists, whose unemployed cash had mounted, as Mr. Ford expresses it, from their pockets to their heads. We know not who was the projector of that most magnificent scheme to connect Madrid with the Atlantic, in defiance of such trifling impediments as the Guadarama range and the Asturian Alps, but we learn from the “Gatherings” that he was “to receive £40,000 for the cession of his plan to the company, and actually did receive £25,000, which, considering the difficulties, natural and otherwise, must be considered an inadequate remuneration.” Unfortunately, when he sold his plan, he did not show the buyers how to surmount the difficulties; and indeed he would have been puzzled to do so, since they subsequently proved insurmountable. But the whole of the facts relating to Spanish railroads lie in a nutshell, and may be set forth in ten lines. Neither by the nature ofits surface, nor by amount of population and importance of trade, is Spain adapted to receive this greatest invention of the present century. As to a regular system of railways, diverging from Madrid to the frontiers and principal seaport towns, on the plan laid down for France, it is not to be thought of, and can never be accomplished. And with respect to those lines whichmightbe made along the valleys, and by following the course of rivers, the country is not yet ripe for them. Spain has not yet been able to get canals; her highroads, worthy of the name, are few and far between, leading only from the capital to coast or frontier, whilst cross roads and communications between towns are for the most part merecaminos de herradura, horse-shoe or bridle roads of a wretched description. A few short lines of cheap construction over level tracts, and favoured by peculiar circumstances, such as a populous district, the proximity of large towns, or of a country unusually rich in natural productions, are the only railways that can as yet be undertaken in Spain without certainty of heavy loss. The line between Madrid and Aranjuez is the only one, Mr. Ford thinks, at all likely to be at present carried out.
We have been greatly delighted with the pictures scattered through Mr. Ford’s book, pictures that owe nothing to pencil or graver, half pages of letter-press placing before our eyes, with the brilliant minuteness of a richly-coloured and highly-finished painting, men, things, and scenes characteristic of Spain. Amongst these, the sketch of the muleteer, that errant descendant of the old Morisco carriers, is full of life; and we defy the brush of the most cunning artist to bring the man, in all his peculiarities, more vividly before us than is done by Mr. Ford’s vigorous and graceful pen and ink touches. We see the long line of tall mules, with dusty flanks and well-poised burdens, winding their way over some rugged sierra, or across a wearydespoblado, their gay worsted head-gear nodding in the sunbeams, the tinkle of their innumerable bells mingling with the mournful song of their conductor, to which, when the latter, weary of striding beside his beasts, mounts aloft upon the bales for a temporary rest, is added the monotonous thrum of a guitar. The song is as unceasing as the bells, unless when interrupted by a pull at the winebota, or by the narration of some wild story of bandit cruelty or contrabandist daring. “The Spanish muleteer is a fine fellow; he is intelligent, active, and enduring; he braves hunger and thirst, heat and cold, mud and dust; he works as hard as his cattle, never robs or is robbed; and whilst his betters in this land put off every thing till to-morrow, except bankruptcy,heis punctual and honest.” Mr. Ford’s book will hardly find much favour in the country of which it treats. It tells too many home truths. We have heard his “Hand-book” found fault with by Spaniards, although it was evident they were puzzled where to attack him, and equally so that their hyper-critical censure of certain trifling inaccuracies, real or imaginary, was merely a mode of venting their vexation at the shrewdness, wit, and delicious impertinence with which he shows up the national vices and foibles. He dives into the most secret recesses of the Spanish character, and whilst admitting its good points, probes its weakness with an unsparing hand. No people in the world entertain such an arrogant overstrained good opinion of themselves and their country as Spaniards. To hear them refer to Spain, one would imagine it to be the first kingdom in the world, combining the advantages of all the most civilized and flourishing countries in Europe. We here speak of the masses; of course there is an enlightened and clear-sighted minority, that sees and deplores its fallen condition. But the popular notion is the other way. “Who says Spain, says every thing;” so runs the proverb. And yet whilst they mouth about España, and exalt it, not in the way of an empty boast, which the utterer believeth not, but in full conviction of the good foundation of their vaunts, above all the kingdoms of the earth, they are, in fact, the least homogeneous nation in existence,—the least patriotic, in the comprehensive sense of the word. Nowhereare distinctions of provinces so strongly marked, in no country are so many antipathies to be found between inhabitants of different districts. “Like the German, they may sing and spout about Fatherland: in both cases the theory is splendid, but in practice each Spaniard thinks his own province or town the best in the Peninsula, and himself the finest fellow in it.” Thepatriotisme du clocher, with which French provincials have been reproached, but which, in France, the system of centralisation has done so much to eradicate, the prejudice which narrows a man’s sympathies to his own country or department, is extra-ordinarily conspicuous in Spaniards. It is traceable to various causes; to the former divisions of the country, when it consisted of several kingdoms, independent and jealous of each other; to want of convenient communications and to the stay-at-home habits of the people; and also to the unimportance of the capital, which title has been so frequently transferred from city to city. When one Spaniard talks of another as his countryman, he does not refer to their being both Spaniards, but means that both are from the same province. “The much used phrase, ‘Españolismo,’” says Mr. Ford, who is very hard upon the poor Dons on this head, “expresses rather a dislike of foreign dictation, and the self-estimation of Spaniards, ‘Españoles sobre todos,’ than any real patriotic love of country, however highly they rate its excellencies and superiority to every other one under heaven.”
So much for a go off. We find this in the first chapter, and few of the subsequent ones conclude without some similar rap on the knuckles for the countrymen of Don Quixote; raps always dexterously applied, and in most instances well deserved. On Spanish securities, (to use a misnomer,) whether loan, land, or rail, and on theunremittingpunctuality of Spanish finance ministers, Mr. Ford is particularly severe, and not without good cause. TheHispanica fidesof the present day may well rival thePunica fidesof the ancients. It has become as proverbial. Painful is it to behold a people, possessing so many noble qualities, held up to the scorn of surrounding nations for repeated acts of dishonesty, which, under a good government, and with a proper administration of their immense resources, they would never have been tempted to perpetrate. Under the present plan, however, with their absurd tariff, the parent of the admirably organised system of smuggling that supplies the whole country with foreign commodities, and reduces the customs revenue to a tithe of what it might be made, we see no possible exit for Spain from the labyrinth of financial embarrassment in which dishonesty and corruption have plunged her. She resembles a reckless spendthrift, who, having exhausted his credit and ruined his character amongst honest money-lenders, has been compelled to resort to Jews and usurers, and who now, when the days of his hot youth and uncalculating dissipation are past, and he wishes to redeem his character and compound with his creditors, lacks resolution to economise, and judgment to avail himself of, the resources of his encumbered but fertile estates. The debts of Spain are stated by Mr. Ford at about two hundred and eighty millions sterling, this estimate being based on reports laid before parliament in 1844 by Mr. Macgregor. The statement, however, whose possible exaggeration, owing to the difficulty of getting at correct information, is admitted in the “Gatherings,” is fiercely contradicted by an anonymous correspondent, whose letter Mr. Ford prints at the end of his volume. Some of the assertions of this “Friend of Truth” (so he signs himself) are so astonishing, as utterly to disprove his right to the title. According to him, the whole Spanish debt is less than a fourth of the sum above set down, the country is very rich, quite able to meet her trifling engagements, and Spanish stock is a fortune to whomsoever is lucky enough to possess it! After this, it was supererogatory on the part of the unknown letter-writer to inform us that he is a large holder of the valuable bonds he so highly esteems, and whose rise to theirproperprice, about 60 or 70, he confidently predicts. Crumbs of comfort these, for the creditors of insolvent Spain. Nevertheless, Mr. Fordpersists in his incredulity as to the sunny prospects of Peninsular bond-holders; and whilst hoping that the bright visions of his anonymous friend may be fully and promptly realised, declares his extreme distaste for any thing in the shape of Spanish stock, whether active, passive, or deferred. “Beware,” he says, in his pithy and convincing style, “of Spanish stock, for, in spite of official records,documentos, and arithmetical mazes, which, intricate as an Arabesque pattern, look well on paper without being intelligible; in spite of ingenious conversions, fundings of interest, &c. &c. the thimblerig is always the same. And this is the question:—Since national credit depends on national good faith, and surplus income, how can a country pay interest on debts, whose revenues have long been, and now are, miserably insufficient for the ordinary expenses of government? You cannot get blood from a stone;ex nihilo nihil fit.” After which warning, coming from such a quarter, sane persons on the look-out for an investment will, we imagine, as soon think of making it in Glenmutchkin railway shares, as in the dishonoured paper of all-promising, non-performing Spain.
The popular notion prevalent in England, and still more so in France, that Spain is an unsafe country to travel in, is energetically combated by Mr. Ford. It, of course, would be highly impolitic in the author of a hand-book to admit that, in the country he described, the chances were about equal whether a man got to his journey’s end with a whole throat or a cut one. But this consideration, we are sure, has had no weight with Mr. Ford, both of whose books are equally adapted to amuse by an English fireside or to be useful on a Spanish highway. His contempt for the exaggerated statements and causeless terrors of tourists leads him, however, rather into the opposite extreme. Believe him, and there is scarcely a robber in the Peninsula, although he admits that thieves abound, chiefly to be found in confessional boxes, lawyers’ chambers, and government offices. Thenaivetéof the following is amusing:—He speaks of travellers who, by scraping together and recording every idle tale, gleaned from the gossip of muleteers and chatter of coffee-houses, “keep up the notion entertained in many counties of England, that the whole Peninsula is peopled with banditti. If such were the case society could not exist.” The assertion is undeniable. Equally so is it that in a country where civil war so lately raged, and where, until a very recent date, revolutions were still rife, where a large portion of the population lives by the lawless and demoralising profession of smuggling, where the police is bad, where roads are long and solitary and mountains many, highwaymen must abound and travelling be unsafe. That it is so, may be ascertained by a glance at any file of Spanish newspapers. And the peculiar state of Spain, its liability to the petty insurrections and desperate attempts of exiled parties and pretenders, encourages the growth of robber bands, who cloak their villanous calling with a political banner. These insurgents, Carlists, Progresista, or whatsoever they may style themselves, act upon the broad principle that those who are not with them are against them, and consequently are just as dangerous and disagreeable to meet as mere vulgar marauders of the “stand and deliver” sort, who fight upon their own account, without pretending to defend the cause either of King or Kaiser, liberty or absolutism. At the same time to believe, as many do, that of travellers in Spain the unrobbed are the exceptions or even the minority, is a gross absurdity, and the delusion arises from the romancing vein in which scribbling tourists are apt to indulge. It is certain that nearly all travellers, especially French ones, who take a run of a month or two in the Peninsula, and subsequently print the eventful history of their ramble, think it indispensable to introduce at least one robber adventure, as having occurred to themselves or come within their immediate cognisance. And if they cannot manage to get actually robbed, positively put down with their noses in the mud, whilst their carpet bags are rummaged, and their Chub-locks smashed by gloomy ruffians with triple-charged blunderbusses, and knives like scythe-blades,they at least get up a narrow escape. They encounter a troop of thorough-bred bandits, unmistakable purse-takers, fellows with slouched hats, truculent mustaches and rifle at saddle-bow, who lower at them from beneath bushy brows, and are on the point of commencing hostilities, when the well-timed appearance of a picket of dragoons, or perhaps the bold countenance of the travellers themselves, makes them change their purpose and ride surlily by. Mr. Ford shows how utterly groundless these alarms usually are. Most Spaniards, when they mount their horses for a journey, discard long-tailed coats and Paris hats, and revert in great measure to the national costume as it is still to be found in country places. A broad-brimmed, pointed hat, with velvet band and trimmings—the genuine melodramatic castor—protects head and face from the sun; a jacket, frequently of sheepskin, overalls, often of a half-military cut and colour, and a red sash round the waist, compose the habitual attire of Spanish wayfarers. Such a dress is not usual out of Spain, and to French and English imaginations does not suggest the idea of domestic habits and regular tax-paying. And when the cavaliers thus accoutred possess olive or chocolate complexions, with dark flashing eyes and a considerable amount of beard, and are elevated upon demi-pique saddles, whose holsters may or may not contain “pistols as long as my arm,” whilst some of their number have perhaps fowling-pieces slung on their shoulder, it is scarcely surprising if the English Cockney or Parisianbadaudmistakes them for the banditti whom he has dreamed about ever since he crossed the Bidassoa or landed at Cadiz. And upon encounters of this kind, and incidents of very little more gravity, repeated, distorted, and hugely exaggerated, are founded five-sixths of the robber stories to which poor Spain is indebted for its popular reputation of a country of cut-throats and highwaymen.
Amongst the measures adopted for the extirpation of banditti, was the establishment of theguardias civiles, a species of gendarmerie, dressed upon the French model, and who, from their stations in towns, patrol the roads and wander about the country in the same prying and important style observable amongst their brethren of the cocked hat north of the Pyrenees. Spaniards have a sneaking regard for bold robbers, whom they look upon as half-brothers of the contrabandist—that popular hero of the Peninsula: they have also an innate dislike of policemen, and a still stronger one for every thing French. They have bestowed upon the Frenchifiedguardiasthe appellations ofpolizones,—a word borrowed from their neighbours,—and ofhijos de Luis Felipe, sons of Louis Philippe. “Spaniards,” saith Richard Ford, “are full of dry humour;” he might have added, and of sharp wit. Nothing escapes them: they are ever ready with a sarcasm on public men and passing events, and when offended, especially when their pride is hurt, they become savage in their satire. When it was attempted to force Count Trapani upon Spain as a husband for the Queen, the indignation of the people burst out in innumerable jokes and current allusions, any thing but flattering to the Neapolitan prince. Every thing filthy and disgusting received his name. In the Madrid coffee-houses, when a dirty table was to be wiped, the cry was invariably for aTrapani, instead of atrapo, the Spanish word for a dishclout or rag used for the most unclean purposes. Since then, the Duke of Montpensier has come in for his share of insulting jests. The Madrileños got all unfounded notion that he was short-sighted, and made the most of it. Mr. Hughes was at a bull-fight where one of the bulls showed the white feather, and ran from thepicador. “The crowd instantly exclaimed, ‘Fuera el toro Monpenseer! Fuera Monpenseer!Turn him out!’ They used to call every lame dog and donkey aTrapani; and now every blind animal is sure to be christened aMonpenseer.”
If the danger to which peaceable travellers are exposed, in Spain, from the knives of robbers, be considerably less than is generally believed, great peril is often incurred at the hands of men who wield cutting weapons professedly for the good of their species.The ignorance and inefficiency of Spanish surgeons and physicians is notorious, and admitted even by their countrymen, who, it has already been shown, are not prone to expose the nakedness of the land. “The base, bloody, and brutalSangradosof Spain,” says Mr. Ford, “have long been the butts of foreign and domestic novelists, who spoke many a true word in their jests.” The eagerness with which Spaniards have recourse to French and English medical men whom chance throws in their way, proves how low they estimate the skill and science of their professional countrymen. Many a naval surgeon whose ship has been stationed on the Spanish coast, could tell strange tales of the fatal ignorance he has had opportunity to observe amongst the native faculty. It will be remembered how Zumalacarregui, whose wound would have offered little difficulty to an English village practitioner, was hurried out of the world by the butchering manœuvres of his conclave of Spanish quacks andmedicos, terms too often synonymous. And it may be remarked, that in Spain, where there has been so much fighting during the last fifteen years, amputated persons are more rarely met with than in countries that have enjoyed comparative peace during the same period. The natural inference is, that the unlucky soldier whose leg or arm has been shattered by the enemy’s fire, usually dies under the hands of unskilful operators. “All Spaniards,” Mr. Ford remarks, “are very dangerous with the knife, and more particularly if surgeons. At no period were Spaniards careful even of their own lives, and much less of those of others, being a people of untender bowels.” If the Peninsula surgeon is reckless and destructive with his steel, the physician, on the other hand, is usually overcautious with his drugs. Almond-milk and vegetable decoctions, impotent to cure or aggravate disease, are prominent remedies in the Spanish pharmacopœia; minerals are looked upon with awe, and the timidtisanepractice of the French school is exaggerated to absurdity. Upon the principle of keeping edged tools out of the hands of children, it is perhaps just as well that Spanish doctors do not venture to meddle with the strong drugs commonly used in England. Left to nature, with whose operation asses’-milk and herb-broth can in few cases interfere, the invalid has at least a chance of cure.
Unassailed by either variety of Spanish bloodletters, the doctor or the bandit, Mr. Hughes pursued, in high spirits and great good humour, his long and leisurely journey from Irun to Lisbon,viaMadrid. We left him at Paris, strolling in the passages, dining with his friends of theCharivari, frequenting thefoyer de l’opera, leading, in short, rather a gay life for a man in such delicate health; we take him up again upon his own favourite battle-ground of the Peninsula, where we like him far better than in the French metropolis. At Burgos he is in great feather, winning hearts by the dozen, frightening the garrison by sketching the fortress, waging a victorious warfare of words at thetable-d’hôte, and playing pranks which will doubtless cause him to be long remembered in the ancient capital of Castile. There the maid of the inn, a certain black-eyed Francisca, fell desperately in love with him, and so far forgot maidenly reserve as to confess her flame. “She had large and expressive eyes,” says the fortunate man, “and had tried their power on me repeatedly, and the like, I am bound to say, (in narrating this truthful history,) did sundry Burgalese dames and damsels of more pretensions and loftier state.” These were far from being the sole triumphs achieved at Burgos by this lover of truth, and loved-one of the ladies. He managed to excite the suspicions of the whole population, especially of the police, who set spies to dog him. He was taken for a political agent, a propagandist, and at last for a diplomatist of the first water, and secretary of legation at Madrid. The origin of these suspicions was traceable to his disregard of a ridiculous and barbarous prejudice, a relic of orientalism worthy of the Sandwich islanders, still in force amongst Spaniards. “Nothing throughout the length and breadth of the land”—we quote from Mr. Ford—“creates greater suspicion or jealousy than a stranger’smaking drawings, or writing down notes in a book; whoever is observed ‘taking plans,’ or ‘mapping the country,’—for such are the expressions of the simplest pencil sketches,—is thought to be an engineer, a spy, or, at all events, to be about no good.” Mr. Hughes was caught taking notes; forthwith Burgos was up in arms, whilst he, on discovering the sensation made by his sketch-book, and by his free expression of political opinions, did his utmost to increase the mysterious interest attached to him. He galloped about the castle, book and pencil in hand, making imaginary sketches of bastions and ravelins; he talked liberalism by the bushel, and raved against the Montpensior alliance. The results of the triumphant logic with which he electrified a brigadier-general, a colonel, and the whole company at his hotel, are recorded by him in a note. It will be seen that they were not unimportant. “I have the satisfaction to state that the words which I said that day bore good fruit subsequently, for the Ayuntamiento of Burgos declined to vote any taxation for extraordinary expenses to commemorate the Duke of Montpensier’s marriage.” A dangerous man is the overland traveller to Lisbon, and we are no way surprised that, at Madrid, Señor Chico, chief of police, vouchsafed him his special attention, and even called upon him to inquire whether he did not intend to get up a commotion on the entrance of the Infanta’s bridegroom. Mr. Bulwer also, aware that a book was in embryo, and anxious for a patronising word in its pages, paid his court to the author by civilities, “all of which I carefully abstained from accepting, except one formal dinner, to which I first declined going; but, on receiving a renewal of the invitation, could not well refrain from appearing.... I have had six years’ experience of foreign diplomatists, and know that the dinner was pressed on me a second time for the very purpose of committing me to a particular line of observation.” After this, let any one tell us that Mr. Hughes has not fulfilled his promise of being amusing. Unfettered by obligations, he runs full tilt at poor Mr. Bulwer, the fatal error of whose career is, he says, an excessive opinion of himself. This fault must be especially odious to the author of the “Journey to Lisbon.” The British ambassador at Madrid, we are told, by his vanity and lack of energy, left full scope for the active and tortuous intrigues of M. Bresson, who fairly juggled and outmanœuvred him. “The marriages were arranged in his absence. He was not consulted on the question, nor was its decision submitted to him; and when the news, on the following day, reached the British legation, after having become previously known to the metropolis, our minister was at Carabanchal! (one of his country-houses.) Then, indeed, he became very active, and displayed muchex post factoenergy, writing a series of diplomatic notes and protests, in one of which he went the length of saying, ‘Had he known this result, he would have voted for Don Carlos instead of Queen Isabel,’—for even the ambassador cannot lose sight of the individual,—‘when he (Mr. Bulwer) was member of Parliament!’” Did Mr. Hughesseethis note or protest? Unless he did, we decline believing that a man of Mr. Bulwer’s talents and reputation would expose himself to certain ridicule by so childish and undiplomatic a declaration. Such loose and improbable statements need confirmation.
Very graphic and interesting is Mr. Hughes’ narrative of his journey from Madrid to Portugal, especially that of the three days from Elvas to Aldea Gallega, which were passed in a jolting springless cart, drawn by mules, and driven by Senhor Manoel Alberto, a Portuguese carrier and cavalheiro, poor in pocket, but proud as a grandee. Manoel was a good study, an excellent specimen of his class and country, and as such his employer exhibits him. At Arroyolos Mr. Hughes ordered a stewed fowl for dinner, and made his charioteer sit down and partake. “I soon had occasion to repent my politeness, for Manoel, without hesitation, plunged his fork into the dish, and drank out of my glass; and great was his surprise when I called for another tumbler, and, extricating as much of the fowl as I chose to consume, left him in undisturbed possession of the remainder.”His next meal Mr. Hughes thought proper to eat alone, but sent out half his chicken to the muleteer. “He refused to touch it, saying that he had ordered a chicken for himself! This was a falsehood, for he supped, as I afterwards ascertained, on a miserablesopa, but his pride would not permit him to touch what was given in a way that indicated inferiority.” In his rambles through Alemtejo, a province little visited and not often described by Englishmen, Mr. Hughes exposes some of the blunders of Friend Borrow, of Bible and gipsy celebrity, whose singularly attractive style has procured for his writings a popularity of which their mistatements and inaccuracies render them scarcely worthy. He refers especially to the absurd notion of the Englishcaloro, that the Portuguese will probably some day adopt the Spanish language; a most preposterous idea, when we remember the shyness, not to say the antipathy, existing between the two nations, and the immense opinion each entertains of itself and all belonging to it. He regrets “that one who has so stirring a style should take refuge in bounce and exaggeration from the honourable task of candid and searching observation, and prefer the fame of a Fernão Mendez Pinto to that of an honest and truthful writer.” With respect to exaggeration, Mr. Borrow might, if so disposed, retaliate on his censor, who, whilst wandering in the olive groves of Venda do Duque, encounters “black ants as large almost asfigs, unmolested in the vivid sun-beam.” Before such monsters as these, the terribletermes fatalisof the Indies, which undermines houses and breakfasts upon quarto volumes, must hide its diminished head. A misprint can scarcely be supposed, unless indeed anfhas been substituted for ap, which would not mend the matter. Apropos of Mr. Borrow: it appears that the ill success of his tract and Testament crusade did not entirely check missionary zeal for the spiritual amelioration of the Peninsula. His followers, however, met with small encouragement. One of their clever ideas was to bottle tracts, throw them into the sea, and allow them to be washed ashore! This ingenious plan, adopted before Cadiz, did not answer, “first,” says Mr. Hughes, who, we must do him the justice to say, is a stanch foe to humbug, “because the bottling gave a ludicrous colour to the transaction; and, secondly, for the conclusive reason, that Cadiz, being surrounded by fortified sea walls, mounted with frowning guns and sentries, the bottles never reached the inhabitants.”
Whilst touching on Portuguese literature, Mr. Hughes refers to what he considers the depreciating spirit of English critics. “There is a ludicrous difference,” he says, “in the criticism of London and Lisbon. Every thing is condemned in the former place, and every thing hailed with rapture in the latter. There are faults on both sides.” We have been informed that previous literary efforts of the author of the “Overland Journey” met, at the hands of certain reviewers, with rougher handling than they deserved. His present book is certainly not so cautiously written as to guarantee it against censure. The good that is in it, which is considerable, is defaced by triviality and bad taste. We shall not again dilate on faults to which we have already adverted, but merely advise Mr. Hughes, when next he sits down to record his rambles, to eschew flimsy and unpalatable gossip, and, bearing in mind Lord Bacon’s admonition to travellers, to be “rather advised in his discourse than forward to tell stories.”
[The Stethoscope, as most, probably, of our readers are aware, is a short, straight, wooden tube, shaped like a small post-horn. By means of it, the medical man can listen to the sounds which accompany the movements of the lungs and heart; and as certain murmurs accompany the healthy action of these organs, and certain others mark their diseased condition, an experienced physician can readily discover not only the extent, but also the nature of the distemper which afflicts his patient, and foretell more or less accurately the fate of the latter.The Stethoscope has long ceased to excite merely professional interest. There are few families to whom it has not proved an object of horror and the saddest remembrance, as connected with the loss of dear relatives, though it is but a revealer, not a producer of physical suffering.As an instrument on which the hopes and fears, and one may also say the destinies of mankind, so largely hang, it appears to present a fit subject for poetic treatment. How far the present attempt to carry out this idea is successful, the reader must determine.]
[The Stethoscope, as most, probably, of our readers are aware, is a short, straight, wooden tube, shaped like a small post-horn. By means of it, the medical man can listen to the sounds which accompany the movements of the lungs and heart; and as certain murmurs accompany the healthy action of these organs, and certain others mark their diseased condition, an experienced physician can readily discover not only the extent, but also the nature of the distemper which afflicts his patient, and foretell more or less accurately the fate of the latter.
The Stethoscope has long ceased to excite merely professional interest. There are few families to whom it has not proved an object of horror and the saddest remembrance, as connected with the loss of dear relatives, though it is but a revealer, not a producer of physical suffering.
As an instrument on which the hopes and fears, and one may also say the destinies of mankind, so largely hang, it appears to present a fit subject for poetic treatment. How far the present attempt to carry out this idea is successful, the reader must determine.]
Faraday was the first to elicit the electric spark from the magnet; he found that it is visible at the instants of breaking and of renewing the contact of the conducting wires; andonly then.
February, 1847.
Dear Archy,—As a resource against the long ennui of the solitary evenings of commencing winter, I determined to betake me to the neglected lore of the marvellous, the mystical, the supernatural. I remembered the deep awe with which I had listened many a year ago to tales of seers, and ghosts, and vampires, and all the dark brood of night; and I thought it would be infinitely agreeable to thrill again with mysterious terrors, to start in my chair at the closing of a distant door, to raise my eyes with uneasy apprehension towards the mirror opposite, and to feel my skin creep with the sensible “afflatus” of an invisible presence. I entered, accordingly, upon what I thought a very promising course of appalling reading; but, alack and well-a-day! a change has come over me since the good old times, when Fancy, with Fear and Superstition behind her, would creep on tiptoe to catch a shuddering glimpse of Cobbold Fay, or Incubus. Vain were all my efforts to revive the pleasant horrors of earlier years. It was as if I had planned going to the play to enjoy again the full gusto of scenic illusion, and through some unaccountable absence of mind, was attending a morning rehearsal only; when, instead of what I had expected, great coats, hats, umbrellas, and ordinary men and women, masks, tinsel, trap-doors, pulleys, and a world of intricate machinery, lit by a partial gleam of sunshine, had met my view. The spell I had anticipated was not there. But yet the daylight scene was worth a few minutes’ study. My imagination was not to be gratified; but still it might be entertaining to see how the tricks are done, the effects produced, the illusion realised. I found myself insensibly growing philosophical; what amused me became matter of speculation—speculation turned into serious inquiry—the object of which shaped itself into “the amount of truth contained in popular superstitions.” For what has been believed for ages must have something real at bottom. There can be no prevalent delusion without a corresponding truth. If the dragons, that flew on scaly wings and expectorated flames, were fabulous, there existed nevertheless very respectable reptiles, which it was a credit to a hero or even a saint to destroy. If the Egyptian worship of cats and onions was a mistake, there existed nevertheless an object of worship.
Among the immortal productions of the Scottish Shakspeare,—you smile, butthatphrase contains the true belief, not a popular delusion; for the spirit of the poet lived not in the form of his productions, but in his creative power and vivid intuition of nature; and the form even is often nearer you than you think: See the works of imaginative prose writers,passim.
Well, among the novels of Scott, I was going to say, none perhaps more grows upon our preference than the Antiquary. In no one has the great Author more gently and more indulgently, never with happier humour, displayed the mixed web of strength and infirmity of human character, (never, besides, with more facile power evoked pathos and terror, or disported himself in the sublimity and beauty of nature.) Yet gentle as is his mood, he misses not the opportunity, albeit in general he betrays an honest leaning towards old superstitions, mercilessly to crush one of the humblest. Do you remember the Priory of St. Ruth, and the pleasant summer party made to visit it, and the preparation for the subsequent rogueries of Dousterswivel, in the tale of Martin Waldeck, and the discovery of a spring of water by means of the divining rod?
I am disposed, do you know, to rebel against the judgment of the novelist on this occasion,—to take the part of the charlatan against the author of his being, and to question, whether his performance last alluded to mightnot have been something more and better than a trick. Yet I know not if it is prudent to brave public opinion, which has stamped this pretension as imposture. But, courage! I will not flinch. I will be desperate, with Sir Arthur, defy the sneeze of the great Pheulphan, and trust to unearth a real treasure in this discredited ground.
Therefore leave off appealing to the shade of Oldbuck, and listen to a plain narrative, and you shall hear how much truth there is in the reputed popular delusion of the divining rod.
I see my tone of confidence has already half-staggered your disbelief; but pray do not, like many other incredulous gentry, run off at once into the opposite extreme. Don’t let your imagination suddenly instal you perpetual chairman of the universal fresh-water company, or of the general gold-mine-discovery-proprietary-association. What I have to fell you falls very far short of so splendid a mark.
But perhaps you know nothing at all about the divining rod. Then I will enlighten your primitive ignorance.
You are to understand, that, in mining districts, a superstition prevails among the people, that some are gifted with an occult power of detecting the proximity of veins of metal, and of underground springs of water. In Cornwall, they hold that about one in forty possesses this faculty. The mode, of exercising it is very simple. They cut a hazel twig that forks naturally into two equalbranches; and having stripped the leaves off, they cut the stump of the twig, to the length of three or four inches, and each branch to the length of a foot or something less: for the end of a branch is meant to be held in each hand, in such a manner that the stump of the twig may project straight forwards. The position is this: the elbows are bent, the forearms, and hands advanced, the knuckles turned downwards, the ends of the branches come out between the thumbs and roots of the forefingers, the hands are supinated, the inner side of each is turned towards its fellow, as they are held a few inches apart. The mystic operator, thus armed, walks over the ground he intends exploring, with the full expectation, that, when he passes over a vein of metal, or underground spring of water, the hazel fork will move spontaneously in his hands, the point or stump rising or falling as the case may be. This hazel fork is thedivining rod. The hazel has the honour of being preferred, because it divides into nearly equal branches at angles the nearest equal.
Then, assuming that there is something in this provincial superstition, four questions present themselves to us for examination.
Does the divining fork really move of itself in the hands of the operator, and not through motion communicated to it by the intentional or unintentional action of the muscles of his hands or arms?
What relation has the person of the operator to the motion observed in the divining rod?
What is the nature of the influence to which the person of the operator serves as a conductor?
Finally, what is the thing divined? the proximity of veins of metal or of running water? what or what not?
Then, let me at once premise, that upon the last point I have no information to offer. The uses to which the divining fork may be turned, are yet to be learned. But I think I shall be able to satisfy you, that the hazel fork in some hands, and in certain localities, held as I have described, actually moves spontaneously, and that the intervention of the human body is necessary to its motion; and that it serves as a conductor to an influence, which is either electricity, or something either combined with electricity, or very much resembling that principle in some of its habitudes.
I should observe, that I was no wiser than you are upon this subject, till the summer of 1843, and held the tales told of the divining rod to be nonsense, the offspring of mere self-delusion, or of direct imposture. And I think the likeliest way of removingyourdisbelief, will be to tell you the steps by which my own conversion took place.
In the summer of 1843, I lived some months under the same roof with a Scottish gentleman, well informed, of a serious turn of mind, endowed with the national allowance of caution,shrewdness, and intelligence. I saw a good deal of him; and one day by accident the subject of the divining rod was mentioned. He told me that at one time his curiosity having been raised upon the subject, he had taken pains to learn what there was in it. And for that purpose he had obtained an introduction to Mrs. R., sister of Sir G. R., then residing at Southampton, whom he learned to be one of those in whose hands the divining rod was said to move. He visited the lady, who was polite enough to show him what the performance amounted to, and to answer all his questions, and to allow him to try some simple experiment to test the reality of the phenomenon and its nature.
Mrs. R. told my friend, that being at Cheltenham in 1806, she saw for the first time the divining rod used by the late Mrs. Colonel Beaumont, who possessed the power of imparting motion to it in a very remarkable degree. Mrs. R. tried the experiments herself at the time, but without any success. She was, as it happened, very far from well. Afterwards, in the year 1815, being asked by a friend how the divining rod was held, and how it is to be used, on showing it she observed that the hazel fork moved in her hands. Since then, whenever she had repeated the experiment, the power has always manifested itself, though with varying degrees of energy.