In this rough herdsman there beats the kindliest heart: there exist the best feelings of hospitality as he offers you, a brother sportsman, the shelter of his hut and a share of his humble fare, offered with the simple unaffected ease of an equal, and the natural grace characteristic of his class throughout the south of Spain.
Besides these humble and harmless inhabitants, the Spanish sierras have also ever afforded a refuge for the brigand and outlaw, and many deeds of murder and violence are associated with these wild regions. Until the year 1889 the mountain land was dominated by two famous villains known as Vizco el Borje and Melgarez, his lieutenant, who commanded a band of desperadoes, the scourge and dread of the whole southern sierra, from Gibraltar to Almería. Vizco el Borje held human life cheap: he stuck at no murder, though he sought not bloodshed, for his tactics were to take alive and hold to ransom. All sorts of tales are told of the courage and generosity of this Spanish Robin Hood. Vizco el Borje robbed only from the rich, and was profuse in the distribution of money and plunder among the peasantry. But whatever redeeming features may have existed in this robber chief, Melgarez, his lieutenant, is a very fiend of malice and cruelty, revelling in bloodshed and revolting butcheries.[4]
To those unacquainted with Spain, "la tierra de vice versâ," as they themselves call it, it must appear a mystery how this robber-band could remain at large, practical masters of great areas, in defiance of law and order, and of the civil and military power of Spain. But there is less difficulty for those who can see to read between the lines, in a land where, according to one of their own authors, every one has his price, that protection is afforded to the outlaws by those in place and power, on condition that they and their properties remain unmolested.[5]
In another chapter we will relate a couple of episodes which have occurred within our personal knowledge, and which will serve to illustrate the robbers' methods of procedure, and the condition of personal security among the sierras of Southern Spain.
A Night at a Posada.
The wayfarer has been travelling all day across the scrub-clad wastes, fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme, without perhaps seeing a human being beyond a stray shepherd or a band of nomad gypsies encamped amidst the green palmettos. Towards night he reaches some small village where he seeks the rude posada. He sees his horse provided with a good feed of barley and as much broken straw as he can eat. He is himself regaled with one dish—probably the olla, or a guiso (stew) of kid, either of them, as a rule, of a rich red-brick hue from the colour of the red pepper, or capsicum in the chorizo or sausage, which is an important (and potent) component of most Spanish dishes. The steaming olla will presently be set on a low table before the large wood-fire, and, with the best of crisp white bread and wine, the traveller enjoys his meal in company with any other guest that may have arrived at the time—be he muleteer or hidalgo. What a fund of information may be picked up during that promiscuous supper—there will be the housewife, the barber and the Padre of the village, perhaps a goatherd come down from the mountains, a muleteer, and a charcoal-burner or two, each ready to tell his own tale, or enter into friendly discussion with the Inglés. Then, as you light your breva, a note or two struck on the guitar fall on ears predisposed to be pleased.
How well one knows those first few opening notes! No occasion to ask that it may go on: it will all come in time, and one knows there is a merry evening in prospect. One by one the villagers drop in, and an ever-widening circle is formed around the open hearth; rows of children collect, even the dogs draw around to look on. The player and the company gradually warm up till couplet after couplet of pathetic "malagueñas" follow in quick succession. These songs are generally topical, and almost always extempore: and as most Spaniards can—or rather are anxious to—one enjoys many verses that are very prettily as well as wittily conceived.