CHAPTER XXIV.

PRIVATE DANCES.

The dances of the better classes of Spaniards in private life are much the same as in other parts of Europe, nor is either sex particularly distinguished by grace in this amusement, to which, however, both are much addicted. It is not, however, yet thought to be a proof ofbon tonto dance as badly as possible, and with the greatest appearance ofbore, that appanage of the so-calledgayworld. These dances, as everything national is excluded, are without a particle of interest to any one except the performers. An extempore ball, which might be called acarpet-dance, if there were any, forms the common conclusion of a winter’stertulia, or social meetings, at which no great attention is paid either to music, costume, or Mr. Gunter. Here English country dances, French quadrilles, and German waltzes are the order of the night; everything Spanish being excluded, except theplentiful wantof good fiddling, lighting, dressing, and eating, which never distresses the company, for the frugal, temperate, and easily-pleased Spaniard enters with schoolboy heart and soul into the reality of any holiday, which being joy sufficient of itself lacks no artificial enhancement.

Dancing at all is a novelty among Spanish ladies, which was introduced with the Bourbons. As among the Romans and Moors, it was before thought undignified. Performers were hired to amuse the inmates of the Christian hareem; to mix and change hands with men was not to be thought of for an instant; and to this day few Spanish women shake hands with men—the shock is too electrical; they only give them with their hearts, and for good.

MORRIS DANCES.

The lower classes, who are a trifle less particular, and among whom, by the blessing of Santiago, the foreign dancing-master is not abroad, adhere to the primitive steps and tunes of their Oriental forefathers. Their accompaniments are the “tabret and the harp;” the guitar, the tambourine, and the castanet. The essence of these instruments is to give a noise on being beaten. Simple as it may seem to play on the latter, it is only attained by a quick ear and finger, and great practice; accordingly these delights of the people are always in their hands; practice makes perfect, and many a performer, dusky as a Moor, rivals Ethiopian “Bones” himself; they take to it before their alphabet, since the very urchins in the street begin to learn by snapping their fingers, or clicking together two shells or bits of slate, to which they dance; in truth, next to noise, some capering seems essential, as the safety-valve exponents of what Cervantes describes, the “bounding of the soul, the bursting of laughter, the restlessness of the body, and the quicksilver of the five senses.” It is the rude sport of people who dance from the necessity ofmotion, the relief of the young, the healthy, and the joyous, to whom life is of itself a blessing, and who, like skipping kids, thus give vent to their superabundant lightness of heart and limb. Sancho, a true Manchegan, after beholding the strange saltatory exhibitions of his master, in somewhat an incorrect ball costume, professes his ignorance of such elaborate dancing, but maintained that for azapateo, a knocking of shoes, none could beat him. Unchanged as are the instruments, so are the dancing propensities of Spaniards. All night long, three thousand years ago, say the historians, did they dance and sing, or rather jump andyell, to these “howlings of Tarshish;” and so far from its being a fatigue, they kept up the ball all night, by way ofresting.

The Gallicians and Asturians retain among many of their aboriginal dances and tunes, a wild Pyrrhic jumping, which, with their shillelah in hand, is like the Gaelic Ghillee Callum, and is the precise Iberian armed dance which Hannibal had performed at the impressive funeral of Gracchus. These quadrille figures are intricate and warlike, requiring, as was said of the Iberian performances, much leg-activity, for which the wiry sinewy active Spaniards are still remarkable. These are theMorrisdances imported from Gallicia by our John of Gaunt, who supposed they wereMoorish. The peasants still dance them in their best costumes, to the antique castanet, pipe, and tambourine. They are usually directed by a master of the ceremonies, or what is equivalent, a parti-coloured fool,Μωρος; which may be the etymology ofMorris.

GADITANIAN GIRLS.

Thesecomparsas, or national quadrilles, were the hearty welcome which the peasants were paid to give to the sons of Louis Philippe at Vitoria; such, too, we have often beheld gratis, and performed by eight men, with castanets in their hands, and to the tune of a fife and drum, while aBastonero, or leader of the band, clad in gaudy raiment like a pantaloon, directed the rustic ballet; around were groupedpayesas y aldeanas, dressed in tight bodices, withpañueloson their heads, their hair hanging down behind intrensas, and their necks covered with blue and coral beads; the men bound up their long locks with red handkerchiefs, and danced in their shirts, the sleeves of which were puckered up with bows of different-coloured ribands, crossed also over the back and breast, and mixed with scapularies and small prints ofsaints; their drawers were white, and full as thebragasof the Valencians, like whom they worealpargatas, or hemp sandals laced with blue strings; the figure of the dance was very intricate, consisting of much circling, turning, and jumping, and accompanied with loud cries ofviva!at each change of evolution. Thesecomparsasare undoubtedly a remnant of the original Iberian exhibitions, in which, as among the Spartans and wild Indians, even in relaxations a warlike principle was maintained. The dancers beat time with their swords on their shields, and when one of their champions wished to show his contempt for the Romans, he executed before them a derisive pirouette. Was this remembered the other day at Vitoria?

But in Spain at every moment one retraces the steps of antiquity; thus still on the banks of the Bætis may be seen those dancing-girls of profligate Gades, which were exported to ancient Rome, with pickled tunnies, to the delight of wicked epicures and the horror of the good fathers of the early church, who compared them, and perhaps justly, to the capering performed by the daughter of Herodias. They were prohibited by Theodosius, because, according to St. Chrysostom, at such balls the devil never wanted a partner. The well-known statue at Naples called the Venere Callipige is the representation of Telethusa, or some other Cadiz dancing-girl. Seville is now in these matters, what Gades was; never there is wanting some venerable gipsy hag, who will get up afuncionas these pretty proceedings are called, a word taken from the pontifical ceremonies; for Italy set the fashion to Spain once, as France does now. These festivals must be paid for, since the gitanesque race, according to Cervantes, were only sent into this world as “fishhooks for purses.” Thecalleeswhen young are very pretty—then they have such wheedling ways, and traffic on such sure wants and wishes, since to Spanish men they prophesy gold, to women, husbands.

GIPSY DANCE.

The scene of the ball is generally placed in the suburb Triana, which is the Transtevere of the town, and the home of bull-fighters, smugglers, picturesque rogues, and Egyptians, whose women are the premières danseuses on these occasions, in which men never take a part. The house selected is usually one of those semi-Moorish abodes and perfect pictures, where rags, poverty, and ruin, are mixed up with marble columns, figs, fountains andgrapes; the party assembles in some stately saloon, whose gilded Arab roof—safe from the spoiler—hangs over whitewashed walls, and the few wooden benches on which the chaperons and invited are seated, among whom quantity is rather preferred to quality; nor would the company or costume perhaps be admissible at the Mansion-house; but here the past triumphs over the present; the dance which is closely analogous to theGhowaseeof the Egyptians, and theNautchof the Hindoos, is called theOleby Spaniards, theRomalisby their gipsies; the soul and essence of it consists in the expression of certain sentiment, one not indeed of a very sentimental or correct character. The ladies, who seem to have no bones, resolve the problem of perpetual motion, their feet having comparatively a sinecure, as the whole person performs a pantomime, and trembles like an aspen leaf; the flexible form and Terpsichore figure of a young Andalucian girl—be she gipsy or not—is said by the learned, to have been designed by nature as the fit frame for her voluptuous imagination.

OPERA IN SPAIN.

Be that as it may, the scholar and classical commentator will every moment quote Martial, &c., when he beholds the unchanged balancing of hands, raised as if to catch showers of roses, the tapping of the feet, and the serpentine, quivering movements. A contagious excitement seizes the spectators, who, like Orientals, beat time with their hands in measured cadence, and at every pause applaud with cries and clappings. The damsels, thus encouraged, continue in violent action until nature is all but exhausted; then aniseed brandy, wine, andalpisterasare handed about, and the fête, carried on to early dawn, often concludes in broken heads, which here are called “gipsy’s fare.” These dances appear to a stranger from the chilly north, to be more marked by energy than by grace, nor have the legs less to do than the body, hips, and arms. The sight of this unchanged pastime of antiquity, which excites the Spaniards to frenzy, rather disgusts an English spectator, possibly from some national malorganization, for, as Molière says, “l’Angleterre a produit des grands hommes dans les sciences et les beaux arts, mais pas un grand danseur—allez lire l’histoire.” However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before theapplauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who would resent to the death any attempt on their sisters’ virtue.

During the lucid intervals between the ballet and the brandy,La caña, the true Arabicgaunia, song, is administered as a soother by some hirsute artiste, without frills, studs, diamonds, or kid gloves, whose staves, sad and melancholy, always begin and end with anay!a high-pitched sigh, or cry. These Moorish melodies, relics of auld lang syne, are best preserved in the hill-built villages near Ronda, where there are no roads for the members of Queen Christina’sConservatorio Napolitano; wherever l’académie tyrannizes, and the Italian opera prevails, adieu, alas! to the tropes and tunes of the people: and now-a-days the opera exotic is cultivated in Spain by the higher classes, because, being fashionable at London and Paris, it is an exponent of the civilization of 1846. Although the audience in their honest hearts are as much bored there as elsewhere, yet the affair is pronounced by them to be charming, because it is so expensive, so select, and so far above the comprehension of the vulgar. Avoid it, however, in Spain, ye our fair readers, for the second-rate singers are not fit to hold the score to those of thy own dear Haymarket.

MUSIC IN VENTAS.

The real opera of Spain is in the shop of theBarberoor in the court-yard of theVenta; in truth, good music, whether harmonious or scientific, vocal or instrumental, is seldom heard in this land, notwithstanding the eternal strumming and singing that is going on there. The very masses, as performed in the cathedrals, from the introduction of the pianoforte and the violin, have very little impressive or devotional character. The fiddle disenchants. Even Murillo, when he clapped catgut under a cherub chin in the clouds, thereby damaged the angelic sentiment. Let none despise the genuine songs and instruments of the Peninsula, as excellence in music is multiform, and much of it, both in name and substance, is conventional. Witness a whining ballad sung by a chorus out of work, to encoring crowds in the streets of merry old England, or a bagpipe-tune played in Ross-shire, which enchants the Highlanders, who cry that strain again, but scares away the gleds. Let therefore the Spaniards enjoy also what they call music, although fastidious foreigners condemn it as Iberian and Oriental. They love to have it so, and willhave their own way, in their own time and tune, Rossini and Paganini to the contrary notwithstanding. They—not the Italians—are listened to by a delighted semi-Moro audience, with a most profound Oriental and melancholy attention. Like their love, their music, which is its food, is a serious affair; yet the sad song, the guitar, and dance, at this moment, form the joy of careless poverty, the repose of sunburnt labour. The poor forget their toils,sans six sous et sans souci; nay, even their meals, like Pliny’s friend Claro, who lost his supper,Bætican olives and gazpacho, to run after a Gaditanian dancing-girl.

THE GUITAR.

In venta and court-yard, in spite of a long day’s work and scanty fare, at the sound of the guitar and click of the castanet, a new life is breathed into their veins. So far from feeling past fatigue, the very fatigue of the dance seems refreshing, and many a weary traveller will rue the midnight frolics of his noisy and saltatory fellow-lodgers. Supper is no sooner over than “après la panse la danse,”—some muscular masculine performer, the very antithesis of Farinelli, screams forth his couplets, “screechin’ out his prosaic verse,” either at the top of his voice, or drawls out his ballad, melancholy as the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe, and both alike to the imminent danger of his own trachea, and of all un-Spanish acoustic organs. For verily, to repeat Gray’s unhandsome critique of the grand Opéra Français, it consists of “des miaulemens et des hurlemens effroyables, mêlés avec un tintamare du diable.” As, however, in Paris, so in Spain, the audience are in raptures; all men’s ears grow to the tunes as if they had eaten ballads; all join in chorus at the end of each verse; this “private band,” as among thesangre su, supplies the want of conversation, and converts a stupid silence into scientific attention,—ainsi les extrêmes se touchent. There is always in every company of Spaniards, whether soldiers, civilians, muleteers, or ministers, some one who can play the guitar more or less, like Louis XIV., who, according to Voltaire, was taught nothing but that and dancing. Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, one of the most worthless of the multitude of worthless ministers by whom Spain has been misgoverned, first captivated the royal Messalina by his talent of strumming on the guitar; so Gonzales Bravo, editor of the MadridSatirist, rose to be premier, and conciliated the virtuous Christina, who, soothed by the sweet sounds of this pepper-and-salted Amphion, forgot his libels on herself and Señor Muñoz. It may be predicted of the Spains, that when this strumming is mute, the game will be up, as the Hebrew expression for the ne plus ultra desolation of an Oriental city is “the ceasing of the mirth of the guitar and tambourine.”

In Spain whenever and wherever the siren sounds are heard, a party is forthwith got up of all ages and sexes, who are attracted by the tinkling like swarming bees. The guitar is part and parcel of the Spaniard and his ballads; he slings it across his shoulder with a ribbon, as was depicted on the tombs of Egypt four thousand years ago. The performers seldom are very scientific musicians; they content themselves with striking the chords, sweeping the whole hand over the strings, or flourishing, and tapping the board with the thumb, at which they are very expert. Occasionally in the towns there is some one who has attained more power over this ungrateful instrument; but the attempt is a failure. The guitar responds coldly to Italian words and elaborate melody, which never come home to Spanish ears or hearts; for, like the lyre of Anacreon, however often he might change the strings, love, sweet love, is its only theme. The multitude suit the tune to the song, both of which are frequently extemporaneous. They lisp in numbers, not to say verse; but their splendid idiom lends itself to a prodigality of words, whether prose or poetry; nor are either very difficult, where common sense is no necessary ingredient in the composition; accordingly the language comes in aid to the fertile mother-wit of the natives; rhymes are dispensed with at pleasure, or mixed according to caprice with assonants which consist of the mere recurrence of the same vowels, without reference to that of consonants, and even these, which poorly fill a foreign ear, are not always observed; a change in intonation, or a few thumps more or less on the board, do the work, supersede all difficulties, and constitute a rude prosody, and lead to music just as gestures do to dancing and to ballads,—“que se canta ballando;” and which, when heard, reciprocally inspire a Saint Vitus’s desire to snap fingers and kick heels, as all will admit in whose ears thehabas verdesof Leon, or thecachucaof Cadiz, yet ring.

THE LADIES SINGING.

The words destined to set all this capering in motion are not written for cold British critics. Like sermons, they are delivered orally, and are never subjected to the disenchanting ordeal of type: and even such as may be professedly serious and not saltatory are listened to by those who come attuned to the hearing vein—who anticipate and re-echo the subject—who are operated on by the contagious bias. Thus a fascinated audience of otherwise sensible Britons tolerates the positive presence of nonsense at an opera—

“Where rhyme with reason does dispense,And sound has right to govern sense.”

In order to feel the full power of the guitar and Spanish song, the performer should be a sprightly Andaluza, taught or untaught; she wields the instrument as her fan ormantilla; it seems to become portion of herself, and alive; indeed the whole thing requires anabandon, a fire, agracia, which could not be risked by ladies of more northern climates and more tightly-laced zones. No wonder one of the old fathers of the church said that he would sooner face a singing basilisk than one of these performers: she is good for nothing when pinned down to a piano, on which few Spanish women play even tolerably, and so with her singing, when she attempts ‘Adelaide,’ or anything in the sublime, beautiful, and serious, her failure is dead certain, while, taken in her own line, she is triumphant; the words of her song are often struck off, like Theodore Hook’s, at the moment, and allude to incidents and persons present; sometimes they are full of epigram anddouble entendre; they often sing what may not be spoken, and steal hearts through ears, like the Sirens, or as Cervantes has it,cuando cantan encantan. At other times their song is little better than meaningless jingle, with which the listeners are just as well satisfied. For, as Figaro says—“ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante.” A good voice, which Italians callnovanta-nove, ninety-nine parts out of the hundred, is very rare; nothing strikes a traveller more unfavourably than the harsh voice of the women in general; never mind, these ballad songs from the most remote antiquity have formed the delight of the people, have tempered the despotism of their church and state, have sustained a nation’s resistance against foreign aggression.

MOORISH GUITARS.

There is very little music ever printed in Spain; the songs and airs are generally sold in MS. Sometimes, for the very illiterate, the notes are expressed in numeral figures, which correspond with the number of the strings.

The best guitars in the world were made appropriately in Cadiz by the Pajez family, father and son; of course an instrument in so much vogue was always an object of most careful thought in fair Bætica; thus in the seventh century the Sevillian guitar was shaped like the human breast, because, as archbishops said, thechordssignified the pulsations of the heart,à corde. The instruments of the Andalucian Moors were strung after these significant heartstrings; Zaryàb remodelled the guitar by adding a fifth string of bright red, to represent blood, the treble or first being yellow to indicate bile; and to this hour, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, when dusky eve calls forth the cloaked serenader, the ruby drops of the heart female, are more surely liquefied by a judicious manipulation of cat-gut, than ever were those of San Januario by book or candle; nor, so it is said, when the tinkling is continuous are all marital livers unwrung.

However that may be, the sad tunes of these Oriental ditties are still effective in spite of their antiquity; indeed certain sounds have a mysterious aptitude to express certain moods of the mind, in connexion with some unexplained sympathy between the sentient and intellectual organs, and the simplest are by far the most ancient. Ornate melody is a modern invention from Italy; and although, in lands of greater intercourse and fastidiousness, the conventional has ejected the national, fashion has not shamed or silenced the old airs of Spain—those “howlings of Tarshish.” Indeed, national tunes, like the songs of birds, are not taught in orchestras, but by mothers to their infant progeny in the cradling nest. As the Spaniard is warlike without being military, saltatory without being graceful, so he is musical without being harmonious; he is just the raw man material made by nature, and treats himself as he does the raw products of his soil, by leaving art and final development to the foreigner.

ENGLISH EXAMPLE.

The day that he becomes a scientific fiddler, or a capital cotton spinner, his charm will be at an end; long therefore may he turn a deaf ear to moralists and political economists, who cannot abide the guitar, who say that it has done more harmto Spain than hailstorms or drought, by fostering a prodigious idleness and love-making, whereby the land is cursed with a greater surplus of foundlings, than men of fortune; how indeed can these calamities be avoided, when the tempter hangs up this fatal instrument on a peg in every house? Our immelodious labourers and unsaltatory operatives are put forth by Manchester missionaries as an example of industry to theMajosandManolasof Spain: “behold how they toil, twelve and fourteen hours every day;” yet these philanthropists should remember that from their having no other recreation beyond the public or dissenting-house, they pine when unemployed, because not knowing what to do with themselves whenidle; this to most Spaniards is a foretaste of the bliss of heaven, while occupation, thought in England to be happiness, is the treadmill doom of the lost for ever. Nor can it be denied that the facility of junketing in the Peninsula, the grapes, guitars, songs, skippings and other incidents to fine climate, militate against that dogged, desperate, determined hard-working, by which our labourers beat the world hollow, fiddling and pirouetting being excepted.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE CIGAR.

Manufacture of Cigars—Tobacco—SmugglingviâGibraltar—Cigars of Ferdinand VII.—Making a Cigarrito—Zumalacarreguy and the Schoolmaster—Time and Money Wasted in Smoking—Postscript on Stock.

BUTwhether at bull-fight or theatre, be he lay or clerical, every Spaniard who can afford it, consoles himself continually with a cigar, sleep—not bed—time only excepted. This is hisnepenthe, his pleasure opiate, which, like Souchong, soothes but does not inebriate; it is to him his “Te veniente die et te decedente.”

SMUGGLED CIGARS.

The manufacture of the cigar is the most active one carried on in the Peninsula. The buildings are palaces; witness those at Seville, Malaga, and Valencia. Since a cigar is asine quâ nonin every Spaniard’s mouth, for otherwise he would resemble a house without a chimney, a steamer without a funnel, it must have its page in every Spanish book; indeed, as one of the most learned native authors remarked, “You will think me tiresome with my tobacconistical details, but the vast bulk of readers will be more pleased with it, than with an account of all the pictures in the world.” They all opine, that a good cigar—an article scarce in this land of smoking and contradiction—keeps a Christian hidalgo cooler in summer and warmer in winter than his wife and cloak; while at all times and seasons it diminishes sorrow and doubles joy, as a man’s better half does in Great Britain. “The fact is, Squire,” says Sam Slick, “the moment a man takes to a pipe he becomes a philosopher; it is the poor man’s friend; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and makes a man patient under trouble.” Can it be wondered at, that the Oriental and Spanish population should cling to this relief from whips and scorns, and the oppressor’s wrong, or steep in sweet oblivious stupefaction the misery of being fretted and excited by empty larders, vicious political institutions, and a very hot climate? They believe that it deadens their over-excitable imagination, and appeases their too exquisite nervous sensibility; they agree with Molière, although they never read him,“Quoique l’on puisse dire, Aristote et toute la philosophie, il n’y a rien d’égal au tabac.” The divine Isaac Barrow resorted to thispanpharmaconwhenever he wished to collect his thoughts; Sir Walter Raleigh, the patron of Virginia, smoked a pipe just before he lost his head, “at which some formal people were scandalized; but,” adds Aubrey, “I think it was properly done to settle his spirits.” The pedant James, who condemned both Raleigh and tobacco, said the bill of fare of the dinner which he should give his Satanic majesty, would be “a pig, a poll of ling, and mustard, with a pipe of tobacco for digestion.” So true it is that “what’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison;” but at all events, in hungry Spain it is both meat and drink, and the chief smoke connected with proceedings of the mouth issues from labial, not house chimneys.

Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, like spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed article in all civilized societies. In Spain, the Bourbon dynasty (as elsewhere) is the hereditary tobacconist-general, and the privilege of sale is generally farmed out to some contractor: accordingly, such a trump as a really good home-made cigar is hardly to be had for love or money in the Peninsula. Diogenes would sooner expect to find an honest man in any of the government offices. As there is no royal road to the science of cigar-making, the article is badly concocted, of bad materials, and, to add insult to injury, is charged at a most exorbitant price. In order to benefit the Havañah, tobacco is not allowed to be grown in Spain, which it would do in perfection in the neighbourhood of Malaga; for the experiment was made, and having turned out quite successfully, the cultivation was immediately prohibited. The iniquity and dearness of the royal tobacco makes the fortune of the well-meaning smuggler, who being here, as everywhere, the great corrector of blundering chancellors of exchequers, provides a better and cheaper thing from Gibraltar.

SMUGGLED CIGARS.

The proof of the extent to which his dealings are carried was exemplified in 1828, when many thousand additional hands were obliged to be put on to the manufactories at Seville and Granada, to meet the increased demand occasioned by the impossibility of obtaining supplies from Gibraltar, in consequence of the yellow fever which was then raging there. No offence is more dreadfully punished in Spain than that of tobacco-smuggling, which robs the queen’s pocket—all other robbery is treated as nothing, for her lieges only suffer.

The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smuggling of cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood and ill will between the Spanish and English governments. This most serious evil is contrary to all treaties, injurious to Spain and England alike, and is beneficial only to aliens of the worst character, who form the real plague and sore of Gibraltar. The American and every other nation import their own tobacco, good, bad, and indifferent, into the fortress free of duty, and without repurchasing British produce. It is made into cigars by Genoese, is smuggled into Spain by aliens, in boats under the British flag, which is disgraced by the traffic and exposed to insult from the revenue cutters of Spain, which it cannot in justice expect to have redressed. The Spaniards would have winked at the introduction of English hardware and cottons—objects of necessity, which do not interfere with this, their chief manufacture, and one of the most productive of royal monopolies. There is a wide difference between encouraging real British commerce and this smuggling of foreign cigars, nor can Spain be expected to observe treaties towards us while we infringe them so scandalously and unprofitably on our parts.

LIGHTING CIGARS.

Many tobacchose epicures, who smoke their regular dozen or two, place the evil sufficient for the day between fresh lettuce-leaves; this damps the outer leaf of the article, and improves the narcotic effect;mem., the inside, the trail,las tripas, as the Spaniards call it, should be kept quite dry. The disordered interior of the royal cigars is masked by a good outside wrapper leaf, just as Spanish rags are cloaked by a decentcapa, but l’habit ne fait pas le cigarre. Few except the rich can afford to smoke good cigars. Ferdinand VII., unlike his ancestor Louis XIV., “qui,” says La Beaumelle, “haïssoit le tabac singulièrement, quoiqu’un de ses meilleurs revenus,” was not only a grand compounder but consumer thereof. He indulged in the royal extravagance of a very large thick cigar made in the Havañah expressly for his gracious use, as he was too good a judge to smoke his own manufacture. Even of these he seldom smoked more than the half; the remainder was a grand perquisite, like our palace lights. The cigar was one of his pledges of love and hatred:he would give one to his favourites when in sweet temper; and often, when meditating a treacherouscoup, would dismiss the unconscious victim with a royalpuro: and when the happy individual got home to smoke it, he was saluted by an Alguacil with an order to quit Madrid in twenty-four hours. The “innocent” Isabel, who does not smoke, substitutes sugar-plums; she regaled Olozaga with a sweet present, when she was “doing him” at the bidding of the Christinist camarilla. It would seem that the Spanish Bourbons, when not “cretinised” into idiots, are creatures composed of cunning and cowardice. But “those who cannot dissimulate are unfit to reign” was the axiom of their illustrious ancestor Louis XI.

LIGHTING CIGARS.

In Spain the bulk of their happy subjects cannot afford, either the expense of tobacco, which is dear to them, or thegainof time, which is very cheap, by smoking a whole cigar right away. They make one afford occupation and recreation for half an hour. Though few Spaniards ruin themselves in libraries, none are without a little blank book of a particular paper, which is made at Alcoy, in Valencia. At any pause all say at once—“pues, señores! echaremos un cigarrito—well then, my Lords, let us make a little cigar,” and all set seriously to work; every man, besides this book, is armed with a small case of flint, steel, and a combustible tinder. To make a paper cigar, like putting on a cloak, is an operation of much more difficulty than it seems, although all Spaniards, who have done nothing so much, from their childhood upwards, perform both with extreme facility and neatness. This is the mode:—thepetaca, Arabicè Buták, or little case worked by a fair hand, in the coloured thread of the aloe, in which the store of cigars is kept, is taken out—a leaf is torn from the book, which is held between the lips, or downwards from the back of the hand, between the fore and middle finger of the left hand—a portion of the cigar, about a third, is cut off and rubbed slowly in the palms till reduced to a powder—it is then jerked into the paper-leaf, which is rolled up into a little squib, and the ends doubled down, one of which is bitten off and the other end is lighted. The cigarillo is smoked slowly, the last whiff being the bonne bouche, thebreast,la pechuga. The little ends are thrown away: they are indeed little, for a Spanish fore-finger and thumb are quite fire-browned and fire-proof, although some polished exquisites use silver holders;these remnants are picked up by the beggar-boys, who make up into fresh cigars the leavings of a thousand mouths. There is no want of fire in Spain; everywhere, what we should call link-boys run about with a slowly-burning rope for the benefit of the public. At many of the sheds where water and lemonade are sold, one of the ropes, twirled like a snake round a post, and ignited, is kept ready as the match of a besieged artilleryman; while in the houses of the affluent, a small silver chafing-dish, with lighted charcoal, is usually on a table. Mr. Henningsen relates that Zumalacarreguy, when about to execute some Christinos at Villa Franca, observed one (a schoolmaster) looking about, like Raleigh, for a light for his last dying puff in this life, upon which the General took his own cigar from his mouth, and handed it to him. The schoolmaster lighted his own, returned the other with a respectful bow, and went away smoking and reconciled to be shot. This urgent necessity levels all ranks, and it is allowable to stop any person for fire; this proves the practical equality of all classes, and that democracy under a despotism, which exists in smoking Spain, as in the torrid East. The cigar forms a bond of union, an isthmus of communication between most heterogeneous oppositions. It is thehabeas corpusof Spanish liberties. The soldier takes fire from the canon’s lip, and the dark face of the humble labourer is whitened by the reflection of the cigar of the grandee and lounger. The lowest orders have a coarse roll or rope of tobacco, wherewith to solace their sorrows, and it is their calumet of peace. Some of the Spanish fair sex are said to indulge in a quiet hiddencigarilla,una pajita,una reyna, but it is not thought either a sign of a lady, or of one of rigid virtue, to have recourse to these forbidden pleasures; for, says their proverb, whoever makes one basket will make a hundred.

TIME LOST BY TOBACCO.

Nothing exposes a traveller to more difficulty than carrying much tobacco in his luggage; yet all will remember never to be without some cigars, and the better the better. It is a trifling outlay, for although any cigar is acceptable, yet a real good one is a gift from a king. The greater the enjoyment of the smoker, the greater his respect for the donor; a cigar may be given to everybody, whether high or low: thus thepetacais offered, as a polite Frenchman of La Vieille Cour (a race, alas! all but extinct) offered his snuff-box, by way of a prelude to conversation andintimacy. It is an act of civility, and implies no superiority, nor is there any humiliation in the acceptance; it is twice blessed, “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” It is the spell wherewith to charm the natives, who are its ready and obedient slaves, and, like a small kind word spoken in time, it works miracles. There is no country in the world where the stranger and traveller can purchase for half-a-crown, half the love and good-will which its investment in tobacco will ensure, therefore the man who grudges or neglects it is neither a philanthropist nor a philosopher.

A calculation might be made by those fond of arithmetic—which we abhor—of the waste of time and money which is caused to the poor Spaniards by all this prodigious cigarising. This said tobacco importation of Raleigh is even a more doubtful good to the Peninsula than that of potatoes to cognate Ireland, where it fosters poverty and population. Let it be assumed that a respectable Spaniard only smokes for fifty years, allow him the moderate allowance of six cigars a day—the Regent, it is said, consumed forty every twenty-four hours—calculate the cost of each cigar at two-pence, which is cheap enough anywhere for a decent one; suppose that half of these are made into paper cigars, which require double time—how much Spanish time and private income is wasted in smoke? That is the question which we are unable to answer.

SPANISH STOCK.

Here, alas! the pen must be laid down; an express from Albemarle-street informs us, that this page must go to press next week, seeing that the printer’s devils celebrate Christmas time with a most religious abstinence from work. Many things of Spain must therefore be left in our inkstand, filled to the brim with good intentions. We had hoped, at our onset, to have sketched portraits of the Provincial and General Character of Spanish Men—to have touched upon Spanish Soldiers and Statesmen—Journalism and Place Hunting—Mendicants, Ministers and Mosquitoes—Charters, Cheatings, and Constitutions—Fine Arts—French and English Politics—Legends, Relics, and Religion—Monks and Manners; and last, not least—reserved indeed as a bonne bouche—the Eyes, Loves, Dress, and Details of the Spanish Ladies. It cannot be—nay, even as it is, “for stories somehow lengthen when begun,” and especially if woven with Spanish yarn, even now the indulgence of our fair readersmay be already exhausted by this sample of theCosas de España. Be that as it may, assuredly the smallest hint of a desire to the flattering contrary, which they may condescend to express, will be obeyed as a command by their grateful and humble servant the author, who, as every true Spanish Hidalgo very properly concludes on similar, and on every occasion, “kisses their feet.”

Postscript.—In the first number of these Gatherings, at page 38, some particulars were given of Spanish Stock, derived, as was believed, from the most official and authentic sources. On the very evening that the volume was published, and too late therefore for any corrections, the following obliging letter was received from an anonymous correspondent, which is now printed verbatim:—

London, 30th November, 1846.SIR,IHAVEjust perused your valuable and amusing work, ‘Gatherings from Spain;’ but must own I felt somewhat annoyed at seeing so gross a misrepresentation in the account you give of the national debt of that country; the amount you give is perfectly absurd. You say it has been increased to 279,033,089l.—this is too bad. Now I can give you the exact amount. The 5 per cents. consists of 40,000,000l.only; the coupons upon that sum to 12,000,000l.; and the present 3 per cents. to 6,000,000l.; in all, 58,000,000l., and their own domestic debt, which is very trifling. Now this is rather different to your statement; besides, you are doing your book great injury by writing the Spanish Stock down so; more particularly so, as there is no doubt some final settlement will be come to before your second Number appears [?]. The country is far from being as you misrepresent it to be—bankrupt. She is very rich, and quite capable of meeting her engagements which are so trifling—if you were to write down our Railroads I should think you a sensible man, for they are the greatest bubbles, since the great South Sea bubble. But Spanish is a fortune to whoever is so fortunate as to possess it now. I am, and have been for some years, a large holder, and am now looking forward to the realization of all my plans, in the present Minister of Finance, Señor Mon, and the rising of that stock to its proper price—about 60 or 70.I should, as a friend, advise you to correct your book before you strike any more copies, if you wish to sell it, as a true representation of the present existing state of the country. Your book might have done ten years ago, but people will not be gulled now; we are too well aware that almost all our own papers are bribed (and, perhaps, books), to write down Spanish, and Spanish finance, by raising all manner of reports—of Carlist bands appearing in all directions, &c. &c. &c. &c., which is most absurd—the Carlists’ cause is dead.THE AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT.I hope, Sir, you will not be offended with these lines, but rather take them as a friendly hint, as I admire your book much; and I hope you will yourself see the falsity of what has been inserted in a work of amusement, and correct it at once.I remain, Sir,Your obedient and humble Servant,A FRIEND OF TRUTH.To —— Ford, Esq.

London, 30th November, 1846.

SIR,

IHAVEjust perused your valuable and amusing work, ‘Gatherings from Spain;’ but must own I felt somewhat annoyed at seeing so gross a misrepresentation in the account you give of the national debt of that country; the amount you give is perfectly absurd. You say it has been increased to 279,033,089l.—this is too bad. Now I can give you the exact amount. The 5 per cents. consists of 40,000,000l.only; the coupons upon that sum to 12,000,000l.; and the present 3 per cents. to 6,000,000l.; in all, 58,000,000l., and their own domestic debt, which is very trifling. Now this is rather different to your statement; besides, you are doing your book great injury by writing the Spanish Stock down so; more particularly so, as there is no doubt some final settlement will be come to before your second Number appears [?]. The country is far from being as you misrepresent it to be—bankrupt. She is very rich, and quite capable of meeting her engagements which are so trifling—if you were to write down our Railroads I should think you a sensible man, for they are the greatest bubbles, since the great South Sea bubble. But Spanish is a fortune to whoever is so fortunate as to possess it now. I am, and have been for some years, a large holder, and am now looking forward to the realization of all my plans, in the present Minister of Finance, Señor Mon, and the rising of that stock to its proper price—about 60 or 70.

I should, as a friend, advise you to correct your book before you strike any more copies, if you wish to sell it, as a true representation of the present existing state of the country. Your book might have done ten years ago, but people will not be gulled now; we are too well aware that almost all our own papers are bribed (and, perhaps, books), to write down Spanish, and Spanish finance, by raising all manner of reports—of Carlist bands appearing in all directions, &c. &c. &c. &c., which is most absurd—the Carlists’ cause is dead.

THE AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT.

I hope, Sir, you will not be offended with these lines, but rather take them as a friendly hint, as I admire your book much; and I hope you will yourself see the falsity of what has been inserted in a work of amusement, and correct it at once.

I remain, Sir,Your obedient and humble Servant,A FRIEND OF TRUTH.

To —— Ford, Esq.

It is a trifle “too bad” to be thus set down by our complimentary correspondent as the inventor of these startling facts, figures, and “fallacies,” since the full, true, and exact particulars are to be found at pages 85 and 89 of Mr. Macgregor’s Commercial Tariffs of Spain, presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1844 by the command of Her Majesty. And as there was some variance in amount, the author all through quoted from other men’s sums, and spoke doubtingly and approximatively, being little desirous of having anything connected with Spanish debts laid at his door, or charged to his account. He has no interest whatever in these matters, having never been the fortunate holder of one farthing either in Spanish funds or even English railroads. Equally a friend of truth as his kind monitor, he simply wished to caution fair readers, who might otherwise mis-invest, as he erroneously it appears conceived, the savings in their pin-money. If he has unwittingly stated that which is not, he can but give up his authority, be very much ashamed, and insert the antidote to his errors. He sincerely hopes that all and every one of the bright visions of his anonymous friend may be realized. Had he himself, which Heaven forfend! been sent on the errand of discovery whether the Madrid ministers be made, or not, of squeezable materials, considering that Astræa has not yet returned to Spain, with good governments, the golden age, or even a tariff, his first step would have been to grease the wheels withsovereignointment; and with a view of not being told by ministers and cashiers to call again to-morrow, he would have opened thenegocioby offering somebody 20 per cent. on all the hard dollars paid down; thus possibly some breath and time might be economised, and trifling disappointments prevented.

London: Printed by WILLIAMCLOWESand SONS, Stamford Street

FOOTNOTES:[1]The wordGabacho, which is the most offensive vituperative of the Spaniard against the Frenchman, and has by some been thought to mean “those who dwell on Gaves,” is the ArabicCabach, detestable, filthy, or “qui prava indole est, moribusque.” In fact the real meaning cannot be further alluded to beyond referring to the clever tale ofEl Frances y Españolby Quevedo. The antipathy to the Gaul is natural and national, and dates far beyond history. This nickname was first given in the eighth century, when Charlemagne, the Buonaparte of his day, invaded Spain, on the abdication and cession of the crown by the chaste Alonso, the prototype of the wittol Charles IV.; then the Spanish Moors and Christians, foes and friends, forgot their hatreds of creeds in the greater loathing for the abhorred intruder, whose “peerage fell” in the memorable passes of Roncesvalles. The true derivation of the wordGabacho, which now resounds from these Pyrenees to the Straits, is blinked in the royal academical dictionary, such was the servile adulation of the members to their French patron Philip V.Mueran los Gabachos, “Death to the miscreants,” was the rally cry of Spain after the inhuman butcheries of the terrorist Murat; nor have the echoes died away; a spark may kindle the prepared mine: of what an unspeakable value is a national war-cry which at once gives to a whole people a shibboleth, a rallying watch-word to a common cause!Vox populi vox Dei.[2]Razziais derived from the ArabicAl ghazia, a word which expresses these raids of a ferocious, barbarous age. It has been introduced to European dictionaries by the Pelissiers, who thuscivilizeAlgeria. They make a solitude, and call it peace.[3]Faja; the Hhezum of Cairo. Atrides tightens his sash when preparing for action—Iliad xi. 15. The Roman soldiers kept their money in it. Ibit quizonamperdidit.—Hor. ii. Ep. 2. 40. The Jews used it for the same purpose—Matthew x. 9; Mark vi. 8. It is loosened at night. “None shall slumber or sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed.”—Isaiah v. 27.[4]The dread of the fascination of the evil eye, from which Solomon was not exempt (Proverbs xxiii. 6), prevails all over the East; it has not been extirpated from Spain or from Naples, which so long belonged to Spain. The lower classes in the Peninsula hang round the necks of their children and cattle a horn tipped with silver; this is sold as an amulet in the silver-smiths’ shops; the cord by which it is attachedoughtto be braided from a black mare’s tail. The Spanish gipsies, of whom Borrow has given us so complete an account, thrive by disarming themal de ojo, “querelar nasula,” as they term it. The dread of the “Ain ara” exists among all classes of the Moors. The better classes of Spaniards make a joke of it; and often, when you remark that a person has put on or wears something strange about him, the answer is, “Es para que no me hagan mal de ojo.” Naples is the head-quarters for charms and coral amulets: all the learning has been collected by the Canon Jorio and the Marques Arditi.[5]Thegarañonis also called “burro padre” ass father, not “padre burro.” “Padre,” the prefix of paternity, is the common title given in Spain to the clergy and the monks. “Father jackass” might in many instances, when applied to the latter, be too morally and physically appropriate, to be consistent with the respect due to the celibate cowl and cassock.[6]When George IV. once complained that he hadlosthis royal appetite, “What a scrape, sir, apoorman would be in if hefoundit!” said his Rochester companion.[7]The very wordNoveltyhas become in common parlance synonymous with danger, change, by the fear of which all Spaniards are perplexed; as in religion it is a heresy. Bitter experience has taught all classes that every change, every promise of a new era of blessing and prosperity has ended in a failure, and that matters have got worse: hence they not only bear the evils to which they are accustomed, rather than try a speculative amelioration, but actually prefer a bad state of things, of which they know the worst, to the possibility of an untried good.Mas vale el mal conocido, que el bien por conocer.“How is my lady the wife of your grace?” says a Spanish gentleman to his friend. “Como está mi Señora la Esposa de Usted?” “She goes on without Novelty”—“Sigue sin Novedad,” is the reply, if the fair one be much the same. “Vaya Usted con Dios, y que no haya Novedad!” “Go with God, your grace! and may nothing new happen,” says another, on starting his friend off on a journey.[8]Forks are an Italian invention: old Coryate, who introduced this “neatnesse” into Somersetshire, about 1600, was calledfurciferby his friends. Alexander Barclay thus describes the previous English mode of eating, which sounds veryventaish, although worse mannered:—“If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther flesche or fische,Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe.”[9]The kings of Spain seldom use any other royal signature, except the ancient Gothicrubrica, or mark. This monogram is something like a Runic knot. Spaniards exercise much ingenuity in these intricate flourishes, which they tack on to their names, as a collateral security of authenticity. It is said that arubricawithout a name is of more value than a name without a rubrica. Sancho Panza tells Don Quixote that his rubrica alone is worth, not one, but three hundred jackasses. Those who cannot write rubricate; “No saber firmar,”—not to know how to sign one’s name,—is jokingly held in Spain to be one of the attributes of grandeeship.[10]“Chacun fuit à le voir naître, chacun court à le voir mourir!”—Montaigne.[11]Hallarse enCintais the Spanish equivalent for our “being in the family way."[12]Recopilacion. Lib. iii. Tit. xvi. Ley 3.[13]The love for killing oxen still prevails at Rome, where the ambition of the lower orders to be a butcher, is, like their white costume, a remnant of the honourable office of killing at the Pagan sacrifices. In Spain butchers are of the lowest caste, and cannot prove “purity of blood.” Francis I. never forgave the “Becajo de Parigi” applied by Dante tohisancestor.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]The wordGabacho, which is the most offensive vituperative of the Spaniard against the Frenchman, and has by some been thought to mean “those who dwell on Gaves,” is the ArabicCabach, detestable, filthy, or “qui prava indole est, moribusque.” In fact the real meaning cannot be further alluded to beyond referring to the clever tale ofEl Frances y Españolby Quevedo. The antipathy to the Gaul is natural and national, and dates far beyond history. This nickname was first given in the eighth century, when Charlemagne, the Buonaparte of his day, invaded Spain, on the abdication and cession of the crown by the chaste Alonso, the prototype of the wittol Charles IV.; then the Spanish Moors and Christians, foes and friends, forgot their hatreds of creeds in the greater loathing for the abhorred intruder, whose “peerage fell” in the memorable passes of Roncesvalles. The true derivation of the wordGabacho, which now resounds from these Pyrenees to the Straits, is blinked in the royal academical dictionary, such was the servile adulation of the members to their French patron Philip V.Mueran los Gabachos, “Death to the miscreants,” was the rally cry of Spain after the inhuman butcheries of the terrorist Murat; nor have the echoes died away; a spark may kindle the prepared mine: of what an unspeakable value is a national war-cry which at once gives to a whole people a shibboleth, a rallying watch-word to a common cause!Vox populi vox Dei.

[2]Razziais derived from the ArabicAl ghazia, a word which expresses these raids of a ferocious, barbarous age. It has been introduced to European dictionaries by the Pelissiers, who thuscivilizeAlgeria. They make a solitude, and call it peace.

[3]Faja; the Hhezum of Cairo. Atrides tightens his sash when preparing for action—Iliad xi. 15. The Roman soldiers kept their money in it. Ibit quizonamperdidit.—Hor. ii. Ep. 2. 40. The Jews used it for the same purpose—Matthew x. 9; Mark vi. 8. It is loosened at night. “None shall slumber or sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed.”—Isaiah v. 27.

[4]The dread of the fascination of the evil eye, from which Solomon was not exempt (Proverbs xxiii. 6), prevails all over the East; it has not been extirpated from Spain or from Naples, which so long belonged to Spain. The lower classes in the Peninsula hang round the necks of their children and cattle a horn tipped with silver; this is sold as an amulet in the silver-smiths’ shops; the cord by which it is attachedoughtto be braided from a black mare’s tail. The Spanish gipsies, of whom Borrow has given us so complete an account, thrive by disarming themal de ojo, “querelar nasula,” as they term it. The dread of the “Ain ara” exists among all classes of the Moors. The better classes of Spaniards make a joke of it; and often, when you remark that a person has put on or wears something strange about him, the answer is, “Es para que no me hagan mal de ojo.” Naples is the head-quarters for charms and coral amulets: all the learning has been collected by the Canon Jorio and the Marques Arditi.

[5]Thegarañonis also called “burro padre” ass father, not “padre burro.” “Padre,” the prefix of paternity, is the common title given in Spain to the clergy and the monks. “Father jackass” might in many instances, when applied to the latter, be too morally and physically appropriate, to be consistent with the respect due to the celibate cowl and cassock.

[6]When George IV. once complained that he hadlosthis royal appetite, “What a scrape, sir, apoorman would be in if hefoundit!” said his Rochester companion.

[7]The very wordNoveltyhas become in common parlance synonymous with danger, change, by the fear of which all Spaniards are perplexed; as in religion it is a heresy. Bitter experience has taught all classes that every change, every promise of a new era of blessing and prosperity has ended in a failure, and that matters have got worse: hence they not only bear the evils to which they are accustomed, rather than try a speculative amelioration, but actually prefer a bad state of things, of which they know the worst, to the possibility of an untried good.Mas vale el mal conocido, que el bien por conocer.“How is my lady the wife of your grace?” says a Spanish gentleman to his friend. “Como está mi Señora la Esposa de Usted?” “She goes on without Novelty”—“Sigue sin Novedad,” is the reply, if the fair one be much the same. “Vaya Usted con Dios, y que no haya Novedad!” “Go with God, your grace! and may nothing new happen,” says another, on starting his friend off on a journey.

[8]Forks are an Italian invention: old Coryate, who introduced this “neatnesse” into Somersetshire, about 1600, was calledfurciferby his friends. Alexander Barclay thus describes the previous English mode of eating, which sounds veryventaish, although worse mannered:—“If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther flesche or fische,Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe.”

“If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther flesche or fische,Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe.”

[9]The kings of Spain seldom use any other royal signature, except the ancient Gothicrubrica, or mark. This monogram is something like a Runic knot. Spaniards exercise much ingenuity in these intricate flourishes, which they tack on to their names, as a collateral security of authenticity. It is said that arubricawithout a name is of more value than a name without a rubrica. Sancho Panza tells Don Quixote that his rubrica alone is worth, not one, but three hundred jackasses. Those who cannot write rubricate; “No saber firmar,”—not to know how to sign one’s name,—is jokingly held in Spain to be one of the attributes of grandeeship.

[10]“Chacun fuit à le voir naître, chacun court à le voir mourir!”—Montaigne.

[11]Hallarse enCintais the Spanish equivalent for our “being in the family way."

[12]Recopilacion. Lib. iii. Tit. xvi. Ley 3.

[13]The love for killing oxen still prevails at Rome, where the ambition of the lower orders to be a butcher, is, like their white costume, a remnant of the honourable office of killing at the Pagan sacrifices. In Spain butchers are of the lowest caste, and cannot prove “purity of blood.” Francis I. never forgave the “Becajo de Parigi” applied by Dante tohisancestor.

Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:

which recal the memory of those=> which recall the memory of those {pg 250}

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