IN OLD MADRID.
AMONG the cities of Spain, I write first of Madrid, because I knew it first, and because I know of no city that has been more systematically and unjustifiably maligned. My first visit to Madrid was undertaken on business grounds; but I have returned there many times since, and always with feelings of the keenest pleasure. There is, to me, what the Americans describe as a “homey” air about the city, that may in a measure be accounted for by the good fortune I have had in finding friends there. The friendship of a Spaniard is so genuine, and inspiriting, and whole-hearted, that an Englishman cannot in a moment comprehend it. When a Spaniard extends his friendship to you, your comfort, your interests, and your honour becomes as much a matter for his concern as his own. I first learned to understand this in Madrid. At that time the English were not reported to be held in favour in Spain, and I was advised to be prepared for an unfriendly reception. But I was, on that visit, and on each subsequent visit, agreeably disappointed; and although I have wandered pretty extensively over many parts of the Peninsula, I have
ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.
never found it to be other than an advantage to be an Englishman. I have seen the Britisher hustled in Paris, scowled at in Italy, and made the butt of cheap Teutonic wit in Germany, but in Spain he is invariably treated with the kindest consideration. I was told by an English engineer that the explanation of this friendly attitude, on the part of the Spanish people, was to be found in the fact that the country has not yet endured the curse of the average British tourist. It may be so, yet the influence of the English is very marked in the city of Madrid, if not to the full extent that it appears to be at first sight.
A CORNER IN THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.
An American writer, who “did” Spain in the customary slapdash, get-there-and-get-away-again-fashion of American globetrotters, was not a little chagrined to find in Madrid, English goods, English manners, and English influence predominating over those of any other foreign nation. In Spain, American means South American, and the Yankee is indiscriminately included in the category labelled “Ingleses.” American tram-cars and other Trans-atlantic inventions are thus wrongly credited to the English; and the writer declares that his indignation rose to fever-heat when he entered a place marked “English drinks,” and beheld a genuine American soda-fountain. It must be, I think, due not a little to this unintentional injustice to the land of the great spread-eagle that this same writer finds Madrid ill-favoured and exceedingly noisy, its bread unappetising and heavy, and its butter bad. He cannot bring himself to admire the Puerta del Sol, which is “an ordinary square, such as may be found in almost any city of a hundred thousand inhabitants;” and as for the climate, he flippantly dismisses it in a phrase—“nine months’ winter and three months’ hell.” In a more gracious mood he is inclined to think that the surroundings have been too much depreciated by tourists and guide-book makers; while in the rapid increase in the population, together with the healthy appearance of the inhabitants, he discovers an indication that it may be “not quite as bad as its reputation.”
