CHAPTER V
MALAGA
SECOND in size among Andalusian cities, Malaga is the least interesting. Were it not for the sea, its position would be one of singular remoteness. On the extreme verge of Europe, the mighty Sierra Nevada rises behind it, and cuts it off from the rest of Spain. Yet as a flourishing port it is one of the towns in the Peninsula best known among Englishmen. It is beloved by our sailors. From the odd phases of life to be seen in and around the harbour, they derive their notions of the people and the country. With that utter absence of curiosity noticeable in their kind, they never penetrate inland, or even into the outskirts of the town. But nothing can dispel Jack's conviction that his knowledge of Spain and the Spaniards is intimate and profound.
Malaga is not, as its appearance suggests, a city of purely modern growth. It was known to the Phœnicians and the Romans, and before it became subject to the Almoravides was an independent principality under the Hammudiya dynasty. Later it shared the fortunes of the Sultanate of Granada, and its siege and capture by Ferdinand and Isabella contributed to bring about the fall of the capital. This part of its history is dealt with in great detail by Prescott. Among the numerous incidents of the siege was a determined attempt on the part of a Moor named Ibrahim al Gherbi to assassinate the Spanish sovereign. The defence was conducted by the indomitable Hemet el Zegri, who yielded to famine rather than to the arms of the besiegers. The treatment of the fallen city leaves an indelible blot on the fame of the conquerors. The population, with the exception of a few hundreds, were sold into slavery, presents of the fairest maidens being made to the various courts of Europe. A worse fate was reserved for the Jews and renegades, who were committed to the flames.
The old Moorish fortress of Gibralfaro still frowns down on the lively city to remind us of those days. Some of the walls and towers are believed to be of Phœnician origin. The stronghold has undergone repeated restorations and adaptations to military requirements, but a great deal of Moorish work may still be detected. A horseshoe arch behind the Paseo de la Alameda serves to identify the Moslems' dockyard or Atarazanas, and to indicate how far the sea has receded in the wake of the banished race southwards towards Africa.
The Cathedral towers high above all the other buildings of the city. It is in the Classical style, and though designed by Diego de Siloe in 1528, was built for the most part in the early eighteenth century. It must be confessed that it looks better at a distance than near. The interior is solemn and cold. It is worth visiting for some specimens of Cano's art which it contains, and for Mena's magnificent carving in the choir. As at Granada, the edifice is adjoined by a smaller church called the Sagrario, founded by the Catholic Sovereigns in 1488 as the cathedral of the conquered city.
But it is not for its monuments or historical associations that Malaga is to be visited. Its interest is of to-day. And in truth it needed not the hand of man to embellish a spot where Nature has been so lavish of her choicest gifts. The gardens round Malaga abound in the finest specimens of tropical flora. Tall india-rubber plants, gigantic eucalyptus, great bamboos, the rarest exotics, such as the Pritchardia folifera, the araucaria, and the Scaforthia elegans, flourish on this favoured shore. The villas of the wealthier classes stand each in a veritable Paradise. And everywhere the white flower of the orange, the oleander, the vine, and tree-high ferns!
This luxuriant vegetation is the less to be expected since want of water is the great drawback to the prosperity of the district. Through the middle of the town runs the Guadalmedina—a broad channel, without a drain of water! The new and magnificent promenade, planted with palms, sweeps round the sea-front, as fine as anything on the Riviera. To drive along it in the sensuous southern night is to drink a deep draught of the joy of life. At one point the drive descends into the bed of the river, along which you may proceed for a mile or more. And yet at times the Guadalmedina becomes a roaring torrent, bursting its banks and sweeping away farmsteads and stock. It is difficult to say whether flood or drought has done most damage to the province.
As at Seville, you find life here focussing in lane-like streets, closed to vehicles, and lined with cafés and casinos, among the finest I have seen in Spain. Here to an early hour of the morning the men of the city gossip in garrulous, intimate groups of nine and ten, all, as it seemed to me, talking together. The number of cigarettes smoked during the progress of these tremendous conversations must be stupendous. As you will see the same group meeting night after night, you wonder what there can be in the outwardly uneventful round of life of Malaga to supply topics for conversation. To an Englishman there is a mystery about this ability to talk for five or six hours about nothing at all. You will see the same thing in the dullest provincial towns in France and Italy—the same groups of stout, bald-headed citizens talking with frantic animation every evening. Their newspapers afford the slenderest mental pabulum—their contents could be dismissed in ten minutes—and the respectable gentlemen in question are never seen to read books. How then do they recruit their stock of ideas and find an inexhaustible stock of topics for conversation?