A direct and excellent road has now, however, been completed, between Granada and the capital, passing through Jaen. This route crosses the Guadalquivír at Menjiber, and, directed thence on Baylen, falls into the arrecife from Cordoba to Madrid, ere it enters the défilés of the Sierra Morena.
The castle of Jaen stands 800 feet above the city, and is still a fine specimen of a Moslem fortress, though the picturesque has been sacrificed to the defensive by various French additions and demolitions. It crowns the crest of a narrow ridge much in the style of the castle of Ximena, to which, in other respects, it also bears a strong resemblance. Its tanks and subterraneous magazines are in tolerable preservation, but the exterior walls of the fortress were partially destroyed by the French, in their hurried evacuation of it in 1812.
The view it commands is strikingly fine. An extensive plain spreads northward, reaching seemingly to the very foot of the distant Sierra Morena, and on every other side rugged mountains rise in the immediate vicinity of the city, which, clad with vines wherever their roots can find holding ground, present a strange union of fruitfulness and aridity.
The city contains fifteen convents, and numerous manufactories of silk, linen and woollen cloths, and mats, and has a thriving appearance. The streets are, for the most part, so narrow, that, with outstretched arms, I could touch the houses on both sides of them.
The cathedral is a very handsome edifice of Corinthian architecture, 300 feet long, and built in a very pure style; indeed every thing about it is in good keeping for Spanish taste. The pavement is laid in chequered slabs of black and white marble; the walls are hung with good paintings, but not encumbered with them; the various altars, though enriched with fine specimens of marbles and jaspers, are not gaudily ornamented; the organ is splendid in appearance and rich in tone.
Some paintings by Moya, particularly a Holy Family, and the visit of Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary, are remarkably good; and the Capilla sagrada contains several others by the same master, which are equally worthy of notice: their frames of polished red marble have a good effect.
The only specimens of sculpture of which the cathedral can boast, are some weeping cherubim, done to the very life. The greatest curiosity it contains is the figure of Our Saviour on the cross, dressed in a kilt; but the treasure of treasures of the holy edifice, the proud boast of the favoured city itself, in fact, is the Santa faz—the Holy face.
The Santa faz—so our conductor explained to us—is the impression of Our Saviour’s face, left in stains of blood on the white napkin which bound up his head when deposited in the sepulchre. This cloth was thrice folded over the face, so that three of these “pinturas,” as the priest called them, were taken. That of Jaen, he said, was the second or middle one, the others are in Italy—where, I know not, but I have some recollection of having heard of them when in that country.
This miraculous picture is only to be viewed on very particular occasions, or by paying a very considerable fee; but we were perfectly satisfied with our cicerone’s assurance of its “striking resemblance” to Our Saviour, without requiring the ocular demonstration he was most solicitous to afford.
Attached to the cathedral is a kitchen for preparing the morning chocolate of the priests, and which serves also as a snuggery, where-unto they retire to smoke their legitimos during the breaks in their tedious lental services.