THE ROYAL PALACE, ARANJUEZ.
Yet another Royal Palace, occupying an extensive valley, surrounded by hills, is situated at Aranjuez, in the extreme south of the province of Madrid, on the left bank of the full-flowing river Tajo. In the town of Aranjuez there are splendid farms, palaces and hotels, wide thoroughfares, good churches, theatre, hospital, barracks, very beautiful promenades, and all the other adjuncts of a model town. All these, however, are surpassed by the beauty of the gardens and parks which, with the Royal Palace, are the property of the Crown. The illustration shows the side of the Royal dwelling which opens on to what are called the Island gardens, on account of their being surrounded by the waters of the river Tajo. The first thing that strikes one is the monumental fountain which deals with the allegory of the Pillars of Hercules, and was designed by the Italian sculptor, Alexander Algardi. The building, which was commenced in 1561 by Philip II. and continued by all the Bourbon kings, is elegantly proportioned, and is surrounded by delicious gardens, luxurious avenues of trees, picturesque woods, and large lakes.
Barcelona.
DON QUIXOTE was a true lover of Barcelona, which he addressed as “the home of courtesy, refuge for strangers, country of the valiant.” Its history is replete with records of its valour; its everyday life is illumined with a grave courtesy; the stranger within its gates is welcomed with a cordiality in which suspicion has no part. The Catalan is afraid of nobody on this earth; he has no use, as the Americans put it, for suspicion. He is a distinct race in costume, habits, and language; combining the grace and charm of the Spanish manner, with the mental vitality of the French, and the commercial enterprise and integrity of the English. Physically he is strong, sinewy, and active; and his dogged perseverance, his enormous powers of endurance, and his patience under privation and fatigue make him as fine a soldier as the world has seen. The Catalans take what our grandmothers used to call a proper pride in themselves. The hauteur of the proud Castilians is not theirs; they regard the poetic language and indolent gaiety of the Andalucians without envy; they know themselves to be the most serious, industrious, and progressive people in the Peninsula; they are Spaniards, but Spaniards, be it understood, of Catalonia.
This feeling is not of course peculiar to the Catalans. Spanish character, and the special localism that forms one of its most distinctive features, has changed but little since Richard Ford, writing more than half-a-century ago, said: “The inhabitants of the different provinces think, indeed, that Madrid
BARCELONA—GENERAL VIEW.
is the greatest and richest court in the world, but their hearts are in their native localities. ‘Mi paisano,’ my fellow-countryman, or rather my fellow-countyman, fellow-parishioner, does not mean Spaniard, but Andalucian, Catalonian as the case may be. When a Spaniard is asked, ‘Where do you come from?’ the reply is, ‘Soy hijo de Murcia—hijo de Granada’—‘I am a son of Murcia—a son of Granada,’ &c.” This is strictly analogous to the “children of Israel,” the “Bene” of the Spanish Moors, and to this day the Arabs of Cairo call themselves children of that town; and just as the Milesian Irishman is a “boy from Tipperary,” &c., and ready to fight with anyone who is so also, against all who are not of that ilk: similar, too, is the clanship of the highlander: indeed, everywhere, not perhaps to the same extent as in Spain, the being of the same province or town creates a powerful freemasonry: the parties cling together like old school-fellows. It is a home, and really binding feeling. To the spot of their birth, all their recollections, comparisons, and eulogies are turned: nothing, to them, comes up to their particular province; that is their real country. “La Patria,” means Spain at large, is a subject of declamation, fine words, palabras—palaver, in which all, like Orientals, delight to indulge, and to which their grandiloquent idioms lends itself readily: but their patriotism is still largely parochial, and self is the centre of Spanish gravity.
